The First Sunday in Lent, Year B: February 26, 2012

Turning away from evil

• Genesis 9:8-17
• Psalm 25:1-9
• 1 Peter 3:18-22
• Mark 1:9-15

Today our readings plunge us into Lent with reminders of the waters of creation and the waters of our baptism. We enter this holy season reminded of our need for conversion and the invitation God continually gives us to turn toward God and renounce Satan. Our Baptismal Rite tells us, “There is one Body and one Spirit. There is one hope in God’s call to us” (BCP 299) and those who are about to be baptized (or their parents and sponsors) are asked, “Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?” (BCP 302).

John H. Hayes in Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year B: A Comprehensive Commentary of the Lectionary (Trinity Press International, 1993) states:

The covenant in Genesis 9:8-17 is dramatically distinctive in several ways . . . it is made between God and all future generations . . . it is made not only with human beings but also with all creatures of the earth . . . and , most dramatic of all, only one party to the agreement – God – speaks at all. The covenant with Noah . . . is an act of a free and gracious God in behalf of a world that did not have to ask for it or earn it, or even respond to it. 

God’s promise to Noah and to future generations never again to flood all of the earth is established with a sign – the rainbow. This covenant is made with the whole creation. Today’s Epistle (Letter) relate the experience of Noah to the salvation of baptism. Portions of this letter are thought to have been originally composed for use in a service of baptism and Eucharist on the eve of Easter. Such a purpose would explain the association of the themes of Christ’s death, baptism and his triumphal resurrection. It is uncertain who is meant by the spirits to whom Christ preached after his death, but this activity may signify God’s intention for the salvation of all. To be baptized is to enter into the ark and be “saved” from the swirling waters of death. The swirling waters of chaos at the time of creation as well as during the tempestuous flood of Noah.

Today’s Gospel begins in the waters of the Jordan River. A dove appears (just like with Noah?) signifying God’s acknowledgment of Jesus as God’s Son. We are then quickly brought with Jesus into the desert where he faces Satan’s temptations.

Noah and his family, those whom Peter addressed in his letter, and even us today face temptations that follow our baptism and all the days thereafter. We put our trust in God and ask to be shown the right path. As we enter Lent, which started this past Ash Wednesday, we seek forgiveness for our sins and transgressions. We remember that God is gracious in teaching and guiding us to do right. The Psalmist asks God to continue the mercy and steadfast love that have remained the same from old – from the time of Noah to today and beyond. It is in God’s unchanging nature that we can put our trust.

For reflection:

• What signs did Jesus receive at his Baptism, particularly with regard to his relationship with God?
• What signs do we also receive at our own baptism that define our relationship with God?
• Reflect on all of today’s readings. What do all of these tell us about Baptism?
• Mark tells us that after Jesus was baptized “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness” (1:12). What is the effect here of Mark’s emphatic language?
• What tempts us away from our baptismal ministry?
• Reflect on the phrase “Lead us not into temptation” from the Lord’s Prayer in light of Jesus’ experience in the wilderness.
• How do you think the life and ministry of Jesus were shaped by his Baptism and his time in the wilderness?
• As the season of Lent begins, how do you hope to prepare yourself spiritually in the coming weeks for the miracle of Easter?

Related articles

• Entering into the Waters of Baptism . . .Again (vicki352.wordpress.com)
• The Spirit’s baptism…a baptism that saves the believer in Christ from the Judgment of God (ptl2010.com)
• Lent 1B: Feb. 26 (lifeinliturgy.wordpress.com)

Ash Wednesday: February 22, 2012

Lent begins in ashes. On Ash Wednesday we are reminded of our mortality and sin. It is not a time fro groveling; rather, it is a time for reality, for genuine humility, for repentance and forgiveness and renewed commitment to following the ways of Jesus. Lent is a season of preparation, preparing to Jesus’ passion and death for us and then to Easter.

