16th Sunday 2024 year B

Jeff Bagnall • 10 July 2024

The early ancestors of the Israelites were nomadic and moved with their flocks from one to the next pasture, and even when they first settled in what is sometimes called the Promised Land, sheep-keeping continued as well as farming various crops and trees. As their society became more structured there was still shepherding, though it became the task of the youngest son(s) or even of servants. Most famous of these was the young lad David, who not only defeated with his sling the enemy Goliath (a giant of a warrior), but also became a highly honoured and well remembered king. Leaders of people and kings were called shepherds and their task was to care for their people with all the dedication that a shepherd has to have in pastoring his sheep; indeed this analogy was also used to refer to God and his relationship to the people. Even today we use the word pastor to refer to a religious leader – the bishops crosier is based on the crook that was used to keep a sheep from fleeing. The prophet Jeremiah uses this imagery in the first reading today ( chapter 23 verses 1-6 ). This is at the time when some of the leaders of the people where being taken into exile by the Babylonian empire in Mesopotamia. It was a sad period in the history of the Jews. The cause is both the decline in morals and religious involvement that the people had, but also the corrupt and inadequate leadership in matters of policies and religious ceremonies. It is these shepherds of the people who are berated by the prophet Jeremiah. But he expects that the things will be better in the future, and interprets this basic hope into the expectation of the return of all to their original homeland where there will be prosperity. There is added also a messianic expectation of an ideal leader. All this is suitably followed with the responsorial psalm: the Lord is my shepherd (psalm 23).

Even centuries before the time of Christ there were splits between Israelite Jews and other Jews living elsewhere; but the future healing of this rift was hoped for in the book of Isaiah (57:19) where it says, “Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the Lord; and I will heal them.” Paul in Ephesians ( 2:13-18 ), our second reading, may have had this passage in mind. At the time this was written (maybe thirty years after Christ), the passage seems to celebrate the potential unity and peace between Jewish Christians and Gentile ones brought about through the sacrificial life of Christ. This is encapsulated in the words “by the blood of Christ;” this has a different connotation when we realise that ‘blood’ was seen as the life of a person rather than the actual liquid in the sacrifice of animals used in some religions and even in the Temple in Jerusalem until its destruction about 70 AD. Our reading seems to us, perhaps, a bit over harsh when it goes so far as to say that the Jewish laws are no longer relevant because in Christ there is “a new humanity” in which people can exist and live. But it is this notion of the new humanity that is behind the ecumenical thinking in our days; Catholics are recommended to be more irenic in the proclamations of Vatican II approved by about 2000 Catholic bishops just over 50 years ago.

The gospel comes from Mark 6:30-34. The disciples have been busy touring the villages commissioned by Jesus in last week’s gospel reading, and now they need some time for rest and reflection after what seems to have been remarkable success. But when the enthused followers are crowding around them Jesus takes the twelve away by boat to a lovely place for a well-earned rest. But the enthused crowd find them in their retreat and Jesus feels the responsibility to teach them as the shepherd looks after his sheep. Religious ‘shepherds’ have such and many responsibilities. The image of sheep needing shepherding is the reason for this choice of reading to link with the other texts read today.

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

31st in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

22 October 2025

The first reading is from the book Wisdom ( 11:22-12:3 ). This book was written less than a century before the birth of Jesus. It came from someone in the Jewish community in Alexandria in Egypt. Jews at the time were not just in the promised land and were quite aware of the ways of thinking in the wider community about life, gods and associated mysteries. The book of Wisdom is in Greek and its ideas are a development of earlier Jewish ideas, absorbing more contemporary notions from this wider community in which they lived. And so wisdom is very important; it is used by them to refer God Himself and their idea of life now extended to even life after death which was not previously held by Jews. Our reading exemplifies the literary quality of the thoughts poetically expressed in a theology of the relationship of God with the failings of humanity and the development of creation. The second reading is from 2 Thess 1:11-2:2 . The two letters to the Thessalonians are the first surviving documents about Jesus that we have – the oldest writings in the New Testament – prior to the gospels that tell of the life of Jesus. Paul was a learned Rabbi in the Jewish community living away from the Jewish enclave in the Roman empire. The story in Acts of him being quite against Jews becoming followers of Jesus is quite reliable. However, this learned man later became a Christian and worked mostly in Roman communities making converts of Jews but especially of Gentiles. He had established a community in Thessalonica but the Jewish synagogue there was not receptive of his message that God was happy with Gentiles, so a mainly Gentile community of followers of Jesus was established away from the synagogue. However after he moved on from his short stay there, he wants and needs to writes to them from prison. It seems from the text we have that he may have given them a wrong idea of God’s being present to them even now and this being the time of the fulfilment of God’s plan for creation. Some of them had given up their regular work and way of life and were just waiting for the End-time to come. And someone may have encouraged them with this view. So Paul has to tell them to get back to regular life – as good followers of Jesus – the final End has not yet come. We are reminded by this that Christianity is constantly developing an understanding of life and creation, and we should be warned not to be so certain of what are basically mysteries – a danger the church has always suffered from.

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.