Insights with Seitz

We come to the end of our Lectionary Year. Every symphony has its crescendo and finale and the Sunday of Christ the King is that for the lectionary year.

All our readings look toward the end of things brought to completion by the King of Kings. David’s final words. Daniel’s final vision. Revelation’s NT version of that, much of it a recycling of OT apocalyptic visions and figures. We leave Mark for John and Jesus’ own final words to Pilate.

We begin with the last words of David. A man like other men, and a king like those who would follow him, in the steps of God’s Anointed. But also a king inside a special providential place, which in time will be occupied by the King of Kings. And so he is given to see this when, like Moses looking across into the Promised Land, he comes to the end of his days. The Holy Spirit has gifted him quite concretely – a feature Luther paid close attention to in his lectures on the psalms of David, where David is given to see the beloved exchanges between God the Son and God the Father. “He said to me you are my son, today I have begotten you.” “The Lord said to my Lord.” The line he paid attention to we find at verse 3: “The spirit of the LORD speaks through me, his word is upon my tongue.” And so David speaks of things pertaining to the house of God’s making in him. “Is not my house like this with God—like the sun rising on a cloudless morning—for he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.”

The Psalm allows another to reflect on David, one of the few psalms where David is mentioned as the subject of the psalmist’s discourse and not his own. “Lord, remember David and all he endured.” David is himself but he also betokens all of God’s promises through time in him and leading to the King of Kings. “For your servant David’s sake, do not turn away the face of your Anointed.” He continues, “The Lord swore an oath to David; in truth he will not break it,” even in the face of seeming abandonment – in David’s day, so Psalm 89 – nor in the day of God’s Son the Christ. “A son, the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne.” And “I have prepared a lamp for my Anointed.” Mashiach. Messiah. Christ.

Daniel’s vision as recorded in chapter 7 uses the language of Son of Man for the kingship of his conception. The Ancient of Days is on this account the LORD God almighty seated at court, with attendants without number. A royal scene of final judgment, at which time the books recording all deeds done are opened. The Son of Man appears and enters the celestial courtroom. He is presented to the LORD God, and from his hand he receives a kingdom that has no end. In this dramatic depiction we have the OT’s equivalent of the creed’s “of one substance with the Father.” The identity of God and the identity of the Son of Man is both different but profoundly shared. To “sit at the right hand” is to share the selfsame identity of God Almighty. We see a kingship that is never destroyed for just this reason.

The apparel the LORD puts on, as the psalmist depicts it, is indeed, in the fullness of time, the flesh of the Son of Man. In so doing we see an enthronement that in fact has its origins from everlasting, from before the world’s beginning. Eschatology and eternal generation: two sides of the same divine identity and purpose before and through all time.

Revelation speaks of “the one who is and who was and who is to come”, the “I am who will be good on my promises through time,” the LORD, solemnly revealed to Moses. The grace and peace that come from God the LORD come in the same manner from Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn of the dead and the ruler as such of all the kings of the earth. Now the author turns his attention to this same Jesus as he comes a final time, not from the emptied tomb but from the eternal throne. Using the language of Daniel he comes on the clouds. And now we see the nail wounds born for us and permanently identifying the ...

We are approaching the end of the lectionary year B, and as noted, we have this Sunday a reading from the apocalyptic portion of Mark, which in its entirety runs for some 37 verses. Our selection is but the brief, opening portion of that.

Also as noted, the focus on the end times, at the end of the lectionary year, which has its correlates in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, continues into the first Sundays of Advent – Advent in this sense, meaning the Second Coming of Christ and not the First Coming alone. So Luke’s apocalyptic material picks up in Year C where Mark’s 8 verses give but a small summary, on the First Sunday of Advent next lectionary year. And Matthew returns the favor in his lectionary year, providing a summary from his Gospel that in turns sends us to Mark chapter 13’s longer account for Advent 1 of Year B, when it comes around again.

