There’s a huge amount we could say about the gospel passage set for this week by the common lectionary. Not only does it contain one of the most famous phrases in the Bible - certainly a ‘top forty’ entrant, if perhaps not quite a ‘top ten’ - but it functions as the key pivot point for the Gospel, packed full of symbolism.

Today’s brief write up is a reflection on the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Syrophoenician woman, which forms part of the gospel reading set for this week.

One of the main differences between the gospel of John, where we’ve been for the last few weeks, and the gospel of Mark to which we now return, is the way that the book is written. ‘John’ is highly schematic, it has styles and themes, and uses clever storytelling techniques.

The several weeks that the lectionary readings have spent in John’s gospel is nearly over, and with that, in the UK at least, the summer holiday season also draws to a conclusion. Soon we’ll be back to Mark’s breathless prose and to school too.

The gospel reading this week is part of the ‘bread of life discourse’ which is a continuation of the last couple of weeks readings from the gospel of John. The discourse follows directly after the ‘sign’ of the feeding of the 5000, and this part of the passage has at its heart one of the famous 'misunderstandings’ that are so characteristic of the writing found in ‘John.’

“Who are the Christians that really like the gospel of John?” My youngest asked me one day, after coming home from a trip away during which there had been an encounter with some street evangelists. “They kept saying, ‘the gospel of John, the gospel of John…’” I was told, as the whole conversation was played back in detail.

Even in my working-class, non-college educated neighborhood, we heard sermons quoting writers whose work I’d later read for myself — Martin Luther King, Jr., Daniel Berrigan, Dorothy Day, the Niebuhr brothers, William Sloan Coffin, Thomas Merton, and Harvey Cox. Indeed, people talked about the Niebuhrs so much that I thought they lived in our neighborhood. Theologians were among the first intellectuals I knew (novelists would also be on this list).

There are seven ‘I am statements’ attributed to Jesus in John’s gospel, among them ‘I am the bread of life’ - which appears at the end of this week’s gospel passage.

The lectionary gospel passage this week is basically the second half of the sixth chapter of Mark, with the exciting middle bits removed. Those exciting middle bits being, of course, the feeding of the five thousand, and Jesus walking on the water.

The gospel passage this week, which narrates the story of the death of John the Baptiser, takes us into the world of, arguably, the biggest villain of the Jesus tradition: Herod Antipas.

My family say that I’m a Bible nerd, and they don’t mean it kindly. They say it not because I’m an expert in the Bible - I’m definitely not, but because I find these texts endlessly interesting. Any old passage seems to have a whole host of rabbit holes you can disappear down, the passage this week is no different.

This week the gospel passage is the version of the famous story of the woman with ‘issue of blood’, interwoven with that of Jairus’ daughter, in the gospel according to ‘Mark’.

There is a good pairing, in the lectionary this week, of the ‘stilling of the storm’ from Mark’s gospel, and the David and Goliath story from 1 Samuel. A ‘plain reading’ (surface level) take is easy - something along the lines of having faith, trusting that God can/will do miracles. In other words, that reading insists that faith alone is enough - that solves all our problems.

In the passage from Mark this week we have the famous story of the mustard seed - preceded by a slightly less famous story about sowing seeds. The mustard seed story is famous because its colourful: Jesus basically says ‘the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, it starts off tiny but then it grows massive and birds come and nest in it.’ On a number of levels, the birds bit is a nice touch, I think.

The Gospel reading this week is one of the more obscure, and even dense, parts of ‘Mark’ - it takes a typically concentric shape, beginning with Jesus’ family who are convinced he has gone out of his mind.

I’m not very old (depends who you ask, I guess), but I’m old enough to remember vigorous campaigns to ‘keep Sunday special’ and other initiatives that tried to stem the tide of ‘creeping secularism’. I suppose that perhaps there are similar initiatives today, but they don’t seem to make a ripple - that boat has well and truly sailed.

This week’s lectionary readings pair Mary’s song (The Magnificat) in ‘Luke’ together with Hannah’s song from the start of 1 Samuel.

There’s an embarrassment of riches for anyone due to preach on this Trinity Sunday,

The readings offered from the Hebrew Scriptures are Isaiah 6:1-8 and Psalm 29 - each proposing dramatic visions of the divine, then Romans 8:12-17 speaks of the Spirit of God, while the gospel passage is ‘sonship’ focussed, telling the story of Jesus’ meeting with the pharisee Nicodemus and the subsequent confusion over being ‘born again.’

This week we are dealing with Pentecost Sunday, so among other things the lectionary has the narrative of Pentecost from Acts, as well as precursor gospel reading as well as the ‘valley of dry bones’ reading from Ezekiel.

The lectionary, this week, has two routes one might follow - and I’ve chosen to follow the readings which relate to ‘ascension’ which include the gospel passage from ‘Luke’ - the author of which is also understood to be the author of ‘Acts’.