Fourteenth Sunday After Trinity, September 1, 2024

Fourteenth Sunday After Trinity, September 1, 2024

The priests… the members of the religious establishment… these arbitrators of cleanliness… acted as the gatekeepers for the return of healed lepers to regular society. Lepers who were healed of their disease had to obtain a certificate of cleanliness prior to resuming contact with friends, family, and community. Any time the establishment’s purity boundaries were transgressed, the law required the transgressor to be pronounced clean by a priest. The religious authorities had drawn purity maps delineating the boundaries of purity: maps of places, maps of persons, maps of times, maps of meals, and maps of things (Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, 2003, p. 397). The establishment of these boundaries allowed the religious authorities their control over the common people. Jesus violates the purity boundaries mapped for meals by eating with sinners and tax collectors (Mk. 2:15); he violates the purity boundaries regarding persons by touching lepers (Mk. 1:41), by touching menstruating women (Mk. 5:25-34), by touching corpses (Mk. 5:41). Jesus disregards the boundaries set by all the Pharisaic maps, clearly rejecting control by the elaborate Temple system established by the religious authorities.

Prayers from one with his own problems regarding religious purity…

Father in heaven, for Jesus’ sake, heal me of my sin-sickness, grant me the forgiveness of my sin… of my uncleanliness… so that my preacher’s word of absolution pronounces me clean once again. In the name of Jesus. Amen

Father in heaven, for Jesus’ sake, keep my ears tuned to the preaching of Jesus Christ, him crucified, and him alone so that I am not tempted to substitute ritual purity for the cleansing purity of my Lord’s Word. In the name of Jesus. Amen

Father in heaven, for Jesus’ sake, grant that I use the forgiveness pronounced upon me as permission to return to my neighborhood and be of some use there amid my family and friends. In the name of Jesus. Amen

Father in heaven, for Jesus’ sake, continue to bless the Institute of Lutheran Theology and hold it in your hand of protection. In the name of Jesus. Amen

Father in heaven, for Jesus’ sake, hold me in the faith of Jesus Christ during these days of my baptism and enfold me in the love of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ until that great day of expectation and hope arrives and I join my Lord Jesus in glory. In the name of Jesus. Amen