Both Luke and Mark situate the long, final, apocalyptic—end of days—speech of Jesus after the story of the widow’s mite, where it fits naturally enough. Jesus is leaving the sanctuary he has cleansed and where he has confronted religious leaders, the scene of the extended action after his entry from Jericho and the Mt of Olives until this, his final farewell. A sanctuary not made with human hands, as Hebrews puts it, will be and is now his present place of intercession, having laid down his life in the manner Hebrews and Mark know is once for all, for all.

The departure from the temple evokes scenes reminiscent from the prophetic witnesses, Ezekiel most especially, where it amounts to an ominous withdrawal of the Lord God himself for a season of judgment. This withdrawal by the Lord, this time, is permanent, the culmination of judgment against human sin and rebellion for one final time and forever, with Jesus the Lord and Jesus himself the sacrificial offering of God’s love for the world he has made.

Upon leaving the temple the disciples, awed at its massive size and seeming permanence – it had stones of huge girth, some weighing up to three hundred tons, and would have been by far the largest structure ever seen by them – they give voice to their astonishment. Imagine the contrast, from a tiny mite in a widow’s palm to the top of the Twin Towers. “All will be thrown down” Jesus says in response to their awe and “not one stone will be left on another.” All standards of measurement will be recast by a single wooden cross about the size the man standing before them.

Whatever one makes of the astonishing details of the end time, about to be spelled out, and their timing–details that have vexed interpreters, including the actual destruction of the temple not long off and how that correlates with the end time, given that it happened now over 2000 years ago and the end time has not come—details our 8 verse section mercifully spares us—one thing is certain. Before going to his death Jesus spoke of a final judgment, and of the end of the temple as it had previously belonged to God’s precious plans. And his own death on a cross is surrounded by just these same apocalyptic features, supplied most clearly by Matthew, and with Mark satisfied to report the dramatic rending of the temple curtain at the hour of his death. With the death of Jesus a new reign of God begins which will take us to the end of time in its significance. The beginning of birth pains, but the conception and the bringing to term are accomplished in this man Jesus and this sets in motion a temporal horizon encompassing all future time, including our own, placing us for the most part gentile outsiders, right alongside Peter and James and John and Andrew.

The Track One reading continues with the roll call of famous women of integrity, following Esther, Dame Wisdom and Ruth. Hannah’s position in the first chapter of Samuel also picks up the Davidic theme at the close of Ruth, where the birth of Obed to Ruth, Boaz and Naomi we learn is in fact the grandfather of David.

In our lessons for this Sunday, the conclusion from the book of Ruth wraps up Track One’s brief summary of that marvelous brief work, and joins to it an equally uplifting psalm 127. In Track Two the reading from 1 Kings 17, Elijah and the widow from Zarephath, has been chosen to come alongside Jesus’ bold commendation of the widow, who “out of poverty has put in everything she had” into the temple treasury. Mark has aligned this brief account with Jesus’ condemnation of those scribes who love their finery, but have fleeced widows contemptuously. The Epistle reading continues our selections from Hebrews, now at the 9th chapter. As Jesus has entered the sanctuary of the Temple and cleansed it, he confronts likewise the uncleanness of religious leaders in their manifold roles, contrasting it severely with the fragrant offering of a poor widow. Through his death he has entered a heavenly sanctuary and the author of Hebrews explains the permanent significance of that. To which in a moment.

Let’s start with Track One.

Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law, we recall, had indicated how perilous the decision to come with her would be. Ruth is a widow, as is Naomi, but also now without inheritance or support, alone in a foreign country through her decision to cling to Naomi. Naomi’s husband Elimelech had a wealthy kinsman named Boaz. So Naomi conspires to put Ruth in his path. The poor may glean in fields, Deuteronomy tells us, even as in this case it is also risky, given the festivities which mark the final days of the occasion.

Boaz has already taken note of her, we learn earlier in the story, gleaning with the others, and he commends her for her kind treatment of her mother in law, which has been made known to him. So the situation is auspicious. When Ruth tells her of this, Naomi sees it as a kindness of the Lord and concocts her plan. Ruth complies.

