Worship, Prayer and Bible Resources for Ordinary 10
Second Sunday of Lent - Year B - Liturgical Colour - Green
Introduction
Today we are in Sundays after Trinity, the long period of Ordinary Time in the church year, it goes all the way through to the Advent preparation for Christmas! The liturgical colour from now on is green which suits our souls because it is the ordinary colour of nature. There are no special red, or purple festivals for a long time now, just Sundays when we get on with the ordinary business of living the Christian way. We have lots of help, the bible readings will be full of the teachings of Jesus about what it means to be one of his followers. There is nothing complicated, just trying to put into practice the commands of Jesus to love one another and most of all to love those people who we least like and who least like us.
We will be reminded that when we are nice to people we would rather avoid, then it is as though we were being nice to Jesus himself. Real religion isn't about anything mystical, or even spiritual- in the otherworldly sense. It is about the basic stuff of humanity, caring for those who are bottom of the pile, never thinking that we are better than anybody else, and trying to make sure that if we ever mange to do something which shows real compassion and self sacrifice, then we keep it to ourselves and don't expect everybody to make a fuss of us. These are ordinary Sundays for ordinary Christians but to live out the teachings of Jesus is quite extra ordinary, out of this world!
Opening Verses of Scripture 2 Corinthians Chapter 4
Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself.
Collect Prayer for the Day — Before we read we pray
O God, the strength of all those who put their trust in you, mercifully accept our prayers and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without you, grant us the help of your grace, that in the keeping of your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. CW
God of truth, help us to keep your law of love and to walk in ways of wisdom, that we may find true life in Jesus Christ your Son.CW
First Bible Reading Genesis 3:8-15
They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’ The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.’ NRSV
Second Reading 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture – ‘I believed, and so I spoke’ – we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. NRSV
Gospel Reading Mark 3:20-35
The crowd came together again, so that Jesus and his companions could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’ 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. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’ – for they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’
Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’ NRSV
Post Communion Sentence
Eternal Father, we thank you for nourishing us with these heavenly gifts: may our communion strengthen us in faith, build us up in hope, and make us grow in love; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. CW
Commentary
Letting things get out of hand
There are at least two sets of interested parties in today’s reading from Mark. There is Jesus family, ‘…have you seen what your boy is up to now?’ and the religious leaders, ‘…we can’t allow this to continue, He’s leading people astray from our true religion’. Jesus is clearly causing a bit of a stir in the neighbourhood. It might have been fine if all Jesus was doing was going out in the morning and coming back at night and settling down in front of the fire with his slippers on, reading the paper. But things were not like that, they were beginning to get a bit out of hand. Jesus was beginning to attract a crowd, some of which were probably quite disreputable. They were following him around, probably a bit noisy, probably creating a bit of a mess, coming round the house at all hours of the day and night, and generally getting the family a bad reputation. They certainly seemed to be no respecters of time, property or the reputation of the wider family. The family couldn’t even get in their own home at times. They needed to get a grip on things, they were told. ‘You need to get over there’, ‘take charge of Him’, ‘He’s lost it’, you can imagine the people saying to his family. But if the family are concerned because of their reputation and the disturbance that is being caused, the scribes objections are far more fundamental. Perhaps their motivation is just wanting to maintain the way things are, not to upset the Roman authorities and therefore wanting to ‘keep the peace’. But the Scribes were devout and took scripture very seriously. They studied them and tried to apply their teaching to their lives and the lives of those for whom they felt they had responsibility. Jesus’ new interpretation did not accord with their own understanding, and it therefore needed to be challenged. For them if it did not align with their own, considered comprehension it must be wrong. Even if good things appear to be happening, they must be for the wrong reasons. And their understanding is that events and outcomes such as they have seen can only come from two places, God or the devil. And if it’s not God it must be the