Holy Textures

Luke 19:1-10

Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Click here for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this post.

By the end of this Chapter, Jesus will have entered Jerusalem and the last week of his life before he is arrested, tortured and executed.

In this passage he enters Jericho near Jerusalem.

Zacchaeus is a CHIEF tax collector. This probably means he has been given a contract (for an agreed set price) to collect taxes from a large region. He would employ others to actually do the collecting - one of whom we met in last week's parable.

Luke 18:9-14

Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Click here to open an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this post.

Last week, Jesus told us a parable to show our "need to pray always and never lose heart," Luke 18:1 (the parable of the widow who persisted in seeking justice. Click here to read my comments on that passage.)

And now, Jesus tells us a parable to show our need to avoid pride, hubris, smugness, self-righteousness, etc. should we happen, in fact, to actually "pray always."

Luke 18:1-8

Read the passage: The Message  or  The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Click here for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this post.

This passage echoes themes found at the beginning of Chapter 11: A neighbour asking for bread in the middle of the night; ask, seek, knock; and sinful human fathers who know to give their children what they need when they ask.

The remarks that frame the actual parable of the persistent widow make 2 points and raise 1 question:

• We need to pray at all times and never give up, never lose heart
• It is in God's nature to respond urgently to our prayers for justice
• But if the Son of Man were to suddenly appear would he find us praying and trusting that God is responding urgently to our prayers for justice?

John 6:24-35

Read the passage: The Message or NRSV

Click here for an easy to email or print Adobe PDF version of this post.

As always with John, it is important to remember that John is not writing a daily diary - "What I did with Jesus today" - nor a historical biography - "Jesus: The Man, His Times, His Achievements."

John is writing at the end of his life, at the end of the first century (nearly 70 years after Jesus' execution and resurrection), at a time when the early Christian communities are under severe persecution from the Romans, and have lost all connections with their original Jewish roots. He is NOT writing to "the general public." He is writing to a threatened, small, inner group, who have no first-hand memory or experience of Jesus or of being Jewish. Their physical - and more importantly - their eternal lives are at stake. They need to "see" Jesus. They need to be embedded in Jesus, abiding in Jesus, so that they can withstand the fear and pain of Roman arrest, torture, and bloody executions.