Bystanders

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, July 28, 2024: 2 Samuel 11:1-15; Psalm 14; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21

This summer we’ve got some of the Bible’s greatest hits. Today is no exception: first, the story of David and Bathsheba, and then John’s account of the feeding of the 5000.

I am interested right now in two characters who are barely given space or voice in these two stories: Bathsheba, and the boy who had the five barley loaves and two fish.

David sees Bathsheba, who is “very beautiful”, finds out who she is, and sends messengers to her. Now, David is the King. When the King sends messengers, you don’t refuse. So, even though she is purifying herself after her period (when she would have been unclean), he “lay with her”. In all this, she is apparently passive and has no power: this is a rape. Her one action is to send a message to David that she is pregnant, and he calls her husband back so the child could plausibly be his. Uriah returns, but does not go to his house. So David ensures that he is killed in the next battle, but can be assumed to be the father of Bathsheba’s coming child.

David is, in all this, pretty terrible. But this week I found myself wondering about Bathsheba: did she love Uriah? Did she have other children? Her message that she was pregnant suggests this was not her first child. Did she enjoy her time with David? What happens to her after Uriah dies? What happens to the child or children? So much of the story is missing: her story doesn’t matter.

In the Gospel, there’s another person I started wondering about: the boy with the loaves and fishes. Were the loaves and fishes for his family? Why did he give them away? What prompted his generosity, which enabled Jesus’s demonstration of abundance? What did his family eat, once their food had been shared among 5000? What did he think about what happened?

For the writers who compiled our scriptures, these questions are, of course, irrelevant. But it’s useful to think about them, because we’re not always the center of the story. We regularly have walk-on parts in other people’s stories. And often we’re not the good Samaritan, but the innkeeper who helps. Or sometimes, like Bathsheba, we’re caught up in events we can’t control. We are, needless to say, the center of our own story, but that’s not always the one that matters.

Bathsheba, in a situation where she could not control things, still made sure David knew his responsibilities. As far as we know, they had no further contact. She did what she could, and she didn’t let David off the hook. Sometimes that’s all we can do: make sure we’ve named what has happened.

The boy in the Gospel has food, and he shares what he has. As far as we know he gets no return. He does what he can. And that’s sometimes where we are: we have something that can help, and we do what we can.

It’s useful to remember that sometimes we are bystanders, who do what we can in often complicated situations. That’s also comforting, because we do not always need to be the heroes. Most of our lives are not heroic. Last week we reflected on encountering Jesus in the everyday, unspectacular way. This week we are reminded that our actions may seem unspectacular, but are no less important.

As we go through life, it is good to know how to remind abusers of their responsibilities, and to do what we can. And it may seem little, but without the generosity of the boy, there would have been nothing to feed the 5000. Miracles often grow from small acts.

Everyday Jesus

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10, July 21, 2024: 2 Samuel 7:1-14a; Psalm 89:20-37; Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Today’s gospel comes from the central period of Jesus’ ministry, but because of the way the lectionary has divided the readings, we have the beginnings and endings of a story.

At the beginning, we have the disciples returning after they have been sent to the countryside to preach and to heal. They report on “all that they had done and taught”. Jesus, understanding how much they had done, suggested that they go to a deserted place to “rest a while”. Mark describes a busy scene, with people coming and going, and “no leisure even to eat”.

When they get to what they think is a deserted place, the crowds follow. The section that is missing — which begins after Jesus “began to teach them many things”–moves to the feeding of the 5000. It then continues with Mark’s account of Jesus walking on water. It is after these adventures, that Jesus and the disciples land at Gennesaret, where they are again surrounded by people, with the sick being brought out to be touched and healed.

What we get here when the miracle stories are taken out (and we’ll get them later this summer) is an everyday Jesus: nothing spectacular, just going about life. But that life is not easy and is not relaxed. While Jesus wants to be alone, and wants his disciples to have the chance to rest, they don’t get it: people want Jesus, and they follow wherever he is. And while the healing Mark reports is not spectacular, in the way the feeding of 5000 is, or walking on water, we learn that all who touched even Jesus’ cloak were healed.

I resonate with these descriptions of Jesus in two very different ways. I have had days when the constant emails and requests to deal with problems mean I have no time to stop. Constantly responding to different people’s needs can be exhausting. I wanted Jesus to have some time when people didn’t want something from him. And yet, Mark tells us, Jesus responds to people with compassion.

The other way I resonate with this picture of Jesus is that it reflects the way I encounter Jesus. It’s not a flash of lightening, or some spectacular event: it is in every day encounters of connection and caring that I meet Jesus. We are asked in our baptismal covenant to “seek and serve Christ in all persons”, which emphasizes the everyday nature of our encounters with Jesus. But it is worth remembering that others may seek and serve Christ in us. Are we always able to receive that caring? Do we recognize it as Jesus coming to us?

