The Old Testament reading from Sirach glorifies the rule of law, telling people, “If you choose, you can keep the Lord’s commandments, they will save you.” The reading from Psalm 119 also glorifies the rule of law, using various synonyms across its many verses such as precepts, statutes, commandments, and judgments. The psalm extends…
Jesus tells a parable about a “judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being.” Jesus’ listeners know the truth about judges, men of status. Judges can act as tyrants, as this one does, specifically acting as a tyrant against a “widow.” Jesus’ listeners also know the truth about…
Jesus is talking to, “great crowds traveling with (him)” about the work of being his “disciple.” He tells a parable about “laying the foundation” and tells of others needed to “finish the work.” It requires we renounce our possessions, “anyone who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” Today’s accompanying New…
Jeremiah wants to conserve trust in the earthly War Lords who invented the heavenly War Lord, Yahweh, “Blessed is the one who trusts in Yahweh.” Jeremiah wants to dispel trust in the people, “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings.” Jesus blesses the people War Lords curse, “Blessed are you who are…
Peter is pondering a limit or cap on the number of times he needs to forgive someone. He says to Jesus, “If my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus famously responds, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” Who of us have…
The Old Testament reading includes priests demanding material resources from the people’s labor, “burnt offerings and sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar.” Priests burned some of the people’s offerings but stored most for themselves, in the Temple. The Temple operated as an early bank for rulers to withdraw deposits from the people’s labor…
The disciples were “all in one place together” when “tongues as of fire, parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Spirit and began to speak… as the Spirit enabled them.” They went out among people gathered together from across the world. It was not…
The Old Testament, “Lord,” Yahweh, wears a MAGA hat: Make Atonement Great Again. Atonement asserts reparations or payments be made from the common people to “the Lord.” But by way of the earthly ‘Lords’ who took money from common people they judged as “depraved” and deserving of “the Lord’s wrath.” For that atonement price,…
In today’s Gospel Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me without hating father and mother…they cannot be my disciple.” Jesus is undoing the esteem given to worldly position. Unfortunately, Paul, in the second reading, reasserts such esteem. Paul thus reassert patriarchy and slavery. Patriarchy is fatherly possessiveness over a lesser, for example a child…