SHARED WEALTH WORKS WONDERS IN HUAXI VILLAGE CHINA  

finishing the tower in Huaxi (pop 2000) info at Google

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news

1 Samuel 19:1-18

19Saul spoke to his son Jonathan and to all his servants about killing David. But Saul’s son Jonathan took great delight in David. 2Jonathan told David, ‘My father Saul is trying to kill you; therefore be on guard tomorrow morning; stay in a secret place and hide yourself. 3I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak to my father about you; if I learn anything I will tell you.’ 4Jonathan spoke well of David to his father Saul, saying to him, ‘The king should not sin against his servant David, because he has not sinned against you, and because his deeds have been of good service to you; 5for he took his life in his hand when he attacked the Philistine, and the Lord brought about a great victory for all Israel. You saw it, and rejoiced; why then will you sin against an innocent person by killing David without cause?’ 6Saul heeded the voice of Jonathan; Saul swore, ‘As the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death.’ 7So Jonathan called David and related all these things to him. Jonathan then brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as before.

And through the darkness came those hands/ that reach through nature, moulding men

We are not to imagine that this is scientific history. Even today, when so much information is available about public lives, the dialogue of biographies is almost all invented. In this instance there’s not much to prove that the whole story, Saul, David, Jonathan and all, is not an invention. On the other hand, the Samuel authors are aiming at a kind of heroic realism, that goes beyond, for example, the god-enchanted stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Human beings are presented in a secular space, their prowess sometimes exaggerated but never made super-human. They relate to each other in ways the writers of a modern TV soap would understand and their characters are all-important. God also is a character, but unlike the Greek deities He never appears in physical form and is present mainly in his “speaking”; that is, in the way He influences people who believe in him. God’s motives are often opaque, even to the narrator. He comes from elsewhere: He is the beyond in the midst of history. But once the reader gets the idea of God, however, He’s hard to shake off. David is protected by Jonathan because they are loving friends. The relationship is utterly human and convincing. Still, the reader wonders, is this after all another of God’s strategies for protecting the one He loves, namely David? The author understands divine providence as working in and through history rather than being imposed upon it from above. It is a profound and convincing portrait.

Mark 2:1-12

2When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. 2So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. 3Then some people came, bringing to him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. 4And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. 5When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ 6Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ 8At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? 9Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? 10But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic— 11‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’ 12And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’

old bible print

Jesus described his ministry as “breaking into the strong man’s house and tying him up”. Here the paralysed man and his friends break into Jesus’ house, that is, into the house of God, to find healing. This house is open and unprotected, allowing access to all who come, but Jesus recognises the boldness of the housebreakers as an act of faith. Faith is shared: it is not the individual faith of the paralysed man, but the communal faith of the group of friends, which has led them to this decisive action. Mark wants the reader to see that the old promise of Jubilee, the time of the liberation of slaves and remission of debts has arrived in what Jesus is doing. Liberation from sin and from disease is in Jesus’ practice the one deliverance from the Evil one. All this happens where Jesus is “at home”.  All the gospels provide a new theology of the “house of God,” which should be fruitful for a Christian understanding of (o)economy, (o)ecology and (o)ecumenism. Mark’s vision of the dynamic shared life of God’s house is placed alongside his portrayal of the growing opposition, the forces of The Satan, who will bring about Jesus’ death. It would be a good thing if Christian people were to use these stories as models of the church, as Mark intended.