Boaz is indeed an honorable choice, though we learn he is not the closest kin and so the plot thickens. But the unnamed kinsman relinquishes his claim and Boaz takes on the role of perpetuating the name of the deceased husband. When a child is born to the happy couple, the women of the village speak of the resolution of Ruth’s and Naomi’s losses both. “A son has been born to Naomi.” Indeed, he is the grandfather of David. The path paved by Ruth, we learn in the final verses of the book, had its forerunners going back in time, strong and bold gentile women all of them.

“Children are a heritage from the Lord and the fruit of the womb is a gift” the psalmist says – surprising even Naomi, who had cautioned Ruth—do I have sons still in my womb?– but who now finds a son laid on her own nursing breast.

Having these two widows provided by the Track One reading we are given a helpful entry onto the Gospel story of the widow’s mite. She has thrown herself and all she has onto the mercy of God though her gift of two lepta, the smallest coins there are, but all she has.

Our Track Two OT reading has been chosen from the 17th chapter of Kings to also provide a widow, from yet another episode in God’s plans with his people. In Luke’s Gospel the episode is referred to in this way, underscoring the point from another angle:

“In truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.”

Well-known and repeated often are the solemn injunctions in the OT to care for widows, whose fate is especially precarious. Neglecting this or abusing own’s power in probate are to be severely punished.

In our story from Kings we have a famine like unto that of Ruth. God commands Elijah to go to Sidon and be fed there. On its face one might assume that the idea makes sense if the famine does not reach that far.

I want to stop and take stock of where we are in the lectionary year. November provides the final four segments of Year B, years that typically end with the dramatic Second Coming readings from each of the three synoptic Gospels, this year represented by Mark 13. The lectionary obviously has us heading toward Jerusalem and Jesus teaching along the way, but it is in Lent that the Passion story itself is told. We have selections of readings from Mark, then, that come from chapters 11 and 12. Jesus has reached Jerusalem and triumphally entered before adoring crowds. He then turns to address in turns the religious leadership whose opposition to him has already been narrated and anticipated by Mark.

This focus on the Second Coming at the close of the year is not accidental. It is significant for its own sake and it also serves to anticipate Advent of the ensuing Christian year. The first Sundays of Advent also speak directly of the second Advent – hard sometimes to hear given the busyness of Christmas in the Cultural Year of Commerce. The one who comes in the cradle at Christmas is the King who will come again and whose coming is the very goal of history itself. Christ is our times and seasons, from his beginning and ending, gathering up our own, in Israel and in all nations under his reign. Before he goes up to Jerusalem to give his life as a ransom he draws attention to where this final death reaches out to gather up all time and space.

Year B consists of 52 Sundays of reading, tracking the narrative-line of Mark’s Gospel this year, and providing a rich symphony of readings drawn from every corner of the Old Testament. Including from those psalms whose ancient word resonates in accompaniment with the readings, giving us a seat in the symphony hall before and alongside Jesus, Ruth, David, Elijah and Elisha, Esther, Job, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Eldad and Medad and on the list goes. The accomplishment of the lectionary includes continuous readings from Acts and the letters of Paul, as well as the catholic epistles and Hebrews, our reading at this juncture of the year. In addition, for a great bulk of the year one can hear an effort to provide a continuous reading from the Old Testament, though its size makes for the necessity of a selection. For this Sunday, following the notes set forth in the final chapter of Proverbs, concerning the woman of valor, we move to Ruth. She joins Esther and Lady Wisdom from Proverbs and Hannah, whose song comes at the final Sunday of this lectionary year.

