Monthly Archives: September 2009

Reflecting on James 5:1-6

We can all breathe easier now.  We’ve heard all we’re going to hear from the letter of James.  Enough already with the harangues over the injustices to the poor and the false securities of the rich.  In these recessionary times we don’t really need to be reminded week after week about our responsibility to the children of God who don’t have jobs or health care, do we?

The wages you withheld cry out loud

It is unsettling, though, to hear today that all of our efforts to create comfortable lives for ourselves have only “fattened our hearts for the slaughter”.  James clearly―loudly and clearly―equates material wealth in the light with some kind of fraud and cheating in the dark.  In his experience, the rich could only have acquired their wealth on the backs of those whom they had exploited.

That’s certainly not always the case today.  But we’ve got three years to ponder his challenge before he shows up again in the lectionary.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

What is the right use of wealth?

Reflecting on Mark 9:30-37

Wouldn’t you love to know who the child is who is taken and wrapped in Jesus’ arms at the end of today’s Gospel?  We know that Jesus and the Twelve are back in Capernaum, and that Simon and Andrew have a home there.  In fact, Mark

repeatedly implies that this is Jesus’ home base (see Mk. 2:1).  It’s interesting that Nazareth, that tiny village where Jesus was raised, mostly disappears from the story as Jesus’ public ministry is launched, and Simon Peter’s home on the shore of the Galilee (where he and his brother have their fishing business) becomes Jesus’ home.

I’ll bet that little child is one known to Jesus, not some random child wandering into the scene from outside.  Perhaps this is the daughter or son―the Gospel is careful to not reveal the gender― of Simon or Andrew, or any of the Twelve who made their home there at Peter’s house.  When Jesus takes this child and holds it he is embracing the unluckiest members of his culture.  Childhood was a terrifying time.  Infant mortality was as high as thirty percent, and sixty percent never made it to their sixteenth birthday.  Children had no status.  In times of famine they were fed last.  The medieval Mediterranean theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote that in case of fire a husband must save his father and mother first, then his wife, and last of all his children.

And THIS is the one whom Jesus says we disciples should receive.  The last, the least, the one wrapped in Jesus’ arms.  Lucky child.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

Who do you think are the least among us in our American culture?

Painting: Christ with Children, Frances Hook

Reflecting on Mark 8:27-35

Sometime during the reign of Tiberias (AD 14-37), a divine voice roared across the Mediterranean Sea, ordering the

Shrine to the god Pan at Caesarea Philippi

sailors within hearing distance to “proclaim to all that the great god Pan is dead.”  But gods didn’t die, especially not beloved Pan (from whom Peter Pan eventually got his name).  And certainly not this god, born at Caesaria Philippi, whose name inspired the city’s earliest designation of Panias.

Did the author of Mark’s Gospel, writing about thirty years later, have this story in mind when he placed Jesus and his disciples right smack in the heart of this Roman capital, an area strewn with temples to Pan and pilgrims coming to worship the Roman emperor?  It’s right there, in that place of wide religious plurality, that Jesus asks the essential question of his disciples: “Who do people say I am?”  And immediately after Peter spills the Messianic secret—You are the Christ—Jesus begins to tell them of his future passion and death.

Yes, Mark seems to say, the gods of the old order are dead, and the true God,  Jesus the Christ, will die too.  But that death will be the doorway to the eternal for those who, like Peter, know who He is.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

Who do you say Jesus is?

Reflecting on James 2:1-5

We’re hearing from the beautiful letter of James during these late summer Sundays.  It’s my favorite New Testament

letter, probably because the author is so insightful about the ways of the heart.  It’s from this letter that we get the text of the beautiful hymn we’ve been singing this summer:  what is faith without action?  Go in peace, stay warm and be well fed. The author is scolding the wealthy Christians of the early church, exhorting them to be different, transformed by Christ, rather than to just keep their existing comfortable lifestyle while those around them starve.

And the scandal was that these Christians were enjoying the Eucharistic meal together, but relegating the seating at the assembly according to one’s wealth.  That meant that those who were working, and came to the meal late, were not fed and were placed in the back of the room while those who were more established had the best seats and the meal.

I wonder why it is that all of my friends are beautiful and smart, well dressed and accomplished.  I wonder if this letter is reaching across the ages to speak to me alone.  Or does it say something to you too?

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

How can we do a better job of including the marginalized into our church and into our lives?