The Seine Net Reflections for the 2nd Sunday in Lent. We explore the Lectionary Readings for this Sunday and reflect on other bits and pieces of interesting information the net has brought to our attention.
Just as a seine net pulls up all sorts of things, some unexpected, so I think of this reflection post, as it grabs bits of information off the net.
If you would like to see a page with the previous reflections, you can follow this link.
The Lectionary Readings for today
Scripture Lessons for this Week: the 2nd Sunday in Lent:
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:23-31 ; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38
Reflections on the Scripture
One of the books I highly recommend reading during the B Lectionary cycle is Ched Myers. Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. I refer to it quite a bit during this week’s reflections. This book is well worth checking out and reading closely.
Putting this Passage into Perspective
Mark’s Gospel has two incidents in which a blind person comes to Jesus to be healed. In the first instance, the healing doesn’t happen on the first shot. Everything is blurry at first. It takes a second attempt from Jesus and the sight impaired person to get it right. I am in the camp of scholars who think this is a literary device for pointing out that the disciples are not getting things, for them things are rather blurry. But Matthew and Luke, when writing their gospels, think it is theologically problematic for Jesus as the son of God to be inept at a healing, so they “fix” the stories in their rewriting. In their retellings, the healing is immediate and perfect.
The Gospel lesson from Mark occurs just after the first of these healing events (Mark 8:22ff). For the man says, “I see people. They look like trees, only they are walking around.” So Jesus places his hands on the man’s eyes again, and the man sees clearly.
Who Do You Say That I Am?
It is right after this experience that today’s Gospel Lesson starts.
Jesus starts the questioning “Who do others say that I am?” Then turns it to them, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers on everyone’s behalf and says the right thing, but means the wrong thing. “You’re the Christ” which means your going to restore us to power. And when Jesus starts instructing what being the Christ means, Peter actually grabs Jesus and starts scolding him!
The disciples don’t yet see.
The Clashing of World Views
In some ways, it is appropriate that this text follow last weeks desert temptation accounts as Peter has visions of a certain kind of reality that is unfolding, but is blind to the current realities facing the disciples (by the end of this passage, not just the 12, but the entire community).
Jesus rejects the Messiah labels in favor of the Human One (coming out of Daniel). Jesus is arguing that the “Human One” necessarily means suffering because being an advocate for true justice implies being a critic of the debt code and the Sabbath necessarily comes into conflict with the elders, chief priests and the scribes (of 8:31). So this points out to the political inevitability, not to a sense of fatalism or fate (Binding the Strong Man, 245).
As Myers points out: “Mark’s subversive narrative bursts into the open. There can be no equivocation concerning the political semantics of this invitation. The ‘cross’ had only one connotation in the Roman empire: upon its dissidents were executed” (Binding the Strong Man, 245).
Reflect Upon the Worldview of the First Readers of Mark
Mark was likely comprised right around the year 70, perhaps a few years earlier. This is right when Judea revolted (yet again) against the Roman Empire. The end result was that there became no more Kingdom (although it had been a “puppet” kingdom for years), and the Temple was destroyed.
Reflect upon the Christians in Judea. Do we fight with the Jewish Resistance (of various factions)? Do we await Jesus’ second coming and somehow not participate? Do we stand with Rome? We certainly cannot do the last option, as Jesus nonviolently resisted the Empire. But none-of-this is what Jesus was calling for, was it?
In this kind of context, does “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me” have a different sound? Especially if these are the words you remember while standing in court?
Myers:
But Mark is not goading the disciples to military heroism; he is introducing the central paradox of the Gospel. The threat to punish by death is the bottom line of the power of the state; fear of this threat keeps the dominant order intact. By resisting this fear and pursuing kingdom practice even at the cost of death, the disciple contributes to the shattering of the powers’ reign of death in history. To concede the state’s sovereignty in death is to refuse its authority in life (Binding the Strong Man, 247).
Our Lentan Reflection
Myers reminds us that this isn’t just a story for Jesus and his early followers. This story is about us, also. This story, this myth, empowers us “to choose to stand with the Human One, a choice that will in reality overthrow the highest and deepest powers” (Binding the Strong Man, 249).
How are we standing alongside the Human One? Where do we see God’s reign breaking in, and are asked to join alongside?
A Bit of Norwegian Humor for Reflection
I came across this YouTube video a while back and thought it was great. If you didn’t watch the Superbowl (shh … I didn’t either) it doesn’t matter. I’ve posted the Superbowl commercial video, too. What would a society look like if it lived the values of the Reign of God? (Which I’m not saying that Norway does, per se. But culturally they have different values than that of the United States, and it shows. So what would the Reign of God look like on a societal level? What’s getting in the way of enacting it out?)
