“And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.'” – Mark 3-23-25
We’ve seen so many times and in so many places just how right you were back then. Divided nations run to evils unimagined, but so bitterly recalled.
You set aside the critics’ pointed accusation that in healing, you performed Satanic will by arts Satanic, too, which made no sense as you so rightly said.
And then they brought you word: your mother and your brothers ask, “How are you, brother, son?” Kept back from you by the besieging crowd they could not see how changed you had become.
“A house divided cannot stand,” yet you would break your home, insult your family. Had they not done the will of God who sent you? Were they not still one with you in love?
A poem/prayer based on Mark 3:20-35, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 5 (10).
The image is Toute la ville étant à sa porte (All the City Was Gathered at His Door) by James Tissot (between 1886 and 1894) – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2006, 00.159.78_PS1.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10195908.
Jesus bar-Yosef House with a hole in the roof Capernaum, Galilee
Dear sir:
In light of recent events which have damaged your public image, we offer our services as public relations consultants. We believe that we can increase your name recognition and your positive reputation.
To give you some idea of the value of our services, we would like to comment on two recent encounters that resulted in unnecessary conflict with significant public figures. You can evaluate our suggestions here and realize the benefits you would realize from a permanent business relationship with us.
We realize that your followers – or students; one of the things we’d like to clarify is their role in representing you and your ideas – were hungry while you were out walking with them that day. It is regrettable that they had not prepared for a trip. While we are not event planners, we recommend that you get some additional support to see that you are properly supplied.
The public relations concerns arose when they began to pluck grain on the sabbath. Everyone knows that the followers of a religious leader will be properly scrupulous about following the sabbath regulations. Indeed, a higher degree of respect for those practices is simply expected by the populace. In the moment, it would have gone much better if you had said, “Not now, friends. We don’t have far to go. There will be something to eat soon.”
You were walking just a short distance, weren’t you? We’re confident you were.
Alternatively, as noted above, you could have redirected them to use their pre-prepared foods. Best of all, you might have carried some yourself, and distributed those to your hungry followers. Imagine the positive responses to your generosity!
Then there was the man with the hand. We acknowledge that you actually broke no sabbath regulation at all. You didn’t anoint his hand with oil, which is permitted by most authorities. You didn’t even touch it.
Our concern is with your interaction with the other religious leaders in the room. Granted, they didn’t say anything to you. You might have interpreted that as consent, rather than challenging them for hardness of heart. You might also have said, “Let us see what miracles God will do on the sabbath,” which would have been very pious and quite successful.
Best of all, you could have said to the man, “Come see me tomorrow and we will see what God will do. Today we will rest, and God will rest.”
Frankly, Jesus, he’d been living with that hand for some time. One more day would not have been a burden.
These two events, and a couple of others, have generated some opposition to you and to your message. We firmly believe that you can move past them to a better, more productive relationship with the public at large and with your peers among the religious leadership. We think that some circumspection in some areas, and more emphasis of some elements of your teaching, will really resonate with the population. In short, we believe you have potential and hope to represent you.
The proposal in full is attached.
A poem/prayer based on Mark 2:23-3:6, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 4 (9).
The image is Christ Heals the Man with a Paralyzed Hand, a mosaic in the Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily, Italy (late 12th – mid-13th cent.). Photo by Sibeaster – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4515630.
“But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them…” – Acts 2:14
Has there been enough time to redeem me?
“You’re the Rock,” smiled Jesus. Oh, yes. I’m the rock. Always first to reply, always first to be chided. They smirked, those eleven, every time I was caught being first to say things they were thinking in silence.
Can a month or two’s passage possibly remake me?
“You’re the Rock,” they have said since the day that he rose. “You’re the first to have seen him” – I open my mouth to remind them of Magdalene, then shut it again. “You’re the Rock.” Well, at least we’re a dozen again.
I wonder what time could refashion a rock?
I told them my shame which the Teacher predicted. How could I hide it? They’d heard, and they’d seen the look on my face on that terrible morning when the heart of the Rock was as brittle as flint.
Passover to Pentecost can’t be enough time.
They never have heard what the Teacher said to me that glorious day when his death turned to life. My flint heart had shattered, and molten, ran over. What words could declare the forgiveness he gave?
But can I be reborn in these brief fifty days?
The wind rushes madly. Lights leap on our brows. Only the Marys sit silent, serenely. We’re out in the street. My God, we look drunk. I’m speaking a language I don’t think I’ve heard. How can I explain what has happened to me?
Fifty days weren’t enough, but a moment transformed me.
Now they look to the thick one, the Rock, to say something. I have no skill with words. I was trained to the net. But Jesus stayed with me, and I recall some things. I’ll start with this verse that he taught me from Joel.
I guess fifty days is enough to redeem.
A poem/prayer based on Acts 2:1-21, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year B, Pentecost Sunday.
“[Jesus prayed,] I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.” – John 17:15-16
Between the orbit paths of Jupiter and Mars, a horde of planetoids and rocks and dust surrounds the Sun, tracing their ellipses in a dance with gravity.
