Tag Archives: preaching

Sunday, April 27th

April 21, 2014Uncategorizedatonement, Babylonian Exile, Bible, Book of Acts, Church, Covenant, David, discipleship, doubt, Easter, faith, gospel, Holy Spirit, Incarnation, Jerusalem, Joel, Lectionary, Martyrdom, Persecution, prayer, preaching, Psalms, Religion, resurrection, Saint Paul, Saint Peter, Saint Thomas, Sunday Lessons, theologyrevolsen

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 2:14a, 22–32
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1:3–9
John 20:19–31

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Almighty and eternal God, the strength of those who believe and the hope of those who doubt, may we, who have not seen, have faith in you and receive the fullness of Christ’s blessing, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

I am 99.99 per cent convinced that the Loch Ness monster does not exist. I am not an expert on that topic by any means. Still, from all that I have ever read about Lake Loch Ness and the extensive measures taken to confirm the beast’s existence, it seems highly unlikely to me that an animal of Nessie’s reputed size could evade detection in a land locked body of water for so many centuries. Nonetheless, there remains that .01 percent between my belief in Nessie’s nonexistence and absolute certainty that we call “doubt.” Doubt will always be present in most cases like this because it is nearly impossible to prove a negative. That is why so many whacky conspiracy theories continue to thrive despite their lack of supportive evidence. They survive in that narrow .01 zone of doubt. No one will ever demonstrate absolutely that there are not and never have been bodies of alien beings at Area 51 or that the real Elvis Presley is not still walking the streets of Toledo or that the genuine Kenyan birth certificate of Barak Obama is not hidden away in some dusty government filing cabinet.

I sometimes wonder whether doubt is not really a species of faith. It seems to me that you cannot doubt something you don’t believe or at least suspect might be so, however unlikely. No matter how convinced I may be that the Loch Ness monster does not exist, my conviction falls short of absolute certainty. I cannot state categorically that Nessie is not lurking somewhere down in the depths of Loch Ness where nobody ever thought to look. So I must keep my mind open-at least .01 percent. To that extent, I suppose you could say I am a believer, albeit a reluctant one.

What if I am wrong about Nessie’s nonexistence? Suppose the Loch Ness monster is finally located? Would that change my life or the way I think to any real degree? As guy who spent much of his childhood mucking around in swamps and turning over rocks on the beach in search of interesting little creatures, dreaming all the time of becoming a biologist, I am sure I would find such a discovery fascinating. I would want to read up on all the research and learn all I could about this interesting new creature. But in the grand scheme of things, my life and my outlook on the world would be unaffected. That is because I do not need the Loch Ness monster to convince me that the universe is filled with wonders, unsolved riddles and marvelous secrets waiting to be discovered. The discovery of Nessie would be just one more of many such phenomena.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is quite another matter. The Novelist Flannery O’Connor once wrote a short story about a vacationing Georgia family that encounters a psychopathic killer known as the Misfit. The Misfit and his gang hold the family hostage. Then the Misfit gets into a conversation with the family’s grandmother. The Misfit tells the old woman all about his troubled childhood and she, for her part, urges him to pray and assures him that he is not yet beyond redemption. The conversation finally boils down to Jesus. “Jesus” says the Misfit. “Jesus was the only one that ever raised the dead…and He shouldn’t have done it. He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can—by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness.”

I am not convinced that doubt about the reality of Jesus’ resurrection is the greatest stumbling block to faith. I think the greater problem is that, whether it happened or not, Jesus’ resurrection seems not to have made much difference. If we don’t disbelieve the resurrection it is likely because, from the standpoint of our daily lives, it doesn’t seem to matter much one way or the other. I believe that a lot of us live our lives as practical atheists most of the time “holding the form of religion but denying the power of it.” II Timothy 3:5. Whether Jesus rose from death is of no more consequence than whether there is a monster lurking in the depths of Loch Ness. Either way, life goes on.

Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit got one thing right: He understood that it makes a difference whether Jesus did what the gospels tell us he did. Thomas understood that much also. I suspect that is why he remained with the disciples notwithstanding his doubts about their testimony to Jesus’ resurrection. As improbable as the resurrection might seem, the stakes are astronomically high. The destiny of the cosmos hangs in the balance. Eventual collapse and non-existence is the fate of the universe; or it is destined for re-creation. Jesus is either the first fruits of the new age or just another casualty of the old. If there is even a .01 percent chance that the disciples really saw what they say they saw and heard what they claim to have heard and touched what they maintain was in front of them, it is well worth investigating further. What better place to begin than where Jesus was said to have appeared the last time? That is, among his gathered disciples? In fact, that was where Thomas finally found him.

Our challenge as Christians of the 21^st Century is not to convince a secular world that the resurrection might have happened. Rather, the challenge is to convince the world that it matters.

Acts 2:14a, 22–32

Our reading for Sunday is taken from Peter’s Pentecost sermon. In Luke-Acts, Pentecost marks the transition from the “time of Jesus” to the “time of the church.” Juel, Donald, Luke Acts: The Promise of History, (c. 1983 by John Knox Press) p. 57. While this reading might seem misplaced from the standpoint of our liturgical calendar, it fits in very nicely with the gospel lesson from John. John’s Pentecost occurs on the evening of Easter Sunday when Jesus appeared to the disciples and “breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” John 20:22.

In the lesson from Acts Peter, emboldened by the Holy Spirit, addresses a diverse group of Jewish pilgrims visiting Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. His text is Joel 2:28-32. Little is known about the prophet Joel. It is believed that he prophesied to the people of Judah during the Persian period of Jewish history between 539 B.C.E.-331 B.C.E. This group, you will recall, returned from exile in Babylon following the conquest of that empire by the Persians under Cyrus the Great. The exiles had high hopes of rebuilding Jerusalem, constructing a new temple and restoring the land. Contrary to their expectations, however, restoration was difficult, frustrating and slow. Many of the people became discouraged and abandoned the project altogether.

During his ministry the prophet Joel witnessed a devastating plague of locusts which he understood to be a judgment of God designed to call his people to repentance and faith. Such locust swarms, that are still experienced in the Middle East today, can consume an entire field of crops in a matter of hours. Their numbers are so great and their hoards so dense that they can eclipse the sun and moon much like a dark cloud. According to the prophet Joel, this plague was a portent and a sign of the “Day of the Lord” when the light of sun and moon would be dimmed in earnest.

The Apostle Peter quotes this text, but for him the “Day of the Lord” is not a future event. It has already taken place as shown by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples enabling them to speak the gospel in languages of all nations. The apocalyptic sign of the end, the darkening of the heavens, occurred during the crucifixion of Jesus when “there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed…” Luke 23:44-45. Peter therefore declares to the crowd gathered before him that the Day of the Lord has arrived and the new age has come. I should add that many scholars, perhaps the majority, hold that Peter’s use of this text from Joel is to highlight the anticipated “second coming of Christ” rather than the crucifixion. E.g., Flanagan, Neal M., O.S.M., The Acts of the Apostles (c. 1964 by the Order of St. Benedict, pub. The Liturgical Press) p. 29.) I respectfully take the minority view.

It should be borne in mind that this audience probably knows Jesus or knows about him. What the people know is summarized by Peter in verses 22-23. Jesus was a worker of signs and wonders done in their midst. He was delivered up to “lawless men,” that is, the gentile rulers of Rome and crucified. That much is common knowledge. What the people do not know is that all of this took place “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (vs. 23) and that “God raised [Jesus] up.” Vs. 24. What the people assume to have been the cruel death of a tragically misguided prophet, perhaps a prophet with messianic delusions, was in reality the working out of God’s mission of salvation for all people.

Peter continues his sermon by citing to a section of our Psalm for today, Psalm 16:8-11. In this psalm, traditionally attributed to David, the psalmist declares that God will not allow him to see the “Pit” or be abandoned to “Sheol.” Vs. 10. Peter argues that David cannot be speaking of himself because he has, in fact, died and the place of his burial is well known. Consequently, David must have been speaking about one of his descendants as God promised David that his line would endure forever. Thus far, Peter is interpreting the psalm in much the same way as it was widely understood in the 1^st Century by many strands of Jewish tradition. The belief that God would raise up a descendent of David to restore Israel was a deeply held hope. But now Peter delivers the knockout punch: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses.” Vs. 32. The crucified and rejected Jesus is the promised descendant of David raised up for Israel’s salvation.

Care must be taken in speaking of the “foreknowledge and plan” of God in the suffering and death of Jesus. If this language is forced into the theory of “substitutionary atonement,” we come out with a perverse understanding of God the Father whose treatment of his Son can only be described as child abuse. Jesus’ suffering and death was not “necessary” to appease the thirst of an angry God for vengeance. The crucifixion was not required to enable God to forgive. God does not need the death of Jesus to forgive sins. Jesus’ suffering and death was necessary or inevitable because living a life that is truly human and obedient to the will of God in a sinful and inhumane world can have but one consequence. That consequence of rejection, suffering and death God was prepared to embrace in the person of his Son in order to embrace us with human arms and love us with a human heart. The cross is the price of God’s covenant faithfulness to all of creation-a price God was willing to pay.

Psalm 16

Commentators are divided over the time of composition for this psalm. The majority place it in the post exilic period (shortly after 540 B.C.E.). Weiser, Artur, The Psalms: A Commentary, The Old Testament Library (c. 1962 by S.C.M. Press, Ltd.) p. 172. Although perhaps edited and recomposed for use in worship at the second temple rebuilt by the exiles returning from Babylon, this psalm contains elements reflecting a very early stage in Israel’s history possibly dating back to the time of the Judges. As Israel began to settle into the land of Canaan, she struggled to remain faithful to her God even as she was surrounded by cults of Canaanite origin. The urgent dependence upon rain that goes with agriculture in semi-arid regions made the Canaanite fertility religions tempting alternatives to faith in the God of Israel whose actions seemed so far in the past. The prophets were constantly calling Israel away from the worship of these Canaanite deities and urging her to trust her own God to provide for her agricultural needs. The existence of “other gods” is not specifically denied in this psalm and that also suggests an early period in Israel’s development. The psalmist makes clear, however, that these “other gods” have no power or inclination to act in the merciful and redemptive way that Israel’s God acts.

That said, an argument can be made for the claim that this psalm was composed among a group known as the “Hasidim” (godly ones) that was active shortly before the New Testament period. Ibid. Some of the pagan rites alluded to therein have affinities with sects and mystery cults known to exist during this time period. Ibid. Dating the final composition at this time is not necessarily inconsistent with our recognition of very ancient material within the body of the psalm utilized here to address a new and different context.

The psalmist opens his/her prayer with a plea for God to preserve him or her, but goes on to express unlimited confidence in God’s saving power and merciful intent. S/he has experienced the salvation and protection of God throughout life and is therefore confident that God’s comforting presence will not be lost even in death.

As we have seen, the Apostle Peter cites this text (assuming Davidic authorship) to demonstrate Jesus’ messiahship. By virtue of his resurrection, Jesus was spared from “Sheol” and the “Pit”. Vs. 10. It is important to note that this psalm does not speculate about any “after life.” Peter does not use the text in this manner either. His emphasis is not resurrection as such, but on Jesus’ resurrection as vindication of his faithful life and proof that God’s purpose has been worked out through that life. The notion of post death existence was not a part of Hebrew thought until much later in the development of Israel’s faith. Yet one cannot help but sense a confidence on the part of the psalmist that not even death can finally overcome the saving power of God. It is therefore possible to say that the hope of the resurrection is present if only in embryonic form.

1 Peter 1:3–9

These brief verses are taken from the salutation given to the churches of northern Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) by the author of I Peter. These churches lived at the frontier of the Roman Empire where national security required greater internal government scrutiny. Societies such as the church that met regularly in private homes aroused suspicion. The refusal of Jesus’ disciples to take part in civil ceremonies acclaiming the deity of the Roman emperor seemed to confirm the government’s fear that the church might be a seditious movement dangerous to Roman society. As a result, members of the church experienced persecution ranging from social ostracism to outright violence.

This salutation sets the tone for the rest of the letter. Peter reminds these believers that they have been “born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” vs. 3. This hope is an inheritance that cannot be taken away; thus, believers can rejoice even though their faithfulness to Jesus occasions suffering in the short run. Such rejoicing, as Stanley Hauerwas observes, is unintelligible apart from this community’s firm belief in Jesus’ resurrection. See Post for April 20^th. That resurrection represents not merely the destiny of the church, but of all creation. Consequently, belief in the resurrection means shaping one’s life to fit the contours of the new creation soon to be born rather than to those of the old creation that is dying. Birth does not occur without pain and the shedding of blood. Martyrdom is the church’s ultimate testimony to the reality of God’s kingdom. The persecution of the saints constitutes the death throes of the old order just as surely as it does the birth pangs of the new.

John 20:19–31

It seems to me that John’s account of Jesus’ resurrection differs from those of Matthew, Mark and Luke in this respect: Whereas for the first three gospels Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion are interpreted through the shock of his resurrection; for John, Jesus’ laying down his life interprets his resurrection appearances. Or as one commentator puts it:

“…when we consider the nature of St. John’s gospel, in which the Lord during his ministry has revealed Himself as the resurrection and the life, and the cross, as interpreted by St. John, marks not only the last stage of His ‘descent’ but also His glorification, it should not surprise us that the evangelist is not concerned in ch. 20 to dwell upon the Lord’s resurrection as forming primarily a reversal of the passion. He expects his readers to have learned by this time the secret which he has gradually unfolded to them in the first nineteen chapters of his gospel, the secret, namely, that the Lord at the moment and in the fact of his laying down of His life has revealed the glory of the Father, and therefore His own oneness with the Father, to the fullest possible degree. If one moment of His revelation of the Father in the days of His flesh is to be distinguished from another, then at the moment of His death, more than at any other, He has glorified the Father, and His return to the Father has at least begun (cf. 6:62).” Lightfoot, R., St. John’s Gospel: A Commentary, (c. 1956 Clarendon Press, pub. Oxford University Press) pp. 329-330.

In narrating the resurrection appearances, John takes care to emphasize the physicality of the resurrected Christ. Jesus must tell Mary to cease clinging to him before he can go on his way. John 20:17. He appears to the disciples with the wounds of the cross on his body. Vss. John 20:20. He even invites Thomas to place his hands in those wounds. John 20:27. John makes clear that the incarnation is irrevocable. The flesh of Jesus was not merely a clever disguise. God became human and God remains human. “No one has ever seen God,” says John. But “the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” John 1:18. God is known and knowable only through one’s abiding in the fully human Jesus. Nothing makes that point quite as emphatically as Thomas’ confession: “My Lord and My God.” Vs. 28.

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Vs. 23. Exactly what does this mean? In my own tradition (Lutheran), this verse has always been associated with the “office of the keys,” the peculiar power of the church “to forgive the sins of penitent sinners, but to retain the sins of the impenitent as long as they do not repent.” Luther’s Small Catechism, Part V. But is that really what John had in mind here? In my view, the context makes that interpretation extremely doubtful. The focus is not upon the internal workings of the community of disciples but upon the disciples’ mission to the world. Undoubtedly, the two are related in this gospel. It is through the disciples’ love for one another that they will be identified as followers of Jesus. John 13:35. But the principal emphasis is on the disciples’ witness to the world, not to their relationship with one another. So what can it mean to “retain” sins?

I believe that John is emphasizing the importance of the commission that Jesus has just given to his disciples. It is through them that the life giving Word of forgiveness is to be made known to the world. It is “in” them that the Spirit now resides. If the disciples of Jesus do not make known God’s forgiveness of sin, the world will remain in the grip of sin. Those sins will be retained. But if the Word is spoken, it will be accompanied by the Spirit of God that inspires faith and breaks the bondage of sin. I believe that is what commentator Raymond Brown is saying in the following quote:

“In summary, we doubt that there is sufficient evidence to confirm the power of forgiving and holding of sin, granted in John 20:23 to a specific exercise of power in the Christian community, whether that be admission to Baptism or forgiveness in Penance. These are but partial manifestations of a much larger power, namely, the power to isolate, repel, and negate evil and sin, a power given to Jesus in his mission by the Father and given in turn by Jesus through the Spirit to those whom he commissions. It is an effective, not merely declaratory, power against sin, a power that touches new and old followers of Christ, a power that challenges those who refuse to believe. John does not tell us how or by whom this power was exercised in the community for whom he wrote, but the very fact that he mentions it shows that it was exercised.” The Gospel According to John, XIII-XX1, Raymond E. Brown, The Anchor Bible, Vol. 29a, (Doubleday, c. 1970) p. 1044.

Thomas comes in for a good deal of criticism for doubting Jesus’ resurrection, though to be fair, he was not asking for anything more in the way of proof than the disciples had already experienced. It is worth noting that, however doubtful Thomas may have been, he remained in the company of his fellow disciples. That is to say, he remained in the church. That is the best possible advice I can give to people who have difficulty believing. Faith cannot be argued into anyone, nor can it be manufactured. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit that must be given. Still, we know where the Holy Spirit hangs out. The Spirit accompanies the preaching of the Word; the Spirit is poured out upon the bread and wine at the altar; the Spirit is present where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name. If you want to believe, that is where you need to be. Of course, if you don’t want to believe, I can’t help you with that.

Sunday, April 20th

April 14, 2014UncategorizedActs of the Apostles, Babylonian Exile, Baptism, Bible, Church, Colossians, discipleship, Easter, Exodus, faith, gay and lesbian, gentiles, gospel, health care, Holy Spirit, Lenten Practices, peace, poor, poverty, prayer, preaching, Psalms, Religion, resurrection, Rome, Saint Paul, St. Matthew, Sunday Lessons, theology, violence, violence against childrenrevolsen

RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD

Acts 10:34–43
Psalm 118:1–2, 14–24
Colossians 3:1–4
Matthew 28:1–10

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, you gave your only Son to suffer death on the cross for our redemption, and by his glorious resurrection you delivered us from the power of death. Make us die every day to sin, that we may live with him forever in the joy of the resurrection, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“While [the women] were going [from the tomb to tell the rest of the disciples of Jesus’ resurrection], behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sum of money to the soldiers and said, ‘Tell people “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.” And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’” Matthew 28:11-14.

“Unfortunately, no longer does anyone need to be bought off to deny the resurrection. For us, that is, for anyone schooled in modernity, the resurrection is quite simply unbelievable. The resurrection is the miracle of miracles, and miracles are unbelievable. Of course, the resurrection is the miracle of miracles, but not because it defies belief. The resurrection is the miracle of miracles because it is the resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah of Israel. But little will be gained in trying to convince anyone that the resurrection might have happened. To do so threatens to isolate the resurrection from the life and crucifixion of Jesus in a manner that distorts the witness that Matthew has trained us to be. The problem, after all, is not belief in the resurrection, but whether we live lives that would make no sense if in fact Jesus has not been raised from the dead.” Stanley Hawerwas in his commentary on Matthew, (Brazos Press) p. 249.

Hawerwas puts his finger on something important: Disbelief in Jesus’ resurrection is a much bigger problem for the church than it is for the public at large. Belief in the resurrection is inspired by the witness of a community whose existence and way of living cannot be explained in any other way. The Sermon on the Mount, for example, is entirely unworkable as a general ethic. It is simply not possible for individuals living in contemporary society to apply it in any meaningful way. The Sermon only becomes intelligible where it is lived by a community convinced that Jesus has been raised from death, that a new age has arrived and that life must be conformed to the contours of that new age rather than to the principalities and powers governing the prior age.

The problem, however, is that the life of the church is often entirely intelligible without Jesus’ resurrection. In fact, we mainliners go to great lengths demonstrating that we are relevant, that we make sense and that we share the same enlightened values that all decent human beings promote. My church has published dozens of “social statements” over the years on one issue or another. Most of them are well reasoned, carefully thought out and reach conclusions that I can agree with more or less. But for the most part, they would be no less reasoned, thoughtful and agreeable (to me at least) if you were to leave Jesus out of them altogether. In short, we seem to be finding our way just fine without the resurrection of Jesus. That is a huge problem for the church in seeking to fulfill the great commission to baptize and teach. How do you convince all nations that Jesus matters to them when Jesus doesn’t matter to you? What, then, does it mean to be a people who are unintelligible without Jesus’ resurrection?

