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 →

The Voice that Disturbs

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If you lived in the northern part of Israel some 750 years before Jesus, you were living during the reign of King Jeroboam II. The economy is good, the neighboring countries are envious of your peace and prosperity – life is good. There is only one problem: the rabble rouser Amos. Have you heard his doom and gloom so-called prophecy? You’d think the enemies were at the gate and the dreaded day of the Lord would be turned upon Israel instead of our enemies. Not sure what he thinks he accomplishes other than to disturb my peace. 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 →