Lector's Notes
of Lector's Notes
Lector's Notes | To the home page of Lector's Notes | |
Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Proper 19, Year B, September 13, 2009 |
|
Twenty-second digests for the congregation: Arrange with your liturgy committee to have these brief historical introductions read to the assembly before you do each reading.
Who should announce these before the first and second readings, and before the gospel acclamation? They're not Scripture, nor homiletic, so they shouldn't be delivered from the ambo. They're a modest teaching. So let the presider say them from the chair. Let the lector turn toward the presider and listen.
Print this page, cut it at the blue lines, and give the introduction paragraphs to the person who will speak them. | ||
| Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Proper 19, Year B, September 13, 2009 | ||
|
Before the first reading:
The middle part of the book of the prophet Isaiah contains four poems that we now call the songs of the suffering servant. Here the prophet meditates on his sufferings and the price of fidelity to God. Jesus meditated on these passages; today they prepare us to hear Jesus' prediction of his passion.
|
After the psalm, before the second reading:
In the early church, controversies were not as settled as they are now, and customs that we take for granted had yet to be established. Here the apostle James tries to resolve another early dispute.
|
Before the gospel acclamation:
In Saint Mark's gospel, Jesus is always concerned that his followers get the whole picture, including the inevitability of his passion, death and resurrection.
|
To pay for use of the words above, please subtract an equal number of optional words from other places in the liturgy (click here for some suggestions). | ||
Our Liturgical Setting: Saint Mark records three times when Jesus predicted his passion, death and resurrection. Today's gospel, Mark 8:27-38 (NRSV translation, RCL), or Mark 8:27-35 (NAB translation, U.S. Catholic) or Jerusalem Bible, U.K. Catholic, translation is the first of those. This reading from Isaiah prepares us to hear that gospel.
The Literary and Theological Background: You won't be surprised when reminded that the Church uses this passage on Passion (Palm) Sunday, too. As we said in these Notes last Passion Sunday:
A Little Ironic Self-Indulgence by the Author: As the husband of a public school teacher in the United States, I smiled at the notion that even in the first century C.E., teachers were held to higher standards. Was James the whipping boy of politicians in his day? Was he bedeviled by single-issue advocates on his board of education? Furthermore, my church's Lectionary skips these verses of James 3 (perhaps we need a Sunday to make sure we quote the verses about good works that made Luther suspicious of this letter). Now having reread Isaiah 50 while attuned to the teacher metaphor, I wonder if the Servant of the Lord was a beleaguered public school teacher, too. But let's set that aside, because all twelve verses of James 3 are really about controlling what we say, speech being the teacher's principal instrument.
Proclaiming James, Chapter 3: The text makes for complicated oral rendering because James uses the tongue as metaphor for all the troubles our speech can cause. Verses 3 and 4 and the latter half of verse 5 are about three different small things that govern greater wholes. It's not until verse 5a that the tongue is even mentioned, giving the metaphors their referent. So you'll have to say the tongue loudly in that sentence.
The expressions "world of iniquity" and "set on fire by hell" in verse 6 show how strongly James felt about this subject. Speak those phrases emphatically. Verses 7 and 8 develop yet another metaphor for the tongue's uncontrollable character. Recite the verses as a single sentence, contrasting what can be tamed with what no one can tame.
The last few verses express James' exasperation that we put our speech to contradictory purposes, and give us yet two more metaphors for that property of the tongue. You should ask those rhetorical questions with an indignant tone, like a debater demolishing an opponent's clearly weak argument.
Second Reading (Revised Common Lectionary for Proper 19 B) James 3:1-12
Click here to jump to Notes on the Roman Catholic Lectionary selection
Second Reading (Roman Catholic lectionary for Ordinary 24 B) James 2:14-18 [Jerusalem Bible translation]
Click here to jump to Notes on the Revised Common Lectionary selection
Last week we described the letter of James as practical and pastoral. Today James shows his polemical side. He was concerned about Christians living a selective faith, and perhaps spreading, if only by example, this weak version of the gospel. They seem to have concluded that as long as they believed the right teachings, they need do nothing. James has no patience with this notion, and your proclamation of his teaching should sound exasperated and emphatic.
Proclaiming James, Chapter 2: Here's a somewhat graphical guide to tones of voice to use in proclaiming the last sentence. Just like the words in italics here and the words in bold print contrast with the each other and their surrounding words, make them sound contrasting when you proclaim them:
| Several other commentaries on these passages. All are thoughtful, all quite readable, from the scholarly to the popular.
Links may be incomplete more than a few weeks before the "due date." | |
|
Lutheran pastor and college teacher Dan Nelson's notes for a study group.
| America magazine column of John R Donahue, S.J., from 2000. Father Roger Karban's year-2000 column, and his 2006 column One page with several of Father Karban's most recent weekly columns, courtesy of FOSIL, The Fellowship of Southern Illinois Laity. |
| The Text This Week; links to homilies, art works, movies and other resources on the week's scripture themes | Saint Louis University's excellent site for Sunday liturgy Of the four main sections (each containing several essays) on this Sunday's page, lectors will want to "Get to Know the Readings," while everyone, lectors included, can profit from "Praying toward [this] Sunday" and "Spirituality for [this] Sunday." And there are seven worthy links for those planning "Music for [this] Sunday's Mass." |
The Lectionary selections in the frame at the left, if any, are there for your convenience. The publishers of the page in that frame have no connection, except for membership in the one Body of Christ, with the publisher of this page. Likewise the publishers of the pages on the links above.