The Devil's in the Details

AND SATAN’S IN MY STATS

Looking over my blog statistics, I found that the most popular post this week was a piece from last August titled Get Behind Me, Satan.

If you worship in a church that follows the Revised Common Lectionary, you may already have guessed why. This morning’s assigned Gospel reading was Mark 8:31-38, in which Jesus tells Simon Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” This week preachers looking for sermon fodder were googling that phrase and apparently some of them found my blog.

There were quite a few hits last night alone. I want to tell you that I’ve never written a “Saturday Night Special” sermon. It would be a lie, but still, I want to tell you that.

The insight I had in my August blogpost came from the Gospel of Matthew, but it applied equally well to Mark. Who knows? Maybe my saintly and cynical blog was of use to a pastor this week. It’s nice to think so.

Right now I’m resisting the temptation to title this post “Zeal for your house will consume me” just to drum up the traffic this week.

Next Sunday’s Gospel reading is John 2:13-22, an account of Jesus chasing the merchants and money-changers out of the temple. It quotes Psalm 69:9. “Zeal for your house will consume me.”