IT'Sunday

11/05/2025

Celebrating my 10th year on Facebook. Thank you for your continuing support. I could never have made it without you. 🙏🤗🎉

11/11/2024

Readings for Sunday, 17 November 2024
1 Samuel 1:4-20
Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18), 19-25
Mark 13:1-8
https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=598298195

Sarah Yehudit Schneider 'A Still Small Voice' Artwerx Link for
"Prayer & Destiny"
https://astillsmallvoice.org/product/prayer-destiny-partner-study/
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Mark 13:1-8
There is a viable theory about Mark’s gospel (based primarily on Mary Ann Tolbert‘s reading of Mark in "Sowing the Gospel"), that one of his primary structuring elements is his quote from Isaiah 6 about the people having eyes but not seeing, and having ears but not hearing. There are only two extended ‘discourses’ in Mark, chapters 4 and 13. The first sermon features the quote from Isaiah and the catchword “Listen!” In between come healings of deaf people and then blind people. Then, the catchword “Watch!” is featured in the second sermon. In the face of the difficulties of seeing and hearing (posed by the veil of the Sacred), Jesus pleads with his disciples to listen and to watch. They fail the test of listening earlier, and the final test for watching comes in the Garden of Gethsemane, which they also fail. It would seem that they only begin seeing what they need to see and understanding what they have heard when the veil to the Holy of Holies is torn apart upon Jesus’ death.
Oona hab eye. Hoccome oona ain see?
Onna hab yea. Hoccome oona ain yeh?
Onna ain memba gnihton yletulosba*, ainty?

Mark 13 is probably the earliest among the eschatological discourses we have in the synoptic Gospels, and it begins, significantly, with a prophecy of the destruction of the Temple.

Shortly afterwards, Peter, James, John and Andrew ask Jesus: “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be brought to an end?” (Mk 13:4)

Notice that the link between the prophecy of the destruction of the Temple and the end of everything is made not by Jesus but by the disciples!
Immediately afterwards we have one of Jesus’ famous non-replies. He does not answer their question. At least not directly but begins to give instructions for how to live... in the world, specifically as believers in the days inaugurated by his death.
Jesus' instructions are negative rather than positive.

Pay no attention to people who come as Messiah, or some sort of savior, leading many people astray. Jesus gives to understand that his own coming will not be of this sort. As we shall see later, his coming will be absolutely manifest, but not with that sort of manifestation.

Do not be alarmed by the wars, battles and portents which are to come. That is to say, not only should they not pay attention to the possible theological value of the prophets who come, but they must also learn to distance themselves from attributing theological importance to the violent events of this world. They have no such importance. These things are going to happen, and Jesus knows very well that, precisely because he has invalidated the easy formula (kill a scapegoat) for making peace. There will be wars and nations will rise up against nations: these are the first pains, or consequences of what has been produced by his resurrection. War, etc. is, so to speak, the negative counterpart of what he has inaugurated, this continuous process which we have seen in the time of Abel, the flight from false sacralization to false sacralization, without ever leaving the eternal roundabout of reciprocal violence.

In the midst of all this, the disciple must walk with care, for he cannot associate himself with this process.
This is a description of the dirty reality in which the disciples must give witness to following Jesus, of a firm belief in another (kind of) kingdom, distinct from the kingdoms which seek to found themselves on said reciprocal violence.

In the midst of all this, as it proceeds, the disciples will always be outsiders, and always potential victims, potential traitors, potential subversives, and so on.

In the midst of all this conflictual reality, the good news about God, and the coming into existence of the arduously constructed kingdom of universality which we have already seen, will be borne slowly and almost silently to all nations.

It seems to me very significant that it be in this context that Jesus warns against being worried in advance about what to say before the tribunals. In a world ruled by the lynch-mob mechanism, a typical attitude which will come about will be that of those who considers themselves victims, and for that reason are always preparing themselves against accusations.

