4th Sunday of Lent, March 22, 2020
What is your Blessing of The Week?
(See below for mine)
Please help me to make this form of the blog helpful while we go through this period. Too much material?
Please Remember these special people:
For Carrie Bieda's so, Chase in hospital in Austin (not for Corona) For Ryan, Rosemary's nephew, who had surgery; For Bill Hammond, For Sydney, & For Sir Charlie recuperating from surgery; Shonda's mom; For Gilberto recuperating from his gall bladder operation: for Michelle; For a friend, a neighbor, & a doctor, Karen, with brain cancer; For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free.; For Hue; For John O'Donnell; For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health; For Anthony & Sabrina; For a young man who is suffering from depression; John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini;
A shout out to Joe Xerri of Gozo-Malta, a once young Jesuit guy I worked with in Tanzania & have just heard from for the first time in 35? years.. Thanks for the note, Joe. And thanks Mr. Blog for connecting us.
One of the Biggest Blessings of my week.
Happy Birthday, Kaliope & Bill Poncik
Reading #1, 1 Samuel
The Lord said to Samuel: “Fill your flask with anointing oil and get going. I’m sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I’ve spotted the very king I want among Jesse’s sons.” When they arrived, Samuel took one look at the first son and thought, “Here he is! God’s anointed!” But God told Samuel, “Looks aren’t everything. Don’t be impressed with his looks and stature. I’ve already eliminated him. Jesse then called up son #2 and presented him to Samuel. Samuel said, “This man isn’t God’s choice either.” One by one Jesse presented all seven sons. Samuel was blunt. “God hasn’t chosen any of these; are there no more sons?” “Well, yes,” said Jesse, “there’s the runt. But he’s out tending the sheep.” “Go get him,” said Samuel. “We’re not moving from this spot until he’s here.” He was brought in, the very picture of health. God said to Samuel, “Up on your feet! Anoint him! This is the one.” So Samuel took his flask of oil and anointed him, with his brothers standing around watching. The Spirit of God entered David like a rush of wind, and God vitally empowered him for the rest of his life.
Our word for today.
Reading #2, Ephesians 5
Sisters and brothers: You groped your way through murkiness once, but no longer. You’re out in the open now. The bright light of Christ makes your way plain. No more stumbling around. Get on with it! The good, the right, the true—these are the actions appropriate for daylight hours.
Don’t waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are. It’s a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one will see. Rip the cover off those frauds and see how attractive they look in the light of Christ.
Wake up from your sleep,
Climb out of your coffins;
Christ will show you the light!
Our word for today.
A Reading from the Gospel of John 9
Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. He spat in the dust, made a clay paste with saliva, rubbed the paste on the blind man’s eyes, and said, “Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “Sent”). The man went and washed—and saw. Soon the town was buzzing. His relatives and those who year after year had seen him as a blind man begging, were saying, “Why, isn’t this the man we knew, who sat here and begged?” Others said, “It’s him all right!” But others objected, “It’s not the same man at all. It just looks like him.” He said, “It’s me, the very one.”
They marched the man to the Pharisees. This day when Jesus made the paste and healed the blindness was the Sabbath. The Pharisees grilled the man again on how he had come to see. He said, “He put a clay paste on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “Obviously, this man can’t be from God. He doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” Others countered, “How can a bad man do miraculous things like this?” There was a split in their ranks. They came back at the blind man, “You’re the expert. He opened your eyes. What do you say about him?” He said, “He is a prophet.”
They said, “You’re nothing but dirt! How dare you take that tone with us!” Then they threw him out in the street. Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and went and found him. He asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man said, “Point him out to me, sir, so that I can believe in him. Jesus said, “You’re looking right at him. Don’t you recognize my voice?” “Master, I believe,” the man said, and worshiped him.
The Good News of John
The Gospel of Matthew and the Jewish Synagogue—Talk Three
We ended last week talking about how the growing number of Gentile converts to Jesus followers began to literalize the Jesus stories, a practice the original writers of the gospels could never have imagined. The original followers of Jesus had been relating him to the Hebrew Scriptures and incorporating his memory into Jewish liturgical practices in the synagogue. They were writing Jewish interpretations of the Jesus experience, not biographical accounts or historical tales. What Bishop Spong calls the heresy of Christian literalism, comes in both a Catholic and, since the 16th century Reformation begun by Martin Luther, also a Protestant form. Spong attributes this to a misunderstanding of the Jewish gospels’ message, the period of Christian history he calls the “Gentile captivity” began and held sway until the middle of the 20th century.
Bishop Spong’s thesis is that the same thing that organized the Jewish synagogue year, also organized the memory of Jesus and the writing of the three synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke) and even the gospel of John. The data supporting this conclusion are overwhelming. It was the synagogue, after all, where the words of Jesus and the narratives about Jesus were preserved before they came to be written down. By the time the written gospels appeared, Jesus had already been integrated into and wrapped inside the Hebrew Scriptures. These scriptures had been applied to him over and over and over, which could not have happened anywhere else except in the synagogue.
