Patrick Comerford
Sunday next, 18 July 2021, is the Seventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VII). The appointed readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland are:
The Continuous Readings: II Samuel 7: 1-14a; Psalm 89: 20-37; Ephesians 2: 11-22; Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56.
The Paired Readings: Jeremiah 23: 1-6; Psalm 23; Ephesians 2: 11-22; Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56.
There is a link to the readings HERE.
Introducing the Readings:
In Sunday’s Gospel reading, Christ is followed by ‘a great crowd,’ even when he seeks to retreat to a deserted place. He sees the crowd ‘and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things’ (Mark 6: 34).
In the first reading, David has settled in his house as king, but still seeks a permanent place where God may be worshipped.
In the alternative first reading, the Prophet Jeremiah condemns the kings who have allowed the people to go astray. They have failed to be shepherds of their people and to pursue righteousness on their behalf. But the day will come when a righteous and just ruler shall emerge from the house of David.
The psalm recalls God’s promises to the people through the descendants of David. In the alternative psalm, God is compared with a shepherd who leads and cares for his sheep, ensuring they follow safe paths or the ways of righteousness.
In the Epistle reading, Saint Paul tells his readers that the true Temple is not the one David wanted to build or the one built by Solomon. It is a Temple that is ‘built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.’
How do these readings help us to focus our hopes for building up the Church so that it serves the needs of the many who are ‘like sheep without a shepherd’?
II Samuel 7: 1-14a
King David has been installed as king in Jerusalem, and is secure living in a palace built of cedar, then regarded as the best building material of the time. But David is conscious that while he is living in a lavish house, the Ark of God remains in a tent.
David consults his court prophet, Nathan, and confides in him his plan to build a temple for the Ark. Nathan agrees, but that night in a vision God tells Nathan to bring a message to David.
Nathan is to tell David that he is not the person to build a temple for God. Ever since the Exodus, God has not had a temple, nor has he ever asked for one.
Nathan is to remind David how God raised him from being a shepherd boy to being king, that God has always been with him wherever he goes, and he has defeated all his enemies. There are more promises to follow: God will also give his people a settled life, peace and security, and he will make David the founder of a royal house or dynasty, and David’s kingdom will be God’s for ever.
There is an interesting play on words here: the word ‘house’ (bayith in Hebrew) refers to:
● a palace (verse 1),
● a temple (verse 4),
● a dynasty or royal house (verses 11 and 13).
This chapter is important for Christological reasons. God is soon to make a covenant with David. Chapter 7 connects all that has gone before with all that is about to come after.
God’s next covenant is with David and is a commitment to bringing about a kingdom and a dynasty among his descendants. A short-sighted interpretation would limit these promises to David and Solomon before the fall of the kingdom. But as Saint Paul makes clear, the great rule of David’s dynasty is completed in Christ Jesus and is a kingdom for Jew and Gentile alike (see Romans 1: 1-6).
The first Christians believed that Christ is the ‘Son of David’ and that through him they were the heirs to this promise to David.
Jeremiah 23: 1-6:
In Chapters 21-22, the Prophet Jeremiah has made prophecies about four of the five last kings of Judah. Three of these he considers bad, for being puppets of foreign rulers. The fifth and final king was Zedekiah, whose name is alluded to in this reading in a wordplay with the Hebrew for ‘righteousness,’ tsidkenu (צִדְקֵנוּ): ‘The Lord is our righteousness’ (verse 6).
Rather than predicting the fate of the last king, Zedekiah, God now speaks through Jeremiah about an ideal future king.
Judah’s kings or ‘shepherds’ are blamed for scattering his people, the ‘sheep.’ They will be punished for their ‘evil doings.’ But God will bring the people together again, to perfect safety, and will set good kings or ‘shepherds’ over them.
They will then live in the conditions or circumstances God first hoped for. In the first creation story, God commanded humans to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ God makes a formal pronouncement, ‘the days are surely coming,’ when God will ‘raise up’ a godly ‘branch’ from David’s family tree or descendants who will be wise, just and godly, ruling over both Judah and Israel.
Later prophets, in dark times under unfaithful kings, recalled this ideal rule and promised its realisation in the future. This led to expecting a new era, when God himself would rule the faithful.
Psalm 89: 20-37:
Psalm 89 recalls how God spoke to David through his words with the Prophet Nathan in our Old Testament reading (Psalm 89: 19).
Sunday’s portion of Psalm 89 recalls how God anointed David as his regent, and God will be constant in his love for him. Through God, David will be victorious, he will rule from the sea to the river (verse 25), from the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia. David will acknowledge God as Father, and God will adopt him as his firstborn.
David will be closer to God than any other king, no matter what he and his descendants do. David’s line will continue forever, as the moon endures in the heavens (verse 37).
