Friday the Nineteenth

 

Out of town, we weren't at our home church last Sunday, so I got it wrong, as

HNEC seems to have changed from Track 1 to Track 2, in which the Old Testament lessons for Sundays are "old style" with the OT reading and psalm meant to bear some relationship to the gospel reading, 

instead of Track 1, which (throughout the Season after Pentecost, or Ordinary Time as most denominations term it) reads through the Old Testament book by book, Bible story by Bible story. 

My personal preference, which is irrelevant except in my own mind, is Track 1, reading each of the good old time Sunday school Bible stories in turn. My feeling about the old way, this OT passage and that one popping up out of the blue from Sunday to Sunday, was always that it was erratic, spasmodic, disconnected, not to say spastic. The intended connection of OT Reading and Psalm to the Gospel Reading was frequently elusive.  

But I'm retired into the Wilderness that I have chosen, and it seems to be working for me, if slowly sinking in. The church has been, was, the center of our family social life all my growing up years; not so in the Navy until our final two tours of duty; and then again for the past, what?, 49 years. Others are country clubbers, yacht clubbers, social clubs like the Moose Club, VFW, American Legion. Ours was the church. From here in the desert I don't mind if that continues to be the case, albeit in retirement with less intensity.

If I were to express any frustration with the church it would be with the almost total absence of awareness of the physical needs of elderly parishioners, with thick rugs to trip over, lack of concern that steps that are tricky and hazardous are not prominently marked, printing Sunday worship bulletins in small typeface, expecting elderly parishioners to use the small print Hymnal. So, am I being critical? damn right I AM, and it's about things that I myself failed to notice in my younger years as a parish priest and only became aware of as I aged into it myself! I guess you have to be there. Every parish should have a designated safety person.

Or, perhaps, the general practice of streaming worship services live, that came about and became permanent during COVID, should be the new normal for Sunday church attendance for my part of the demographic. 

Rambling again, Self, back to battery.

Anyway, where was I? Here's the lectionary page for the upcoming Sunday:

Let me check and see how well the Track 2 intention seems to work (leaving out the epistle reading, which runs in its own series):

Old Testament: Jeremiah 23:1-6

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

The Psalm: Psalm 23

1 The Lord is my shepherd; * I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures * and leads me beside still waters.

3 He revives my soul * and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake.

4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; * for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.

6 Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, * and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

The Gospel Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

(here, the lectionary skips over Mark's account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand)

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

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Okay, I'm not trying to be scrappy or difficult this morning, but the connection is about Jesus being the shepherd who will care for the sheep who was prophesied by Jeremiah and celebrated in the 23rd Psalm; and for the most part I do not concur in cherrypicking Old Testament passages out of context and using them as prophesying Jesus. Yes, Matthew does it extensively, but it isn't true and faithful use of the Hebrew Bible. 

Even my own love for Gospel John's linking of his Prologue about the Logos (John 1:1f) to the Creation Story in Genesis 1:1f is, I fully recognize as I do it anyway, not at all what the so-called Priestly Writer meant for the Creation Story to say about God to the Judeans after the return from the Babylonian Exile. 

But we lift anyway, our own form of proof-texting. It's okay to do it, but if we are to be serious Bible students who are true to our intellect, it's even more important to recognize, realize, see, know, and acknowledge at least to ourselves, that we're doing it and that it's really not valid. Otherwise we're fooling ourselves and misleading those who trust us to share what we have learned.

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Pic: looking east and south, the skyline from 7H porch at 6:52 this morning, Friday, July 19th, 2024. 

RSF&PTL

T88&c