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Gathering a Holy Family
The Gospel tells us Jesus is born into a world made divisive, abusive, and deadly by rulers. The rulers are dominating the people, threatening Magi, and killing children. Jesus’ father, Joseph, understands the danger. He gathered his family together “and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt.” Given the…
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Authoring New Life: Challenge
We feel new life growing within us and realize we will face challenges in sharing the child we bring to birth. In today’s readings, neither Isaiah nor Paul give priority to new life. They give priority to old beliefs about obedience to the “House of David.” Paul’s priority on obedience to the warrior David…
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Authoring New Life: Future
We feel new life growing within us and are considering future consequences of our sharing new life. Will the future treat new life with kindness? Is there evidence instead the future will treat new life with vindictiveness? The Old Testament includes an ethic of vindictiveness. Isaiah and the Psalmist both write of an image…
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Authoring New Life: Past
We feel new life growing within us and want to be guided by peaceful people from our past who have shaped us. The prophet Isaiah writes about a past patriarch, King David. King David is a warmaker who teaches us to “strike the ruthless” and “slay the wicked” erroneously believing peace will follow. The…
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Authoring New Life: Homemaking
We feel new life growing within us and want to make a loving home from which to share our new life with the world. The Psalmist and the prophet Isaiah write about their love of the “house of the Lord.” We are advised to make our house just like the “house of God.” A…
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Freedom From Kings
The Old Testament reading describes the establishment of holy rule, “All the elders of Israel” stood “before the Lord” to “anoint David King.” The king takes command of the army and its soldiers, tortures enemies, and kills people. It is the command king takes in the Gospel, specifically torturing and killing Jesus. As Jesus…
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When It’s Safe
In the Old Testament scripture, Malachi promises people safety and salvation when he says their War “Lord God will come to his temple” and wage war. Under the command of the War Lord Yahweh and his War Lord soldiers “all enemies will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on…
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Holy Space
Today’s readings emphasize temples. The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, who repeatedly calls the people sinners, emphasizes that the “Lord God’s” “temple” is a holy space. In the Gospel, Jesus disrupts the activities of the “temple” and, given its rulers’ activities in it, he challenges belief about holy space. Religion asserts a belief in humanity’s…
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Soul Food
Sunday’s readings address souls. The Book of Wisdom talks of “the souls” who suffer because “God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them.” Paul’s Letter to the Romans talks of all souls as suffering “in slavery to sin”…
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Look Them in the Eye
Jesus tells a parable about two men in the temple. One is a Pharisee who “spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity – greedy, dishonest, adulterous – or even like this tax collector.’” But the tax collector stood off at a distance…