Above:  A Good Shepherd Mosaic from Ravenna, Italy

Image in the Public Domain

Shepherds, Part I

APRIL 18-20, 2024

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The Collect:

O Lord Christ, good shepherd of the sheep,

you seek the lost and guide us into your fold.

Feed us, and we shall be satisfied;

heal us, and we shall be whole.

Make us one with you, for you live and reign with the Father

and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 33

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The Assigned Readings:

Genesis 30:25-43 (Thursday)

Genesis 46:28-47:6 (Friday)

Genesis 48:8-19 (Saturday)

Psalm 23 (All Days)

Acts 3:17-36 (Thursday)

Acts 4:1-4 (Friday)

Mark 6:30-34 (Saturday)

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The LORD is my shepherd;

I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me to water in places of repose;

He renews my life;

He guides me in right paths

as befits His name.

Though I walk through a valley of deepest darkness,

I fear no harm, for You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff–they comfort me.

You spread a table for me in full view of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil;

my drink is abundant.

Only goodness and steadfast love shall pursue me

all the days of my life;

and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for many years.

–Psalm 23, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures (1985)

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The theme for these three days is shepherds.

Shepherds functioned as interesting metaphors.  They were essential to the economy yet were far from respectable and pleasant smelling.  Nevertheless, monarchs were metaphorical shepherds of their kingdoms.  And Jesus, of course, became known as the Good Shepherd.

Jacob/Israel was a shepherd and a trickster.  Laban, his father-in-law, tricked him, so Jacob/Israel returned the favor, won his independence from Laban, and became wealthy.  The patriarch, due to a lie most of his sons told him, mourned one son, Joseph, whom he thought was dead.  Happily, Joseph was alive in Egypt.  Jacob/Israel, reunited with Joseph, blessed his grandchildren via that son, surprising Joseph by announcing that the second grandson’s descendants would be more prominent than those of the first.  The name of Ephraim became synonymous with the Kingdom of Israel (northern), which, like the Kingdom of Judah (southern), had plenty of bad kings.

Many earthly “shepherds,” Biblical prophets proclaimed, fell short of the divinely set standards of proper governance.  A proper “shepherd,” they said, opposed idolatry, economic injustice, and judicial corruption.  He looks after the interests of people who have nobody else to protect them, the prophets said.

A shepherd needs the sheep at least as much as the sheep need him.  What is a shepherd without sheep?  Who is a leader without followers?  What is a creator without a creation?  Such an interpretation troubles some, I know, but I did not create the metaphor.  No, I merely explore its implications faithfully and intellectually honestly.

Jesus, our Good Shepherd, has pity on us, for we are like sheep without a shepherd.  We are inclined to go astray easily, so we need the proper guidance.  May we heed it.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 18, 2014 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF MARC BOEGNER, ECUMENIST

THE FEAST OF DOROTHY SAYERS, NOVELIST

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/shepherds-part-i/

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Above:  Jerome Pradon as Judas Iscariot in Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)

(A Screen Capture I Took Via PowerDVD)

Genesis and Mark, Part XXIV:  Disappointment, Grudges, Revenge, and Forgiveness

MARCH 16, 2024

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Genesis 49:29-50:7, 14-26

Psalm 43 (Morning)

Psalms 31 and 143 (Evening)

Mark 14:1-11

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A Related Post:

Prayer:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/prayer-for-saturday-in-the-fourth-week-of-lent/

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After everything from Genesis 45 forward, Joseph’s brothers still feared that he might bear a grudge against them.  He did not, fortunately.  Yet, in Mark 14:10-11, Judas Iscariot had a reason (which made sense to him) to agree to betray Jesus.  The placement of those verses immediately after an unnamed woman anointed our Lord’s head implies a link (explicit elsewhere) between the two.

The story of a woman anointing Jesus, by the way, occurs in some form in each of the four canonical Gospels.  The other citations are Matthew 26:6-13, Luke 7:36-50, and John 12:1-8.  Each account, although different from the others, contains the same core.

Back to our regular programming…..

Jesus will be at Gethsemane before Mark 14 ends.  That is how close to the end of that Gospel we are.  Yes, one unifying thread between the Old Testament and the New Testament readings is death.  Jacob died in Genesis 49 and Jesus was about to die in Mark 14.  And how did fears and anger play out at these occasions?  Joseph repeated his forgiveness of his brothers.  Chief priests, scribes, and Judas Iscariot plotted our Lord’s death.

