Tag Archives: peace

Sunday, April 12th

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SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 133
1 John 1:1—2:2
John 20:19-31

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Almighty God, with joy we celebrate the day of our Lord’s resurrection. By the grace of Christ among us, enable us to show the power of the resurrection in all that we say and do, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.”

The above quote comes not from any bomb throwing anarchist, but from the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis in his recent encyclical Evangelii Gaudium. Rarely does a mainline religious leader (and the Roman Catholic Church is about as mainline as mainline gets) criticize so directly the American sacred cow of capitalism. American protestants in particular accept the tyranny of the market as a given. The only real dispute between so called liberals and so called conservatives is over the degree to which the government can or should regulate this market. That the market itself might be at the root of inequality, poverty and oppression is simply unthinkable in our culture. Belief in the benevolence of the market is as firmly established in our country’s psyche as the Pledge of Allegiance.

None of this really makes sense. For example, I have always found it passing strange that conservative evangelical Christians, who believe so fervently in the reality of original sin, can believe just as fervently that unregulated markets driven only by “self-interest” can produce a just society. Just as doubtful is the unquestioned (though never clearly articulated) assumption of upright, white and ever polite mainline protestants that, with enough regulation and tweaking, an economy driven by greed and consumption can be forced to serve the public good. The argument between these two not-so-extremes is really about regulating the beast, not killing it. We are thoroughly convinced that greed driven markets are essential to economic health and that no society can function without them.

The treatment I sometimes gave my younger sister is not one of my proudest memories. She is three years younger than me and when she was just learning to play board games, I induced her into a game of Monopoly. I convinced her that we should make a rule dividing up the properties on the board. I promised not to buy Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues (a good deal because they were cheap and affordable) if she, in turn, promised not to buy Boardwalk and Park Place. Everyone who is familiar with Monopoly must realize that this arrangement made it nearly impossible for my sister to win. To her credit, my sister discovered in short order that she stood no chance of winning the game as long as I was allowed to dictate the rules. Would that we were all so quick on the uptake! After all these years, we still haven’t come to realize that the capitalism game is rigged against us. We are like Charlie Brown running forward for the hundredth time to kick the football held by Lucy. This time, he thinks, old Lucy will come through. This time she will keep her promise to hold the ball in place. But, predictably, Lucy pulls the ball away at the last moment and poor Charley Brown cannot understand why he is once again lying flat on his back and the ball has gone nowhere.

The game is rigged. As Pope Francis points out, there is not a thread of evidence to suggest that the prosperity of the rich benefits the poor. Our experience for the last several decades indicates just the opposite. Today the health of the economy is measured in terms of what the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P are doing. While the markets are generating fabulous amounts of wealth for those with money to invest in them, pay rates remain stagnant and jobs paying sustainable wages and offering benefits are on the decline. Public resources such as highways, public transportation, libraries, schools and museums all decay even as bonuses for investment bankers soar. Billions are appropriated for military buildup, tax breaks are doled out to oil giants even as food stamps for people on the margins are being cut to balance the federal and state budgets. In fact, the free market system is operating exactly the way you would expect-if you believed that human beings are in bondage to sin and cannot free themselves.

On the other hand, if you think that human sin is an antiquated myth left over from the middle ages, if you believe human beings are naturally selfless, if you believe that having more wealth automatically breeds generosity, if you think that global, multinational corporations can be trusted to look out for the well-being of ordinary citizens; then you must be scratching your head and wondering why we are not all rich by now. Furthermore, if all this is what you really do believe, I can only conclude that you have spent your life in a windowless room watching nothing but Hallmark Christmas specials.

Capitalism, not to put too fine a point on it, is a lie. As Pope Francis makes clear, an economy driven by consumer appetites can only drain the earth’s resources, increase the growing gap between the exceedingly wealthy and the desperately poor and create optimal environments for war, crime and terrorism. The global market economy is killing our planet. It cannot be tamed. It cannot be domesticated. An economy that can only thrive on increased consumption is not sustainable. We need an entirely different sort of economy driven by human need rather than human greed; measured by life sustaining production rather than endless consumption; designed to serve rather than enslave human persons.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ means nothing if not that things do not have to be the way they are. We need not be slaves to markets that feed the top 1% and starve the bottom half of humanity. There are alternative ways of being human. Our lesson from Acts gives us a picture of how the resurrection of Jesus Christ reshapes human life and human relationships. Like Pope Francis, Luke challenges our modern notions of property ownership, wealth, consumption and individual rights. Luke shows us what life looks like where the economic priority is human need. Note well, however, that the church in Acts did not set out to reform the empire. Instead, it became a colony for the coming reign of God it proclaimed. As Pope Francis suggests, the church in Acts said a resounding “no” to the imperial economy of exploitation and became a demonstration plot for life under the kingdom of heaven. The church began by learning to live quietly, peacefully and gently in the heart of a violent imperial society. In so doing, it showed the world that Caesar is not the only game in town.

What would happen if our churches found the courage to name the lie of capitalism? What would an alternative congregational economy reformed by the resurrection look like? What would our life together be like if we resolved no longer to be dominated by the market forces driving us to work obscenely long hours and sacrifice our family life, our interests and deepest longings on the altar of the American Dream? I believe these questions are more pertinent now than ever. I applaud Pope Francis for having the courage to raise them for us.

Acts 4:32-35

For once I have to commend the lectionary people for including this reading in the Easter pericopies. I have gotten into the habit of asking myself after completing my sermon for Sunday: “OK. So what?” Nowhere is that question more pertinent than during the season of Easter when we celebrate and proclaim Jesus’ resurrection. What does life look like for a people that have put death behind them? How do you live when you know that the one God raised from death is neither Caesar, General Patten nor the American sniper, but the crucified friend of sinners? What does one see looking at a community governed by Jesus’ “new” commandment to love? Luke answers these questions by showing us a community “of one heart and soul;” a community in which “no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common.” Vs. 32.

We mainline protestants, committed as we are to the creed of capitalism, find this passage extraordinarily problematic. For the most part, we dismiss the text as Luke’s effort to portray an “idealized” picture of the early church that had little or no basis in reality. This convenient use of historical-critical exegesis excuses us from interpreting the text “literally” (read “seriously”) and permits us to write it off as literary license or as an early but failed experiment in communal living that the church left behind as it matured. To be sure, it is highly anachronistic to read the Book of Acts (or any other biblical book) as “history” in the modern sense. But it is equally improper to employ modern historical-critical analysis to such texts in order to extract from them interpretations more palatable to our 21st Century sensibilities (and prejudices). As noted earlier, Luke challenges our modern notions of property ownership, wealth, consumption and individual rights. It is disingenuous at best to employ clever (not wise or competent) scholarship to dismiss him.

What does it mean to be “of one heart and soul”? It cannot mean that everyone always gets along. The subsequent chapters of Acts demonstrate that there was in the early church plenty of disagreement, debate, misunderstanding and need for compromise. Yet for all of that, the church managed to hold together. One might argue that Luke’s portrayal is not entirely historically accurate and that the life of the early church was in fact a good deal messier. But again, modern notions of historicity are not a proper tool of measurement when it comes to reading biblical texts. Luke’s story is a testimony to his belief that the Holy Spirit was at work in the midst of the church’s messiness forging a community of faith bearing witness to Jesus. It is much the same as when we confess in our creeds that we believe in “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.” From a purely historical perspective, one can argue persuasively that the church is not any of those things and never has been. Yet history can neither verify nor disprove the presence of the Holy Spirit at work in the diverse and often seemingly adverse communities claiming to be church, forming a unity that transcends our divisions. That is an assertion of faith.

That said, we get fleeting glimpses of the unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity of the church every so often. The explosive growth of the church in Asia and Sub Saharan Africa across barriers of tribal and national hostility is surely a testimony to the vitality of the Spirit’s unifying power. As I have observed before, intentional communities such as Church of the Sojourners, Reba Place Fellowship and Koinonia Farm point to new and exciting ways of being a “holy” community. A day does not go by in the life of my own congregation where I do not witness acts of compassion born of the sharing of heart and soul. None of this “proves” anything. Nevertheless, it testifies to the difference Jesus’ resurrection is making in the lives of people who believe it.

Psalm 133

The literary formula “Behold, how good and pleasant it is” has parallels in Egyptian literature of the “wisdom” genre. Weiser, Artur, The Psalms, The Old Testament Library (c. 1962 by S.C.M. Press, Ltd.) p. 783. Professor Walter Brueggemann treats this psalm as one of “orientation,” expressing “a confident, serene, settlement of faith issues.” Brueggemann, Walter The Message of the Psalms, Augsburg Old Testament Studies (c. 1984 Augsburg Publishing Co.) pp. 25, 47. It celebrates the blessedness of family, tribal and national unity using two metaphors. The first is that of anointing with oil. In addition to the cultic function of such anointing, the practice was also an expression of honor and hospitality, “a measure of extravagance and well being.” Ibid. 48. See Amos 6:6; Mark 14:3-9; Luke 7:46. The second metaphor employed by the psalmist is “dew.” In the often parched landscape of Palestine, the appearance of dew was a rare and welcome weather phenomenon. The poem, says Brueggeman, anticipates the solidarity and harmony of all humanity as it lives without defensiveness in a creation benevolent enough to care for all.” Ibid.

The declaration of the goodness of unity in the psalm complements the practice of that unity to which Luke testifies in our lesson from Acts. Though far from a universal reality, such unity is not merely a utopian ideal. It was experienced at times among the patriarchs and matriarchs, by Israel, by the church in the New Testament and throughout the church’s subsequent history in the monastic movement and through various other intentional Christian communities. These manifestations of life lived among a people of “one heart and soul” give us fleeting glimpses of God’s reign.

1 John 1:1—2:2

Though traditionally ascribed to John, the disciple of Jesus, this letter and the two short epistles following it do not purport to come from anyone by that name. I John does not even appear to be a letter. It lacks both an opening salutation and a closing benediction common to other New Testament epistles. It resembles more a theological treatise or sermon. Though the First Letter of John has close theological and linguistic similarities to John’s gospel, most New Testament scholars believe that the letter was composed by a different author at some point after the gospel was composed. It is possible that I John was composed by “the elder” identified as the author of John 2 and John 3, though this too is disputed. However the authorship question might be resolved, it is evident that the Gospel of John and the three letters of John share a common perspective suggesting that they originated from the same early Christian community.

One cannot help but be impressed with the intense physicality of these opening sentences of John’s letter. What is proclaimed is that which has been “seen,” “looked upon” and “touched.” Vss. 1-3. There is a strong emphasis on the connection of the proclamation to the person of Jesus. This letter is addressed, in part, to counter claims of some persons who “went out from us” and who are evidently denying that Jesus is the messiah. I John 2:18-25. We can only speculate concerning exactly what members of this schismatic group might actually have believed. According to the author of this letter, these folks deny that Jesus has come as messiah “in the flesh” and fail to practice the “new” commandment of love for fellow disciples. I John 4:2-3; I John 3:11-24. For John, orthopraxy goes hand in hand with orthodoxy. Failure to exercise Jesus’ commandment to love fellow members of the church renders one an “antichrist” just as surely as does the denial of Jesus as Christ come in the flesh.

John urges his fellow believers to “walk in the light.” Vs. 7. Again, believing in Jesus is not mere passive reflection or assent to correct teaching. It involves not merely seeing the light, but “walking” in it. Recognition of one’s own sin is a byproduct of walking in the light. To continue justifying, rationalizing or denying sin means only that one remains in the dark about the truth. Vs. 8. The light exposes us as we truly are, compelling us to confess our sinfulness and need for forgiveness. But that is only half the story and not even the better half. The light also exposes God as “faithful and just,” eager to “forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Vs. 9. This is reminiscent of the text from John’s gospel where Jesus declares: “this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men preferred darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” John 3:19. But Jesus goes on to say that “he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.” John 3:21. The light is essential both for seeing ourselves for what we are and for recognizing God for who God is.

John 20:19-31

For my more specific comments on this gospel text, I refer you to last year’s post for April 7, 2014. This year I was struck most by the physicality of the resurrected Christ portrayed in John’s gospel. In that respect, my reading is probably influenced by our lesson from I John just discussed. Jesus can be touched and handled. Moreover, he still bears the wounds of the crucifixion on his resurrected body. I think it is incredibly important to recognize that Jesus’ resurrection is not a “happily ever after” ending. The cross reflects Jesus’ determination to “go the distance” for creation. The resurrection is God’s eternal “yes’ to that commitment. Thus, I was more than a little dismayed to discover when the Lutheran Book of Worship came out in print that a critical line to one of my favorite hymns had been sabotaged. The original went:

In every insult, rift, and war
Where color, scorn, or wealth divide
Christ suffers still yet loves the more,
And lives though ever crucified.

The new improved version goes:

In every insult, rift, and war
Where color, scorn, or wealth divide
Christ suffers still yet loves the more,
And lives wherever hope has died.

See ELW # 389. The former version is the stronger and, in my opinion, to be preferred. While Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection are a one time, unrepeatable event that fundamentally changed everything, that change is God’s eternal and unalterable identification with humanity. You might call it the seal on the miracle of the Incarnation. God became flesh, remained flesh to the point of death on the cross and now lives eternally in the flesh for us. That is why we see in child refugees coming across our border, victims of genocide in the Middle East and persons caught in the grip of poverty the face of Jesus. That is why the resurrection makes a difference. We cannot engage in behavior that harms our neighbor, directly or indirectly, without wounding Jesus. Jesus remains human, vulnerable and subject to the terrible consequences of our evil. Yet, as even the “new improved” version of the hymn affirms, “he loves the more.”

The witness of Thomas is interesting. Though he did not believe the testimony of his fellow disciples to Jesus’ resurrection, we nevertheless find him in the company of those disciples eight days later. Vs. 26. It appears that Thomas wants to believe even if he can’t quite manage it yet. So he does what any person should do in that circumstance. He hangs out with the folks who do believe, that is, the church. There he finally has the faith producing encounter with Jesus he was looking for. In a sense, then, he believed even before he saw Jesus. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he had the desire to believe. Does that “count” as faith of some kind? If so, it would give an entirely different twist to Jesus’ word to Thomas, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” Vs. 29. Could it be that we have been reading this verse all wrong? Could it be that Jesus is not chiding “doubting” Thomas for his lack of faith, but was actually commending Thomas for the faith required to stick with the disciples even though he had not seen the resurrected Christ as they had? I must confess that I have never seen any commentator interpret the text in that way. Nonetheless, I think it is a plausible reading.

Finally, I cannot resist talking a little about verses 30-31 in which John informs us that the whole point of his gospel is “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” vs. 31. I don’t think it is carrying things too far to say that the same could be said of the entire Bible at least as far as disciples of Jesus are concerned. Whatever else the Bible might be, for disciples it is the portal into the heart of our Master. Its purpose is to draw us closer to Jesus, not provide ammunition for culture warriors seeking to keep guns in the hands of true believers and pizza out of the hands of gay and lesbian people.

Sunday, March 29th

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SUNDAY OF THE PASSION / PALM SUNDAY

Mark 11:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 14:1—15:47

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Everlasting God, in your endless love for the human race you sent our Lord Jesus Christ to take on our nature and to suffer death on the cross. In your mercy enable us to share in his obedience to your will and in the glorious victory of his resurrection, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

How did a faith espousing an executed criminal as God’s Son become the religion of an empire? How did a man who spent his life in the company of social outcasts, misfits and the disgraced wind up the champion of white middle class morality and family values? When did we cease honoring the martyrs who preferred accepting death rather than inflicting it by serving in the military and begin honoring as heroes snipers with kill numbers in the hundreds? In a sense, these are rhetorical questions. I know generally the historical currents that brought us to this place and time. But I find myself coming back to them each time we near Holy Week and begin once again to trace Jesus‘ last days from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem to the Sunday of the Resurrection.

We might argue whether and to what extent it was or was not a good thing for Christianity to become the dominant religion in the Roman Empire. We might debate the pros and cons of the church’s participation in shaping the culture and politics of Europe and America. But there is no denying that this ascendency of the church resulted in a huge gap between the New Testament and mainstream Christianity of today. The New Testament is the product of a faith community living on the margins of the margins. It was a church trying to get its head around the outrageous assertion that the only God who is God saved the world through the execution of a criminal who, it turned out, was God’s Son. The man Rome crucified is the one to whom not only Rome, but every person under heaven must ultimately bend the knee. The claim itself is audacious enough to invite ridicule. But more remarkable still, the claim is asserted by such a small and insignificant collection of riff-raff from the backwaters of the empire.

The stark contrast between this marginalized community that lived as a body made up of equally valued but differently gifted members on the one hand, and the strict dominant hierarchical structure of Roman society on the other could not have been clearer. To be baptized into Christ Jesus meant rejection of the defining parameters of Roman culture assigned to free men, women, citizens, non-citizens and slaves. One had to choose whether to believe in the pervasive power of the Roman pantheon with the emperor at its apex or trust the God who raised the crucified friend of sinners from death. For people on the margins, the good news about Jesus was good news indeed. The higher up one was on the imperial pyramid, however, the more threatening and dangerous this news began to sound.

What happens when the narrative about Jesus is appropriated by the hierarchy? What happens when the story of Jesus is told to children of the privileged and well to do? What happens when the persons gathered to hear the story are too thoroughly invested in their politics, professions and financial security grounded in the existing order to imagine an alternative way of being human? What if they identify more with the American Dream than the Kingdom of Heaven? Can the news about Jesus still be heard as “good”? Can it still be heard as “news”? Or will it be heard as mind numbingly familiar? Perhaps the gospel narrative is like an antique radio sitting on a shelf in the heart of a modern living room, eliciting pleasant memories from a simpler and happier time that never really was, but serving no true purpose.

Then, too, this might be the year that the story prevails. The Easter gospel might open for us a portal into an alternative reality where people, not profit matter most; where the economy is driven by human need rather than human greed; where border crossings are avenues of hospitality rather than scenes of hysteria; where the future is anticipated with apocalyptic hope rather than apocalyptic dread. If Christ is risen from the dead, all this stuff is not merely possible. It’s inevitable. So, then, how do people convinced that Jesus is risen live in the heart of the American empire?

Mark 11:1-11

Mark’s account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is a good deal more subdued than the accounts of Matthew, Luke and John. It is not clear whether those accompanying Jesus with palms and praise included anyone other than his disciples. Moreover, when Jesus arrives at Jerusalem, he is not swept into the temple on a tsunami of praise to cleanse it. Instead, he merely inspects it and retires to Bethany with his disciples. The parade ends with a whimper instead of a bang.

Unlike the other gospels, Mark does not cite Zechariah 9:9 in his telling of the story. Nevertheless, he is most probably influenced by the whole of Chapter 9 from the Book of the Prophet Zechariah. Taylor, Vincent, The Gospel According to St. Mark, Second Ed., Thornapple Commentaries (c. 1966 by Vincent Taylor, pub. by Baker Book House Co.) p. 353-354; Cranfield, C.E.B., The Gospel According to St. Mark, The Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary (c. 1959 Cambridge University Press) p. 352. For a more dubious view, see Hooker, Morna D., The Gospel According to St. Mark, Black’s New Testament Commentary (c. 1991 by Morna D. Hooker, pub. by Henderson Publishers, Inc.) p. 257. The oracle of Zechariah 9:1-8 foretells the destruction of Israel’s enemies at the dawn of the messianic age. Zechariah 9:9 announces that Israel’s messiah is coming, not as a military conqueror on a war horse, but “humble and riding on an ass.” The chariot and the warhorse shall be “cut off” and the new king will “command peace to the nations,” not armed attacks. There may also be echoes in this account of the entry of Simon Maccabeus into Jerusalem “with praise and palm branches…and with hymns and songs.” I Maccabees 13:51. Taylor, supra at 546. This triumphal entry also was associated with a cleansing of the temple. Maccabees 13:50. I find the association doubtful, however.

The term “Hosanna” is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew imperative, “Save now” found in Psalm 118:25. Vs. 9. This is a cry for salvation similar to other such cries found throughout the Psalms of lament, though used here in a Psalm of thanksgiving. It is also used in other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures to address kings with petitions for relief. II Samuel 14:4; II Kings 6:26. Psalm 118:25 is perhaps antiphonally juxtaposed to Psalm 118:26 cited by Mark immediately thereafter: “Blessed is he who enters in the name of the Lord.” Vs.10. This was possibly a blessing pronounced by the priest to pilgrims coming to worship at the temple on high holy days and would certainly fit the occasion of Passover in Jerusalem. Mark, of course, expands this exclamation to cover Jesus’ coming to Jerusalem as messiah/king. The words “blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming!” stop short of “full throated Messianic homage.” Vs. 10. Taylor, supra at 452. Clearly, however, Mark himself fully intended for the reader to draw this conclusion. Cranfield, supra at 352.

The meaning both of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and of Zechariah’s prophecy are sharpened by the occurrence of another parade that would have taken place a week earlier when through a gate at the opposite end of the city Pontius Pilate entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers to keep the peace during the potentially turbulent time of Passover. See Borg, Marcus and Crossan, John Dominic, The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus Final Week in Jerusalem (c. 2006 Harper) pp. 2-5. Pilate represented another kind of peace: the Pax Romana. To an extent never before seen in history, the Roman Empire was able to enforce its reign over the Mediterranean basin establishing law and order. While Rome’s governance kept a lid on local hostilities and allowed the expansion of trade and commerce, these benefits came at a terrible human cost. The cross was the ultimate instrument of terror by which Rome kept the peace.

I cannot help repeating what I have said many times before, namely, that while pacifism has been at the fringes of Christian theology since the beginning of the 4th Century, it is at the heart of the New Testament witness to Jesus. Palm Sunday is as strong a repudiation of the Armed Forces parade as any you will ever find. Pilate at one end of the city with his armed columns, their sabers rattling and their boots tramping over the stones with military precision inspiring terror. At the other end, the humble king riding unarmed and peacefully into town on his donkey greeted with joy and hope. The “Just War Tradition,” “The Two Kingdom Doctrine” and “Christian Realism” amount to little more than Christendom’s lame effort to march in both parades at once.

