#year b

It’s supposed to be Christ the King Sunday. We’re supposed to be looking at these passages and thinking about the reign of Christ and how that’s a different kind of thing than the usual kind of ruler and the usual kind of kingdom. The Gospel passage sets that kind of message up with a scene from the Good Friday sequence: Jesus interrogated by Pilate who is mostly concerned with figuring out of…

The blind man begging at the side of the road knows exactly what he wants. He asks for it directly without hedging his request. He wants to see. too breaks social conventions in asking, shouting from the side of the road despite the crowd’s attempts to shut him up. There may be more than just concern for rudeness. Identitying Jesus as the son of David is undoubtedly a political statement and I…

The sons of Zebedee are trying to ensure themselves special places in the Kingdom. They seem to envision some kind of banquet or court with Jesus in the most prominent position and others with honored or powerful positions arrayed around him according to the rules of precedence. They want to lock down the two most important positions for themselves. We’ve heard for several weeks in a row now.…

There are still rich people looking to live forever. These days it’s usually by taking experiential anti-aging treatments and throwing money at people who claim to be working on a cure for aging. The rich young man in this story comes looking for an inheritance: Something he can claim, own, hold on to. Instead he finds himself invited to join the Kingdom of God. It’s not what he wanted, not what…

Jesus is talking about welcoming children again you’d think we’d have that covered, but apparently the disciples still haven’t figured it out. Anyway, I don’t really want to write about that again so instead let’s talk about Job. This is a kind of disturbing little story. To settle a private bet, God allows great misfortune to come to one of his loyal followers. His children are killed and his…

The piece in this week’s passage about the millstone and chopping off of hands is often snipped out of its context and used as a general response to sin. It becomes a kind of purity talking point that says if you sin or allow others to sin then you should be punished. However, I think this week’s Gospel text really wants to be read together with last week’s so let’s just remind ourselves of the…

We’ve jumped ahead here to follow the same theme. Last week we saw Jesus responding to ideas about a messiah with a reminder that he’s come to die and that following him will require self sacrifice. This week, he’s again trying to tell them that the path they’re on isn’t one of status, glory, or personal gain. This time it’s in response to their squabbling among themselves about who is the…

Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus begins to teach his disciples something of what he’s about. The way this passage is structured it feels like that’s in response to Peter’s declaration as a correction or an expansion on that idea. Jesus doesn’t confirm or deny Peter’s declaration. He just starts in on this lesson. The word “Messiah” comes with baggage. Back when this interaction…