Jesus encounters fear in two persons he meets along his journey. One is a woman who fears being detected in public. She is stricken with a persistent flow of blood and to be in public is to be threatened with harm. The woman faces her fear. She risks a dangerous move. In a crowd,…
In Jesus’ time honor to parents, fathers specifically, was so highly valued male rulers sanctified it as a holy Commandment. In today’s Gospel Jesus tells a parable that shocks his listeners, “chief priests and elders.” These rulers are hypocritical keepers of that Commandment system of honor. Thus the rulers extol a son who publicly…
Worldly rulers are delusional about Jesus. They believe they need to protect themselves from him; a man who unifies, loves, and heals. Jesus understands their delusion and its violent intent. He tells disciples, “I will suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.” Peter’s response shows he is…
The Trinity is a notoriously abstract concept within institutional christianity. Today’s Gospel reading from John, who tends to be abstract, does not even hint at the Trinity. The three Synoptics Gospels, Mark, Matthew, and Luke are more descriptive of Jesus’ life witness and have no reference to the Trinity at all. The Trinity is…
What is it we who are not blind want to see? Do we want to see the true meaning of life? Do we want to see it as desperately as the man in this Sunday’s Gospel who is born blind wants to see the physical world? When Jesus heals the blind man people react…
We have been looking for a Messiah. He will be our savior to keep us pure, separate from the impure foreign infidels and their collaborators. We thought we found our savior in John and were baptized into his group. We had the sense we were emerging from this world’s darkness to find a light…
The phrase ‘baptism by fire’ is something of an oxymoron and has a connection to Jesus in this Sunday’s Gospel. Baptism signifies a refreshing and transforming relationship symbolized by a flow of water. That such a relationship starts with a blaze of fire signifies something much more radical. Jesus uses both meanings to describe…