Lord, who throughout these forty days for us didst fast and pray, teach us with thee to mourn our sins and close by thee to say. The Hymnal 1982, #142

These themes will repeat themselves throughout Lent: journey, pilgrimage, wilderness, preparation, honest reflection, repentance, forgiveness, humility, renewal, following Jesus. Our readings on Ash Wednesday set the tone for the journey of renewal and faith that lies ahead of us for these forty days:

• Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 – The prophet pictures the day of the Lord as a time of judgment and darkness, but he holds out hope of mercy if the people will repent. OR
• Isaiah 58:1-12 – A denunciation of the injustices of those who only act at their religion. There is a promise of the Lord’s favor for those who genuinely repent and care for the needy.
• 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 – Paul urges the new disciples to be reconciled to God in this time of deliverance, and he reminds them of all the hardships he has patiently endured for their sake and for the gospel.
• Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 – Jesus describes genuine charity, prayer and fasting.

“Yet even now,” says God, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil.” Joel 2:12-13

Remember, human, that you are dust, and to dust you will return. From the Ash Wednesday liturgy, based on Genesis 3:19. 

Come, brothers and sisters, let us consider the dust and ashes of which we were formed. What is the reality of our present life and what shall we become tomorrow? In death where is the poor and where the rich? Where is the slave and the master? They are all ashes. The beauty of countenance has withered, and the strength of youth has been cut down by death. . . . All has withered as the grass of the field and has vanished. Come . . . let us fall on our knees in humble prayer before Christ. “Verses During the Last Kiss: Funeral of the Dead” (Orthodox Liturgy)

Covenant with a faithful God forms the context for this Year B’s Lenten journey. The Hebrew Scriptures offer reminders of God’s promises of life and relationship made to Noah and his family, Abraham and Sarah, and Jeremiah. Christians experience God’s covenant of faithfulness continuing in Jesus – God-with-us – who shares our life and our death.

Lent begins with the black and gray of Ash Wednesday. Lent ends with the red of Good Friday. Along the way the church wears purple, a color long associated with penitence.

Related articles

• Gentle Lent (ucucc.wordpress.com)
• Ash Wednesday

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B: February 19, 2012

The Transfiguration of our Lord

• 2 Kings 2:1-12
• Psalm 50:1-6
• 2 Corinthians 4:3-6
• Mark 9:2-9

In every account (Mark 9:2-10; Matthew 17:1-13; Luke 9:28-36, 44-45), Jesus’ transfiguration immediately follows Peter’s confession and the disciples’ first lesson about Jesus’ course of shame, suffering and final vindication. In Christ’s way, belief lays the foundation for sight. The transfiguration could no more have preceded the confession of faith than could Jesus’ resurrection have preceded his crucifixion.

Three of the disciples see the truth about Jesus (Revelation 1:12-16). His outer appearance is transformed so that the glory of his inner divine life can be revealed. The sudden appearance of two other witnesses also testifies to the magnificence of the occasion.

Moses represents the written law of God, which sustained the covenant, Elijah, the greatest of the prophets of Israel’s history, represents the spoken word of God, which sustained the promises of a new relationship with God. All that the law desired to accomplish, but could not, and all that the prophets  longed to see come to pass, but did not, this Jesus brought to fulfillment.

Peter wants to freeze the moment and build a shrine, but he babbles out of wonder and fear. His proposal puts Jesus on par with the two greatest figures in Jewish history, but God exalts Jesus only and redirects the disciples’ attention, devotion and fullest obedience to this One who fully bears the love of the Father.

Jesus alone accompanies his friends down the mountain and into the valley. Again, the disciples cannot understand where suffering fits into the mission of the Son of God. Seeing Elijah triggers their messianic expectations, which included the powerful ministry of Elijah who would “restore all things.” Jesus says that, in John the Baptist, Elijah has already come; and if he suffered so, how much more will the Anointed One undergo?

Kathryn Spink, in A Universal Heart (San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1988) writes: We of the Taizé community look upon the transfiguration above all as the celebration of that presence of Christ which takes charge of everything in us and transfigures even that which disturbs us about ourselves. God penetrates those hardened, incredulous, even disquieting regions within us, about which we really do not know what to do. God penetrates them with the life of the Spirit and acts upon those regions and gives them God’s own face. 