Isaiah 50:4-9a

This reading is taken from the second section of the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55) authored in the main by an anonymous prophet speaking a message of salvation to the Jewish exiles living in Babylon during the 6th Century B.C.E. His was the task of alerting his fellow exiles to the new opportunity created for them to return home to Palestine opened up by Persia’s conquest of Babylon. On the one hand, the prophet makes a joyous declaration of salvation for Israel and announces the potential for a new start. On the other hand, the prophet makes clear that God is doing with Israel something entirely new. This will not be a return to “the good old days” when Israel was a powerful and independent people under the descendants of David. That, according to the prophet, “is too light a thing” for the people of God. Israel and the servant prophet are to be given “as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6. For more specifics on the Book of Isaiah generally, See Summary Article by Fred Gaiser, Professor of Old Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN.

Sunday’s reading is a passage from the third of Isaiah’s four “servant songs.” The other three are found at Isaiah 42:1–9, Isaiah 49:1-6 and Isaiah 52:13-53:12. According to biblical commentator Claus Westermann, these songs represent a special strand within section two of Isaiah. Westermann, Claus, Isaiah 40-66, The Old Testament Library (c. SCM Press, Ltd. 1969) p.  92. Scholars hold differing views on the identity of the “servant” in these songs. Some view the servant as an individual, perhaps the prophet him/herself. Others maintain that the servant is the people of Israel whose covenant life in the restored Jerusalem will enlighten the nations. Christians from very early on have seen reflected in these verses the ministry of Jesus. It seems to me that all of these interpretations are valid in some measure. Clearly, the prophet himself/herself understood that s/he was announcing an act of God that would be revelatory for all peoples. So too Israel always had an awareness that her existence was in part a demonstration of God’s glory to the world though, like the church, she tended to forget that aspect of her calling at times. The church likewise confessed from the outset that Jesus’ lordship was defined in terms of the hopes and expectations set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures. Just as the faithful service of the prophet was a model for Israel’s servant role among the nations, so the church is a continuation of Jesus’ faithful ministry. In sum, these differing interpretations enrich rather than contradict one another.

Though tidings of a new beginning might at first blush sound like good news, it is likely that many of the exiles did not hear it that way. Life in cosmopolitan Babylon may not have seemed much like captivity to the second generation of Jews who had purchased land, begun businesses or secured important posts in the Babylonian government. Giving up the security of a settled existence for a dangerous trip back to a ruined land must have seemed like madness to them. No doubt they resented and perhaps feared this prophet whose preaching enticed members of the community away from their homes and families to embark on such a misguided adventure. Not surprisingly, the prophet met with resistance that included violence (smiting, spitting and pulling out the beard). Vs. 6. The prophet is undismayed by this abuse, confident that his commission is from the God of Israel. Vss. 7-9.

Westermann notes that “[t]he special characteristic of the prophetic office is the very fact that the prophet wakens his ear ‘morning by morning,’ and must continually allow it to be opened by God, in order to have ‘an answer to give to the weary.’” Ibid. p. 229. Perhaps this is what John the evangelist had in mind when he quotes Jesus as saying: “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” John 7:16. The incarnation, then, fuses the prophet and the Word as one. Not surprisingly, then, the rejection of that Word by a sinful world, as occurred most definitively in the passion narrative, takes the form of lethal violence.

Westermann believes these passages from Isaiah to be “truly revolutionary in their importance” because they express the servant’s acceptance of his/her persecution as an affliction intended by God as the fulfillment of his/her prophetic mission. Ibid. p. 231. Though the psalmists and the prophets, most notably Jeremiah, struggle with seemingly unmerited persecution which they hope to see redressed through retribution of some kind, the servant seeks not retribution but vindication. Israel’s final salvation, not her just punishment, will demonstrate that the servant’s suffering is not evidence of God’s rejection, but of the prophet’s faithfulness.

I agree with Westermann’s reading of this text, though I am not convinced that it is quite as revolutionary as he supposes. While the prophets could be caustic in their prayers for retribution against their enemies and unsparing in their proclamations of judgment, they never lost sight of their solidarity with Israel. Even the socially ostracized Jeremiah could weep bitterly over the fate of his people-however justly deserved it might be. Jeremiah 9:1. Isaiah recognizes that he is “a man of unclean lips, and dwells in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” Isaiah 6:5. As withering as Amos’ judgments against Israel were, he prayed fervently that the people might be spared the worst of God’s wrath. Amos 7:1-6. In sum, the prophets always understood God’s judgment as an instrument of healing and salvation. Similarly, they must have understood at some level that their persecutions were part and parcel of their callings.

These observations tie naturally into the passion narrative that will occupy center stage this coming Sunday. The persecuted and rejected prophetic word, now become flesh, is vindicated and triumphs not through an act of counter-violence, but through God’s patient determination to keep on speaking the gracious invitation to forgiveness, reconciliation and peace in the face of that rejection. God’s power is God’s patience.

Psalm 31:9-16

This is a psalm of lament, one of the most common types found in the Psalter. As noted in last week’s post, the essential elements of its type are:

  1. Initial Appeal to Yahweh, vss. 1-2.
  2. Portrayal of inward distress, vss. 3-4
  3. Expression of confidence, vss. 5-6
  4. Witness of praise to the community, vss. 7-8.

See Anderson, Bernard W., Out of the Depths, The Psalms Speak for us Today, (c. 1983 by Bernard W. Anderson, pub. by The Westminster Press) p. 97. If some elements are missing in this week’s reading, it is because the lectionary has truncated the psalm, probably in the interest of fitting the readings onto the commercially prescribed bulletin inserts. Moreover, the psalms are prayers formed in the furnace of human experience. As such, they do not always fit neatly into the scholarly categories of literary forms floating about like Platonic prototypes in the scholastic ether. In any event, it is puzzling to me that the lectionary did not begin the reading early enough at least to incorporate verse 5, “Into thy hand I commit my spirit.” Psalm 31:5. That would have been a good tie in to the passion narrative, albeit John’s rather than Mark’s.

Verses 9-13 are particularly striking. The psalmist complains that he is surrounded by enemies, people who whisper behind his back and seek his destruction. We might wonder about the mental health of someone who makes such complaints. Folks who imagine that the world is conspiring against them generally overrate their importance and exaggerate the hostility of those around them. I was recently asked by a traveling companion who noticed my Ezee Pass, “Doesn’t it bother you that the government knows where you are going and when?” I don’t remember what my precise response was, but the truth is I would be flattered to learn that the government or anyone else deemed my little life important enough to merit observation.

That being said, we all tend to be a little paranoid when we are feeling sick, weak and vulnerable. The aged and infirm naturally fear well-meaning relatives and friends who take it upon themselves to make important decisions for them without their input. When rumors of layoffs begin to make their way through the workplace it is natural to look for indications in the way people talk to you and act around you suggesting that you might be on the “to go” list. When something deeply hurtful, deeply personal and deeply embarrassing occurs in your life, it is not unusual to begin wondering whether the person you are speaking with knows all about it and what he or she might be thinking. Whether real or imagined, human malice is an experienced reality and one that the psalmist rightly lays before the Lord.

In addition to the affronts of his enemies, the psalmist is clearly disappointed in the friends s/he feels have deserted him or her. Vs. 12. Again, this desertion may or may not actually be real or malicious. When we are hurting, human companionship alone seldom fulfills all of our needs. We are all aware that there are some people who feel neglected and slighted no matter how often you visit or call. As important as friendship is and as valuable as it can be in difficult times, it is no substitute for faith in God’s promises. Perhaps it is because we lean too heavily on our human relationships, looking to them for the healing only God can offer, that they fail us. Marriages, friendships and family simply collapse under the weight of our unrealistic expectations. Again, the psalmist quite properly turns his or her hope toward God, the one companion whose promises never fail. When that adjustment is made, a return to healthy human companionship is again possible.

Philippians 2:5-11

There is near scholarly consensus that Paul is citing in this passage an ancient Christian hymn of Palestinian origins possibly alluding to the “servant” figure form Second Isaiah discussed under the heading of our first lesson. It fits perfectly Paul’s articulation of his theology of the cross in I Corinthians 1:18-4:20 and his discussion of the church as the Body of Christ in I Corinthians 12:1-14:40. As the “Body of Christ,” the church must have the “mind of Christ.” Vs. 5. So far from aspiring to godhood (the sin of Adam and Eve), Jesus willingly took the form of a servant, living joyfully, trustingly and obediently within the limits of his humanity. Vss. 6-9. The Greek word for “servant” (doulos) is literally translated “slave.” It is the word Jesus used when he told his disciples that the greatest among them must be the servant/slave of all. Mark 10:44.

In a sinful world, a life so lived draws hostility and hatred. Jesus’ death on the cross was therefore the expected outcome of his obedient life. It is in precisely this sense that Jesus’ death was necessary. To put it in the most cynical way, “that’s what happens to nice guys.” But such cynicism is silenced by God’s resurrection of Jesus from death. Vs. 9. The upside down kingdom for which Jesus lived and died is real. The powers that put him to death are transitory and doomed to pass away. It is to Jesus, not to Caesar or any other nation or flag that all the universe will one day kneel. Vss 10-11. Disciples are called to live in the certain knowledge of that reality now.

Mark 14:1—15:47

I don’t preach on the Passion. The Passion text preaches itself. Whatever I might add can only detract. Yet, if you are foolhardy enough to try and improve on the gospel narrative, there are several points of interest. First, the story begins with Jesus in the home of Simon the leper. Mark 14:3. This individual was likely well known to Mark’s audience as nothing more is said to identify him. Nineham, D.E., Saint Mark, The Pelican New Testament Commentaries (c. 1963 by D.E. Nineham, pub. by Penguin Books) p. 371. It is worth noting that, up to the very end, Jesus maintains table fellowship with those deemed unclean.

Second, the story of the woman who anoints Jesus with the alabaster flask of ointment is worth telling. Mark 14:3-9. It is ironic that this story has been saved, according to Jesus, to preserve the woman’s memory though we do not even know her name! We might use this opportunity to memorialize all the unknown, nameless persons whose acts of extravagant generosity go unrecognized. It strikes me that this would be a good opportunity for recognizing social workers, school teachers and other members of the helping professions seldom mentioned without a condescending sneer on the lips of politicians from a certain political party of the American two-party system which is not Democratic and will otherwise remain appropriately anonymous. These folks work long hours, are disgracefully underpaid and typically handle oversize classes and/or caseloads with decreased funding. On top of all that, they must endure the constant refrain that their sacrifices are pointless and a waste of taxpayer money.

Third, I have always found interesting that, at the close of chapter 13, Jesus admonishes his disciples three times to “watch.” Mark 13:32-37. In the Garden of Gethsemane they must be jarred out of sleep exactly three times and reminded to watch. Mark 14:32-42. Recall that the disciples are preoccupied with the timing of the temple’s destruction and the signs accompanying the close of the age. Evidently, they do not know what to watch for. The darkening of the sun (Mark 15:33), the acclimation of Jesus as “King” (Mark 15:26) and the confession of Jesus as God’s son by the gentiles (Mark 15:39) all occur within the Passion narrative. Jesus came in his glory, but the disciples missed it because they failed to keep watch! Makes you wonder what signs should we look for? How does Jesus rule? What is glory anyway? Nothing of what we expect.

Then, of course, there is my favorite: the streaker in the garden. Mark 14:51-52. This little aside about the young man wearing a linen cloth has always fascinated me. Where did he come from? Why was he naked except for the linen? Why, out of all the disciples, did the temple authorities grab him? Whatever happened to him? Why does Mark (and only Mark) bother to relate such a seemingly inconsequential detail of such an important story? I can’t answer any of these questions, much less figure out how to get a sermon out of them.

In summary, I recommend not preaching the Passion. But if you must, these are just a few things you might talk about.

Sunday, March 22nd

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FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 119:9-16
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, with steadfast love you draw us to yourself, and in mercy you receive our prayers. Strengthen us to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, that through life and death we may live in your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Some years ago I was listening to an interview on the radio of an elderly Polish Catholic woman, one of the “righteous gentiles,” who had given refuge to Jewish families during the Second World War. The interviewer asked her point blank: “Why would you put your life and the lives of your own family members in jeopardy to help people who are strangers to you?” There was a long and uncomfortable pause before the woman finally responded, “Well, what else would one do?” For this woman, there was simply no moral issue at stake, no ethical dilemma to stew over, no choice between greater and lesser evils. When your neighbor is in danger, you offer protection. To borrow a phrase from Geico Insurance Company, “It’s what you do.” She couldn’t imagine any other course of action.

I think that must have been something like what the prophet Jeremiah had in mind when he spoke about a new covenant under which the Torah of God would be inscribed on the hearts of his people. I believe that is why the psalmist has “laid up [God’s] word in [his/her] heart, that [s/he] might not sin against [God].” A heart that is so thoroughly shaped by praying the psalms, hearing the gospels and studying the epistles finally internalizes them. They become the tools with which the Holy Spirit builds in us the mind of Christ. We finally cannot imagine turning away a neighbor in need, resorting to violence in order to resolve a dispute or bending the truth to gain an economic advantage.

Of course, it is not the scriptures alone that transforms our hearts. The words of both prophet and psalmist presuppose a covenant community formed around the scriptural witness and for which the scriptures are a normative authority. I have often said, much to the consternation many, that I believe the scriptures to be meaningless apart from their interpretation by and through such faith communities. The Ten Commandments don’t work as law for a secular society. The Sermon on the Mount makes no coherent sense apart from the life and work of the Lord who preached and lived that sermon. Apart from communities formed by the narratives of the patriarchs, the Exodus and the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Bible is just an historical curiosity with no more relevance than the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

I have heard again and again that the church’s preaching is not reaching our contemporary audience. We tend to blame that on preachers. Now I am willing to admit that there are more poorly prepared sermons and more lazy, burnt out and apathetic pastors out in the church than there should be. But I believe that the primary problem with preaching is that, like the Bible, it presupposes an intentional community of faith for which the preaching of Jesus is central. It is hard to proclaim Christ as the true vine that keeps us all alive to a group of individuals that understands itself as a voluntary organization and where “church” is understood as a place you go weekly (or about a dozen times per year statistically for most Lutherans). Our preaching does not make a great deal of sense among folks for whom being a Republican/Democrat, being a supporter/opponent of gun rights, being an American is more constitutive of who one is than being a baptized child of God. When church becomes tangential, the Bible becomes at best a trite collection of edifying nuggets and at worst a source of ammunition for culture warriors. The Bible has nothing to say to a collection of individuals that is no longer a community centered on the Bible and no longer worships as Lord the one to whom the Bible testifies.

More than ever I long for the fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecy. More than ever I long for the day when the scriptures will cease to collect dust on coffee tables, sit idle on church bookshelves and will once again become the instrument of the Holy Spirit forming communities of faith. I long for the day when the scriptures will be so thoroughly ingrained in our hearts that we no longer need to argue about whether we ought to open our homes to destitute children fleeing into our country, welcome gay, lesbian and transgendered folk with all their gifts into our congregations, renounce the use of violence in all contexts and tithe our income for God’s good use. I long for the day when, like that dear old Polish saint, our hearts are so thoroughly ruled by the Holy Spirit that we are unable to imagine doing less than what Jesus would have us do.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Israel understood God and her relationship to God not on the basis of theological assertions about God or philosophical ideas about God, but through a series of historical covenants with God. God’s heart, mind and will for Israel were discerned through the living out of those covenants in obedience to Torah, a body of law that shaped Israel’s worship, commerce, community life and her relationship with other nations. According to the Deuteronomist, the glory of Israel was the wisdom and understanding gained through her obedience to Torah. Deuteronomy 4:6. Jeremiah was on the same page with the Deuteronomist on this score. He was probably a young man when, under King Josiah, Judah undertook significant reforms, purging the land of idolatry, restoring the temple in Jerusalem that had fallen into disrepair and strengthening the institutions of worship. See II Kings 23.

While Jeremiah likely approved of these reforms, he learned through bitter experience that, in themselves, they were insufficient for restoring Israel’s heartfelt obedience to her God. “The heart” he observed, “is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9. In the hands of a perverse and godless people, even the Torah becomes an instrument of injustice. “How can you say, ‘We are wise and the [Torah] of the Lord is with us?’” Jeremiah asks. “[b]ehold, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.” Jeremiah 8:8. For this reason, Jeremiah believed that a new covenant was required. Understand, however, that a new covenant is not synonymous with a new law. The Ten Commandments and the rest of the body of law given through Moses needs neither replacement nor supplementation. It is the heart of Israel, not the Torah that must be changed.

A covenant is not a legal contract, though it does stipulate terms for living within it. It is best to think of a covenant as a relationship. Jeremiah compares it to a marriage. Vs. 32. The core of every marriage is fidelity. Whatever rules and statutes govern that marriage, they are not the essence of the marriage. They exist to protect, strengthen and enhance the marriage. If there exists no bond of fidelity, there is nothing for the laws to protect. When God enacts a covenant, it never begins with rules. First comes the promise. In the case of Abraham and Sarah, it was the promise of a land, a people and a blessing. In the case of Sinai, the giving of the law was preceded by God’s rescue of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The law was given to protect Israel’s new gift of freedom and to keep her from becoming another Egypt. Thus, Jeremiah looked forward to some new saving act of God that, like the two aforementioned covenants, would melt Israel’s stubborn unbelief. Through this new saving event, God would once more give Torah to the people of Israel, not on tablets of stone, but engraved upon their hearts.

It is important to appreciate both the continuity and discontinuity between this anticipated “new” covenant and the “old” covenants of Sinai and the patriarchs/matriarchs. As in the past, this new covenant would be initiated by the free act of Israel’s God. Some saving intervention of God in the human story would prove to be as compelling as was the call to Abraham and the deliverance from Egypt. The only conceivable response to such gracious acts of salvation is thankfulness from which genuine obedience flows. Torah will no longer be a means of establishing obedience. Its role will be to channel that outpouring of newfound thankfulness inspired by what God will shortly do. Rather than being an objective authority imposed from outside, Torah will be internalized and written upon the heart. Vs. 33. This covenant is consistent with God’s merciful intent for Israel expressed throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. It will be “new” in the sense that Israel will have another wonderful experience of that merciful intent renewing her ancient faith and enriching her narrative.

A new covenant was sorely needed. The promised land, the temple, the line of David and many other hallmarks of the prior covenants would soon be lost with the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and subsequent exile. What would it mean to be Israel without all of these things? Was such an existence even possible? Jeremiah’s answer is a resounding “yes.” God is far from finished with Israel. The exile, to be sure, was God’s just punishment for Israel’s unfaithfulness. But it is not only that. God is laying the groundwork for a new salvific act through which God’s faithfulness will be manifested and Israel’s faith restored. This is a good word for individual believers and churches experiencing loss and facing an uncertain future. God never makes an end of things except to make a new beginning.

Psalm 119:9-16

For my general observations on the form and content of Psalm 119, see my Post for September 7, 2014.  This psalm is the longest of eight acrostic poems found within the Book of Psalms. The others are Psalm 9; Psalm 10; Psalm 25; Psalm 34; Psalm 37; Psalm 111; and Psalm 112. Instead of each line beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, however, Psalm 119 is made up of twenty-two 8 verse sections in which each line begins with the same letter of the alphabet. Sunday’s reading consists of the second section in which each of the 8 verses begin with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, “Bath.” Thus, if the composition sometimes appears a bit strained, remember that the psalmist is working within the confines of a stringent poetic form. Anyone who has ever attempted to compose a sonnet in the form utilized by Shakespeare will understand.

If the psalm has a theme, it is the centrality and supremacy of God’s Torah in every sphere of human life. The psalmist does not merely learn, memorize and conceptually understand the Torah. His/her heart, mind and daily practices are shaped by the Torah. Torah regulates the psalmist’s daily routine, inspires his/her praise and forms the perspective from which the psalmist views the rest of the world. One might object that such an obsession with Torah amounts to “brain washing.” But the fact of the matter is, we are all “brain washed” in the sense that how we perceive everything from the daily news to the mood of our spouses is shaped by preconceived notions about reality. Nobody is capable of viewing anything purely “objectively.” The psalmist is well aware of this. S/he wants his/her perspective on everything to be shaped by his/her reflections upon Torah-rather than say, MSNBC or Fox News. That isn’t to say that the psalmist might not have watched either of these networks had television been available in the 6th Century. But the psalmist would have evaluated what s/he saw under the lens of Torah rather than the other way around.

Our section of the psalm begins with a question: “How can a young person keep his/her way pure?” The answer comes in the very next sentence: “by guarding it according to thy word.” Vs. 9. This is precisely what the prophet Jeremiah told us must happen and it is significant that this psalm was composed long after the prophet’s time. We might see this psalm as something of a fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecy. “I have laid up thy word in my heart,” says the psalmist. Vs. 11. The people of Judah not only survived the Babylonian conquest and exile, but learned through that and subsequent experience to internalize Torah.

The psalmist understands, as did Jeremiah, that Torah cannot be learned. It must be taught and taught chiefly by the God who gives it. Thus, s/he prays, “teach me thy statutes!” vs. 12. Because the psalmist trusts God to teach, s/he is diligent in “declaring,” “meditating” and “fixing [his/her] eyes” on Torah. This is no burdensome and onerous task. To the contrary, the psalmist “delights” in Torah and vows not to “forget thy word.” Vss. 13-16. The psalm is a testimony both to the transformative power of Torah and the blessedness of the life by which it is shaped.

In order to make sense out of this psalm (the entire Bible for that matter), we need to see the covenant community that formed the prayer and which, in turn, is formed by it. The statutes about which the psalmist sings are those given by the God who promises an aged, barren, childless nomadic couple a land, a people and a blessing. They are given to slaves, a people that was no people, but who have now been liberated and called to freedom. They are laws given by the God who sets rulers over his people, not to reign as gods, but to be God’s representatives of justice for the widow and the orphan. Psalm 119 is the payer of individuals, families and communities struggling to live as the people of this marvelous God. Seen in that light, the study of Torah is an invitation to enter into the marvelous narrative of Israel’s history with her God, not the dry and onerous study of mind numbing rules we might otherwise imagine it to be.