Judas was arguably disappointed in Jesus, who seemed insufficiently zealous against the occupying Romans.  Those with whom Judas conspired collaborated with the Romans.  So these were natural enemies who became temporary allies for the sake of convenience.  It was all very unseemly.

Joseph could afford to forgive, of course; he was a powerful man in Egypt.  Yet powerful people have nursed old grudges.  But, even more impressive than Joseph’s forgiveness was that of Jesus, who did not even take a grudge to his cross.  That is a fine example to ponder.

As for me, I know about deep, abiding, and justified anger.  My time as a doctoral student at the Department of History of The University of Georgia was traumatic, ending prematurely.  I never came close to the desired credential.  My anger was justified.  Yet it was also spiritually poisonous, so I had to relinquish it.  I harmed myself inwardly while those who committed academic abuse faced no consequences.  The grudge was a burden too heavy to continue to bear.

As for judgment or mercy, I leave that to God.

Revenge is always a burden too heavy to bear; may each of us in the human race drop it if we are carrying it and refuse to  pick it up if we are not carrying it.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 23, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT DESIDERIUS/DIDIER OF VIENNE, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP

THE FEAST OF SAINT GUIBERT OF GORZE, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK

THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN BAPTIST ROSSI, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST

THE FEAST OF NICOLAUS COPERNICUS, SCIENTIST

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/genesis-and-mark-part-xxiv-disappointment-grudges-revenge-and-forgiveness/

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https://neatnik2009.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/uga-and-me/

Above:  The New Jerusalem

Genesis and Mark, Part XXIII: Human and Divine Economics

MARCH 14 and 15, 2024

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Genesis 45:1-20, 24-28 (26th Day of Lent)

Genesis 47:1-31 (27th Day of Lent)

Psalm 38 (Morning–26th Day of Lent)

Psalm 22 (Morning–27th Day of Lent)

Psalms 126 and 102 (Evening–26th Day of Lent)

Psalms 107 and 130 (Evening–27th Day of Lent)

Mark 13:1-23 (26th Day of Lent)

Mark 13:24-37 (27th Day of Lent)

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Some Related Posts:

New Every Morning is the Love:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/new-every-morning-is-the-love-by-john-keble/

For Social Righteousness:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/for-social-righteousness/

O Lord, You Gave Your Servant John:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/o-lord-you-gave-your-servant-john/

For the Kingdom of God:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/for-the-kingdom-of-god-by-walter-rauschenbusch/

O Day of Peace That Dimly Shines:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/o-day-of-peace-that-dimly-shines/

Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/where-cross-the-crowded-ways-of-life/

Prayers:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/prayer-for-thursday-in-the-fourth-week-of-lent/

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/prayer-for-friday-in-the-fourth-week-of-lent/

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In Genesis we read of the family reunion Joseph engineered.  And there is better news:  relocation to fertile land, courtesy of the Pharaoh.  Then there is bad news:  the reduction of Egyptians to slaves of the monarch, courtesy of Joseph.

So Joseph gained possession of all the farm land of Egypt because the famine was too much for them; thus the land passed over to Pharaoh.  And he removed the population town by town, fro one end of Egypt’s borders to the other….

–Genesis 47:20-21, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

And the author of the text does not disapprove.

It is a disturbing and frequently overlooked part of the Bible.

Meanwhile, in Mark 13, which is full of disturbing passages, we read of, among other things, wars, universal hatred, kangaroo courts, family betrayals, imperiled infants, and natural portents.  This is not a chapter one illustrates for children’s Bibles, I suppose.  Yet there is good news after the great eschatatological event:  After God destroys the world or just the current world order, something better will follow.