We are in that section of Mark’s Gospel where the conflict and tensions are heightening, and from various directions. After the triumphal entry Jesus cleanses the temple. He curses a fig tree in what is an ominous gesture. In the temple, he is confronted by the chief priests and scribes and elders and questioned about his authority to act as he does. The parable of the vineyard is delivered and received as a direct accusation, including their murderous intentions, and his arrest is considered and then rejected as potentially too inflammatory. Pharisees seek to trap him into seditious talk vis-a-vis the Roman authorities, a trap he parries with ease. Then the Sadducees engage in a ridiculous resurrection scenario, given that they do not believe in it; it is their chief identity marker. This sets off a dispute amongst themselves, to which today’s Gospel reading makes reference. A lone scribe, “seeing that he answered them well” poses a question of his own.

The passage is remarkable for several reasons, which should be clear given all we have witnessed about the way Jesus has responded all along his way to this point, with those he encounters. Luke and Matthew go a slightly different way, and make the questioner, consistent with other exchanges, negative. But on Mark’s landscape the encounter is positive, and a welcome sign that there is hope for all, and that belonging to a hostile grouping need not prevent one from seeing the ...

We have reached a major turning point in Mark’s Gospel. Indeed the major turning point. Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem to face the fate he has been promising will be his, and whose details have been given most recently down to specifics. The disciples persist in various forms of blindness and half-blindness, but doggedly he instructs them and they follow. Their fate too has been described, and it is to their credit they do not turn and head in the other direction. Not yet.

We now enter the frame passage matching the one that opened this middle section of Mark, whose counterpart of healing a blind man is back in chapter 8 at Bethsaida. Centering on three passion predictions. A section, as we noted last week, devoid of specific geographical orientation so the focus can fall on his teaching of disciples in the final days before reaching the fateful arena of God’s action in him.

Jericho is now the named locale, the city but 12 miles east of Jerusalem itself. The city conquered first by Joshua, now conquered in its own way by the Son of David. The geographical notice is odd: he enters and immediately leaves, a point usually put down to redaction or some other explanation. But Mark likely wants the echo from Joshua to register. This also helps underscore, one can imagine, the urgency of the blind beggar. Last chance. Sitting by the road of his hometown exit, Jesus is setting his face toward the capital, the twelve in tow. Now or never.

And he is up to it. He cries aloud, to the point of disturbing a faceless crowd gathered around Jesus. Their rebuke only intensifies his blind urgency. Rumor has reached his ears that this is Jesus of Nazareth and he wants to see again. Presumably he has lost his sight. Many note this matches the reality of the disciples who had seen and been witnesses to Jesus dramatic work, and then begin to falter as the light grows dimmer and they need to find renewed sight to move forward into Jesus dark night. If so, the healing is a good harbinger. Things need not spiral down at this fateful hour. Cry out for the Son of David. You are right to persist with all your strength. With this messianic cry he further serves as a forerunner of the Palm Sunday crowds upon his entry into the city from the Mount of Olives.

The throwing off of his cloak has lots of resonance with baptism, and the declaration of the baptizand that she or he want to see, find their new life in Jesus. Justin, Gregory Nazianzus, Clement all speak of baptism as a kind of sight receiving illumination. Jesus asks the question “what do you want me to do?” no matter how obvious the ailment or need, as we have seen previously. We must articulate our needs and not just box the air, if true healing and relationship with the healer are to be ours.

The following on the way is redolent of Isaiah’s second exodus language, and appropriate for one depicted as enrolled behind Jesus on his ultimate Way. Perhaps no bad model for the twelve themselves struggling for sight and insight both.

Our OT reading in Track Two’s pairing comes from Jeremiah, who has his own version of exodus language. We see this admixture in Isaiah as well, where second exodus is joined with pilgrimage, and the return to Zion is from all corners of the earth. There, further, we find the blind and the lame in their midst, a great company. They walk a straight path all the same, throwing off their cloaks of whatever weaving, because called by the one who is Father and Lord. The psalm for the day reinforces the praise called for by the prophet Jeremiah.

1 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, *

then were we like those who dream.

2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, *

and our tongue with shouts of joy.

3 Then they said among the nations, *

“The LORD has done great things for them.”

