{"id":294,"date":"2024-10-20T21:04:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T21:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/?p=294"},"modified":"2024-10-25T22:22:39","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T22:22:39","slug":"proper-26-year-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/?p=294","title":{"rendered":"Proper 26 Year B"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Ruth 1:1-18<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Seeking relief from the latest famine, Eliemlech, a Jew from Bethlehem, took his wife, Naomi, and their sons to Moab, (the land occupied with the tribe of descendants from Lot&#8217;s incest with his sister), which had become a large, powerful, separate nation.\u00a0 While there, his sons married Moabite women, Oprah and Ruth.\u00a0 Over the years, all three women were widowed.\u00a0 Naomi decided to return to Judah with her two Moabite daughters-in-law.\u00a0 On the journey, Naomi encourages Oprah and Ruth to return to their families in Moab, who would surely take them in and give them the protection she could not promise.\u00a0 They should return to their own &#8220;gods.&#8221;\u00a0 In a wrenching scene, Oprah leaves, but Ruth &#8220;clung&#8221; to her mother-in-law, despite Naomi&#8217;s discouragement.\u00a0 Ruth makes a moving declaration of her loyalty and affection. &#8220;Where you go I will go; where you lodge I will lodge; your God will be my God.\u00a0 Where you die, I will die&#8211; there will I be buried.&#8221;\u00a0 Hearing Ruth&#8217;s determination, Naomi &#8220;said no more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Psalm 146<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The psalmist praises the Lord for traits that always remain reliable.\u00a0 Unlike &#8220;princes,&#8221; whose plans go with them when they die, God is the maker and sustainer who always does justice.\u00a0 Here the psalmist lists specifically those who are always included in requirements for justice in the Torah and prophets: the oppressed, the hungry, the blind, the defamed, foreigners, orphans and widows. \u00a0&#8220;Lord will reign forever.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>OR<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Deuteronomy 9:11-14<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Walter Brueggemann regards this particular summary of the Law\u00a0 as an example of what he calls the &#8220;pedagogy of saturation,&#8221; which he defines as &#8220;speech&#8221; of a peculiar kind &#8220;&#8230;This speech is summons, demand, assurance, and invitation to belong to this community, and to the world uttered by this community.&#8221;\u00a0 <em>(Theology of the Old Testament, <\/em>p.722)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Psalm 119:1-8<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The longest of the psalms extols the inherent worthiness and personal benefits of memorizing the Lord&#8217;s precepts\/statutes\/commands\/righteous laws, which will never fail.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hebrews 9:11-14<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The writer of this &#8220;letter&#8221; recasts the ancient practices and teachings about Temple worship in a new interpretation, a new interpretation applied to Christ.\u00a0 As &#8220;High Priest,&#8221; Christ entered into the &#8220;Holy Place&#8221; not with the blood of animal sacrifice, but with his own blood.\u00a0 If the blood of animals can &#8220;sanctify,&#8221; the writer reasons, &#8220;How much more will the blood of Christ, through the eternal Spirit who offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to the living God!&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mark 12:28-34<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In Mark&#8217;s chronology, we are in the third day of the fateful week in which\u00a0 Jesus was executed.\u00a0 Mark has already established that the enemies of Jesus are out to discredit, embarrass, expose or trick him into self-incrimination, (12:13).\u00a0 But Mark&#8217;s narrative, (only among the gospel writers), takes a surprising twist.\u00a0 He introduces a Scribe who overhears the grilling Jesus is taking and initiates a conversation with Jesus with a straight-forward question: &#8220;which commandment is the first of all?&#8221;\u00a0 Mark writes that Jesus provides a conventional conflations&#8211; love of God and love of neighbor.\u00a0 The Scribe shows his agreement by providing his own, \u00a0similar summary.\u00a0 But then he adds unexpectedly, &#8220;this is much more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.&#8221;\u00a0 Jesus regards the Scribe as &#8220;wise&#8221; for saying this.\u00a0 He then tells the Scribe that his comment places him <em>close<\/em> &#8220;to the kingdom of God.