The Gospel lections for June 2021 are from the Gospel according to Mark. In the characteristic form of the book of Mark, Jesus Christ traveled from place to place, an itinerant preacher/healer who breathlessly encountered young and old, healthy and ill, rich and poor, the lawgivers and the law rebels. The book’s account is a rapid-fire succession of one scene after another. The overall sense is of the Savior on the move, empowered and led by the Holy Spirit, on a mission to disclose the presence and power of the kingdom of God. But it was a disclosure in its nascent stage, the fullness of which awaited the resurrection. The confidence of the early Christian communities to recount the oral tradition of these events decades after their occurrences, chronicling the works and words of Jesus after the decisive event of his rising from the dead, meant that God’s people got “it;” that the resurrection unlocked the full identity of Jesus, the Son of God. It also meant that the first Easter morning, when in tandem with the feast of the Pentecost, now effects and enables the evangelistic witness of God’s people to proclaim with passion, truth, joy, and love who Jesus is, who we are, and our need of the Savior. Our lections take us on a quick journey with Jesus. What we find – in this liturgical season of Pentecost – the Holy Spirit taking us on a tour, as it were, with Jesus, his disciples, the crowds, the scribes and Pharisees, and other casts of characters along the way. And on this journey, we are seeing Jesus inching towards the full disclosure of who he is, but waiting until Spirit-time, when the spirit empowers, inspires, and enables God’s people to bear witness of God’s presence and love in the world.

June 6, 2021 2nd Sunday after Pentecost Mark 3:20-35		June 13, 2021 3rd Sunday after Pentecost Mark 4:26-34
June 20, 2021 4th Sunday after Pentecost Mark 4:35-41		June 27, 2021 5th Sunday after Pentecost Mark 5:21-43