On the Back Porch
Reading, pondering and studying God’s Word is sometimes best done “on the back porch.” Each week we will try to offer something for you and your “back porch time.”
23rd Sunday, Year B
What We Celebrate
Jesus in on the move. In this part of the Gospel of Mark Jesus and the disciples move from Galilee into the region of the Decapolis, a foray into Gentile territory. It is a section of the gospel “bookended” by two accounts of the miraculous multiplication of bread – but between the ends, Jesus encounters the Syro-Phoenician woman and the man with deafness and speech impediment – both potentially “unclean” in the eyes of the Pharisee and scribes. As Jesus challenged their understanding of the “tradition of the elders” previously, he does so again with his healing actions.
The story of the deaf-mute is like a gate swinging back and forth. It swings back to the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman, because the deaf-mute also comes from a non-Jewish part of Palestine (v. 31). It swings forward to the next chapter, to the story of the blind man (8:22–26), which closely parallels this cure. Both the deaf-mute and the blind man are brought to Jesus by others (v. 32; 8:22). Both times Jesus takes the men away from the crowd (v. 33; 8:23) and touches them, using spittle to heal them (vv. 33–35 and 8:23, 25).
These obvious parallels make it clear that Mark wants the two cures to be read side by side. In this way, Mark’s readers will hardly be able to miss that Jesus is the Messiah promised by Isaiah long before when he said: “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared” (Isa 35:5–6)
As always, a lot going on in the gospel reading. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and take a moment on the back porch with the Word of God.
Full Text of the Sunday Readings
Detailed Commentary
Domenico Maggiotto (1713-1794), “Christ Healing a Deaf and Mute Man” (Public Domain)
Holiness and Cleanliness
The flow of the Gospel of Mark talks about clean and unclean. What does that mean? Too often we equeate “unclean” with sin…but is that a correct equation? In the video, we explore the paradox that God’s holiness presents to human beings. God is the unique and set-apart Creator of all reality and the author of all goodness. However, that goodness can become dangerous to humans who are mortal and morally corrupt. Ultimately, this paradox is resolved by Jesus, who embodies God’s holiness that comes to heal His creation.
Hearing and Speech
Hearing and speech have a symbolic role to play in Mark’s narrative. The Syro-Phoenician woman was so skilled in speech that Jesus healed her daughter. Jesus’ disciples, on the other hand, have shown increasing difficulty in understanding what Jesus is telling them. They clearly need some form of healing that will enable them to truly hear—that is, to understand.
Understanding, on the other hand, can be expressed to others only if we speak. Young children learn how the world around them works, whether that is the physical world or the world of human interactions, by repeating everything they hear. It is fair to say that unless people can tell others what they know, they do not really know it. Believers need to recognize the need to speak about their experience of salvation. They speak to others in testimony and to God in thanksgiving and praise.
24th Sunday, Year B
What We Celebrate
As the story line in Mark’s Gospel reaches Caesarea Philippi, we arrive at the first major climax of Mark’s Gospel – the second being the Passion and Crucifixion. Until now, Mark has been revealing who Jesus is in the mighty deeds he has done. Along with this revelation, Mark has also reported Jesus’ reluctance to have people believe in him only because of those wondrous deeds. This Caesarea Philippi passage comes to the heart of the matter.
Jesus has heard the “buzz” about what the people think of him, but Jesus asks the disciples “point blank”: “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Messiah.” There is a lot of room for speculation on what Peter expected of the Messiah, but before that is explored Jesus makes clear that the way of the Messiah is the way of the cross: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
As always, a lot going on in the gospel reading. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and take a moment on the back porch with the Word of God.
Full Text of the Sunday Readings
Detailed Commentary
Image credit: Christ Presenting the Keys to Saint Peter | Nicholas Poussin | Metropolitan Museum | Public Domain
Son of the Living God
When asked about Jesus’ identity, Peters responds “You are the Messiah” – that’s in Mark’s Gospel. But in the Gospel of Matthew, there is the additional phrase: “Son of the Living God.” Is there something new or at least amplifying about that additional phrase. Take a moment to explore the meaning with Dr. Tim Scott of the Augustine Institute.
Clearly this passage points to suffering and death as being at the heart of God’s plan of redemption and salvation. The passage does not explain why this is the plan, it just insists that this is the way it will be. It sets up a dissonance to our way of thinking. Clearly the accounts of Jesus to this point in the Gospel reveal his cosmic powers over nature, death, illness, demons and more. How can he then permit the enemies who wish to destroy him ultimately succeed? Perhaps now we have some insight into St. Paul’s insistence that the gospel of the cross makes a mockery of our human concepts of success.
18 The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside.”20 Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?21 For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith.22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,24 but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor 1:18-25)
25th Sunday, Year B
What We Celebrate
As we move along in Mark’s Gospel, there are fewer demonstrations of power and teaching authority. The emphasis is ever more on preparing his disciples for the time when Jesus will not be among them in an earthly form. The text for this Sunday is commonly referred to as Christ’s second passion/resurrection prediction. It could just as easily be called the “this is hard to understand what you’re telling me” Sunday. When Jesus predicts his passion and death it is not clear that the apostles understand. Or maybe they do and that is why the conversation drifts into “who will be the greatest in the kingdom?” Jesus answers the question in reference to the attitude of a child.
As always, a lot going on in the gospel reading. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and take a moment on the back porch with the Word of God.
