Patrick Comerford
We have returned to Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with Trinity Sunday (31 May 2026), and yesterday was the Feast of Corpus Christi (4 June 2026) or the Day of Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today recalls Saint Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton (754), Bishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany and Martyr.
After yesterday’s length return journey from Luton to Dublin, I got back last night, and am in back in Stony Stratford. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Mark 12: 35-37 (NRSVA):
35 While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he said, ‘How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? 36 David himself, by the Holy Spirit, declared,
“The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet’.”
37 David himself calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?’ And the large crowd was listening to him with delight.
Today’s Reflections:
The scribes and the Pharisees regarded themselves as the experts in Biblical interpretation. But Christ, who is teaching in the temple and responding to their questions, now asks them some questions (verses 35, 42), to the delight of the large crowd that is listening to him.
At the time, the general understanding and expectation among the people was for a political ‘Messiah’ who was descended from David, ‘the son of David’.
At the time it was also thought that David was inspired by the Spirit to write the Psalms. But Christ asks how it is that David refers to the Messiah as ‘Lord’ (overlord), in writing ‘The Lord’ God (Yahweh) ‘said to my Lord’ (in other words, David’s overlord, whom Christ presents in this dialogue as the Messiah) ‘sit ...’
So, how can the Messiah be both David’s son and his overlord?
While in English and Greek, the word ‘Lord’ (κύριος, kurios) occurs three times in this reading, Christ may have quoted Psalm 110: 1 in Hebrew; there the words are different. He was probably not unique in taking ‘my Lord’ there to be the Messiah, for a political Messiah would defeat his ‘enemies’.
And so the Pharisees too are shown not to understand the Scriptures.
Which leads me to think this morning of how often passages of scripture that are neither not fully understood or are apparently contradictory on the surface are still used by people who promote themselves as experts in Biblical interpretation to advance oppressive and bigoted teachings.
Today’s Prayers (Friday 5 June 2026):
A new edition of Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), was published last week, in time for the USPG conference in the High Leigh, Hertfordshire, which opened on Tuesday (2 June) and ended yesterday (4 June). The theme this week, from 31 May to 6 June 2026 (pp 6-7), is ‘Peacebuilding in the Gulf’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection from Saint Christopher’s Cathedral in Bahrain.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 5 June 2026) invites us to pray:
Lord, we pray for an end to violence across the Gulf region, and for dialogue and diplomacy to bring a swift and just peace.
The Collect:
God our redeemer,
who called your servant Boniface
to preach the gospel among the German people
and to build up your Church in holiness:
grant that we may preserve in our hearts
that faith which he taught with his words
and sealed with his blood,
and profess it in lives dedicated to your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr Boniface:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