One speculation to explain these asteroids is that, long, long ago, a planet strayed too close to Jupiter’s titanic tides of gravity, and broke into these countless rocky shards.
When worlds almost collide, sometimes a world breaks up, and leaves the other without scar or trace of impact made. One shatters. One remains.
Your followers, dear Jesus, live in both a world of harshness, folly, lies, and fraud, and in the world of God’s creative grace. They seek to speak the one unto the other.
Yet when these worlds collide, or when they pass too close, which one will break, and which endure? Which one reflect the sun, which one be hard to see?
Oh, let it be the world of God’s creative love! Oh, let it be the world of Christ’s redeeming love! Oh, let it be the world of grace and truth! Oh, let it be! Oh, let it be!
A poem/prayer based on John 17:6-19, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Seventh Sunday of Easter.
“[Jesus said,] I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” – John 15:15
Pedant that I am, I have to tell you, Jesus, that you’ve never called us servants. Students, yes, and followers. You’ve nicknamed some of us (and isn’t Simon just the perfect Rock (between the ears?)) but never servants.
To tell the truth, I can’t recall you’ve called us friends. It’s quite a lift from slave to friend you’ve given us. And all you’ve asked is that we love each other as you’ve shown your love to us. That’s your command: it makes us friends, not servants.
I wish I were as sure as you that I know what you’re doing, Jesus. I don’t think that I do. If I’ve been quicker on the uptake than our brother Simon Rock, he’s not the brightest lamp within the room. I hardly feel I know what friends would know, not servants.
If I let fall the barriers I’ve used to hide the things you’ve told us from my understanding, then I know the reasons you have called us friends. And I’m not comfortable with that. Friends are responsible for what they do in friendship. They have to think and act themselves, not wait for orders like a servant.
On sound reflection, Jesus, might you reconsider making us your friends? Might you not step forth majestically in power? Then we, your servants, rise with you, to rule with humble title but substantial privilege. Set our direction, Jesus, as your servants, not your friends.
A poem/prayer based on John 15:9-17, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Sixth Sunday of Easter.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. – 1 John 4:18
Fear is not just about punishment, John. Fear is also about being hurt. Fear is about taking a risk. Fear is about the unknown.
I fear punishment, of course. The pain is not just the harsh words, hard tones, spoken to me. I punish myself as well.
I fear as well the hurt that is not punishment, but comes from accident or malice done around me.
I fear to take a risk, of course, because, deserved or not, if risk turns into failure, I will feel the pain.
And I fear the unknown because who knows (I don’t) what dangers lurk for me, what hurts I’ll face and feel?
So John, I know that God is love, rejoice that God loves without fear. I live in love and fear. I fear I am not God.
A poem/prayer based on 1 John 4:7-21, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year B, Fifth Sunday of Easter.
“[Peter said,] ‘This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.'” – Acts 4:11
Your Honor, I am here accused. They say I spoke of resurrection. Yes, I did. They say I said this comes from Jesus, and: I did. They say what you can plainly see. I am no educated scholar, no respected sage, no doctor of the law.
Because of this, they take me up before you as an agitator who disturbs the peace, the truth, the faith, the way, the light. They say I should be silenced, voice unheard, the things I’ve seen forgotten, left untold, until no one remembers anything.
Were I to make a strong defense, I’d tell you that your officers misheard our words, misunderstood what little they had heard. We made no claims like those of which we stand accused. We spoke of resurrected hopes alone, within this man who now can walk.
Alas, I make no strong defense. Instead, I’ll make those claims again for you to hear. In Jesus there is resurrection of the body and of hope, of healing and of joy restored. And neither John nor I can hold our tongues from sharing this great news.
I’m sorry, in a way, that my defense is only to repeat the offense that has brought me here before you in this place. I’m sorry that it grieves you, and I hope beyond imagination, that it moves you to a mercy given, mercy then
received.
A poem/prayer based on Acts 4:5-12, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year B, Fourth Sunday of Easter.
The image is a part of the Sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus (ca. 330-335, Palazzo Massimo, Rome): Detail, The Arrest of Peter. Photo by Dick Stracke – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31956813.
“[Thomas said,] ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.'” – John 20:25
So now I, too, demand, O Christ, to see your wounded hands and side, your living skin, as Thomas asked, and I, too, will agree that second-hand report tends toward chagrin. As much as I appreciate the word that blessed are they – am I – those who believe without the gift of sight, the centuries have blurred what they reported. Some try to deceive us, with their testimonies falsified. They do not claim you dead, but kill your way of all-surpassing love. That they deride, your new commandment now they disobey. For centuries we have embraced this strife Instead of taking hold of your new life.
A poem/prayer based on John 20:19-31, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Second Sunday of Easter.
As an undergrad, I studied stage lighting. Caravaggio’s use of light and shadow taught me a great deal. In this painting, the shadows on Thomas’ bright forehead reveal his stunned astonishment.
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