The Gospel lections for June 2024 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 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 even 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 quick journeys with Jesus. What we find – in this liturgical season of Pentecost – Holy Spirit taking us on a tour, as it were, with Jesus, his disciples, the crowds, the scribes and Pharisees, and other cast 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 Holy Spirit empowers, inspires, and enables God’s people to bear witness of God’s presence and love to work and pray for God’s justice in our communities, neighborhoods, and, indeed, in the world.

June 2, 2024 2nd Sunday after Pentecost Mark 2:23-3:6		June 9, 2024 3rd Sunday after Pentecost Mark 3:20-35
June 16, 2024 4th Sunday after Pentecost Mark 4:26-34		June 23, 2024 5th Sunday after Pentecost Mark 4:35-41
June 30, 2024 6th Sunday after Pentecost Mark 5:21-43