devil, Beelzebub. Clearly it was serious stuff and needed to be addressed. In response, Jesus points them beyond their theory and learning to the reality of what is happening. People are being healed. People are being released into new freedom of life. Jesus has simply got on with the job of revealing god’s Kingdom. In the Gospel of Mark we see no great proclamation of intentions such as we see in Luke where Jesus makes explicit His calling to release captives and bring healing and wholeness to those in need. Jesus just gets on with the action. It’s characterised by liberation and wholeness not captivity and fear. How can this be the work of the devil, it just does not make sense. And in making reference to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit Jesus rebuked His accusers, challenging them to reconcile what they have just said about doing things in the name of Beelzebub who seeks to deceive and enmesh and the liberating freedom of the God they teach and worship. It’s a gentle challenge to His family too, who by inference, must be somewhat complicit with those who think He’s a bit strange, as they rush back to see what is happening. Perhaps they think it’s to protect Him from Himself and any delusions of grandeur and celebrity status or perhaps they just want to sort things out so they don’t cause a fuss in the neighbourhood and upset the neighbours. For everyone involved the challenge comes because of a different perspective. Jesus can see what it is like to have the Kingdom of God revealed in people’s lives and in the world as a whole. He can see the inward and the eternal. For those watching, they base their understanding on the immediate and the external, the signs they are seeing the words they are hearing. Faith comes when we see beyond the immediate and the external as we catch a glimpse of the inward and eternal. God calls us to look beyond the obvious and the immediate, the things which we think we can understand and invites us to catch a glimpse of His Kingdom. Through the mess and the business which seem to characterise our modern day lives He offers us the opportunity to join with Him in His Father’s work. To be open to do God’s will in a world so much in need of release and freedom. To not be constrained by the world’s perspective and limited understanding of the things that seem important, and of the myriad of limitations that come from such an outlook, but to be free to join with Him in the broad family of the church and its people, and far beyond. In so doing we reveal Jesus, the liberator and salvation of the world. As we see from this story in the gospel of Mark, we don’t even need to make grand theological statements about what we are doing, which is very fortunate for most of us! We just need to get on and do it, confident that Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit will do the rest.
Sam Cappleman
Meditation
Even at this early stage of Mark’s pacey gospel, things are moving quickly. Crowds are already gathering, and people are coming to Jesus from all directions and backgrounds. Some are undoubtedly just there to see something new, something different and to listen to someone who is prepared to challenge the status quo. Will they see a miracle, witness a healing? Perhaps some of them don’t even care. They just want to be in on the action. For others, they are clearly following Jesus out of an act of real personal commitment and an embryonic understanding that what Jesus is bringing is not just a challenge to the current socio-political environment, but a new world order as God intervenes and becomes incarnate on earth. Jesus calls us too, not just to be ‘involved in the action’ and to follow Him indiscriminately but to reflect the incarnation as we live out our daily lives in a way which reflects our understanding of the change that he brings in our own personal lives. Like His early followers, we may not comprehend fully the long term implications of what this means, but it is, at is heart, a commitment to Christ and His teaching and a genuine desire to be faithful to it, wherever it may lead. Sam Cappleman
Hymns
- Earth rejoice, our Lord is King
- He who would valiant be
- Who would true valour see
- When Jesus walked upon this earth
- O God, by whose almighty plan
- Jesus, my Lord,
- In Christ there is no east or west
- God is love - his the care
- Father, we thank you
- And can it be
- All hail the power of Jesu's name
- Immortal invisible Tune St Denio
- Father God I wonder
- It is a thing most wonderful Tune Herongate
- In Christ there is no east or west Tune Kilmarnock
- Church of God elect and glorious Tune Lux Eloi
Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead
O God, Father, moment by moment you hold us in being; on you we depend, O God, eternal Son, friend and brother beside us, in you we trust. O God, Holy Spirit, life and love within us, from you we live. O God beyond us, God beside us, God within us; Father Son and Holy Spirit three persons in one God, you are ever to be worshipped and adored. Amen Source unknown