4 The LORD has done great things for us, *

and we are glad indeed.

Six Sundays ago, our reading was the first passion prediction, and this Sunday’s reading follows the third and final one of the set. We also noted that this particular section of Mark is framed by two healing stories involving blindness, in 8:22-26 and following our reading for this Sunday, in 10:46-52, the healing of blind Bartimaeus. Prior to this framed section Mark has given frequent geographical notice of Jesus’ movements, as he crisscrosses Galilee and his synagogue ministry there, and begins to move outward into Gentile regions, Tyre, Sidon, the cities of the Decapolis.

Over the last six Sundays we have been in more indeterminant space. Clearly Jesus is headed toward Jerusalem—his announcements say this—but the geographical notices and specifics of his movement thin out. The focus is on the teaching of the twelve, and dealing with their blindness, exhibited in various ways. Mention is made of Judea at the start of chapter 10. Jerusalem Pharisees next make an appearance to test Jesus about divorce. The third passion prediction locates itself quite clearly in proximity to Jerusalem, and after our reading for today, Jericho is the location of the healing of Bartimaeus. Caesarea Philippi and Galilee, where the first two announcements took place, are now fully in the rear view mirror. The third prediction makes it clear. “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem.” “We are going up to Jerusalem,” Jesus says, “and the son of man will be delivered to chief priests, condemned, delivered to Gentiles, mocked, spit upon, scourged, killed and on the third day rise.” This is a much more specific and detailed account of what is in store, suitable, one might say, for the final and most proximate announcement. Jerusalem is just around the corner, just over the horizon. The Greek passives (delivered, handed over) are of course the same terms translated elsewhere ‘betrayed.’ Isaiah 53 has the same word in its Greek translation. The Lord handed him over as a sin offering.

Almost in reverse proportion to previous announcements, where the fate Jesus declared was to come was rebuked, or reacted to with silence, and the third day rising ignored, this time the detailed account of death, terrible in its stages, is apparently accepted by James and John, and instead their ear picks up the third-day rising as decisive. So taking Jesus aside they say, “Grant us to sit on your right and on your left in your glory.”

Our Old Testament reading is the final servant song, and its language has clearly found its way into Mark’s account for today. The servant is handed over—delivered—and he is mocked and scourged, and killed. He gives his life as a ransom—God makes his life an offering for sin (Isa 53). His final destiny is however vindication and some form of new life – “he shall see his offspring”—the servants of the servant, in Isaiah’s depiction, and “shall prolong his days. Out of his anguish he shall see light. The righteous one my servant shall make many righteous. He has born the sin of many, he has borne their iniquities.”

This is the cup that Jesus says to James and John is his to drink. It is the baptism with which he is to be baptized. Mark doubtless has this scenario in view, and Jesus in his understanding does as well quite explicitly. Less clear is why James and John ask that Jesus do whatever they ask, a blank-check as it were, at just this moment. Jesus does not comply with this lofty request but, in his usual way, presses the question back to them. Just what do you have in mind? Are we to imagine that after three announcements texts like Isaiah 53 or Daniel 7 have begun to shape how they are hearing these announcements in the final analysis, and so embolden two of them to take Jesus aside and ask for something like the righteous fate of those God gives a share: the righteous one my servant shall make many righteous? He shall divide the spoil with the strong. Or Daniel 7,

We continue our Track One readings from the Book of Job; the Epistle reading from Hebrews; Track Two’s Amos and Mark pairing, and accompanying psalms.

Job endures three rounds of dialogues with his friends, who after sitting seven days in silence at his dilemma, open their mouths. And open them they do. I take the view that the rounds are not static and repetitive rehearsals of set views, but rather initially Job is counselled to rely on his innocence. However, frustrated at his responses to this counsel, they become increasingly hostile and accusatory. Round three, where we find ourselves today, shows the friends sputtering and running out of gas. Zophar, the third friend, has nothing to say at all. Job remains vigorous in his defense and indeed begins appealing to the wisdom the friends had previously extolled but now in his own defense and on his own behalf. Our discourse for today demonstrates his resolution. This is a matter not for sparring with debaters. It has to do with his own flesh and blood standing before God, and with God himself. Job knows this is a matter for God and God alone. We must now wait only a short time for God to speak up, after one last valiant effort from the young, and impatiently so, Elihu.

