Reading Plan for Feb. 8 - 14

February 8, 2026 | Mark 7:6-8
Reflection:
How Jesus responds to the Pharisees’ obstinacy is to quote scripture. In this case, Jesus isn’t saying something new. He calls to remembrance what they should have known and understood. For those of us who’ve had a lot of church experience, we too might need to be reminded why and how we embraced the faith that first embraced us. This passage asks us to call to remembrance the Love that first Loved us and to walk in the ways of that Love.

February 9, 2026 | Mark 7:9-15
Reflection:
Jesus continues to call to mind what they should have known: we are each called to walk with God in a humility that manifests as a love of neighbor. Internally motivated acts that cause us to judge or harm others are what separate us from God. The early church continued to struggle with the traditions that forbade them from eating certain foods or eating with certain people. The Apostle Paul said, “It doesn’t matter what one’s background was before we were all knit together in faith. The love that has been poured into our hearts says, “We all get to sit at the same table and eat together…whatever food is good for us.” [Galatians 2-3] The Spirit of the law is love; anything else brings decay, death, and defilement. Choose love.

February 10, 2026 | Mark 7:17-23
Reflection:
Jesus has to go a little deeper with his disciples, and luckily for them, he does. The disciples appear to have the same level of understanding as the crowds, even though they have been with him for a while and have heard his teachings. They always need greater clarification. With us, as we read this passage, Jesus is gracious to go deeper, to explain further. And like the disciples, we have the chance of hearing and understanding because Jesus is in our midst, helping us to plumb the depths, not of sewers, but the love of God.

February 11, 2026 | Mark 7:24-30
Reflection:
Is this a story of faith as the key component to healing, or a story about Jesus’ coming to realize that the children he came to feed could be found in every region and among every tribe of the earth? It doesn’t have to be one or the other. This story could have more interpretations. That’s the beauty of the gospel narratives: they rarely mean just one thing. One energizes this passage is a mother’s deep love for her daughter. That longing for one's own flesh and blood to be well drives this young woman to seek out a spiritual solution. In Jesus, she finds one who can drive every vestige of darkness away. She seems absolutely undeterred by his seeming rebuff. If you were one of the bystanders in this scene, what would you have gained by seeing this woman’s tenacity and love?

February 12, 2026 | Mark 7:31-37
Reflection:
Jesus is out again among the Gentiles. One thing to notice is that Mark never mentions that Jesus spends time with the Romans. The cities of the Decapolis that are mentioned here are both heavily Greek and Roman. Who is this deaf man whose ears Jesus opens? Was he a Greek, or a Roman, or some hybrid mix of races? In this case, it doesn’t matter to Jesus. Maybe the man is Jewish or one of those not-so-Jewish people, like Jesus, who is deemed a Galilean. It doesn’t matter. Jesus shows up. Sees the need. Addresses the need. And he points beyond himself, not seeking earthly esteem of glory, to God alone. Word of Jesus has spread beyond the bounds of Judah and Israel. The deaf are now able to hear and meet the living Word.

February 13, 2026 | Mark 8:1-5
Reflection:
The word Mark uses to speak of Jesus’ having compassion on the crowds is splanxchnizomai. Try saying that ten times fast! At the heart of this word is the root that means “viscera” or “guts.” What it means is that “from the seat of emotion I am moved.” Believe it or not, this is related to the Islamic prayer, Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim (In the name of God, the most gracious, the most compassionate). The root of the words rahman and rahim is the Semitic word for “womb,” the seat of compassion. Jesus, having spoken Aramaic, would have used a similar word for having compassion… seated not in the viscera, as in Greek, but in the womb. Now, we can almost assuredly say that Jesus did not literally have a womb, but the kind of compassion he had for the crowds is the compassion that a mother feels towards her children. He cared that much.

February 14, 2026 | Mark 8:6-10
Reflection:
We have here a repetition of the miraculous feeding event. Look to where it says, “They ate and were filled.” It’s not that each person had a morsel. Each one had enough (satis - Latin for enough). What reflection of the Kingdom of God do we see here? One where all have enough. And once that happens, Jesus doesn’t linger to glory in the miracle. He moves on.