🦁 Epiphany 4-👑
Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28.
From the TRNG Room:
Reflection
Hey, and welcome to first forward. This is brother Logan Isaac broadcasting from Albany, Oregon. And the this is the reflection for the fourth Sunday after epiphany or epiphany for the season of Epiphany follows after January six and leads us into Ash Wednesday and lent the readings this morning for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany come from Deuteronomy 18, Psalm 111. First Corinthians eight and Mark one. And most of these are just fascinating. I actually really like the Psalm reading. It kind of reminds me of the Magnificat and the Beatitudes, the First Corinthians eight. Saul is threading a really fine needle that I think is relevant to military families in so far as it deals with conscience. One of the things that I encountered when I went through my application as a non-combatant conscientious objector, which you can read about in Reborn on the 4th of July, my 2012 award winning book, if I don't Mind, said so myself. One of the things that I noticed was that when I took a stand for my beliefs, other people took that as if I believe this, that I believe they're wrong. And I didn't believe that I could see where that reasoning comes from. But it felt very much to me like I asked God for direction, God gave me direction, and I responded. Now, in some some ethical frameworks like, you know, that can be universalizing or totalizing, like, I guess so. Sure. But it just didn't. It did not. I didn't feel that way and there was no way to explain it. And a lot of people, including officers, you know, other enlisted people, non noncommissioned officers, got really pissed. And I hadn't done anything other than say, look, this is what I believe, I'm ready to go on deployment, blah, blah, blah. And the thing about conscience, this English word that we borrow from Greek, I know it might be Latin conscientious a con is with and science is knowledge. So with knowledge. And when I think of conscience, I think of, you know, the genesis where we like thinking about the story. Humanity was oblivious to what it meant to judge right from wrong. We were just there. We're having fun checking each other out because we're naked. We don't give a shit. And then all of a sudden the snake introduces this idea. He proposes a knowledge that we can possess if we want.
And at that moment, right, that is when we realize there's other things outside of ourselves that we can possess. And the first thing is knowledge. I can learn something, right? And that the moment that we each ate that fruit, symbolically, metaphorically, whatever, we became knowledgeable because we knew that there was something outside of us that we could possess in knowledge, we could possess knowledge, and the knowledge of good and evil is a particular kind of knowledge. But it's not it's not like a scientific knowledge, the way we think of science. Right. And that's what Saul is trying to get at. Some people don't have the same knowledge that you have the same experience. One infantryman who is like Ranger tab fucking triple stacked airborne air assault Pathfinder like never went to combat has a different experience or set of knowledge as a fucking e one tanker who has seven deployments to Iraq and three to Afghanistan. You get what? I'm getting that Now we might think that that tabbed out you know operator wannabe operator hat is bad ass, but in fact in the way that we construct that like bad ass ness, he doesn't the tanker does because he's seen more shit. He's gained more knowledge and experience. So that's how Saul can say, Look, I know that eating food sacrifice to idols is bad. I'm not going to do it. But I also understand how other people who don't have that knowledge might do it. I'm not going to get offended, but I'm also not going to be a stumbling block to them. And Saul is in this weird way, very much about like, look, you know, there's no restrictions, there's no prohibitions, because as a as a Hebrew, Hebrew, you know, his understanding of Israelite religion is all about restrictions, Right? Donate, you know, exclude yourself if you're menstruating, if you're a woman, you know, don't enter the holy of holies. Don't enter the the holy place unless you're here. He's not a Levite. He's not a priest. And so it may seem relativistic and it might fit certain definitions of relativism, but it's a finer toothed comb than that. And so when we think about ethics and theology, I'm hesitant to, you know, give credence to systems that assume that everything is somehow reducible to a theological or an ethical formula. On the other hand, I also I see the point, right? If if what's good for if what's good for me is good for me. But what's good for you is good for you. Like that's a problem. In fact, judges and Joshua says all the time the Israelites did what was right in their own eyes. But there's there's just a finer toothed comb. So if you are preaching to military families, you might indicate that you realize that conscience is more complicated than saying, I know two plus two equals four and you don't. Right. Because it's it's just more nuanced than that. The other thing I want to bring up in, Mark, one, it struck me that there's a lot of language in Mark 121 to 28 that mirrors Captain Marvel of Matthew eight, Luke seven and John four. They were amazed. It's a sound. Mazza is the the the word in Matthew in Luke. And it does appear in John a different place. And here it's Sam Bello, which is a cognate. It's a related word, but also one thing you notice, it happens in Capernaum, verse 21, and he enters the synagogue, according to Luke 725. I want to say let me double checks. Yes. Seven five suggests that Captain Marvel built that synagogue where this is occurring. John. 659 also mentions the synagogue in Capernaum, which Luke claims was built by Captain Marvel, a military official, according to John Capernaum, is also in Matthew 413, described as being in the territory of Zebulon and Naftali, end quote. And that is important when we think about why Jesus remains mostly in the north, in the lands of Zebulon and Naftali and who those tribes represented to the Israelite imagination, I'm not going to go so far as to say that Matthew or Mark 121 through 28, and the evil spirit is an early form of what Jesus does to the soldiers Son and Matthew and Luke and John. Four The military official.
However, in Luke Luke 423 mentions that there had been a miracle. Jesus says, Aren't you going to He's a Nazareth and he's tells his own. You know, people grew up with, Oh, you're going to tell me, do here what you did in Capernaum. Well, Capernaum doesn't appear in Luke before that verse, so it may be that Luke has in mind he doesn't mention it or maybe forgets to write it out. I don't know. But he may be referring remembering or pointing his people, his audience to what Mark Records where there's this unclean spirit in the synagogue in Capernaum that Jesus exercises cast away, and that's where the demon says, you know, Do I know who you are? Jesus of Nazareth? And that's the first place where Nazareth appears in Mark 121, I think. And then he also calls Jesus the Holy One of God argues Chaos, I guess is also saints. But there's some important parallels there that you might look at and delve into in Capernaum and why the synagogue that was built by a soldier, according to Luke seven, why it's significant and where military families appear. If and when you preach on this text, if you do, I wish you luck and thank you for subscribing or listening as these episodes go from subscriber to open on the day of.