Jesus our savior, we thank you for incorporating us into your body the Church that we may work together as organs and limbs to do your will. Give us that organic unity without which the body will fail, that in obedience to you as the head, we may go where you need us, work for you and speak for you, and, shining in our lives, the world may see you love in action. Amen Michael Council inspired by St Teresa of Avila
To you, O Son of God, Lord Jesus Christ, we pray, as you pray to the eternal Father: make us one in Him. Lighten our personal distress and that of our society. Receive us into the fellowship of those who believe. Turn our hearts, O Christ, to everlasting truth ad healing harmony. Amen Philip Melancthon 1497 - 1560
We are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Christ Jesus is the cornerstone and in Him we have our security, our foundation and our life. Amen
From Eph 2 v 19 - 20
The God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, establish, strengthen and settle you in the faith; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you always. Amen
Prayer is a plant, the seed of which is sown in the heart of every
Christian,
if it is well cultivated and nourished it will produce fruit, but if it is
neglected, it will wither and die
Additional Material
Commentary
Paul was an amazing man, probably the most influential person who has ever lived, apart from Jesus. He took the teachings of Jesus and he applied them to all people, not just Jews and he opened up the world to change. Without him the teachings of Jesus would have been confined to a sect within Judaism. Paul’s writings, or works associated with him, comprise half of our New Testament and they were written very soon after Jesus died, considerably earlier than the Gospels themselves. His Letter to the Romans has been the source of inspiration for the greatest theologians ever since, people like Augustine, Luther and Wesley.
Perhaps the most significant thing about him was how he changed. He began life as a proud top Jewish Rabbi with a zeal for pursuing the followers of Jesus. He believed that they had perverted Judaism and so he wanted them rounded up and brought to justice, which in his twisted mind meant that they were to be killed. The Book of Acts records that Paul was brutal and violent and believed he was doing God’s work when he dragged Christians off to prison to have them killed. (Acts 8:1). We can only guess what happened when on one of his trips to Damascus to hunt for more Christians he had an spiritual experience which suddenly and dramatically caused him to swap sides and turn from Christian killer to the leader of the mission to make Jesus know across the world.
He became accepted by the other Apostles like Peter and James the brother of Jesus and he was eventually given the mission to go to the Gentiles with the message that they could become Christians without any other trappings of Judaism. They did not need to be circumcised, eat kosher foods or follow the laws of Moses, in fact if they did so it was really bad because if they tried to keep the Jewish law and customs they were in effect saying that faith in Jesus was not sufficient on its own. The Holy Communion was the new Passover and Jesus was calling all and sundry into a new family, such as we read in our passage today from Mark’s Gospel.
Paul went about across the Mediterranean and he travelled over 13,000 miles on his missionary journeys. We know that he endured many years in prison, went through beatings and shipwrecks, and eventually he is believed to have been beheaded in Rome under the mad Caesar Nero who burned Christians as human torches. As he went around he frequently caused chao and public unrest as met people and told them about Jesus. He was not a great orator and we know that he did not have an impressive appearance. in 2 Corinthians it is written
’his letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily appearance is weak and his speech contemptible.’
His Roman name was Paul, which means small ! Nevertheless God blessed his work and the Holy Spirit worked miracles through him as people accepted the message of Jesus from across the entire social spectrum.
He subsequently wrote letters to the Christian communities which he established as they struggled to make sense of their new found faith in the midst of their pagan cultures. we know he wrote at least seven of the letters attributed to him; 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon and Romans. There is considerable debate about the others but they are part of a body of material which we think of as Pauline, coming from his teachings. We know that he used a scribe to do his writings, he probably had poor sight because at the end of Galatians he writes ‘see what large letters I make when I am writing with my own hand!’
However this outward appearance should not lead us to think of him as in any way weak. we know how effective he was as ruthless killer of Christians, when he changes sides his brilliant mind and strategy made him a strong advocate for the Jesus and the followers of ‘The Way.’ When he went to Athens, the places where Socrates had been forced to kill himself by drinking Hemlock when he had advocated foreign gods, Paul bravely argued with the philosophers and told them about God who they already had a statue for, described by themselves as the ‘Unknown God.’
