21st Sunday Cycle B

Jeff Bagnall • 11 August 2024

The first reading from the book of Joshua (24:1-2,15-18) is well chosen. The nomadic people with their desert God, Yahweh, have survived the wandering in the Sinai wilderness and have crossed the river Jordan and invaded the land of Canaan. The story started to be preserved and felt relevant when the tribes began to settle. The conquered Canaanites have agricultural and fertility gods and their religion serves them well for they are successful farmers. But the invaders want to settle and live off the land they have conquered. As well as the attraction of this other religion, they see that its adherents are much more successful farmers. The temptation is strong to move to their religion, but the reading describes Joshua calling for a reaffirmation of commitment to Yahweh by all of the tribes. This is surely a story that deserved being preserved in their bible and is thought-provoking for all of us, even to this day. The 12 verses omitted in our selected reading recount the numerous times that God enabled the people to conquer other tribes and nations and showing the superior power of their God.

The second reading is the next short section from the letter to the Ephesians (5:21-32) after those which we have had over the last few Sundays. The start of the reading for today is part of a sentence that began two verses earlier. The writer has said (verse 19 and 20) that you shouldn’t get drunk on alcohol but should be filled with the Spirit; he goes on to explain what this implies, that is, singing each other’s praises with hymns etc. to the Lord, giving thanks to God and (where our reading begins) “showing respect to each other in awe of Christ” and the sentence continues “ladies to their men as to the Lord.” Some of the modern English translations show something of our problem today with the apparent subordination of wives to husbands. The writer is elaborating for (new) Christians the implications of their new-found beliefs; it’s the practical details of life within one’s community and particularly within the family – husband, wife, children and servants. This is not unlike the recommended best within the secular society of their time and location, but the principal purpose is not the support of the state but the building up of the church, the Body of Christ; and Jesus showed these attitudes in His life on earth, lived out for others even to the point of death. But when applied to us these old accounts in our Sacred Scriptures need their essential message extracting and re-locating in the contest of our culture and indeed within the lives of each of us. The core message surely is, that there should be harmony between people, for Christians should know that they are the physical presence of Christ in the world today (i.e. the Body of Christ) and should relate to each other accordingly, (and to other people and the environment).

The Gospel reading from John (6:60-69), puts the call to commitment in a Christian context. After the explanation of Himself as the true bread of life, i.e. the wisdom and the way for us to live, Jesus has said unless you eat this flesh of mine you shall not have life within you – that’s the ‘hard saying,’ that the disciples refer to: ‘the intolerable language’. That was last week’s reading but listen to this reading advising us not to take this literally, when it says the flesh profits nothing, it’s the spirit that is important, it’s the spiritual meaning that makes sense; and through Jesus the Spirit is present in our matter-of-fact world. And Jesus is the Son of Man, the ideal human who in the future will be joined by all. So our celebration of Communion is a time to take to ourselves the life of Jesus, committing ourselves to live how he would live if He were in our shoes (which in a non-literal sense He is!). If the Body is the physical presence of a person, then the whole of creation is in some way the body of Christ.

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

by Jeff Bagnall 21 August 2025
The first reading is from Ecclesiasticus ( 3:17-29 passim) also called the Book of Sirach. The Wisdom of (ben) Sirach is also sometimes called the Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach; it is what is called a deutero-canonical book because its status as part of the canon (or official collection) of Scripture was not recognised by Jews resident in Israel; though Sirach was used by Jewish scholars and is included in the early Greek version of the Jewish Bible (the Septuagint) and it is included in Catholic bibles. This wisdom about how to live good lives pleasing to God is expressed so beautifully and simply in our reading. This proverbial wisdom speaks to us even today in our different situations.
by Jeff Bagnall 15 August 2025
The first reading is from the last section of the book of Isaiah ( 66:18-21 ). The Jews have returned from captivity in Babylon, and exiles from all-over are returning to Jerusalem; and not just them it says but all nations, people referred to as Gentiles, will be welcomed by God into his Jerusalem. This is an expression of the universality of God’s love; it is for all people whatever religion or nationality they are; this is an idea that was much debated among the Jews and has been among Christians even to this day – but it seems quite clear here in the Old Testament. The psalm that follows the reading in Christian services, with its refrain, “Go out into the world and tell the Good News” continues this theme of the universality of salvation. The second reading ( Hebrews 12:5-13 passim) follows on from last week’s second reading with a reminder to those felt hard ‘done by’ by God; it quotes from the book of Proverbs ( 3:11f and 4:26 ). The writer seems to have two parallels for the way God treats us and the way we should react. The first is a parent who must discipline the child to help them to mature; it is an act of love. The second is the physiotherapist prescribing exercises to be done which are often hard to undergo but worth it for the overall good result. Both of these images would be known to the original readers and are understood equally by us today. Though it is a hard lesson to learn when we appear to suffer from our parent or trainer! In today’s gospel reading ( Luke 13:22-30 ) we are back with Luke’s theme of presenting Jesus as on a journey of preaching and work for the kingdom of God that will climax in Jerusalem with His arrest and execution. But the striking bit is a question from ‘someone’ and the reply. Luke has other sections stimulated by a ‘someone’ (a lawyer/a woman); the person here raises the question which has surfaced again and again in the history of the Jews about the restriction of salvation to a few when there has been a general lapse from devotion to Yahweh, their God. The reply that Luke has Jesus make is a collage from various Christian traditions at that time, both oral and written, about Jesus’ preaching – getting through a narrow door, a house master shutting out people unknown to him, the expectation of the Jews to be saved by ‘their’ man Jesus, the bitterness of the Jews left out while others from across the whole world join the heavenly banquet – finishing with the contrast of the first and the last – thoughts expressed in Matthew and Mark as well. The whole represents the situation Luke has experienced, namely, the first chosen people, the Jews, seem generally not to have accepted Jesus, though hopefully they will in the end, but for now it is the second people, the Gentile Christians, who are the prominent followers of the Way of Jesus.
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