Which of us has not fantasized an argument, in the midst of accusations which we manage to rebut by the power of our argument? Isn’t this one of the ways of proving our worth? An extraordinary and triumphant self-justification?
Well, Jesus prohibits such fantasy. The Holy Spirit, the defense counselor, is the one who will defend us, so that it is in the degree to which we cease to worry about defending ourselves, which is the same as saying, cease to worry about justifying ourselves, that the defending Spirit will declare innocent the victims.

Let us be clear that this is not a guarantee that we’re going to get off unharmed from the trials and ‘legal’ lynchings of the world, for many have indeed perished under just such circumstances, most notably Jesus. However, in the long run, the innocence of the victim will be established. Another way of saying this: if we are preoccupied about our defense, then we are still prisoners of the violence of the world. Our paranoia, our anxiousness to defend and to justify ourselves is nothing other than that. Jesus tells us that the Defense Counselor gives us such freedom that we do not even have to justify or defend ourselves, and that this trial, this process, of those who are learning to live free in the midst of the persecuting turbulences of this world, is what discipleship looks like in the time that is to come after his death.

It is in this context of the collapse of all the normal forms of building human unity, including that within the family, where children, parents and siblings hate each other, that the patient universality of the kingdom which does not cast out is to be built.

Jesus then moves on to a description of something which in all probability refers to the fall of Jerusalem, judging by the references to Judea: that fall will be a terrible reality, as indeed it was. But not even that, for all its horror, is to be read in a theological key. All of that has nothing to do with the coming of the Messiah, and the disciple must learn not to read that fall in theological terms, not to pay attention to supposed signs and prodigies which will so give the impression of coming from God, that even the elect will run the risk of being lead astray by them.

After having laid the foundations about that to which one must not pay attention, Jesus turns to describing his coming. In the first place he uses apocalyptic language, taken from the book of Daniel: the sun will be darkened, the moon will give forth no light, and so on.
It's quite important to notice that this way of talking does not indicate some supposed divine intervention shaking up these heavenly bodies. The language depends on the Semitic vision of earth and sky as a single reality where the stars, the sun and the moon were hung in the vault of heaven. What is being described is the way in which earthly, that is to say, human violence, shakes all of creation. We are speaking, once again of human violence, a social and cultural upheaval of ever greater magnitude.

It is in the midst of a human violence which shakes the foundations of all creation that the Son of man will be seen on the clouds, in strength and majesty. That vision of the Son of man, as we have already seen, comes from Daniel, and the clouds will be appearing again shortly. It is starting from this appearance of the Son of man that the angels will come out to gather together the chosen ones from every corner of the earth.

After this Jesus speaks to the disciples about the fig tree. You will remember that, not long before, he had cursed the fig tree which was barren, even though it was not the season for figs (Mark 11:12-14).

The fig tree symbolizes both Israel and the Temple, and Jesus refers to bringing about a new fig tree, which will produce fruit, and it is in the degree to which this new fig tree produces fruit in the midst of the circumstances which Jesus has just described that the disciples will start to understand that the coming of the Son of man is at the door. And all this will happen in this generation, the generation which begins with Jesus’ death, and which will begin to live the fruits of the uncovering of the innocence of the victim.

Jesus is quite clear: heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will not pass away. That is to say, the teaching which he has come to bring, leaving open and exposed the mechanism of the randomly chosen victim will be, from now on, the inexorable, though hidden, dynamic of history, and it is in its light that everything will be reconceptualized or reparadigmed — which has in fact happened already, but without understanding; without having been seen. Once Jesus said what he said, it can never be totally hidden again, and any attempt to do so (like, for example, the N**i attempt at genocide) fatally fails in the long run.

At the end of his discourse, Jesus returns to the initial question of his disciples, so as to refuse them an answer to their question of “when?”. It is not really a matter of a “when”; Jesus want them/us to refocus because it’s about how always to be alive to the presence of the victims. It is a question of the basic attitude of the disciple in the time inaugurated by Jesus’ death: always to have the capacity for a flexibility of vision so as to recognize the victims, wheresoever the victims be, and under whatsoever form they appear, so as to know how to go out to meet them.

