Category Archives: Scripture

The Rabbi ?

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This coming Sunday is the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Jesus left Capernaum and traveled southward into the hill country until he came to the village where he had spent his youth and the early years of his maturity. While Mark does not name Nazareth, he has earlier indicated that this was the village from which Jesus came, and it is undoubtedly in view under the phrase “his own country.” Jesus returned to Nazareth as would a rabbi, accompanied by his disciples. The reference to the disciples is important, for during this period Jesus had been concerned with their training in preparation for the mission which Mark reports in 6:7–13. Continue reading →

Knowing One’s Place

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This coming Sunday is the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The stories and accounts of Jesus’ Galilean ministry have undoubtedly reached his hometown of Nazareth. We know from the gospel account that his reception and return is not exactly exuberant. While the text says that they were “astonished” in reference to his teaching in the synagogue, it is ambiguous in meaning. What kind of astonishment is amplified with the following verse: “They said, ‘Where did this man get all this?’”  Is the tone of the statement one of wonder at the marvelous exposition and wisdom just offered or is it amazement as in “who does he think he is coming here and trying to teach us – how presumptuous!” Continue reading →

What comes before

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This coming Sunday is the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle B. During the two previous Sunday gospels we have heard accounts of Jesus’ miracles. First we encountered Jesus calming the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:35-41) with his spoken command (literally: be muzzled).  The watery transit brought them into Gentile lands where Jesus casted out a legion of demons from a man – an encounter not used in a Sunday gospel. As the narrative continues into Mark chapter 5 Jesus and the disciples returned to Jewish land as they again crossed the Sea of Galilee, the literal and figurative boundary between Gentiles and Jews. Continue reading →

Daughter

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This coming Sunday is the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  At their core, the concerns and dynamics surrounding ritual uncleanliness, especially leprosy, bodily discharge, or touching corpses, were about relationships. They put one outside of the community. When Jesus calls the woman who touched him “daughter,” he establishes a relationship with one with whom he should not have a relationship. Her illness made her unclean. Her attempts to be healed by doctors made her impoverished. Her brazen invasion of Jesus’ space, touching Jesus’ clothes, “technically” made Jesus’ unclean and could have resulted in him condemning her. Yet by calling her “daughter,” he established the same kind of relationship with her as Jairus has with his “daughter.” He would do anything possible to save his daughter. Continue reading →

The Plea of Jairus

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This coming Sunday is the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  “When Jesus had crossed again (in the boat) to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him…” Jesus is returning from his experience in Gentile territory and the casting out of a demon from a man in the Gerasene district. The transition to our text is simple and stated in one verse. Jesus returned to the western shore of the lake, perhaps to Capernaum and a multitude gathered around him, immediately upon his arrival, so it seems. No indication is given whether the crowd came together as soon as he arrived or after an extended period of time; it is simply the first fact that Mark records, offering a contrast to Jesus’ experience on the eastern shore where the inhabitants urged him to depart. Continue reading →