First let me say that being a people unintelligible apart from the resurrection doesn’t mean that we are unintelligible altogether. It isn’t enough just to be strange. Our strangeness must grow out of our conviction that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection have made a fundamental difference for the entire universe. If even death is reversible, it seems to me that we ought not to waste another nanosecond worrying about and discussing the future of the church in our society. The word “sustainable” ought never again to come up in our discussions of mission and ministry. Since when has sustainability ever been part of the discipleship package? And let’s stop fretting about our loss of financial support. What more do we need in the way of material wealth to be the church than a Bible, a loaf of bread and a little wine?

No vote should ever again be taken to resolve any issue, whether in a congregation or at a synod assembly. Instead, we should devote ourselves to prayer until the Spirit makes the mind of Christ clear to the whole Body of Christ. If that takes years to happen, so be it. God has all eternity to work with us. Unrealistic? Tell the Mennonites. They have been employing this patient method of decision making for generations.

Furthermore, if the church is truly the Body of the resurrected Christ, then each congregation is committed to the health and wellbeing of each of its members. The church as a whole is obligated to each congregation as it seeks to fulfil this commitment. There is no excuse for any member of any Christian congregation to be without sufficient food, health care or housing. That is not how parts of a healthy body behave toward one another. Lest anyone suggest that this is impossible or impractical, networks of Christian communities have actually been providing such care for one another for decades. See, e.g., Shane Claiborne on CNN (Healthcare).

I make no claim that any of this is practical, cost effective or sustainable. Quite the contrary. You would out of your mind to do things this way-unless, of course, you happen to believe that Jesus really did rise from the dead. In that case, living as members of his resurrected Body is the only rational response.

Acts 10:34–43

This passage is part and parcel of a larger narrative beginning with Peter’s vision in which the Lord speaks to him and commands him to slaughter and eat a host of animals deemed ritually unclean in the Hebrew Scriptures. See Acts 10:1-16. The meaning of this strange vision is not revealed to Peter until he finds himself in the midst of a gentile family, that of the Roman Centurion, Cornelius. There he witnesses the Spirit of God filling them all with faith and inspiring them to confess Jesus as Lord. The story as a whole reflects the inner struggle of a deeply Jewish church with the positive response of gentiles to the good news about Jesus. Most Jewish disciples, like Peter, harbored serious reservations about receiving gentiles into the church. How could these outsiders possibly have an informed and sincere faith in the Jewish messiah when they knew next to nothing about the Jewish scriptures and practices? What would be the consequences of an influx of these new comers? What conditions, if any, should be placed upon admission of a gentile believer? Must he be circumcised? Should he be required to learn the Hebrew Scriptures? Peter was on solid scriptural grounds with his scruples about eating ritually unclean food and sharing meal fellowship with non-Jews. Jewish believers under the Greek tyrant, Antiochus Epiphanes chose to endure torture and to die horrible deaths rather than eat food deemed unclean as demanded of them. I Maccabees 1:62-64. How could Peter go into the home of a Roman oppressor of Israel and eat unclean food at his unclean table? Would this not dishonor the memory of the brave martyrs under Antiochus?

Peter’s declaration “that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him…is acceptable to him” came only after much difficult soul searching. Vss. 34-35. Peter had to give up long held interpretations of the scriptures and religious practices that had been part of his life since infancy. That did not come easily. I suspect it was not until Peter witnessed the Holy Spirit breathing life giving faith into the Roman Cornelius and his family that he became fully convinced that these folks should be baptized. He simply decided that any interpretation of the scriptures that stands between Jesus and a believing heart cannot possibly be right no matter how clear, convincing and well established it may be. As I have said many times before, this story of Peter and Cornelius, along with my having met many gay and lesbian people of faith over the years, is what ultimately convinced me that the church must be fully inclusive and welcoming to these folks. When all is said and done; when all the scriptural arguments have been made; there remains the fact that the Holy Spirit has moved a person to faith in Jesus. I find myself asking, as did Peter, “Can anyone forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” Acts 10:47

While the context of this passage is important, the Easter emphasis is on Peter’s witness to Jesus. Note well how Peter makes clear that his witness goes not merely to Jesus’ resurrection, but also to Jesus’ anointing with the Holy Spirit, his works of healing and casting out demons and his execution-the natural outcome of his faithful life. Without this narrative, the resurrection is empty of any real meaning for us. Unlike us, the ancient world had no doubt that God (or the gods) could resurrect a dead person. The gods might bestow such a favor on anyone to whom they took a shine. But in the realm of Greco-Roman literature, such persons tended to be heroes. The notion that Israel’s God (or any other deity) would raise up a crucified criminal was absurd. Under all objective standards, Jesus had been a colossal failure. He was misunderstood, betrayed and deserted by his closest disciples. He was rejected by his people and put to death in the most shameful way possible. But God’s judgment on Jesus’ life is entirely different than our own. God raised Jesus from death to say, “Yes, this is what my heart desires of human beings. This is my very self and is also everything I ever wanted humans to be. This is the measure by which I judge; this is the depth of my love for all so judged.”

Psalm 118:1–2, 14–24

“O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good.” Vs. 1 Saint Augustine remarks, “I see not what can be more solemn than this brevity, since goodness is so peculiarly the quality of God…” On the Psalms, Augustine of Hippo, The Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. VIII, (c. 1979 WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.) p. 557. “Goodness,” however, is not an abstract principle. Verse 14, “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation,” is nearly identical to Exodus 15:2 which, in turn, is taken from the Song of Moses celebrating Israel’s salvation from Egypt’s armies at the Red Sea. Exodus 15:1-18. God’s goodness is both defined and illustrated through the salvation narrative of the Pentateuch. The Exodus stands at the heart of Israel’s worship and history. It is the paradigm for God’s saving acts. As we have seen throughout Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55), God’s victory for Israel at the Red Sea and God’s guidance and protection as Israel made her way through the wilderness to the promised land provided a rich supply of images for prophets seeking to illuminate saving acts of God occurring in Israel’s present context and to encourage the people in their darkest hours. Thus, whether this psalm commemorates the victory of one of Judah’s kings in battle or a procession bearing the Ark of the Covenant into the temple and regardless of when it reached its final form, it echoes God’s glorious victory over Egypt at the Red Sea and Israel’s liberation from bondage.

The “glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous” in verse 16 might refer to encampments on the battlefield and therefore indicate the celebration of a military victory. Alternatively, the tents might refer to pilgrim encampments about Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. Rogerson, J.W. and McKay, J.W. Psalms 101-150, The Cambridge Bible Commentary (c. 1977 Cambridge University Press) p. 86. Again, given Israel’s practice of adapting her ancient liturgical traditions to new circumstances, these two interpretations are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Because the psalmist switches from singular to plural, addressing God at one point, the assembled worshipers at another while some passages seem to be addressed by God to the psalmist, many Old Testament scholars believe this hymn to be a compilation of several different works. Rogerson and McKay, supra, p. 85. Professor Bernhard Anderson sees this as a “royal psalm,” a liturgy in which the king of Judah approaches the temple gates and seeks admission that he may give thanks. In so doing, he serves as a priestly figure representing the whole congregation of Israel. Anderson, Bernhard, W., Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today (c. 1983 by Bernhard W. Anderson, pub. by The Westminster Press) p. 113.

The passage most commonly cited in the New Testament is at vss. 22-23. Jesus quotes these words at the conclusion of his parable of the tenants in the vineyard. Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17. They are also cited at Acts 4:11 and I Peter 2:7. The “chief corner stone” is probably the chief stone supporting an arch, without which the structure collapses. Rogerson and McKay, supra, p. 88. The meaning of this ancient proverb is open to interpretation. It could well refer back to the confessional acknowledgement required of Israel that she was descended from “a wandering Aramean” and delivered from slavery in Egypt by the God who alone is responsible for her existence as his people. Deuteronomy 26:5-11. This seemingly insignificant people is in fact God’s people of blessing to all the earth. Naturally, the proverb provided assurance and hope during the period of Babylonian Exile when it seemed that Israel had been “rejected” by the builders of history. Not surprisingly, then, the Apostles recognized a parallel between the enslaved and exiled people of God exalted by God’s saving acts and the crucified messiah exalted through his resurrection.

Colossians 3:1–4

Though probably not actually written by Paul, the letter to the Colossians contains a good deal of Pauline thought and imagery. Therefore, I typically refer to the author as “Paul.” Whether Paul actually wrote the letter or whether it was written by a disciple or associate of Paul, it reflects enough of Paul’s spirit to be in some sense his own. As pointed out by Paul S. Berge, Emeritus Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, this letter is carefully composed and structured in a way that draws its hearers or readers into its center point through a literary pattern resembling a set of concentric circles. See Summary at enterthebible.org. The letter speaks of Christ’s sovereignty over all the powers and principalities of the universe and moves from there into a discussion of Christ’s sovereignty over the life of the church and believers.

Chapter 3 brings us to the center of the concentric circles of thought. Our reading for Sunday summarizes Paul’s argument in the prior two chapters. The Church is called upon to live as a colony of God’s kingdom, a piece of God’s resurrection future in the present world. In order to do that, it must keep its mind focused on “the things that are above.” This is not a spatial/directional instruction. Christ is “above” not in the sense that he is somewhere “beyond the blue,” but in the sense that he is supreme over both the principalities and powers of this world and also head of the church which is his Body. It is to Christ, not to Caesar or to any other earthly ruler that the church looks for redemption. It is the peace of Christ, not the Pax Romana in which disciples of Jesus are called to live obediently and faithfully as they await the revelation of that peace to the rest of the world.

This lesson makes clear to the church that Jesus’ resurrection makes a difference. A new world order has begun, whether the rest of the world recognizes it or not. The church need not build the kingdom of God. It is already here. The church only needs to witness to the new reality by living faithfully under its sway.

Matthew 28:1–10

To appreciate the full impact of Matthew’s resurrection witness, we need to go back to the account of Jesus’ burial. The chief priests, you will recall, had petitioned Pilate to seal the tomb of Jesus and set a guard over it for three days in order to prevent his disciples from stealing the body and claiming that he had risen. Matthew 27:62-66. But as it turns out, the disciples are the least of their worries. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James proceed to the tomb on the dawn of the third day and witness an earthquake as a descending angel of the Lord moves the stone away from the tomb. Vss. 1-2. It is critical to note that by this time, the tomb is already empty. The seal has been broken from within. The angel’s mission is neither to immobilize the guard nor to let Jesus out of the tomb. He comes only to demonstrate to the women that the tomb is empty. Jesus has already been raised. The impotence of the mighty Roman Empire could hardly be clearer. It’s false “peace” imposed by the violence practiced against Jesus has been shattered. The seal on its reign of terror has been broken. In its failed effort to seal Jesus’ tomb, Rome has sealed its own fate. Pilate’s wife was right to be troubled over the death of this “righteous man.” Matthew 27:19. Be afraid, Pilate. Be very afraid. The nightmare is only beginning.

It should be clear from the preceding paragraph that I do not buy into the commonly accepted belief that Matthew is merely trying to dispel a rumor of fraud and fabrication surrounding Jesus’ resurrection. I do not believe that Matthew or the other gospel writers were the least bit concerned about such trifling matters. I think they were a good deal smarter than that. Matthew’s literary purpose here is to juxtapose the imperial might represented by Rome, might that Jesus’ enemies exploited in their efforts to destroy him, over against the purpose of God worked out through Jesus’ mission that his gospel takes pains demonstrating at every turn through citations to the Hebrew Scriptures. Just as Herod’s futile violence against the children of Bethlehem only confirmed the prophetic witness to Jesus, so the violence of Israel’s religious authorities, Pilate and the hostile crowd unwittingly moved God’s final saving act to completion. All authority on heaven and earth now belongs to Jesus, not Rome. Vs. 18.

Matthew’s resurrection account follows Mark insofar as the angel instructs the two women to tell the disciples that he will meet them in Galilee. Vs. 10. Cf. Mark 16:7. By contrast, both Luke and John place Jesus’ initial resurrection appearances to the disciples in Jerusalem. Luke 24:33-43; John 20:1-29. It is pointless to try and reconstruct the actual sequence of events surrounding Jesus’ resurrection, just as I believe it is futile to search for the so called “historical Jesus” lurking about behind the gospel texts. God has not given us “history” in the New Testament witness. The Spirit inspired the Apostles to preach the good news about Jesus and inspired subsequent generations to put that preaching and testimony into narrative form. That is disquieting to the 19^th Century prejudices of historical/critical scholars who still believe in that antiquated notion of “objective history.” But for a world that has outgrown the Enlightenment, the apostolic witness speaks a word about Jesus that has the ring of truth.

That the appearance of the resurrected Christ to the disciples should take place on a mountain has clear significance. Vs. 16. It stretches back to the Mountain of Transfiguration and perhaps also to the locus of the Sermon on the Mount. There are, of course, also echoes of the appearance of the Lord on Mt. Sinai narrated throughout the Pentateuch. In the face of such a theophany, worship is the only appropriate response. Vs. 17. Nonetheless, “some doubted.” Matthew recognizes that faith is a complicated reality. It cannot be “wowed” into existence by a demonstration of “shock and awe.” Not even the appearance of the resurrected Christ can “prove” the resurrection beyond dispute. So, too, faith does not require such appearances. The testimony of the apostolic witness is sufficient and it is that with which the Gospel of Matthew concludes. The disciples are sent out with the assurance that the resurrected Christ will accompany their testimony. Nothing more is required.

Let me conclude as I began with a citation to Stanley Hauerwas: “The resurrection, of course, is not a ‘knockdown sign’ that establishes that Jesus is the Son of God. The soldiers were scared to death by the angel, but that did not incline them to believe in Jesus or the resurrection. They remain under the power of the chief priests and elders and seem more than willing to do their bidding. The truth that is Jesus is a truth that requires discipleship, for it is only by being transformed by what he has taught and by what he has done that we can come to know the way the world is. The world is not what it appears to be, because sin has scarred the world’s appearance. The world has been redeemed-but to see the world’s redemption, to see Jesus, requires that we be caught up in the joy that comes from serving him. That is what it means to live apocalyptically.” Hauerwas, Stanley, Matthew, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (c. 2006 by Stanley Hauerwas, pub. by Brazos Press) p. 247.

Sunday, April 13th

April 7, 2014UncategorizedBabylonian Exile, Bible, Church, crucifixion, David, discipleship, ememies, faith, Good Friday, gospel, Holy Week, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jerusalem, Judgement, Lectionary, lynching, mob violence, Palm Sunday, Passion Narrative, Persecution, preaching, resurrection, Saint Paul, servant songs, St. Matthew, Sunday Lessons, theology, theology of the crossrevolsen

SUNDAY OF THE PASSION/PALM SUNDAY

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:14—27:66

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 can the crowds that cheered Jesus and acclaimed him their Messiah on Palm Sunday be crying out for his death by the end of the week? That is the Holy Week question that has always haunted me. Biblical scholars resorting to historical critical methods have sought in various ways to explain this difficulty away. One such explanation is that there were two crowds, each made up of altogether different groups. The crowd agitating for Jesus death was a discrete and much smaller group brought together by the temple authorities to influence Pilate. The general public, “the people,” were always on the side of Jesus. That might all be plausible, but we don’t send people to prison on the basis of plausible evidence and we shouldn’t re-write the scriptures on such flimsy speculation either. However sensible and appealing this speculative version of events might be, it is not how the gospels tell the story. Faithfulness requires that we struggle with the imponderables rather than attempting to explain them away.

In Matthew’s gospel, the “crowds” (Greek “oxoloi”) are a distinct character along with the disciples, the Pharisees, the Chief Priests and Pilate. They are present at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Matthew 4:25. They are astonished at his teaching, recognizing in him the voice of authority. Matthew 7:28-29. The crowds follow Jesus throughout his Galilean ministry. Matthew 8:1; Matthew 8:18; Matthew 9:33; Matthew 12:23; Matthew 13:2; Matthew 14:13; Matthew 15:10; Matthew 17:14; Matthew 19:1-2; and Matthew 20:29. The crowds are present as Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday cheering him as the “Son of David” and spreading their clothing in his path. Matthew 21:6-11. Throughout his teaching in the temple of Jerusalem, the crowds form a kind of “human shield” about Jesus preventing the authorities from arresting him. Matthew 22:45-46. They continue to be astonished at his teaching. Matthew 22:33. Jesus’ last address to the crowds in the gospel of Matthew is a vitriolic denunciation of the oppressive religious leadership and a challenge for his disciples to live out their faith in service and humility.

When next the crowds appear, it is with the officers of the Chief Priests who come to arrest Jesus. Matthew 26:47. Jesus confronts both the officers and the crowds concerning their perceived need to employ violence against him. They have been listening to him teach them in the temple for days, but took no action. Why here? Why now? Matthew 26:55. The crowds are absent throughout Jesus’ trial before the religious authorities, but reappear again after Jesus’ hearing with Pilate. Pilate, hoping that Jesus will prove more popular than the notorious Barabbas, offers him to the crowds as a candidate for amnesty. Matthew 27:15-18. But the Chief Priests have been busy lobbying for Barabbas who ultimately becomes “the people’s choice.” Matthew 27:21. The crowds will have Jesus crucified and his blood upon them and their descendants. Matthew 27:24-25.

We must be mindful about the danger of anti-Semitism here. We cannot use the term “crowds” interchangeably with “Jews.” Though the crowds in Matthew’s gospel were obviously made up of Jews, so also were the twelve disciples, to say nothing of Jesus himself. The crowds are no different from any other character in the gospel. They are amazed and overawed by Jesus. They are puzzled and confused by Jesus. Ultimately, they are disappointed with Jesus and, like his disciples, abandon him to his death. The crowds, as I said, constitute a unique character and actor in the gospel. Their hopes, their expectations, their faith and fickleness have much to teach us.

We know from our own experience that crowds have short memories. They sweep new leaders into power hoping for a better life. But if these new leaders cannot deliver bread and butter results in a timely fashion, the horrors of the old regime are fast forgotten and the crowds are back out in the street, perhaps even calling for the return of their former leaders. Crowds are not very good at thinking things through, particularly when they are angry. An angry mob believes somebody is to blame for its discontent and that somebody has to pay. Mob anger needs a scapegoat, and just about any target will do, whether it be Jews, immigrants, racial minorities or sexual minorities. Crowds are capable of unspeakable crimes that their individual members probably would not commit on their own. Lynching, looting, rioting and gang violence all occur when crowds are whipped up into a frenzy of anger and given a target for that anger.

There was plenty of anger and a lot of fear around in 1^st Century Palestine. Jesus’ enemies knew how to exploit it and they did. We don’t have the benefit of knowing exactly what the Chief Priests said to turn the crowds against Jesus. But I am guessing they used the same time honored tactics that demagogues always use. “Jesus is undermining public morals and ‘family values.’ Jesus is spreading false doctrine and undermining our traditional faith. Jesus is corrupting the young and impressionable. Jesus is associated with a known domestic terrorist (Simon the Zealot). Jesus keeps company with people of questionable morals (“sinful” woman). Jesus is an affront to God’s moral order and that is why we have bloody clashes with Rome; that is why towers fall on people and why we have blindness and sickness among us. God is punishing us for tolerating the likes of Jesus and his degenerate teachings!”

There is nothing mysterious in the crowd’s change of mood between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. It’s what crowds do. Paul reminds us in our second lesson for Sunday that followers of Jesus are not a crowd. We are members of a Body guided by the “mind of Christ.” One of the “ways of sin that draw us from God” denounced in our baptismal vows is the pull of the crowd. We dare not let the voices of nationalistic fervor; the righteous indignation of public opinion or the mob instinct for scapegoating shout down the voice of Jesus. So the next time you hear public outcries against anyone, whether s/he be a defendant in a high profile criminal case; an illegal immigrant; or a member of a racial, sexual or religious minority; remember that we worship a messiah who was the victim of mob violence. Remember that the more we are shaped by the rage of the crowd, the more we are drawn away from the transforming power of Jesus.