Hebrews 5:5-10

To recap what I have written before, I do not view the anonymous Letter to the Hebrews as an assertion of Christianity’s superiority over Judaism as some commentators do. Instead, I believe that the letter was written to explain the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E. and to deal with the disappointment of some disciples who might have been expecting that event to usher in the consummation of the kingdom Jesus proclaimed. The destruction of the Temple was a severe blow to both Jews and Jewish disciples of Jesus who, according to the Book of Acts, worshiped there. For Jews it meant the end of the sacrificial cult that came to define much of what it meant to be a Jew. For disciples of Jesus it meant the loss of an institution Jesus attempted to purify and the failure of a prophetic understanding of its destruction as a sign of the inbreaking of God’s reign. In short, the destruction of the Temple was a traumatic event for Jews, both those who accepted Jesus as messiah and those who did not. For the most part, the Jews dealt with this catastrophe by turning to the Torah and the synagogue as their center of faith and life. Disciples of Jesus saw in Christ “a new temple not built with hands” (John 2:19-22) and in the community of faith called church Christ’s bodily presence. I Corinthians 12:27. So the writer’s objective is not to discredit Judaism with Christianity, but rather to illustrate how the mission of Jesus and his continuing presence with the church fulfills the functions of the temple cult and supersedes it.

Our lesson for Sunday speaks of Jesus as the new “High Priest.” Vs. 5. “The essential concept underlying priesthood in the ancient world, among both Jews and Gentiles, was that of mediatorship between the divine and human, by virtue of the priest’s superior knowledge of, or power of communication with, the supernatural.” Shepherd, M.H., Jr., “Priests in the New Testament,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 3 (c. 1962 by Abingdon Press) p. 889. Though likely in existence in some form from ancient times, the office of high priest came into prominence following the return from exile in Babylon and the reconstruction of the second temple around 520 B.C.E. In the writings of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah the high priest, Joshua, appears to hold power comparable to Zerubbabel the Persian appointed Jewish governor of Judah. Haggai 1:1; Haggai 1:12-14; Haggai 2:2; Zechariah 6:9-13; Zechariah 3-4. “With the disappearance of the Davidic line, it was inevitable that the postexilic high priest should acquire much of the power and prestige which formerly belonged to the king.” Abba, R., “Priests and Levites,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 3 (c. 1962 by Abingdon Press) p. 887. The priesthood was hereditary, being tied exclusively to the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron. As the writer of Hebrews points out, “one does not take the honor [of priesthood] upon himself, but he is called by God just as Aaron was.” Hebrews 5:4. With the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the decimation of the priesthood and the termination of sacrificial worship, the question becomes: How does one properly worship the God of Israel?

As noted previously, the answer lay in Torah and the synagogue for most Jews. The Pharisaic tradition, which had championed this perspective all along, became the definitive shape of Judaism going forward. The priesthood had no further relevance. For disciples of Jesus, the priesthood was understood to have been assumed by Jesus whose offering of his life atoned for sin and created a new and better avenue of approach to God. Jesus was understood among his disciples as God’s true high priest from an entirely different lineage than that of Aaron, namely, the line of Melchizedek.  Melchizedek is an obscure figure who makes only a fleeting appearance in the scriptures. Genesis 14 tells the story of how a confederation of kingdoms defeated the infamous city states of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abram’s (later Abraham) cousin Lot and his family got caught in the cross-fire and were kidnapped and enslaved by the victorious confederation. Abram formed his servants into an army and pursued the confederation forces, ambushed them during the night, scattered their troops and rescued Lot. The king of Sodom was naturally grateful to Abram as this victory benefited his kingdom. He came out to greet Abram and with him was Melchizedek, king of Salem (another name for Jerusalem). Melchizedek, identified as “priest of God Most High,” brought with him bread and wine. He also blessed Abram with the words:

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
maker of heaven and earth;
and blessed be God Most High,
who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”

And Abram gave [Melchizedek] one-tenth of all the spoils of his victory.” Genesis 14:19-20. The only other mention of Melchizedek is in Psalm 110, a coronation hymn, in which the newly crowned king of Judah is named “a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” Psalm 110:4. It is this very mysteriousness of Melchizedek and his lack of genealogy or history that makes his priestly office such an appealing analogy to the ministry of Jesus. Jesus’ priestly authority is not grounded in the corrupt lineage of the Jerusalem establishment of his time, nor is it even rooted in any human genealogy. Jesus’ appointment and priestly office are grounded in God’s sovereign choice.

In my former life as an attorney, I knew a judge who, when confronted with a trial adjournment request for a case that had already been sitting on the docket for years would blurt out, “and when did the accident take place? Back when Christ was a corporal in the Marine Corps?” What interests me about this profane remark is its rather poor theology. It implies that Jesus started out at the lower echelons of human existence and worked his way up through the ranks to become God’s Son-a sort of spiritual Horatio Alger myth. Actually, one could get that impression from an over hasty reading of verses 7-10 in our lesson. It is important to note, however, that Jesus was at all times God’s Son. “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” Vs. 8. What he “became” was not God’s Son (which he already was) but “the source of eternal salvation.” Vs. 9. His “perfection” was the life he lived in the “flesh,” the only life that ever was genuinely human. And being human in the way God desires and in the way that God is human when God is incarnated in human flesh entails an obedience which, in a sinful world, leads inevitably to suffering.

The other psalm citation by the writer of Hebrews is found in Psalm 2. Like Psalm 110, this is also a coronation hymn likely used for the crowning of a Judean king in the Davidic line. “You are my son, today I have begotten you.” Psalm 2:7. Like the priesthood, so also the royal line of Judah came through God’s anointing. In the case of the psalm, the term “begotten” is clearly figurative. For the New Testament writers, the term took on a more profound meaning in the description of Jesus’ person and ministry. One might wonder why the writer chose a coronation hymn like this when his/her focus was clearly on Jesus’ priestly function. As Psalm 110:4 and the duel offices of Melchizedek illustrate, however, the royal and priestly functions were blurred from ancient times. The objective is to show that the priestly functions of the temple ministry and priesthood have passed to Jesus and his active presence in the life of the church. Like the lesson from Jeremiah dealing with the destruction of the first temple, so this reading from Hebrews helping disciples of Jesus to come to terms with the destruction of the second temple speaks words of comfort and hope to a church that has come to believe its best days are behind it.

John 12:20-33

Sunday’s lesson is taken from the closing chapter of Jesus’ ministry in John’s gospel. We are in the midst of John’s Palm Sunday narrative. Philip, whose name is Greek and who came from a predominantly Greek speaking region is approached by “Greeks” who wish to see Jesus. Scholars wishing to delve into the so called historical basis for this encounter suggest that these Greeks were actually Greek speaking Jews from the diaspora coming to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. However that might be, John wishes to emphasize their “Greekness” and identify them with gentiles. These are “the other sheep that are not of this fold” who must be brought in so as to heed Jesus’ voice. John 10:16.

This episode marks a significant turning point. Jesus has said repeatedly throughout the prior chapters that his “hour had not yet come.” John 2:4; John 7:30; John 8:20. But the coming of the Greeks signals that now “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Vs. 23. How is the glorification of the Son of Man to take place? Jesus leaves little doubt: “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Vs. 24. Jesus’ death will be his glorification. We must not lose sight of the fact that Jesus’ death glorifies Jesus precisely because it is the natural, legally anticipated consequence of his life of perfect obedience to the Father. Jesus is what genuine humanity looks like. He is also what the heart of the Father looks like. For this incarnate life there can be only one end in a world that shuns the light and chooses darkness.

“He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Vs. 25. These are difficult words for a culture that values enjoyment of life, that believes the pursuit of happiness to be a fundamental human right and that strives for comfort above all. But the truth from which we hide is that our comfort in this society comes at a terrible cost to the rest of humanity, to the earth’s biosphere and to our capacity for empathy and compassion. It seems to me that there is much to hate about the way we live. As noted last week, the term “eternal life” as used by John refers not chiefly to life’s duration but to its orientation. Life that is lived in relationship to Jesus is shaped by the love binding the Trinity as illustrated in Jesus’ prayer at John 17. Such love is directed toward the world to which the Son was sent to give life. John 3:16. We are compelled to ask how much of our living is “eternal,” that is, grounded in the love of the Father for the Son, love of God for the world and love for one another. If we cannot take a look at our lives in the light of truth and hate what we see, how can we ever arrive at life that is eternal? “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also.” Vs. 26. These words should dispel once and for all the notion that “Jesus bore the cross so that we would not have to.” In reality, bearing the cross is a privilege. It is our opportunity to escape from a selfish, consumer driven and destructive existence that we should have learned by now to hate. It is sheer grace for those who have eyes to see it.

John’s gospel does not have a Transfiguration story as do Matthew, Mark and Luke. Verses 27-33 serve many of the same literary purposes, however. The voice from heaven both glorifies Jesus and declares that his name will be further glorified. The voice is directed to the disciples and, in John’s gospel, to the Palm Sunday crowd as well. There are echoes also of Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane in vs. 27 where Jesus resists the temptation to ask the Father to save him from the hour of suffering. As in the three other gospels, so also in the gospel of John, Jesus is a fully human person no more eager to suffer and die than anyone else.

“Now is the judgment of this world.” Vs. 31. This will in fact be a double judgment. The world will judge Jesus and Jesus’ condemnation and death will be God’s judgment on the world. The cross will bring to full light the world’s hostility toward the Father in all of its ugliness. More importantly, though, it will bring to light the Father’s love for his fallen world. The world will be exposed for what it is and God will be exposed for who God is. In this the “ruler of this world” is cast out. In the cross, the devil had his best shot at rupturing the love that holds the Trinity in unity and the love of the Triune God for creation. He took it and scored a bull’s eye. But the devil’s strongest punch could not take Jesus out. It could not induce Jesus to abandon his mission. It could not induce God to retaliate for the murder of his Son. The love of the Father for the Son remains intact as does the obedience of the Son to the Father. God’s love for the world is still as strong as ever despite the cross. The devil couldn’t crack the Trinity.

Sunday, March 1st

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SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life. Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

This being Lent, it is hard not to talk about the cross. Unfortunately, it is equally hard to talk about it. The cross is a symbol that has become so common place, so iconic and so thoroughly integrated into our art, jewelry, advertising and architecture that it has practically lost all meaning. I see it hanging from the necks of pop idols and plastered on Easter eggs along with flowers, bunnies and other cute and fuzzy beasts. Then, of course, there are the metaphors that make of the cross everything from a minor headache to a crabby supervisor. “This,” I hear people say, “is my cross to bear.” I wonder whether anyone even recalls that the cross was an implement of death by torture. Can you imagine giving children chocolate eggs engraved with a man writhing in the electric chair? Would you wear a hangman’s noose on your lapel?

More insidious than our domestication of the cross as a symbol is our warped understanding of what the cross accomplished for us grounded in the theory of “substitutionary atonement.” At the risk of oversimplifying this deeply held and time honored explanation of Christ’s work, it goes something like this: God is good, holy and cannot abide sin. God created human beings who, regrettably, sinned and fell from his good graces. God, being loving as well as holy, would like to forgive us. But he cannot exercise such forgiveness without compromising his holiness. Only by making atonement for our sin can we find our way back into God’s good graces-something that is quite beyond our capabilities. But what if God were to become human? What if God in human form were to take upon himself the punishment we deserve, paving the way to reconciliation? Bingo! Problem solved. Jesus dies on the cross in our place taking the punishment we deserve and that satisfies God’s need to punish sin while enabling him to receive us back again.

While the math seems to work, the logic breaks down when you start to reflect on it. Why can’t God forgive without punishing? My Mom did it all the time. In my experience, people who insist on getting their payback before being reconciled are not altogether well. So what is God’s problem? Is God the prisoner of his own metaphysic? Is God a helpless parking enforcement officer? As a decent human being, she understands that you were in a rush to get to the hospital where your mom was just admitted for a stroke. She knows how desperate you were, how you didn’t have change for the meter and felt you had no time to find a place to get it. She would really like to let you off the hook but, alas, the ticket has been written. She can’t just tear it up. The rules are the rules, after all. Payment must be made.

Perhaps I am being a tad flippant here. There are articulate defenders of this doctrine who would point out that I am oversimplifying and caricaturing their positions. That is probably true. Guilty as charged. Nevertheless, this is how the preaching of substitutionary atonement comes across to most people. It either makes God into a mean spirited, rule obsessed ogre who will have his pound of flesh, or into a helpless middle manager stuck enforcing rules over which he has no independent jurisdiction. The death of Jesus, in the most horrible, painful and humiliating way imaginable, is necessary to remove some legal or metaphysical impediment to God’s forgiveness. While I believe that Martin Luther sensed the inadequacy of this way of understanding the cross and even moved beyond it to some extent, I don’t believe he ever quite escaped its orbit. It is my humble opinion that the life giving gospel declaration in Our Lutheran Confessions is often clouded by this limiting understanding of the cross.

I am convinced that the first step to overcoming this conundrum is developing a stronger emphasis on Jesus’ Incarnation. We must understand that the Incarnation was God’s intent from before the beginning of creation as the Gospel of John attests. The Word’s becoming flesh was not necessitated by human sin. It was the work of a God whose greatest desire is to “abide” with his people. The cross is the price God was prepared to pay in order to fulfill that desire. God’s being God while also being human for a sinful world in revolt against God could lead to but one outcome. Thus, when the Word became flesh, the devil had his best crack ever at breaking the unity of the Trinity. The devil was betting that, deep down, God is no different than him-or you or me. The devil was betting that Jesus would not go to the cross and die for people who might not even understand or benefit from his sacrifice. The devil was convinced that, when God saw what the world was going to do with Jesus, God would react just as one of us would react to the murder of our children. God would snap. God’s wrath would consume the work of God’s hands. That is what the devil was counting on. The devil was wrong. The love which binds the Father to the Son; the love of the Son for his people; the love which is the unity of the Trinity held firm.

The cross, then, does not pay a moral debt for sin. Reconciliation between God and humanity is not the successful working out of a metaphysical equation. Instead, it takes place in the depths of God’s own heart. The cross is a victory in the sense that even the murder of God’s only begotten Son could not suck God into the vortex of retaliatory vengeance dominating so much of human civilization. Neither the devil’s wiles nor human sinfulness at its worst could turn God’s love away from us. Instead of retaliating for the murder of his Son, God raised up the Son and offered him back to us again. The Resurrection is therefore the ultimate “turning of the other cheek” to aggression.

The good news, then, is that God loves us so much that he sends his Son to abide with us. And there isn’t a thing we can do about it.

In closing, I should add that I owe much of my recent thinking about the atonement to J. Denny Weaver whose book, The Nonviolent Atonement I highly recommend. (c. 2011 by J. Denny Weaver, pub. by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

As observed last week, “Genesis is a rich composite of many different oral traditions, written sources, and editorial hands…The authors incorporated everything from the myths of ancient Near Eastern high culture to the local legends of Palestinian Bedouins. We can identify scores of different literary genres deriving from as many sociological settings.” Mann, Thomas W., “All the Families of the Earth: The Theological Unity of Genesis,” Interpretation, Vol. 45, No. 4, October 1991, p. 350. For more specifics as to written sources, see the online article Documentary Hypothesis; for a discussion of literary genres found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures see Coats, George W., Genesis: With an Introduction to Narrative Literature, The Forms of the Old Testament Literature, Vol. I (c. 1983 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.). Yet as diverse as its literary and written components are, we must focus on “the theological integrity of biblical narratives in their present canonical shape, rather than as dismembered pieces…” Mann, supra, at 343.That is to say, as fascinating as the process of biblical formation may be, it is the finished product that commands our primary attention.

As noted last week, Genesis 1-11 forms the backdrop for Israel’s story. It paints the picture of a Creator deeply in love with his creation, though deeply grieved by the evil and brokenness that have infected it. Chiefly is this Creator God grieved by the violence of human beings made in God’s own image. Because of humanity’s crimes, the earth lies under a curse. Humanity is at odds with its Creator, at odds with the earth from which it was taken and at odds with itself, being divided into nations, tribes and clans separated by language and culture. In Genesis 12:1-3 God begins to undo the curse by calling Abram to follow God’s leading into a land where God will make of him “a great nation” so as to “be a blessing.” It is by Abram, Sarai and their descendants that God will bring blessing to a world lying under the curse of sin. It is therefore not too far a stretch to call the Book of Genesis “a book about dysfunctional families and the ways in which God seeks to use those families as agents of divine grace to ‘all the families of the earth,’” as one commentator has done. Mann, supra, at 341.

This Sunday’s lesson takes us deeper into God’s covenant with Abram. It is part of a larger narrative comprising all of Genesis 17 in which circumcision is introduced as a definitive mark of the covenant people, so much so that “any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” Genesis 17:14. The people of God are to be distinguished from all other nations and tribes by an irreversible physical sign. Precisely because it is irreversible, circumcision makes it impossible to deny affiliation with Israel. Moreover, this is a sign normally imposed shortly after birth and so is hardly a matter of choice.

If the whole of this chapter were included in the reading, it might be worth pondering how indoctrination into faith squares with our modern emphasis on individual rights and freedoms. The famed scientist and atheist activist Richard Dawkins recently remarked, “What a child should never be taught is that you are a Catholic or Muslim child, therefore that is what you believe. That’s child abuse.” Daily Mail, April 22, 2013. In a culture where protestant Christianity is so thoroughly integrated into our notions of respectable citizenship, Dr. Dawkins’ assertion comes across as rather preposterous. Yet I think he puts his finger on something important. Our laws are shaped by public consensus on what constitutes responsible behavior. As recently as when I was a child (alright, maybe that isn’t recent!), spanking was an accepted form of discipline. While my parents limited the practice to an occasional front hand swat on the rump, it was not uncommon for fathers to “take the belt” to their children. No one would have considered reporting that to the police and I doubt the police would have intervened if they had. Discipline of children, within reasonable limits, was the prerogative of parents.

Of course, our understandings of “reasonable limits” change and evolve with time. We now understand (or at least we should) that physical punishment is at best ineffective and, at worst, damaging to child development. Accordingly, our laws governing child protection now deem abusive many practices that were common place in my childhood. That, in my view, is a welcome development. But in what direction might our laws evolve should societal consensus conclude that religious indoctrination is harmful? If one assumes that faith, morals and values are matters purely of individual choice, that children should be raised in environments of intellectual neutrality toward competing religious claims so that their choices in that realm are free and uncoerced, where does that leave circumcision?  Infant baptism? Catechetical instruction? Is it perhaps time to consider whether our fierce loyalty to individual freedom is not misplaced? Is freedom to be equated with individual autonomy? Is critical thinking necessarily incompatible with being raised as a member of a faith community? Is not raising a child in an environment of strict religious neutrality also a kind of indoctrination? Some of these questions are addressed in a fine article by Michael Brendon Dougherty published in The Week.

But I digress. My point is to draw out the tension in this entire chapter between the promise to Abram and Sarai that they will be parents of “many nations” and the mark of circumcision that singles out the particular nation of blessing. While the Book of Genesis makes much of the line of blessing traced through Abram (and not Lot), Isaac (not Ishmael) and Jacob (not Esau), we see repeated instances where this special people becomes an agent of blessing to those outside of the covenant. Abram pleads with God to spare the righteous in Sodom resulting in the rescue of Lot and his family. Genesis 18:22-33. Jacob’s service to his uncle Laban brings about a substantial increase in Laban’s flocks. Genesis 30:29-30. Through Joseph, God spares Egypt from the ravages of a seven year famine. Genesis 45:4-15; Genesis 50:19-21. This tension between the uniqueness of Israel among the nations and its mission to the nations finds expression throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. If the books of Ezra and Nehemiah represent the extreme in guarding Israel’s unique identity among the nations, perhaps the prophetic oracles of Isaiah 40-55 best articulate Israel’s mission of blessing to the nations.

This tension is perhaps helpful for the church in rethinking her own mission to the world. To a very large degree we have accepted uncritically the premise that the Christian mission to the world is to make everyone a Christian. We have assumed that the command to “make disciples of all nations” means to make all people of every nation into disciples. The job of a witness, however, is not that of the prosecutor or the public defender. Witnesses do not persuade. They witness to what they have seen and heard. The witness will be made passionately, forcefully and convincingly. But the work of persuasion is left to the Holy Spirit to call into the church those whom Jesus has chosen.

It is important to keep in mind that this “election” is not “selection.” The call to discipleship, like the call to Abram, is one of service to the world for the sake of the world. God is not snatching a few select souls from a sinking ship. God is commissioning a people to bear witness to God’s stubborn determination to save the entire ship! To be chosen is to be elected for the purpose of reconciling the world to the gentle reign of God.

There is a seemingly bitter irony in the change of name from Abram, meaning “Exalted Father,” to Abraham, meaning “Father of a multitude.” The man is ninety-nine years old and childless at this point. Equally implausible is the change of Sarai’s name to Sarah, meaning “princess.” That this barren Bedouin couple should be declared progenitors of a people who one day will possess and rule the land where they now live essentially as illegal aliens seems like a cruel joke. No wonder that the promise invoked bitter laughter from Sarah in the very next chapter! Genesis 18:9-15. The stage is set for the God of Israel to do exactly what God does best: “He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children.” Psalm 113:7-9.

“[I]t is obvious that the book of Genesis does not stand on its own but looks beyond its own content to unresolved issues.” Mann, Supra, at 350. Just as the first eleven chapters of Genesis set the stage for the call of Abram and the stories of his extended family, so the Book of Genesis itself sets the stage for the liberation of Israel from bondage in Egypt that will occupy the narrative in the Book of Exodus. The state of slavery under Egypt will find its liberating contrast in the life of freedom embodied in Torah.

