God heals through our dependency – Mark 6:7-13, Eph 1:3-10

Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B; Holy Infant

A week and a half ago, I was in the great city of La Porte, IN, celebrating the Fourth of July (and we’ll put aside for now the strange incongruity of someone who’s a British citizen and American permanent resident celebrating that particular holiday… they were burgers and fireworks, it was great). But, more seriously, going back and re-reading the Declaration of Independence, I was struck again by how it concludes with a commitment to Dependence: Reliance on Divine Providence (depending on God), a mutual pledge to one another of our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor – a confession that to be a nation, we need to depend on one another. And, providentially, while we celebrating the independence of one nation a week and a half ago, this Sunday the Gospel gives us the perfect opportunity to celebrate the dependence of the whole Church.

God reaches out in the mundane – Mark 6:1-6a, Ezek 2:2-5

Fourteenth week of OT, Year B; St. Adalbert's.

Jesus was amazed.  Jesus didn’t get amazed all that much, at least not in the scriptural texts we have, and when he did, it was generally being pleasantly amazed at someone’s faith. But here, he’s amazed and the emotions that go along with that might be saddened, mournful, lost, dismayed.  He’d come home, to the place he was most familiar with, the place he might expected comfort, even might look forward to an enthusiastic welcome; but he finds a lack of faith, a dishonor that amazes him, shocks him. And in that shock lie three gifts to us: comfort, good news, and an invitation or challenge.

Leaky Jesus (Mark 5:21-43)

Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B.

I didn't preach this weekend (enjoyed hearing Mark DeMott preach mission appeal instead), but this gospel is a really important one for me, so I wanted to share some thoughts here. Four years ago today, I was admitted to our infirmary because my lungs were slowly filling up with gastric fluid (and, yes, that's about as bad as it sounds). I'm fine now, but if I don't manage certain things carefully, or if I'm just unlucky, it could easily happen again. The next semester, I took a class on medicine, magic and miracles in the New Testament with Candida Moss who shared her interpretation of this week's Sunday gospel, Mark 5:21-43, which is usually termed "the woman with the flow of blood," but she titles "the man with the flow of power." Having only recently discovered how my body is pathologically leaky, it was very powerful to (re-)discover that Jesus' body is leaky too. He gives up control, so that healing can leak out of him. "Leaky Jesus" isn't normally one of the invocations in the litany of the Sacred Heart, but I figure he's OK with me calling him that.