“People who use sacred texts have often found ways of selecting passages appropriate to their needs. Disciples of Confucius used a complex system of hexagrams, chosen by lot, to find images and comments suitable to their time, place and situation. In classical and medieval times, the writings of Virgil and Homer were used in a similar way. Sometimes the Bible was accessed by lot or dice or random procedures. The Church responded to the need to select appropriate wisdom from the Bible, by the daily lectionary, a selection of readings for every day in the year, which was originally used in monasteries, but has for some time been used in daily mass in the Catholic Church, and for private devotion in others. Obviously the choice of passages reflects a theology and the Christian calendar, but it also has an arbitrary element. It asks the reader, “Can this wisdom be applied to your soul, your community, your place, today?” This blog follows the daily readings and hopes to uncover some wisdom.”

 Reading 1, 1 Samuel 15:16-23

16 Samuel then said to Saul, ‘Stop! Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.’ He said, ‘Go on.’

17 Samuel said, ‘Small as you may be in your own eyes, are you not the leader of the tribes of Israel? The Lord has anointed you as king of Israel.

18 When the Lord sent you on a mission he said to you, “Go and put those sinners, the Amalekites, under the curse of destruction and make war on them until they are exterminated.”

Bosnia: ethnic cleansing

19 Why then did you not obey the Lord’s voice? Why did you fall on the booty and do what is wrong in the Lord’s eyes?’

20 Saul replied to Samuel, ‘But I did obey the Lord’s voice. I went on the mission which the Lord gave me; I brought back Agag king of the Amalekites; I put Amalek under the curse of destruction;

21 and from the booty the people have taken the best sheep and cattle of what was under the curse of destruction only to sacrifice them to the Lord your God in Gilgal.’

22 To which, Samuel said: Is the Lord pleased by burnt offerings and sacrifices or by obedience to the Lord’s voice? Truly, obedience is better than sacrifice, submissiveness than the fat of rams.

23 Rebellion is a sin of sorcery, presumption a crime of idolatry! ‘Since you have rejected the Lord’s word, he has rejected you as king.’

 I have problems with this passage:

1. The writer feels his characters have to say “the Lord” every next moment.

2. He tells us that the Lord is not that pleased with animal sacrifice, but he is pleased with human sacrifice, since He has ordered the ethnic cleansing of the Amelekites.

We feel there is something wrong with this sort of thing, when Moslem terrorists think Allah has told them to do it to us: we should also condemn it in the Bible. If we read this in church, we should say, “This is NOT the word of the Lord.”

Gospel, Mark 2:18-22

18 John’s disciples and the Pharisees were keeping a fast, when some people came to him and said to him, ‘Why is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’

19 Jesus replied, ‘Surely the bridegroom’s attendants cannot fast while the bridegroom is still with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.

20 But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then, on that day, they will fast.

21 No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.

22 And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins too. No! New wine into fresh skins!’ 

Jesus also sets aside petty rules of ritual but he does so in the name of the “Bridegroom”, the Messiah, who unites the people with God’s love and delight. There will still be time for sadness and discipline, but this “New Covenant” is based on the joy that God finds in his human partners. All change! Everyone must wear new clothes and drink new wine. The theme of Jesus as the recipient and sharer of God’s delight is given insufficient attention in most churches.