For most of us, everyday Jesus is the one we know. And today’s reading is a reminder to recognize not just our duty to serve, but our need to be served. In the chaos that is much of modern life, we need to recognize and give thanks for our encounters with the everyday Jesus.

Dancing

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10, 14 July 2024: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Psalm 24; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29

Two of today’s readings talk about dancing, not exactly the subject you expect in the Bible. And they are very different dances. In our reading from the Hebrew scriptures, we hear the story of the Ark of the Covenant being moved from the house of Abinadab to Jerusalem, the city of David, where David had prepared a new tent for it. The Ark was the holiest item for the Israelites, containting the tablets with the Ten Commandments, and maybe Aaron’s rod and a bowl of manna. It is precious.

The Ark is carried in a new cart, with “the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand” following led by David. We are told that David and “all the house of Israel” were dancing “with all their might”. We think of dancing as pleasure, but the phrase “with all their might” is repeated later, so it means something important. This is dancing as work, as service, to celebrate the coming of the ark to Jerusalem. They were not dancing in a void: they were accompanied by “lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals”. This was noisy. But dancing here was a form of worship and respect, as this was what was due to the Lord.

In the gospel we have a different dance, with a less joyous ending. Mark’s gospel is retrospective: Herod is hearing the news of Jesus’s ministry, and he thinks that John the Baptist has come back to life. And so we hear, in retrospect, the story of John’s death.

John had been Herod’s prisoner, because Herodias, Herod’s wife, is angry that John has told Herod he should not have married her, his brother’s wife. But Herod likes listening to John, and knows “he was a righteous and holy man”. So John is imprisoned, but not executed.

On his birthday, Herod gives a banquet, and his daughter danced for the company. He was so pleased with her performance that he promised her anything she asked. On her mother’s advice, she asks for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. And so John is executed, and his head is delivered to her on a platter.

David danced to celebrate and honor; Herodias uses her daughter’s dance of entertainment as a way to achieve the death of John the Baptist. Dancing is not good or bad, but it can be used in good and bad ways. The same is true of much of what we do. What is the use we put our activities to? Do we do things to praise God? Or to serve our own? Are we acting out of love?

As always, the Bible does not provide a simple message. We cannot say dancing is bad because it led to the death of John the Baptist. But we can say that living with grudges is not good, and acting on them even worse.

As we move forward with the week ahead, may we dance to honor God.

A Prophet without honor

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, July 7, 2024, Proper 9: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; Psalm 48; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13

“Jesus is coming in 2031” the sign held by the street preacher on London’s Oxford Street said. What an odd sign, I thought. Such a strange combination of precision and vagueness. And it was far enough in the future to seem a bit unreal. What am I supposed to do in 2024 to prepare for 2031? But also, if the sign had told me that Jesus was arriving tomorrow, what would I do? I’d probably say that I was unlikely to trust a random guy standing out on the street.

I thought of this man as I read today’s gospel. The Jews of Jesus’ time believed a messiah was coming, but they were not sure when. So when Jesus showed up at his home synagogue, teaching, the response is perhaps predictable. We know this guy, we know his mother, brothers, and sisters. His sisters are with them. “And they took offense at him.” You can imagine their thinking: who did he think he was? why should we believe him?

Jesus, amazed at their unbelief, “could do no deed of power there”. He told his disciples that “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And it’s true. Whether it’s our siblings, or people we went to school with, it is hard to let go of who they were when we first knew them.

Jesus’s response is to leave his home, and head to the villages around. Then he asked his disciples to take a risk. He sent them off in twos, ordering them to take nothing for their journeys. They had authority over unclean spirits, and were to go out to preach repentance, heal the sick, and cast out demons.

I imagine the disciples on the road giving much the same impression as the street prophet with whom I began. They come to town and tell everyone to repent. Does anyone listen? Would I? Would you? If not, Jesus has told them to move on.

Like the people of Israel, we struggle to hear the prophets among us. And mostly, we do not want to hear them. But here’s the thing: Jesus is not coming in 2031. Jesus is here, now, asking us to pay attention. And often we don’t: not because we don’t want to, but because we don’t recognize him. Jesus isn’t coming to us like that, is he? The messiah can’t be that guy we knew when! She does not look the way we expect Jesus to look. And so on.

In our baptismal covenant, we are asked to “seek and serve Christ in all persons”. But if we are honest with ourselves, we don’t. And it is not just the poor and needy: we say “all persons”, and I often find it harder to seek Jesus among the rich and powerful. As we go through the week ahead, it is worth thinking about who in the world, near or far, is speaking to us for Jesus. What are we missing because we cannot see Christ in particular people?