Proper 6 (Year C) - Free Sample
The Word
What Should We Die For? by Martin L. Smith
The violence in 1 Kings 21 is turned on its head as the gospel of Luke and Paul’s letter to the Galatians explores what is worth giving one’s life for.
Pray and Act by Walter Brueggemann
The stories of Naboth and the woman who washed Jesus' feet show the contrast between a graced life and a life propelled and measured by self-securing; they illustrate Paul's classic statement about an alternative life that is lived out of God's limitless generosity.
Senseless Mercy by Michaela Bruzzese
It is nearly impossible for most of us to comprehend a God who forgives without merit, who loves us anyway, who keeps calling us home to the fullness of life that only God can give.
Who is Righteous? by Jim Rice
The parable of the debtors is aimed not at the woman who has just washed Jesus' feet, but at Simon, the skeptical Pharisee who has asked Jesus to dinner.
In Need of Grace by Joyce Hollyday
Perhaps the real surprise of the story for us is not that Jesus received the blessing of a "sinful" woman - but that he ate at the table of a Pharisee. He listened and taught and took the man seriously.
In Context
Jesus and Women by Melanie Morrison
Luke's gospel is particularly awake to female discipleship, often paralleling material about men with material about women. Jesus scandalizes his contemporaries by affirming the gifts and persons of women, even women thought to be "unclean."
Themes
Economic Oppression and Biblical Economics (1 Kings 21)
Land as a Gift from God by Daniel Tiessen
Where Naboth views himself as holding his ancestral land in trust, Ahab treats it as just another commodity to be bought and sold; the violence of his land grab is mirrored in the treatment of many Native Americans in more recent history.
Jesus' New Economy of Grace by Ched Myers
Naboth's refusal to give his ancestral land to King Ahab is an assertion of God's economic mandates for Israel - the Jubilee economic principles that were threatened by the economic stratification that came with the monarchy. Against this historical sweep, Myers studies how Jubilee economics were central to the ministry of Jesus and the early church.
The Law and Justification (Galatians 2:16-21; Luke 7:36-50)
Liberated by Law: Gratitude and Respect for Life by Perry Yoder
Grace precedes law; and where we find law, we find grace. Both Israel's liberation and Israel's law are gifts of God that are inextricably linked together. When we separate them, we lose the proper significance of Israel's narrative and the proper function of Israel's law.
Current Events
What the Heck is 'Social Justice'? by Rose Marie Berger
While Jesus' parable of the two debtors in Luke 7 sets an example of charity, Naboth's and Elijah's support of the ancestral land laws (which kept families in ancient Israel from falling into permanent poverty) reminds us of the need for social justice. Berger considers what social charity and justice look like in our world today.
Quote
"Saint Paul would call the Christian position 'justification by faith,' where Christ dies once and for all and because of that there is the possibility of universal amnesty. No one else has to 'die' to achieve justice or justification. It utterly changed the equation of how justice is achieved. Paul would call the secular situation 'the justification that leads to death.' Always someone, somewhere must 'die' for the crime to be 'erased.' The secular mind must have a victim, a perpetrator, a defendant to bring closure to the case and to speak of justice." - Richard Rohr, OFM, Beyond Crime & Punishment