A look at the gaps in the lectionary.

This week: the gap between Proper 28B + Last B
The text: John 18:1-32

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We jump in the lectionary from the Little Apocalypse in Mark to the conversation with Pilate in John. I imagine it is as disorienting as being beamed up by Scotty, but it isn’t an unfamiliar moment. We can certainly get our bearings.

The theme doesn’t change a lot, however, and I think that may be more the trick.

The thing about the apocalyptic turn of last week was not that the world was ending from on high, but that the powerful have incredible control over the lives of others—that they will resist the freedom Jesus is offering the world because they like profiting off others.

What happens in the meantime is the last suppers, betrayal, arrest, and trial by the religious authorities, then he is handed over to Pilate, the empire’s representative and the epitome of what it means to side with empire.

This conversation, about Jesus as King is bound up as much in these same themes as it is in visions of Jesus as the “head” of the church. Our own desire (and tradition) of naming Jesus king (when he himself rejects the title in multiple gospels) betrays the presenting themes we’ve been dealing with and which have led us to this point.

That power over earth leads to the back of the line with God. And here, Jesus and his disciples are facing off with earthly power with weakness.