<p><em>Breath of the Spirit is our electronic spiritual and liturgical resource for our members and potential members. Nothing can replace your chapter or other faith community but we hope you will find further support here for integrating your spirituality with your sexuality and all the strands of your life.&nbsp;</em></p><p><em><a href=https://www.dignityusa.org/civicrm/mailing/subscribe>Get Breath of the Spirit scripture reflections in your inbox every week</a>.</em></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>July 4th 2021: The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time</strong></p><p>Ezekiel 2:2-5<br>Psalm 123:1-2 2 3-4<br>2 Corinthians 12:7-10<br>Mark 6:1-6</p><p><strong>A Reflection by Marianne Seggerman</strong></p><p>The readings for this week are unusually consistent.&nbsp; They are all about prophets Old Testament New Testament and in the middle Jesus own prophetic mission.</p><p>The first thing to know about the Old Testament prophets is that they werent.&nbsp; Prophets that is.&nbsp; Amos even exclaims that he is only a shepherd.&nbsp; A prophet was an occupation a role.&nbsp; There was even a guild for prophets.&nbsp; To get an idea of what a prophet in the time before Christ was like I wonder if any of the readers are acquainted with the mid to late 20th century French comic book series&nbsp;<em>Astarix le Galois</em>?&nbsp; (<a href=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_the_Gaul>Click here</a>&nbsp;to find out more about the comic book series.) One of the recurring characters was the druid Getafix. Ignore for a moment that he had a magic potion which kept the villagers strong enough to withstand Roman occupation. Pre-industrial societies often identified individuals who had a closer connection than their neighbors to a higher power or spiritual world. Getafix is an example of this. Perhaps many of the ancient prophets were chosen by this same grassroots process. I dont know the job description for a prophet in Judea/Israel in the centuries before Christ but if they went around telling people how sinful they were (like Ezekiel does in this Sundays first reading) it wouldnt do much for job security. It is no wonder that the prophets were so often under attack. This weeks gospel asserts that no prophet is honored in their native place. With the Old Testament &nbsp;no prophet was recognized in their lifetime. However by the time of Jesus the prophets are acknowledged and honored by the people of Judea/Israel perhaps because the faithful of that day [wrongly] believed the prophets message of needing to turn away from sin and toward God didnt apply to them. It is always easier to admire a prophet when they are not being prophetic to you!</p><p>Fellow members of the now-defunct New Haven Dignity chapter may recall I have an issue with Paul. My beef stems from the mischief wrought by the attitudes expressed by some of Pauls pronouncements.&nbsp; I get it he travelled all around the Mediterranean sending letters to the faith communities he found [or founded] letters which became the basis for much of the policy and practice of the Catholic faith.&nbsp; Thats just the point he travelled.&nbsp; He encountered cities with cultures quite different than what he knew back in Jerusalem (he was born in Tarsus but raised in Jerusalem) and his writings reflect the cultural shock he must have felt.&nbsp; Paul made it all the way to Rome which at its height was a boisterous and vibrant city the greatest city of the Roman world.&nbsp; Paul was the original born-again Christian and I expect he found a lot in Rome not to like.&nbsp; In Rome at the time there seems to have been a temple to a different god on every corner.&nbsp; Married women had a considerable amount of freedom and opportunity possibly even more than their equivalent in mid 20th century America.&nbsp; They may have had no part in the political life but they did have a public role in the world of commerce. They owned and ran businesses. In Corinth Paul must have been appalled by temple prostitution lumping it with thievery and idolatry in one of the so-called clobber passages. (For more context on these passages often construed as anti-LGBTQ+&nbsp;<a href=https://roomforall.com/resources/a-clergy-responds/>click here</a>.) &nbsp;I remember hearing that Paul may not have written every Bible passage attributed to him I am sure he wrote this one: begging (unsuccessfully) that the thorn in the flesh given to him by an angel of Satan might be taken away. So I ask the question so often asked about those chosen by God to deliver the prophetic message why him?</p><p>I have three takeaways from todays gospel reading.&nbsp; The first is that even with his effectiveness diminished by the lack of faith in his native place Jesus is still able to cure a few people.&nbsp; How much more then would Jesus have been able to do in a community that had faith?&nbsp; We dont really know just how much the signs and wonders alluded to in other texts (see John 21:25) but not detailed amounted to.</p><p>The second takeaway is this: I must have heard this gospel nearly 20 times since Vatican II and on more than one sermon the priest has tied himself in theological knots trying to explain away the existence of Jesus siblings bringing in historical and sociological context for this passage something rarely if ever done from the pulpit of a Catholic Church in my experience.&nbsp; Joseph was still alive 12 years after the birth of his [step?] son when the young Jesus got left behind and dazzled the elders in the temple.&nbsp; Why would the couple not have been fruitful and multiplied during the intervening years? And what does it say about the Catholic churchs approach to sex that it has remained so adamantly against it?</p><p>The third thing that got my attention was referring to Jesus as son of Mary.&nbsp; There are genealogies scattered throughout scripture and to the best of my recollection they almost exclusively deal with the male line only mentioning the mother in passing. Even in the first chapter of Matthew the genealogy ends with Joseph not Mary.&nbsp; I am not sure what it all means but perhaps it points us toward the prophetic female voices that have been lost over the centuries not for their lack of an intimate connection to God but only because the patriarchies of those times could not bear to recognize them.</p><p>Its not the just official prophets whose messages are relevant and heeded in these times - nor a druid from [un] Roman occupied Gaul.&nbsp; A prophets job is not to tell their people what God plans to do.&nbsp; The prophets that people have paid attention to now and for all times have quite a different message regardless of their job description.&nbsp; Their message is to let us know what God wants and expects of us.&nbsp; They also offer us in the process a clearer picture of who God is.&nbsp; They did this despite considerable opposition hence Pauls expression of despair and anguish in the second reading and rank disbelief like that experienced by Jesus in the Gospel by those who could see him only as a carpenter or carpenters son. In our own way each of us is called to this same prophetic mission to clarify for others who God is (and what Love looks like) not only with our words but even more so with our actions by the way we care for those around us. This is our prophetic mission to reveal Gods presence in our own bodies whether or not others have the capacity to recognize it.&nbsp;</p><p>__</p>[caption align=left]<img src='https://www.dignityusa.org/sites/default/files/seggerman.png'>[/caption]<p></p><p><em><strong><br>Marianne Seggerman</strong>&nbsp;joined the chapter of Dignity New Haven around 30 years ago. That chapter is no longer alas but she continues to attend the biannual conference. In her day job she is a computer programmer living (and for the moment working) in Westport Connecticut. She is in a long-term relationship with a person raised Jewish who converted to the Mormon faith.</em></p><p><em><em><a href=https://www.dignityusa.org/civicrm/mailing/subscribe>Get Breath of the Spirit scripture reflections in your inbox every week</a>.</em></em></p>