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 6^th 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:

Initial Appeal to Yahweh, vss. 1-2.
Portrayal of inward distress, vss. 3-4
Expression of confidence, vss. 5-6
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 Matthew’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 fulfils 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.

Matthew 26:14—27:66

There is far more material in Matthew’s passion narrative than I can hope to consider in this post. Furthermore, I am not sure scrutinizing the text is at all helpful here. I do not believe I have ever attempted to preach on the passion itself. After hearing it read, silence seems to be the only natural and appropriate response. Instead of reading commentaries, I believe the best preparation for the Sunday of the Passion is to set aside a few hours and listen to J.S. Bach’s Saint Matthew’s Passion. That said, a few things about Matthew’s passion narrative are noteworthy. Of particular interest are those episodes unique to Matthew’s version of Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion.

Matthew alone tells us that Judas, after realizing that his betrayal of Jesus will end in Jesus’ crucifixion, regrets his treachery. Matthew alone tells us that Judas returned his ill-gotten silver and subsequently committed suicide. Matthew 27:3-10. Mark and John tell us nothing of Judas after his act of betrayal. Luke refers to Judas’ death only in an obscure passage from Acts. Acts 1:18-19. Wherever Matthew obtained this information, it fits nicely into the “fulfillment of prophesy” theme running through his gospel. Matthew has referred to Judas on several occasions as a “paradidous” or “one who hands over” or “betrayer” according to the RSV. See Matthew 10:4; Matthew 26:25; Matthew 26:46 and Matthew 26:48. Now Judas takes that name upon his own lips and so labels himself. “I have sinned in ‘betraying’ innocent blood.” Matthew 27:4.

The chief priests initially refuse to accept the money but obviously cannot return it to Judas once he is dead. Because the funds constitute “blood money,” they are unfit for the temple’s general treasury. Scholars debate the scriptural origin of this supposed prohibition. Some believe it to have been a rabbinic interpretation of Deuteronomy 23:18 forbidding payment of a vow by any Israelite from the wages of a prostitute. This seems a stretch to me. Judas was not seeking to pay any religious obligation when he returned the thirty pieces of silver, nor were the priests who received it. Moreover, the wages of a prostitute do not involve the shedding of blood. Finally, there is no actual rabbinic interpretation of this text that comes close to a specific prohibition against the receipt of blood monies. Others have focused on I Chronicles 22:8-9 in which the Lord forbids David from constructing the temple in Jerusalem because he has “shed much blood and…waged great wars.” While a rabbinic gloss on this text extending the prohibition against David’s construction of the temple to the deposit of blood money into the treasury is logical, it likewise lacks support in any known rabbinic literature.

Whatever may be the case with respect to laws governing deposits into the temple treasury, Matthew employs this episode to demonstrate once again that what happens to Jesus fulfills the scriptures. His citation to Jeremiah appears to be a conflation of three texts: Zechariah 11:12-13; Jeremiah 18:1-3; Jeremiah 32:6-13. Perhaps the more significant of these is the third. Jeremiah relates how God instructed him to purchase a field from his uncle at the height of the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army. This was obviously a foolish short term investment, given that all the land would soon be under the control of Babylon and the people deported. But the prophet is not thinking short term. He looks to the day when the land will again be re-inhabited by his people and at peace. This seemingly senseless business transaction reflects the prophet’s faith in God’s promise to bring Israel back from exile and restore to her the land of promise. In reverse literary symmetry, the chief priests conduct what seems to them an imminently practical transaction that turns out to be the prophetic fulfillment of Jesus’ messianic destiny.

The other episode unique to Matthew’s passion narrative occurs in Matthew 27:51-52. Immediately following Jesus’ death on the cross, the curtain of the temple is torn in two from top to bottom. Vs. 51. In this much, Matthew is consistent with Mark (Mark 15:38) and Luke (Luke 23:45). But Matthew goes on to describe a great earthquake that opened up the tombs housing many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep, but were raised and entered Jerusalem following Jesus’ resurrection. Matthew 27:51-53. Eduard Schweizer believes that a textual corruption or inept editing is responsible for the testimony that the resurrected saints were not seen in Jerusalem until after Jesus’ resurrection. Schweizer, Eduard, The Good News According to Matthew, (c. 1975, John Knox Press) p. 516. He maintains that the narrative makes sense only if we understand the appearance of the saints to have taken place on the day of Jesus’ death.

I will admit that the text as it stands makes for an awkward sequence of events in the passion story. Moreover, if the appearance of the saints did take place after Jesus’ resurrection, it would fit more naturally into the resurrection account in Matthew 28. Still and all, I am not thoroughly convinced. Jewish belief in the resurrection (among those who did so believe) understood that resurrection to be a general one. All the dead would be raised and judged together. See Daniel 12:1-3. There was no understanding, so far as I know, of individuals being resurrected (as opposed to simply being raised like Lazarus in last week’s gospel). Consequently, Jesus’ resurrection could only be understood in Jewish thought as the first fruits of the general resurrection. That is clearly how Saint Paul understands the resurrection. (See I Corinthians 15). The appearance of the departed saints (“righteous ones” or “Zadiq” in Hebrew) at the time of Jesus’ rising therefore substantiates Jesus’ resurrection as the resurrection.

If you are hell bent on preaching the passion, these are two sections you might consider focusing on. Still, my advice remains: Don’t do it. The passion preaches itself. Let the story be told. Let the mysteries, the imponderables and the questions hang in the air. The Son of God has uttered his last words. What can we possibly add?

Sunday, April 6th

March 31, 2014UncategorizedBabylonian Exile, Church, Creation, Death, Ezekiel, faith, Forgiveness, gospel, Holy Spirit, Jerusalem, lament, Lazarus, Lectionary, Mary and Martha, prayer, preaching, Psalms, Religion, resurrection, Saint Paul, sin, Sunday Lessons, theology, violencerevolsen

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT

Ezekiel 37:1–14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6–11
John 11:1–45

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Almighty God, your Son came into the world to free us all from sin and death. Breathe upon us the power of your Spirit, that we may be raised to new life in Christ and serve you in righteousness all our days, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

I frequently hear stories about how God has answered prayer. I am thankful for these testimonies of faith. I am glad for people who recognize Jesus’ gracious presence in their lives, meeting their deepest needs and giving them guidance. But there are other stories as well that need to be told. These are the stories of unanswered prayers. Sometimes God leaves us in the lurch. At least many of the psalmists seemed to think so. Mary and Martha felt much the same way when Jesus arrived too late to heal their brother Lazarus of his fatal disease. “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Read under that, “Where the hell were you, Jesus?” Jesus doesn’t seem to have much of an answer. For reasons he never quite explains, Jesus remained a full two days where he was after hearing that Lazarus was deathly ill. That turned out to be two days too late. Of course, we need not dwell overly long on this. We know the ending, after all. Lazarus is raised from death and they all live happily ever after.

Except that they don’t. The way John tells it, the raising of Lazarus turned out to be the last nail in Jesus’ coffin. Alarmed by the following Jesus has gotten through news of this remarkable sign, the religious authorities decide that Jesus must be put to death. It’s a matter of national security. If the leaders of Israel don’t deal with the “Jesus problem,” the Romans will-and it won’t be pretty. Moreover, it turns out that Lazarus will likely be part of the collateral damage. The people are unlikely to forget what Jesus has done as long as Lazarus is walking around. So the authorities decide to take him out as well.

Clearly, there is no happy ending for anyone in this story, but the good news of Jesus Christ is about more than happy endings. It is about the Son sent into the world that the world might be saved. The world must know how deeply the Father loves the Son. Only so will the world come to understand how deeply the Father loves it-enough to send that beloved Son into the heart of its hostility. Jesus deals in life-giving signs-wine to gladden a wedding celebration; health to a crippled body, bread to a hungry crowd, sight to a man born blind and now life to a man in the grip of death. Yet Jesus is met at every turn by death threats and violence. His signs are ignored, resisted and crushed. The cross is just the end result of his obedience to the life giving ways of the Father.

But God will not let death have the last word. God raises Jesus up and the life giving signs just keep coming fast and furious. The Gospel of John concludes by telling us that “there were also many other things that Jesus did; where every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” John 21:25. Like Mary, Martha and Lazarus we are all caught up in this drama of the Son who is sent. We have our parts to play, but we don’t get to write the script. We cannot expect that Jesus will arrive at the most convenient time from our own self-interested perspective. But whenever he comes on the scene, it is the right time, God’s time, time for the unfolding of salvation as the Father’s love for the Son spills over into our lives making of them signs of the glory that is the Father’s passionate love for the world.

Ezekiel 37:1–14

This engaging story has helped to inspire hymns, spirituals, folk songs and at least one rip roaring fun camp song I recall from my youth. It begins with the prophet Ezekiel being “brought by the Spirit of the Lord” to a valley (or plain according to some manuscripts) that is full of bones. Vss. 1-2. The bones are dry and, as we will see, disconnected. They are in such a state of scatter that it would have been impossible to recognize any individual form among them. Though described as a vision, the field of dismembered bones could well describe the conditions of any place around Jerusalem a decade after the Babylonian destruction of that city. The battle raged fiercely around the city for some time and the Babylonian troops showed little mercy for the hapless citizens of this troublesome and rebellious little kingdom when its last defenses failed. The scene calls to mind discovery of mass graves throughout the former Yugoslavia following the genocidal wars of the 1990s. Though the significance of the vision is not explained to the prophet until after it is complete, Ezekiel must have known that these were not the bones of strangers.

The Lord addresses the question to Ezekiel: “Can these bones live?” Vs. 3. From a purely human standpoint (the only standpoint Ezekiel can possibly have), the answer is “no.” Death is final. Ezekiel can have no basis for any other response. But the question is not posed by another mortal. This is not a conversation between peers. God is the questioner and Ezekiel knows that God possesses knowledge, power and wisdom far beyond the limits of his own understanding. Thus, while Ezekiel cannot conceive of how the dead bones might live again, he cannot rightly deny this possibility either. So he responds in the only possible way: “O Lord God, thou knowest.” Vs. 3

The prophet is instructed to prophesy to the bones, a seemingly futile task. Yet perhaps it seemed no more daunting to Ezekiel than his original call to preach “to a nation of rebels, who have rebelled against me; they and their fathers have transgressed against me to this day.” Ezekiel 2:3. Speaking to a people unwilling to listen (Ezekiel 3:7) is just about as fruitless as speaking to dead bones. But perhaps that is the point. As we shall see, these “dead bones” are the “whole house of Israel.” Vs. 11. It will be Ezekiel’s job to preach hope into the broken and demoralized Babylonian exiles eking out an existence in the midst of a hostile culture. Compared to this task, preaching to bones might have seemed a welcome diversion.

The Lord makes a remarkable promise to the bones: “I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.” Vs. 5. There is a playfulness in this message that gets lost in translation. As I have noted before, the Hebrew word for “breath” (ruach) is also the word for “spirit.” This confluence of the speaker, the word and the life giving spirit cannot help but call to mind the opening of the creation story in Genesis 1:1-5 and the creation of Adam in Genesis 2:7. With this allusion, the Lord answers implicitly his own question. “Yes, the bones can live because I speak them into existence and breathe into them my life giving spirit.” It is significant, I think, that God places this life giving word into the mouth of his prophet to speak. Vss. 4-5. The prophet then literally preaches the bones back to life again.

In verses 11-14 the Lord explains the vision to Ezekiel. The “bones” are the exiled people of Judah living in Babylon. They are lamenting their fate saying, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.” Vs. 11. But the Lord says otherwise: “Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you home into the land of Israel.” Vs. 12. Clearly, the “bones” are a metaphor for the exiles and the “grave” is a metaphor for Babylon, the land of captivity. But does Ezekiel mean to say more than this? In verse 13 the prophet goes on to say in the voice of the Lord: “And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.” This might only be a common case of Hebrew parallelism, repeating in a different word sequence substantially the same thought expressed in a previous sentence. Then again, the prophet might be intimating more. The final chapters of Ezekiel paint a portrait of restoration for Jerusalem, the temple and the land of Israel that clearly stretches the parameters of existence as we know it. See Ezekiel 40-48. The river flowing from the restored temple passes through the land of Israel, turns the oceans from salt water to fresh and brings to life the arid places. Ezekiel 47:1-12. Is it too much of a stretch to expect that people of Israel who have died prior to this glorious new age will be raised up to share in it also?

Of course there is no way of settling this question decisively. I am not convinced that there is enough here to state unequivocally that Ezekiel foresaw a resurrection of the dead. Nonetheless, he believed that Israel’s return to Palestine would inaugurate a sweeping transformation of the land into an Eden like state where God is rightly worshiped. Where creation ceases to rebel against its Creator and allows God to be God, can there be any limitation on God’s power to breathe life into it? Obviously, this profound renewal of the land did not occur upon the Jews’ return from exile. We are therefore forced to conclude either that the prophet’s vision failed, or that it awaits fulfilment at a time and in a manor Ezekiel could not yet see. Naturally, I stand on the latter conclusion. Whatever limits there might have been on Ezekiel’s understanding of the word he proclaimed, it is after all the Lord’s word. Ezekiel would be the first to admit that one’s own necessarily limited understanding of that word cannot contain or limit the word.

Psalm 130

This psalm is one of seven “penitential psalms” (the others being Psalm 6; Psalm 32; Psalm 38; Psalm 51; Psalm 102; and Psalm 143) so named by Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator, a statesman, writer and scholar of the sixth century. It is characterized by Hebrew Scripture scholars as a “lament” containing all of the essential elements of its type:

Initial Appeal to Yahweh, vss. 1-2.
Portrayal of inward distress, vss. 3-4
Expression of confidence, vss. 5-6
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. The Hebrew word “mimmaamkym” “From out of the depths” is a term that is equated with “sheol” or the abode of the dead. For the Israelite there was no “after life.” The concept of resurrection from death came only much later in Israel’s thinking. Consequently, death was the end of any meaningful life. To be in sheol was to be separated from the realm of life and therefore from the Lord of Life. There is no praise of Israel’s God in sheol. Consequently, the psalmist must have been in very deep distress, though we cannot tell what his or her specific complaints were.

According to Anderson, supra, the “word ‘depths’ [mimmaamkym] reverberates with mythical overtones of the abyss of watery chaos, the realm of the powers of confusion, darkness and death that are arrayed against the sovereign power of God.” Ibid. Perhaps, but the point seems to be that the psalmist feels as utterly distant from God who is “enthroned upon the cherubim” (Psalm 99:1) as any creature can be. This distance is due, in part at least, to the psalmist’s sin. Though clearly in some sort of deep trouble, the psalmist knows that s/he is in no position to claim God’s help and salvation. Nevertheless, the psalmist is able to “hope in the Lord” and encourages all Israel to do the same because, “there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.” Vs. 4. It is worth repeating here that the New Testament did not invent forgiveness. God has always been and always will be forgiving toward his people Israel and toward his people engrafted into the covenant with Israel through baptism into Jesus Christ. If that were not the case, if God did in fact “mark iniquities” (vs. 3), there would be no point in prayers such as this.

The psalmist is resolved to “wait for the Lord.” Vs. 5. S/he knows that answers to prayer are not instantaneous. Prayer requires a willingness to wait and watch for the answer. Jesus also told his disciples “Ask, and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7-8. Thus, asking is only the beginning. One must then seek the answer and be willing to knock on what appears to be a closed door.

“My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen for the morning.” Vs. 6. This is a striking image. In Jerusalem, watchmen took their post after sunset to keep a look out for approaching enemies. They were the ancient world’s equivalent of early warning systems. It was a tedious job on a long winter’s night and one can well imagine the watchman, who had no clock or wrist watch, scrutinizing the horizon for signs of the sunrise signaling that his lonely vigil was finally coming to an end.

In verses 7-8 the focus changes from the psalmist’s personal prayer to an admonition directed to all Israel to hope in the Lord. As we saw in Psalm 51, Israel frequently took ancient prayers of individuals and adapted them for use in public worship as prayers for the whole people. In this case, an Israelite who lived after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem may well have found in this individual’s plea for personal help a reflection of Israel’s post exilic distress. Having lost the line of David, the Temple, and her land, Israel was likewise “crying out from the depths.” Like the individual, Israel turned to the Word of the Lord and God’s promises for comfort and hope, knowing that with her God was forgiveness. Vs. 4.

Romans 8:6–11

I am not sure what can be done with this randomly selected section of Paul’s extended argument ripped out of its context and sandwiched in between some very substantial readings for this Sunday. It is worth pointing out, however, that when Paul is speaking of “the flesh” (“sarkos” in the Greek), he is not talking about bodily appetites (i.e., sexual attraction). He is instead speaking of life as lived under bondage to sin. Sin, as I noted in my post of March 9^th, is failure to trust God to be God and placing ourselves in the center of existence. Thus, where the self remains center stage, a life of severe asceticism is no less fleshly than a life of hedonistic abandon. In the case of the former, the objective is “self” purification; in the latter, “self” indulgence. Either way, it is all about “self” and that makes it sin.

So, too, life in the Spirit is not to be understood as an escape from bodily existence. Again, “flesh” is not synonymous with “body.” Rather, life in the Spirit is one of knowing the heart of God through one’s relationship with Jesus. When God is known as the one who does not withhold from us the life of his own Son, it is possible to trust God to be God and live joyfully, hopefully and obediently within our creaturely limits.

More could be said here, but not without resort to the context of Paul’s larger argument. That will have to await another day.

John 11:1–45

This incredible story begins in Galilee where Jesus has gone to escape hostility in Judea. There he receives word from Mary and Martha that their brother, Lazarus, is ill. “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” Vss. 5-6. These two sentences strike the reader as a non sequitur. The New Revised Standard Version attempts to soften these sentences a bit by translating them as follows: “Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” I don’t see any basis for this “softening” in the Greek text. Furthermore, I am convinced that the “harder” reading should stand because it alerts us to the very point to be made through the story, namely, that everything occurring in the gospel happens in order that Jesus might be glorified. So says R. H. Lightfoot and I agree. Lightfoot, R. H., St. John’s Gospel-A Commentary (c. 1956 by Clarendon Press, pub. Oxford University Press) p. 215-220.

From the standpoint of our twenty-first century, ego centric, narcissistic mentality that cannot see any good beyond individual self-fulfillment, it appears inexplicable that Jesus would refrain from taking a short trip to Bethany to save the life of one whom he loved. But Jesus points out that the illness is “not unto death,” but “for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it.” Vs. 4. If one accepts the proposition (as John would have us do) that the greatest good for all the world (Mary, Martha and Lazarus included) is the glorification of the Son, then love compels Jesus to remain where he is if that will further such glorification. Whether this decision on Jesus’ part was to allow nature to take its course with Lazarus or whether Jesus’ presence in Galilee was required for some other undisclosed reason is beside the point. Salvation for the whole world is revealed through the unfolding of the Son’s life lived in obedience to the will of his Father. Lazarus is part of all this drama as are Mary and Martha. But the story revolves around Jesus and their stories find meaning and fulfilment only as they are incorporated into his.

After an interval of two days, Jesus’ announces his intention to return to Judea and his disciples are incredulous. Had not Jesus only recently and narrowly escaped death at the hands of his enemies there? Why should he want to return? Jesus points out that he wishes to go to Lazarus who “has fallen asleep.” Vs. 11. The disciples, taking Jesus literally, interpret this to mean that Lazarus is on the way to recovery. In fact, he has died. Vs. 14.

Upon his approach to Bethany, Jesus first encounters Martha who greets Jesus with a seeming reproach: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Vs. 21. But she follows up with a confession of faith: “And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Vs. 22. She further confesses, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.” Vs. 27. Martha does not need the sign of Lazarus’ rising.

