[Magdalen] A useful approach to the Bible

[Scott Knitter]

On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 5:34 PM, James Oppenheimer-Crawford
<oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wow. Me too.  Well, you had better take up your quarrel with the lectionary
> elves, since they do it ALL the time. And not infrequently we think they
> are mistaken in the cuts they have made.
> I did not say scripture ought to be discarded. Get it right. I said, "Set
> aside." There is a difference, you know? We all can give lots of examples
> of scriptures we have set aside.  Any lectionary does this all the time.
> When we omit texts deliberately, we are setting the text aside. When we do
> not read a text ever in regular worship, we are setting it aside.

Fr. Stephen Gerth, rector of SMV in NYC, deals with the lectionary
slipping in this week's newsletter:

FROM THE RECTOR: MORE FROM SAINT MARK

Until Father Pete Powell introduced me to Ulrich Luz's commentary on
Matthew, I never found the commentaries I owned very useful for
preaching. Luz changed my mind about how I think about commentaries
and how I read them. Now I have another one that I value highly, Joel
Marcus's two-volume commentary on Mark (Anchor Yale Bible series). The
current lectionary year is the second time I have been working with
it. Marcus gives his readers a sense of the perspective and the unity
of the whole of Mark's gospel. Unfortunately, this sense is missing
from the structure of our lectionary, both of the original 1979
lectionary, which we use, and of the Revised Common Lectionary, now
used in most parishes. Fortunately, there is something we can do about
it. The Prayer Book gives us this permission, "Any Reading may be
lengthened at discretion. Suggested lengthenings are shown in
parentheses" (BCP, 888).

So, this Sunday, August 30, the appointed gospel passage is Mark
7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23. One immediately wonders what was left out. First,
by editing the passage this way it makes it seem as if Jesus is
speaking to "the people" from verse 14 on-the initial verses in the
passage were addressed to "the Pharisees" and "some of the scribes."

These are the omitted verses 17 and 18a: "And when he had entered the
house, and left the people, his disciples ask about the parable. And
he said to them, 'Then are you also without understanding?' "

This is what the disciples did not understand, Mark 7:14-15: "And
[Jesus] called the people to him again, and said to them, 'Hear me,
all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a man which by
going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man
are what defile him.' "

Now, the whole passage which we are going to hear at the Sunday
Masses, Mark 7:1-23, will sound familiar. Matthew's use of Mark is
heard in Year A, when Matthew 15:10-20 is theSunday gospel. But Mark
used this material first. Matthew's Jesus does not say, "There is
nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him."
Matthew's Jesus also does not say in the parallel passage, "Thus he
declared all foods clean" (Mark 7:19b).

Ulrich Luz notes, "The Matthean changes of Mark's text are relatively
minor, but significant in content" (Matthew 8-20: A Commentary [2001],
326). Mark and Matthew understand the law differently-and scholars
have no clear agreement about many of the obvious differences (p.
327). Well okay, I would like to know more, not less about Mark. So, I
have been reworking the gospels for the remaining Sundays of the
church year-only two are not lengthened. We will hear all of chapter 7
and more from chapters 8, 9, 10, and 12.

For example, on Sunday, September 20, we will hear a passage from Mark
that echoes very much for me the merciful understanding we find in
John's gospel for the slow journey to belief made by those who knew
Jesus. For reasons completely unclear to me, the 1979 lectionary makes
this story from Mark of Jesus healing a boy the disciples could not
heal (Mark 9:14-29) optional; the new lectionary omits it entirely.
The parallel passages in Matthew 17:24-21 and Luke 9:37-43a are not
used in either lectionary. I think this is a significant loss.

Matthew and Luke both omit dialogue between Jesus and the father of
the boy. The father says to Jesus, " 'If you can do anything, have
pity on us and help us.' And Jesus said to him, 'If you can! All
things are possible to him who believes.' Immediately the father of
the child cried out and said, 'I believe; help my unbelief!' " Those
are words the disciples who left Jesus did not know; those are words I
hope I can always say when I need them.

-Stephen Gerth


-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA