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

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

6th Sunday of Easter - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 8 May 2026

The first reading is from the point in Acts where Luke tells of the extension of Christianity beyond the confines of Judea and the limits of the Jewish religion. Christianity is spread by Philip, one of the ‘deacons’ appointed to help the Hellenists in Jerusalem (see last week’s first reading). He goes to the Samaritans, who had become separated from the Jewish faith when they intermarried with non-Jews centuries earlier, and who were despised by the Jews. We have mixed reports about them in the Gospels: Jesus sent the chosen twelve out saying “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans” (Matthew10:2-6); Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25ff); and in John’s Gospel (Chapter 4), Jesus talks with a Samaritan woman and many Samaritans come to believe in him through her testimony. Philip had been commissioned through the laying on of hands by the Apostles specifically to pastor the Hellenists in Jerusalem, but now we see him as a missionary (sometime translated as an evangelist – one who preaches the Good News) to the Samaritans. He is successful Luke tells us, because of his words and the miracles attributed to him; many of them are baptised; we recall that Peter had told the Jews, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:38f). Peter’s words imply that baptism brings the gift of the Holy Spirit and is open to “whomever God will call.” But when the Apostles in Jerusalem hear of this they send Peter and John to lay their hands on the Samaritans for them to receive the Spirit. Behind this we might detect some edginess between the ‘mother’ church’s leaders and the successful evangelist, Philip, though it is not made explicit, for Luke when he was travelling with Paul stayed with Philip at his house in Caesarea (Acts 21:8-10). We learn from this reading about the growth of the Church both as a community of the Spirit and as an organised body (of Christ); the process will always be difficult and is still going on in the worldwide context of the Church to this day – we all play a part in this.

5th Sunday of Easter - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 1 May 2026

In the reading from Acts ( Acts 6:1-7 ) we have an example of the early development of the institutional aspect of the Church. The instigation for this was the increase in the number of Christians from among the Hellenists – Jews who lived in the Diaspora, that is, outside of the Jewish homeland. The need for development resulted from a complaint from these Hellenists that the pastoral care of the members of their community was not being met because of a shortage of staff who might provide this. There was a general meeting and the Twelve leaders said that their particular responsibility was for prayer and preaching the word of God, and so they suggested that seven other people should be selected for the pastoral work that was needed. Those selected should have the appropriate qualities: good reputation, wisdom, and a life with God’s Spirit. They were selected by the people, and the Eleven laid their hands on them to commission them for this task. The passage concludes with Luke again telling us of the increase in numbers – the growth and development of the Christian communities was the main instigation for the writing of the Acts of the Apostles. We learn from this that the Church needs to develop and adapt to the different needs and circumstances that arise; this is much more complex and yet also more urgent now, for the church as we know it now is not only broken into different denominations but also is spread worldwide and the most numerous of all religions.