Mary is another story. She also reproaches Jesus for his absence in their time of need, but she makes no confession of faith. She and the people who are consoling her simply weep. It is at this point that Jesus “was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” Vs. 33. The Greek word translated as “deeply moved in spirit” can mean either deep grief or anger. Commentators go wild attempting to get into the head of Jesus here. Was Jesus irked or grieved at the obvious failure of Mary and her supporters to grasp, as did Martha, that he is the resurrection and the life? Is this grief or anger directed against death and bereavement generally? Was Jesus simply sharing the sorrow of Mary at this point? On the whole, I believe that the first explanation fits best with the narrative. Jesus is grieved/angered that Mary and her friends do not recognize that he is the resurrection and the life. The sorrow inflicted upon them by this blindness is what induces his weeping, not simply the death of Lazarus. It is for their sake, the sake of these “people standing by” that Jesus performs the “sign” of Lazarus’ raising. Vs. 42. Many of those bystanders did, in fact, believe. Vs. 45.

But the story does not end with the reading. When we read further, we learn that some of the bystanders reported this sign to the religious authorities. Fearing that Jesus’ rising popularity and the expectations surrounding him might provoke aggression from Rome, the authorities determine to kill Jesus. John 11: 46-53. Thus, this life giving sign comes at a great cost to Jesus. Lazarus’ raising from the tomb places Jesus on his trajectory toward the tomb. Throughout John’s gospel Jesus continues to give life through increasingly profound and decisive signs even as he draws ever closer to death. Moreover, plans are made to do away with Lazarus as well. John 12:9-11. The sign, therefore, is not to be taken as a “happy ending.” It is anything but. It further emphasizes the observation made in Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus: “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.” John 3:19. Though Jesus’ sign cannot deter the gathering darkness nor even benefit Lazarus more than briefly, it nevertheless demonstrates that even death must retreat in the face of Jesus. Though surely not a “resurrection,” Lazarus’ raising points beyond itself to the final triumph over the power of death that Jesus will accomplish.

Sunday, March 9th

March 3, 2014UncategorizedBabylonian Exile, Bible, David, devil, discipleship, faith, gospel, Holy Spirit, justice, kingdom of heaven, Lectionary, Lenten Practices, prayer, preaching, Psalms, Religion, Saint Paul, St. Matthew, Sunday Lessons, temptation, theologyrevolsen

FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT

Genesis 2:15–17; 3:1–7
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12–19
Matthew 4:1–11

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Lord God, our strength, the struggle between good and evil rages within and around us, and the devil and all the forces that defy you tempt us with empty promises. Keep us steadfast in your word, and when we fall, raise us again and restore us through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Temptation comes in many forms. Mine comes in the shape of a convenience store with a lighted sign publishing the size of the current Powerball pot. I must confess that I am often sorely tempted to buy a ticket. And why not? Spending a dollar or two will not put my family in the poor house. I am under no illusion that my odds of winning are greater than those for everyone else. It’s a long shot, I realize that. But here is the thing. I have absolutely no chance to win it if I’m not in it. For a minimal investment, I can be in it. Even a long shot is better than no shot, isn’t it?

Thus far, I have resisted the siren call. That reflects, in part, my pietistic aversion to games of chance. The churches in which I was raised took a dim view of anything that looked like gambling. We were particularly scornful of our Roman Catholic neighbors with their “chances” and Saturday night bingo. When the men of our church had their “poker night,” they took pains to point out that it was only for match sticks. I never quite understood the moral underpinnings for these strict prohibitions against even the most seemingly innocent games of chance. That, however, did not prevent their becoming engraved on my conscience along with the Ten Commandments. Then, too, I worry that purchasing a ticket might be the first step toward a life of addiction to gambling. Of course, I don’t believe I have any such compulsion. But isn’t that what all addicts say?

I suspect, though, that there is something more at stake here than my childhood piety or even the possibility of my becoming a compulsive gambler. A lottery ticket is touted as “the ticket to a dream.” So what kind of dream am I buying? Obviously, the dream of wealth, and not just the “comfortably well off” sort of wealth. The lottery promises wealth beyond my wildest dreams, life altering wealth. Should I win the Powerball pot, I will never have to check my bank balance again. I will never have to get up any earlier than I want to. I won’t have to answer to anyone about the way I spend my time, where I go or what I do with the rest of my life. Concerns about debt, home repairs and left over college expenses for the kids will belong to the past. Henceforth, my life will be my own.

But something is wrong with this dream. It sounds suspiciously similar to the promise of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. A lottery win would make me autonomous, independent and, in many respects, “like God.” That is the way it seems in my fantasies anyway. The reality, however, is different. Wealth cannot fix a broken marriage or buy back all those hours I never got around to spending with the kids. Money can’t pay off the grim reaper-whose arrival might be a lot sooner than I anticipate. While money might be able to feed my appetites and awaken new cravings I never knew I had, I suspect that once sated, I would discover the same aching emptiness that plagues all of us when we allow life to revolve around ourselves and our appetites. So even in the very remote chance that I were to win the lottery, I would still lose. The serpent’s promise would finally show itself for the lie it is.

Jesus understood that life spent feeding appetites, accumulating power and pursuing the delusion of invulnerability is worse than wasted. He knew the devil had nothing for him; that there was no dream attached to the lottery ticket. That is why he invites us join him in the wilderness this Lenten season. We need to learn that the bread of life comes not from unlimited purchasing power, but from the generous hand of a compassionate Father. We need to understand that power is not the ability to subject others to our will, but the grace to submit ourselves to God’s will and to the service of our neighbor. We must learn that God’s promise of protection is not a grant of immunity from suffering and the cross, but the promise of God’s gracious presence with us as we take up that cross for the sake of the world for which Jesus died. We must come to know that freedom is not autonomy. Freedom is found in submitting to the gentle yolk of Jesus and learning from him. Matthew 11:27-30.

The writer and philosopher James K. A. Smith points out that “we are what we love.” Smith, James K.A., Desiring the Kingdom, (c. 2009 by James K.A. Smith, pub. Baker Publishing Group) p. 37 ff. That is to say, we are shaped by those things that become the focus of our desire. In Sunday’s reading from the letter to the Romans, Paul makes it very clear that loving God and God’s kingdom does not come naturally for us. Our love is turned in upon ourselves and must be redirected to its proper object. We cannot accomplish this redirection on our own. Only the Spirit of God poured into our hearts can work this transformative miracle. Nevertheless, Jesus calls us to the faithful practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Again, these are not works by which we can turn ourselves from sin, but tools through which the Spirit trains our hearts to honor our baptismal vow to “reject the devil and all his empty promises” and “seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness.” Matthew 6:33.

Genesis 2:15–17; 3:1–7

To reiterate what I have said previously about Genesis and the other four books of the “Pentateuch,” namely, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, most scholars are convinced that there are at least four main literary sources for these works, each of which narrates the drama of Israel’s origins. These four sagas were woven together and edited throughout the years of the Davidic dynasty to the period following the Babylonian Exile. In chronological terms, that would stretch from about 950 B.C.E. to 500 B.C.E. The first literary tradition, known as the “Jahwist,” is the earliest source. It probably dates from the years of the Davidic Dynasty, being a product of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Next in chronological order would be the “Elowist” source. This literary tradition tells the story of Israel from the viewpoint of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and was likely brought to Judah by refugees escaping the Assyrian conquest and annexation of that nation around 721 B.C.E. The third contributor, known as the Deuteronomist, consisting of Deuteronomy and extending through the end of II Kings, is credited with joining the Jahwist and Elowist material into a single narrative. The final literary contributors, designated the “Priestly” source, rounded out the final form of the Pentateuch as we have it today incorporating ancient liturgical traditions preserved by the Jerusalem priesthood. This final editing was done sometime during or immediately after the Babylonian Exile ending in 538 B.C.E. For further elaboration, I invite you to read the online article, Documentary Hypothesis.

Our reading from Sunday is attributed in the main to the Jawhist. Unlike the first chapter of Genesis where the Priestly writer testifies to God’s creation of the universe in a poetic hymn building on the six days of creation to the culmination on the Seventh Day when God rests from his labor, the Jawhist spins a simple narrative about the creation. God first creates an “earth creature.” This creature, though human, is not properly speaking a “man.” He is an “adam,” having been taken from the earth (“earth” being “adamah” in Hebrew). Not until God recognizes that it is not good for this “adam” to be alone and creates from his own body a female counterpart can he be called a “man.” The Hebrew word for a male human being is “ish” and that for a female, “ishah.” The term “ish” is not used for the “adam” until the creation of the woman. Genesis 2:23.

Though seemingly primitive, this story is a nuanced account of humanity’s problematic relationship with its Creator. As such, it is less an explanation for how evil came into the world and more a description of the way matters now stand. Though Christian and later Jewish tradition has identified the serpent with the devil, that does not seem to have been the intent either of the Jawhist or the subsequent editors. According to the narrative, the serpent is a creature made by God like all other creatures. It is “subtle,” but not necessarily evil. We are not told why the serpent tempted Eve to eat from the forbidden tree or what he stood to gain from humanity’s disobedience. No explanation is given as to why God would place in the garden inhabited by human beings a tree bearing knowledge God did not want for humans to have. But perhaps we are overthinking this. The point seems to be that human beings are creatures. Though endowed with marvelous potential for learning, love and creativity, they are nevertheless bounded by limits. They are mortal. They are dependent upon the rest of creation for their sustenance. They cannot change the past or control the future. They have only today. Yesterday must be surrendered to the God who made it and tomorrow must be left trustingly in God’s hands. In order to live well, human beings must live faithfully within their limits trusting God for what lies beyond.

The serpent suggests that this need not be so. Humans do not have to accept the limits God has placed upon them. They need not accept God’s determination of what is “good” for them. If God places limits on Adam and Eve, it can only be that God is holding something back. God has goods he doesn’t want to share. The bottom line, as far as the serpent is concerned, is that God cannot be trusted to do right by his creatures. “So,” says the serpent, “don’t believe for one minute that you will die from eating the fruit of the tree. That’s just an empty threat. The tree is the key to being master of your own destiny. Do you want to be a humble little gardener for the rest of your life? Wouldn’t you rather be lord of the garden?”

It is a pity the lectionary does not let the entire story be told. If it were to do so, we would learn that there are betrayals going on at all levels here. Adam and Eve betray the trust invested in them by God. Adam throws Eve under the bus when confronted by God over his disobedience. Genesis 3:12. Eve blames the snake, thereby implicating God who is ultimately responsible for having made such a creature. Genesis 3:13. Harmony between the Creator and his human subjects, harmony in the most intimate of human relationships and harmony between human beings and the earth from which they were taken has all been disrupted. Genesis 3:14-19.

In the end, we are left with a humanity that rages futilely against its limits, running up again and again against God’s firm “no.” The forces of nature we cannot control, our weakness and vulnerability to accident and disease, the looming prospect of death become oppressive burdens when we can no longer recognize on the frontiers of these limiting factors the gracious God who can be trusted to see to our ultimate good. We have seized the unlimited prerogative of God, but as limited mortals we cannot bear it. Psychologist and Philosopher Ernest Becker puts it all quite succinctly in secular language.

“Man is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever.” Becker, Ernest, The Denial of Death, (c. 1973 Free Press Paperbacks). That pretty much reflects the terrifying state of human existence in the absence of God’s grace reflected in our reading from Genesis.

Psalm 32

This is one of the seven “penitential psalms” so classified in the commentary of Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator written in the 6^th century C.E. (These include Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143). Not surprisingly, it was a favorite of Augustine and Luther. The psalmist speaks eloquently about the joy and relief found in forgiveness of sin and the futility of denial and self-justification. The psalmist does not disclose the nature of his or her sins, but indicates that it was some illness that brought him or her to an acknowledgement of sin and the need for confession. There is no question but that guilt induced stress can bring about illness, but it is far more likely in this case that the psalmist’s illness was the catalyst for guilt. Sickness was almost universally understood in ancient cultures as an affliction from God intended to punish sin. As such, its onset naturally drove the psalmist to introspection and self-examination.

In this case, the psalmist’s self-examination led to the discovery of sin that the psalmist had been trying to hide from God and perhaps even from the psalmist’s own self. In the confession and acknowledgement of sin, the psalmist found healing and relief. The psalmist therefore instructs fellow worshipers not take the path of sin and self-deception that leads to illness and misfortune, but to “come clean” with God and cry out for deliverance. Mulish stubbornness will only lead to grief. As Augustine puts it, “much is he scourged, who, confessing not his sins to God, would be his own ruler.” Moreover, “it is right to be subject unto [God], that so you may be placed above all things beside.” Augustine’s Commentary of Psalm 32 published in The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Vol 8, (Erdmans, 1979) p. 71.

The psalmist’s advice is good as far as it goes, but his/her experience, valid and instructive though it may be, must not be elevated to a universal principle. Jesus reminds us that illness and disability are not necessarily related to anyone’s sin. John 9:3. The preacher from Ecclesiastes points out that in many cases justice and right do not prevail and all seems like “vanity.” Ecclesiastes 4:1-7. Sometimes tragedy happens for no apparent reason. There are psalms to address these circumstances as well. See, e.g. Psalm 39. When ministering to the sick and dying, one must always take care to avoid any suggestion that the individual’s suffering is a punishment from God. It is one thing for the sufferer himself/herself to come to an understanding of sin through reflection upon his/her ordeal and discover the healing power of forgiveness. It is quite another for someone else to pronounce a judgment of sin from the outside and expect the sufferer to plead guilty and repent!

That said, sometimes sickness is the result of our sinful lifestyles. It is well known that we are working longer hours these days under more stressful conditions. For many people in our country, this isn’t a choice. When you are at the minimum wage level, you need multiple incomes from two or three jobs just to put food on the table and keep a roof over your family. But for many of us, I believe that our frantic work ethic is more about maintaining a particular lifestyle. I have told the story many times of a fellow attorney who suffered a heart attack at the ripe old age of forty-one telling me, “This is what I get for spending my life doing work I hate to earn money I don’t need to buy stuff I don’t want to impress people I don’t like for reasons that don’t matter.” Chronic anger leads to high blood pressure, heart disease and depression. Our careless and excessive eating habits often lead to obesity and the health problems it creates. Nevertheless, it is dangerous to apply these general observations to instances of individual suffering.

Romans 5:12–19

Martin Luther says of Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “The sum and substance of this letter is: to pull down, to pluck up, and to destroy all wisdom and righteousness of the flesh (i.e., of whatever importance they may be in the sight of men and even in our own eyes), no matter how heartily and sincerely they may be practiced, and to affirm, establish, and make large the reality of sin (however unconscious we may be of its existence).” Luther, Martin, Lectures on Romans, The Library of Christian Classics (c. 1962 L. Jenkins, pub. The Westminster Press) p. 3. That certainly describes the way in which Paul begins his letter. In Romans 1 Paul lambasts the gentile culture of Rome for its gross immorality. In chapter two, we discover that this critique of the gentiles was but a sucker punch. The knockout blow comes in Romans 2:1 when Paul turns to his audience, the Roman church, and says, “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge are doing the same things.” I suspect that the readers are remarking at this point, “You can’t be serious, Paul! We don’t take part in any of those horrid, immoral practices!”

Paul is serious, though, and he is setting the stage for his argument in the chapters to come that sin is far deeper, more complicated and pervasive than his readers imagine. He is out to demonstrate to them that their supposed righteousness and moral superiority over the gentile culture they excoriate is an illusion. Sin is not a matter of living up to moral standards. It is a matter of the human heart being so hopelessly turned in upon itself and away from God that it cannot possibly obey God. The good news of Jesus Christ is not about reforming sinners. It is about crucifying and raising them up as new people.

In our reading for Sunday, Paul points out that sin came into the world through the disobedience of Adam. As we have seen in our first lesson, Adam’s and Eve’s sin consisted in this: they failed to trust God to see to their good and sought to reach beyond their creaturely limits and determine that good on their own and for themselves. Paul points out that sin was in the world before the law was given to Israel. Sin therefore existed even when there was no law by which to measure it. Paul will go on to point out that, while the law can reveal and expose sin, it cannot be used as a tool for overcoming sin. Romans 7:7-12. At its core, sin is our failure to trust God to be God. Therefore, the remedy for sin is the restoration of our trust or “faith” in God. Unless we can come to the point where we trust God enough to be God, we will never be able to live faithfully within our creaturely limitations. Without faith, we will always be reaching up in a futile effort to take control.

How, then, is our lack of trust overcome? How can the nagging doubt about God’s faithfulness planted in our hearts by the serpent be driven out? For an answer to that question, we need to back track to Romans 5:6-11. There Paul points out that while we were still sinful, faithless and rebelling against God, God showed his faithfulness toward and love for us in Jesus’ death for our sake. Romans 5:8. The death of Jesus demonstrates both the depth of human depravity in rejecting the very best God had to give and the greater depth of God’s love which will simply not take no for an answer. Paul wraps up his argument in Romans 8:31-39. “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not give us all things with him?” Romans 8:32. “For I am sure,” says Paul, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39. It is the preaching of this wonderful good news that ignites trust and confidence in God’s faithfulness, silencing forever the serpent’s lies.

Matthew 4:1–11

As usual, Matthew employs numerous citations and allusions to people and events in the Hebrew Scripture’s narrative of God’s saving acts for Israel. Jesus’ forty days of fasting echoes Israel’s forty years of wilderness wandering as punishment for unfaithfulness on the verge of Canaan. Deuteronomy 8:2-3. It might also allude to the forty days Moses spent fasting on Mt. Sinai to prepare for confirmation of God’s covenant with Israel. Exodus 24:18; Deuteronomy 9:9. Temptation to turn stones into bread could be an allusion to Moses’ rebellion in striking the stone to bring forth water in Numbers 20:1-13, but I have to say that I think this is a bit of a stretch.

“If you are the son of God…” A first class condition in the Greek, this does not suggest that the devil doubts Jesus’ sonship. It reflects instead a desire to ferret out what sort of son Jesus will be. “Rhma,” is the Greek word used for “word” in Jesus’ scriptural response to the temptation to turn stone into bread. Somewhat broader than the term “logos,” it can include “event,” or “happening.” Just as Israel was made to rely upon the bread “spoken into existence” by the mouth of God while residing in the wilderness, so Jesus relies upon his heavenly Father to provide for his needs in his own wilderness wandering.

The temptation to jump from the pinnacle of the temple follows naturally from Jesus’ response to the last temptation. “Alright, Jesus. So you trust the promises of God to sustain you. Is that it? Well let’s see how much you trust those promises.” The devil is not a flunky when it comes to interpreting scripture. He has the jist of Psalm 91 correct. The psalmist does indeed claim that “because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your habitation, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.” Psalm 91:9-10. As we have seen, a similar conviction is expressed more moderately in this Sunday’s psalm. But as previously noted, these are not the only psalms in the Bible. They represent the life experiences of the individuals who prayed them and they still resonate for many people today-but not all people. Sometimes good conduct is not rewarded. Sometimes justice is not done. Sometimes our prayers meet with seeming silence. Often faith finds itself in circumstances where there is little or no evidence of God’s love and protection. There are psalms dealing with these very circumstances also. See, e.g., Psalm 88. Furthermore, the devil would do well to reflect on Psalm 30 in which arrogant presumption brings discipline and divine rebuke. Psalm 30:6-7.

The devil’s hermeneutic (focusing on a single scriptural voice to the neglect of others) is one of choice for culture warriors seeking biblical sanction for their various agendas. By cherry picking the verses you like and ignoring those you don’t, you can make the Bible say just about anything you want. But such use of the Bible does not honor its authority. Rather, it strips the Bible of all authority and makes the Bible a servant of ideologies, political platforms and social agendas.

The last temptation, to employ the power and glory of empire, is perhaps the most difficult to resist. Political power promises swift results-often good results. The only catch is that you need to worship the devil to get it. So political power is not neutral. To employ political means is not the same as using a spade-which could also be used as a weapon-to till a field. It is to enter into the realm of coercion, threats, moral compromises and always ultimately, violence. The devil would argue that you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. There will inevitably be blood spilled on the way to a better world. Collateral damage cannot be avoided. Some truths must wait to be spoken until a more opportune time-after the election preferably. The ends justify the means.

