This blog offers a short reflection on Bible readings in the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) for Sundays and major Christian festivals throughout the year.
What is a modern reader to make of the extended references
to ‘demons’ in the Gospel for this Sunday? Does such a passage not reveal just
how far we have moved away from New Testament times in our understanding of
both physical and mental disease? Let us suppose that it does. What
implications should we draw from this?
One inference that seems obvious to many people is that the
miracles attributed to Jesus didn’t actually happen, and that this is either a
record of human credulity, or fanciful embroidery after the fact. But this is
too hasty. There is no doubt that modern understanding and treatment of
physical illness is vastly advanced on what it was even one hundred years ago.
At the same time, there is much that remains mysterious to medical science.
Furthermore the effectiveness of modern drug therapies is not as well
established as it is often made out to be. And, when it comes to mental
illness, our understanding has advanced surprisingly little, with effective
treatments few and far between.
So a measure of humility is in order before we too quickly
relegate people in times past to superstitious ignorance. Humility, in fact, is
the message that the wonderfully poetic passage from Isaiah invites. ‘Have you
not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of
the ends of the earth. . . . his understanding is unsearchable.’
If, as Christians believe, this everlasting God was uniquely
incarnate in Jesus, there is no very great puzzle in claims that he had a
dramatic effect on the physical and mental wellbeing of the people he
encountered. We should not overlook this important fact, however. On this, as
on many other occasions, Jesus quietly moves on elsewhere, lest he be seen
primarily as a miracle worker. His first call is not to heal, but to “proclaim
the message” of salvation “for that is
what I came out to do.”
“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up”. So says St Paul in this week’s Epistle, thereby seeming to endorse the line
in a famous Beatles’ song – ‘All you need is Love’! This emphasis on love fits in
very well with a widely held belief that feelings are much more important than theological
doctrines when it comes to Christian faith. Yet, in the very
next paragraph Paul emphasizes the importance of not mistaking idols for the
one true God. This is knowledge not everyone has, he says, and it can make a
crucial difference. So is love enough or not? Or do we need real knowledge of
God as well?
The other two readings throw some light on this important issue. The Old Testament passage from Deuteronomy could not make it plainer that God uses prophets -- people of special insight who will reveal his Word -- and that one such prophet will stand out from all the rest. The Gospel passage casts Jesus in this light -- as someone who teaches, but an authority greater than all the other prophets. The heart of this short episode is to be found in the opening paragraph, in fact, because the extraordinary power to heal demented people that he subsequently demonstrates, is taken as evidence of this special prophetic authority.
Theological speculation can indeed be a kind of knowledge that puffs up. People often attain impressive expertise in a sophisticated intellectual enterprise that, in reality, has little to do with knowing how to live a life of faith. At the same time, it wrong to infer that this means
Christians should abandon reason in favor of emotion. John’s Gospel describes Jesus as ‘the Truth’. Elsewhere Paul tells us that ‘the Truth’ will set us free. It can only do
so if we know what it is – a task God has given us minds to work on.
JESUS MAFA is a response to the New Testament readings from the Lectionary by a Christian community in Cameroon, Africa. Each of the readings were selected and adapted to dramatic interpretation by the community members. Photographs of their interpretations were made, and these were then transcribed to paintings. Courtesy of the jean and Alexander Herd Divinity Library
This week’s readings are remarkably short. The Gospel continues
the story of Jesus’ early ministry. The times were turbulent, and dangerous
ones for Jewish prophets and teachers, who were easily branded political rebels
or dissidents. John the Baptist’s arrest is the signal for Jesus to leave his
home in Nazareth and establish himself on the shores of Galilee, the familiar
location of so many Gospel stories. It is here that he finds and calls the
fishermen Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John who were to be his ‘core’
disciples and, after his death and resurrection, his apostles.
Mark’s account of this episode is rather briefer than the
one given by Matthew, who links the Galilean context to the prophecies of
Isaiah. The lectionary, however, establishes another important Biblical resonance
that underlines the connection with John the Baptist. Jonah is sent to call Nineveh to repentance, and
does so successfully.
Interspersed between the readings from Jonah and Mark, though,
is one of those awkward passages that seem inextricably tied to a belief that
the world will end very soon. Paul tells the Corinthians to abandon their normal
way of life completely, even to the point of ignoring familial obligations to
both the living and the dead. We know, of course, that ‘the appointed time’ had
not ‘grown short’, since the world is still here almost two thousand years
later. Paul’s apocalyptic tone, however, is not without purpose even yet. Repentance
does require us to see our normal life in a quite different light, and to
radically review our priorities. Without that, discipleship loses its spiritual
edge, and degenerates into conventional piety -- just going through the familiar motions.
Pictures courtesy of the Jean and Alexander Heard Library
The Feast of the Epiphany and the Baptism of Christ are
major celebrations in the Christian year. The modern calendar makes it a little
difficult to celebrate them both, especially when Epiphany (January 6th)
is close to the following Sunday, as it is this year. There is good reason,
however, to consider them together, since they are equally
important as ‘epiphanic moments’ or occasions of ‘manifestation’
The brief and mysterious episode of the Wise Men, which only
Matthew's Gospel relates, has long exercised a fascination on the Christian imagination.
Whatever its basis in history, deep layers of theological meaning have been
found in it. This is especially true of the gifts that the wise men leave in
the stable. Each has symbolic meaning. Gold is a traditional gift for a king, frankincense carries
overtones of priesthood, and myrrh presages death – a strange gift for a baby. More
importantly perhaps, these travelers are foreigners, the only Gentiles to be present
at the Incarnation. This signifies, right from the start, that the story of the
birth, ministry, suffering and death of Jesus has a meaning far beyond the
confines of Jewish life and culture. The episode reveals that the Gospel is a Gospel for
Gentile as well as Jew.
The Sunday immediately after Epiphany is now widely observed
as a commemoration of John the Baptist’s baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, an
event recorded in all four Gospels. This year the Lectionary uses Mark’s version, and in it John makes it plain that while he offers a
‘washing away of sin’, the coming of Jesus will complete this with spiritual transformation. By submitting to John’s baptism himself,
Jesus shows repentance to be a pre-condition of this transformation, and in
that very action he reveals his divinity.
The descending of the dove is the ‘epiphany’ of this story, one of those times
when, quite suddenly, something of the greatest importance is revealed to us.
At the Feast of the Epiphany and then at the Baptism of Christ, we are invited to celebrate two epiphanic moments. In both of them the person of the historical Jesus
is revealed to be the eternal Christ.
