1968 had been one of the most divisive years in the experience of our country. We witnessed the executions and the assassinations of both Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The inner cities were ablaze. The great movement toward the great society, that had been Lyndon Johnson’s pet project, came to a screeching halt. The Vatican Council had brought great changes to the Catholic Church, changes that not everyone accepted. Little old ladies were complaining that they had to sing those stupid guitar hymns. Priests were refusing to take their tabernacles off the center altar. And our class was in its final preparation for the priesthood. We’d be ordained in the spring of 1969. The seminary was as divided in its population as was the rest of the country. There was mounting opposition to the Vietnam War here in America. People picketing and rioting on both sides of the issue. A new President had been elected – a law and order president – who began to escalate the war in Vietnam. Some of us in the seminary were on the side of law and order, and what we saw as patriotism. Others of us were on the side of the movement toward peace, and the movement toward greater solidarity. Some of us were enthused about the directions in which the Second Vatican Council was inviting the church to go. Others of us were holding on to the traditions that had brought us to the seminary in the first place. And so, we came to the final retreat before ordination - six or seven days to pray and reflect before receiving the sacrament. And we were allowed to choose our own retreat master. By a very slim margin, the person who was chosen was Monsignor Vincent Fox who was known, not only in Catholic circles, but throughout the New York area, because of his peace activism. A friend and protector of the two Fathers Berrigan, who had burned drafts cards, and were put in jail at various times for their picketing and rioting. A friend of Dorothy Day who, at the time, was a figure of tremendous controversy, although now she’s a candidate for sainthood. And so, there we sat in the chapel, each conference. One group of us sitting in stony silence because of this person; the other hanging in rapt attention on his every word. But seven days later, all of us processed into the cathedral, and the bishop’s hands were placed on all of us, and all of our palms were anointed, and we were told to imitate what we handled, and to treasure the Gospel that we proclaimed.

In order to understand today’s gospel, you have to understand what was happening in the time that Mark wrote. The church was only about forty years old at most. There were still people around who had seen and heard Jesus during his lifetime. The headquarters of the church was not in Rome, but In Jerusalem, but Peter had left Jerusalem and begun to teach in Antioch, and finally moved to Rome.

So, did you guess the modern city? It was Mosul, in Iraq. That has been a settled area of the world for more than four millennia, perhaps even longer than that. Today’s first reading is joined to the gospel because both of them have an image of people immediately dropping everything, and changing their focus or their outlook because God says to. But, in order to understand the whole meaning of the book of the prophet Isaiah, we have to know a little bit of the history behind the story. This is familiar territory. We’ve been there before.

During the height of Israel’s national life in the middle years of the millennium before Jesus, they were a great power. But, after the reign of King David, the kingdom was divided into two regions, which were called Israel and Judah, and although sons of his reigned on the thrones, and after them their descendants, and although they were all Jews, they did not get along well. The northern kingdom was called Israel. It was right on the border with Assyria. Take away the first two letters, the A and the S, and you get Syria. Modern day Syria and Iraq were ancient Assyria - a very powerful force in the Middle East then, as they are now. They were constantly threatening the northern kingdom, and eventually they overran the northern kingdom and took captive most of its people - at least the craftspeople and the royalty - and took them away to Assyria.

Because we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, in words of men, we tend to treat it with an extreme amount of reverence. Because we do, and in our minds reverence is not associated with levity or humor, we fail to see the humor placed into some of the stories in both the Old and New Testament. That’s why I asked you to see if you could pick out the children’s game that’s involved in the first reading that we heard this morning. God is pictured as playing peek-a-boo with Samuel.

You have to understand what’s going on in this story. His mother, a year before this story takes place, or perhaps more than a year, had gone to the temple with her husband in the traditional Jewish way. They were childless, and she prayed all the time that she was in the women’s court of the temple, that she would have a child. She was murmuring to herself, whispering out loud. And she caught the attention of one of the temple authorities, presumably a priest, and he reamed her out because he thought she was drunk. And she explained to him that she wasn’t drinking at all, but that she was begging and pleading for a child. And the man’s heart softened and he said, “When you come to the temple this time next year, you will have a son.” And sure enough she did. And in the traditional Jewish way, she brought her male child to the temple, and dedicated him to the Lord. But, in extreme amount of gratitude, she then decided to leave him there, to be dedicated to the Lord. Can you imagine a child of maybe three years old being left in the care of a bunch of old men, who are busy all day with their religion stuff, and have no time for a little boy? Can you imagine how lonely, how frightened, little Samuel must have been?

Oh my. What a week. What a year. The last time I faced my people with this much of a burden was right after September 11th, 2001. Then, we were all united in our anger, fear, and sadness. Now, we’re all divided in our sadness, fear and anger. Every single minister who faces a congregation recognizes that she or he must speak this morning to the great confusion and turmoil. Knowing what to say, however, is very difficult. Each of the four gospels for this Sunday tells of Jesus and John the Baptist’s encounter. The one from Mark’s gospel, that we read today, is extremely important in many different ways. And I look forward, every third year, to talking about why it’s so important. But today, it is the first reading from the book of Isaiah that invites us to hold it alongside the challenges that face us, and see what God is saying through the prophet.

In our country’s contentious relationship with Iran, there’s been a little bit of saber-rattling just recently. The Iranians, perhaps understandably, are angry because of our black ops operation that took out one of their major military leaders in the recent past. And President Trump has been tweeting ugly things about any possibility that they might try to retaliate. But one of our major military commanders has tried to damp down the conflict by moving one of our major aircraft carriers out of the Persian Gulf. This is nothing new. This has been going on between ourselves and Iran since we helped to dethrone the Shah of Iran way back when I was a youngster. We thought we were doing the right thing, saving the world from a despot. We played ourselves right into the hands of insurgents, who eventually developed into what people now refer to as ISIS.

But that part of the world has been in conflict for a long, long time. In fact, over four thousand years, there has been furor in what historians call “The Fertile Crescent,” the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. In biblical times, the main participants were one nation, referred to in the Bible as Assyrians. Take off the first two letters, AS, and you have Syria. Back then Assyria combined all of today’s Syria, plus bits and pieces of other land around it. They were in conflict with another group of people called the Babylonians, or the Persians. Right now, what’s left of ancient Persia is basically Iran, with a little bit of the land around it; what’s left of ancient Assyria is present day Iraq and some of the land around it.

I’m sure you heard it. Father Mathias actually emphasized it in the way he proclaimed the gospel. The first story ends with the shepherds going home. The first story begins with, “When the eighth day came for the circumcision.” And the story continues with the Presentation in the temple, which is the gospel we read last Sunday. Why was it done that way?

The scriptures that we have at Mass are placed there for the purpose of worship, not for the purpose of teaching or learning. And so they’re frequently edited in ways that we would not think about if we picked up our bible to read them. Very frequently there are lines left out of the scriptures we read at Mass on Sunday, because the people who composed our Masses did not want to distract people from the main point they wanted them to get out of the reading for the purpose of that Sunday’s worship. Many of these readings have been the same for centuries.

When I was studying this one, for this Mass, I discovered that this reading has been the same since Henry the 8th had one of his henchmen recompose the Book of Common Prayer. It’s been every Christian church’s reading ever since then. How come? Because there are several things that the church wants us to call to mind as we pray this morning.