But we learn from the Sermon on the Mount that it is precisely the other way around for disciples of Jesus. The means determine the end. In fact, one could well say that the means are the only end a disciple is commanded to pursue. This might not appear to be helpful to persons seeking a general ethic for advancing the common good through political means. But Jesus does not seem interested in that. Indeed, the only time he mentions the nations of the world is when he tells his disciples not to be like them. As far as a disciple is concerned, truth must be spoken without any thought given to the effect it will have on the election of a candidate or the passage of a piece of legislation-however beneficial these may be. Violence must not be employed even in the service of justice and peace. The law courts are not to be used by disciples to defend their rights. This is the shape of Kingdom building Jesus chooses over the devil’s imminently more practical alternatives.

Sunday, March 2nd

February 24, 2014UncategorizedBabylonian Exile, Bible, Church, Covenant, discipleship, Epiphany, Exodus, faith, gospel, Lectionary, Lenten Practices, Moses, preaching, Psalms, Religion, resurrection, Saint Paul, Sinai, St. Matthew, Sunday Lessons, theology, Torah, Transfigurationrevolsen

TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD

Exodus 24:12–18
Psalm 2
2 Peter 1:16–21
Matthew 17:1–9

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, in the transfiguration of your Son you confirmed the mysteries of the faith by the witness of Moses and Elijah, and in the voice from the bright cloud declaring Jesus your beloved Son, you foreshadowed our adoption as your children. Make us heirs with Christ of your glory, and bring us to enjoy its fullness, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“It’s about the economy, stupid.” James Carville, a campaign strategist for Bill Clinton, coined that phrase during an in-house meeting with his advisers. Whether intentional or not, the remark leaked out to the public and became a slogan in Mr. Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign against sitting president George H. W. Bush. Clinton’s campaign had a recession on its side. In March of 1991, days after the ground invasion of Iraq, President Bush had an approval rating of 90%. But when the price of milk, eggs and gas rise and jobs are in jeopardy, the American public isn’t likely to be dazzled by medals won in wars now past. National security fades into the background and few seem interested in the ever present “culture war” issues. That probably explains why, by the following year, 64% of Americans polled disapproved of Mr. Bush’s job performance. He probably didn’t deserve it any more than the current president deserves a bad grade for a bad economy. Most economists agree that the economy usually does what it does based on events over which nobody has much control. It doesn’t seem to make much difference who is in the White House. But in the world of politics, somebody is always to blame. As President Harry Truman so aptly put it, “the buck stops here,” meaning at the oval office. That’s not always fair, but who says life is fair?

Anyway, I digress. The whole point of the accidental slogan was to keep the Clinton presidential campaign focused on issues people care about. In our gospel lesson for Sunday, God lets us know in no uncertain terms what God cares about: “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” In other words, “It’s about Jesus, stupid.” That’s not a bad slogan for winding up Epiphany, a season during which the Babe of Bethlehem grows into maturity and his identity comes into ever clearer focus. If Mary’s jubilant song of praise, the song of the angels, Simeon’s Benediction, Anna’s testimony, the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism, Jesus’ call for us to drop everything and follow him and the Sermon on the Mount have not already made it clear enough, now God speaks with unmistakable clarity. It’s about Jesus. Keep your eye on him.

Discipleship is finally not about subscription to a set of doctrines, obedience to a set of spiritual disciplines or adherence to moral principles. Discipleship is about our relationship to a person, Jesus Christ. Professor Karl Barth was one of the most brilliant teachers and faithful pastors of the 20^th Century. His unfinished Christian Dogmatics consists of several massive volumes drawing deeply from biblical wisdom and centuries of western thought. A reporter supposedly asked Professor Barth if he could summarize what he had said in all those volumes. Barth thought for a moment and then said: “Jesus loves me, this I know.” By way of disclaimer, I have to add that I have not been able to verify this anecdote independently. But it was relayed to me by a teacher who studied under Professor Barth and in whom I have a good deal of trust. None of this is to say that doctrine, spiritual discipline or morals are not important. They are important and we will have the opportunity during Lent to reflect upon them. Yet in so doing, we cannot lose the focus on our relationship with Jesus. If the Sermon on the Mount teaches us anything, it is that religion without relationship is dead.

The inscription for my Lutheran Church’s logo (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) is “God’s work. Our hands.” It’s a good motto, properly understood. Though, as Martin Luther teaches us, “The kingdom of God comes without our prayers…” or anything else we do, nevertheless God graciously offers us the opportunity to take part in the kingdom’s coming. God does indeed work out God’s redemptive purposes for the world through our humble works (and often in spite of them as well!). Nevertheless, at the end of the day it is not our hands or any work, however good and necessary, that stands in the center. So with all due respect for the folks who developed the logo, I could wish for a slogan that magnifies Jesus (or at least mentions him!) a little more and ourselves a little less. It’s about Jesus.

Shine, Jesus, shine

Fill this land with the Father’s Glory;

Blaze Spirit blaze, set our hearts on fire.

Flow, river, flow,

Flood the nations with grace and mercy;

Send forth your Word,

Lord and let there be light!

Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Hymn # 671.

Exodus 24:12–18

The Book of Exodus is the second of five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) making up the “Pentateuch” or the “Five Books of Moses.” It has long been understood that Moses was not the author of these works, at least not in the modern sense of that term. Most scholars are convinced that there are at least four main literary sources, each of which narrates the drama of Israel’s origins. These works were woven together and edited throughout the years of the Davidic dynasty to the period following the Babylonian Exile. In chronological terms, that would stretch from about 950 B.C.E. to 500 B.C.E. The first literary tradition, known as the “Jahwist” or just “J,” is the earliest source. It probably dates from the years of the Davidic Dynasty, being a product of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Next in chronological order would be the “Elowist” source referred to simply as “E.” This literary tradition tells the story of Israel from the viewpoint of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and was likely brought to Judah by refugees escaping the Assyrian conquest and annexation of that nation around 721 B.C.E. The third contributor, known as the Deuteronomist or “D,” consisting of Deuteronomy and extending through the end of II Kings, is credited with joining the “J” and “E” material into a single narrative. The final literary contributors, designated the “Priestly” source, rounded out the final form of the Pentateuch as we have it today incorporating ancient liturgical traditions preserved by the Jerusalem priesthood. This final editing was done sometime during or immediately after the Babylonian Exile ending in 538 B.C.E.

That all sounds nice in theory. But our reading for Sunday illustrates the limitations of such literary analysis in many cases. Exodus 24 is filled with phrases and terminology that is foreign to all of the four known sources. This has led to a dispute over whether we are dealing with a possible fifth source or perhaps incorporation of such source material by J and E, the probable contributors for this section. Old Testament professor Brevard Childs wisely concludes that “the evidence is no longer such as to permit this detailed reconstruction” and that “the better part of wisdom consists in making clear those areas of general agreement.” Childs, Brevard S., The Book of Exodus, The Old Testament Library, (c. 1974 Brevard S. Childs, pub. The Westminster Press) p. 500. That being said, the one thing all scholars tend to agree upon is that verses 15-18 can be safely attributed to the “P” source.

By now you must be wondering why any of this crap matters. Usually, it doesn’t. Ordinarily, I would not waste time with such noetic perjinkerties, but I believe that here it makes sense to focus on verses 15-18 with the understanding that they come down to us ultimately from the Priestly (“P”) source. As Professor Gerhard Von Rad points out, “P depicts a course of history in which new manifestations, institutions, and regulations are revealed from age to age.” Von Rad, Gernard, Old Testament Theology, Volume I, (c. 1962 by Oliver and Boyd Ltd, pub. Harper &Row Publishers, Inc.) p. 233. At this particular juncture in the Exodus narrative, Moses is being summoned to the top of Mt. Sanai to receive the “tables of stone, with the law and the commandments.” Vs. 12. He instructs Aaron and Hur to remain below with the people. Vs. 14. At the beginning of vs. 15 we are given the Priestly authors’ account of Moses’ direct encounter with God upon Sinai. God appears as a devouring fire in the midst of a dense cloud. While at this point Moses alone can approach God, Moses is to receive detailed instructions for construction of the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle in which it will be housed. Aaron and his sons are to be consecrated as priests to serve in the Tabernacle which will henceforth mediate God’s presence in the midst of Israel. All of this is spelled out in Exodus 25-31.

The Priestly history reveals that “new manifestations and institutions” governing worship and faithful living are not directionless. They have a goal, namely, the nearer presence of God. There is, one could say, an incarnational tropism expressed in the relentless approach of God toward his people. The end point is that day when “I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest…” Jeremiah 31:33-34. Or, in terms of the New Testament, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them and they shall be his people and God himself will be with them.” Revelation 21:3. This dogged progression of God toward oneness with his people manifested throughout the growth and development of Israelite religious institutions could not have been lost on Matthew whose purpose is to present Jesus as the end point of the law and the prophets. That will become increasingly evident in Matthew’s account of our Lord’s Transfiguration.

Psalm 2

This psalm is familiar to all lovers of Handel’s Messiah. Formally, it is an “enthronement psalm” portraying the coronation of an Israelite/Judean King. As such, it reflects a ritual common throughout the ancient world, particularly in Egypt, where the king was designated “God’s son.” The coronation took place in the sanctuary where the newly crowned king received an oracle from the priest legitimating his rule. Anderson, Bernhard W., Out of the Depths-The Psalms Speak for Us Today, (c. 1983 by Bernhard W. Anderson, pub. The Westminster Press) p. 188. This ritual and its accompanying liturgy brings into sharp focus the danger of monarchy and the reason for Israel’s ambivalence toward the institution of kingship. As the prophet Samuel pointed out when the people of Israel first began agitating for a king to rule over them, kingship would bring with it taxation, loss of tribal autonomy and oppressive military conscription. I Samuel 8:10-18. But the more significant threat was theological. It is the Lord “who is enthroned on Israel’s praises.” Anointing a king over Israel amounted to dethroning the Lord as king. I Samuel 8:7. Linkage between the liturgy of the Temple and the coronation of the king is symptomatic of a dangerous synergy. Before long, the worship of God would be swallowed up in adoration of the king. Very soon the institutions of worship and the observances of the covenant would become the religion of the nation state. Faith in Israel’s God would be reduced to sacred ideology legitimating injustice and oppression under the monarchy. This is precisely the evil which the 8^th Century prophets rose to denounce.

Nevertheless, this and several other psalms containing coronation liturgies and prayers for the king have made their way into the Psalter. It is important to keep in mind that, however corrupt the institution of monarchy might actually have become in Israel and Judah, the role of the king was to serve as God’s minister for justice. The king is not above the law as the story of David and Bathsheba demonstrates. II Samuel 11:1-12:25. Kings of Israel were anointed to “judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with justice,” “to defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.” Psalm 72:2-4. The hope that such a king would someday arise remained alive even among prophets most critical of the monarchy, such as Jeremiah (See Jeremiah 23:1-6). It finally evolved into the fevered messianic expectation present throughout Palestine in Jesus’ day. This longing for a messianic liberator was naturally fed by resentment toward Roman domination. Thus, claiming the title “messiah” or “son of God” was a dangerous political assertion. It amounted to a frontal attack on the Roman Empire which maintained that “Caesar is Lord.”

Verse seven of the psalm is echoed first at Jesus’ baptism. Matthew 3:17. The devil takes up the refrain throughout his temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Matthew 4:1-11. We hear these words once again in Sunday’s lesson on the Mountain of Transfiguration. Matthew 17:5. The allusion to this psalm is intended to inform us that Jesus is the messiah and, among other things, the rightful heir to the throne of David. But as we shall see in our reflections on the gospel lesson, there is far more to be said of Jesus than was ever intended for any Israelite king by the psalm.

2 Peter 1:16–21

The second letter of Peter is probably the last of the New Testament writings. It was composed well into the 2^nd Century. The letter appears to be dependent in part on the brief Letter of Jude (cf. II Peter 2:1-8 and Jude 4-16). The author speaks of the letters of the Apostle Paul in such a way as to suggest that these letters had been collected into a body of writings and were beginning to be treated as authoritative scriptures. II Peter 3:15-16. Thus, the II Peter would have to have been written well after the death of the Apostle Paul which could not have been much earlier than 65 C.E., and might have been considerably later according to some scholars. In either case, it is all but certain that the letter is not the work of Simon Peter, spokesperson for the Twelve Apostles in the gospels. It is likely the work of a second generation disciple influenced by the teachings of Peter and who therefore published his work under Peter’s name. As I have noted before, this was a common literary practice in antiquity that was not considered dishonest or deceptive. Rather, it was the way in which a disciple honored the master by whom he considered his work to have been inspired.

The twofold purpose of the letter seems to be 1) to address the disappointed hopes of those who had expected the immediate return of Jesus in glory; and 2) to warn the church against false teachers. There is not much said about these false teachers other than that they are evidently within the church, yet bring in false teaching “even denying the Master who bought them.” II Peter 2:1. Whatever their teachings, the author of the letter has nothing but contempt for them, heaping upon them no less than twelve verses of non-stop abuse. II Peter 2:10-22.

Sunday’s reading appears to reference the Transfiguration story recounted in the gospels. However, it is possible that the author is referring to a resurrection appearance of Jesus similar to that described in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew 28:16-20. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus appears only briefly to the women at the tomb following his resurrection. He instructs them to tell the rest of the disciples to meet him at a particular mountain in Galilee. Matthew 28:8-10. Mark has a similar sequence, but in his gospel the women do not see Jesus, but only an angelic messenger at the tomb. Rather than delivering to the rest of the disciples the instructions to return to Galilee, the women run away from the tomb in terror and say nothing to anyone. Mark 16:5-8. In Matthew’s account, the women deliver the message from the risen Christ and the disciples travel to Galilee where they encounter him. Matthew 28:16. So the question is, which “holy mountain” is the author talking about? The Mountain of Transfiguration? Or the mountain in Galilee where the disciples encountered the resurrected Christ?

In either case, the point is that faith rests upon the handing down of eye witness accounts of Jesus’ life giving ministry, obedient suffering, faithful death and glorious resurrection. These are not “cleverly devised myths,” but faithful testimony grounded in the witness of the apostles. Vs. 16. Jesus is the “prophetic word made more sure.” He is the “lamp shining in a dark place” by which we read the scriptures. No scripture is a matter of one’s own personal interpretation. For disciples of Jesus, the scripture has one purpose: to illuminate their Master. It is a dreadful mistake, therefore, to read the scriptures as though they were a list of moral rules, a collection of wise sayings or interesting narratives apart from their testimony to Jesus who, for us, gives them their meaning.

Matthew 17:1–9

“And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart.” Vs. 1. The six days almost certainly harken back to the Exodus narrative in which the glory of the Lord in the midst of a cloud descended upon Mt. Sinai for that period of time. Exodus 24:16. Just as it was on the seventh day that Moses was called to enter into the cloud where the glory of the Lord resided, so Jesus takes his disciples “after six days” to the Mountain of Transfiguration where they enter with him into the cloud. The glory of the Lord which they behold, however, is Jesus himself whose face shines like the sun and whose garments become white as light. Vs. 2. Professor Stanley Hauerwas sees in these “six days” an allusion to the six days of creation after which God rested. Genesis 2:1-3. Hauerwas, Stanley, Matthew, Brazos Theological Commentary of the Bible (c. 2006 by Stanley Hauerwas, pub. by Brazos Press) p. 154. This could well be so. As I have noted before, it is not Matthew’s intent to fit Jesus into a single, ridged scriptural paradigm, but rather to illuminate the person and work of Jesus through myriad Hebrew Scriptural figures and traditions. Fellowship with Jesus is indeed the ultimate Sabbath rest and may well be what Jesus meant in Matthew 11:27-30 where he promises rest to all “who labor and are heavy laden.”

Jesus appears in the company of Moses and Elijah. The former is the mouthpiece through whom God delivered the covenant to Israel from Mt. Sinai. The latter is the mouth through which God persistently called Israel back to faithfulness under that covenant. Though ever in tension with one another, the law and the prophets are inseparable. The law (understood as “Torah”) is the concrete shape of Israel’s life of faithful obedience to her God. The prophets speak that same Torah freshly to each generation. In that sense, the prophets are “radicals,” ever calling Israel back to the roots of her faith. Matthew means to make it clear, however, that Jesus transcends both Moses and Elijah. Jesus both extends and fulfills their missions in himself. The voice from heaven declares, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Vs. 5. When the cloud recedes and the disciples raise their terrified faces once again, they find themselves in the presence of “Jesus only.” Vs. 8.

Once again, we hear the echo of Psalm 2 in the words, “This is my beloved Son.” Vs. 5. Though Matthew is obviously intimating that Jesus is, among other things, the messiah and heir to the throne of David, he is saying far more about Jesus than could ever be said of any Israelite king. For Matthew, the Torah of the Hebrew Scriptures and their great figures can shed light on the person and work of Jesus, but none of them can contain him. Here on the Mountain of Transfiguration, the new wine of the kingdom bursts all of the old skins. Our attention is turned to ‘Jesus only.”

This text amplifies what the gospels all teach us repeatedly. Just when you think you know Jesus, you find out that you don’t. There is always more to Jesus than meets the eye and discipleship is as much about unlearning what we think we know about Jesus as it is learning new things about him. Sometimes I think that the church’s biggest problem is that we have ceased to be amazed by Jesus. The Christ we proclaim is too often the predictably nice, inoffensive, upper middle class, slightly left of center, socially responsible but ever white and ever polite protestant gentleman. Without the beard, bathrobe and sandals he would look just like us. As a friend remarked to me years ago, “Fritz Mondale in a Jesus suit.” Nothing against Fritz, but he and the rest of us just aren’t sufficiently interesting to get most people out of bed on a Sunday morning. That is why we need Jesus!

Sunday, February 16th

February 10, 2014Uncategorizedadultry, Anger, Assyria, Bible, Church, Covenant, Epiphany, faith, gospel, gun violence, Holy Spirit, Jerusalem, justice, lament, Lectionary, Moses, murder, oaths, peace, poor, prayer, preaching, Psalms, Saint Paul, St. Matthew, Sunday Lessons, Ten Commandments, Torah, violence, violence against women, wisdomrevolsen

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Deuteronomy 30:15–20
Psalm 119:1–8
1 Corinthians 3:1–9
Matthew 5:21–37

O God, the strength of all who hope in you, because we are weak mortals we accomplish nothing good without you. Help us to see and understand the things we ought to do, and give us grace and power to do them, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Two men were seated in a darkened movie theater. One, Curtis Reeves, a retired police captain with a distinguished record of public service. The other, Chad Oulson, a husband and father of a young toddler. Both men were gainfully employed, taxpaying citizens enjoying an American entertainment staple-going to the movies. A dispute arose over Oulson’s use of a cell phone as the movie was starting. Reeves complained. Oulson ignored him. Reeves became increasingly vocal in his complaints. Oulson turned to confront him. Tempers flared. Oulson threw his popcorn on Reeves. Reeves pulled out a revolver and shot Oulson, killing him and wounding his wife.

How did this trivial dispute over theater etiquette erupt into a violent confrontation ending in death? I suspect testosterone had something to do with it. A young man is insulted and disrespected in front of his wife. An older man, having been an authority figure all his life, finds his authority ignored and finally challenged. Each feels his manhood is on the line. Neither can afford to back down. They are both trapped in a spiral of escalating anger taking them where I suspect neither of them really wanted to go. The end, I am sure, is not what either Reeves or Oulson could have imagined.

Anger is a dangerous emotion. When it seizes control, it robs a person of rationality and common sense. When people are angry, they make rash statements they later regret. They make poor decisions. In the extreme, anger leads to violence. At the dawn of history Cain became angry with his brother Abel. God warned Cain with these words: “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Genesis 4:6-7. Tragically, Cain could no more master his anger than could Reeves and Oulson. So history began with brother murdering brother out of anger. And so it continues.

