Category: George Mason

Luke 7:11-17

This text is used for the Lectionary Year C on June 5, 2016.

St. Colman's Cathedral
St. Colman’s Cathedral

Immediately following the healing of the Gentile centurion’s slave in Capernaum, Jesus is found in the village of Nain, just five miles from his hometown of Nazareth in Upper Galilee. This story takes Jesus’ healing ministry up a notch. Here he will heal a dead man, demonstrating that neither illness nor even death have power over his messianic ministry. The progression moves from teaching in the Sermon on the Plain to healing in Capernaum to resuscitation in Nain. And the latter anticipates Jesus’ own resurrection to come.

Nain is mentioned only here in the Bible. The widow is Jewish and the death of her only son indicates the end of the family line. This woman is now on her own. Her father and husband are gone, and now her son has died. This grief leaves her not only alone, but also vulnerable. She now will have no family to care for her and will have to depend upon the kindness of her neighbors, since such a woman would have lacked the capacity to provide for her own wellbeing.

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Luke 7:1-10

This text is used for the Lectionary Year C on May 29, 2016.

Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese

Jesus has just concluded his Sermon on the Plain. Whereas Matthew’s Jesus has preached a Sermon on the Mount, emphasizing Jesus’ authority from on high, Luke characteristically has Jesus preaching from a “level place,” among the people. Luke’s Jesus will show his authority by what he does in history working from below, so to speak.

Now we see that authority operating in a healing story in nearby Capernaum. This town is ground zero of Jesus’ Galilean ministry, the home of Simon Peter and a crossroads of trade on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus is met by a delegation of Jewish town elders who intercede on behalf a Roman military leader. This man is a centurion, likely working under Herod Antipas and commanding troops responsible for tax collecting and keeping order. We are also told that he is a worthy man. He has had unusually good relations with the local Jews and generously paid for the building of their synagogue. This establishes his credentials with the Jewish leaders.

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John 16:12-15

This text is used for the Lectionary Year C on May 22, 2016.

Sor Lucia Wiley
Sor Lucia Wiley

In the final section of his Farewell Discourse to the disciples, Jesus focuses further on the role of the Holy Spirit (literally, the Paraclete). Most of what is said in this section repeats themes that have already appeared: the gift of the Spirit to the disciples (church), the Spirit’s relation to Jesus, the Spirit being the continuing presence of Jesus, the Spirit of truth reminding the disciples of all Jesus had taught. Now we hear these themes again, but with nuances that take us deeper into their meaning.

What might Jesus mean by the phrase “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now”? We understand that Jesus can’t teach them everything he would like because his own time in the flesh is limited, but this saying puts the emphasis on the condition of learning that disciples are yet unprepared for. To bear means to carry, as in a load or weight. Metaphorically, it is tied to suffering. The disciples were not in a position to understand what Jesus might say to them about some things, since they had not yet experienced the suffering that would be coming for them. Suffering is a teacher. It opens one up to learning that could not be gained without it. The disciples still harbored hopes of Jesus’ messianic success that comported with their vision of the reign of God. In that vision, they would join in the prosperity of Jesus’ victory over the powers of the world. Only after suffering the loss of such dreams as a result of Jesus’ death, their own rejection by religious authorities, and persecution by pagan powers would they be in position to receive what Jesus wanted them to know.

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John 14:8-17, (25-27)

This text is used for the Lectionary Year C on May 15, 2016.

Hermano Leon
Hermano Leon

Our text falls near the beginning of the so-called Farewell Discourse in John’s Gospel (chapters 14-17). Just before this, Jesus has washed the feet of his disciples, announced his coming betrayal, eaten the Last Supper with them, given them the “new” commandment that they love one another as he has loved them, and predicted Peter’s coming denial. At the start of the Farewell Discourse, Jesus has promised to prepare a place for them, to come again and take them to himself and to a place where he is going. He has answered Thomas’s question about the way to where he is going by pointing to himself and saying that he is “the way, the truth and the life.” That is, Jesus is the true way of life that leads to the Father.

The first part of what follows in verses 8-14 takes us deep into the identification of Jesus with the Father. This passage lays the groundwork for a more developed doctrine of the Trinity that would take nearly three hundred years to work out. What John repeatedly wants us to see is the oneness of Jesus with the Father. This oneness is a unity of persons, not a singularity. Think of it this way: When we are talking about God being one—and this is a common conversation among the three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam—we mean there are no other gods but God. There is one and only one God. That singularity, however, is not the issue of our text. Jesus uses the intimate language of Father to talk about what we would come to understand as the interpersonal inner character of the one Triune God.

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