Psalm 23:
The late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs has described Psalm 23 as ‘one of the most sublime passages in all religious literature: a poetic masterpiece – a mere 57 words long – of trust in God’s gentle care.’
In the ancient Near East, the king was seen as shepherd (verse 1-4) and as host (verses 5-6). God faithfully provides for, and constantly cares for, his sheep. He revives our very lives, the ‘soul’ (verse 3), and guides us in godly ways or ‘right paths.’ The tone of serenity is conveyed by a series of pastoral images, including ‘green pastures,’ ‘still waters’ and ma’aglei tzedek (בית עגנו), ‘right (or safe) paths.’
The mood then quickens. The psalmist speaks of the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ or ‘a valley of deep darkness,’ perhaps a crevice in the rocks where there may be danger from predators.
Even when we are beset by evil or find ourselves in the ‘darkest valley’ (verse 4), we have nothing to fear. God’s ‘rod,’ the shepherd’s defence against wolves and lions, protects us. His ‘staff’ (verse 4), used for rescuing sheep from thickets, guides us.
Lord Sachs says six simple Hebrew words at this poet express ‘one of the great declarations of faith,’ translated as: ‘I fear no evil, for you are with me’ (verse 4).
The feast (verse 5) is impressive, for it is laid out for us, the table is set for us, in the presence of his foes. Kings were plenteously anointed with oil, a symbol of power and dedication to a holy purpose.
The psalmist trusts that God’s ‘goodness and mercy’ and God’s steadfast love (verse 6) will follow or pursue him, as do his enemies, throughout his life. He will continue to worship in the Temple or ‘dwell in the house of the Lord,’ as long as he lives.
Ephesians 2: 11-22:
The theme of the house of God is taken up by Saint Paul again in the Epistle reading (Ephesians 2: 11-22). Here Saint Paul reminds us that Jews and Gentiles are both heirs to the Covenants God has made in the past, which would include God’s covenant with David in II Samuel 7.
But the true Temple is not the one David had a vision for, or the one built by Solomon. It is a Temple that is ‘built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone’ (verse 20).
This is the household of God, in which we are citizens with the saints and full members, regardless of whether we are Jews or Gentiles. We were once aliens and strangers, but now we are all insiders, full members of the household of God, because of God’s love for us.
Christ, the head and the cornerstone, along with the Church, the body and the foundation, replace the physical Temple in Jerusalem that David wanted to built. Now cultural differences are no longer relevant. What matters now is that we are ‘one new humanity’ (verse 15). The old divisions are gone, and Christ brings us together ‘in one body’ (verse 16). This is a message of peace in a divided, broken and sinful world (verse 14).
Think about how the word ‘house’ is used in our Old Testament reading. The words used in the Epistle reading for household, οἰκεῖος (oikeios), and for building, οἰκοδομή (oikodomí), are from the same root as the word that gives us ecumenism. Our ecumenism, our ecumenical endeavours, our seeking for common ground in mission and ministry, in sacrament and in service, seek to draw us into one family, one household, where Christ Jesus himself is the cornerstone.
But this is a household at the service of the many. Saint Paul tells us we are being grown into a holy temple, into a dwelling-place for God. And when I think of that Temple, I think not just of David’s vision for building a Temple in our first reading, but the vision of the Temple in Revelation, when ‘people will bring into it the glory and honour of the nations’ (Revelation 21: 22-26).
That is the glory we should be seeking, that is the honour that we should be seeking, and it is the task of the Church as servant, in its ministry, not to see that you and I sit at the right and left hand of glory, but that as servants we bring the needs of the world, the needs of the nations, to the Church, and bring the Church to serve the needs of the many.
Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56:
On the Sunday before last (4 July 2021, Trinity V), we read earlier in this chapter (Mark 6: 1-13) how Christ sent out the disciples, two-by-two, giving them authority over all that is evil in the world. Saint Mark’s narrative then diverted briefly last Sunday (11 July 2021, Trinity VI) to the story of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist (Mark 6: 14-29). Now, Saint Mark returns to the main story (Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56).
The Lectionary portion next Sunday omits the story of the feeding of the 5,000 (verses 35-52). Instead, the feeding of the multitude is the story in the Gospel reading from Saint John’s Gospel the following Sunday (John 6: 1-21, 25 July 2021, Trinity VIII). But it is worth mentioning here that each of Saint Mark’s feeding miracles is joined with a water miracle, evoking the Exodus stories, including God parting the waters (Exodus 14: 19-31) and God feeding the people in the wilderness (Exodus 16: 31-21), and the disciples’ misunderstanding is a serious condition, akin to Pharaoh’s misunderstanding that is linked to his oppression of the enslaved people (see Exodus 7 to 11).
In Sunday’s Gospel reading, Christ debriefs the disciples after their return, having been sent out (verse 30). In Mark 3: 20, Christ has no time to eat, and now neither do the disciples (verse 32), such is Christ’s popularity as a healer and a wonder-worker.