Jesus was right on the mark when he equated anger with murder. The latter frequently follows upon the former. Relatively few murders are committed in “cold blood.” There is almost always provocation of some sort, either real or imagined. For that reason, Jesus counsels his disciples to nip anger in the bud. The time for reconciliation is when anger first rears its ugly head. If you have reason to believe that someone is angry at you or you become aware of anger against someone else, drop what you are doing-even if you are in the middle of prayer-and be reconciled. The earlier anger is quenched, the less time it has to breed hatred and violence.

There is no place for anger in the church. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out, “Jesus will not accept the common distinction between righteous indignation and anger.” Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Cost of Discipleship, (c. 1959 SCM Press Ltd.) p. 143. Jesus meant for his community of disciples to be an “anger free zone.” Reconciliation requires us to put ourselves into the skin of the very person with whom reconciliation is sought; to see ourselves through his/her eyes; to be ready and willing to let go of our anger. I cannot do that on my own. I am too blinded by my rage; too convinced of the rightness of my own cause; too hurt and fearful to expose my wounds to those I feel have injured me. I need a community of honesty and truthful speech to help me diagnose the source of my deep seated anger. Before I can risk reconciliation, I need to know that I am embraced by the Body of Christ where I can be certain that the sins brought to light in the process of confession will be forgiven. The church is the one place where anger must not be allowed the last word. It is the place where anger is recognized, exposed, confessed, forgiven and reconciled out of existence.

Deuteronomy 30:15–20

This lesson is for people on the brink of a new frontier. The Book of Deuteronomy is Moses’ final word to the people of Israel as they are encamped on the borders of the Promised Land. Life is about to change for the people of Israel. They will no longer have Moses to lead them. Moses, of course, has been leading the people for half a century. He confronted Pharaoh, King of Egypt on their behalf speaking God’s demand for Israel’s release from slavery. He led Israel out of Egypt and to the brink of the Red Sea where God defeated Pharaoh’s armies decisively. Moses was God’s spokesperson bringing down from Mt. Sinai the words of the covenant that would shape Israel’s new life of freedom. He was with the people throughout their wanderings in the wilderness. Now Moses addresses the people for one last time before they reach their long awaited destination.

The Book of Deuteronomy is connected with the reform movement undertaken during the reign of King Josiah. See II Kings 22-23. Though reportedly triggered by the rediscovery of “the book of the law” during the course of renovating Jerusalem’s temple (II Kings 22:8-13), the teachings of Deuteronomy reflect much of the preaching against idolatry and injustice found in the writings of the prophets. The Book of Deuteronomy itself therefore represents more than whatever might have been discovered in the temple. It is rather a reinterpretation of the ancient Mosaic covenant with Israel in light of centuries of prophetic preaching and bitter experience of Israel’s failure to live faithfully within that covenant under the pressures and temptations of nationhood. More than likely, the Book of Deuteronomy is the product of a few authors working with various ancient traditions brought together by the final author/editor into the single canonical narrative we have today.

The decline of Assyrian influence in the near east at the end of the 7^th Century gave the Southern Kingdom of Judah breathing room to rebuild and re-assert its independence from imperial control. The writers and editors of Deuteronomy saw this geopolitical development as Judah’s opportunity for a fresh start and a new beginning. Drawing upon the wisdom of the Mosaic covenant, they retold Israel’s story in such a way as to inspire hope for the dawn of this new day and to warn of the temptations they knew were lying ahead.

It seems we are always on the frontier of something. Seniors in high school look forward with anticipation to June which holds for them a new existence, whether in college, the workforce, the armed forces or, sadly, the increasingly challenging search for work. Embarking on married life is a similar departure into unknown territory. Those of us beginning to feel the aches and pains of aging bodies understand that we finally will face the ultimate frontier where we will be compelled to rely upon the steadfast love of our Good Shepherd more than ever before. Each frontier holds both promise and threat; possibilities and temptations; invitations to faith and the danger of unbelief. In each instance, we are faced with life and death decisions. Whether we are the children of Israel at the border of Canaan, the nation of Judah picking itself up again after years of foreign domination, or churches here in the Meadowlands struggling to understand how to be the church in a society that no longer needs the church; God’s people are always at the edge of some new frontier. Moses’ admonition: Chose life. Vs. 19. Cleave to God; obey God; trust God. Remember both who and whose you are.

Moses promises prosperity and wellbeing for the people should they choose obedience to the covenant and destruction should they disobey. As noted in last week’s post on Psalm 112, this testimony is true as far as it goes. The commandments were given to order life around faithfulness to God and love of neighbor. In a community shaped by these commands, faithfulness is rewarded with blessing. But no community is ever so thoroughly shaped by the covenant that it is free from injustice. Moreover, when the people of God are thrown into historical circumstances where the covenant community is shattered and the covenant no longer carries any weight, this simple equation breaks down altogether. This is what Walter Brueggeman would call the “state of disorientation” where faithfulness results not in blessing, but in suffering, persecution and even death. Brueggeman, Walter, The Message of the Psalms, (c. 1984 Augsburg Publishing House) p. 52. The Books of Ecclesiastes and Job as well as many of the lament Psalms afford a corrective, reminding us that very often the faithful suffer grievously even as the wicked prosper. The ultimate test of faith, then, comes when faithfulness seems ineffective, futile and even counterproductive. It is precisely this sort of faith to which Jesus calls his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount.

Psalm 119:1–8

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible with no less than 176 verses. It is also just two chapters away from the shortest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 117, which is a mere two verses. So much for Bible trivia.

Like Psalm 112 from last week, Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem. However, instead of each line beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, 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 first section in which each of the 8 verses begin with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, “aleph.” The next section has each verse beginning with the next Hebrew letter, “beth.” So it goes for twenty more sections through the rest of the Hebrew alphabet ending in the letter “tav.” 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.

Though characterized as a “wisdom” psalm by most scholars, Psalm 119 has elements of praise as well as lament. Old Testament Professor, Artur Weiser gives this psalm a rather short and dismissive evaluation: “This psalm, the most comprehensive of all the psalms, is a particularly artificial product of religious poetry. It shares with Psalms 9, 10, 111 and others the formal feature of the alphabetic acrostic, with the difference, however, that here the initial letter remains the same for each of the eight lines of a section. In accordance with the number of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet twenty-two such ‘poems’ are joined together; these, however, neither show a consistent thought-sequence one with another nor represent units complete in themselves. This formal external character of the psalm stifles its subject-matter. The psalm is a many-coloured mosaic of thoughts which are often repeated in wearisome fashion…” Weiser, Artur, The Psalms, A Commentary, The Old Testament Library (c. 1962 S.C.M. Press, Ltd.) p. 739.

I think the good professor’s cursory treatment is unwarranted. Though admittedly lacking in chronologically progressive order, the psalm revolves constantly around the Torah experienced by the psalmist as reliable guide, faithful companion, relentless judge, purifying fire and source of endless joy. It has a way of drawing the reader into deeper contemplation that is anything but “wearisome.” I think that Brueggeman rightly recognizes this psalm as “a massive intellectual achievement” through which the psalmist affirms that the Torah meets us at every stage of life addressing every human experience from “A to Z,” or more precisely “alpeh to tav.” Brueggeman, opcit. p. 40. Much is lost in translation through the rendering of “Torah” as “law.” Torah is far more than a dry set of laws, statutes and ordinances. For Israel, Torah was the shape of the covenant; “the mode of God’s life giving presence.” Ibid. It was “a launching pad form which to mount an ongoing conversation with God through daily experience.” Ibid. p. 41. Still, “[i]t is Yahweh who is the portion of the speaker (v. 57), not the Torah nor one’s keeping of the Torah.” Ibid. The psalm finally recognizes that Torah is the medium through which prayer is made possible. As a rabbi friend once remarked, “the Torah is the rope in an extended tug-of-war. We continue to pull on it because we firmly believe there is One on the other end with whom we are in constant tension.”

The first eight verses of Psalm 119 making up our reading begin with a proclamation of blessing for those who walk in the Torah of the Lord. This is a good reminder that genuine prayer arises out of our covenant relationship with Israel’s God into which us gentile folks come through baptism. It is only because God speaks that prayer is possible. Prayer is always responsive. It does not presume upon unfettered access to God as a matter of right, but seizes upon God’s commands and promises as grounds for praise, petition and lament. It is for this reason that the Psalms are the best possible resource for learning to pray. Reading one every morning and one each night is the best medicine I know. That said, I think it is permissible to break up Psalm 119 into a few days.

1 Corinthians 3:1–9

Last week in I Corinthians 1 and 2 the Apostle Paul was contrasting the spirit of divisiveness at work in the Corinthian church with the Spirit of God who forms in the church “the mind of Christ.” I Corinthians 1:10-17; I Corinthians 2:14-16. In this Sunday’s reading Paul goes on to explain that he has been unable to address the Corinthian church as spiritual people because they are still people of “flesh.” Like nursing infants, they are not ready for the solid food of the “hidden wisdom of God.” I Corinthians 2:6-8. Here it is worth noting that Paul uses the Greek word for flesh (“sarkos”) to describe people whose minds are dominated by worldly ways and, more specifically, the sort of divisiveness and strife that characterizes pagan culture in Corinth. This “fleshly” thinking is informing the conduct of the congregation, preventing it from growing into the mind of Christ and functioning as Christ’s Body.

Many misguided criticisms have been made of Paul for disparaging the human body and the physical world with a dualistic theology valuing spirit over matter. Paul does no such thing. In fact, Paul’s favorite expression for the church is “the Body of Christ.” This is not the sort of expression you would expect from a world hating gnostic! How could someone holding the body in contempt simultaneously speak of that body as “the temple of the Holy Spirit?” I Corinthians 6:19. When Paul speaks critically of “the flesh” he is not disparaging the human body or the material world. He is instead referring to an attitude, outlook, worldview dominated by selfishness and the will to power.

Paul points out that the apostolic witness is united in its testimony to Christ. The focus should not be upon the individual apostles who have ministered at Corinth. Just as the apostles, Apollos, Cephas and Paul work in concert, one evangelizing for Christ, another nourishing for Christ; so the church ought to be living in harmony through Christ. At the end of the day, the one who plants, the one who waters and the one who reaps can each be replaced. It is God who gives the growth. Paul is laying the foundation here for his extensive discussion of the church as the Body of Christ and the unity in love necessary to sustain it, all to be presented in the coming chapters.

Matthew 5:21–37

In this Sunday’s gospel lesson Jesus goes on to explain what he meant in last week’s reading when he told his disciples that, unless their righteousness exceeded that of the scribes and the Pharisees, they would never enter the kingdom of heaven. He does so by taking the Ten Commandments and turning them up on high heat. For the rest of Matthew 5, Jesus will be employing the same formula repeatedly: “You have heard that it was said….but I say to you.” Jesus will finally point out that all the law and the prophets boil down to love of God and love of neighbor. But that is no slackening of the law. To the contrary, love demands even more than the letter of the law can deliver.

The Commandment forbids killing. There is a good deal of literature in which Old Testament scholars bicker over whether the commandment should be interpreted “Thou shalt not kill” or whether it should be rendered “thou shalt not commit murder.” But Jesus renders that sterile debate moot. So far from taking a human life, the disciple must not even harbor anger or engage in name calling. Vss. 21-22. Moreover, it is not enough merely to hold one’s peace. A disciple is under obligation to seek reconciliation with a person s/he knows to have a grudge against him or her.

“So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” Vss. 23-24. The sacrifice envisioned here is not an obligatory one, but a voluntary one expressing devotion or thanksgiving and the desire to draw near to God. Nolland, John, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Greek Testament Commentary (c. 2005 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.) p. 232. The point made here is that devotion to God cannot be divorced from the disciple’s relationship to his or her neighbor. As will be made clear in Jesus’ parable of the last judgment, God is rightly served chiefly through caring for one’s neighbor. Matthew 25:31-46.

Next Jesus addresses the commandment against adultery. It is noteworthy that the focus here is exclusively on men. This is because, technically speaking, adultery was a crime of one man against another. A woman was regarded as in some sense the property of her husband and, as such, not an independent agent. That would not necessarily make her blameless by any means, but the assumption seems to be that the male bears primary responsibility for the crime and for its prevention. In a culture such as our own where women are increasingly on a par with their male counterparts in all areas of life, the injunction against lust and the responsibility for adultery attach to them as well. That said, there remains a significant power imbalance between men and women leading to abuse ranging from verbal sexual harassment to rape in numerous venues. Perhaps, then, it is premature to adjust the focus of this text overly much.

A word or two about “lust” is in order. Lust should not be equated with sexual attraction. It is rather a ruthless desire to possess and control with no recognition of the rights, needs or welfare of the other. Instead of building up and supporting faltering marriages, lust preys upon them. Indeed, it is the nature of lust to exploit the weak and vulnerable. While rape is the most blatant and ugly expression of lust, it can also masquerade as love and compassion-such as when a pastor, counselor or therapist sexually exploits a parishioner/patient.

Lust is not limited to sexuality. Indeed, our culture’s insatiable appetite for consumer goods from iphones to the latest clothing is perhaps the most destructive form of lust in existence. Our opulence is leading to the relentless exploitation of our planet and the poorest and most vulnerable communities inhabiting it. Given the danger lust poses to the bonds of trust and faithfulness needed to sustain community, it is not surprising that Jesus calls for extreme measures to prevent its taking hold.

Given the prevalence of divorce in our culture, Jesus’ treatment of the subject makes for some uneasiness in the pews of just about every congregation. When attempting to interpret this passage in our present context, one needs to keep in mind the status of women in Jesus’ day. As previously explained, a woman was typically considered in some sense the property of a man. If she was unmarried, she belonged to her father. If married, to her husband. The means of self-support for independent women were few and not enviable. A woman divorced from her husband and rejected by her father was in a plight as desperate as the woman widowed without grown children to support her. Therefore, to divorce one’s wife usually consigned her to a life of abject poverty-or worse. Not surprisingly, then, Jesus did not look kindly upon casual divorce and remarriage as it constituted a thin legal gloss for adultery and abandonment. There is, we must acknowledge, a difference between such casual divorce and a divorce in which both partners agree or are made to take responsibility for each other’s financial well-being and that of any children of the marriage.

That having been said, there remains every reason to support marriages and discourage divorce. Unfortunately, efforts by religious groups to preserve marriage have frequently focused on making divorce more difficult. Resistance to so-called “no fault” divorce was strong in the 60s and 70s. The failure of marriages, however, has less to do with laws facilitating divorce and more to do with the breakdown of community resulting in young families having to locate in areas where they are virtual strangers left to struggle with family pressures on their own. Extended families, affiliations with church/synagogue, stable neighborhoods and social organizations fostering friendship and support are now the exception rather than the rule for many young couples. Economic insecurity and unemployment add to these strains. We need to recognize that failing marriages are not the cause, but the symptom of a failing society and address the disease rather than focusing on the symptom.

“Do not swear at all…” Vs. 33. How many times haven’t you heard it said: “To be perfectly frank with you…” “Let me be honest with you…” “To tell you the truth…” Sometimes I am tempted to respond to these prefaces by remarking, “So, now you are being honest with me. Does that mean you have been lying through your teeth for the last ten minutes of this conversation? Are you not always honest when you talk to me? That is the problem with oaths. The fact that you feel the need to take one indicates that you know your word is not trustworthy enough and that you need to invoke the threat of divine punishment in order to make other people believe what you are saying. Jesus maintains that, since a disciple is aware that every word spoken is said in the presence of God, an oath is not necessary. No speech should ever be anything less than truthful.

Truthful speech is a habit of the heart. It is not an inborn trait. In fact, deception is our default behavior. The most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves to assuage guilt, justify hurtful actions and rationalize plans that we know deep down are selfish, self-serving and destructive to others. In my former life as an attorney, I listened to hundreds of people lie under oath. Most of them would probably have passed a polygraph test with flying colors. That is because when we tell ourselves a lie often enough, we begin to believe it. It becomes the truth for us. The same thing happens collectively. When a lie is repeated again and again and again on television, radio and over the internet, it gains traction no matter how demonstrably false it might be. Advertisers and political campaign managers realize this and have made productive us of it. Honesty is an empty virtue among people who have lost the ability to discern the truth.

Nobody understands the difficult art of learning to tell the truth better than a recovering addict who has gone through a twelve step program. Regaining and maintaining sobriety requires an unflinching commitment to telling the truth in the company of people equally committed to that goal. The fact is, we are all addicts to the lies we tell to comfort ourselves. What we need is to be accepted into a community dedicated to truthful speech where our lies can be laid bare and rejected; where through repentance and forgiveness we begin to see ourselves as we truly are and our God as he truly is. That community is called church.

There are more sermons in this gospel lessen than one can shake a stick at. It is best just to choose one and run with it.

Sunday, January 26th

January 20, 2014UncategorizedBible, Church, David, discipleship, enemies, Epiphany, faith, gospel, Holy Spirit, Isaiah, Jerusalem, justice, Lectionary, Martin Luther King, Messiah, peace, Persecution, prayer, preaching, Psalms, race, racism, Saint Paul, St. Matthew, Sunday Lessonsrevolsen

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Isaiah 9:1–4
Psalm 27:1, 4–9
1 Corinthians 1:10–18
Matthew 4:12–23

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Lord God, your lovingkindness always goes before us and follows after us. Summon us into your light, and direct our steps in the ways of goodness that come through the cross of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Today as I write this piece we are observing Martin Luther King Day. I was only about eleven years old when Dr. King died. I was vaguely aware of him as a person frequently mentioned on NBC’s Huntley Brinkley Report, my Dad’s source for the daily news. I knew that he was an African American and that he was not the same Martin Luther for which my church was named. But the news he made seemed to have little impact on my eleven year old world.

I remember distinctly, though, the day Dr. King was assassinated. That event lanced a boil releasing a geyser of racial anxiety, anger and fear in the little church where I was raised. The neighborhood to the north of the church had long been predominantly African American. It never crossed our minds to extend our evangelical mission in that direction, though. After all, we reasoned, they have their own churches and probably wouldn’t be comfortable in ours. Never did it occur to us that an African American person might actually walk through our doors. But in the wake of the civil rights movement with its occupation of white only business establishments, who could say what the future might hold? The mere possibility of an African American family wanting to join was enough to generate angry and contentious arguments at our board of elders meetings. My father once came home from such a meeting and reported how one of the elders had said to the pastor, “Pastor, you let one of those folks into our church and I’m gone.”

Make no mistake about it. I love my church. It was there that I learned the old, old story of Jesus and his love. Through my friendship with a kid in my Sunday school class that back then we classified “retarded,” I learned that all people are unique and have contributions to make to our common life. I didn’t need any school program to teach me that bullying is wrong. I learned generosity from church members who were there for my family in time of need and participated in the same generosity toward other families in our church when their times of need arose. My church was a wonderful place to learn the mind of Christ.

But it had blind spots that became all too evident in the wake of Dr. King’s assassination. It would serve no salutary purpose to repeat the hateful and ugly remarks made against Martin Luther King, his supporters and African Americans in general during that sorry time. Suffice to say, race was an area in our hearts where the Spirit of Christ was not reigning. Friendships going back years turned sour over this issue of welcoming African Americans into our church, an issue that for many years would remain purely hypothetical! Remarkably, though, we did not lose any members that I can recall. Decades later I learned that the elder who threatened to leave our church should a black person ever cross the threshold stood beaming with pride at the front of the church during the baptism of his granddaughter-African American on her father’s side.

What brings about a change like that? I doubt that it was any sermon or Bible Study. You might as well try emptying the Pacific Ocean with a bucket as try to argue a bigot out of his bigotry. At the end of the day, one’s mind doesn’t change until the heart changes. I expect that it took a lot of years worshiping with African American families and adjusting to his daughter’s marriage to an African American man before this elder could recognize in their faces his own humanity and the humanity of Jesus. When you must deal with people as members of the same body instead of labeling them “Black,” “Hispanic,” “Asian,” “Indian,” “Arab” and yes, “gay” or “straight,” you cannot help but discover in them the image of Christ. But that takes time. Lots of time.

