First Reading, Isaiah 50:4-9a

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 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:

In the middle section of the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapters 40-55, there are four short passages which scholars have called the Songs of the Suffering Servant. They're about a mysterious figure, who sometimes speaks in the first person, and whom God sometimes addresses. Sometimes the Servant is described as a prophet, sometimes as one whose suffering brings about a benefit for the people. In the original author's mind, the servant was probably a figure for the people of Israel, or for a faithful remnant within the people. Jesus saw aspects of his own life and mission foreshadowed in the Servant Songs....

Proclaiming It: Read the passage to the assembly slowly, meditatively, in as "personal" a tone as you can muster. Read it as if you're the Servant, talking to yourself, trying to remain convinced that the hardship required by fidelity is worth it. Pause before the sentence, "It is the Lord GOD who helps me ..." Then proclaim the sentence with firm resolution.

Second Reading, James 2:14-18 (Roman Lectionary)

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:

Indeed someone might say: "You have faith and I have works." Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.

R.C.L. Epistle Reading, James 3:1-12

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.

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 Catholics need a Sunday to make sure we quote the verses about good works that made Martin 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.