&#8221;\u00a0 Mark notes that this exchange silences those who had been interrogating Jesus.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Biblical narratives maintain a paradox, which they make no attempt to resolve.\u00a0 On the one hand, there is a high regard for tradition (the psalmist extols the wisdom of memorizing God&#8217;s &#8220;precepts&#8221;); on the other hand there is an awareness that these texts, no matter how venerable or beloved, contain something that disrupts tradition.\u00a0 It is, to use the distinction provided by the writer to the Hebrews, the difference between &#8220;dead works&#8221; and &#8220;the living God.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>This paradox shows up clearly in the episode unique to Mark&#8217;s narrative.\u00a0 Jesus and a sincere Scribe each provides his own summary of the Decalogue, apparently from the heart, as the psalmist has encourages us to memorize the Lord&#8217;s &#8220;precepts.&#8221; \u00a0But then the Scribe says something completely surprising&#8211; &#8220;this is more important than all the burnt offerings.&#8221;\u00a0 Jesus informs the religious leader, with this insight you are <em>close<\/em> to God&#8217;s reign!\u00a0 These two strangers, even potential rivals, recognize that they share something that defies expectations.\u00a0 (Like the Moabite Ruth and her Jewish \u00a0mother-in-law, they find a relationship that supersedes conventional barriers.)\u00a0 They recognize each other as travelers on the same path that leads to God&#8217;s reign.\u00a0 While each honors tradition, demonstrating that they know it by heart, both seem to share an understanding that tradition never contains, it merely conveys.\u00a0 And what it conveys is dynamic, life-giving, always surprising&#8211; &#8220;living.&#8221;\u00a0 Tradition is a vehicle, not a destination, a means not an end.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A leader in the &#8220;scriptural reasoning &#8221; movement, Robert Gibbs, has made this useful distinction: &#8220;Revelation is not information about God, but a shock that requires me to interpret the sign that the shock is.&#8221;\u00a0 (<em>Reasoning after Revelation, <\/em>p.49)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The commandment to love God and to love neighbor is not &#8220;information,&#8221; it is &#8220;revelation.&#8221;\u00a0 And, as &#8220;revelation,&#8221; it never looses it shock-value.\u00a0 It disrupts all other religious&#8211; or any other, for that matter&#8211; expectations.\u00a0 It is &#8220;tradition&#8221; that conveys, never contains, something that is &#8220;living,&#8221;\u00a0 Hence, those in Mark&#8217;s gospel who intend to entrap Jesus because they regard themselves as the guardians of tradition will inevitably misjudge the message and person of Jesus.\u00a0 And an anonymous\u00a0 &#8220;Scribe&#8221; can come <em>close<\/em> to &#8220;God&#8217;s\u00a0 reign&#8221; on his own and discover a fellow traveler in Jesus. \u00a0That the commandment to love God and others is given by the One who is literally defined as &#8220;love&#8221; and embodied in the anointed One who taught by word and example, which were sometimes quite shocking, even silencing his critics, only increases the shock waves<\/strong>. \u00a0<strong>If we follow these shock waves to their source, we discover we are <em>close<\/em> to &#8220;God&#8217;s reign.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>And then there is Ruth.\u00a0 She comes closer to God and God&#8217;s ways through her deep love for her mother-in-law.\u00a0 She leaves behind her own family and her own religion and traditions not for complex theological reasons, but out of the affection for someone who loved her first.\u00a0 Or, remember the unnamed Scribe in Mark&#8217;s story.\u00a0 A short, honest conversation with Jesus reveals to the man that he is not far from God&#8217;s reign.\u00a0 The &#8220;shock&#8221; of revelation scrambles unexamined \u00a0 assumptions; the tender love of another can draw us out of the comfort of the past into a new future, out of a tried and true path to a new path, out of a past identity to a new identity.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ruth 1:1-18 Seeking relief from the latest famine, Eliemlech, a Jew from Bethlehem, took his wife, Naomi, and their sons to Moab, (the land occupied with the tribe of descendants from Lot&#8217;s incest with his sister), which had become a &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/?p=294\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2292,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/2292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacraconversazione.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}