13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, RCL)

As wildfires raged nearby, the lectionary readings spoke to the uncertainty and fear of being displaced.

“For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” When Paul appeals to the self-emptying nature of Christ as one of the central Christian impulses for generosity, he is ringing a familiar chord. Generosity for the Corinthians is grounded in self-emptying in much the same way that joy and worship are grounded in self-emptying for the Philippians.

Fred Gaiser offers a sober, accessible review of the biblical materials pertinent to our thinking about healing.

God is concerned with the health of women. God cares about teenagers who end up in a lifetime of poverty. Jesus healed the bleeding woman 2,000 years ago, and I think if he walked the streets today, he just might hand her a packet of pink pills. 

This week's texts are great stewardship texts. Why not use them that way? We can ask for money more than once a year.

Apparently some people are determined to get rid of Jesus—and some are willing to push through any barrier to get near him.

2 Corinthians 8 contains the only New Testament reference, outside the infancy narratives, to Jesus being poor.

Why does Paul resort to both shame and pride to raise money for the Jerusalem church?

They both were angry, and they had a right to be angry. Judy’s mother was chronically ill, and would be for the rest of her life. As an only child Judy felt responsible, and she did her duty, caring for her mother without assistance. She counted the cost all the way, exhausting people around her by eliciting sympathy from them, and then moving on to others. Judy talked often about what kind of help she needed, but she never actually looked for help. She had decided that God had willed her a difficult life, and that nothing would be good again until after her mother died and Judy was relieved of her burden.

"The past is not over,” said Odessa Woolfolk of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Speaking to my divinity school class, Woolfolk spoke of systems that continue to oppress and seriously limit access to resources that are basic to any human being. With slavery a thing of the past, with segregation banned, with the right to vote for everyone, what is the problem? It is access.

The psalmists of the Bible often sound as if they’re drowning.