The choice of Psalm 22 gives good indication of what abandonment by God feels like existentially. The Psalmist never shies away from speaking forth his or her anguish. God is named as the source of this abandonment, but named and addressed he is. It is his ear the psalmist speaks to, and for his hand the psalmist waits, in full vent of pain when that is the fate. As we saw last week in Hebrews’ use of this same psalm, known for its use by the son of God at the moment of his shared experience with the psalmist before him, it is a psalm whose final victorious voice is praise and transmission to brothers and sisters in the great congregation. And this will be Job’s final fate as well, though the journey there will cost him everything. Yes, a mortal can serve God for his own sake. With that Satan is silenced, his false claims defeated, and his hand stayed. The path Job walks the Son of God will walk for each and everyone of us, and for our sakes. The type of Job will find its fuller anti-type and accomplishment, through what Barth called Job’s true witness to Jesus Christ.

This is one of our Sundays where the remarkable fit accomplished by the lectionary choice of OT reading needs to be pointed out. Listen to and read Amos chapter 5 carefully, in conjunction with Mark and the story of the rich man (called young by Luke and a ruler by Matthew, though here is not young but an adult with great estates). Mark’s story cannot help but evoke pity and sympathy for the rich man and the path he refuses to take. He is being asked to give up all in exchange for treasure that will last forever, following the man at whose feet he has thrown himself. And he says no, shocked and distressed, and by some renderings of the Greek verb, angered or bitter at Jesus’ request.

To read Amos as a lens on the passage produces a less ambivalent take on what happens and on the rich man before us. The one who reproves in the gate is Jesus, he is the one who speaks truth – and the reaction is hatred and abhorrence. The charges levelled by Amos are rank disregard for the poor, trampling, stealing, afflicting, appropriating, and by these means acquiring great wealth and houses built of hewn stones. Seek the Lord. Hate evil, love the good—good teacher the rich man says in address to Jesus–establish justice in the gate, it may be that the Lord God will be gracious.

Though coming from a different context, Amos and Mark have measures of possible overlap. Jesus says God alone is good, and though this has been the source of theological discussion in the history of interpretation—in what way is God good but not Jesus?–what we know for sure is that Jesus shows himself here as always his clear,

There is a good deal of symphonic overlay in our lessons for this Sunday. This is due to the recycling of texts across our readings, as the Bible speaks from depth to depth, as it so often does! That is its genius. A book unlike any other book.

Jesus cites verses that appear in Genesis 1 (God made them male and female) and Genesis 2 (For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh). The OT reading for the day is taken from this same section in Genesis 2. The psalm chosen for the day is psalm 8, which is itself a reflection or meditation on the same opening texts from Genesis.

5 What is man that you should be mindful of him? *

the son of man that you should seek him out?

6 You have made him but little lower than the angels; *

you adorn him with glory and honor;

7 You give him mastery over the works of your hands; *

you put all things under his feet:

Mastery over the works of your hands corresponds to Genesis 1 and 2 both: humankind is to have charge of the earth—be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish, birds, every living thing—and the naming of the animals which is related in our OT reading.

8 All sheep and oxen, *

even the wild beasts of the field,

9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, *

and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea

Leaving the Letter of James, our Epistle reading for the next 7 Sundays, that is, right up to Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday of the lectionary year, are all selections drawn from the Letter to the Hebrews.

The portion for today from the first chapter of Hebrews quotes this same Psalm 8. But you will note that it makes some important alterations. The spatial qualifier ‘a little’ has in Greek become open to a temporal reading, instead of “a little lower than the angels” (or sons of God) “for a little while lower.”