The whole of the time between the death of Jesus and the end of history gyrates around this dynamic of seeing/having sight made flexible by knowing/hearing/understanding how to receive and become a blessing to the victim.

After this there follows one of the most brilliant passages in Mark, which in a certain sense gives the key for reading all that has gone before. The master goes off, handing out tasks, and demanding that the servants remain alert: “Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping…” (Mk 13:35-36)

With this we understand something fundamental about Mark: that he writes in a self-referential way. For this passage, the last before the beginning of the Passion, refers exactly to the events of the Passion which are to unfold. The coming of the master will take place in the handing over of Jesus, for it is at evening that he hands himself over to the disciples in the form of the Eucharist, at midnight that he is handed over by Judas, who comes when the disciples are asleep; at cockcrow he is betrayed (handed over) by Peter, and at dawn he is handed over by the High Priest to the Romans for ex*****on.

Just in case we have not understood this, Jesus repeats before the High Priest the phrase about the coming of the Son of man on the clouds, telling him that he will himself see this phenomenon: “. . . and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.” (Mk 14:62)

Then, in the scene of the crucifixion, even though it was midday, the whole sky was darkened (the raised Son of man coming on clouds), and immediately after Jesus expires, that is, hands over his Spirit, there begins the process of the angels who seek out the chosen ones from the four winds, for it is a Roman centurion who says: “Truly this man was the Son of God.” (Mk 15:39)

I hope that you see some of the threads of subtlety which are to be found beneath Mark’s text. The so-called apocalyptic discourses of Jesus are nothing less than a brilliant exercise in subverting from within the apocalyptic imagination. It has as its end to teach the disciples how to live in the times that are to come, the time which I called ‘of Abel.’ Above all it seeks to train the disciples with respect to what must be their deepest eschatological attitude: the absolutely flexible state of staying alert so as to perceive the coming of the Son of man, the one who is seated at the right hand of God, in the most hidden and subtle forms in which, in fact, he comes. That is, we are dealing with instructions as to how to live with the mind fixed on the things that are above, where Christ is seated with God: not glued to some fantasy, but learning to perceive the comings of the Son of Man in the acts of betrayal, of rejection, of handing-over and of lynching.

We can compare this with the experience of Elijah on Mount Horeb, who had to learn that God was not in the apocalyptic chaos of life like in the tempest, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still, small voice which passes by unperceived (1 Kings 19:11-13).

And I think it's worth noting, we are experiencing similar chaos in our national politics: - and Jesus was explaining to the disciples of his day, that the state of alert in the face of his coming is an exercise in perception, not of that which is bruited violently among us, nor of what glistens appealingly about us, but of the way that all the power and glory, majesty and splendor of God is to be found in the almost imperceptible victim, on the way out of even being.

ref. James Alison’s 'Raising Abel,' pp. 145-149.]

* "gnihton yletulosba" is "absolutely nothing" backwards and means absolutely nothing.
The rest is a Gullah translation of Mark 8:18.

07/11/2024

"Unfortunately, during the course of 2,000 years of Christian history, [the cross as a] symbol of salvation has been detached from any reference to the ongoing suffering and oppression of human beings — those whom Ignacio Ellacuría, the Salvadoran martyr, called “the crucified peoples of history.”

The cross has been transformed into a harmless, non-offensive ornament that Christians wear around their necks. Rather than reminding us of the “cost of discipleship,” it has become a form of “cheap grace” [Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship], an easy way to salvation that doesn’t force us to confront the power of Christ’s message and mission.

Until we can see the cross and the lynching tree together, until we can identify Christ with a “recrucified” black body hanging from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy. (The Cross and the Lynching Tree, xiv-xv)

Yes, in this book "The Cross and the Lynching Tree", James Cone comments in an endnote that few American scholars have made the crucial link between the cross of Jesus and the lynching tree of so many thousands of African Americans. He names René Girard and Girardian theologian James Alison among a handful of others (p. 171, n. 4) who have managed to make that connection.