The Sundays after the Epiphany are framed by both the Feast of the Epiphany, with its start in the heavens, and Jesus’ face sining the sun at the Transfiguration. The light of God’s revelation in Jesus becomes clearer in the ensuing weeks as disciples are called and the word is proclaimed. And thus we conclude this Season of Epiphany. The coming week brings us to Ash Wednesday, beginning the holy season of Lent when we journey with Jesus to what awaits him in Jerusalem.

For reflection:

• In what ways is Jesus the fulfillment of the law and the prophets?
• What did Jesus’ transfiguration reveal about him? What does it communicate to twenty-first century Christians? What new truth does it reveal to you about Jesus?
• Compare 9:7 with 1:11. What significance do you see in this double affirmation of Jesus’ relationship with God?
• In what sense did John the Baptist “restore all things”? Who comes now in a ministry of restoration and preparation for Jesus’ second coming?

Related articles:

• Lectionary Sermon for February 19, 2012 Transfiguration Sunday, Year B on Mark 9: 2-9 (billpeddie.wordpress.com)
• Epiphany’s Epistle: Corinthians continued (prayerbookguide.wordpress.com)
• Stained glass window photographed inside St. Peter the Apostle Church, Parsippany, NJ, USA. Copyright 2009 Loci B. Lenar

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B: February 12, 2012

A promise of wholeness

• 2 Kings 5:1-15
• Psalm 30
• 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
• Mark 1:40-45

God’s power to offer both healing and wholeness is witnessed through the stories of two lepers – Naaman in the Old Testament and the unnamed man in Mark’s gospel. Both are compelling stories that provide further lessons.

The Greek word for leprosy does not necessarily mean the disease we now know by that name (also known as Hansen’s Disease). A variety of skin diseases went by the name “leprosy” and were the most dreaded of all diseases.

In ancient cultures, illnesses and misfortune were seen as a punishment for God and/or the work of evil powers. Such affliction was believed to be a result of the sine committed by the sufferer or his or her parents. The terror of leprosy lay in the diminished physical changes that inevitably came and in the social and spiritual rejection associated with it. The leper lived apart from the community and, when encountering other people, yelled out “Unclean! Unclean!” so that others could avoid contact. Worst of all, no leper could participate in worship or join the community in any religious activities. No one had less dignity or hope than a leper.

The account of the healing of the Syrian army commander, Naaman, is a colorful episode that begins wit the faith of an Israelite slave girl who offered a way that her master might be healed of his leprosy (2 Kings 5:2f). She recognized that Naaman was a decent man, and she wished to see him free from his affliction. In Luke 4:27, Jesus refers to the healing of Naaman as an example of a non-Israelite who was the recipient of Divine healing when the lepers of Israel rejected God’s saving help.

By calling out for help, coming close and kneeling at Jesus’ feet, this leper breaks the law. When Jesus reaches out and touches him, he, too, breaks the Levitical law. Jesus obeys instead the higher law of a compassionate heart. By cleansing this man’s disease, Jesus reconciles the leper to his community and to God. The priest’s declaration of ritual cleanliness reinstates the outcast in his family and in the society. The theologically trained scribes wonder how Jesus can superseded God’s wrath and punishment (3:22, 30)

In an echo of what the lepers might have cried to God, we read the Psalmist’s plea: “I cried to you for help, and you have healed me” (30:2). In both of today’s stories, recovery marks the end of God’s wrath and acknowledges that God’s favor endures for a lifetime. Weeping in the night has been transformed into joy in the morning. The sackcloth of mourning has been replaced with clothes of joy.

The healing power of Jesus’ love and word is an instrument of healing that we too can share as Christians. We experience a cleansing power in the sacrament of absolution and experience of the Eucharist. As we see our healing mission as disciples, we too can spread the light of God’s healing love.