Saint Mark puts his emphasis here on the crowd: many people recognise Christ and the disciples (verses 33, 55), they hurry to meet them as they disembark from boat, and Christ has compassion for them, for they are ‘like sheep without a shepherd’ (verse 34). They bring the sick with them, and beg Jesus to heal them (verse 56). He has compassion on them, begins to teach them, and heals the sick.
In the midst of all this, the disciples are on a boat on their way to Bethsaida when they are caught in a storm on the lake. Jesus walks on the water, calms their fears and shows his divine power – in this case over the stormy, choppy seas (verses 45-52).
The fringes on Christ’s cloak (verse 56) are the blue threads (tzitzit) that show how he obeys God’s commandments: Jewish men were to wear fringes at the corners of their cloaks (see Numbers 15: 37-40; Deuteronomy 22: 12). There are 613 commandments, precepts or mitzvot in Jewish law. They include positive commandments, to perform an act (mitzvot aseh), and negative commandments, to abstain from certain acts (mitzvot lo taaseh). The negative commandments number 365, which coincides with the number of days in the solar year, and the positive commandments number 248, said to be the number of bones and main organs in the human body (Babylonian Talmud, Makkot 23b–24a).
The number of tzitzit or knotted fringes of the tallit or prayer shawl worn by pious Jews at prayer is connected to the 613 commandments: the Hebrew numerical value of the word tzitzit is 600; each tassel has eight threads (when doubled over) and five sets of knots, totalling 13; the sum of these numbers is 613. This reflects the idea that donning a tallit or prayer shawl with tzitzit reminds its wearer of all 613 Torah commandments.
In touching his cloak, the sick people are making him ritually unclean, but those who touch him are healed. In the following chapter, Saint Mark shows how the religious authorities are more concerned with legalistic ritual purity than with the needs of the common people, and how in touching Christ they are ‘touched’ by God’s power.
But as with our reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, the call is to all, Christ breaks down all barriers, and we are all invited to be part of the household of God, to enter his holy Temple, which is ‘built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.’
Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56 (NRSVA):
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 34 As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
53 When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. 54 When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, 55 and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56 And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
Liturgical Resources:
Liturgical colour: Green
Collect of the Day:
Lord of all power and might,
the author and giver of all good things:
Graft in our hearts the love of your name,
increase in us true religion,
nourish us with all goodness,
and of your great mercy keep us in the same;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect of the Word:
Eternal God,
author of our life and end of our pilgrimage:
guide us by your Word and Spirit
amid all perils and temptations,
that we may not wander from your way,
but may run our course in safety
until we come to our eternal rest in you;
through the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Lord God,
whose Son is the true vine and the source of life,
ever giving himself that the world may live:
May we so receive within ourselves
the power of his death and passion
that, in his saving cup,
we may share his glory and be made perfect in his love;
for he is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
now and for ever.
Suggested Hymns:
II Samuel 7: 1-14a:
342, Sweet is the solemn voice that calls
73, The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended
343, We love the place, O God
Psalm 89: 20-37:
670, Come, worship God who is worthy of honour
2, Faithful one, so unchanging
668, God is our fortress and our rock
557, Rock of ages, cleft for me
Jeremiah 23: 1-6:
250, All hail the power of Jesus’ name
135, O come, O come, Emmanuel
442, Praise the Lord, rise up rejoicing
197, Songs of thankfulness and praise
323, The God of Abraham praise
20, The King of love my shepherd is
Psalm 23:
644, Faithful Shepherd, feed me
645, Father, hear the prayer we offer
466, Here from all nations, all tongues, and all peoples
467, How bright those glorious spirits shine
655, Loving Shepherd of your sheep
433, My God, your table here is spread
235, O sacred head, sore wounded
365, Praise to the Lord, the almighty, the King of creation
20, The King of love my shepherd is
21, The Lord’s my shepherd; I’ll not want
448, The trumpets sound, the angels sing
Ephesians 2: 11-22:
326, Blessèd city, heavenly Salem (Christ is made the sure foundation)
327, Christ is our cornerstone
87, Christ is the world’s light, he and none other
501, Christ is the world’s true light
421, I come with joy, a child of God
522, In Christ there is no east or west
306, O Spirit of the living God
675, Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?
507, Put peace into each other’s hands
340, Sing and be glad, for this is God’s house!
528, The Church’s one foundation
313, The Spirit came, as promised
493, Ye that know the Lord is gracious
Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56:
211, Immortal love for ever full
513, O Christ, the healer, we have come
104, O for a thousand tongues to sing
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
The hymn suggestions are provided in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling. The hymn numbers refer to the Church of Ireland’s Church Hymnal (5th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2000)
Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.
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