Paul understood this reality well. He speaks in our lesson for Sunday to a church bitterly divided over a number of cultural, religious and ethical issues. I doubt he imagined that his letter would heal the Corinthian church overnight. But he firmly believed that the Spirit was at work in that church, dysfunctional as it was. Paul was certain that the “weakness of the cross,” that is, the power of forgiveness, reconciliation and love holding the church together was greater than the prejudices, blind spots and animosity tearing it apart. He was prepared to let the Spirit take whatever time might be required to complete the work of sanctification.

Dr. King wrote a book published in 1963 entitled, Why We Can’t Wait. The book described the struggle against racial segregation in the United States and, as the name suggests, pointed out why African Americans could not afford to wait any longer for equal treatment under the law. Dr. King was right. Oppressed minorities should not have to wait for bigots to grant them the same rights and freedoms guaranteed to all Americans. No one should have to wait for the day when he or she can live freely and openly as a valued person without fear of discrimination, bullying or abuse.

Yet in one sense, we in the church must wait. For us, the struggle does not end with legislation and court victories. It ends only with repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. That is a work of the Holy Spirit that cannot be accomplished by political action. Unlike our courts of law, God continues to be interested in what happens to the parties after their dispute has been adjudicated. Justice will not truly be done until reconciliation between the disputing parties is complete. According to St. Paul, the church is the place where the miracle of reconciliation takes place and antagonists are united as one Body in Christ. The story of my childhood congregation illustrates the reality of that miracle in the church today. Nevertheless, the fact that Sunday morning is still a very segregated hour in our land and that our churches continue to be relatively homogeneous for the most part indicates that a lot of that good work remains to be done.

Isaiah 9:1–4

This reading comes to us from the prophet Isaiah who lived and prophesied to Judah and Jerusalem at the end of the 8^th Century B.C.E. During this period the Northern Kingdom of Israel was annexed by the powerful Assyrian Empire bringing Assyrian tyranny to Judah’s very doorstep. The Kingdom of Judah, ruled by descendants of David, lived uneasily in the shadow of this super power as a tributary. Crushing tribute and political oppression tempted Judah on a number of occasions to rebel against Assyria in league with other local tributaries. The prophet warned Judah’s rulers against such reckless policies and counseled them instead to wait for Israel’s God to lift the yolk of oppression.

Today’s text will no doubt sound familiar as we routinely encounter it in Advent. If you were to read down to verse 6 you would hear the line so dear to us and to George Frederick Handel: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…” This Sunday, however, the emphasis is on the opening prose in verse 1. To understand it properly, we need to go back to Isaiah 7-8. Isaiah has failed in his efforts to dissuade Judah’s King Ahaz from allying himself to Assyria in order to gain protection from local enemies. Ahaz will not be still and place his faith in the Lord. He is bound and determined to place his trust in Assyria-which will lead to hardships much worse. In despair, Isaiah calls his disciples to witness his written testimonial to God’s coming judgment upon the nation. As for the decision of King Ahaz, the prophet declares: “Surely for this word which they speak there is no dawn.” Isaiah 8:20. “They will pass through the land greatly distressed and hungry; and when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will curse their king and their God, and turn their faces upward; and they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be thrust into thick darkness.” Isaiah 8:21-22.

Now our lesson for Sunday begins with a very different word, a message of hope so far at variance with the preceding verses that many scholars consider this to be an utterance much later in the career of the prophet or perhaps the word of another prophet altogether. Mauchline, John, Isaiah 1-39, Torch Bible Commentaries (c. SCM Press Ltd. 1962) p. 111. However that might be, the canonical arrangement of the oracles conveys a message entirely consistent with Isaiah’s call for Ahaz to place his trust solely in God’s promises. The people who have lived in the darkness of judgment will indeed see light again. The yolk of their oppression will be broken, the burdens removed from their shoulders and prosperity returned to their land. But this will not be the fruit of military maneuvers or foreign alliances. “The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this.” Isaiah 9:7.

Zebulun and Naphtali were two of the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel located in Galilee. The “way of the sea” refers to the highway from Damascus to the sea. It was likely the route for the Assyrian invasion of the Northern Kingdom in 733 B.C.E. The peoples of this territory who first experienced the brunt of Assyrian aggression will also be first to witness the liberation of all Israel from Assyria. The prophet foresees the day when the people of the divided Kingdoms of Israel and Judah along with their territories will be reunited under a messianic king. The yolk of Assyria will be thrown off. “The day of Midian” refers to the victory of Gideon over the Midianites recounted in Judges 6-7. The tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali were significantly involved in this battle. Judges 6:35.

In order to understand this reading, it is important that we be aware of the prior words of judgment against Judah. Yet it is more important still to recognize that judgment is not the last word. In spite of Ahaz’ faithless refusal to trust in God’s promises and his resort to a shortsighted and disastrous policy for his people, God will nevertheless bring to fruition the peace and prosperity promised to Israel. God’s people cannot seem to make a bigger mess of things than God is capable of cleaning up. That’s gospel.

Psalm 27:1, 4–9

The scholarly consensus seems to be that this psalm actually consists of two psalms, the first being a prayer of trust not unlike Psalm 23 including verses 1-6. The second is a lament consisting of verses 7-14. However that might be, I still believe the psalm fits together nicely as a unit. It is precisely because the psalmist has such great confidence in God’s willingness and power to give protection that the psalmist feels free to cry out for that very protection in times of danger. Though as previously noted the commentators characterize verses 7-14 as a lament, it concludes with an affirmation of confidence in God’s anticipated salvation and an admonition to “be strong, and let your heart take courage; yea, wait for the Lord.” Vs. 14. As usual, I am at a loss to understand the surgery performed on the psalm by the lectionary. Accordingly, I will deal with Psalm 27 in its entirety.

This psalm is focused on dangers posed by enemies. By enemies the psalmist does not mean people who are merely disagreeable or less than friendly. These are people who “breathe out violence.” Vs. 4. I suspect that most of you out there, like me, probably don’t have enemies like that. So what place does a psalm like this have in our lectionary? I suggest that one reason for praying these psalms is so that we can hear and join in the prayers of the whole Body of Christ which, of course, extends beyond our own congregation. The Coptic Christians in Egypt whose churches have been burned and looted know well enough what it is like to have enemies. So do the Christians of Iraq, two thirds of whom have fled their homeland fearing terrorist violence. The churches in Syria have been targeted for violence by both sides of the bloody civil war there. For millions of Christians around the world, the danger posed by enemies is real and often life threatening.

In a recent article published in the Christian Century Martin Tel, director of music at Princeton Theological Seminary, makes a strong case for congregational singing of the entire Psalter-the good, the bad and the ugly: “All the things of which the Psalter speaks, which individuals can never fully comprehend and call their own, live only in the whole Christ. That is why the prayer of the Psalms belongs in the community in a special way. Even if a verse or a psalm is not my own prayer, it is nevertheless the prayer of another member of the community; and it is quite certainly the prayer of the truly human Jesus Christ and his body on earth.” Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer cited in “Necessary Songs, The Christian Century, January 8, 2014 at p. 23. Our prayers are too often limited by the scope of our own experiences and frequently directed toward our own personal concerns and the concerns of those around us. The Psalter forces us to enter into the experiences and join the prayers of believers throughout the Body of Christ.

The last verse of the psalm is very telling. The psalmist encourages his hearers to “wait for the Lord.” The odd thing about the psalms is that, although they are prayers addressed to God, they often contain admonitions from God in the psalmists’ mouths. Sometimes the psalmists seem to be conscious of an audience listening in on their prayers. God hardly needs to be reminded to “wait on the Lord.” It is important to understand that biblical prayer is a dialogical process. The psalmists’ outpouring of prayer to God is only one side. God responds to the psalmists. Sometimes these responses are oracles delivered by a prophet or priest that have become imbedded in the psalm. See, e.g., Psalm 60:6-12. Often these prayers are sung as praises by the psalmist in corporate worship where they give encouragement to the assembly. See Psalm 27:6. For Israel, prayer was never an entirely personal matter. The confidence of this psalmist is drawn as much from God’s faithfulness to Israel throughout history as from his or her own experience. So also, the psalmists’ personal struggles become a public arena for God to demonstrate his compassion and salvation to Israel.

1 Corinthians 1:10–18

We began last week a journey into Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians that will take us through Epiphany. Sunday’s reading reveals that this is a church divided by several warring factions fiercely loyal to their chosen church leaders. Some are fans of Peter. Others favor Apollos and some are partisans of Paul. Some scholars maintain that these divisions reflect strife among the apostles of the early church. That might be so, but I think it more likely that these factions were citing their favorite Apostles much the same way partisans fire proof texts at each other from the Bible to further their own agendas. The teachings of the various Apostles are used as ammunition in the same way biblical texts are so often wretched out of context and made to support some unrelated ideology. In any event, Paul refuses to arbitrate these disputes. He offers not a straw even to his own supporters in the congregation. Instead, he points all of them to Christ Jesus. At the end of the day, we are not disciples of Paul or Peter or Luther or any other human figure. We are all fellow disciples of Jesus. One Body animated by the same Spirit-whether we like it or not.

“Cephas,” as we learned in last Sunday’s gospel lesson, is the Greek translation of “Peter.” Apollos was a Jewish disciple from Alexandria. His understanding of the good news about Jesus was evidently deficient in some respect. The Book of Acts tells us only that he “knew only the baptism of John.” Acts 18:25. In Ephesus he met Paul’s associates, Priscilla and Aquila who took him under their wing and instructed him further. Acts 18:24-28.

We will need to wait until next week to find out more about the “folly” and “weakness” of the cross Paul mentions at the end of the reading. Stay tuned!

Matthew 4:12–23

As we have seen, Matthew is keen to interpret the life and ministry of Jesus through the lens of the Hebrew Scriptures. Here he quotes our reading from Isaiah in which the prophet foretells the dawn of salvation under the messianic king beginning in Galilee. Not surprisingly, this is where Jesus’ ministry begins with the calling of his first disciples followed by a tour of preaching, healing and casting out demons. The long awaited day has dawned at last! No doubt Matthew’s Jewish audience was well aware that the verses cited by Matthew are a lead in for Isaiah’s announcement of the messianic king. Isaiah 9:6-7.

Jesus’ message is, on the surface, exactly the same as John’s: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Vs. 17 cf. Matthew 3:2. Yet unlike John whose baptism was anticipatory, Jesus’ ministry is accompanied by the healing power of God. What John foretold has now arrived. We can see in Jesus’ healing work echoes of Isaiah 35:5-6. Matthew means for us to understand that the advent of Jesus marks the beginning of a new era just as John marks the end of the old. He will elaborate further on this in Matthew 11:1-19.

The call of the disciples is related in a manner so brief that one could almost read over it. That would be a mistake. It is of profound significance that Jesus begins his ministry with the call of his first followers. Already the church is on the scene in embryotic form and its existence is presumed throughout the gospel narrative. It is important to keep that fact in mind, particularly as we enter into the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. They make no sense whatsoever unless we understand from the get go that they are intended to govern the living community of disciples who follow Jesus. They are not general ethical principles applicable to any individual or community. The Sermon is to be the shape of this newly birthed community which, in turn, is the shape of the kingdom of heaven drawing nigh.

The brevity of this account has always intrigued me. There is no indication that Jesus has ever met these four disciples before. Yet when he calls, they follow him without hesitation leaving all behind. I have heard more than a few preachers suggest that the four fishermen must have known Jesus beforehand, heard his preaching and been impressed with his message. That is why they jumped at the chance to follow him. But that isn’t how Matthew tells the story and I am always suspicious of attempts to read more into the text in order to make it easier to understand and digest. As Matthew tells it, there is something so interesting, so compelling and winsome about Jesus that you just can’t refuse his call. What was it? Or more to the point, what is it about Jesus that draws people and how does his church reflect it?

As much as I love every church I have ever belonged to, I am not sure we reflect that bold, exciting, interesting and controversial person that is Jesus. To children, we too often portray Jesus as a schoolmarm on steroids preaching morals and good behavior. To adults we portray him as, at worst, a stern moral judge. At best, we portray him as a sorrowful, soft eyed parent who, though forgiving, is nevertheless perpetually disappointed in our shortcomings. The church comes across as yet another civic organization making demands on our overloaded schedules and over extended finances. Is it any wonder nobody is interested?

Yes, I know. There is more to these churches than meets the eye. They are faith communities in which the Spirit is at work doing marvelous things. But for some reason, we are not getting that message across. We succumb to the consumer culture marketing church membership-a product nobody is looking for anymore. There is nothing you can get at church that somebody else can’t provide-except Jesus. So it looks as though we are going to have to speak less of our programs and activities and more about Jesus. That’s the only way people are going to be drawn into the net of God’s kingdom and caught up in the joy and excitement of discipleship.

Sunday, January 5th

December 30, 2013UncategorizedBabylonian Exile, Baptism, Bible, Book of Acts, Church, Covenant, discipleship, Epiphany, faith, gospel, gun violence, Herod the Great, Holy Spirit, idolatry, Isaiah, Jerusalem, justice, magi, preaching, Psalms, Saint Paul, St. Matthew, St. Peter, Star of Bethlehem, Sunday Lessons, violence, wise menrevolsen

EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD

Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, on this day you revealed your Son to the nations by the leading of a star. Lead us now by faith to know your presence in our lives, and bring us at last to the full vision of your glory, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

At Trinity we will be celebrating the Epiphany one day early on Sunday, January 5^th. My rationale? I believe that Epiphany is a critical chapter in the gospel narrative. My chances of gathering a congregation to observe it on Monday, January 6^th are nil. Faced with a choice between moving or neglecting Epiphany, I chose the former. Liturgical purists will no doubt wince at my taking such liberties with the church calendar. But it seems to me that if even the Ten Commandments written with the finger of God can be set aside for the sake of human well being (see Mark 2:23-28), how much more the liturgical calendar.

There is no shortage of subtle humor in the Epiphany gospel. Can you imagine the scene? Herod is sitting on his throne, swaddled in his kingly robes. The wise men are ushered into his court with pomp and high ceremony. Then they ask Herod, “So, where is the real King of the Jews?” It must have been all poor Herod could do to control his apoplectic rage! How ironic that these wise men, probably pagans with little understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures, have come to know through their pagan arts that Israel’s messiah has been born, but the Bible jocks who are supposed to be on top of things like this must go racing to the library to answer Herod’s questions. The outsiders find their way to the messiah. The insiders are clueless.

It is hard for us today to imagine a church that was entirely Jewish; a church that identified fully with the rest of the Jewish community; a church in which gentiles (which includes most of us) were outsiders. Though openness to faith among the gentiles appears to have been an aspect of Jesus’ ministry from the start, it was the Apostle Paul whose vision and missionary work opened the door of Israel’s covenant relationship with God to outsiders like us. So it is that Paul declares: “To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all people see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 3:8-11. What is that mystery hidden for ages? It is that “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Ephesians 3:6.

Even as we celebrate this good news, however, we need to keep in mind the great cost of our inclusion. The conversion of the gentiles was not recognized as good news by everyone in the ancient church. To the contrary, it was probably one of the most divisive issues facing the earliest disciples of Jesus. We can see evidence throughout the New Testament of opposition to inclusion of the gentiles. Many sincere believers had serious doubts about welcoming gentiles. What would be the consequences of opening up the church to outsiders who knew little or nothing about Israel’s history, her scriptures and ancient practices? Would these newcomers bring with them false understandings and worship practices that distort or dilute the teachings of the church? Would their differing moral values undermine church discipline and order? These were, in fact, serious concerns. As early as the First Century, the church was being flooded with pagan religious doctrines, philosophical constructs and lifestyles antithetical to the preaching of the gospel. Radical hospitality is a risky business, but the Holy Spirit seems to have decided that it is a risk worth taking. As St. Peter learned from Cornelius and his family in the 10^th chapter of Acts, when the Holy Spirit calls a person into the church, not even an Apostle has the authority to keep that person out of the church. See Acts 11:1-18.

I believe that the church faces much the same kind of challenge in every generation. There are still some among us Lutherans who can remember how the increase in English speaking members within our ethnic northern European churches necessitated translating our liturgies and hymns from the mother tongue into English. It is no small thing, surrendering the language of one’s faith into a foreign tongue that is, at best, secondary. Something always gets lost in translation. Many people today feel the same way about contemporary worship crowding out the hymns and worship styles we have grown to love. I expect that similar fears are, in part, responsible for the difficulty we have had in welcoming gay and lesbian persons into our congregations. The fear so often expressed comes down to the effect such welcome will have on our teachings, practices and values.

There is no question that the radical hospitality and openness to which the Holy Spirit calls us will change the church. But that ought not to frighten us as long as we remember that the church belongs to Jesus and it is for him, not for us, to decide what shape it will take in the future. Faith trusts the Holy Spirit to guide the church, correct the church and deliver the church as the bride of Christ. The celebration of Epiphany reminds us that we also were once outsiders, looked upon with suspicion, distrust and fear. We had no right to claim the riches of the covenant promises God made to Israel. But in the limitless generosity of Jesus, we have been drawn into the covenant so that we “are no longer strangers and sojourners, but []fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Ephesians 2:19. Christ’s church most be no less generous than Christ himself.

Isaiah 60:1-6

Once again, we have yet another reading from the third section of Isaiah (Isaiah 56-66). This section contains oracles spoken to the Jews who had returned home to Palestine from the Babylonian Exile. This return was authorized by the decree of Cyrus of Persia who conquered Babylon in 549 B.C.E. During the next two decades, waves of returning exiles made their way back home with high hopes of rebuilding their nation and Temple. These hopes were dampened by numerous hardships including the presence of hostile peoples in Palestine opposed to the rebuilding of Jerusalem. It must have seemed to these dispirited settlers that they had been deceived by the glowing promises of the prophet of the second section of Isaiah who had assured them of God’s support and a glorious future for Jerusalem. See Isaiah 40-55.

The Epiphany reading constitutes the opening of a larger section (Chapters 60-62) widely regarded as the “nucleus” of the third section of Isaiah. Westermann, Claus, Isaiah 40-66, The Old Testament Library, (c. 1969 SCM Press, Ltd.) p. 552-553.

“Following the lead of not a few recent editors we may regard these three chapters as the basic nucleus of the matter gathered together in chs. 56-66. They form the corpus of a self-contained message of salvation quite distinct from that of Deutero-Isaiah [Isaiah 40-55], yet having at the same time, in many ways, a clear connection with it. If we may speak at all of a prophet called Trito-Isaiah [Isaiah 56-66], the chief support comes from the corpus contained in these three chapters. They lead us to presume that they are the legacy of a definite person, a prophet active in Jerusalem and Judah not long after the return [from Babylonian Exile].” Ibid.

Unlike the prophet of the second section of Isaiah, this prophet does not associate God’s promised act of salvation with a specific event, such as the fall of Babylon to Persia. The salvation of God lies in the indefinite future-though not on the other side of some apocalyptic, universe transforming judgment. The transformative event that will bring about Jerusalem’s liberation is to occur within history and within the framework of the world as we know it.

The prophet’s use of “light” as a metaphor in this reading is reminiscent of the frequent use made by St. John in his gospel. The glory of the Lord will be made manifest to the nations through Israel. The nations of the world will be drawn to Jerusalem and inspired to rebuild her ruined city, to worship at her restored temple and to serve her people. The prophet is short on specifics when it comes to describing exactly what will cause the nations to recognize in the remnant of Judah the glory of God and how that glory will draw them to Jerusalem. It may be that the prophet assumes we are familiar with oracles of the first Isaiah who prophesied at the end of the 8^th Century B.C.E., such as Isaiah 2:1-5. There it is the Torah going forth from Zion which inspires the nations to declare, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob.” Isaiah 2:3. Our lesson declares that the nations will bring with them, in addition to their wealth and animals for sacrifice at the restored temple, all the Jews remaining in exile such that a full return from exile will be made. It should be noted that the initial pioneers returning immediately after Cyrus’ decree constituted a mere trickle-hardly the full scale re-population envisioned by the prophet of the second section of Isaiah.

