How the Lectionary Instructs Us

Our whole country seems to be buzzing with questions, opinions, and updates on the real-time drama at the United States border, and the drama is being told from two different positions. Examined one way, children are being cruelly torn from their parents; examined the other, the media are using these children as leverage or as fuel for their political resentment. I have been grateful for my Facebook friends at Christ Church Anglican who have shared articles and videos that do not engage in vicious and slanderous rhetoric but instead highlight some of the less obvious perspectives on this question and contribute to deeper understanding. (For this, I sincerely recommend adding your brothers and sisters at Christ Church as Facebook friends.)

Both sides of the conversation have also sought to reinforce their positions with Scripture. We have seen our Attorney General nod toward Romans 13 to support one position, to which the overwhelming rebuttal has been either “Let the little children come to me” or a string of justice-oriented texts from the prophets and gospels. Rather than use this space to offer an evaluation of each of these uses of Scripture, I would like to offer a preview of this Sunday’s lectionary readings and suggest ways in which they might offer us wisdom.

The ACNA will hear Deuteronomy 15, which commends and commands giving freely with an ungrudging heart in the event that one’s brothers becomes poor, as “there will never cease to be poor in the land.” Then, we will sing Psalm 112 and consider the life of the righteous man who “deals generously and lends” and “is gracious, merciful, and righteous.” For these reasons he “will be remembered;” “is not afraid of bad news;” and “wealth and riches” will be in his house. In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul will urge the church to be generous in taking up a collection for the brothers in need for several reasons: because Jesus became poor, for the sake of fairness and because God provided for the needs of his people when they wandered in the desert.

Because our gospel reading (Mark 5:22-24, 35-43) is consistent with the Revised Common Lectionary, the whole Roman Catholic Church, much of the Lutheran Church, and participating Baptist, Reformed, Mennonite, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches will all hear the same story: the story of Jesus healing Jairus’ daughter.

When Jesus, Jairus, and the crowd that followed them arrive at Jairus’ house, they are met by a mourning party. The party most likely consists of both Jairus’ family and a company of professional mourners, or “moirologists,” who shepherd families through the loss of loved ones by performing eulogies, leading people into rituals of grief, and offering comfort. One from among this party alerts Jairus that his daughter is in fact dead. Jesus, with very bad manners, contradicts this diagnosis—“The child is not dead but sleeping”—and the party laughs at him.

What Jesus does next is instructive. He does in Jairus’ house what he will later do in the temple: drives out those who are defiling it with their suffocating abuses of sacred space. These mourners, quick to offer the gift of empathy, are nevertheless so certain of the irreversibility of death that they would rather discourage Jairus’ faith and Jesus’ prognosis.

May the Spirit of God lead us into a purer obedience and bring us closer together in Christ as we seek God in these texts.

Peace,

Jack Franicevich