[See JEWISH LITURGICAL CALENDAR: MAJOR HOLY DAYS]
The author of Mark wrote the first Gospel. Matthew depended on Mark’s Jesus stories, copying ninety percent of them directly into his own Gospel. Mark was the first to use the liturgical calendar of the synagogue as the organizing guide for relating the story of Jesus. Mark, however, had Jesus stories for only 6 ½ months of the Jewish liturgical year. That lack of enough Jesus stories in Mark for the weekly Sabbath liturgies was considerable—from right after Passover to right before Rosh Hashanah. [See calendar above.]
The growing community of Christians in the synagogue wanted to have Jesus stories for the whole 12-months of Sabbath liturgies. To solve this, Matthew (and later Luke) front-end loaded Mark with new Jesus stories to cover the gap. Rather than being told in a chronological narrative, the Jesus stories were related to Jewish Scripture in line with the liturgical year of the synagogue, especially their six major Holy Days.
Here we go. The first great celebration in the Jewish liturgical year is Passover, which observes the beginning of the Jewish nation, the moment when the Jews came out of Egypt and began to fulfill their national destiny. Early Christians correlated the crucifixion of Jesus with the killing of the paschal lamb at Passover (story in Exodus). This had the effect of linking the final, climactic moment of the Christian story with the first great celebration of the Jewish liturgical year. So the end of the Christian story was told against the background of the first festival of the Jewish liturgical year. This dislocating fact has for centuries confused and hidden from Christian eyes how closely the gospels follow the synagogue’s liturgical pattern. Once we adjust to that, the Jewish year flows with integrity, and the Jesus story tracks the year magnificently.
Matthew’s Gospel had a double climax. The first climax was the crucifixion of Jesus, which he related to the Jewish Passover celebration (Matt. 26:20-27:66). The second climax was the Easter narrative, in which two Jesus appearance stories were told, one at the tomb in Jerusalem focused on the women (Matt. 28:1-15), and the other on a mountaintop in Galilee focused on the disciples (Matt. 28:16-20). Matthew placed these two Easter Jesus stories on the two Sabbaths after Passover.
The second great celebration of the Jewish year is called Pentecost, fifty days after Passover (“pente” means “fifty”). Its Jewish name is Shavuot, Hebrew for “weeks” (seven weeks after Pentecost). This celebration is the time when the Jews recalled Moses receiving the Law from God on Mt. Sinai (in our Gregorian calendar this is near the end of May or early June).
The third great liturgical celebration is called Rosh Hashanah or the Jewish New Year (in late September or early October). This is when the Jewish people thought about the end of history and prayed for the coming of the Messiah to inaugurate the kingdom of God on earth. Rosh Hashanah was actually the first of three observances held in quick succession in the same 7th month of the Jewish year.
Ten days after Rosh Hashanah comes the fourth great celebration, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which combined with Rosh Hashanah was called the High Holy Days.
Eight days after Yom Kippur came the fifth great celebration of Sukkoth, a kind of Jewish Thanksgiving Day which, at the time of Jesus was a highly anticipated and enjoyed festival (in our calendar it’s in November).
In the month of Kislev, roughly our December, comes the sixth great celebration called Dedication, its Jewish name is Hanukkah. It is a “festival of light” telling the story of how the light of “true worship” was restored to the Temple.
There were a couple of other minor observances not listed here. About three months then pass until the Jews were back to the first month of their year, Nisan, and the beginning of the new liturgical year (around March in our calendar). Spong’s concluded that Matthew organized Jesus stories around this liturgical year of the synagogue, organizing all 52 weeks of the year with stories for those great celebrations and for all the weeks between them.
An example of how Matthew juxtaposed Jesus stories on the Sabbath weeks of and between the Jewish Holy Days goes like this. There were fifty days or 7 weeks between Passover and Shavuot (Pentecost). Matthew used the first two Sabbaths of those 7 weeks to tell his story of Easter, concluding the story of Jesus’ life. Approaching Shavuot he filled the next 5 Sabbaths with Jesus stories laying the groundwork for his entire gospel and introducing Jesus with his birth, baptism, temptation, and the start of his public ministry. As the Shavuot celebration recalls the moment God delivered God’s Law to Moses, Matthew introduces Jesus (the new Moses), who will bring the world a new God’s Law.
Those 5 Jesus stories are: The genealogy and birth of Jesus (Matt. 1); the wise men and Herod (Matt. 2); John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism (Matt. 3); the story of the temptation (Matt. 4); concluding with the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (Matt. 4).
Rosemary's Blessing:
In this time of COVID-19, we pray:
Loving God, when we aren’t sure, help us be calm;
when information comes from all sides, correct and not, help us discern;
help us reach out with our hearts when we can’t reach out with our hands;
help us be socially connected when we have to be socially distant;
help us love as perfectly as we can knowing that “perfect love casts out fear.”
For the doctors, nurses, technicians, aides, caregivers and janitors, we pray.
For the researchers and theorists, epidemiologists and investigators, we pray.
For those who are sick, grieving and all affected around the world, we pray.
For safety, health and wholeness, we pray.
May we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, house those without homes;
may we walk with those who feel they are alone, and may we do all we can to heal the sick –
in spite of the pandemic, in spite of the fear.
Help us, O God, that we may help each other.
In the love of the Creator, in the name of the Healer, in the life of the Holy Spirit that is in all and with all, we pray. Amen.
From A Reflection and Prayer by S. Jean Amore, CSJ, adapted from Right Rev. Richard Bott, originally posted on Facebook by United Church of Canada
