23rd Sunday Cycle B

Jeff Bagnall • 27 August 2024

At the end of the creation poem in Genesis chapter 1, we read that “God looked at all He had done and behold (it was) extremely good.” But the rest of the Old Testament is largely about the mess that people are making of this creation. It was probably when Moses led enslaved tribes out of Egypt to freedom, that they adopted Yahweh as their God – or rather he adopted them. It sowed the belief that God would always see them alright. But about 500 years later, after a lot of ups and downs, they lost the land they believed God had given them and almost lost faith too. But a prophet, one of the guardians of the faith, in his role of discerning the original and future plan of God for creation, told the people in dire straits that God would one day restore them to prosperity; we read of this expectation of the restoration of damaged creation in poetic and symbolic form in the first reading from Isaiah 35:4 – 7 – the blind will see, the deaf will hear etc.

About 600 years after Isaiah’s pronouncement, and after many disappointments and disagreements amongst the Jews, Jesus became one of them – one of us. It is probably a cousin of His who wrote the letter of James, where chapter 2, verses 1 – 5 are an example of the many wise things that he points out to those Jews living outwith their homeland and who had become followers of Jesus’ Way (Christians). Although he tells them to treat people fairly, he makes no mention in the whole letter of the non-Jews among whom they were living. Yet we know that Paul had worked widely in the area particularly welcoming Gentile converts. This might be one of the many aspects of this letter that made the early church hesitant about adopting it as part of their scriptures. However James’ suggestions for relationships with others is good and applicable also to us today, and we would even want to develop the idea to cover relationships with people of other faiths and of none, and extend them to cover people with other differences from what we might feel is the norm.

We know that Paul and Peter didn’t always see eye to eye about what attitude to have towards Gentile converts – Peter wanting to hold on to his Jewish customs and regulations. Mark was more in favour of Paul’s liberal attitude, but when writing his Gospel he could find little evidence of Jesus’ attitude to non-Jews. But he does tell the story of a Syro-phœnician woman where she says, even the dogs can eat the scraps under the table; and he improves on that in today’s gospel reading ( Mark 7:31-37 ), where Jesus cures a deaf mute in Gentile territory. In this passage Mark seems to have in mind the words of the prophet that were in the first reading; indeed, Mark uses the same, vary rare word for the speech defect (μογιλαλον) that is in Isaiah. Yet he may not have also knowingly reflected the words of God at the end of the creation poem (quoted above) when he writes about the onlookers of the miracle, saying “He has done all things well.”

see Jeffs Jottings – the good news

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.
Show More