Tuesday • 3/29/2022
Tuesday of 4 Lent, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Genesis 49:29–50:14; 1 Corinthians 11:17–34; Mark 8:1–10

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

God gathers his people. “Just as this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains and then was gathered together and became one, so may your church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever” — Didache 9.4. So says an early Jewish Christian catechism, nicely capturing a theme in today’s readings: God gathers his people. He gathers them to feed them, and to make them one with himself and one another. 

Genesis: God gathers the dead to himself. “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my ancestors…” — Genesis 49:29b. In instructions in advance of his death, Jacob hints at a hope for resurrection, life beyond death.* According to Jesus, “And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living…” (Mark 12:26–27a, quoting Exodus 3:6). 

This lovely and powerful centripetal force in Hebrew faith is a persistent factor in Israel’s story. At various burial sites in Israel, accessible today (Beit She’arim and Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, for instance), the bones of deceased family members were gathered together, to wait for the day of resurrection.

Mark: Jesus gathers Jew and Gentile. “They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full” — Mark 8:8. Jesus has come to inaugurate the great ingathering — a gathering that will encompass the living and the dead, Jew and Gentile alike. 

In the sixth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, while on Israelite soil, Jesus had fed 5,000. The overflow from that feeding had filled twelve baskets, representing the renewal of the twelve tribes of Israel. Here in Mark 8, Jesus feeds 4,000 on the far side of the Jordan, in Gentile territory; and he does so after ministering among pagans in Tyre (on the coast of the Mediterranean) and in the Decapolis (in Syria and the Golan Heights). This time his disciples collect seven baskets from the overflow. Seven baskets, commentators suggest, recall the displacement of seven nations during the conquest under Joshua. ** 

With the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus symbolizes he is Manna for Israel. With the feeding of the 4,000, he symbolizes he is Bread for the World. In both feedings, he foreshadows the fourfold Eucharistic action of taking bread, blessing it, breaking it, and distributing it (Mark 6:41; 8:6). 

Jesus has come to fulfill Israel’s mission to be light for the nations, to see an end to death with God’s great end-times banquet, and to re-create the human race as the worldwide communion of love God had intended in the first place: “On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage’” (Isaiah 49:6; 25:6–8; 19:23–25;). 

1 Corinthians 11: The Table gathers “haves” and “have nots.” “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper” — 1 Corinthians 14:20. Paul is so upset because the Corinthians  are turning the most powerful symbol of God’s “gathering” intentions into a means of separating, not uniting. 

The Corinthians’ Table is a sham. It’s being used to differentiate between “haves” and “have nots.” The Corinthians “humiliate those who have nothing” by inviting them to the community meal late, after the “somebodies” have had their fill of food and drink. The favored ones get the best of meats and the finest of wines, while the “have nots” (that.is.literally.what.Paul.calls.them!) get leftovers. 

In allowing this practice, the Corinthians contribute to the surrounding society’s division, instead of creating a new unity in Christ. The destroy rather than build God’s building (1 Corinthians 3:16). They dismember rather than re-member Christ’s very Body. Paul doesn’t even want them calling what they are doing the Lord’s Supper: “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper” (1 Corinthians 11:20). 

Praise be! The Lord does gather, but he gathers only those who admit the worst about themselves, only those who know they need him. He gathers those who trust him in this life and the next. He gathers “haves” and “have nots.“ He gathers “those near” and “those far off” (Ephesians 2:17). He gathers all who trust him. Trust him! 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: iStock

* See the discussion in Nahum M. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), p. 347. Joseph, Sarna contends, calls for physicians to embalm Jacob’s body to preserve his remains for the journey back to Canaan. He does not ask for the professional embalmers who would have mummified the body in hopes of immortality.

** Bargil Pixner, With Jesus Through Galilee According to the Fifth Gospel (Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 67-86. For the seven nations, see Deuteronomy 7:1b, Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites; Acts 13:19.