3rd Sunday After Pentecost

PROPER 5 (10) – Year B

By Street Psalms | June 3, 2024 |

Mark 3:20-35

And the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat.

3:21 When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”

3:22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.”

Here, Jesus raises two animals before us, serpents and doves, as symbols of a way forward. It’s both thought provoking and confusing. This simile invites us to embrace a particular way of existing in the world, one that reflects the formation of disciples — God’s people who, filled with the Spirit, discern with wisdom and approach life with humility.

The Cost of Following

By Ron Ruthruff | June 24, 2022 |

Today’s passage tells of Jesus’ encounter with a demon-possessed man. This isn’t the only story about possession in the Bible, but it’s one of the more dramatic: exorcised demons cast into a herd of pigs, a man healed and restored to society, and a community struggling to grasp what God was doing right before their eyes.

Can We Hear?

By Fred Laceda | June 11, 2021 |

These stories, sometimes referred to as myths, don’t just shape how we see ourselves in the present moment, they also affect how we understand what is possible in the future.

21st Century Pentecost

By Kris Rocke | June 13, 2020 |

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

Let the Dead Bury their Dead

By Joel Aguilar | June 28, 2019 |

True confession, the relationship with my brother was broken. It was a love and hate relationship that hurt both of us deeply. We wounded each other in ways that we may never realize. His sickness and death, however, just brought all of the wounds to the surface.

The Question

By Kris Rocke | June 15, 2018 |

In the text we’re tackling this month, Jesus is accused of being “out of his mind”…and worse. The scribes accuse Jesus of being Beelzebul, a demon who casts out other demons. Jesus absorbs the deadly accusation and turns it into a teachable moment. That alone is worth a lifetime of reflection.

Breathing With The City

By Ojii BaBa Madi | June 16, 2017 |

Lenny leaned securely against the darkness of the night. His jet-black figure perfectly matched the evening’s moonless flesh. It was much too late for socializing but there he stood, on 6th Street, gazing toward Ferry Ave., as I made my way home after dropping guys off from midnight basketball. After three hours of ball with fit and speedy teens, my legs and back showed my age; I needed to get home quickly for rest and pain relievers…but there was Lenny, poised in the solitude of the dark empty street. My reputation could not survive the slight of passing without shouting out to him, but I feared being dragged into 6th & Ferry’s continuous drama. Risking a delay in my homeward journey, I lowered the window of the well-worn ministry van and yelled, “Yo Lenny! What up man?”

Clash of Crowds

By Joel Van Dyke | June 3, 2016 |

Tita felt led to lead weekly prayer walks

A collision at the city gate!! A crowd of death is leaving the city while a crowd of life is entering – they collide at the city gate. The first…

Sit Back and Relax Into Grace

By Kris Rocke | June 12, 2015 |

Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello said, “The shortest distance between a human and truth is a story.” Arguments rarely do anything but invest us more deeply into our little “truths.” We almost never see Jesus being sucked into a debate. Instead he tells stories and riddles that confuse and disorient his hearers. They are like time-release capsules that work on us from the inside-out.