Full Text of the Sunday Readings
Detailed Commentary
Image credit: “Lasset die Kindlein zu mir kommen” (Let the little children come to me) | Anonymous | 1841 | Dorotheum | PD-US Public Domain
The Passion Predictions
This gospel contains the second of three passion predictions that appear in the Gospel of Mark. It is easy to pass over the prediction as being a “repeat” of that which appeared only 1 chapter earlier. The language in this week’s text – “to deliver up” or “hand over” points to the Jewish theology of martyrdom. It is in the context of martyrdom that “handing over” is more than simply coming under the power of another. Rather the term points to the fulfillment of God’s will as expressed in Scripture. Particularly in martyrdom, God is the one who permits (or hinders) the handing over in fulfillment of his deeper purposes.
After the betrayal by Judas and Jesus’ arrest, it was natural to associate the terminology of “handing over” with that act of treachery. The background of the term in Scripture, however, indicates that the thought is more profound: Jesus will be delivered into the hands of men by God, and what takes place on the level of historical occurrence has ultimate significance because it reveals the saving action of God. The wording of our gospel passage echoes Isaiah 53:6, 12, which speaks to the expiatory death of the Suffering Servant. There and in Jesus’ statement it points out that God’s redemptive is in play and not simply the machinations of men.
26th Sunday, Year B
What We Celebrate
As noted regarding the gospel last Sunday, the time of miracles, healings, and casting out demons seems to have passed. Moving forward, Mark’s gospel continues to primarily focus on the teaching and preparation of the disciples for the coming times when they will be without Jesus in his familiar presence. In our passage it seems clear that Jesus is pointing out some of the problems that the apostolic community will face – and many of them can be understood as problems of the human condition. The concerns of this passage are: (1) ambition among themselves (vv. 33–37); (2) envy and intolerance of others (vv. 38–41); and (3) scandalizing others (vv. 42–48).
As always, a lot going on in the gospel reading. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and take a moment on the back porch with the Word of God.
Full Text of the Sunday Readings
Detailed Commentary
Image credit: The Exhortation to the Apostles | James Tissot | Brooklyn Museum | US-PD
In the name of ….
The gospel reading for this week uses the word “name frequently:
- Whoever welcomes one such child in my name.. (v. 37)
- …someone driving out demons in your name… (v. 38)
- …no one who performs a mighty deed in my name… (v. 39)
- …whoever gives you a cup of water to because you belong to Christ… [the literal translation of this verse is “because you bear the name of Christ.”] (v. 41)
Name? Do we mean Jesus? The Messiah? The Christ? The Son of God? The Promised One? Of course the answer to all of that is “yes.” Perhaps one of the monikers that is not as intuitive is when Jesus refers to himself as the “Son of Man.”
27th Sunday, Year B
What We Celebrate
Our Sunday gospel takes the form of a story with controversy in which the Pharisees seek to bring Jesus into conflict with what they regard as the clear teaching of Holy Scripture – in this case referring to the Hebrew scriptures, known to us as the Old Testament. Their intent was clear: they were testing (peirazo) Jesus. When this word is used in Mark, it is either Satan (1:13) or the Pharisees (8:11; 10:2; 12:15) who are “testing/tempting” Jesus. Their question begins, “Is it lawful…?” However, they aren’t really asking Jesus to tell them what the law says. They already know what the law says: “When a man, after marrying a woman and having relations with her, is later displeased with her because he finds in her something indecent, and therefore he writes out a bill of divorce and hands it to her, thus dismissing her from his house” (Deuteronomy 24:1). There is a lot to “unpack” in that single verse and the context in which it is recalled in the gospel passage
As always, a lot going on in the gospel reading. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and take a moment on the back porch with the Word of God.
Full Text of the Sunday Readings
Detailed Commentary
The Pharisees and the Sadducees Come to Tempt Jesus | James Tissot | Brooklyn Museum, PD-US
In the image of God…
Jesus moves the dialogue with the Pharisees to a deeper question and asks about what God intended in His creation: “But from the beginning of creation…” (Gen 1:27) – and apart from the questions of marriage and divorce, what there something more that Jesus is pointing to as part of this dialogue. Let me suggest that the most fundamental statement about human nature is captured in Gen 1:26 – “Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion…”
We are created in the image of God…. to what end? Take a few moments and watch the video on what it means to “have dominion” in the context of being made an image of God.
28th Sunday, Year B
What We Celebrate
“As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, ‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’” The man enthusiastically approaches Jesus. The man’s kneeling posture and the formal address together with the weighty character of his question—all suggest deep respect for Jesus and genuine earnestness on the part of the man himself. He came to consult Jesus as a distinguished rabbi and showed him the deference reserved for revered teachers of the Law. He asks “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” It is a rather odd question – if inheritance is a gift, then you need do nothing.
And that is just the start as this gospel text takes us through thoughts and questions about our own journey in life, the meaning of good, the demands of Love, the nature of the Kingdom of God – and, no so much what we are willing to do, but what holds us back? As John Cardinal Newman noted, “When good keeps you from the best, then the good becomes the enemy of the best.”
As always, a lot going on in the gospel reading. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and take a moment on the back porch with the Word of God.
Full Text of the Sunday Readings
Detailed Commentary
Heinrich Hofmann | 1888 | Christ and the Rich Young Ruler | Brigham Young University Museum of Art | PD-US
What must I do
There are lots of videos out there that are more than happy to tell you what is necessary to inherit eternal life. The ones from traditional Christian Churches, while reflecting their own theological stance, all offer good insights – at least in part if not in whole. The video below offers the reminder that you have a partner in all that you do. The question then becomes do you rely, call upon, or willing accept assistance from your partner?