Month: June 2024

She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease [Mark 5:26-29]. In this week’s Gospel reading, Mark 5:21-43 (Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year B), we have a story within a story, what one of my minister friends calls, “a Markan sandwich.” Scholars have posited a number of…

A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm [Mark 4:37-39]. As noted by not a few NT scholars, there is a close relationship between the parables of Jesus and his miracles, particularly within the Gospel of Mark. Parables lead us on to miracles. Miracles show us…

He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come” [Mark 4:26-29]. Last week’s meditation didn’t work as I would have liked. If you haven’t read it, just skip on down two paragraphs. If you did read it and agree with me that it lacked something,…

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?” [Genesis 3:8-10]. I’d wager that no text in all…