Cone also observes that no one “has fully explored the connection and its meaning for America’s religious imagination.”
So,
Here I stand, to present a cross-centered perspective of anthropology in the spirit of René Girard that will explore the meaning of the cross more fully, with the understanding that a New Reformation in the American context means working with the Spirit to redeem the Christian religion from its long entanglement with white supremacy and the falsehood of redemptive violence. It means preaching the Gospel in cooperation with the Spirit’s work of creating one new humanity fit for all peoples.

For further thought:

For Geez 57: Trees, Tommy Airey reviews James Cone’s “The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” which indicts white Christianity and invites redemptive truth.

07/11/2024

https://christian.art/

You're welcome.

Christian Art offers a unique approach to daily Gospel readings. Each day, we select a work of art relevant to the day’s scripture passage and offer a short reflection on the two.

07/04/2024

The number of homeless people on 103rd Street near where we live is a sad reminder of a much bigger and growing problem in our country. The Supremely Stupid Court just made things worse (just 3 days ago) by giving permission to local governments to make the lives of generally miserable people more miserable.

With more unoccupied residential spaces available in this country than homeless individuals on the streets, this just wanders through an unforgivable realm of travesty that I fear a privileged society may actually prefer too little capacity to understand so they can blithely squelch any latent desire to appropriately respond... It's up to those who care to speak up for those who don't have resources to speak for themselves and to motivate those who don't see a brother, only a bother; who don't see a person in need, only an annoyance to be alleviated.

Can we get started? Here's something we (me and you) can do. It's not much, but it's a start and we need to start now.

https://endhomelessness.org/actions/take-action-against-the-criminalization-of-homelessness/

"The system treats you better if you are rich and guilty than it does if you are poor and innocent. "
—brother Bryan Stevenson

06/05/2024

Readings for Sunday, June 9, 2024
1 Samuel 8:4-20, (11:14-15)
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Mark 3:20-35

Artwerx: artist unknown
https://bible.art/meaning/mark-3:35

https://renew.org/who-were-jesus-brothers/
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And we have also arrived at one of Jesus’ basic insights which, by Mark’s account, is expressed as his first “parable,” or riddle. When Jesus is accused — Satan’s basic principle of power — of having his power come from Beelzebul, he turns their accusation into a riddle:

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.”

And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables:
♦“How can Satan cast out Satan?
◊ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
◊ And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
◊ And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.” (Mark 3:23-26)

Jesus is not here denying that Satan does cast out Satan, which is the usual reading of this riddle. No, Satan casting out Satan is precisely what the scribes from Jerusalem have just tried to do to Jesus — though they, of course, don’t see it that way. The scribes see themselves as doing God’s work, not Satan’s work. But, in accusing Jesus with being of Beelzebul, (which is another of Satan’s names), they are not only manifesting the nature of Satan by definition (Satan means "the accuser"), but they also use the mechanism of “Satan casting out Satan.” They are acting out the ultimate principle of satanic power, namely, the joint accusation they bring against Jesus, as an attempt to cast him out by identifying him with one of Satan’s names. They think they are doing God’s work, but Jesus’ riddle cleverly suggests otherwise.

What Jesus is trying to help us to see with this riddle is that “Satan casting out Satan” is precisely the shape of all our unholy human interactions since the foundations of our world.

Jesus is not challenging the reality, because, Satan does cast out Satan. The mechanism which generates a kind of peace within human community is activated by the majority doing the work of Satan by accusing a minority of being the "satanic" trouble-makers, the tempters, and so they justify the violence of casting them out. And the traces of violence by the majority are veiled, or justified, to themselve by the idolatry of seeing their satanic casting-out as something commanded by God. Whatever the accused said or did is labled violence against the community, but the violence of the community against the accused is seen as a righteous or sacred act in obedience to higher powers.

