11th Sunday B

Jeff Bagnall • 5 June 2024

At the time of the writing of our first reading ( Ezekiel 17:22-24 ) the empire of Babylon, west of Israel, has taken many of the aristocracy from Jerusalem as captives and now controls their land. Ezekiel himself is in exile in Babylon and writes to help his people through these difficult times. He is a bit of a poet or even mystic, and uses allegories for what he wants to say. Here he uses the image of a tree, and encourages the people, who have deserved the trouble they are in, with the expectation that a messiah will come from their race who will make them great again and as grand as they could want. A sprig from the failed tree will grow into a new all-embracing tree under which the big empires will submit. The idea lives on in Christianity to this day in the prayer attributed to Mary – “… He has put down the mighty from their seat and exulted the humble…” (The Magnificat ).

The NT book called the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians appears to be a collection of excerpts from as many as four separate letters from Paul, but it is still, for us, the Word of God. In 2 Cor 5:6-10 , Paul was obviously addressing some particular problem his addressees had. You might confidently think, he seems to say, that the next life would be preferable to the present – your future, true home to your home here and now – but for now you had better get on with this life here, pleasing God as best you can and as you should. The word ‘body’ that he uses carried with it the connotation of presence in the world, so its use here does not necessarily imply a belief which many Westerners have in two parts of a person, a body and a soul; it refers rather to our presence in this world in contrast to our being as it will be in the after-life – the world to come. Paul is saying that although we have both confidence and hope of the world to come, we should concentrate on living in the right way here and now. These words are not just for the early Christians that he is addressing, but, as the word of God, also have something to say to us.

The Gospel reading is from Mark 4:26-34. The whole chapter is a collection Mark has made of parables he has heard of that Jesus told, but by the time of his writing they have been preached and adapted to new situations and Mark now intends them for his readers – and they have something to say to us. The message originally from Jesus to his first hearers, has to be changed for different audiences in order to convey the same basic meaning. It is like the simple equation M = W r C, (Message arises from Words related to Context); if C changes then W must change as well to produce the same M. The two parables that we have read today are suited to a local farming community. In general the first recommends patience with life, as God is really the one in control of things, just as the farmer leaves the crop to grow once it is planted. The second takes up the well understood experience, that the very tiny mustard seed grows, most surprisingly, into a large vegetable bush – rather like Ezekiel’s tree it will be a shelter for many. Big things can come from small beginnings. To a large extent we still understand the basics of crop and seed growth so it is up to us individually and as a community to see what these parables might say to us today in our particular situations.

Jeff's jottings: l ive as best you can

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Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

17 October 2025

The first reading is from a wisdom book ( Sirach 35:12-18 passim ). The prologue to it was written by someone in Egypt after 132 BC, who was translating into Greek a Hebrew book of his grandfather (whose name was Jesus). The book presented the thrust of the teachings of the Bible about the Law and the wise way to live. Manuscripts of parts of the Hebrew book itself have been found but it is not part of the Hebrew Old Testament. Despite the book’s enthusiasm for the Law, in our passage it speaks of a God who treats all people fairly; it quite poetically depicts God as particularly drawn to the poor, orphans and widows, like a Judge who responds quickly to prayers after judging what is asked for and what is right. The same thoughts are expressed repeatedly in the Psalm that follows this reading. In the second reading we have some words from the second letter to Timothy which seem to genuinely come from Paul himself. He is clearly at the end of his tether and near the end of his life. He speaks of the sacrifice of his life as a libation – a drink poured out as an offering to a deity. He uses his favourite metaphors for life – a race, a competition. Some of his friends seem to have abandoned him at the difficult times of his trial or when he was in prison. He is willing to forgive, and trusts that God will reward him with entry into the heavenly kingdom. It seems from the use of “we” in Luke’s book The Acts of the Apostles that Luke was often a close and loyal friend to Paul.

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

by Jeff Bagnall • 10 October 2025

The first reading is a story from the Book of Exodus, telling the tale of one of the many incidents from that epic journey of escape from slavery in Egypt, through many ups and downs until the entry into the promised land. The whole book was put together from various collections of stories that had been passed down through at least four or five centuries of retelling. The point of the whole and of each individual story, in general terms, is to say something about God and ‘the people of the Book’ and the relationship between the two; to teach people about their responsibility towards God and about His attitude towards them. The details in this tale about warfare and the rod of Moses, if taken literally, say nothing we would regard as true about the relationship between God and people; it was this rod that seemed to clear the sea for the people to cross when escaping the Pharaoh’s army, and this rod that produced water in the wilderness. But we get closer to the point of the story’s transmission and survival in our sacred Scriptures, if we see its significance for us today; it reminds us that the power of God is in everything, though we usually think of various sacred objects as reminding us of this.