In this post we have the happy mixed with the disturbing (in Genesis) and the disturbing preceding the happy (in Mark).  Establishing the links between the Old Testament and the New Testament readings has proved more challenging this time, but I do have something to offer you, O reader.  Joseph and the Pharaoh did not create what John of Patmos called the New Jerusalem.  Neither did they make a more just society.  That is what lies on the other side of the great eschatological process in the Bible.  Yet we mere mortals retain the responsibility to act individually and collectively to leave our part of the world better than we found it.  The poor might always be with us, but there can still be less poverty.  There is always enough for everyone to have enough in God’s economy.  May our human economies resemble God’s economy more closely.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 22, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF RICHARD BIGGS, ACTOR

THE FEAST OF ROTA WAITOA, ANGLICAN PRIEST

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/genesis-and-mark-part-xxiii-human-and-divine-economics/

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Above:  The Widow’s Mite

Image Sources = Johannes Bockh and Thomas Mirtsch

Genesis and Mark, Part XXII: Sincerity (Or the Lack Thereof)

MARCH 12 and 13, 2024

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Genesis 43:1-28 (24th Day of Lent)

Genesis 44:1-18, 32-34 (25th Day of Lent)

Psalm 34 (Morning–24th Day of Lent)

Psalm 5 (Morning–25th Day of Lent)

Psalms 25 and 91 (Evening–24th Day of Lent)

Psalms 27 and 51 (Evening–25th Day of Lent)

Mark 12:13-27 (24th Day of Lent)

Mark 12:28-41 (25th Day of Lent)

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Some Related Posts:

Prayers:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/prayer-for-tuesday-in-the-fourth-week-of-lent/

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/prayer-for-wednesday-in-the-fourth-week-of-lent/

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As I read the assigned lessons I arrived at a unifying theme:  sincerity (or the lack thereof).  Joseph’s brothers demonstrated the sincerity of their change of heart by

1. not objecting to preferential treatment for Benjamin, the youngest brother, in Genesis 43:33-34, and
2. defending Benjamin, whom they thought was about to become a slave in Genesis 44:18-34.

They passed the test with flying colors.

In contrast, collaborators tried to trick Jesus into sounding like a rebel in Mark 12:13-17.  There were more Roman soldiers than usual in the city at the time.  But Jesus was no fool.  And the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection of the dead, asked an obvious trick question about levirate marriage and the afterlife.  Yet our Lord did field an honest question–one regarding the greatest commandment–and witnessed a desperately poor widow make an offering.  In the immediately prior passage he had denounced scribes who

devour the property of widows….

–Mark 12:40b, The New Jerusalem Bible

I have covered the widow’s mite in other posts linked to this one, but I choose to write the following here and now:  The widow should have kept her money and spent it on her needs.  But at least she was sincere.

May we refrain from playing destructive games with God and each other.  Instead, may we seek the best for each other and the community, be honest in that, and be sincere in our love.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 22, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF RICHARD BIGGS, ACTOR

THE FEAST OF ROTA WAITOA, ANGLICAN PRIEST

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/genesis-and-mark-part-xxii-sincerity-or-the-lack-thereof/

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Above:  The Wicked Husbandmen

Genesis and Mark, Part XXI:  Reconciliation Versus Destruction

MARCH 11, 2024

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Genesis 42:1-34, 38

Psalm 119:73-80 (Morning)

Psalms 121 and 6 (Evening)

Mark 12:1-12

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A Related Post:

Prayer:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/prayer-for-monday-in-the-fourth-week-of-lent/

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Selling anyone into slavery is a wicked act.  That statement seems self-evident, does it not?  Yet that is what Joseph’s brothers plotted to do to him.  And so he went to Egypt involuntarily.  Years later, with severe famine widespread, most of these brothers met Joseph again without recognizing him.  And he tested them while setting in motion plans for a family reunion.  In return for wickedness there was grace, even if it wore a disguise.

In contrast we have the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, which we find in all three Synoptic Gospels.  (It also appears in Matthew 21:33-46 and Luke 20:9-19.)  The chronology in each case is quite similar:  It is Holy Week, Jesus having expelled the money changers from the Temple recently.  The accounts from Mark and Luke end in the same way, more or less, as does that of Matthew, but the latter adds an explicit wrinkle left implicit in the other Gospels:

I tell you, then, that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.

–Matthew 21:43, The New Jerusalem Bible

This is a troublesome parable.  God looks like an absentee landlord who demands the fruits of other’s labor.  So one might sympathize with the frustrations, if not the violence, of the wicked tenants.  Yet that is beside the point.  In textual context, Jesus is the murdered son and the Temple authorities are the wicked tenants.  Read in the context of the First Jewish War and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, events in the shadows of which the canonical Gospels exist, the Christians (many of them Jewish at the time) are the new tenants.