Psalm 22:23-31

This is a psalm of lament that begins with the words familiar to us from Jesus’ cry of dereliction on the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” vs. 1; cf. Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46. You would never guess that from our reading, however, which begins at vs. 23. Verse 22 marks a transition point in the psalm. Up to this point, the psalmist has been pouring out his or her complaint to God, describing the torment and ridicule s/he experiences at the hands of his or her enemies and crying out for deliverance. Though no such deliverance has yet occurred, the psalmist is confident that God will soon intervene to rescue him or her. So sure is the psalmist of God’s impending salvation that s/he is even now declaring thankfulness, praise and testimony to these saving acts. The psalmist takes delight in knowing that God’s intervention on his or her behalf will bring glory and praise to God from future generations who will learn from his or her experience that God is indeed faithful.

I should add that some commentators have argued that vss. 1-21 and vss. 22-31 constitute two separate psalms, the first being a lament and the second a hymn of thanksgiving. Perhaps that was on the minds of the lectionary makers when they divided the psalm as they did (assuming, of course, that they have minds-something I often question). I am not at all convinced by their arguments, however, which seem to hinge on the dissimilarities of lament versus thanksgiving between the two sections. Psalms of lament frequently contain a component of praise or promise of thanksgiving for anticipated salvation. See, e.g., Psalm 5; Psalm 7; Psalm 13. Artur Weiser, while maintaining the unity of the psalm, asserts that the psalm was, in whole or in part, composed after the psalmist’s prayer has been answered. Weiser, Artur The Psalms, a Commentary, The Old Testament Library, (c. 1962 SCM Press), p. 219. That interpretation does not fit the language of the psalm which speaks of salvation in the future tense. This salvation, though real, is nevertheless an anticipated act of God.

It has been suggested by some commentators that Jesus’ cry from the cross might not have been a cry of dereliction at all, but that the gospel writers meant to say that Jesus was praying this psalm from the cross. Clearly, the body of the psalm reflects at many points precisely what Jesus was experiencing at the hands of his enemies, so much so that New Testament scholars argue over the extent to which the psalm might have influenced the telling of the passion story. However these questions might be resolved, there is obviously a parallel between the psalmist praising God for deliverance s/he cannot yet see and Jesus’ faithful obedience to his heavenly Father even to death on the cross. In both cases, faith looks to salvation in God’s future even when there appears to be no future.

Romans 4:13-25

In this snippet from Paul’s Letter to the church at Rome, Paul lifts up Abraham as an example of saving faith. It is important to emphasize that Paul understands “faith” not as subscription to creedal or doctrinal formulae, but as trust in God’s promises. In Abraham’s case, the promise was to give him an heir and to give his descendants the land of Canaan. As we have seen, the promise was problematic due both to the Abraham and Sarah’s advanced age and their infertility. The biological clock had ceased ticking for both of them ages ago. But for Abraham, age and infertility did not enter into the equation. God had made a promise and would keep the promise. It was up to God, not Abraham, to figure out how to make it all work.

Of course, we know that Abraham was sometimes less than trusting. He even tried to “help God out” by resorting to what amounts to surrogate parenting. He took Sarah’s slave girl, Hagar, as a concubine and managed to father Ishmael with her. But God did not need Abraham’s help and insisted that the covenant promises would be kept through a child of Sarah. This takes nothing away from Paul’s point. However shaky and imperfect Abraham’s trust in God may have been, God’s faithfulness never wavered. That is why Abraham “grew strong in his faith.” Vs. 20. The implication is that his faith was not so strong to begin with. God’s faithfulness precedes our faith and makes that faith possible. It is because God raised Jesus from death that we dare to trust that the reign of God Jesus proclaimed is a present reality despite all evidence to the contrary in the world around us. Because God faithfully returned to Jesus the life Jesus trustingly commended into God’s hands, we can entrust our lives to God knowing that we will receive them back again restored, sanctified and made new.

Paul also makes the point that children of Abraham are those who share the faith of Abraham-not necessarily those who share his genes. Again, Paul appeals to the missional aspect of Israel’s existence expressed throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that Paul is not suggesting that the church displaces Israel as God’s people. Recall that Paul is writing at a time when the Jesus movement was understood and understood itself as existing within the larger tradition of Judaism. Paul’s argument is that Abraham is the father not merely of Israel but of many nations and of all who share his faith in Israel’s God through baptism into Jesus Christ.

Mark 8:31-38

This is the first instance in Mark’s gospel where Jesus speaks specifically to his disciples about his coming suffering, death and resurrection. This speech comes immediately following Peter’s declaration of faith in Jesus as Israel’s messiah. Peter is understandably confused and upset. The messiah is supposed to liberate Israel. How can his rejection, suffering and death accomplish anything along the lines of salvation? We might expect Peter to wonder a bit about Jesus’ resurrection and what that might mean, but it seems he cannot get past Jesus’ suffering and death. So Peter does what any good friend would do for a buddy who talks about being rejected, persecuted and dying. He gives him a pep talk! “Come off it Jesus! Don’t be such a Debbie Downer. They’ll love you in Jerusalem just like they do everywhere else!”

This pep talk earns Peter a rebuke-a harsh rebuke. To be sure, Peter was missing the whole point of Jesus’ mission and ministry. But was it really necessary to call him the devil? That seems a little over the top. Yet as we saw last week, Jesus was driven into the presence of Satan immediately following his baptism. There God declared Jesus to be God’s Son. Jesus, and by extension his church, is never in greater danger of Satanic influence than when Jesus’ identity and mission are misconstrued. While we cannot know what Peter had in mind when he declared Jesus to be God’s messiah, a couple of things are obvious. First, the cross had no place in Peter’s understanding of Jesus’ mission. Whatever Peter’s understanding of God’s Kingdom may have been, he was convinced it could be ushered in without the cross-the very argument advanced by Satan according to Matthew and Luke and implicitly in Mark as well.

Second, as will become clear from the story of the Transfiguration to follow, Jesus is more than Israel’s messiah. He is more than even Moses and Elijah. Jesus is God’s beloved Son. Peter should listen to him rather than insisting on advising him. At this point, Peter’s understanding is moribund, limited to what is humanly achievable. Whatever his notion of salvation may have been, it was too small. Satan knows too well that he cannot deter Jesus by tempting him with what is evil. So he tempts Jesus with something that is merely less than the highest good. Listen to Peter. Don’t do anything rash. Stay out of harm’s way. Dead men cannot preach, heal and cast out demons. Peter’s is the voice of reason, but as Martin Luther once said, reason can easily become the devil’s whore.

Ultimately, Peter is seeking to make an end run around the cross. That is why Jesus must make it clear that all who wish to follow him must embrace the cross. This is not an abstract metaphor. The cross was Rome’s ultimate instrument of terror. Execution by crucifixion conformed to a morbid ritual in which the condemned person was required to carry his/her own cross bar to the place of execution, which was always a public area. The condemned was then stripped naked and fastened to the cross by nails through the hands or wrists and through the feet or above the heels. Held immobile for all passersby to see, the crucified was unable to cope with heat, cold, insects or care for his bodily needs. Perker, Pierson, “Crucifixion,” The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 1 (c. 1962 by Abingdon Press) p. 747. Crucifixions were common events throughout Galilee and so Jesus’ hearers knew he was not referring to an aching back, a nagging in-law or any of the other annoyances bandied about in common parlance as “my cross to bear.” As pointed out in a frequently quoted passage from the works of John Howard Yoder, “The cross of Calvary was … the political, legally to be expected result of a moral clash with the powers ruling [Jesus’] society.” Yoder, John Howard, The Politics of Jesus, (c. 1972 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.) p. 129.

In sum, God’s reign has come. It is present, not future tense. Nevertheless, the reign of God is being asserted in a world where other powers claim supremacy. Cultural norms, societal expectations and civil obligations make demands upon us that are contrary to the claim of Jesus, the shape of which is spelled out in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere. It is for this reason that loyalty to Jesus brings us into conflict with the world around us. In such a world, God’s reign necessarily takes the shape of the cross.

Sunday, February 22nd

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FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT

Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Holy God, heavenly Father, in the waters of the flood you saved the chosen, and in the wilderness of temptation you protected your Son from sin. Renew us in the gift of baptism. May your holy angels be with us, that the wicked foe may have no power over us, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

We lost the war against terror the minute it was declared. By christening it “the war against terror,” we acknowledged that our enemies terrify us. Furthermore, what terrifies us most is our enemies’ willingness, indeed, eagerness to die in the fight. That willingness renders impotent all of our superior military might. “National security” through military readiness rests on the premise that our enemies want to live just as badly as we do. If they know that attacking us will earn them a swift and deadly reprisal, they will resist the impulse to do us wrong. But what if the enemy does not fear death? What if the enemy views death in the struggle as a glorious testimony to his or her cause? What if our enemies celebrate the death of their comrades rather than lowering the flag half mast and entering into collective acts of mourning? What if they regard their losses as triumphs rather than tragedies? Threats of firepower are useless against an aggressor willing to strap a bomb onto his body and detonate.

It was this very willingness to die that rendered the Roman Empire impotent in the face of the early church. Rome maintained its supremacy by assertion of its overwhelming power and its willingness to use it ruthlessly. The cross was the ultimate symbol of terror. The crucifixion of rebels in public sent a very clear message. Don’t even think about messing with us. It worked too-as long as Rome’s subjects continued to value their lives above all else. But then one day a little known rabbi from a backwater province of the Roman Empire went willingly to the cross. He did that because he loved the kingdom of his heavenly Father more than his life. He was not the last. More would follow. Members of this new community of believers in the rabbi from Nazareth all loved the kingdom he proclaimed more than they feared the empire. They turned the empire’s symbol of terror into a symbol of victory over death. No torture, no threat of violence could deter them. Rome had no leverage against this people who had lost their fear of death. Rome’s legions were powerless against this new threat to its supremacy.

In the same way, I believe we are learning that raw power cannot overcome the likes of Al qaeda, ISIS, Al Shabaab and Boko Haram. They know very well that we outnumber, out gun and out money them. They understand that we can kill more of them than they can kill of us. But they also know that, when push comes to shove, we want desperately to live. We want to be safe and secure. They know they can take that away from us. They already have. No matter how many bombs we drop and no matter how many of their people we kill, they know that they have us running scared. We are the ones hiding behind security measures that affect every aspect of our lives from traveling by air to renewing our driver license. We are the ones looking over our shoulders, panicking whenever we notice an abandoned back pack and fretting over the unstable financial markets created by their disruptive acts. The war against terror is already lost because we are afraid and they are not.

This week disciples of Jesus will be receiving the sign of the cross in ashes upon their foreheads. Let’s stop and ponder what this might mean in the context of a fruitless war against terror that was lost the day it began. We are dust and to dust we return. But we worship the God who once breathed the spirit of life into lifeless dust and formed a living being. So death is not the worst thing that can happen to us. Kayla Mueller, the young woman who died recently while a captive of ISIS, was one of the few people who understood this. Kayla joined the campus Christian ministry at Northern Arizona University where she immersed herself in social action. She worked nights at a women’s shelter as a volunteer and started a chapter of Amnesty International on her campus. She traveled to Israel where she spent a summer volunteering at a camp for young African refugees. While there, she traveled to Israel’s occupied territories to show support for Palestinians. Kayla went on humanitarian missions to Guatemala and India. She knew well the risks she was taking when she traveled to Turkey and finally to Syria to work among refugees of that troubled region. Little has been said in the media about Kayla’s faith, but an excerpt from one of her writings speaks volumes: “I find God in suffering,” she wrote. “I’ve known for some time what my life’s work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering.” “Remembering the remarkable Kayla Mueller” by Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, February 13, 2015.

While certainly sad and regrettable, Kayla’s death was not tragic. It was, rather, a testament to the precious hope for which she lived. Dr. Martin Luther King once remarked that a man for whom nothing is worth dying has nothing for which to live. Jesus said much the same thing when he told his disciples that whoever seeks to save life must be ready to lose it; and whoever loses life for the sake of the good news of the kingdom of heaven will surely gain it back again. The truth of the matter is that terrorism exists only for terrified people. Once death has lost its sting, terrorism loses all leverage. The ashes on our foreheads remind us that death is no tragedy. The real tragedy is life lived in persistent fear of death. That is the bondage from which Jesus frees us.

So while I have little hope for any positive outcome to the so-called war on terror, I am greatly inspired by Kayla Mueller and the millions of unsung heroes of faith like her who strap onto their bodies the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit and then travel to the most violent places on the face of the earth to detonate for the gentle and peaceful reign of God. See Ephesians 6:13-17. Against faithful disciples wielding such weapons neither the terror of Rome, the might of nation states nor the violence of extremists can hope to prevail.

Genesis 9:8-17

The first eleven chapters of Genesis are best understood as an “overture” to the biblical story of Israel, beginning with the call of Abram and Sarah in Genesis 12:1-3. There God calls Abram to leave everything behind and follow God’s leading into a land that will one day belong to his descendants. More importantly, Abram’s descendants are to become a nation by which all nations will find blessing. As Professor Terence Fretheim points out, “[t]he first eleven chapters of Genesis explain in advance why all the families of the earth need the blessing of God. [They] define the universal condition of sin that explains Israel’s particular history. Why God chose Israel, the election of the people of Israel, has meaning only against this universal background. Israel can make sense of her own history only in relation to God’s creation, judgment, and preservation of all mankind.” Fretheim, Terence, Creation, Fall, and Flood, Tower Books, (c. 1969 by Augsburg Publishing House) pp. 17-18. These themes of creation, judgment and preservation are introduced and interwoven into the opening chapters of Genesis. It is important to understand from the start that judgment always serves God’s larger aims of creation and preservation. Even that most terrible of all judgments, the Great Food, serves in the end to preserve the earth through the establishment of a new covenant between God and God’s creation.

The Flood story found in Genesis 6-9:19 is a complex and layered narrative put together from two different and sometimes conflicting versions of the event. For some background on the composition of the first five books of the Bible generally, see the online article on the Documentary Hypothesis I have cited previously. Here it is enough to note that the full text is far too long for reading in a typical protestant worship service. That is unfortunate, because our lesson cannot be appreciated fully apart from an understanding of the larger narrative. The story begins with God’s observation that “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Genesis 6:5. God was “sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’” Genesis 6:6-7. There are a couple of things worth noting here. First, though God’s grief is induced by human evil, God resolves to blot out not only human beings, but all other creatures as well. The animals appear to be “collateral damage.” Like non-combatants who, through no fault of their own, happen to be standing in front of a military target, the animals will be caught in the crossfire of God’s war on humanity. Tragic and unfair as it may be, this is war after all. Any good Niebuhrian realist would understand.

Second, there is one slight wrinkle. “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Genesis 6:8. Surely Noah at least must be saved. Of course, because “it is not good for the human being to be alone” (Genesis 2:18), it will not do to let Noah’s wife and children perish in the coming judgment. Furthermore, the animals are both partners and sustainers of Noah’s existence. So God commands Noah to build an “ark” to shelter himself, his family and two pairs of each animal (or seven, depending on the source) throughout the coming flood. If you read with care Genesis 6:14-22, you will discover that the “ark” Noah was commanded to build is definitely not a large ship. It was, as the term implies, a great enclosed box. That is precisely what was required under the circumstances.

According to the first creation account in Genesis 1:1-2:4, God placed the earth between two huge vaults of water, one “above the heavens” and the other “under the earth.” Genesis 1:7-9. So when we read in Genesis 7:11-12 about how the “fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of heaven were opened,” it becomes clear that the flood was not simply an abnormally heavy rainfall that covered the earth with water. God was dismantling the infrastructure of creation, allowing the waters to prevail over the earth and so returning everything to a “formless void.” Genesis 2:2. Obviously, a boat would have been useless in such a catastrophe!

But in the middle of God’s demolition project, something remarkable happens. “God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark.” Genesis 8:1. Where will Noah, his family and the animals be when there is no more being? How can they live without the creation which once sustained them? It seems God must choose between saving the last of his creatures and carrying out his design to blot out all that he has made. It is at this point that God drives the waters from the face of the earth with a wind, shuts up the fountains of the deep and closes the windows of heaven. Genesis 8:1-3. God turns away from God’s destructive intent. God reverses course and heals the creation. That is the context for Sunday’s lesson. God makes a covenant with the whole creation, promising “never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” Genesis 9:11. Again, this is more than just a promise to limit the destructiveness of ordinary weather phenomenon. God is promising never to exercise the “nuclear option” against creation. That is why all of the Bible banging nincompoops threatening us with “Left Behind” type scenarios are chuck full of buffalo chips. At the dawn of history God lay down God’s bow and determined once and for all not to be the sort of angry, vengeful, mean spirited deity that most of humanity makes him out to be.

I have said many times that pacifism is not a tangential subtheme in the scriptures, inspirational for monks, nuns and starry eyed idealists but of no use to practical “worldly” Christians. To the contrary, God’s unequivocal rejection of violence is at the heart of the Hebrew Scriptural witness. It is founded in God’s refusal to be a God who reigns through the exercise or threat of violence. God will suffer violence rather than inflicting it upon his creation. You might say that here, in the very first covenant made with all creation, God first takes up the way of the cross. That way will be embodied in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Psalm 25:1-10

This is another of the “acrostic” psalms. The others are Psalm 119; Psalm 9; Psalm 10; Psalm 34; Psalm 37; Psalm 111; Psalm 112; and Psalm 145. The first word of the first verse begins with the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet. The first word of the second verse begins with the second letter and so on through the alphabet. In addition to assisting a new reader in learning her ABCs, this style of composition assists in memorization of the psalm. Memorization is critical in a culture where the vast majority lack reading skills and books are readily available only to priests. Stylistic similarities between this psalm and Psalm 34 suggest that they might have been composed by the same author, though I would exercise caution in making such a judgment. The stylistic conventions used by the psalmists were very likely shared widely so that their appearance in multiple psalms by different authors would not be unexpected.

The psalm is a prayer for salvation and protection from enemies-something you would not learn unless you read the entire psalm. Verses 1-10, which make up this Sunday’s reading, constitute an affirmation of trust in God’s promises. This trust in God’s faithfulness is the basis for the psalmist’s plea for help. The psalmist knows that God is the protector of the helpless and of those who trust in God’s promises. The psalmist is well aware of God’s long history of faithfulness to Israel and so feels confident in calling upon God for assistance in his or her own particular situation.

Particularly striking to me is the plea, “Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!” vs. 7. This is a prayer that God’s remembrance of the psalmist will be shaped not by recollection of his or her sins, but by God’s loving kindness. The psalmist’s sins cannot be erased. They have left scars on the psalmist’s life and still threaten to compromise his or her relationship with God. But memory is more than just a filing drawer full of all things past. Healthy memory is shaped as much by the present and future as by the past. A heartfelt apology opens the way to forgiveness and reconciliation. Where there is reconciliation, memories of hurt, betrayal and insult lose their sting. If they are remembered at all, they will be recalled as the prelude to a renewed and strengthened relationship. They will be understood as something that has not been allowed to define the relationship going forward. Just as in our lesson from Genesis God would not allow human sin to define God’s relationship to his creation, so by virtue of our baptism, we are not remembered merely as sinners, but as sinners redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus.

1 Peter 3:18-22

For my more extensive comments on this section generally, see my post of Sunday, May 25, 2014. Sunday’s reading is one of the more obscure snippets of scripture. It is perhaps the only New Testament reference to Jesus’ descent into hell (or to the dead, if you prefer) referenced in the Apostle’s Creed. To begin with, I believe it is important to point out that “1 Peter 3:18 is not saying that Christ’s body died but his soul was resurrected; it is saying that although from a human point of view he was put to death, he was given life in and by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, in the realm where death has no dominion. Though it may appear that the religious and civil authorities won, the real victory belongs to God.” Judith Jones, Professor of Religion, Wartburg College and St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Waverly, Iowa on workingpreacher.org. The “angels, authorities and powers” made subject to Jesus are not mere abstractions. As pointed out by Walter Wink, the “powers and authorities” are embodiments of the “domination system” of oppression upheld by the myth of “redemptive violence.” Wink, Walter, The Powers that Be, (c. 1998 by Augsburg Fortress) pp. 57-62. In Jesus’ day and in that of the New Testament church, these powers consisted mainly of the Roman Empire and its bureaucratic/militaristic machinery. Today these authorities and powers are frequently embodied in the governments of nation states, in the corporate powers controlling health care, access to capital and exploitation of the earth’s resources and in a consumer culture dictating our values and priorities.

Our understanding of Jesus’ descent into hell therefore requires us to refrain from over spiritualizing. “Hell” is less a place of eternal punishment for disembodied souls as it is the position of all who find themselves victims of the domination system. It is the place of those branded “sinners” by the religious establishment; “unclean” by reason of sickness; “godless and ignorant” by virtue of their lack of access to education; “idle” because they are unable to find employment; abandoned by God as evidenced by their shameful and public execution under the laws of the state. These are the imprisoned ones for whom Jesus descended into hell in order to proclaim the good news of God’s triumph over the powers that enslave them.

I firmly believe that Jesus’ descent into hell belongs in the Creed. Moreover, I favor retaining the word “hell” rather than “descent to the dead,” notwithstanding the fact that a more literal translation of the Greek text favors the latter. “Hell” aptly describes what a high school boy often experiences when he discovers that he is gay and has no safe place even to talk about his feelings, fears and hopes. It describes the gut wrenching terror felt by the parent of a child with cancer whose insurance company denies coverage for life saving treatment. Hell is what returning soldiers experience when they discover that they cannot leave the horrors of war buried in the sands of Iraq or the caves of Afghanistan as they try to resume civilian life as usual. People who say there is no hell have never seen what a teenage girl can do to her body after being convinced by pop culture’s false notions of beauty that she is ugly. The bad news is that hell is real. The good news is that Jesus has descended into that godforsaken place to break its hold over the spirits imprisoned there.

Mark 1:9-15

Matthew and Luke both tell us in detail about the temptations Jesus faced. Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-12. Mark tells us nothing more than that Jesus was tempted by the devil for forty days. As we have already seen, Mark’s gospel has Jesus moving with urgency and breakneck speed. Jesus goes “immediately” from one place to the next, one confrontation to the next. Suddenly, in the midst of this maddening pace of his life and ministry, Jesus is driven out to live in the wilderness for forty days.

