Ordinary Time Week 22

Psalm: Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22 or Psalm 126

Old Testament: Job 42:1-6, 10-17

 or Jeremiah 31:7-9

Gospel: Mark 10:46-52

Epistle: Hebrews 7:23-28

I have been discussing the reading from Hebrews and the other passages for a few weeks so I think it is time to return to the Gospel reading today. The passage in Mark is the healing of blind Bartimaeus on the road from Jericho. I am glad that the Lectionary has us reading this story from Mark because it seems like the writer of Mark, or his audience, had some intimate knowledge of Bartimaeus or maybe his family. I want to include a Gospel parallel so you can see what I am talking about this week, but Mark's version of this account is quite different than the other two Synoptic Gospels. You can find that link to the other two accounts HERE.

The first obvious detail that Mark gives us, that the other Gospels don't, is Bartimaeus' name. He then throws out the comment that he is the son of Timaeus. First, this type of comment is unnecessary if he was writing to a Jewish speaking audience. It would be obvious that his name literally means, "Son of Timaeus." So, I wonder why Mark told us this man's name and not other people's name Jesus came in contact with. I also wonder why Mark let us know that he is the son of Timaeus. Perhaps Bartimaues later became a leader in the church or was somehow so well-known by Mark's audience that this detail would mean something to them. Presumably, some of these people Jesus healed and interacted with later became leaders in the church even if they are never mentioned in Acts or Paul's letters. We only get little snippets of Jesus' life and the early church, but there is so much more to the story that is never told in detail. One thing we do know is that after Bartimaeus received his sight, Mark tells us that he "followed [Jesus] on the way." (vs. 52)

Ordinary Time Week 21

Psalm: Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c or Psalm 91:9-16
Old Testament: Job 38:1-7, 34-41
   or Isaiah 53:4-12

Gospel: Mark 10:35-45
Epistle: Hebrews 5:1-10

I want to continue our discussion of the Epistle to the Hebrews this week because chapter 5 is the start of a new section in the book and sets the ground work for what is to follow. The writers starts a new section here comparing the priesthood of Jesus with that of the Old Testament priesthood. The writer actually called Jesus a priest one time each in chapters 2 and 3 and these two instances set the scene for the argument that is to follow in the rest of the Epistle. We tend to take Jesus' priesthood and the argument Hebrews makes almost for granted, but the argument back then may have been novel and even revolutionary. Outside of the Gospels and acts, where the priests are mentioned numerous times, the word is only mentioned once in Romans and three times in Revelations. In the Gospels it is clear that Jesus is not considered a priest, at least that vocabulary is not used. The priests and the religious establishment are often at odds with Jesus and Jesus seems to be interested only in tearing down their power structures. The 4 examples of the word "priest" outside the Gospels and Hebrews all refer to believers in Revelation and to Paul himself in Romans. (The word "priesthood" also appears twice in 1 Peter, once again in reference to believers.) In Hebrews however, the word priest is mentioned 36 times, more than any other book in the New Testament.

Ordinary Time Week 20

Psalm: Psalm 22:1-15 or Psalm 90:12-17

Old Testament: Job 23:1-9, 16-17

  or Amos 5:6-7, 10-15

Gospel: Mark 10:17-31

Epistle: Hebrews 4:12-16

We have had some very interesting readings the last few weeks. I was all set to discuss the Gospel reading, which has some really interesting and challenging things to say about following Jesus, but the Hebrews reading stopped me dead in my tracks today.

I think we all know the words of Hebrews 4:12 quite well: "For the word (logos) of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges (kritikos) the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." For my whole life, I have never heard anyone say anything other than the fact that the "word" here is in fact the Bible. And although that may be true and what the author intended, verse 13 surprised me. It says, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." In looking at these 2 verses in parallel, I immediately thought that the "word" in verse 12 must be Jesus. The "word" and God both penetrate the soul and reveal all things. They are functioning in the same way. The real difficult thing in trying to understand this is that I think we mostly have to deal with the Greek texts. As an example of this, logos is actually used in both verses 12 and 13. The first instance we know, "word" in verse 12. In verse 13, the NIV translates it to "give account." The Greek actually lacks a verb, it reads "to whom we a word (logos)." These are the types of subtleties we miss when translating and also remind us the difficulties of both translation and interpretation of the text.

Ordinary Time Week 19

Psalm: Psalm 26 or Psalm 8
Old Testament: Job 1:1, 2:1-10 or Genesis 2:18-24
Gospel: Mark 10:2-16
Epistle: Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

We continue Ordinary Time this week, and just as a refresher, "ordinary" does not mean basic or plain, but rather it comes from the Latin word, "ordinal," or counting. Ordinary Time is the weeks that are counted between Pentecost and the last Sunday before Advent. So actually the majority of year is dedicated Ordinary Time. The interesting and difficult thing about how the Lectionary is set up during Ordinary Time is that the four Scripture readings do not revolve around any particular theme. In fact, all four passages have pretty distinct emphases. So this makes it pretty difficult when one is trying to integrate the readings and find connections through the text. The challenge is that we don't want to read things into the text (referred to as eisegesis) and make connections that aren't there. We still want to let each text speak for itself and still try to figure out what the original authors and hearers meant and understood. So, that is the challenge and often this year during Ordinary Time connections just haven't been there. That has led me to many weeks during this Ordinary Time to just discussing one or two passages on their own rather than trying to integrate the readings.