He manged to literally work his way around the Roman world, using his craft as a tentmaker to earn money and engage with the people he met. As people saw in him the difference which the teachings of Jesus could make in a person’s life they too believed in Jesus and conversions took place and Christian communities were established in the cities he visited. When he visited places like Corinth in our epistle reading today he came up against pagan cultures in which ethical values were completely the opposite of what Paul understood for the Christian life. Corinth is sometimes described as the Las Vegas of the time, but actually it made Vegas look tame. Corinth was a vice capital where worship meant visiting the huge Temple of Aphrodite which towered over the city with up to 1,000 male and female temple prostitutes. It was a busy port with all things associated with a cosmopolitan wealthy trading city full of people passing through. Paul had to bring the Gospel into this community and help the early believers to understand how differently the Christian was expected to live. In his first letter to them we read how he had to tell them whilst sex was to be encouraged it was not Ok for a man to live with his father’s wife. The new way of thinking and living was expressed by Paul beautifully in the passage from 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 where he writes about love in a way which has arguably never been surpassed. It is amazing to think that he was not intending to write scripture, brilliant poetry, or systematic theology, he was just writing to particular churches which were having difficulties coming to terms with what it meant to be Christians in the first century. These churches were struggling because the only Bible they had was the Jewish scriptures which they had been told they could now take with a pinch of salt, ie no food laws, no circumcision, the old covenant was no more. Paul had to start setting some rules and apply the teachings of Jesus for people who were no longer Jewish, no longer under the law which was now ‘a curse.’
Paul has not been popular with everybody since he wrote his letters. He acknowledge himself the fact that much of our thinking is a stab in the dark, he put it brilliantly when he used the expression ‘now we see through a glass darkly.’ Nevertheless small parts have been taken from his letters and used to justify for all time kinds of prejudice, from slavery to the suppression of women. We often don’t know what problem in the church lay behind instructions such as his direction for women in the church in Corinth to keep quiet. Clearly statements like these were meant for specific situations in particular places and not for all time! We know this because in other places Paul encouraged women like Prisca and Phoebe to be leaders in churches. Moreover we know that Paul was a man of his time and whilst behaviour like slavery was the norm in his day with no way of changing it, it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that today Paul would have written very differently to churches. This was a man who wrote to the Galatians that in Christ there should be no discrimination at all not on grounds of religion or gender, or anything else because we are ‘All One in Christ Jesus’ Galatians 3:28 Charles Royden
Meditation
We know that Paul was a tent maker and in the passage from 2 Corinthians today he uses the very familiar metaphor of a tent to describe his body. He tells ‘my outward body is wasting away.’ We can only imagine how he felt after his punishing life of perilous journeys across rough seas when he was shipwrecked and when he was beaten and left in prison. His felt as though his bodily tent was worn out, the canvass was worn, the colour had faded, the strong tent pegs were missing and one or two ropes had frayed and broken.
His final years were lived awaiting his execution in prison. Here was a man who had every excuse to feel broken and defeated. But his words to us this morning are anything but a message of defeat. His is an upbeat message of hope and defiance. In the face of bodily disintegration he places his confidence not in the worn out tent of his earthly flesh but in God’s promise that after this life he will live not in a tent but God’s house. Bad things happen to us in our lives and among them is the gradual and inevitable disintegration of our physical bodies.
In Hebrews Paul’s reflects upon how faith keeps us going and having confidence in what we cannot see for now. He looks back on great men and women of God, who had set out for us an example of how to live. There were great spiritual giants like Moses and Abraham, but there were other less important people too like the prostitute Rahab. Paul reminds us that they endured physical struggles, some leading torture, imprisonment even being sawn in two. Then he speaks of the fact that God has something better planned for them. No old tents for them, they would be made perfect and even now they are alive with God and surround us like a great cloud of witnesses. This road we travel might be rough and steep but Paul knew better than most that the way get to the end was to keep our eyes firmly fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12). Charles Royden