I don’t know, but I suspect that one temptation Jesus faced was to get himself out of the wilderness prematurely. Who can blame him? Forty days is a long time to be out in the wilds where there is no cell phone reception, no internet access and no hope of getting anything productive accomplished. I suspect that Jesus wanted some direction, some sense that he was getting somewhere, some idea of how far he had to go and how much longer it was going to take. But when you are in the wilderness, you can only take each day as it comes. You will get there when you get there-wherever “there” is. In the meantime, you have to adapt to whatever terrain you pass though, deal with whatever wild beasts come your way and be content with whatever you find along the way to satisfy your needs. That sounds like a heck of a way to live.

Yet it describes well the way many of us live for much of our lives. For many of us, grief is a kind of wilderness. If I have learned anything about grieving over the years it is this: grief takes a different shape for each loss and every individual’s journey through it is unique. I never say to a grieving person, “I know what you are going through” because, in fact, I do not. After more than three years, I still struggle with the loss of my parents. That grief has only recently been compounded by the death of my grandson last summer. I am still not back to normal, whatever normal may be. I doubt that I ever will be normal again, if normal is the way I was before all of these losses occurred. There is a strong presumption out there in society that I ought to be “over” all this by now. If not, then I ought to seek counseling, therapy or something else to “fix” what is wrong with me and get me back up to speed. “It’s time to move on.” That is the common modern mantra. But people who live in the wilderness understand that life cannot be conformed to schedules, “to do” lists and strategic planning. They know that there are powers much greater than self in the universe and that they are as much driven as they are driving.

Mark does give us one small piece of information we don’t find in Matthew or Luke. We read that Jesus was “with the wild beasts.” Vs. 13. If you are going to spend any time in the wilderness, the true wilderness, you need to be comfortable with the idea of being always in the presence of wild, carnivorous beasts. That takes some getting used to, because our culture is geared toward fencing out wild beasts. We desperately want to live in a secure, gated neighborhood where tragedies don’t occur, where families never fracture, where people never die. That is why people on magazine covers, even the AARP bulletin, are young and vibrant rather than old and infirm. That is why sitcom families always manage to work out all their problems in sixty short minutes-less the commercials. That is why we treat sadness with a trip to Disney World, a shot of scotch or medication rather than embracing and trying to understand it. You have a right to be happy. It’s written into the Declaration of Independence. So if you are not happy, if you are not satisfied, if you are not content in your marriage, your job or your neighborhood, something must be wrong. Something needs to be fixed. You need to get yourself a life coach. You need to get out of the wilderness and back on track.

It is significant, I believe, that Jesus’ temptation comes hard on the heels of his baptism. To be told that you are God’s child is a mind blowing experience. It is not surprising that Jesus would need at least forty days to sort all of that out and decide what it means. Perhaps that is what baptism is like (or should be like) for all of us. We are ripped out of the fabric of our family, cultural and societal identities and reborn into this new regime in which God alone reigns. We spend the rest of our lives figuring out what that means. The Lenten journey affords us a good opportunity for reminding ourselves that we are in many respects still lost in the wilderness, still clueless about the kingdom and have much to learn from Jesus.

Sunday, February 1st

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FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Compassionate God, you gather the whole universe into your radiant presence and continually reveal your Son as our Savior. Bring wholeness to all that is broken and speak truth to us in our confusion, that all creation will see and know your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“Do you believe in the devil?” I was asked by a young woman I met at a wedding reception I attended some years ago. “No,” I replied. “I believe in Jesus.” She was nothing if not persistent, however, and continued to press the issue. “But do you believe there is a devil?” I was tempted to say that it depends on what you mean by is, but former President Clinton had taken that line away from me just a month or so before as I recall. Too bad, really, because it would have been the correct response.

The Bible doesn’t tell us much about the devil. Most of what we think we know about him comes from extra-biblical literature. For example, there is scant evidence outside of an oblique section of Revelation for the assertion that the devil is a fallen angel. In fact, there is nothing in the Bible suggesting that the devil is or ever was God’s creature. So we are left with the question, what is devil and where did he come from?

We often identify the serpent in the Garden of Eden who tempted Adam and Eve with the devil, but that is saying more than the story itself. Because the serpent was God’s creature, we must assume that it was among the many “creeping things” God made and pronounced good. Concerning the serpent, the Bible says only that it was the most “cunning” of all God’s creatures. Cunning does not necessarily equate with evil. Yet somehow, Adam, Eve and the serpent were caught up in a web of transactions that led to their undoing, their loss of primal trust in the goodness of their Creator. Once that wholehearted trust in God was gone, a vacuum was created where the demonic sprang to life.

If humanity did not actually create the devil, it certainly made room for him to exist. The devil lives in the space we make between each other through prejudice, distrust and fear. The devil haunts the empty corners of ignorant minds, the cracks in broken hearts and that vast and growing gap between the wealthy and the poor. The devil gains a foothold in the fractures of broken homes, divided congregations and warring nations. Is the devil real? I guess we have to say that he is as real as we make him, as big as the space we give him and as powerful as the weapons with which we arm him.

It is clear from Sunday’s gospel that Jesus has come to put the squeeze on the devil. The very minute that Jesus opens his mouth, the devil feels pinched, crowded and driven out. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” the demon cries. “Have you come to destroy us?” The devil knows by now what he is up against. He has already tried every temptation he knows to make Jesus doubt the voice from heaven assuring him that he is indeed God’s beloved Son. There is no room for the devil to exist between Jesus and his heavenly Father. As God’s reign presses in, calling all people to return once again to the embrace of their Creator, their heavenly Father, the devil’s living space shrinks. On that day when, to use Paul’s words, God is “everything to everyone,” there will be no place left for the devil to exist. He will return once again to what he always was-a big nothing.

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the “Pentateuch,” the first five books of the Bible traditionally attributed to Moses. It should be understood that even from this traditional perspective, authorship was not understood as it is today. Modern biblical research has led to a general consensus that the Pentateuch is the product of four sources and perhaps several editors. For a brief outline of the history for the Pentateuch’s composition, see my post for January 11th. For a more thorough discussion, see this article on the Documentary Hypothesis.

Sunday’s lesson deals with the nettlesome issue of prophetic authority plaguing nearly every religious movement. Who speaks for the Lord to the community of faith after that community’s founding prophet dies? That is the question addressed by our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures. The Book of Deuteronomy constitutes Moses’ final address to Israel. He knows that he will not be with them as they enter into the Promised Land. Accordingly, Moses speaks “Torah” to the people. This “Torah,” so much more than is conveyed by the word “law” used to translate it in most English Bibles, will serve as the normative guide for Israel’s corporate existence in Canaan. As such, it is a sort of surrogate for Moses himself.

Yet no written scripture, however exhaustive and profound, can take the place of a spiritual leader. Circumstances will be different for Israel in Canaan than they were for her in Egypt and in her journey through the wilderness. Some of the dangers Moses can foresee and address. Most of them are not even imaginable. Such is also the case for the Christian community. Paul could never have foreseen, much less addressed, the important ethical issues Christians face today. You won’t find many references in your biblical concordance to human cloning, biological warfare, genetic engineering, in vitro fertilization, global warming or fracking. That isn’t to say that the scriptures cannot enlighten us on these matters. It is obvious, however, that we will need someone to interpret them. We will need people who understand fully how Moses, the prophets and the apostles thought about issues in their own time and who are capable of applying that wisdom to our thinking about the challenges we face today. In other words, we need prophets.

Moses was well aware of that need and he speaks to it in our lesson. He promises that God will raise up prophets like himself to speak the word of the Lord to Israel as she takes up her new life in Canaan. Vs. 15. That is a gracious word. God does not intend simply to leave Israel with a user manual for the new life God has given her. The scriptures are living documents. Not only were they inspired by the Holy Spirit, but their continued power for subsequent generations depends on that Spirit working in the hearts of all who preach and teach them. Thus, the well-loved Lutheran dictum “Sola Scriptura” cannot be taken to mean that the scriptures alone are sufficient to govern the church. From very early on, the church has formulated creeds to articulate the heart of the scriptural witness. We can see the seeds of such creedal authority in the scriptures themselves. For example, in I Timothy Paul remarks: “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” I Timothy 3:16.

Yet while creeds can keep our focus on what is central to the scriptural witness and help us avoid “wander[ing] away into vain discussion,” they cannot by themselves produce “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith.” I Timothy 1:3-7. For that, “teaching” and “prophetic utterance” are essential. I Timothy 4:14. Here I differ with a number of theologians who have said over the years that disciples of Jesus are a “people of the book.” That we clearly are not. We are a people of the resurrected Jesus. That is not to denigrate the scriptures. They constitute the normative witness to Jesus. All other witnesses, including the ecumenical creeds, stand under their judgment. Yet they point beyond themselves to the one we confess to be God’s only beloved Son incarnate, crucified and raised for the life of the world. Faith is not subscription to scriptural doctrines or principles. It is trust in a living person. The authority of the Bible is therefore inseparably linked to the living community of disciples through whom faith is mediated by teaching, preaching and the example of holy living.

In one sense, the prophetic task belongs to the whole community. Thus, we encourage all believers to share their faith in Jesus and to speak out on behalf of the poor, the weak and the vulnerable in public forums and to their elected representatives. We expect all believers to be involved in the ministry of teaching. A little appreciated fact about Luther’s Small Catechism is that it was written as a guide for parents to introduce their children to the Christian faith, not as a model curriculum for pastors to teach confirmation classes. Yet it seems inevitable that prophetic authority for the community must be invested in someone. I have gotten to know several groups within the Anabaptist and Pentecostal traditions that have strong anti-clerical streaks. They place a special emphasis on the priesthood of all believers. I have observed, however, that even within these groups there is usually one or more persons who stand out as authorities on matters of faith and life. Thus, even though they lack formal designation as authorities, they are recognized as authoritative nonetheless. As our gospel lesson demonstrates, authority can make itself felt without credentials.

Be all of this as it may, I believe that the church is best served when we are intentional about who we invest with prophetic authority. There is something to be said for standards, requirements and systems of accountability for the ministry of public preaching and the Lutheran confessional requirement that this ministry be legitimated by a “call” formally recognized in the church. Preaching is too important a task to be left in the hands of whoever shows up on Sunday and has the inclination to do it. Would you want a layperson with only a deep appreciation for medicine and a desire to try practicing surgery operating on your spine? How much less your soul!

Of course, neither individual zeal nor official recognition can guaranty that prophetic speech will not go off the rails. That is one of the concerns addressed in the verses following our lesson: How can we be sure the preacher is giving us the word of the Lord and not something else? How do you distinguish a true prophet from a false one? The only way to make this determination is to discern whether the prophet’s words prove true. Deuteronomy 18:21-22. If we understand prophecy to be no more than predicting the future, this advice is practically worthless. But of course, prophecy is much more than astrology. Prophesy is not principally foretelling the future, but forthtelling God’s word to our present circumstances. Prophets do not speak in a vacuum. They speak from the scriptural witness; their scriptural interpretations are normed by the creedal statements and, most specifically, by Jesus. For the church, Jesus is our way into the scriptures, the light by which we read the scriptures and the Spirit by which we interpret the scriptures. Prophesy is therefore not to be accepted blindly or uncritically. Paul encouraged his hearers to examine the scriptures in order to validate his preaching. Acts 17:11. John warns us to “test the spirits” in order to avoid giving heed to false prophets. I John 4:1. Genuine prophetic ministry thrives where there exists a healthy tension between the scriptures, the prophetic voice of public preaching and the critical discernment of the whole people of God.

Psalm 111

This psalm is an “acrostic” poem, meaning that each strophe begins with a new letter of the Hebrew alphabet in sequential order. Other psalms of this family are Psalm 119; Psalm 9; Psalm 10; Psalm 25; Psalm 34; Psalm 37; Psalm 112; and Psalm 145. It is possible that this psalm is related to Psalm 112, also an acrostic poem. Whereas the theme of Psalm 111 is the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord, Psalm 112 speaks of the blessedness of the person who fears and trusts in the Lord. Because the acrostic form is a relatively late development in Hebrew poetry, most scholars date this psalm during the period after the Babylonian Exile.

The psalm makes clear that the greatness of God is made known in God’s works. Though the Exodus, wilderness wanderings, conquest of Canaan and the return from exile are not specifically referenced, they were doubtlessly in the mind of the psalmist as s/he proclaimed the redemption of God’s people. Vs. 9. The giving of the law appears to be the paramount act of salvation in the psalmist’s mind. The statutes of the Lord are “trustworthy…established forever and ever. Vs. 8. It was, after all, the Torah that preserved Israel’s identity throughout the long years of Babylonian captivity and kept alive the hope that finally inspired her return and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple.

The most memorable and familiar verse is the final one: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  Vs. 10. Fear of God is a distasteful notion to us moderns who prefer a deity similar to the white, upper middle class, slightly left of center dad of the Ward Clever variety. But the Bible testifies to a God who is sometimes scary and not always very nice (though the lectionary folks do their best to shave off his rough edges with their incessant editing). Fear is usually the first emotion biblical characters express when face to face with God or one of God’s angelic messengers. So anyone who has no apprehension about encountering God is probably downright foolhardy.

Frankly, I think that if we feared God more, we might fear a lot of other things less. Worshipers of Israel’s God should know that instead of fretting over what the deficit will do to us if we commit ourselves to providing everyone with sufficient housing, food and medical care, we ought to be concerned about what God might do to us if we don’t. If the good people on Capitol Hill believed that on the last day God will confront all nations and peoples through the eyes of everyone they could have clothed, fed, befriended and cared for, I think the log jam over social legislation would disappear in a New York minute. The fact that most of these folks self-identify as Christians shows just how poor a job their churches have done teaching them what they should and should not fear. Healthy fear understands that the decisions we make matter-eternally so.

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

This section of Paul’s letter is not particularly “relevant” in terms of its subject matter. When I purchase meat, I don’t worry much about whether it was used in some pagan sacrificial rite. I am more concerned about the conditions under which the animal in question was raised, what it was fed and injected with, how it was butchered and processed. Sometimes I wonder whether I should be eating meat in the first place. These, however, are entirely different issues than those with which Paul is concerned. The question of consuming pagan sacrificial meat arises out of the larger context of Corinthian culture in which Paul’s congregation was situated:

“A glance at the plan of the excavated forum of Roman Corinth detects the numerous temples and shrines in it dedicated to various gods that non-Christian Corinthians reverenced. Civic and social life in such a city would have meant an obligation to join in festivals, celebrations, and public ceremonies on occasions when religion and politics were not clearly demarcated; there were also many guilds of tradesmen and other voluntary associations in which specific gods were honored with banquets and sacrificial meals. Feasts in honor of various deities were celebrated regularly in numerous temples, when food (cereals, cheese, honey) were offered and animals (goats, cows, bulls, horses) were sacrificed to them, according to the manuals of the pontifices. The meat of animals so slaughtered, when not fully consumed in sacrifice, was often eaten by the offerers and attending temple servants. The latter sold at times the surplus meat on the markets.” Fitzmyer, Joseph A., First Corinthians, The Anchor Yale Bible, Vol. 32 (c. 2008 by Yale University) p. 331.

In this cultural setting, a disciple’s faithfulness to Jesus as the Son of Israel’s God cut across loyalties of professional, social and legal obligations inherent in daily life. Your clients and business associates might well begin to wonder why you are routinely turning down their dinner invitations. Your community might question your patriotism when you avoid civil ceremonies that invariably involve pagan sacrificial rites. Your old friends might be deeply hurt when you refuse to accept gifts of food from sacrificial feasts. Furthermore, how can you be sure that the meat you buy in the market place has not been used in one of these feasts?

Some in the Corinthian church took a pragmatic view. They knew that there is no God but one. They knew that food is derived from God’s good creation and does not become any less good simply because some pagan priest mumbles a few words of devotion to a god that doesn’t even exist. So why not eat and enjoy? Whatever the pagans may think, we know that meat is meat and that it is meant to be enjoyed as God’s good gift.

Paul seems to agree with these “knowledgeable” folks in principle. But there is more to all of this than “knowledge.” For most people, the pagan rituals pervading social life in Corinth were pregnant with meaning and significance. It was practically impossible for them to separate the eating of sacrificial meat from participation in the sacrificial rite. They could no more eat sacrificial meat without being drawn into its religious significance than can an alcoholic indulge in “just one little drink.”

“So what?” say those “with knowledge.” “Why should the scruples of other people stand in the way of what we do with a clear conscience?” “Because,” Paul replies, “this ‘knowledge’ of yours is not the guiding principle.” As Paul pointed out to us last week, just because we are free to do something does not mean that we ought to do it. Here the guiding principle is not ‘knowledge’ but love. Vs. 3. It is true that in Christ we are free to enjoy the good gifts of God’s creation without worrying about all the other so-called ‘gods’ that pagans believe in. Nevertheless, we are obligated as members of Christ’s church to place the welfare of our sisters and brothers above our own desires. Everything a believer does must be done with the well-being of the whole church and all of its members in mind. Thus, although Paul shares the “knowledge” of his critics and the freedom they prize so highly, he will not exercise this freedom in any way that undermines the faith of any member of the church. If that means giving up meat altogether, so be it. Vs. 13.

Again, this issue is obviously a non-issue for us 21st Century believers. But Paul’s approach to it is still as timely as ever. A good dose of Paul’s advice would go a long way toward easing the tension that comes with changes in liturgy, remodeling of sacred space and discussion of controversial issues in the church. A lot of us feel that change comes far too slowly in the church. Many of us get frustrated with constant resistance to anything new. We are tempted to resort to the ways of the world in dealing with such resistance. We build alliances, stack committees, resort to political power, appeal to legal/constitutional provisions and settle matters by means of majority vote. All of that is a lot easier than the slow, cumbersome and painful work of building consensus. Yet consensus is the way of the cross and the only way to health for the whole Body of Christ.

Mark 1:21-28

Immediately following his call to the four fishermen, Jesus enters Capernaum and begins teaching in the synagogue there. Capernaum was a fishing village located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee about two miles from the entrance of the Jordan River. Though scholarly opinion is not entirely unanimous, most commentators believe the precise location to be at the site of the ruins of a town that came to be known by the Arabic name, Tell Hum. Taylor, Vincent, The Gospel According to St. Mark, (2nd Ed.), Thornapple Commentaries, (c. 1966 by Vincent Taylor, pub. Baker House Co.) p. 171. During the early part of the 1st Century C.E. the town had a population of about fifteen hundred. Archaeological excavations have revealed two ancient synagogues built one over the other. A church near Capernaum is said to be the home of the Apostle Peter.

Synagogue worship consisted of prayers, benedictions, readings from the law and the prophets with translations from Hebrew into Aramaic, the language of the people. Expositions of the readings were conducted by the scribes who were the official interpreters of Torah. Hooker, Morna D., The Gospel According to Saint Mark, Black’s New Testament Commentaries (c. 1991 by Morna D. Hooker, pub. A&C Black (Publishers) Limited) p. 63. Most scribes belonged to the party of the Pharisees, though some were associated with the Sadducees. Ibid. In either case, these scribes would have grounded their teachings upon citations to Torah. It appears that Jesus speaks in the voice of prophesy without citation to any scriptural authority. His is a “new” teaching, not simply a recasting of the old. The people are therefore “astounded” because Jesus speaks “with authority” unlike the scribes. Vs. 22.

Somehow, a man with an unclean spirit appears among the worshipers. This “unholy spirit,” is the one and only one who recognizes Jesus as the “holy” one of God. The crowds don’t know quite what to make of this astonishing teacher. The disciples have not weighed in yet either. Of course, we have known from Mark 1:1 that Jesus is the messiah and the Son of God. Jesus knows this because God has called him the beloved Son at his baptism. Mark 1:11. As the story continues, however, we will discover that we do not know what we think we know. Jesus will turn out to be a very different sort of messiah than Israel was expecting and the Son of a very different sort of God than the one we think we know.

The demon asks “What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” Vs. 24. The former phrase might better be translated “What do we have in common?” or “Why are you interfering with us?” or simply “Mind your own business!” Cranfield, C.E.B., The Gospel According to St. Mark, The Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary (c. 1959 Cambridge University Press), p. 75. The demon’s use of the first person plural “us” suggests that it is speaking for demons as a class. Vs. 24. The demons know that Jesus will be their undoing. Their invocation of Jesus’ name is a vain effort to gain control over him. Ibid. 77. The common belief was that learning the name of a deity conferred a certain degree of power over that deity. Ibid. This demonic effort at getting a leg up on Jesus fails. Even in the mouth of a demoniac, the name of Jesus glorifies Jesus. Jesus silences the demon’s witness and casts it out. Vs. 25. This mighty act of power over the demonic further demonstrates Jesus’ authority which goes beyond mere speech. His authority flows as much through what he does as what he says. Jesus’ teaching is indeed both new and authoritative. Vs. 27.

This story emphasizes the radical “newness” of God’s reign pressing in upon the old order. The demonic opposition is a harbinger of the confrontation to come between Jesus and the powers that be. The cross and resurrection are foreshadowed in each episode of Mark’s gospel. Even as Jesus is gradually revealed, he is increasingly concealed as everything we think we know about him proves inadequate, incomplete or just plain wrong.

 

Sunday, January 25th

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THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 62:5-12
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Almighty God, by grace alone you call us and accept us in your service. Strengthen us by your Spirit, and make us worthy of your call, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Doesn’t it just burn you up when you see that character in the sporty little BMW cruising along in the shoulder past a mile of creeping cars like yours and then trying to merge in at the last minute-and somebody always lets him in. Always. And then there is the guy in his pickup with the Confederate flag on the back weaving in and out of traffic, passing on the right, tailgating everyone who gets in his way. Ever notice how there is never a police car in sight when that happens? Never. Worst of all is that woman whose car has only one speed, 50 MPH. That is her cruising speed whether she is in the left lane of the New Jersey Turnpike or in the middle of a school zone. Yet somehow she manages to keep her license. Meanwhile, I am writing out my check to pay the parking ticket I got because my bumper extended an inch or so over the yellow line extending from the intersection. And we wonder why people have road rage.

