Jesus was realistic about sin. However, he did not spend too much time or energy on the sins committed by common people. He spent more time and energy on the sins committed by rulers. Their personal and social sins caused far more harm – to the people. The harm was apparent to Jesus’s own…
Mary Magdalene met the challenge to change. She had been driven mad by a mad world, mad with oppression, mad with suffering. Her mad way of coping with the madness needed to end. She needed to make changes if she was to have a new life. Moving from no longer insanely coping with demons…
Is politics a joke? “Mommy, I wanna grow up and become a politician. Well honey, which is it? You can’t do both.” Politics is the rule of the master class. Sunday’s Old Testament reading shows Jeremiah concerned with politics within the narrow confines of nationalism, his chosen people, the Hebrews, and their ruling deity,…
Authors of the Old Testament portray Hebrews as the chosen people of their God, Yahweh. The chosen people value Yahweh in the same way they value the War Lords who invented him – he is their savior, their protector – as long as they are obedient. How then do authors explain the defeat of…
Scripture scholars treat Moses and his deity, Yahweh, as leaders. Moses is a military leader, a War Lord, as is the Yahweh deity he invented. They dominate, inflict suffering, and kill. Their military leadership is evident in Sunday’s first reading concerning the 10 Commandments. From Yahweh, “I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous…
Sunday’s first reading concerns child sacrifice. Yahweh wants Abraham to murder his young son, Isaac, as a test of faith. Will Abraham offer his son in a blood sacrifice ritual for Yahweh? It turns out that Abraham will. At the last moment, however, Yahweh stops Abraham but commends his willingness to obey the violent…
Sunday’s first reading makes the judgment all the earth and all her people are evil. One man alone is just, Noah. The Lord God of the Old Testament was thus believed to have saved only that one man and killed everything else. When everything living is dead, that Lord God promises not to do…
One of Jesus’ new disciples, Peter, has a sick mother-in-law. Jesus goes to her and heals her of a fever. Emerging from her solitude of suffering, she immediately begins to be of service to those in her home. When others learn Jesus healed her, it is written, “the whole town was at the door.”…