The effort to render ‘adam (man or mankind) of Psalm 8 into inclusive language (‘human beings’) has the consequence of setting up a clear even sharp contrast, otherwise left more open for Hebrews’ use: On this inclusive language generated version, the psalm promised that human beings would have dominion, but this did not transpire: “we do not see everything in subjection to them.”

Older translations (man/son of man) left more space for interpretation. The “little while” of the son of man’s lowering could then refer to Jesus and the incarnation, and the subjugation to come a matter of providential inauguration by Christ in his descent, and now crowned with glory and honor. Jesus the descended one having tasted death for all mankind. In this he is our—mankind’s, Adam’s—pioneer and perfecter, therefore.

And this, in a marvelous turn based upon Hebrews’ final verse use of Psalm 22, allows special notes to sound forth. Jesus the sufferer of Psalm 22’s “my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” has walked a path that ends in his proclamation of God’s name in the congregation of those who are now brothers and sisters. “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters/In the midst of the congregation I will praise you.” The mankind given mastery because of his suffering and victory. “O Lord our governor, how great is your name in all the earth”: the final line of Psalm 8, is true after all, true because of the little while descent the son of man underwent for those of us little lower than the angles, promised mastery and given it by God in his son.

The Gospel reading from Mark 10 picks up on different verses from the Genesis reading, those involving God’s forming of woman to be a fit partner for Adam, having paraded the formed-from-the-dust animals before him so that he might name them. Naming is not relational conversation, which the man desires, and for that there needs to be a species like unto himself and indeed derived from him.

After hearing last week of the woman of valor, from the last chapter of Proverbs, I spoke of the clear evocation of Ruth, who is called by the same term by Boaz in the book which follows Proverbs in Hebrew lists. Valiant she is. And Track One will turn to her in weeks to come.

For this Sunday we have another of the strong women of valor from the OT, Esther. The story of Esther, Mordecai, Haman and the great Persian King Ahaseurus (Xerxes in some versions) is drawing to its dramatic conclusion in the single reading the lectionary is providing from that book for this Sunday in Track One. It is a tale of intrigue, danger, cunning and evil intention, kingly power and great faithfulness. Esther valiantly risks her life to protect her own people, though she could have remained hidden in her Queen’s rank and privilege. A woman of valor, who can find one? Esther is found faithful. And Haman who sought to have all the Jews of the realm executed for reasons of personal slight, ends up on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai, a faithful Jew unwilling to bow down before him. The fool of Proverbs meeting his own just end and falling into the pit he had prepared for others. This is the only biblical book explicitly linked to a religious festival for which its story serves as the warrant. The festival of Purim, or lots, is commemorated annually on the 14th and 15th day of Adar (early March in our calendar) “as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into holiday.” To read Proverbs 31 and then Esther allows the symphony of scripture to sound forth.

And so too the Psalm appointed for Track One, from Ps 124. Let us hear its 8 verses:

1 If the LORD had not been on our side, *

let Israel now say;

2 If the LORD had not been on our side, *

when enemies rose up against us;

3 Then would they have swallowed us up alive *

in their fierce anger toward us;

4 Then would the waters have overwhelmed us *

and the torrent gone over us;

5 Then would the raging waters *

have gone right over us.

6 Blessed be the LORD! *

he has not given us over to be a prey for their teeth.

7 We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler; *

the snare is broken, and we have escaped.

8 Our help is in the Name of the LORD, *

the maker of heaven and earth.

The Gospel reading from Mark 9 follows on from the healing of the epileptic and the second passion prediction. In the former scene, the epileptic’s father had explained quite frankly to Jesus that the disciples had been unable to drive the demon out. So Jesus went to work and healed the boy.

As if picking up from that thread, ironically, in our reading for today we have John complaining about an unnamed exorcist who is doing successfully what the twelve had been unable to do and reporting to Jesus they had tried to stop him. As if the right thing to do. “Because he was not following us.” Us.