The prophet Jonah had a bad case of road rage. You may recall that Jonah was the reluctant prophet sent (dragged kicking and screaming, actually) to proclaim God’s judgment upon the city of Nineveh. We don’t hear about the temper tantrum he threw in our lesson for Sunday, but we are told the reason for it. God spared the evil city of Nineveh from the judgment of destruction God had decreed for it. Understand that Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, the biggest geopolitical bully on the block for much of Israel’s history. The Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel altogether and reduced the Southern Kingdom of Judah to a mere vassal state subject to military occupation and crushing taxation. The Assyrians were cruel, blood thirsty and destructive. Whatever judgment God might wreak upon their capital would be well deserved-and the sooner the better as far as Jonah was concerned. Jonah was looking forward to some big time payback.

But the story takes an unexpected turn. Jonah’s preaching succeeded as no other prophet’s preaching ever had. His words brought the proud nation of Assyria to its knees in repentance. When God saw this great communal change of heart, God also repented of the judgment intended for Nineveh. “Really?” cries Jonah. “Seriously? You destroy the city and temple of your own people and send them into exile for breaking their covenant with you. But these terrorist thugs, who don’t even know your name and have never lifted a finger to obey your law, they get off scot free just because they weep a few crocodile tears and throw a little dust on their heads. This you call justice?”

The problem with people like Jonah and me is that we are incapable of taking the long view. I see bad drivers from my own narrow perspective. I seldom ask myself what is going on in their lives. For example, the guy racing ahead of the pack to cut in further up might be responding to a call informing him that his child has been in an accident and is clinging to life in the ICU. The woman stuck at 50 MPH perhaps knows that she is not up to driving anymore, but has no one to take her shopping or to the doctor. Even wantonly reckless driving, for which there is no justification, is rooted in motives, circumstances and events I have no way of knowing or understanding. So who am I to say what is just in any of these situations?

Furthermore, who am I to demand justice? Am I willing to place my own life and conduct on the same scale of justice I want for everyone else? Do I really want to receive from God what in God’s view I deserve? If that is justice, I don’t think anybody in their right mind would ask for it. As a poet once observed, “Ain’t no one alive should have the nerve/to say we all should get what we deserve.”

Fortunately for us, God’s view of justice is a good deal more expansive than ours. We tend to view justice in terms of Anglo/American jurisprudence. It’s all a matter of rights and remedies. When you and I have a dispute, we go to court. The court determines whose rights have been violated and how much money should be paid in compensation to the injured party. Then the case is over. The court has no interest in the parties or the dispute after that. But God is deeply interested in what takes place after judgment has been entered. It is not enough that restitution be made. The parties must be reconciled before justice is done. So whether God punishes or refrains from punishing, the objective is reconciliation with God and between God’s people. Reconciliation, not payback, is always the end game.

Ironically, God seems to be having more success in that realm with the godless empire of Assyria than with his own prophet. Would that God’s prophet were as deeply moved by God’s mercy as are the people of Nineveh! Would that Jonah understood that God cares less about vindicating rights than restoring relationships. Would that the church were an island of reconciliation in a world driven mad with road rage justice.

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

The Book of Jonah is unique among the books of the prophets. Instead of a collection of oracles and speeches sometimes framed with narrative, Jonah is narrative from beginning to end with a psalm of praise thrown into the center of the book. It is the story of a prophet who, unlike the God he serves, values justice over mercy. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he values his own truncated view of justice over God’s more expansive view. Make no mistake about it, the God of the Bible (Old Testament as well as New) is no indulgent grandfather who cannot bring himself to discipline the kids as they merrily trash the house. God’s judgments have teeth, as the Babylonian exiles can attest. Nonetheless, God’s punishment is never an end in itself. If God wounds, God wounds in order to bring about healing. That insight is lost on poor Jonah.

The majority consensus of most Hebrew Scripture commentators is that the Book of Jonah was composed in the Post-Exilic period during the latter half of the 4th Century B.C.E. Neil, W. “The book of Jonah” published in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II ed. By George Arthur Buttrick (c. 1962 by Abington Press) p. 966. It has long been suggested that this book was written to challenge the exclusivist policies expressed in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah which went so far as to require the dissolution of marriages between Jews and persons of less than pure Jewish lineage. Ibid. But as Professor Terrence Fretheim points out, there are problems with this view. “None of the specific issues dealt with by Ezra and Nehemiah are even alluded to in the book (such as mixed marriages and mixed languages, see Nehemiah 9, 10; Ezra 9, 10).” Fretheim, Terrence, The Message of Jonah (c. 1977 by Augsburg Publishing House) p. 35. For this and other reasons, recent commentators suggest an earlier date somewhere between 475  B.C.E. and 450 B.C.E. E.g., Burrows, M., “The Literary Category of the Book of Jonah” published in Translating and Understanding the Old Testament, ed. By H. Frank & W. Reed (c. 1971 by Abingdon) p. 105. The issue appears to be more one of God’s treatment of Israel among the nations than Israel’s treatment of non-Jews within its midst, though I would add that the two issues are not entirely unrelated.

The author of this prophetic book selected the name “Jonah son of Amittai” for his protagonist. This is no random choice. In II Kings, Jonah is credited with prophesying the salvation of Israel from foreign oppression by the hand of Jeroboam II. Though Jeroboam “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” and “made Israel to sin,” God nonetheless “saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter…” and that “there was none to help Israel.” II Kings 14:23-26. Out of compassion God “saved [Israel] by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.” II Kings 14:27. One would think that a prophet who foretold and witnessed God’s salvation of his own sinful people by the hand of their sinful king could find it in his heart to welcome the extension of that mercy to the rest of creation. But Jonah turns out to be more than a little tightfisted with God’s grace.

It is also noteworthy that no mention is made of repentance on the part of Israel in II Kings. Jonah’s preaching does not seem to have had much effect on the hearts of his own people. By contrast, the people of Nineveh are moved by Jonah’s preaching to acts of repentance never before seen in Israel or anywhere else. This is remarkable as Jonah has done everything possible so far to avoid success in Nineveh. First he tries to run away from the job. Then he preaches a sermon that is all but unintelligible. “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” That’s it. The whole sermon. Jonah does not tell the people of Nineveh why they are going to be overthrown, who is going to overthrow them or whether there is anything they can possibly do to avoid being overthrown. Nevertheless, the word of the Lord somehow breaks through the prophet’s few and feeble words. Somehow, the people discover the depth of their sin and, more marvelously still, they begin to suspect that the God under whose judgment they stand has a merciful heart. Jonah is a wildly successful prophet in spite of himself!

The reading tells us that God “repented” of all that God intended to do at Nineveh. Does God change God’s mind? Yes and no. God will never cease loving God’s creation; God will never give up on God’s people; God will never abandon God’s plan to redeem creation. In that sense, it is quite proper to say that God’s will is eternally predestined and not subject to change. It is also true that God’s creation is in constant flux requiring God’s love for it to change shape, adapt to new circumstances and express itself in different ways. To that extent, it is fair to say that God changes, adapts and even “repents.”

Psalm 62:5-12

This psalm is classified as a “Psalm of Trust,” though I think it has elements of lament as well. The psalmist is clearly in a difficult situation with former friends having turned against him. Indeed, they press him so hard that he feels like “a leaning wall, a tottering fence.” Vs. 3 (not in the reading). These “friends” are perfidious, flattering him with their speech while inwardly cursing him and plotting to “cast him down.” Vs. 4 (not in the reading). This is the context in which we need to view the verses making up our lesson.

The psalmist does not respond in kind to his foes. S/he does not respond to them at all. Instead, s/he waits in silence for God who is his/her true hope. Vs. 5. God is the psalmist’s “rock.” Vs. 6. In order to understand the full impact of this assertion, we need to back up to verse 4 which is not in our reading. There the psalmist accuses his foes of planning to “bring down a person of eminence.” This translation does not do justice to the Hebrew which states that these enemies are seeking to bring the psalmist down from his “height,” meaning a “rock” or defensive “tower.” Rogerson, J.W. and McKay, J.W., Psalms 51-100, The Cambridge Bible Commentary (c. 1977 by Cambridge University Press) p. 62. Thus, verse 6 replies that the psalmist’s “rock” and “fortress” is God. Though the psalmist may be a “leaning wall” and a “tottering fence,” the “rock” upon which s/he takes his/her stand is sure. The psalmist’s deliverance comes not from outwitting his enemies at their own game or in employing against them the same venomous and hateful stratagems they use on him/her, but in God’s anticipated salvation. vs. 7.

In verse 8 the psalmist turns to admonish his fellow worshipers to likewise place their faith in God and to pour out their hearts before him. Vs. 8. Human power and wealth is illusory. Vs. 9. Extortion and robbery do not lead to any true and lasting security. Wealth may be enjoyed, but never trusted to provide security. Vs. 10. Verse 11 continues the admonition with a numerical formula found frequently throughout biblical “wisdom literature:” “One thing God has spoken, twice have I heard this…” So also in the Book of Proverbs, “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.” Proverbs 6:16-19. A similar construction is used by Amos in his prophetic oracles: “Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing-sledges of iron. So I will send a fire on the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-hadad. I will break the gate-bars of Damascus and cut off the inhabitants from the Valley of Aven, and the one who holds the scepter from Beth-eden; and the people of Aram shall go into exile to Kir, says the Lord.” Amos 1:3-5. See also Amos 1:6-2:8. Here the construction serves to emphasize the two inseparable truths: All true power belongs to God and, equally important, so does “steadfast love.” Vs. 11-12.

The psalm complements our lesson from Jonah in emphasizing how God’s steadfast love drives and shapes the expression of God’s power. The saving power of God is contrasted here with the malicious exercise of raw power against the psalmist by his/her enemies. Love is finally the only power worth having and the only power worthy of trust.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

This is a rather gloomy chunk of scripture. Paul seems to be giving advice to young unmarried people, the sum and substance of which is “married is good, but single is better.” Significantly, Paul begins this discussion with a disclaimer: “I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.” Vs. 25. I am not sure what Paul means when he speaks of the “present distress.” Vs. 26. I don’t get the impression that the church in Corinth is experiencing the kind of hostility and persecution we hear about in Philippi, Thessalonica and Ephesus. I get the impression that Paul is alluding not to any local source of distress, but rather to the general distress growing out of the fact that “the form of this world is passing away.” Vs. 31.

One simple explanation for this reading lies in attributing to Paul the mistaken notion that the end of the world was imminent. Of course, if the world is ending tomorrow it makes little sense to marry, bear children and build a home. Time would be better spent preparing for the end and getting the word of the gospel out while there is still time. Marriage and other family attachments only hinder one’s effectiveness as a disciple of Jesus. Anyone who follows this blog knows that I do not believe Jesus, Paul or any of the other New Testament authors held any such view. I don’t believe there ever was a “crisis” in the church precipitated by the “delay of Christ’s return.”

I believe that the “present distress” arises from what Paul describes in his letter to the Romans as “the whole creation…groaning in travail together until now…” as “we who have the fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Romans 8:22-23. The pains of dissolution for the old order are the birth pangs for the new. God is at work in the world’s turmoil bringing the new creation to birth. In much the same way, God’s Spirit is at work in our dying to self and rising to Christ as we live out our discipleship within the Body of Christ. Marriage is an exclusive relationship of intimacy that is, at least potentially, at odds with the disciple’s relationship of intimate love between members of the whole Body of Christ described in I Corinthians 13. It is very telling that this “love chapter” is a favorite for weddings, though it has nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with the church! While Paul clearly believes that marriage is both legitimate and capable of integration into the larger community of love within Christ’s Body, he nevertheless believes that life in Christ will be a good deal simpler and easier for the single than for the married-at least for those who can handle being single.

Once again, this is by Paul’s own admission his own personal view colored by his experience as a single person. I choose to treat it as just that. Great for Paul and others like him, but not so much for the rest of us. For all of us, though, the text is a reminder that nothing of the world as we know it is permanent. Neither marriage, nor one’s profession, nor one’s accomplishments are eternal. When we treat them as if they were, we cross over into the sin of idolatry.

Mark 1:14-20

There are three important imperatives introduced in verses 14-15: 1) The time is fulfilled; 2) repent; and 3) believe the good news. The New Testament uses two Greek words for what the English versions translate as “time.” “Kronos” means chronological time measureable in days, weeks and years. “Kairos” means time in the sense of “the time has come” or “it’s about time.” A kairos moment is a defining one, such as Pearl Harbor for my parent’s generation; the assassination of President Kennedy in my own; and the 9/11 attack for that of my children. Kairos time changes the trajectory of history, propelling us into new directions. Mark uses the word “kairos” indicating that this moment within chronological time proclaimed by Jesus is special. It is a time such as the Exodus-a time in which God exercises saving power propelling the world in the direction of God’s redemptive intent for it. This time is “at hand” (“eggizo” in Greek). The verb means to approach, or draw near. Mark uses it in the “aorist” tense which is like our past tense only stronger in that it denotes completed action.

This Kairos moment of Jesus’ in-breaking upon the society of Israel coincides with John the Baptist’s arrest. The relationship between the ministry of John and that of Jesus is not worked out in Mark to the extent that it is in the other gospels, though Mark does intimate that John’s role is similar if not identical to Elijah’s eschatological task of “restoring all things.” Mark 9:11-13. See also Malachi 4:5-6. The identification of Jesus’ rising with John’s arrest might also emphasizes the newness of all that Jesus represents. As we will see in the story of the Transfiguration, the focus now is neither upon Moses (the law) nor Elijah (the prophets), but upon God’s beloved Son. Mark 9:2-8.

The term “kingdom of God” is not an apt translation of Mark’s meaning in verse 15. Just as we have come to identify “church” as a building with a steeple, so we have come to view the kingdom of God as a place. Too often the kingdom is equated with some very unbiblical conceptions of “heaven.” The better translation might be “the reign of God” or the “sovereignty of God.” Thus, when Jesus declares that God’s reign has drawn near, he means that God’s sovereignty is pressing in and making itself felt. The only appropriate response to this new reality is repentance and faith.

Repent (metanoeo in Greek) is not all about feeling remorse or guilt. Literally, the word means simply “to turn around.” It refers to a radical change of heart; a turning toward God’s call away from one’s old way of living. The word Mark uses for “believe” is the Greek word “pisteuo,” meaning “to trust,” or “have confidence in” someone or something. “Good news” (“euggelion” in the Greek) means just that. Sometimes translated “gospel,” it refers to a royal proclamation with kingly authority behind it. In this case, of course, the authority behind the good news is God. Mark makes clear that Jesus’ appearance on the stage of history inaugurates the reign of God.

While there is never any mention of the church in Mark’s gospel, it is powerfully present throughout in the community of disciples called into existence by Jesus’ proclamation of God’s reign. The church is less an institution than a gathering that springs into existence wherever Jesus speaks and acts. It is hardly coincidental that the calling of the first disciples comes as Jesus embarks upon his mission.

The renowned New Testament scholar Rudolph Bultmann believes that this story about the call of the four disciples is a “biographical apothegm,” that is, an idealized story of faith inspired by the early Christian metaphor, “fishers of men.” Bultmann, Rudolf, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, (c. 1963 by Blackwell, Oxford, pub. by Harper & Row) p. 56. By contrast, commentator Vincent Taylor views this story as an actual historical reminiscence of the disciples preserved in the preaching of the New Testament church. Taylor, Vincent, The Gospel According to St. Mark, (Second Ed.) Thornapple Commentaries (c. 1966 by Vincent Taylor, pub. by Baker Book House Co.) p. 168. Naturally, there are all shades of opinion in between.

While slightly more interesting than most cocktail chat, the conversation does not strike me as particularly important. The issue is not whether and to what extent the gospels can be relied upon to provide the so called “objective historical data” we imagine to be so critical. The real question is whether or not the New Testament “got Jesus right.” If it did, it matters not one wit how the gospel narrative is weighed by our rather antiquated 19th Century notions of what constitutes “history.” If the New Testament got Jesus wrong, then we shall have to embark upon that seemingly endless quest for the “historical Jesus.” For all who wish to undertake this journey, I wish you the best of luck. While you are out there, see if you can find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Barak Obama’s Kenyon birth certificate and the bodies of those three aliens whose spaceship crashed at Roswell.

The compelling lure of Jesus’ call to discipleship and the repentance and faith it elicits find concrete expression in the response of the four fishermen. Hooker, Morna, D., The Gospel According to Saint Mark, Black’s New Testament Commentaries (c. 1991 by Morna D. Hooker, pub. by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.) p. 59, pp. 60-61. Andrew and Peter leave their nets, valuable income producing property, on the lake shore to follow Jesus. James and John leave their father and his business, their own future livelihood, to answer Jesus’ call. While the fishermen were hardly wealthy, they were not poverty stricken either. They were men who had established themselves in a life sustaining craft. It cannot be said that they flocked to Jesus out of sheer desperation. They left behind a reasonably secure existence for the sake of God’s reign. As Hooker points out, Peter’s boast in Mark 10:28 is not an idle one. Ibid at p. 61.

This story has always proven to be problematic for the post-Constantine church whose role has been to provide ideological support for commerce, the family and all of the other critical institutions of the empire. Our Lutheran doctrine of the “two kingdoms” epitomizes the schizophrenic consequences of trying to pour the new wine of God’s reign into the old skins of Caesar’s empire. In theory, God has two hands. With one, God offers salvation by grace through faith by the work of the church. With the other hand, God ordains civil governments to maintain a semblance of order in a sinful world so that the work of the church can flourish unhindered by violence, chaos and oppression. Sounds good on paper, but when you raise a young person for eighteen years to love enemies, forgive wrongs and to view all people as persons created in God’s image and then turn him over to the armed forces to be made into a killing machine-what you get is PTSD. To a lesser degree, we have highly conflicted individuals in professions like law, business and medicine designed to generate profit whatever else their guiding principles might say. Sending young people into this jungle with instructions to practice their professions for Jesus may help boost sales for valium, but does little to promote discipleship or proclaim the reign of God.

In this day and age, the empire has figured out that it can get along famously without the church. Individuals over the last several decades have been making the same discovery and leaving us in droves. Instead of inducing institutional panic, this development ought to be greeted with thanksgiving. Now that we are finally free from having to prop up Caesar’s kingdom, we can hear anew the call of Jesus to live under God’s gentle and peaceful reign.

Sunday, January 4th

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SECOND SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS

Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 147:12-20
Ephesians 1:3-14
John 1:1-18

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Almighty God, you have filled all the earth with the light of your incarnate Word. By your grace empower us to reflect your light in all that we do, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Although I will be preaching from the texts for the Second Sunday of Christmas, we will be observing the Epiphany of our Lord at Trinity on Sunday, January 4th. I believe the gospel lesson is particularly appropriate for the day. The word “epiphany” comes from the Greek verb,” epiphanein,” to “reveal” or “make manifest.” That is precisely what John’s gospel does with Jesus. John unwraps Jesus slowly, deliberately and with great tenderness as one might unwrap a precious gift. He describes Jesus as “the light of men,” telling us that the “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

The light ought to bring us joy. I don’t know about you, but I derive a good bit of comfort knowing that the shortest day of the year is behind us and that, from here on out, the days will be getting longer and the nights shorter. While I have never been diagnosed with seasonal affective disorder, I know that I thrive on light. For me, the worst part of losing our power after Hurricane Sandy was the darkness. Even during the day it seemed we were always moving about in semi-darkness. Nothing was more maddening than reactively flipping on the light switch to no avail. What a delight it was when the power came back flooding the house with light!

But John tells us that the world is less than thrilled with the light of Jesus. “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.” Why would anyone shun the light? The answer comes to us later in the gospel when John tells us: “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” The problem with light is that it reveals everything-even the stuff we prefer not to see. I would rather not know what my country does to people in musty dungeons far “off the grid” in the name of fighting terrorism. I would prefer not to know who made the items I buy, or under what sort of working conditions they were made or how the workers making them were compensated. I would rather not believe that racism pervades the culture in which I live, making me blind to the injustice and pain experienced by people of color in my land. But the truth cannot be had piecemeal. It’s an all or nothing proposition. The light illuminates all things indiscriminately, good, bad and ugly.

Still, for all the pain, embarrassment and discomfort the light can bring, it is nevertheless “life.” So says John the Evangelist. To those who receive Jesus, to all who are willing to be instructed by him, exposed by him and transformed by him, “he gives power to become the children of God.” Knowing Jesus is knowing the heart of God whose desire is not our destruction, but our salvation. That gives us the courage we need to see ourselves and our world, not as we fancy them to be, but as they truly are. Knowing Jesus also reveals to us all that our world can and will be. It may take our eyes some time to adjust to the light, accustomed as they are to the darkness. Indeed, our initial reaction to the light might very well be to avert our gaze, cover our eyes and remain in the darkness. But, in the words of the hymn: “Morning dispels, gently compels, and we’re drawn to the light of God.” “Drawn to the Light,” John C. Ylvisaker, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, # 593. May it be so!

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Our lesson is taken from Jeremiah’s “Book of Consolation,” consisting of Jeremiah 30:1-31:40. These oracles are thought to have been collected by Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch, and reflect the period between 622 B.C.E. and 609 B.C.E. During this period the Southern Kingdom of Judah was under the reign of King Josiah who, during the collapse of the Assyrian Empire, manage to restore Judah to independence and to a measure of national prominence. Under his leadership, Judah was able to annex much of the land once occupied by the Northern Kingdom of Israel that had been destroyed and occupied by Assyria in 622 B.C.E. Jeremiah was probably a young man or perhaps just a boy when the Northern Kingdom fell. He laments that calamity with these memorable lines: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” Jeremiah 31:15. Rachel, of course, was the second wife of Jacob and the mother of Joseph. The northern tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh trace their lineage through Rachel and Joseph. Matthew’s gospel cites to this verse to express the grief of Bethlehem over the slaughter of its male children by Herod the Great. Matthew 2:18.

This section of Jeremiah, unlike so much of his work, reflects the joy and comfort available to the “remnant” from the Northern Kingdom now that they have been liberated from the yolk of Assyria. The Assyrians carried many of the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom into Exile throughout their empire. II Kings 17:1-6. Jeremiah voices an expectation that the new state of affairs brought about through Josiah’s annexation of what was once Israel will allow these exiles to return home. Vss. 10-11.

