Above:  Cain and Abel

Genesis and Mark, Part V:  Sin and Attitudes

FEBRUARY 18, 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 4:1-26

Psalm 84 (Morning)

Psalms 42 and 32 (Evening)

Mark 2:18-28

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Some Related Posts:

Prayer:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/prayer-for-the-first-sunday-in-lent/

Prayer of Praise and Adoration:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/prayer-of-praise-and-adoration-for-the-first-sunday-in-lent/

Prayer of Confession:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/prayer-of-confession-for-the-first-sunday-in-lent/

Prayer of Dedication:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/prayer-of-dedication-for-the-first-sunday-in-lent/

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Much time had passed since the days when the Law of Moses was relatively new.  Lifestyles had changed, as had social, cultural, and political realities.  Yet, within Judaism, the Law of Moses remained a divine instructions.  So teachers interpreted the Law to fit within their then-current contexts.  That was essential background for grasping correctly one reason that Jesus irritated so many people so much.  Keeping the Law just so was not a mater of maliciousness; it was an issue of both righteousness and identity, as practitioners understood them.

Jesus walks around, heals many people on the Sabbath, plucks ears of corn on the Sabbath, and eats with notorious sinners.  In so doing he called into question the basis of the lived faith of many people.  He was courting danger.  I wonder, in fact, how well many self-described Christians of today would respond to a preacher who questioned traditional doctrines and practices and dined with notorious sinners.  I leave that question with you, O reader.  And I ask how I would respond to such a person.

Jesus argued by words and words that his critics had gotten the Law wrong.  They had ossified it, despite their attempts to reinterpret it for new circumstances.  They had focused so much on arbitrary rules that they had overlooked human necessities.  They needed to be flexible.  They needed to allow for grace more than they did.

Meanwhile, in Genesis 4, there were two brothers–Cain, an agriculturalist, and Abel, a pastoralist.  Both made offerings to God, who accepted that of Abel but rejected that of Cain.  The story implies (by lack of details concerning Cain’s offering) that his was substandard.  The text does indicate clearly that Cain had a bad attitude.  He did kill Abel, after all.  Yet the murderer came under divine protection.  He lived the rest of his life in exile, but he had divine protection.  Grace and judgment coexisted.

God, addressing Cain in verse 7 said,

Surely if you do right,

There is uplift.

But if you do not do right

Sin crouches at the door;

It urge is toward you,

Yet you can be its master.

—TANAKH:  The Holy Scripures

The image of sin crouching at the door as if to ambush one is vivid.  Sin mastered the character of Cain.  That was not a foregone conclusion, though.  And sin need not master any of us.  I suspect that when sin approaches most often, it does so dressed up as righteousness.  In Mark 2, it convinced some people because it came in the guise of Sabbath law.

We must be on guard against the appearance of righteousness without the substance thereof.  And we must also mind our attitudes.  Cain had a bad attitude in Genesis 4.  Our Lord’s opponents in Mark 2 also had bad attitudes.  A good attitude alone is insufficient for righteousness, but it cannot hurt–and it can help.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 7, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT DOMITION OF HUY, ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP

THE FEAST OF HARRIET STARR CANNON, COFOUNDER OF THE COMMUNITY OF SAINT MARY

THE FEAST OF SAINT ROSE VENERINI, FOUNDER OF THE VENERINI SISTERS

THE FEAST OF SAINT THEODARD OF NARBONNE, ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP, AND SAINTS JUSTUS AND PASTOR, MARTYRS

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/genesis-and-mark-part-v-sin-and-attitudes/

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Above:  St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church, Athens, Georgia, October 31, 2010

Image Source = Bill Monk, Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta

Genesis and Mark, Part IV:  Sin and Food

FEBRUARY 17, 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 3:1-24

Psalm 43 (Morning)

Psalms 31 and 143 (Evening)

Mark 2:1-17

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A Related Post:

Prayer:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/prayer-for-saturday-after-ash-wednesday/

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The LORD spoke further to Moses:  Speak to Aaron and say:  No man of your offspring throughout the ages who has a defect shall be qualified to offer the food of his God.  No one at all who has a defect shall be qualified:  no man who is blind, or lame, or has a limb too short or too long; no man who has a broken leg or a broken arm; or who is a hunchback, or a dwarf, or who has a growth in his eye, or who has a boil-scar, or scruvy, or crushed testes.  No man among the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a defect shall be qualified to offer the food of his God.  He may eat of the food of his  God, of the most holy as well as of the holy; but he shall not enter behind the curtain or come near the altar, for he has a defect.  He shall not profane the places sacred to Me, for I the LORD have sanctified them.

