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Scripture In Depth
11th Sunday of Ordinary Time C
June 16. 2013
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Reading I: 2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13
This passage fits in neatly not only with the Gospel
but also with the second reading. All three readings
proclaim the forgiveness of sin.
The prophet Nathan acts as a father confessor to David.
Nathan had previously stabbed David's conscience with
the parable of the ewe lamb, confronting him with the
brutal truth: “You are the man.” David
confesses, “I have sinned against the Lord,”
and Nathan declares that God has put away his sin.
This is the classic Old Testament statement of the
pattern of self-examination in the light of Gods law,
followed by confession of the sin as an offense against
God and not merely against another person (see
Ps 51:4: “Against thee, thee only, have I
sinned”), and concluding with the confessor's
declaration that God has put away the
sin.
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Responsorial Psalm: 32:1-2, 5, 7, 11
Instead of using the psalm which, according to
picturesque tradition, David sang after his sin with
Bathsheba (Psalm 51), we respond with another of the seven traditional
penitential psalms.
This is one that Paul used (Rom 4:7-8). preceded by the comment: “So also David
pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom God reckons
righteousness apart from works.”
Sacramental absolution is, like baptism and the
Eucharist, a sacrament of justification through the
grace of Christ alone, apart from the works of the
law.
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Reading II: Galatians 2:16, 19-21
This is one of the classic Pauline statements about
justification. To be justified means to be in the right
with God. The basic quest of religion—here Paul,
Luther, and Trent are at one—is to be in the right
with God.
Paul had tried to get himself right with God by keeping
the Mosaic law. In his encounter with Christ, he learned
that this justification is something not to be earned
but to he received as a gift through the
Christ-event.
It is not faith that is the primary cause of
justification but the act of God in Christ, an act
described by Paul as “grace,” sheer
unmerited forgiveness of the sinner. Faith is the
subjective condition on the human side for receiving
God's forgiveness.
“Justification by faith alone” is shorthand for
“justification by the grace-full act of God in Christ
apprehended by the human being through faith alone.”
That we are justified by faith and not by the works of
the law does not mean that works have no place in the
Christian life, for they are the fruit of faith, The
justified sinner now “lives with God.” This
new life is a paradox.
The Christian puts forth the utmost moral effort, and
yet knows that it is not he or she but “Christ who
lives in me” (see the similar paradox in
Phil 2:12-13). This paradoxical understanding of the relation
between faith and works should help us to transcend the
antitheses of the Reformation.
But is the message of justification relevant today?
Does the contemporary person, like Luther, seek a
gracious God? Is not the modern question, as Martin
Marty suggests, rather the question whether there is a
God at all?
Was Bonhoeffer right in rejecting the notion that people
first have to be made sinners—which they do not
feel themselves to be—before they can hear the
gospel?
Do we transcend the dichotomy between the Council of
Trent and the Reformation by saying that both sides were
concerned about an obsolete issue? Or is the question of
justification not merely one approach to the
Christian message but rather its central concern?
Do we answer that question from an analysis of modern
men and women or from a confrontation with the message
of the New Testament?
These are basic issues for contemporary theology,
exegesis, and preaching.
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Gospel: Luke 7:36–8:3 (long form); 7:36-50 (short
form)
The crucial problem of this Gospel is highlighted in
the caption: “Her many sins were forgiven her,
because she has shown great love.” Taken at face
value, these words suggest that the woman has earned
forgiveness by her act of devotion and so was justified
by works and not by faith.
But a closer examination of the pericope shows that if
this is the correct interpretation, it contains a
glaring contradiction.
The parable of the two debtors, which precedes our
saying, makes love the outcome of forgiveness. To the
question “Now which of (the two debtors] will love
him more?” the answer comes, “The one, I
suppose, to whom he forgave more.”
Later on it is stated that the person who is forgiven
little, loves little. This means that we can only
understand the woman's action in one way. Her
extravagant act of devotion is a sign that her sins,
“which are many,” have already been
forgiven.
How were they forgiven? By Jesus' acceptance of her,
sinner though she was.
The long form of the Gospel, with its list of the women
who also accompanied Jesus, might encourage the
longstanding but erroneous tradition that Mary Magdalene
was the woman whose many sins were forgiven and who
therefore performed the extravagant act of devotion.
There is nothing in the New Testament to warrant this
identification.
Moreover, our pericope may be a combination of two
different incidents—that of a woman who anointed
Jesus and that of a woman who washed his feet with her
tears and dried them with her hair. The latter action is
much more a sign of penitence than the former.
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Copyright © 1984 by The Order of St. Benedict, Inc.,
Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. Used by
permission from The Liturgical Press,
Collegeville, Minnesota 56321
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Preaching the Lectionary:
The Word of God for the Church Today
Reginald H. Fuller. The Liturgical Press. 1984 (Revised
Edition),
pp. 476-478.
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Thank you to Liturgical Press who makes this
page possible
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For more information about the 3rd edition (2006)
of
Preaching the Lectionary
click picture above.
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Art by Martin Erspamer, O.S.B.
from
Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical
Year
(A, B, and C).
Used by permission of Liturgy Training
Publications. This art may be reproduced
only by parishes who purchase the
collection in book or CD-ROM form. For
more information go to:
http://www.ltp.org/
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