Jeremiah is clear that the northern tribes have no one but themselves to blame for their fate. The Assyrian conquest came upon Israel “because your guilt is great, because your sins are flagrant.” For this reason, God dealt her “the blow of an enemy.” Vs. 14. Yet even God’s punishment is an act of mercy designed to bring about repentance and faith. Thus, Israel ought not to complain that her “hurt is incurable.” Vs. 12. “For I will restore health to you,” says the Lord, “and your wounds I will heal.” Vs. 17. Assyria ought not to think that, because its military oppression has served as God’s instrument of discipline, it will suffer no consequences for its ruthlessness. This brutal empire will soon get a taste of its own medicine. God assures the oppressed northerners that “all who devour you shall be devoured, and all your foes, every one of them, shall go into captivity; those who despoil you shall become a spoil, and all who prey on you I will make a prey.” Vs. 16. That is precisely what occurred in 626 B.C.E. when the Babylonian general, Nabaplausur, took Assyria’s capital city, Nineveh.

The resulting relief given to Judah and other smaller countries of the Middle East was short lived. Recognizing the destabilizing threat posed by the rise of Babylon, Egypt’s Pharaoh Neco led his army north in order to prop up what remained of the Assyrian forces. According to the account in II Kings, Neco had no interest in engaging Judah but, for reasons best known to himself, King Josiah felt it necessary to confront the Egyptian army. The battle ended badly for Judah with the death of King Josiah and loss of independence to Egyptian vassalage. II Kings 23:29-30. According to II Chronicles 35:25, Jeremiah uttered a lament for this fallen king. No such oracle can be found, however, in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah itself. Though it is quite possible that Jeremiah supported the religious reforms introduced by Josiah according to II Kings 23, it is likely that he felt they did not go far enough. In his preaching Jeremiah called for a change of heart commensurate with ritual practice. Torah was to be inscribed upon the hearts of the people under a new covenant. Jeremiah 31:31-34.

Jeremiah’s hope for the enslaved and exiled northern tribes did not come to fruition in his life time. Indeed, he lived to see also the conquest and exile of his own nation of Judah. Yet the people of Israel continued to find hope and direction from Jeremiah’s words and do so to this very day. Faithful readers of the scriptures know that prophecies are often fulfilled in ways greater and more wonderful than the biblical authors themselves could have imagined. The new heaven and the new earth foreshadowed in Jesus’ resurrection is quite beyond our own grasp. To the extent the scriptural witnesses can speak of the new creation at all, they must resort to parables, poems and apocalyptic imagery. Prophesy is designed, not to foretell the future, but to enlarge our imaginations so that we can recognize in the future the redemptive intent of our God.

Psalm 147:12-20

As I find it altogether impossible to appreciate the verses making up Sunday’s lesson without taking Psalm 147 in its entirety, I will do so. I encourage you to read the whole psalm as well. Like the group of praise psalms to which it belongs consisting of Psalms 146-150, this psalm begins with the words, “Praise the LORD!” Or “Hallelujah” as pronounced in the Hebrew. Vs. 1

“How good it is” “Kee Tov.” An exclamation that is likewise used throughout the Psalms to express what is “good,” “right,” or “fitting.” E.g., “O give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good” Psalm 136:1; “O give thanks unto the LORD; for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever” Psalm 106:1.

“The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel.” Vs. 2. This verse pinpoints the composition of the psalm to Israel’s post-exilic period, probably between 510 B.C.E. and 400 B.C.E. After the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 587 B.C.E., the leading citizens of the Southern Kingdom of Judah were carried away into Babylon where they lived as forced immigrants for nearly 70 years. Israel’s longing and hope for return from exile never died, however. In 539 B.C.E. Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon. Cyrus, who lived from 580 B.C.E.-529 B.C.E., was the first Achaemenian Emperor of Persia. He issued a decree providing, among other things, that Babylon’s captive peoples were free to return to their homelands to restore their shrines and worship traditions. Inscribed on a clay cylinder, it has come to be known as the first declaration of Human Rights. This artifact is in the custody of the British Museum. A replica is also on display at the United Nations in New York. Known as “The Kurash Prism,” this decree reads as follows:

“I am Kurash [ “Cyrus” ], King of the World, Great King, Legitimate King, King of Babilani, King of Kiengir and Akkade, King of the four rims of the earth, Son of Kanbujiya, Great King, King of Hakhamanish, Grandson of Kurash, Great king, King of Hakhamanish, descendant of Chishpish, Great king, King of Hakhamanish, of a family which always exercised kingship; whose rule Bel and Nebo love, whom they want as king to please their hearts. When I entered Babilani as a friend and when I established the seat of the government in the palace of the ruler under jubilation and rejoicing, Marduk, the great lord, induced the magnanimous inhabitants of Babilani to love me, and I was daily endeavoring to worship him…. As to the region from as far as Assura and Susa, Akkade, Eshnunna, the towns Zamban, Me-turnu, Der as well as the region of the Gutians, I returned to these sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris the sanctuaries of which have been ruins for a long time, the images which used to live therein and established for them permanent sanctuaries. I also gathered all their former inhabitants and returned them to their habitations. Furthermore, I resettled upon the command of Marduk, the great lord, all the gods of Kiengir and Akkade whom Nabonidus had brought into Babilani to the anger of the lord of the gods, unharmed, in their former temples, the places which make them happy.” Internet Ancient History Sourcebook.

“He heals the broken-hearted, and binds up their wounds.” Vs. 3. This is a particularly moving verse and a source of great comfort to people in all kinds of circumstances. Though this psalm is one of praise glorifying God for all the great things God has done, the psalmist is mindful that songs of praise arise from deliverance out of circumstances of dire need. The psalmist who composed this beautiful hymn of praise celebrating a keen awareness of God’s presence is also mindful that we sometimes experience God’s seeming absence. S/he has also had occasion to pray, “Out of the depths have I called Thee, O LORD.” Psalm 130:1.

“Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.” Vs. 5. Compare and contrast this affirmation to that of Cyrus in the Prisim. It is the God of Israel who makes the stars in the sky. This God’s understanding and power are beyond measure-unlike the gods to which Cyrus refers whose power is limited to their geographic domains. We see again the contrast between ancient Mid Eastern religion and that of Israel in verse 6. Cyrus feels that he must return the images of all of the god’s held in Babylon to their rightful temples in order to placate them and earn success. Little does he know that his success was ordained by Israel’s God long before he arrived in Babylon! See Isaiah 45:1-3. Moreover, it is not by placating God, whether by sacrifices or obedience to the law, that the earth produces food for people and animals. God does this of his own volition, regardless of what people do or do not do. Vss. 8-9. “[God’s] delight is not in the strength of a horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man; but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.” Vss. 10-11. By contrast, the Prism reflects a belief that divine favor is manifested in military victory and that power and prosperity are signs of divine favor. But that is not the case. God’s favor is found in his mercy toward those who humbly rely upon his promises and look to him for all their needs.

Our lesson, consisting of verses 12-20, declares that God’s greatest work does not lie in any of his marvelous doings in nature, but in his relationship with Israel which has been blessed by God’s commandments and statutes. This is what distinguishes Israel among the peoples. As Israel learned through bitter experience, neither her land, her temple nor her king were essential to her existence as a people. Israel lost all of these things in the Babylonian conquest. What Israel did not lose and can never lose are God’s covenant promises to her and God’s declaration that Israel will forever be his people. God remains faithful to his promises even when God’s chosen people depart form theirs. So it continues to be. The word and promise spoken to us in our baptisms is irrevocable. The psalm appropriately ends exactly as it began: “Hallelujah”

Ephesians 1:3-14

In the lesson for today from the Letter to the Ephesians, the writer articulates an unmistakable belief in predestination. It is critical, however, to understand this teaching within the total context of the letter. “With all wisdom and insight [God] has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Vss. 8-10. Consequently, the church is not the select few that God has graciously decided to snatch from the deck of a sinking ship. God’s concern is not merely with particular passengers, but with the entire ship. Thus, to be predestined for faith in Jesus is not to be elevated to a position of special privilege. It is instead a commission to witness and embody the plan God has for all people. Thus, the church is the first fruits of and a testimony to God’s plan to “gather up all things in heaven and on earth.” Vs. 10.

I believe that this is particularly pertinent to the observation of Epiphany during which we are compelled to recognize how, as non-Jewish believers, we come into the covenant relationship God has with Israel by Jesus’ gracious invitation. We are not here by right. That has recently come to shape the way I express hospitality toward visitors to my congregation whose relationship to Christ, faith and the church are tenuous at best. At our Christmas Eve Eucharist, my daughter Emily preached a first rate sermon using the example of children’s Christmas pageants in order to illustrate our desire for participation in the drama of the Nativity. This worship service, I should say, was an outreach experiment designed to appeal to families with small children in our community. I was pleased to see that at least half the participants were folks I had never seen before.

When it came time for Holy Communion, a couple of these families came forward to receive. I handed the host to a woman followed by two children. “I’m not sure we should be here,” she said. “We are not baptized or anything.” I always wondered what I would do in a circumstance like this. After all, I have always been taught and believed that Baptism is the door by which we are born into the church and Eucharist is the feast of the baptized. But here was an unbaptized person who had just heard and was accepting our invitation to participate in the mystery of the Incarnation. What else could I say but what I said? “Yes, you should be here. This is still Christ’s Body given for you.” To say anything less would have been to place a stumbling block in the way of Christ. I am currently working on re-writing the invitation to the Lord’s Table used in our worship bulletin.

John 1:1-18

“When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to catch whole for they will break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book-to open the page and let the stories crawl in by themselves.” John Steinbeck from his novel, Cannery Row.

I think that is perhaps the best way to describe how John writes his gospel. Rather than relating the story of Jesus’ birth, John gives us a poem about the miracle of the Incarnation filled with many opposite, contrasting and complementary images that will be developed and brought into sharper focus throughout the following narrative. Light and darkness; being and nothingness; knowledge and ignorance; belief and unbelief; birth from flesh and birth from God. All of these images and terms will find further expression and deeper meaning as the story of Jesus unfolds. For now, though, they swim about together in the rich primordial soil of John’s imaginative lyrics. We must wait for them to ooze out and show themselves for what they truly are.

John begins with the declaration that the Word was both with God in the beginning and was God. This is entirely consistent with the Hebrew Scriptures which speak of God’s Word as “coming” and “accomplishing.” See, e.g., Jeremiah 1:2; Isaiah 55:11. God is not merely as good as God’s Word. God is God’s Word. Yet even though the same as God, the Word is somehow distinguishable from God. So far, I think, our Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers might agree with John.

But then John goes on to tell us something remarkable. “The Word became flesh.” The Word became a human person such that the invisible God is now visible. Here, I believe, is where the church’s confession parts company with our Abrahamic sisters and brothers. If we are going to say that God has a Son, it seems to follow inevitably that there must be at least two gods. Yet John (along with the rest of the New Testament writers) maintains that God is one. The church has struggled with this enormously counterintuitive confession from the onset, rejecting numerous more plausible alternative understandings. At the heart of the Incarnation stands this one scandalous truth: God is visible and God is human. The Incarnation was not a temporary state into which God entered for a single lifetime. It was not merely a clever disguise. In Jesus, God became irrevocably human and remains so. That is why John can say in his First Letter, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” I John 4:20.

The inescapable conclusion is that to rend the flesh of another human being is to rend the flesh of God. To ridicule, excoriate or insult another human being is to blaspheme God. God cannot be harmed or insulted by the removal of a crèche or a cross from public lands, disrespect for the Bible or desecration of a sanctuary. Only by harming the persons created to bear God’s image and for whom the Son of God died can God’s self be injured. When that becomes clear, it is equally clear by how far much of what passes for Christianity these days misses the mark. Something is seriously out of whack when we grieve more over the removal of humanly designed plastic figures of Jesus from the park than we do for the homeless people created by God in God’s image who are still sleeping there.

One of the most significant words in this section is that word “dwelt” or “lived” as the New Revised Standard Version has it. Vs. 14. Both translations fall short of the actual Greek word “skaiano” which means literally to “tent with” or “tabernacle with.” The word conjures up images of the tent of presence in which God dwelt among the people of Israel on their journey to the Promised Land. This powerful image of Jesus as God’s presence gets lost in the English translation!

There is far more that could be said about this section of John. Nearly every word in John’s gospel is freighted with meaning that accumulates like the mass of a snowball rolling downhill. For those of us who will be observing the Feast of Epiphany on Sunday, the contrast between light and darkness is particularly meaningful.

Sunday, December 28th

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FIRST SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS

Isaiah 61:10—62:3
Psalm 148
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:22-40

PRAYER OF THE DAY

Almighty God, you wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and yet more wonderfully restored it. In your mercy, let us share the divine life of the one who came to share our humanity, Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

The Sunday after Christmas is usually a bust in my congregation-at least as far as attendance is concerned. We are all worn out from celebrating Advent with midweek Eucharist in addition to our Sunday services. Top that off with two Christmas Eve Services, add on all of the craziness of the “holiday season” we cannot seem to escape, and you have an exhausted congregation. Yet there are always some who manage to come to church just the same. Do they come simply out of habit? A lingering sense of duty left over from the society in which they came of age? Or do they come because they are expecting something real? Perhaps the good news about the Incarnation was heard over the holiday din. Maybe these are folks like Anna and Simeon who continue coming to the holy place even though the high holidays are over. Maybe they are present because they believe the promise that the Christ child will be revealed to them, if only they cling persistently to this little community having audacity to call itself the “Body of Christ.”

Of course, I can’t see into people’s hearts, but I have discovered that it’s a good deal easier to preach once Christmas is past. Suddenly, I am not competing anymore with a million alternatives to church that are more interesting, gratifying and attractive. Suddenly, I am not faced with an audience that I have just one or two chances to reach. I am among my own people now. I am with folks who understand that the miracle of the Incarnation dawns slowly. They don’t expect me to reveal the whole truth in a single sermon. In fact, most of these folks would keep on coming if they never heard anything worthwhile from my mouth. It’s not really about me. It’s about the child. It’s about God’s promise that we will see him in water, word and holy eating. We are the ones still looking for a new heaven and a new earth when the party is over, the carols have ceased and the tree is out on the curb.

We read in our gospel lesson that Anna spoke of the Christ child “to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” The implication is that some folks were not looking for such redemption. Perhaps they had given up. Maybe they no longer believed that their poor city, firmly under the boot heels of Rome, was capable of redemption. Perhaps most of the people passing through the temple precincts that day thought Anna a bit daft. Religion is a fine thing, to be sure. But this old woman seems a little too fixated on it. Who on earth would spend a lifetime in prayer? Doesn’t this woman have a job? Family? Grandchildren to take care of? I expect that a lot of folks walked past Anna just the way most of us would pass a raving lunatic on the street. Pick up the pace, don’t make eye contact and continue on to your destination without looking back.

But some people apparently were looking for the same thing Anna was seeking. For some people, her words struck a chord of recognition. They evidently saw in her hunger, her yearning a reflection of their own need. So they stopped. They listened. They came near to see the infant squirming in Simeon’s arms. I have no idea how many of these people there were. A crowd? Just a handful? However many or few may have been gathered around the ancient prophetess, there were at least some left in Jerusalem that could still dream. The last embers of hope had not yet been extinguished. They still have not been extinguished. That is because our faithful God continues to send us prophets like Anna to fan them into white hot flame just when it seems they are about to go cold. That’s incredibly good news for those of us who will be gathering this Sunday.

Isaiah 61:10—62:3

The text comes to us from what scholars typically call “Trito-Isaiah” or Third Isaiah constituting chapters 56-66 in the Book of Isaiah. This section of oracles is principally the work of a prophet who ministered after the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon, but before reconstruction of the temple in Jerusalem. In terms of dating, this time period runs from 530 B.C.E. to 510 B.C.E. Our particular lesson is a continuation of the “core” section of Third Isaiah, the beginning of which we saw in our lesson for the Third Sunday of Advent. See my post for December 14th for background information.

Having just delivered an oracle of salvation in the voice of the Lord (vss. 8-9), the prophet now breaks into a psalm of praise in his own voice. S/he declares that God has “clothed” him or her with “salvation” and “righteousness.” Vs. 61:10. To Lutherans like me, this language suggests the righteousness and salvation won for us through Jesus’ innocent suffering and death, i.e., vicarious satisfaction, substitutionary atonement, etc. But the theology of substitutionary atonement is not a good fit for this oracle (nor is it a good fit for any scriptural text, but that is a topic for another day). Here God’s salvation refers specifically to God’s gracious act of restoring the exiles to their homeland and God’s promise to exalt Israel among the nations. Because the proclamation of God’s word and the fulfilment of that word are viewed by the prophet as a single continuous act, the prophet bearing the word is clothed with the salvation and righteousness the word is destined to bring about. It is the prophet’s identification with God’s word, his or her soul’s exalting in God that clothes him or her in righteousness and salvation. Vs. 61:10. Of course, it is not only the prophet who will be so clothed. “Righteousness and praise” will spring forth before “all the nations.” Vs. 61:11. As surely as the earth brings forth vegetation, so will the word of God the prophet proclaims bring forth righteousness that will embrace the world and incite praise. Vs. 61: 11.

“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent…” Vs. 62:1. Who is speaking here? Is this a continuation of the prophet’s discourse? Or are we now hearing the voice of the Lord? Does it matter? Most commentators believe that the words in chapter 62 are spoken in the voice of the prophet. Westermann, Claus, Isaiah 40-66, The Old Testament Library (c. 1969 by SCM Press Ltd) p. 374 citing Voltz, P., Iesaja, Leipzig, 1932. However that might be, I agree with Westermann that this sentence must be understood as a reply to the classical Hebrew lament, “How Long?” best illustrated throughout Psalm 13. “How long wilt thou forget me?” “How long wilt thou hide thyself from me?” “How long must I bear pain in my soul?” “How long shall the enemy be exalted over me?” The prophet’s/God’s response is “not much longer.”

It is important that the nations see Israel’s vindication. Vs. 62:2. The rebirth of a righteous people exalted by God makes known to the world the heart and gracious intent of God for all peoples. In much the same way, the resurrection of Jesus vindicates the community called church shaped by the Sermon on the Mount and suffering as a consequence of so living. It is not the great empires that “fret[] and strut[]” their hour upon the stage and are heard from no more that reflect God’s glory and implement God’s design. It is the people of the covenant living faithfully under the gracious reign of their God who embody God’s future for all humankind. Life within the covenant is God’s alternative way of being human.

“You shall be called by a new name, which the Lord your God will give you.” Vs. 62:2. A new name signifies a change in status. God changes Abram’s name (meaning exalted father) to Abraham (father of nations or peoples). Genesis 17:5. Jacob is re-named Israel. Genesis 32:28. The names “Forsaken” and “desolate,” often given to Israel by the prophets in their declarations of judgment, will no longer apply. Instead, the people will be called “My Delight is in her” and “Married” (as opposed to divorced or abandoned). Vs. 4 (not in our reading).

“You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.” Vs. 3. Note well that the symbol of God’s sovereignty is a people without an army and without any sovereign status. God exercises God’s power through God’s covenant relationship with Israel. Divine sovereignty is exercised by the power of example rather than by an example of power. The prophet therefore calls into question the church’s Constantinian assumptions about the necessity of state sanctioned violence to establish and maintain order. More specifically for us Lutherans, the prophet puts the lie to our understanding of the state as God’s instrument of civil peace enabling the church to undertake its spiritual mission. As I have said many times before, pacifism is not one of many biblical themes. It is the biblical theme that finds its ultimate expression in the cross.

Psalm 148

This psalm is one of a group (Psalms 146-150) that begins and ends with the expression of praise, “hallelujah” or “Praise YAHWEH.” It is beautifully structured. The injunctions to praise begin with the heavens, the angels, the sun, moon and starts descending to the earth and its creatures. The forces of nature, geographical features (mountains and hills) and plant life all are called to join in the choir of praise to God. All people from mighty kings, to slave girls to small children are drawn into this cosmic hymn of praise to the Creator. Finally, the call to praise is directed to “the people of Israel who are near to him.” Vs. 14. The perfect symmetry of this psalm is further illustrated by its final focus on this one particular people who, though at the narrowest end of the spectrum, are nonetheless “near” to the almighty Creator God.

Vs. 1 “Praise the Lord!” or “Halleluiah” A refrain that appears again and again throughout the psalm. The word “Yah” is a Hebrew short form for the name “Yahweh.” “Hallel” is the word for praise or singing.

Vs. 2 “all his angels” or “Kol Melachw” in Hebrew literally translated means “all his messengers.” “All his hosts” or “Cal Zaboth” likely refers to angelic beings. The similar term, “Yahweh Zaboth,” is common throughout the Old Testament and is often translated “Lord of Hosts.” It can also be translated “Lord of Armies” or “Lord of the heavenly beings.”

Vs. 3 “Cal Cochav Or” or “all you points of light.” The stars are called to give praise to God as are the sun and moon. This is reminiscent of a passage in the book of Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?” Job 38:4-7.

Vs. 4 “You waters that are above the heavens.” Here we see a reference to ancient cosmology-the understanding of the earth as subsisting inside of a great bubble with the waters above held back by the sky and those beneath confined to the sea bed. Though perhaps not entirely consistent with our 21st Century understanding of the cosmos, it nevertheless displays a profound recognition that our existence is precarious and preserved only by the creative Word of the Lord holding all of the destructive forces of nature in check.

“He commanded and they were created.” Vs. 5. See Genesis 1 in which the universe is called into being by the command, “Let there be!” In verse 6 the psalmist declares that God “established them forever and ever; he fixed their bounds which cannot be passed.” There is an echo here of Yahweh’s promise to Noah: “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And when the LORD smelt the pleasing odor, the LORD said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.’” Genesis 8: 20-22.