Thus Moses spoke to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites.

–Leviticus 21:16-24, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

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On the day that you elevate the sheaf, you shall offer as a burnt offering to the LORD a lamb of the first year without blemish.

–Leviticus 23:12, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

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The mythology in Genesis 3 tells  the familiar tale of the eating of forbidden fruit and of the subsequent blaming of one another for one’s sin.  In the story Adam is responsible for his sin and Eve for hers.  The cost they paid entailed exile from the Garden of Eden.

Sin is a word I hear used often.  Yet I wonder how many people know what it means.  The catechism from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer defines sin as

…the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.  (page 848)

And, as Paragraph 705 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains,

Disfigured by sin and death, man remains “in the image of God,” in the image of the Son, but is deprived of “the glory of God,” of his “likeness.” The promise made to Abraham inaugurates the economy of salvation, at which the Son himself will assume that “image” and restore it in the Father’s “likeness” by giving it again its Glory, the Spirit who is “the giver of life.”

(The scriptural citations in the notes to this paragraph are Romans 3:23, John 1:14, and Philippians 2:7.)

Concern over maintaining the image of God provided the rationale for the list of “defects” which disqualified one from offering sacrifices to God in Leviticus 21:16-24.  And a sacrificial lamb had to be unblemished.  Furthermore, there was, at the time of Jesus, a long-standing assumed connection between sin and suffering, despite the Book of Job.  So the physically disabled and different had to cope with that attitude.  Certainly many of them internalized it.

Thus we arrive at Mark 2 and the paralyzed man with some very good friends.  Jesus treated all the man’s needs.  Our Lord, the author tells us, also attracted criticisms.  As a sign I have reads,

FOR EVERY ACTION THERE IS AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE CRITICISM.

Next in the Markan sequence Jesus calls Levi/Matthew, literally a tax thief for the occupying forces, to be an Apostle.  Then our Lord dines with Levi/Matthew and other notorious sinners and outcast people, attracting more criticism.

Jesus liked outcasts.  So far in Mark 2, for example, he has healed one, called another to be a close associate, and dined with a group.

Table fellowship was a serious matter for observant Pharisees and other Jews.  It was a question of maintaining one’s identity as a member of a visible minority.  This fact explains much of why many early Jewish Christians insisted that Gentile converts to Christianity become Jews and obey the Law of Moses.  I propose that Jesus also took table fellowship seriously–but as a means of including people, not excluding them, as a means of associating with them, not keeping oneself apart from them.

I have heard a Russian proverb:

A good meal is not one eats but with whom one eats.

Perceptions of sin–real or imagined, depending on circumstances–need not separate us from God or each other.  We are all in the big boat of sin.  And God forgives quite often.  When God draws near, may we reciprocate.

At my parish, St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church, Athens, Georgia, we take the Holy Eucharist each Sunday.  (The 1979 Book of Common Prayer defines taking the Holy Eucharist as the central act of Christian worship.  In pre-1979 BCP days, it was common to take communion less often than every Sunday.)  Printed in the Sunday bulletin at St. Gregory the Great Church is this invitation:

Whoever you are and wherever you are in your journey of faith, know that you are welcome to join with us at the table of the Lord and to share in the bread and wine made holy.

And it is an excellent meal.  Jesus there in the bread and wine.  And the company is excellent.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 2, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT SIGISMUND OF BURBGUNDY, KING; SAINT CLOTILDA, FRANKISH QUEEN; AND SAINT CLODOALD, FRANKISH MONK AND ABBOT

THE FEAST OF SAINT ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, ROMAN CATHOLIC THEOLOGIAN

THE FEAST OF JAMES LEWIS MILLIGAN, HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINT MARCULF OF NANTEUIL, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/genesis-and-mark-part-iv-sin-and-food/

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