This blog provides a meditation on the revised Common Lectionary along with a headline from world news:
CANADIAN BISHOPS CALL FOR SEXUAL RESTRAINT (“Impurity alone or with others” Oh, yes, you’ll go blind.)
2 Timothy 3:1-17

3You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. 2For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, 4treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them! 6For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, 7who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these people, of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith, also oppose the truth. 9But they will not make much progress, because, as in the case of those two men, their folly will become plain to everyone.

Torah Scroll-the sacred writings of the first Christians

10 Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11my persecutions, and my suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13But wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived. 14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 15and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good thing.

This passage begins to show the inadequacy of the writer in using Paul’s name. Here he sounds more like the kind of conservative thinker who always thinks that modern society is going down the tubes. I’m sure, like the Canadian bishops this week, he was pointing to real evils, but there’s a kind of cranky, self-righteous, busybody sound to their diatribes that is sub-Christian at best. Although those who “make their way into households and captivate silly women” sound like sexual predators, a closer reading reveals that they are Christian teachers of whom the writer disapproves, perhaps for good reasons. He may be a bit cranky but he insists on the good example of Paul and the authority of the sacred writings-probably the Jewish Bible. In this letter we see a Christian church settling down for the long haul through history, guided by people who are faithful rather than inspired, trying to be decent disciples of Jesus. If we do as well, we’ll do alright.

Mark 10:32-45

32 They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; 34they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’

35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ 36And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ 37And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ 38But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ 39They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’

41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Can you drink the cup that I must drink?

The power of Mark’s gospel is in stark contrast to the letter to Timothy. Jesus gives the plainest warning of his rejection and shameful death but this is followed by the crass request of James and John for top-table seats at the messianic banquet. Mark wants his readers to understand how far they are from understanding the gospel. “King” Jesus does not operate by the rules of the world: he will not lord it over people, instead he will share the fate of the little ones in the world, trampled under the heel of power. The Son of Man, that is Jesus and his followers, has come to pour out his life so that others may be liberated from the chains of evil. This is a comprehensive proclamation of personal and political salvation. If I want to be a disciple of Jesus I too must share the cup and the baptism of Jesus, namely, his service of others and his sacrifice.