Such stories have become fodder for Anti-Semites.  This is most unfortunate.  I reject hatred toward any group of people, especially the Jews, the truck of the tree onto which my branch, the Gentiles, is grafted, by grace.

So we have two responses to evil:  reconciliation and destruction.  The latter attitude, as reflected in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, is understandable in the context of the long and messy separation of Christianity from Judaism.  The earliest canonical Gospel, Mark, dates to no earlier than 67 CE.  John, likely the latest one, probably comes from the 90s.  Mutual anger, resentment, and misunderstanding characterized the parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity, its offspring.  The canonical Gospels are documents from that particular era, so they reflect the time of their origin.  We humans recall and retell the past in the context of our present; the Gospels are consistent with this rule.

Reconciliation is preferable to destruction, anger, resentment, and misunderstanding.  It is not always possible, for reconciliation is a mutual state.  Yet, if reconciliation does prove impossible because one party is unwilling, the willing party can forgive and refuse to hold a grudge any longer, if at all.  And that is better than mutual hostility.  Did Jesus condemn from the cross?  No, he forgave!  May we, by grace, follow his example and forgive–reconcile, if possible.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 22, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF RICHARD BIGGS, ACTOR

THE FEAST OF ROTA WAITOA, ANGLICAN PRIEST

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/genesis-and-mark-part-xxi-reconciliation-versus-destruction/

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Above:  Expulsion of the Money Changers from the Temple, by Giotto

Genesis and Mark, Part XX:  Reform or Revolution?

MARCH 10, 2024

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Genesis 41:28-57

Psalm 84 (Morning)

Psalms 42 and 32 (Evening)

Mark 11:20-33

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Some Related Posts:

Prayer:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/prayer-for-the-fourth-sunday-in-lent/

Prayer of Praise and Adoration:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/prayer-of-praise-and-adoration-for-the-fourth-sunday-in-lent/

Prayer of Confession:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/prayer-of-confession-for-the-fourth-sunday-in-lent/

Prayer of Dedication:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/prayer-of-dedication-for-the-fourth-sunday-in-lent/

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 There is a time to work through the system.  And there is a time to confront it.

The Pharonic system was inherently exploitative, creating artificial scarcity.  It was also an absolute monarchy.  There was no constitution or a concept of civil liberties.  So nobody was preparing to found the Egyptian Civil Liberties Union (ECLU), with its infamous papyrus card-carrying members.  Tyranny was the political system.  Yet Joseph used it to feed many people (domestic and foreign) during a severe and prolonged famine.  (Later in Genesis he also enslaved Egyptians to the Pharoah in exchange for food, and the monarch moved people off what had once been their land.  There was no excuse for that, but I am getting ahead of myself.)  Joseph, at this point (Chapter 41) in Genesis, did something great, concrete, and positive.

The Temple system was also inherently exploitative, requiring poor people to pay money changers so that they (the poor) could buy sacrificial animals with currency not tainted with the Roman claim of imperial divinity, and therefore with idolatry.  And the currency changers turned a nice profit, as did the Temple itself.  So Jesus condemned religious profiteering.  Even worse, the Temple, next door to a Roman fortress which towered over it, was the center of collaboration with the occupying Romans.  The timing was also sensitive, for the Passover was the commemoration of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  So the politics added up, including another attempt to entrap Jesus in his own words.  He, of course, was the superior debater.

There is a time to work through the system in place and therefore to accomplish more good than staging a revolution would permit.  I have not doubt that the New Deal would have faced more difficulties and been less effective had President Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed for civil rights for African Americans more than he did.  Jim Crow politicians in the South would have erected more barriers than they did.  The lesson is simple:  The perfect must not become the enemy of the good.

Yet there is also a time to confront the system.  The British did have to leave the Indian Subcontinent, for example:  Mohandas Gandhi was correct.  And Apartheid did have to end in the Republic of South Africa, just as Jim Crow had to fall in the United States.  So it is wrong to just a little good when one can do a great deal instead.