“Ye sea monsters and all deeps” Vs. 7. In Canaanite mythology, the sea monster Tiamat was an evil symbol of chaos that reigned before creation. We can hear an echo of that in Genesis 1:2 where the pre-creation state of things is referred to as “Tohu Vabohu” or “without form and void.” In the Canaanite creation myth, Tiamat is defeated in a great battle with the sky god Maraduk. There is no “struggle” in the creation story, however. When God speaks, the waters withdraw and order is introduced into the universe. Fire, hail, snow and ice-all potentially destructive forces-were very much feared in a culture of subsistence farmers. Vs. 8. Yet even these powers serve the will of God. In verses 9-10 we are reminded of the creation account in Genesis chapter 1 where God creates each species according to its kind, including the “creeping things.”

In verses 11-12 “kings and princes of all the earth” give praise to God. This is reminiscent of the universal appeal found in Second Isaiah: “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow every tongue shall swear.’” Isaiah 45:22-23.

“He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him.” Vss. 13-14. The psalm comes to a climax with praise to God for what he has done for Israel. This is quite by design. Though Israel surely recognized her God as Lord of Creation, God’s saving power and loving kindness are demonstrated not chiefly in the realm of nature, but in the realm of history. It was in the Exodus that God showed Himself as the God of mercy who glories in raising up the slave and putting down the mighty. It is through God’s faithfulness to his covenant with Israel that God makes himself known as the God who keeps promises. So also in the New Testament God demonstrates that God is not merely “as good as His Word,” but that God in fact is God’s Word. See John 1:1-18.

Galatians 4:4-7

For background information on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, see Summary Article by James Boyce, Professor of New Testament and Greek at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN on enterthebible.org. Our lesson is a summarization of the main point Paul is making in this letter. Our salvation is relational. That is to say, we are redeemed not by adherence to the letter of the law, but through trusting Jesus, God’s Son through whom we have been adopted as God’s children. Paul contrasts the master/slave relationship governed by law, threat and the fear of punishment with the parent/child relationship that is grounded in parental love inspiring trust on the part of the child.

It is important to understand that Paul is not antinomian or hostile to Torah. The relationship between parent and child is not without boundaries, rules and expectations. The difference is that, as between parent and child, the rules serve the relationship. The relationship is not defined by the rules. That is enormously important because a lot of religion these days, much of it going under the name of Christianity, is more about rules than it is about our relationship with Jesus. For too many people, the Bible is essentially a rule book. The problem with that approach lies with the Bible itself. Its rules are frequently contradictory and always contextual. Nobody keeps all the rules in the Bible. So which ones do we keep? If you are going to raise up one passage out of Leviticus to condemn male homosexual conduct as “abominable,” don’t you have to say the same for people who eat lobster, also an abomination? See Leviticus 11:9-12; Leviticus 18:22. Which abominations are more abominable and why? As long as you maintain that the Bible is a rule book, you will never get past that argument.

Jesus makes clear that, while there are rules in the Bible and that these rules must be taken seriously, not all rules are equal. When asked which commandment was the greatest, Jesus replied that there are two that tower over all the rest: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Mark 12:28-34. If you interpret the Torah in any manner such that it detracts from love for God and compassion for your neighbor or if you construe the scriptures in ways that drive people away from God’s loving embrace, you have got it wrong. That is why I say repeatedly (and most often in vain) to people who insist that biblical provisions preclude full inclusion of GLBT persons, “Look, you can scream ‘Bible, Bible, Bible’ in my face until hell freezes over and I’m going to keep replying “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Either you use (abuse) people to serve the interests of the particular law that suits your fancy, or you put the whole law to work in the service of God and your neighbor. That is the very issue Paul addresses in his Letter to the Galatians.

Luke 2:22-40

Luke seems to be conflating a couple of Hebrew Scriptural traditions in this lesson. The first is the rite of purification for Mary following the birth of Jesus. This requirement is spelled out in Leviticus 12. The second is the required ransom of the firstborn. Exodus 13:1-16; Exodus 34:18-20; Numbers 18:16. The offering of “a pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons” clearly pertains to the purification. No mention is made of the five shekel fee required to redeem a first born male child. It appears, though, that Luke is far more concerned with getting Jesus into the Temple than he is with explaining whatever ritual purpose might have brought him there. Luke’s purpose appears to be that of echoing the presentation of Samuel “to the house of the Lord at Shiloh.” I Samuel 1:24. Brown, Raymond E., The Birth of the Messiah-A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke, (c. 1977 by Raymond E. Brown, pub. Doubleday & Company) pp. 450-451. Just as the shrine at Shiloh was the backdrop for Samuel’s consecration, so the temple serves as the staging for Jesus’ initiation into God’s service.

Luke’s gospel both begins and ends in the temple. The story opens with Zechariah’s service in the temple and ends with the disciples returning to the temple “blessing God” following Jesus’ ascension. Luke 1:5-25; Luke 24:50-53. When Jesus goes MIA during a family pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he is found in the temple “about his Father’s business.” Luke 2:41-51. It may be that in drawing the implied parallel between the sanctuary at Shiloh (destroyed by the Philistines) and the temple in Jerusalem, Luke is foreshadowing the temple’s destruction by the Romans in 70 C.E. I must add that I have not found any commentary to support me on this. I may well be reading too much into the text. Nonetheless, I cannot help but believe that Luke has some literary/theological purpose in mind with all of his temple episodes.

Significantly, the main actors in this temple drama are not the priests responsible for performing the rites that allegedly drew the family to the temple in the first place. It is the prophetic voice of old Simeon that articulates Jesus’ calling. Vss. 25-35. Through revelation of some kind, Simeon has learned that he will see the Lord’s messiah before his dying day. Vs. 26. The Holy Spirit leads Simeon to the temple where his prophetic vision is fulfilled. Now he can die in peace.

Simeon’s song of blessing anchors Jesus’ mission in Israel’s longing for salvation and her hope for a renewed existence. He was, after all, “looking for the consolation of Israel” and found it in Jesus. Vs. 25. Yet Simeon’s words to the effect that God’s salvation has been prepared “in the presence of all peoples” and that the messiah is to be “a light for revelation to the gentiles” foreshadow the movement of the church in the Book of Acts beyond the scope of Israel. Vs. 31. The cross is also foreshadowed by Simeon’s warning to Mary that “a sword shall pierce through your heart also.” Vs. 35.

The other main actor in this drama is Anna, daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. “Anna” is the Greek equivalent of “Hannah,” the mother of Samuel. It appears that from the death of her husband early in their marriage, Anna has been living a life of devotion to prayer and religious observance. The suggestion that she might have belonged to a religious community of widows providing service to the temple is interesting, but lacking in evidential support of any kind. Like Simeon, she was looking for “the redemption of Jerusalem.” Vs. 38. Whereas Simeon appears to have been speaking principally to Mary, Anna speaks of the child Jesus to all who, like her, anticipate the salvation of Israel.

Sunday, November 30th

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FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come. By your merciful protection awaken us to the threatening dangers of our sins, and keep us blameless until the coming of your new day, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Impatience is the unifying thread running through Sunday’s lessons. The prophet Isaiah pleads with God to tear open the heavens, come down and end the suffering of his people. The psalmist asks “how long” his people’s oppression will last. Paul must comfort the church at Corinth with the assurance that God’s Spirit will sustain it until the Day of Jesus Christ. Finally, Jesus encourages his disciples to recognize the signs of his coming in glory and find comfort in them as they wait for that day. These are all words for people who have grown tired of waiting.

I can relate to that. I have spent too much of my time waiting in traffic, waiting at the checkout counter as the elderly fellow in front of me insists on paying for his purchases in pennies, waiting in doctors’ offices, waiting in long lines. But these instances of waiting are mild annoyances. As a white male accustomed to privileges I don’t even recognize, I will never know what it is like for a person of color living with discrimination that in our age is often invisible though nonetheless real. I have never experienced what it is like to compete as a woman in professions long dominated by men. I cannot even imagine what it must be like to have to hide your sexual identity, conceal the love that others celebrate with weddings, showers and engagement parties. I expect these folks have their own psalms of lament. How long, O Lord? How long before I can walk into a store without attracting the attention of store detectives just because I am the wrong color? How long before my work and my accomplishments are valued and rewarded? How long before I can kiss the one I love without having to look over my shoulder?

These are the bitter sweet songs of Advent. Bitter because biblical honesty refuses to let us deny that the world is far from what God would have it be. Sweet because the narrative of Jesus’ obedient life, faithful death and glorious resurrection remind us that it doesn’t have to be this way-and will not always be so.

On Saturday I was privileged to attend a celebration of the 16th Annual International Transgender Day of Remembrance at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Teaneck, NJ. There we recognized the lives of transgendered persons who were murdered this last year because of who they were. Two hundred ninety seven names appeared on the printed program. These represent only the persons we know of, each with a story that ended violently and too soon. Yet we were all present together on that evening, transgendered, gay, lesbian, people of color and perfectly conventional white protestant ministers like me. Our act of gathering, singing together and joining hands demonstrated that the world need not be a place where people are killed for being different. Perhaps this event was one of those fig blossoms Jesus talks about in Sunday’s gospel telling us that the Advent of our God is near-at the very gates.

The gathering ended with our singing together the old civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.” In recent years that song has been dismissed as overly simplistic, naïve and optimistic. If all we had in front of us were the names of the two hundred ninety seven dead, that might be so. If we had no hope other than a bland faith in the inevitability of progress, then the song would indeed be self-deceiving. But that is not all there is-at least not for those of us who follow Jesus. We shall overcome because Jesus overcame. The road might be longer than any of us imagines. There may be set backs and reversals. Much, perhaps all of what we hope for will not materialize in our own lifetimes or the lifetimes of our children. But as St. Paul reminds us, our Lord Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us, is here to “sustain us to the end.” Even the anguished cry, “How long?” testifies to a confident belief that, however long we might have to wait, we will not be waiting forever.

Isaiah 64:1-9

The fifty sixth chapter of the Book of Isaiah opens into what scholars agree is a third collection of prophetic oracles separate from the prophet Isaiah of the 8th Century B.C.E. (Isaiah 1-39) and Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55) who prophesied toward the end of the Babylonian Exile. These prophesies, comprising what is commonly called “Third Isaiah” (Isaiah 56-66), come from a period beginning shortly after the return of the exiled Jews from Babylon in 539 B.C.E., but before the rebuilding of the temple in about 515 B.C.E. The band of exiles, inspired by the poetic promises of Second Isaiah to brave the dangerous journey across the Iraqi desert from Babylon to Palestine, arrived home to find Jerusalem in ruins and the land inhabited by hostile tribes. The Eden like path through the desert promised by Second Isaiah did not materialize. Life in Palestine proved to be difficult, dangerous and unpromising. The people were understandably disappointed and demoralized. This was the tough audience to which Third Isaiah was called to appeal. A people led to such a desperate plight by their belief in a prophet’s promises were probably not in any mood to listen to yet another prophet! Third Isaiah opens with the words, “Maintain justice and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come.” Vs. 1. You can almost hear the people groaning in the background, “Oh no! Here we go again!”

The prayer of lament that constitutes our lesson is, according to Professor Claus Westermann, one of “the most powerful psalms of communal lamentation in the Bible.” Westermann, Claus, Isaiah 40-66, The Old Testament Library (c 1969 SCM Press Ltd.) p. 392. The prophet does not take lightly the disillusionment of his/her people. Speaking in the voice of the community, s/he cries out, “O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down…” vs. 1. Like the rest of the people, the prophet longs for God’s intervention. The prophet reminds God (as though God needed reminding!) that there was a time when God did act decisively on Israel’s behalf. The prophet alludes to the saving acts of God in the past. Though lacking in specificity, the prophet’s references to “terrible things that we looked not for” might well include the Exodus, the Conquest of Canaan, the triumphs of Samuel and David. Vss. 3-4. God acted then, so why not now?

Of course, the prophet knows and the people no doubt suspect that the reason for God’s silence is tied to their own lack of covenant faithfulness. Yet the people cannot help but feel that God’s anger is out of proportion to their offenses. In verse 5, the prophet cries out, “Behold, thou wast angry, and we sinned…” The order here is most curious. It almost seems as though the people attribute their sin to God’s anger. How can one believe in and trust a God whose wrath is so unsparing? No wonder that “no one calls upon [God’s] name, that bestirs himself to take hold of [God].” Vs. 7. It is God “who has delivered [Israel] into the hands of [her] iniquities.” Vs. 7.

Our reading ends with a plea for God not to be so exceedingly angry. Vs. 9 “Thou art our Father,” the prophet declares. “We are the clay, and thou our potter; we are the work of thy hand.” Vs. 8. In verses 11-12 (not in our reading) the prophet calls God’s attention to the holy city of Jerusalem and the once great temple of Solomon, now in ruins. The poem concludes with a haunting question: “Wilt thou restrain thyself at these things, O Lord? Wilt thou keep silent, and afflict us sorely?” vs. 12.

This prayer strikes a resonant note for an age that seems far removed from miracles and unequivocal words and acts of God. For a good many modern folk, the stories of the Exodus and the Resurrection are just that, stories. At best, they are metaphors for experiences that fit neatly within the narrow confines of our secular frame of reference. For the most part, though, they are archaic myths that we have long outgrown. Those of us who still believe long for the God of the Bible to “rend the heavens and come down” so that we might be assured that the line to mystery, revelation and renewal has not gone dead. Are we shouting frantically into a broken connection? Is there no longer any listening ear on the other end?

I would encourage you to read chapter 65 of Isaiah in addition to our lesson. There you will find God’s response. God, it seems, is equally frustrated by the lack of communication. “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me,” God replies. “I said, ‘Here am I, here am I,’ to a nation that did not call on my name.” Isaiah 65:1. Though God might not be responding with the fireworks Israel is seeking, God is responding nonetheless. So perhaps the problem is not with God’s silence, but with our lack of perception. Perhaps we cannot hear the word of the Lord because we have bought into the limited and limiting vision of empiricism. Perhaps the silence of God can be attributed to our lack of capacity to imagine, contemplate and be open to mystery. Maybe God is even now rending the heavens and coming down and we have only to open our eyes and look up to see the Advent of our God.

Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19

This is a psalm of lament. Mention of the tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh suggest that this was originally a psalm of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Dating is difficult. The portrait of the land of Israel as an abandoned vineyard with its defenses torn down and its fruit at the mercy of any passing beast certainly fits what must have been the case following the Assyrian conquest in 722 B.C.E. Nonetheless, we must keep in mind that the Northern Kingdom was considerably less stable politically than Judah under the line of David. It was also beset by its hostile neighbor, Syria, which frequently expanded its holdings into Israelite territory. Thus, it is entirely possible that this psalm dates from as early as the 9th Century. After the fall of the Northern Kingdom to Assyria, it is probable that this psalm and other literary traditions from the north were brought to the Southern Kingdom of Judah and incorporated into what ultimately became the Jewish scriptures. Anderson, Bernhard W., Out of the Depths-The Psalms Speak for us Today (c. 1983 by Bernhard E. Anderson, pub. by Westminster Press) p. 171.

As we saw in last week’s lesson from Ezekiel, the term “shepherd” is commonly associated with kings and rulers. “Enthroned upon the cherubim” (vs. 1) is an allusion to the presence of God symbolized by the Ark of the Covenant which had images of two of these heavenly beings on its cover. Exodus 25:17-22. Though the Ark had likely been captured or destroyed by this time and, in any event, would not have been in the possession of the Northern Kingdom, this term for God’s majesty lived on.

Like the psalm from Isaiah, this psalm also implores God to act and asks “how long wilt thou be angry with thy people’s prayers?” vs. 4. This is a common refrain throughout the psalms of lament. See, e.g., Psalm 13:1-2; Psalm 74:10; and Psalm 79:5. It seems as though God has abandoned his people to suffering and to the mockery of their enemies. As we see time and time again, Israel had no qualms about letting God know when she felt God was not holding up his end of the covenant. Yet as angry, disappointed and disillusioned as Israel sometimes was with her God, she never ceased speaking to God. As hard as it was for Israel to believe in God’s promises, it was harder simply to dismiss them. Israel knew that her ancestors lived for four hundred years as slaves in Egypt crying out for salvation before God sent Moses to deliver them. Israel knew that nearly all of those ancestors died on the long trek through the wilderness without seeing the Promised Land. Israel knew that in the past her ancestors had had to wait for God’s salvation. Why should things be any different now? With this knowledge and experience in her memory Israel cries out in the refrain found throughout this psalm, “Restore us, O God, let they face shine, that we may be saved!” vss. 3; 7 and 19.

In a culture that rewards speed, efficiency and instant satisfaction, the virtues of patience and persistence have little place. Praying to a God who acts in his own good time and for whom a thousand years is but a day has little appeal in the world of Burger King where you can have it your way right now. The Psalms remind us, however, that there is value in waiting. It is not just wasted time. Waiting gives us time to consider and contemplate that for which we pray. Those who practice prayer patiently and consistently know that one’s desires are transformed in the process. In the discipline of persistent and constant prayer, longings and desires are purified. We often discover in the process that what we thought we wanted, longed for and desired is not what we truly needed. By the time we recognize God’s answer to our prayer, our prayer has changed-and so have we. Waiting is perhaps the most important dimension of prayer.

As always, I urge you to read Psalm 80 in its entirety.

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

You might want to refresh your recollection concerning Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. To that end, I refer you to the Summary Article by Mary Hinkle Shore, Associate Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, M.N. on enterthebible.org.

Our reading for Sunday is a snippet from Paul’s greeting to the church in Corinth. Paul alludes herein to the matters to be dealt with in the body of his letter, namely, “knowledge,” “eloquence,” “spiritual gifts,” and “the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ” at the “Day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Of particular importance for the dawning of this Advent season is the promise of Christ to “sustain” us to the end. Vs. 8. Endurance is and always has been a key New Testament virtue. As I have said before, I do not believe there ever was a “crisis” in the early church prompted by the “delay of the second coming” (sometimes called “the Parousia”). I am convinced that the church understood from the witness of Jesus himself that the kingdom of God had come with power and glory in the cross and resurrection-but that in a sinful world the kingdom necessarily takes the shape of the cross. Though longed for, the consummation of the kingdom was not expected momentarily and the fact that it did not so occur did not occasion any “crisis of faith.” The God and Father of Jesus Christ was the God who sojourned with the patriarchs through their many years as foreigners in the Promised Land; the God who waited four hundred years before answering the cries of his enslaved people in Israel; the God who sat for seventy years in exile with his people and who sent his Son in the fullness of time. Patient longing has been part of the discipleship package from the start. It was not invented by the church to save its disillusioned members from their dashed hopes.

That means, of course, that disciples of Jesus must reconcile themselves to not knowing what time it is. The end (in the sense of Jesus becoming all in all) might come tomorrow. Yet again, it might not come for several more millennia. For all we know, tomorrow’s seminaries might include courses in space travel for pastoral leaders called to churches established at human colonies in far off star systems. Like the children of Israel in the wilderness, we do not know how long it will take for us to arrive at our destination, what the road ahead will look like or how we will know when we have arrived. Only patient, hopeful and confident trust in our Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, can sustain us on this journey.

Mark 13:24-37

The language employed by Jesus in our reading is similar to prophetic judgment and apocalyptic speech employed in the Hebrew Scriptures. As such, it is “more than metaphorical, less than literal.” Hooker, Morna D., The Gospel According to Saint Mark, Black’s New Testament Commentaries, Vol. 2 (c. 1991 by Morna D. Hooker, pub. by A&C Black, Limited) p. 319. The imagery suggests cosmic dissolution. The coming of the Son of Man in glory means the end of the world as we know it.

That said, I believe Mark is doing something unique with this section of his gospel. Jesus has said before that “this generation will not pass away before these things take place.” Vs. 30. See also Mark 9:1. So the question is, what “things” is Jesus talking about? Note well that Jesus tells his disciples no less than three times to “watch.” Vss. 33-37. As we will see, they famously fail to stay awake and watch three times. Mark 14:32-42. At Jesus’ crucifixion, “there was darkness over the whole land until the 9th hour.” Mark 15:33. Jesus is acknowledged (albeit mockingly) as Messiah while hanging on the cross and confessed as Son of God at his death. Mark 15:21-39. Jesus, identified in the first chapter of Mark as “Messiah” and “Son of God” (Mark 1:1), is so glorified in his crucifixion-a strange sort of glory. Do these words of Jesus from our gospel lesson pertain to some cosmic event in the distant future? Or do they refer to Jesus’ impending crucifixion? Is the cross for Mark the end of the world?

I suspect that this is a matter of both/and rather than strictly either/or. What happened with Jesus did indeed initiate the dissolution of the cosmos. Evidence of dissolution is everywhere. Nonetheless, if the sky is falling it can only mean that God is replacing it with a new heaven and a new earth. The end of the world is therefore the revealing of God’s kingdom, which now is hidden under the form of the cross. The end of the world is plainly visible for all who are watching for it. I concur therefore with Professor Cranfield who has this to say:

“If we realize that the Incarnation-Crucifixion-Resurrection-and Ascension, on the one hand, and the Parousia, on the other, belong essentially together and are in a real sense one Event, one divine Act, being held apart only by the mercy of God who desires to give men opportunity for faith and repentance, then we can see that in a very real sense the latter is always imminent now that the former has happened. It was, and still is, true to say that the Parousia is at hand-and indeed this, so far from being an embarrassing mistake on the part either of Jesus or of the early Church, is an essential part of the Church’s faith. Ever since the Incarnation men have been living in the last days.” Cranfield, C.E.B., The Gospel According to Mark, The Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary (c. 1959 Cambridge University Press) p. 408.

Though Cranfield employs concepts that are far outside the theological outlook of Mark’s gospel, I believe that his conclusion is nonetheless sound. For Mark, the new age was inaugurated by Jesus in the midst of the old. The cosmic events surrounding the crucifixion are of one piece with the final convulsion in which the old age withers before the advent of the new.

This is a timely word for all who experience dissolution, whether it be the dissolution of the America they once knew, the dissolution of a marriage, the dissolution of a mind into dementia or the dissolution of a church. Jesus does not soft peddle the reality of death in all its aspects. The creation is subject to death and the convulsions of its death throes are everywhere. But these same convulsions, for those who are attentive, are birth pangs of something new. That is the good news in this lesson.