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4U5nit_WkY&feature=youtu.be
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi3JQa1ynDw&feature=youtu.be
Black Seafarers Resource
“Before the turn of the twentieth century, maritime industries provided the greatest opportunities for Black employment and investment in America. Between the Revolution and the Civil War, more African Americans were employed in the maritime trades than in any other industry. In New England, the representation of Black men on shipboard was proportionally far greater than in the general population. African Americans were represented on the vast majority of the region’s vessels as employees, investors or owners.” From a summary of the 1990 book “African Americans in the Maritime Trades, a Guide to Resources in New England.”
Most of us didn’t (still don’t) know this history. The Port Side of New York’s African American Maritime Heritage Program. This is a fantastic resource full of life history and interesting bits of information that we should all know. It is everyone’s history. Check it out.
Reflections for Black History Month
This is a continuation of a theme from last week’s Seine Net Reflection. These are the topics that Rachel Cargle is encouraging us to read this week. As I said last week …
Black History is United States History, Rachel Cargle reminds us. She has been posting to her Instagram feed places for the rest of us to go and learn (even unlearn) things about the United States history.
For most of us, the research is right at our fingertips via a computer, tablet, or smart phone. Here is the list of things to look up for this week:
National Coalition of 100 Black Women
Augusta Savage
Black Life on Martha’s Vineyard
Institute for Colored Youth and HBCU’s
The Divine Nine
Womanism
Juneteenth
(This is the final week. You can follow along with the #DiscoverOurGlory2021.)
Give her a follow and learn along with us: Rachel Elizabeth Cargle
A Spiritual Practice
Last week, in this section of the Seine Net we spoke of the Benedictine Spiritual Practice. I thought I’d give a quick review by quoting Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB (as found in Fr. Richard Rohr’s daily meditation February 23, 2021)
Sr. Chittister writes:
All in all, the Rule of Benedict is designed for ordinary people who live ordinary lives. It was not written for priests or mystics or hermits or ascetics; it was written by a layman for laymen. It was written to provide a model of spiritual development for the average person who intends to live life beyond the superficial or the uncaring. …
Benedict was quite precise about it all. Time was to be spent in prayer, in sacred reading, in work, and in community participation. In other words, it was to be spent on listening to the Word, on study, on making life better for others, and on community building. It was a public as well as private; it was private as well as public. It was balanced. No one thing got exaggerated out of all proportion to the other dimensions of life. No one thing absorbed the human spirit to the exclusion of every other. Life was made up of many facets and only together did they form a whole. Physical labor and mental prayer and social life and study and community concerns were all pieces of the puzzle of life. Life flowed through time, with time as its guardian. (Joan D. Chittister, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today (HarperSanFrancisco: 1991), 4, 74-75.)
This week, I’m focusing upon the Spiritual Practice of reflecting upon and then writing a rule.
I recall doing this as an assignment in one of my seminary classes. It was an interesting exercise in reflecting upon my daily life and what I wanted to keep, where I needed to improve, etc.
What types of activities help you to center yourself into a time of prayerful mediation?
Where do your lifestyle practices and belief structures align, and where might they need to change?
These are good questions to get your started. But it can also be helpful to look at what others have come up with.
Here is an example of a rule for inspiration.
This is again from a Richard Rohr mediation (daily meditation for Saturday, February 27th, 2021).
Beverly Lanzetta explores these rules in her book A New Silence. Rohr quotes her saying:
Over the years, I have composed and followed a personal rule of life. I include below excerpts from the original and longer rule, which you may find helpful in writing and living your own code of conduct.
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Be faithful to the Divine in all that you do. Put the Divine will before your own. Ask, “What would God do?” and wait for the answer. Do not allow personal attraction or gain to cloud decision-making, or your soul’s intentions to be compromised.
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Be simple of purpose. The basis of simplicity is centering on God. The heart of the monastic life is to live in God’s presence.
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Love all creation with Divine compassion. …
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Offer yourself as a place of prayer. May your presence be one that heals divisions and expands hearts.
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…
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Pray daily to grow in humility, and be empty of the false self. …
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In all you do, practice nonharm. …
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…
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[I think your getting the idea.]
Blessed be
Currently I’ve still been reading Philip Jenkins’, The Lost History of Christianity, the Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia – and How It Died.
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Ched Myers. Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus.
Joan D. Chittister, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today (HarperSanFrancisco: 1991