Queerying 5th after Pentecost C

Rev. Emily E. Ewing queeries the Gospel reading.

Gospel: Luke 10:25-37
²⁵Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” she said, “what must I do to inherit everlasting life?”

²⁶Jesus said to her, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

²⁷She answered, “You shall love the Everlasting your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

²⁸And he said to her, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

²⁹But wanting to justify herself, she asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

³⁰Jesus replied, “A person was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped them, beat them, and went away, leaving them half dead. ³¹Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw them, he passed by on the other side. ³²So likewise a Levite, when she came to the place and saw them, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan while traveling came near them; and when the Samaritan saw them, ze was moved with pity. ³⁴Ze went to them and bandaged their wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then ze put them on zyr own animal, brought them to an inn, and took care of them. ³⁵The next day ze took out two days' wages, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of them; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

³⁶Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the person who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

³⁷She said, “The one who showed them mercy.”

Jesus said to her, “Go and do likewise.”

Queeries for the text:
What do lawyers do today?
What is the law?
How do you love God and neighbor?
How do we justify ourselves?
Who is your neighbor?
Why is the road to Jerusalem so dangerous?
Who is left half dead?
How do you pass by on the other side?
Who are Samaritans?
How much is two days' wages?
Who shows mercy?
How do you go and do likewise?

What are your queeries?

Queerying 3rd after Pentecost C

Rev. Emily E. Ewing queeries the Gospel reading.

Gospel: Luke 9:51-62
⁵¹When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. ⁵²And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; ⁵³but they did not receive Jesus, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.

⁵⁴When some of his chosen family, James and John saw it, they said, “Leader, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”

⁵⁵But Jesus turned and rebuked them. ⁵⁶Then they went on to another village.

⁵⁷As they were going along the road, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

⁵⁸And Jesus said to them, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Child of Humanity has nowhere to lay Their head.” ⁵⁹To another Jesus said, “Follow me.”

But she said, “Leader, first let me go and bury my father.”

⁶⁰But Jesus said to her, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the reign of God.”

⁶¹Another said, “I will follow you, Leader; but let me get closure with those at my home.”

⁶²Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the reign of God.”

Queeries for the text:
How long will Jesus take to get to Jerusalem?
Who are Samaritans?
Why do James and John want to enact violence?
What else do foxes have?
Who has nowhere to lay their heads?
What's wrong with closure?
What happens when a hand is to the plow and the person looks back?

What are your queeries?


 

Queerying Lent 3A

River Needham M.A., queeries the Tanakh reading.

Tanakh: Exodus 17:1-7

From the Wilderness of Sin the whole Israelite community continued by stages as the Becoming One would command. They encamped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses. “Give us water to drink,” they said; and Moses replied to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you try the Becoming One?”And the people thirsted there for water; and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” Moses cried out to the Becoming One, saying, “What shall I do with this people? Before long they will be stoning me!” Then the Becoming One said to Moses, “Pass before the people; take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take along the rod with which you struck the Nile, and set out. I will be standing there before you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock and water will issue from it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. The place was named Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and because they tried the Becoming One, saying, “Is the Becoming One present among us or not?”

Queeries for the text:
What is the significance of the Wilderness of Sin?
Where do we lack water?
Why do we lack water?
How are we grumbling instead of looking for water?
For what do we thirst?
For what do you thirst?
What risks are you taking? What safety have you left to follow God's call?

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Rev. Emily E. Ewing queeries the Gospel reading.

Gospel: John 4:5-42

⁵So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. ⁷A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸(Jesus' disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

⁹The Samaritan woman said to Jesus, “How is it that you, a Jewish man, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jewish people do not share things in common with Samaritans.)

¹⁰Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked them, and they would have given you living water.”

¹¹The woman said to Jesus, “Captain, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”

¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

¹⁵The woman said to him, “Captain, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.”

¹⁷The woman answered him, “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

¹⁹The woman said to him, “Captain, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”

²⁶Jesus said to her, “I am Them, the one who is speaking to you.”

²⁷Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” ²⁸Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” ³⁰They left the city and were on their way to him.

³¹Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³²But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”

³³So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?”

³⁴Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete Their work. ³⁵Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. ³⁶The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for everlasting life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

³⁹Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “They told me everything I have ever done.”

⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them; and Jesus stayed there two days. ⁴¹And many more believed because of his word. ⁴²They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Queeries for the text:
What happened at Jacob's well?  Why isn't Genesis the Tanakh reading for this day?
Why is the woman coming to get water in the heat of the day?
What assumptions are made about Jesus' sexuality in this passage?  What about the woman's sexuality?
What happens if the "the one you have now" is not your husband, because they're not a man?
What is living water?
What astonishes you?
Why do the Samaritans from that city need more proof than a woman's word?

What are your queeries?

Queerying 16th after Pentecost C

Periodic queerier, River Needham, queeries the Tanakh reading.

Tanakh: Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Becoming One in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the prison compound attached to the palace of the king of Judah. For King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him,
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Jeremiah said: The word of the Becoming One came to me:

Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, will come to you and say,

“Buy my land in Anathoth, for you are next in succession to redeem it by purchase.”

And just as the Becoming One had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the prison compound and said to me,

“Please buy my land in Anathoth, in the territory of Benjamin; for the right of succession is yours, and you have the duty of redemption. Buy it.”

Then I knew that it was indeed the word of the Becoming One. So I bought the land in Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel. I weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver.I wrote a deed, sealed it, and had it witnessed; and I weighed out the silver on a balance. I took the deed of purchase, the sealed text and the open one according to rule and law, and gave the deed to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah in the presence of my kinsman Hanamel, of the witnesses who were named in the deed, and all the Judeans who were sitting in the prison compound.  In their presence I charged Baruch as follows:

Thus said the Ruler of Angel Armies, the God of Israel: “Take these documents, this deed of purchase, the sealed text and the open one, and put them into an earthen jar, so that they may last a long time.”

For thus said the God of Angel Armies, the God of Israel: “Houses, fields, and vineyards shall again be purchased in this land.”

Queeries for the text:
What is missing from this reading?
When did this happen? What did the world look like?
Who is confined?
Where is Anathoth?
When can prisoners buy and sell today?
How long do earthen jars last?
When were houses, fields and vineyards again purchased in the land? Who remained in the land?

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Rev. Emily E. Ewing queeries the Gospel reading.

Gospel: Luke 16:19-31

Jesus said:
¹⁹“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. ²⁰And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, ²¹who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.

²²The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.

²⁴He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’

²⁵But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. ²⁶Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’

²⁷He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— ²⁸for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’

²⁹Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’

³⁰He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’

³¹He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Queeries for the text:
What did we skip?  Why?
What is with Jesus and all the rich folks?!
What's so great about purple?
What does the name Lazarus mean? Why is the name important?
What impact do dogs have?
Why does the rich man still think he can get what he wants?
Is the after life zero-sum?
What will it take for true repentance from evil?

What are your queeries?