[Magdalen] A useful approach to the Bible

Mon Aug 31 02:06:49 UTC 2015

It's a familiar story. The actual facts might not help tell the story you
want to tell, so you finagle the stuff so that it tells the story you
decided needed to be told in the first place.

They picked and chose stuff to advance the themes the lectionary is
interested in, and lets other stuff slide.

And while it's all very well to talk about how you ca go and read the
missing stuff, very seldom do people do that, and the lectionary clearly is
a concrete, tangible statement, "These texts are important -- those others,
not so much."

I recall reading a priest's comments on this list a while back, where they
essentially said, "I didn't like the readings, but it was the assigned
reading."  I am am not aware of whether it is legally required to use the
lectionary, and I guess that really doesn't matter (since we Episcopalians
routinely set aside customs and traditions and rules we disagree with), but
I think we need to keep in mind that many folks feel bound by the
boundaries of the lectionary, so that's what people in the pews hear, read
and learn.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 8:28 PM, Scott Knitter <scottknitter at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
>