For reflection:

• Today’s Gospel is also found in Matthew 8:1-4 and Luke 5:12-16. What are the similarities and differences of the three versions?
• What faith and doubt does the leper experience? How is this like your own faith and doubt?
• Why do you think Jesus is so insistent about the secrecy of their encounter and for him to go immediately to see the priest?
• How does the leper benefit by showing himself to the priest? How does the community benefit? What might this say about the ministry goals of the Church today?
• What are some human conditions and taboos today that cause people to be as ostracized and feel as unacceptable as lepers did in Jesus’ day?
• When have you felt like a leper?
• Who or what are we expected not to touch?
• Name a taboo that your compassion has caused you to break.
• What groups today are treated like lepers (e.g., AIDS victims, the homeless)?

Related articles

• Epiphany’s Epistle: Corinthians continued (prayerbookguide.wordpress.com)

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B: February 5, 2012

The power to heal

• Isaiah 40:21-31
• Psalm 147:1-12, 21c
• 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
• Mark 1:29-39

Here at the beginning of history’s central event – the advent of Jesus Christ – Mark records the healing of a mother-in-law. Mark sandwiches this event between the exorcising of a demon in the midst of Jewish worship (our reading last week) and huge crowds bringing other demon-possessed and physically ill people. Peter’s mother-in-law shows the proper response to Jesus’ touch: service prompted by gratitude and devotion.

What Jesus has done in the synagogue spreads like a firestorm. The people could hardly wait for the Sabbath to end, as signaled by the first three visible stars. So at sunset, a flood of people come to Jesus, carrying or leading their sick, confused and maimed friends and family members. With compassion and power Jesus responds. Many can speak with a semblance of power, but few are able to follow through with deeds of power. Jesus produces results.

After telling of the first busy day of Jesus’ ministry, Mark now shows us the secret of Jesus’ effectiveness – solitude and prayer. In his baptism, Jesus identifies with people who are aware of their separation from God and who desire to return. Only Jesus’ consistent, personal, spiritual practice of spending hours alone with God can sustain him in his mission of identification and atonement.

After the time of quiet, Jesus is ready to abandon the immediate adulation of the crowds (1:37) in order to fulfill his greater calling. Everyone indeed is searching for Jesus.

We are called by our baptism into Christ to the ministry of healing. Intercessions at the Eucharist are embodied by the baptized as they care for one another and as they witness to Christ’s healing among them. We pray for those in any need of any kind of healing in the Prayers of the People (BCP 383-393).

For reflection:

• Compare today’s Church members to the crowds that were attracted to Jesus. How would you characterize Jesus’ style of ministry? How might this be adapted to your church’s ministry in the world?
• Describe your spiritual practice. Name your lonely place. In what ways does the time you spend with God prepare and empower you for service?
• What do you think Jesus’ followers want him to do in verse 37? Why? What form do you think this voice takes in the Church today? What kind of confidence enables Jesus to leave the success at Capernaum?

Related articles

• Epiphany’s Epistle: Corinthians continued (prayerbookguide.wordpress.com)

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B: January 29, 2012

Power over evil

• Deuteronomy 18:15-20
• Psalm 111
• 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
• Mark 1:21-28

Jesus had the power to drive out evil from the lives of people. It today’s Gospel, we hear how Jesus and his disciples came to Capernaum, with Jesus teaching on the Sabbath in the synagogue. A man was suffering from an unclean spirit that recognized Jesus as the Holy One of God. The spirit obeyed Jesus’ command to leave the man. “He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

In Jesus’ day people quickly recognized the reality and power of evil spirits and demons. Strange and aberrant behavior, pathological and some physical illnesses were considered a result of evil spiritual powers. The earth was a frightening place, a hell, where every life situation was ruled by these demonic spirits. Archaeologists have uncovered thousands of skulls with holes drilled in them that show growth after such drilling. Such drilling was thought to release evil spirits from the head. Jesus’ authority over this demon amazes the people, for only God has control in this dark arena.

The image of Jesus as exorcist is someone who has experienced his own demons (Mark 1:12-13). The temptation stories (of which we will hear in a few weeks as we enter Lent) point to the image of a wounded healer, to an image of one who by his own experience understands vulnerability and internalized oppression. In having recovered their own hearts, healers have some understanding of the suffering of others.

Naming the demons means knowing the demons . . . The Gospels imply that anyone who exorcises cannot be a stranger to demons . . . To have faced our demons is never to forget their power to hurt and never to forget the power to heal that lies in touching broken-heartedness . . . Jesus hears, below the demon noises, an anguished cry for deliverance. Through . . . mutual touching, . . . community is co-created as a continuing, liberating, redemptive reality. – Rita Nakashima Brock, Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power (Crossroad Publishing, 1988).

Jesus had the power to drive out evil from the lives of people. In our worship, we constantly ask to be delivered from evil when we recite the Lord’s Prayer. This is also stated in Eucharistic Prayer B: “In him, you have delivered us from evil, and made us worthy to stand before you.” – a vivid reminder that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist stands between evil and us today.

As part of our Baptismal Covenant, we are called to confront personal and societal evil: “Will you persevere in resisting evil, and , whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?” (BCP 304)

For reflection:

• For what reasons might the first event of Jesus’ public ministry (in Mark) and the first display of resistance have happened in a synagogue? What might this say about Jesus’ work today?
• What is the significance of a demon’s recognition of Jesus? Of Jesus’ response to the demon?
• What words today are sometimes used to refer to demon possession?
• What demons did Jesus face?
• What demons do we face today?
• What does Mark imply about the scribes’ teaching? How does Jesus’ teaching differ from contemporary preaching and teaching?

Related articles

• Tuesday, 1st Week of Ordinary Time (redemptoristpreacher.com)
• 1 Corinthians

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B: January 22, 2012

Fish Stories

• Jonah 3:1-5, 10
• Psalm 62:6-12
• 1 Corinthians 7:29-31
• Mark 1:14-20

Words that connect today’s readings do not seem connected at all: fish, risk and urgency. We hear the familiar story of Jesus calling his disciples to make them “fishers of men.” Paul has faced a reversal in his life, sharing with the church in Corinth that “The appointed time has grown short” (1 Corinthians 7:29). The urgency is to follow the bidding of the Lord, because “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near . . .” (Mark 1:15).

Jonah has been given a message of great urgency. Ninevah had become the worlds’ greatest obstacle to the establishment of justice. Conquest and greed from the Assyrian Empire had made it a great city through aggression, cruelty and exploitation. Jonah was not quite willing to take up his task when called upon by God, but eventually he was compelled to deliver God’s message.

And despite what he believed, the citizens of Ninevah repented the crimes that there nation had committed. If we were to include reading the verses 6-9 we would hear that the ruler led the way in showing sorrow for national sins, with sackcloth and ashes and a total fast (which is where our Ash Wednesday practice comes from).

God took note of the people’s repentance. So there was no earthquake or thunderbolt. But Jonah could not accept the success of his words on God’s behalf. Jonah was filled with doom, despite their lamentations of their sins.

Power belongs to God, and the Lord exercises that power always with steadfast love. Trusting in human leaders can lead to broken promises. God is the strong rock and refuge.

The Prayer of Jonah (or: the futility of hatred)

Out of my distress I called you, O Lord, but you did not answer me.

I refused to preach repentance to the Ninevites, but you forced me. When I sailed away in the opposite direction, you hurled a violent wind at me. Your monster swallowed me and returned me to your path.

Repentance I would not preach in Nineveh, rather I cursed them, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.”

But you did not listen to me. You listened to the people of Nineveh as they sat in ashes covered with sackcloth.

I am angry because you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in clemency, loathe to punish.

If you will not destroy Nineveh then give me death. It is better for me to die than to see my enemy live.

Thomas Reese (“Peace Prayers from Around the World” HarperCollins, 1992)

For reflection:

• Read the story of Jonah. Why was this story included in the Bible?
• What are your Ninevahs?
• Who are the prophets today? What would they tell us?

Related articles

• Jonah – The Prophet Who Tried To Run From God (brakeman1.wordpress.com)
• A change of heart: Jonah (davegladson.com)
• Jonah & Me (The Book of Jonah) (sermonsbymatt.wordpress.com)