Thus, rather than challenging the reality, Jesus is affirming the reality of Satan casting out Satan yet he is also challenging the outcome: this mechanism will never result in a lasting peace as we think, but always end with a divided house that cannot stand. And later, in his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, Jesus’ obedience to his Father will challenge that idolatry: what we mistakenly see as God commanding us to cast out Satan is actually Satan casting out Satan.

The God of Jesus, the God who is Love, would never ask us to base our relationships in acts of force or isolationism. But Satan tricks us into thinking that he is God, and so we continue to play his game.

The outcome of “Satan casting out Satan” needs to be challenged because humankind has unwittingly put its faith precisely in this kind of unholy interaction based on accusation and sanctioning violence. Meanwhile, we have remained blind to seeing that our form of "peaceful communion" is based on the violence of Satan casting out Satan.

Through his riddle Jesus is inviting us to recognize our unholy, and relationally destructive actions are unholy — as commanded by an accuser, Satan, not God, the one who is always extending an invitation to unity, love and peaceful coexistence — and as always, the road of accusations and condemnation is doomed to fail, always doomed to end in division. All our attempts at culture and community are, at their foundations, based on a being over against someone else, so that all our human communities ultimately end in division. Calling attention to how these satanic powers have operated is thus the first step in their reign coming to an end. And Satan falls from heaven like lightning (Luke 10:18).

God’s Holy Communion in Jesus Christ, represents the coming of God’s reign based on love and inclusion rather than another form of sanctioned of sacralizing violence. God’s reign comes through its opposite, that is to say, through the righteous suffering of religious violence at the hands of an accusing humanity in the cross, which serves, in the end, only to reveal the powerlessness of such violence by raising this Jesus from the dead.

04/22/2024

Lectionary Readings for
28 April, 2024, 5th Sunday of Easter
Acts 8:26-40 https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=580736554
1 John 4:7-21 https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=580736676
John 15:1-8 https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=580736792

Artwerx: “Abide” Acrylic Painting By Matilda Wentze
https://youtu.be/Az1UBe3Gd2M
https://www.saatchiart.com/sillytilly
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One of the many scandals of Republican politics is to scapegoat marginal peoples. The purpose is simply to rile up the base.
One of the many scandals of Democratic politics is to scapegoat conservative leaders. The purpose is simply to rile up the base.

A eu**ch is a transgender person in an ancient context. Not quite the same as today’s political contexts, but enough similarity in terms of discrimination on the basis of gender identity to provide substance for further thoughts and prayers.

Today’s First Reading from Acts 8 paves a way for religious redemption from oppressing those perceived as outsiders, like eu**chs, or transgender peoples

Mimetic Theory can help us understand how human religions begin as the basis for cultures of sacred violence structured around the scapegoating those deemed to be different, or “Other.”

The Judeo-Christian scriptures give us a narrative of how a true God can take that sinful beginning, expose it, and offer us instead the possibility of a religion redeemed to more fulfilling role of helping all whom God touches to flourish.

In the case of the eu**ch of Acts 8, the cultural religion of sacred violence is reflected in the texts of the Torah that make transgender people outsiders to the accepted religious right (e.g., Deut 23:1). But this eu**ch has discovered the prophetic texts of the later Isaian tradition which turn the suffering of such scapegoated peoples into a promise of flourishing.

Philip approaches the eu**ch who is reading the Song of the Suffering Servant found in Isaiah 53. The eu**ch may have already been aware of the text only a few lines later:

3 Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’;
and do not let the eu**ch say,
‘I am just a dry tree.’
4 For thus says the Lord:
To the eu**chs who keep my sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
5 I will give, in my house and within my walls,
a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off. (Isa 56:3-5)

From the Suffering Servant to the flourishing of the usual scapegoats: that’s a promise for those who become connected to the life of Jesus, the Messiah and his faithful followers.

What we might ask today is this: who are the eu**chs and Philips of our day to help lead us into the Way of abundant life?