Our OT lesson has been chosen to reinforce the Gospel, where the same language appears from Joshua “My Lord stop them” echoing Jesus’ “do not stop him.” Moses has tired, understandably, from an endless series of complaints and murmuring from the people. He has just – for a second time – seen to the provision of miraculous feeding in the wilderness, manna here followed by quails, now in super abundance. At wits’ end he calls to a sympathetic burden-bearing Lord to help him. Our lesson consists of a selection of relevant verses so as to provide the story of Eldad and Medad at its conclusion. God responds to Moses by having him assemble 6 elders from the 12 tribes, convening at the tent of meeting. There the cloud descends and the Lord God takes the spirit from Moses and apportions it upon the assembled elders, whose prophesying demonstrates their enrollment as his spirit-filled aid.

We skip over the Transfiguration (it is read on the last Sunday before the Lenten season starts) and the healing of the epileptic to arrive at the second passion prediction. In all three of these scenes we have misunderstandings by the disciples, to various degrees, from rebuke to arguments concerning rank, each followed by Jesus’ correction. Episodes 2 and 3 are very similar in this regard.

What has brought on this concern for rank, and do the disciples mean now or at a future time? The third scene is clearer than our present one: there James and John speak of Jesus in his coming glory, and wanting to sit alongside him. The Transfiguration may be partly responsible, where Jesus has taken three aside and elevated them above the others. This was the view of the church father Origen, in seeking to understand the Marcan portrayal and its logic. The announcement by Jesus of his pending death may also have triggered anxieties about the disciples’ role more generally into the future, and recourse to arguments about rank may have served to displace their confusion at this juncture in their walk with Jesus. Making the disputes of course no less misguided, and patient of correction by Jesus. Yet one can imagine, if he is to die and he is their leader, what next and who is in charge?

Mark tells us that on this walk through Galilee Jesus is not engaging in his customary healing ministry, but is rather teaching the disciples in a focused way, away from any distractions. So we may well wonder how all this was registering with the disciples. The silence of them before Jesus’ second announcement in Mark’s narrative portrayal may be an improvement on Peter’s rebuke, but we learn that behind it they have been arguing all the same amongst themselves. “Parking lot talk” as it has been called, after a particularly intense meeting where people do not speak their mind but exit full of uncertainty and start unloading.

Jesus announcement is couched in the language of Isaiah 53 and Daniel 7, with its use of “betray” paradidonai – literally, “to hand over” (God’s handing over of the suffering servant; the saints being handed over in Daniel). Here we likely find the reason for the OT selection from Jeremiah, thus broadening our examples from the OT. “It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew” – that is, the evil deeds of those who will in time put Jesus to death, into whose hands he is handed over. “Let us cut him off from the face of the earth, so that his name will no longer be remembered.”

But Jeremiah’s name is remembered and his words are recorded for us to see and recall, and for Jesus to see in them a pre-figurement, including the words “you O Lord judge rightly, to you I have committed my cause” – a cause greater than Isaiah’s or Daniel’s or Jeremiah’s because gathering them all up into one final march to Jerusalem to face the powers of darkness and so defeat them. The psalm associated with Jeremiah, psalm 54, ends on notes of victory. “For the arrogant have risen up against me, and the ruthless have sought my life” becoming “you have rescued me from every trouble.” The psalmist knows the way of affliction and death and treason, as does Jeremiah, and he puts his trust in God alone, who brings victory through death and not around it.

Jesus takes a child in his arms, having first placed the child in their midst, having called the twelve to him. The child in their midst. A disturbance, an intrusion, a reality-check in the world of adult posturing, like the children who accompany football players onto the field before the match begins. Let the child be the model, and in welcoming that role and place, one is welcoming me. Death is not to be defeated by top rank but by lowest rank, and welcoming me is a welcome of my way of strength and of assurance. Indeed, God himself is welcomed in this way.

It is striking how well James tracks alongside the Gospel for today. “Draw near to God,