May we always know what time it is–time to work through the system and reform it or time to confront it.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 22, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF RICHARD BIGGS, ACTOR

THE FEAST OF ROTA WAITOA, ANGLICAN PRIEST

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/genesis-and-mark-part-xx-reform-or-revolution/

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Above:  Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

Genesis and Mark, Part XIX: Leadership and Service

MARCH 8 and 9, 2024

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Genesis 40:1-23 (21st Day of Lent)

Genesis 41:1-27 (22nd Day of Lent)

Psalm 22 (Morning–21st Day of Lent)

Psalm 43 (Morning–22nd Day of Lent)

Psalms 107 and 130 (Evening–21st Day of Lent)

Psalms 31 and 143 (Evening–22nd Day of Lent)

Mark 10:32-50 (21st Day of Lent)

Mark 11:1-19 (22nd Day of Lent)

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Some Related Posts:

Prayers:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/prayer-for-friday-in-the-third-week-of-lent/

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/prayer-for-saturday-in-the-third-week-of-lent/

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Back in Mark 10:13-16 Jesus taught his Apostles regarding the Kingdom of God:  Powerless children were the exemplars to emulate.  Yet, in Mark 10:35-40, James and John, our Lord’s cousins, requested preferential treatment.  They did not yet grasp that leadership in God’s order is about service, not status.  Then Jesus provided some examples.  We read in the Markan narrative of our Lord healing a blind man (whom others were trying to keep quiet) and entering Jerusalem not as a conquering hero for the final Passover Week of his earthly life.

Meanwhile, back in Genesis, Joseph was in prison for an offense he did not commit.  At least he was the de facto assistant warden, with all the privileges attached to that position.  But he was still an innocent man in prison.  And the chief cup bearer had forgotten his promise to speak to the Pharaoh on his behalf for a while–until he remembered.  The chief cup bearer was of no service to Joseph for a long time.

We humans are responsible for one another.  We do not act like it as often as we should, but we are.  And living this responsibility might entail great risk–even death.  It did for Jesus and James.  John survived his risks, enduring hardships yet not suffering martyrdom.  Joseph, of course, prospered and shared the wealth with his relatives, some of whom had plotted to kill him then decided merely to sell him into slavery.  I cannot say for certain where my path of service will lead me, much less where your path of service will lead you, O reader.  Yet I can say that the path of service is part of the Kingdom of God and a matter of Christian discipleship.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 22, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF RICHARD BIGGS, ACTOR

THE FEAST OF ROTA WAITOA, ANGLICAN PRIEST

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/genesis-and-mark-part-xix-leadership-and-service/

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Above:  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Image Source = Library of Congress

Genesis and Mark, Part XVIII: True Human Worth

MARCH 6 and 7, 2024

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Genesis 37:1-36 (19th Day of Lent)

Genesis 39:1-12 (20th Day of Lent)

Psalm 5 (Morning–19th Day of Lent)

Psalm 38 (Morning–20th Day of Lent)

Psalms 27 and 51 (Evening–19th Day of Lent)

Psalms 126 and 102 (Evening–20th Day of Lent)

Mark 10:1-12 (19th Day of Lent)

Mark 10:13-31 (20th Day of Lent)

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Some Related Posts:

A Prayer to See Others as God Sees Them:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/a-prayer-to-see-others-as-god-sees-them/

Prayers:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/prayer-for-wednesday-in-the-third-week-of-lent/

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/prayer-for-thursday-in-the-third-week-of-lent/

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We must rapidly begin to shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society.  When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

–The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., Riverside Church, New York, New York, April 4, 1967

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People matter to God.  That is an ethic I discern from many biblical passages, including pronouncements of the Hebrew Prophets and of Jesus.  And so how we treat each other matters to God.  Joseph may have been annoying, but he was still part of the family.  Women are people, not marital property to discard lightly. The most powerless among us are poster children for the Kingdom of God.  And we ought to be more attached to each other than to our wealth.

These are timeless lessons many of us seem never to learn.  Martin Luther King, Jr., taught such lessons in April 1967, when he denounced U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and he lost much support.  Those who, for moral imperative love of country, criticize the government, especially during time of war, run the risk of incurring the wrath of jingoists.

Nevertheless, a basic truth remains:  People ought always to be valuable for who they are, never as financial commodities one can discard casually.  A person’s true worth is incalculable, for there is no spreadsheet designed to record such data.  So, O reader, the next times you look around and see other people, ask yourself how valuable they are to God, and so ought to be to you.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 22, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF RICHARD BIGGS, ACTOR

THE FEAST OF ROTA WAITOA, ANGLICAN PRIEST

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/genesis-and-mark-part-xviii-true-human-worth/

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