And once we find it, that commitment needs to be more than just an event, make it a regular practice. Each of us must learn to hold ourselves open to the Spirit on a moment-by-moment basis. Jesus used a branch abiding in the vine as the image for this practice. The branch can’t bear fruit on its own, he said. But if it abides in the vine, it will naturally bear fruit season after season. Yes, pruning will come, and pruning may be painful, but again, if the branch just abides, just stays, just says yes season after season, pruning can result in ever more fruitfulness as the years go by.

03/30/2024

02/23/2024

I know I've not been contributing to this page as much as I have in the past. My spirtiual journey has taken an off-road turn and I have not given this page the attention it needs.

I'm not sure when or if I will return to more regular contributions here.

I do want to share a pair of resources that I have found to be somewhat inspiring related to the art I have shared called "Full of Eyes" and "The Gaius Project" whose website is currently under construction.

https://www.fullofeyes.com/

https://www.thegaiusproject.org/

I hope these may be inspiring to you also.
Be blessed.
Be a blessing.
+Dale

Why Did Jesus Die? Watch Here & Learn More Creating Free Exegetical Artwork for the Global Church Visual-Exegetical Art Explore a library of exegetical art and animation, completely free for the Global Church. View Full Art Gallery Books from Full of Eyes Art books designed to help the Church see, s...

12/26/2023

Readings for the First Sunday after Christmas, 2023
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:22-40
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Artwerx: "Tears Against Violence"
by Prabita Rajesh
https://www.saatchiart.com/prabitarajesh
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RE: Isaiah 61:10-62:3
The prophet stands in the gap between God and Judah, decreeing a new age of freedom and restoration (Isaiah 61:1-3) and refusing to leave God in silence until Zion’s vindication is manifest on earth as it is in heaven.
Fundamentally, Isaiah 61:10—62:3 is about the profound transformation that occurs in Zion as a result of the prophet’s spirit-anointed mission.
So fundamental is this transformation that Zion has to be renamed (Isaiah 62:2).

RE: Galatians 4:4-7
The primary metaphor regarding the cross here is not sacrifice but ransom.
St. Paul cites Galatians 3:13 among other texts, which need to be interpreted in terms of Galatians 4:4-5, that Christ came to redeem us, to win us back from Satan’s power that we might come to live under God’s grace as children.

Christ redeems us to become children of God. To do so Christ submits to the curse of living under the law, naturally becoming a victim to its sacrificial mechanisms rather than the idea of taking the punishment of God’s wrath for us.
Christ reveals to us our own wrath and our own propensity to violence, in order that we might better understand and begin to live by God’s true power, which lies in the vulnerability of love, not the forcefulness of wrath.

RE: Luke 2:22-40
The sacrificial context of Simeon’s and Anna’s prophecies is striking. Luke is rather elaborate in setting up this passage by telling us the details of the sacrificial practice. The summary of Anna’s prophecy puts things in terms of “redemption,” (cf. Gal. 4), and Christ comes to redeem us from the powers of the sacrificial institutions.

As an infant, Jesus is brought by his parents to participate in the sacrificial institutions. As an adult, on the cross, he will once again participate in those sacrificial institutions, but in a way that will reveal their true nature, thus redeeming us from them. Simeon and Anna prophecy that revelation, which will not only redeem Israel, but will also be a light to the Gentiles.

How do we remain rooted in the tradition while trying to reach out to the younger generations, especially in our worship and music? Change in our century has happened so rapidly that each generation effectively has its own new culture, even within the same racial and ethnic boundaries. Congregations can be segregated racially and ethnically these days and still find themselves facing a crisis of a “generational multi-culturalism,” if I may use that term.

Either congregations intentionally face this newly accentuated problem of integrating the generations, or they begin to segregate along generational lines, as well. Unfortunately, many congregations already find themselves in the situation of having all the young people leave.

On the other hand, many newer congregations, which cater to the younger generations, find themselves with few senior members, and little sense of the tradition. But the Gospel does mean to be universal, to offer salvation to all people. Our challenge is to keep this in faith and break new ground in ways that reaches out to others.