This promise of salvation must have been a difficult sell to a people that had already staked so much on an oracle of salvation inspiring them to uproot themselves, make a dangerous journey across the desert and attempt to rebuild their community in what was now a ruined and hostile land. The prophet had the difficult task of prophesying hope into a dispirited and despairing community that might very well have felt that it had just such a prophesy of hope to thank for its present plight. Yet the prophet’s words must have done their intended work. You need not travel any further than the nearest synagogue to see their fruit.

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14

For my general observations concerning this psalm and the first seven verses thereof, see my post for December 8^th. I would only add that verses 12-14 are of particular importance as they spell out what kingship entails for rulers in Israel. The throne is not an object of entitlement, but a yolk of responsibility. As God’s agent, the king is to implement and enforce the terms of God’s covenant with Israel taking special care to see that justice is done for the most vulnerable members of the community. This understanding of monarchy constitutes a profound departure from that of the ancient near east generally, which viewed kingship as a matter of privilege. The question, of course, is what sort of king is capable of so ruling? Given our world’s history of violent and coercive rule, we find it nearly impossible to separate the doing of justice from the exercise of coercive power. We are incapable of imagining a powerless ruler doing justice. Yet that is precisely the kind of King Jesus turns out to be. As St. Paul notes, this “weakness” of God is precisely the wisdom and power of God. I Corinthians 1:25.

Ephesians 3:1-12

For some good background info on the Letter to the Ephesians, see the Summary Article on enterthebible.org by Mary Hinkle Shore, Associate Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul MN.

The Epiphany reading from Ephesians is an incredible passage that ascribes a tremendous amount of importance to the church. It is “through the church [that] the manifold wisdom of God [is] now made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.” Vs. 10. If that is true, then the single most important thing the church can do for the world is simply to be the church. Or, to borrow the phrase of Jonathan R. Wilson, Professor of Theology at Carey Theological College, “Just getting together is accomplishing something.” (If you have the inclination, you can listen to the full presentation by Professor Wilson at the 2012 Ekklesia Gathering.) If we are not communities in which people are shaped into the image of Christ through the practices of worship, prayer, confession, forgiveness, compassion and hospitality, what other institution will pick up the slack? I submit that from the standpoint of the witness from Ephesians, there is nothing more important we can do than gather for prayer, praise and the breaking of bread together. If everything else we do does not flow from that, we are just spinning our wheels.

Of course, our witness has a global dimension. The church catholic transcends national borders, class distinctions, ethnic identity and racial classifications. Its primary loyalty is to God’s kingdom. A disciple’s deepest human bond is that of baptism into the Body of Christ shared with all other disciples. That is why “America First” is a patently unchristian slogan. Any disciple of Jesus who places his or her American citizenship ahead of his or her loyalty to the Body of Christ, even when that Body is located “behind enemy lines,” is committing idolatry. Putting loyalty to the Body of Christ first is how we demonstrate the “manifold wisdom of God…to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.” Vs. 10. The principalities and powers, whether they be imperial Rome or some modern day nation state, need to be reminded that they are not Lord. They have no authority to direct disciples of Jesus to commit acts of violence against Christ’s own Body or to threaten the wellbeing of those for whom Christ died.

The editors of the Christian Century magazine recently published an article on Christian persecution. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, 40 churches in Bagdad have been bombed and two thirds of the formerly 1.5 million Christians living in that country have fled. Last August 40 Coptic churches were burned and looted during rioting in Egypt. In September a suicide bomber attacked a church in northwest Pakistan killing 85 people. In Syria Christians are being targeted by both sides of the brutal civil war that has been raging for nearly two years. Persecution of Christians is not limited to countries in the Middle East. Believers in Nigeria, Kenya, Burma, India and North Korea are also subject to persecution and often violence. See Christian Century, November 13, 2013 p. 7. In most cases, the plight of Christians does not threaten vital national interests. Indeed, bringing pressure to bear on the oppressors might be considered contrary to those interests. But as disciples of Jesus, our primary interests are “the peace of the whole world and the wellbeing of the churches of God.”

We have an opportunity to show the principalities and powers pretending to govern our world both that they are not Lord and that Jesus is. By creating a caring global network of prayer, support and advocacy, we can witness to the world that we need not be governed anymore by self-serving commercial and political interests. The conflicts of the past need not determine our future. The walls separating us one from another have already been broken down on the cross. However important they may still be to the principalities and powers, they are of no import to disciples of Jesus.

Matthew 2:1-12

The image of the three kings has become enshrined in Christian art and hymnody-even though the visitors to the infant Jesus in Matthew’s gospel were not kings and we have no idea how many of them there were. We also have no idea where they came from. Matthew tells us only that they “came from the East,” In theory, that could be anywhere east of Palestine. The term “magoi” which Matthew uses to describe the “wise men,” is an imprecise term referring generally to persons engaged in occult arts. It covers astrologers, fortune tellers, priestly augurers and magicians. The Greek historian, Herodotus describes a priestly cast of “magoi” among the 6^th Century Medes that had special power to interpret dreams. This has led some scholars to suggest that the magi in Matthew’s gospel might have been Persians. There is little in the way of evidence, however, to support the claim that this was Matthew’s understanding. Given that they were guided by a star or some celestial phenomenon, it is likely that the magi were practitioners of some form of astrology. Whatever their origin, the magi were clearly outside the scope of God’s covenant with Israel and had no claim on Israel’s messiah. That is the important literary point made.

There is an obvious echo of our lesson from Isaiah in the reference to “gold and frankincense” vs. 11 cf. Isaiah 60:6. It is perhaps the allusion to this passage, which is prefaced by verse 3 declaring that “nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising,” that led to the traditional depiction of the magi as “kings.” As I said previously, there is no indication that Matthew understood them to be such.

There has been no end of speculation concerning the origin of the star that caught the attention of the magi. Supernova, comet and even a planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn have all been suggested to explain the astronomical event. As far as I am aware, there is no astrophysical support for any of these explanations and no historical testimony from any source other than the gospel for the appearance of the star leading the magi to Jesus. That is not dispositive, however. Assuming, as the evidence suggests, that the magi were astrologers of some stripe, they would naturally have been scrutinizing the heavens with far more care than the general population. An astronomical phenomenon such as a faint comet might well have escaped general notice and thus historical notation, but not the careful gaze of the magi. This line of inquiry is missing the point, however. We know that the gospels are not intended to be historical reports, but rather faithful testimony constructed from the early church’s preaching and teaching. So the better question would be: what part does the appearance of the star and its draw for the magi play in Matthew’s story of Jesus?

Matthew has by far the largest number of explicit citations to the Old Testament in his gospel. He believes emphatically that Jesus is the fulfillment of the hopes and dreams of Israel to which the scriptures bear witness. Yet from the very outset he also wishes to make clear that God’s reign reaches beyond Israel. The magi, though outside God’s covenant with Israel and followers of what Matthew would certainly have regarded as a false religion, are nonetheless drawn by God’s grace to worship Israel’s messiah. This brings us full circle to Isaiah and his declaration that the nations of the world now shrouded in darkness will be drawn to the light of God to seek Israel’s covenant wisdom. The story also echoes the lesson from Ephesians which boldly states that through the church the mystery of God’s saving work in Jesus is made manifest to the world. Stanley Hauerwas says it best:

“The wise men, heeding Herod’s advice, continue to follow the star that goes before them. The star stops over the place where Jesus is born, paying homage to the child and eliciting from the wise men overwhelming joy. These wise men, men schooled to appreciate the complexity of the world, see the mother and child, and they worship him. If this is not the Messiah, if this is not the one born to be king, if this is not the Son of God, then what these wise men do is idolatry. That they are able to see the worthiness of this one who alone can be worshiped was surely a gift from the Father. The same gift gives hope to all Gentiles, for though this child we have been called to participate in the alternative world signaled by his birth. Moreover, like the wise men, it turns out that God has given us gifts of bread and wine to be offered so that the world may know that there is an alternative to Herod.” Hauerwas, Stanley, Matthew, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, (c. 2006 by Stanley Hauerwas, pub. Brazos Press) p. 40.

Sunday, December 29th

December 23, 2013UncategorizedAbraham, Babylonian Exile, Bible, Church, Covenant, Egypt, faith, gospel, Hebrews, Holy Spirit, Isaiah, Jerusalem, Joseph, Matthew, peace, preaching, Psalms, Slaughter of the Innocents, Sunday Lessons, theology, violence, violence against children, warrevolsen

FIRST SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS

Isaiah 63:7–9
Psalm 148
Hebrews 2:10–18
Matthew 2:13–23

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O Lord God, you know that we cannot place our trust in our own powers. As you protected the infant Jesus, so defend us and all the needy from harm and adversity, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

The gospel lesson is hard to stomach, especially as we are still basking in the afterglow of Christmas. Rachel’s weeping for her murdered children strikes a dissonant chord against the angels’ sung proclamation of Peace on Earth. She reminds us that, even as we gather in the warmth of our churches under the glow of candlelight to sing Silent Night, the victims of genocidal greed and lust for power are dying in appalling numbers. The figures below are taken from the website scaruffi.com. They reflect the deaths of civilian non-combatants occurring during military conflicts and/or civilians intentionally killed in “ethnic cleansing” operations.

Armenia: 1,200,000 died between 1915-1923
China under Mao: 49,000,000-78,000,000 died between 1949-1969
USSR under Stalin: 7,000,000 died between 1932-1939
Nazi Holocaust: 12,000,000 died between 1933-1945
Vietnam/Cambodia U.S. action 100,000 died between 1963-1974
Khmer Rouge: 1,700,000 died between 1975-1979
Yugoslavia: 100,000 died between 1992-1995
Rwanda: 800,000 died in 1994
Liberia: 220,000 died between 1989-1996

While the precise accuracy of these figures might be disputed, King Herod’s atrocity nevertheless pales in comparison with the most conservative reasonable estimate you can place on any of these 20^th Century horrors. When you consider that behind these numbers are greater numbers of bereaved mothers, spouses, sweethearts and orphaned children scared forever by the violence inflicted on their loved ones-the mind goes blank. Such an ocean of grief is unimaginable. Consequently, we don’t imagine or even try to imagine it. We accept it. The deaths of our own young soldiers are euphemistically glorified in our civil ceremonies as “the ultimate sacrifice” and the “price of liberty.” The civilian war deaths we inflict on our enemies are accepted as inevitable “collateral damage.” Rachel’s weeping is seldom heard in the situation room at the Pentagon or over the patriotic jingoism of our parades.

To anyone foolish enough to ask where God is in the midst of all this bloodshed and terror, Matthew’s answer is that God is with the victims of genocide asking where you are. Jesus comes to unmask the lying ideologies telling us that the use of violence is necessary to our safety and that killing must be accepted as a normal if regrettable part of geopolitical business. God comes to us unarmed, naked and vulnerable-an infant in a world of warriors. Unlike our own culture, which is just as willing to shed innocent blood to protect “or American way of life” as Herod was to protect his throne, God hears Rachel’s weeping. God makes absolutely clear that in Jesus he comes to be Emmanuel, “God with us.” The question is, are we ready to be with God? Are we ready to stand with God beside Rachel weeping for her murdered children? It is one thing to sing the angels’ song of peace on earth. It is quite another to believe in that message enough to go to the cross for it. That, however, is the extent to which Jesus will go to melt our cold hearts so that we can at last hear Rachel’s cries, recognize our sinful complicity in the death of her children and turn toward the path of reconciliation.

Isaiah 63:7–9

This passage is the opening section of a psalm of intercession, the complete text of which is Isaiah 63:7-64:12. The entire psalm should be read in order to get the context of the verses making up our lesson. These verses constitute the beginning of a historical prologue that runs to verse 9. They recall Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and God’s leadership throughout her long journey to Canaan. Verses 10-19 acknowledge that, in contrast to God’s faithfulness to Israel, Israel has been less than faithful to her God. Indeed, “We have become like those over whom thou hast never ruled, like those who are not called by thy name.” vs. 19. The psalmist/prophet nevertheless appeals to God’s mercy and steadfast faithfulness to the covenant promises confident that this God’s longsuffering love for his people remains even now. “Yet, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou the potter; we are the work of thy hand. Be not exceedingly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity forever. Behold, consider, we are all they people.” Isaiah 64:8. Israel always understood what is expressed in the New Testament letter of James: “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” James 2:13. Therefore, Israel could be as insistent that God comply with his covenant promises as she was candid about her own covenant failures. God remains faithful even when his people are not.

This wonderful psalm comes to us from the third section of Isaiah composed by a prophet speaking to the Jews in Palestine following their return from Babylonian exile in the latter half of the 6^th Century. They were resettling themselves in the land and seeking to rebuild their lives and their ruined city under extremely difficult conditions. The prayer makes clear to these people that their own unfaithfulness is largely responsible for the difficult plight in which they now find themselves. Nevertheless, they must also understand that while God punishes Israel’s unfaithfulness, he does not abandon Israel or cease to be faithful to his own covenant obligations. Therefore, Israel may indeed pray for and expect God to be merciful and lead her through these difficult days as God has always done for his chosen people. The bleak circumstances should therefore not blind the people of God to the promise of a future wrought in yet further acts of salvation.

Psalm 148

This psalm is one of a group that begins and ends with an expression of praise: Hallelujah or “Praise YAHWEH.” (Psalms 146-150) 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.” 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.

This psalm is pure praise. It seeks nothing from God. It is not offered up in thanksgiving for any particular act of goodness or salvation on God’s part. The psalmist praises God because that is what creatures, all creatures, even “inanimate” creatures do. It is what we are created for according the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The longer I live, the more I am convinced that this might well be so and that perhaps a major source of our misery stems from our failure to understand it. The universe was spoken into existence by God and so its very existence is an act of praise. Praise is therefore nothing other than going with the grain of the universe. It is recognizing that joy is found only as we learn to sing our little piece in tune with the rest of the choir. Only then does our voice amount to anything worth listening to. If we were not so terribly absorbed in pursuing whatever it is we think will make us happy and accomplishing what we believe to be important and establishing our own legacy, we might not mind so much that we are after all “grass that withers and flowers that fade.”

Psalm 148 is included in the song of praise sung by the three young men thrown into the fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar in the 3^rd Chapter of Daniel. Don’t look for it in your Bible, though. It is found only in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (known as the Septuagint) and is omitted by most English translations that rely mainly on the Hebrew texts. It may also interest you Lutherans to know that this Apocryphal song is included in its entirety at page 120 of The Lutheran Hymnal, the official hymn book of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod from 1940 to the late 1970s.

It is difficult to date this psalm. Most scholars view it as a post-exilic psalm composed for worship in the Jerusalem temple rebuilt following the return from exile that began in 538 B.C.E. That does not preclude, however, the possibility that the author was working from the text or oral tradition of a much older tradition from the period of the Judean monarchy.

Hebrews 2:10–18

For my take on Hebrews, see my post of August 11^th 2013. You might also want to take a look at the summary article of Craig R. Koester, Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary on Enterthebible.org. Suffice to say that I believe the author of this letter is striving to demonstrate to a Christian audience traumatized by the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem how Jesus now fulfills the mediation function of the temple cult and its priesthood. This trauma was shared by the rest of the Jewish community (from which followers of Jesus were at this point inseparable). For what ultimately became modern Judaism, the Torah (in the broadest sense of the word) became the mediating agent of God’s redemptive presence. Worship in the Synagogue therefore revolved around the learning, study and application of Torah to the life of the community. For disciples of Jesus, Jesus himself was the mediator. He animated his resurrected Body, the church with his life giving Spirit made present through the church’s preaching and communal (Eucharistic) meals.

Here the author of Hebrews points out that Jesus fulfills his priestly office through offering himself in his full humanity. The sacrificial language permeating the letter can be off putting if we adopt the medieval notion that God needs a blood sacrifice in order to forgive our sins. This understanding (or misunderstanding) is common and underlies the theory of “substitutionary atonement,” namely, the belief that Jesus’ crucifixion was God’s act of justified punishment for human sin absorbed by Jesus so that we can avoid it. That is not how sacrifice was understood in the Hebrew Scriptures. Sacrifices were more often than not offered in thanksgiving. Moreover, even when offered to atone for sin, they were not seen as “payment.” Rather, they afforded the worshiper an opportunity to share in a holy a meal where reconciliation and forgiveness could be experienced and celebrated. In the one instance where sin is transferred to the sacrificial animal (Day of Atonement), the animal is not killed, but sent out into the wilderness. Leviticus 16:1-22. Clearly, God does not need to kill anyone in order to forgive us.

Rightly understood, the language of sacrifice makes good sense. The death of Jesus was a sacrifice in the sense that loving another person deeply always involves a sacrifice of self for the wellbeing of the loved one. That is particularly so where the loved one is deeply involved in self destructive behavior and resistant to your efforts to help him or her. Parents who walk with their children through the dark valley of addiction know better than anyone else how deeply painful love can be and how much must sometimes be sacrificed. So also it cost God dearly to love a world in rebellion against him. When God embraced us with human arms we crucified him. Notwithstanding, God continues to love the world through Jesus’ resurrected, though wounded and broken Body. Such is the sacrifice that is Jesus.

Matthew 2:13–23

As throughout his entire gospel, Matthew gives us a panoply of direct references, allusions and echoes of the Hebrew Scriptures. The instances in both last week’s reading and this Sunday’s lesson in which Joseph is warned and guided by dreams remind us of another Joseph whose dreams ultimately led him to Egypt. See Genesis 37-50. Of course, the parallel between Moses’ escape from the Egyptian Pharaoh’s genocidal policies toward the Hebrew slaves and Jesus’ escape from Herod’s slaughter of the innocents is also hard to miss. Jesus’ time spent in Egypt parallels Israel’s painful sojourn in that land of bondage and his return to Palestine shadows Israel’s Exodus from Egypt and return to the land promised to Abraham and Sarah.

Matthew cites Jeremiah 31:15:

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 is speaking here about the ten tribes forming the Northern Kingdom of Israel that fell to Assyria in about 721 B.C.E. Much of the population was carried into exile and so the land, personified by Rachel-mother of the northern “Joseph” tribes-weeps for her exiled children. The brutality of Herod, the so called “King of the Jews,” is contrasted with that of the hated Assyrian Empire. It should be noted that Herod was not a Jew and there were few Jews who would have recognized him as their legitimate king. He was, in fact, an Edomite. Edom, you may recall from prior posts, sided with the Babylonians and took part in their sack of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. Moreover, he was appointed King of Judea by the Jews’ hated Roman overlords. Though he sought to win the affection of his Jewish subjects through building a temple in Jerusalem that surpassed even Solomon’s, Herod was still hated by all but those in the highest echelons of power who benefited from his corrupt reign.

I believe that Matthew is consciously juxtaposing Herod, “King of the Jews” to Jesus who will also receive this title, though only as a cruel jest. The king who hangs onto his throne by means of dealing death is contrasted with the king who raises the dead. The king who rules through violence is contrasted with the king who renounces violence. The king who by desperate and despicable acts of cruelty seeks to hang onto his life is contrasted with the king who pours out his life for the people he loves. We are asked to decide which king really reigns. God’s verdict is expressed in Jesus’ resurrection. Herod is still dead. Jesus lives. That says it all.

Most scholars question the historicity of this account of the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem. They point out that Herod died in 4 B.C.E.-before Jesus is supposed to have been born. The birth date historically assigned to Jesus is mostly arbitrary, however. We cannot say with any certainty precisely when Jesus was born and a four year discrepancy is hardly conclusive. Although there is no other historical record of this terrible event, that too is not necessarily dispositive. Herod was well known for his paranoia and brutality. The appearance of an astronomical phenomenon accompanied by rumors that the descendent to arise from the City of David foretold by the scriptures had been born would surely be sufficient to trouble this tyrant who in his later years became increasingly paranoid and fearful of losing his throne. Herod’s cruel and inhuman command to murder all infants two years and under would hardly have been out of character for a man capable of killing his wife of many years and his own children. In a period during which the Roman Empire was still smarting from civil war, repressing revolutionary uprisings and seeking to crush banditry, it would hardly be surprising that a tragedy of only local significance should fail to find its way into these blood soaked annals of history. That said, it is also clear that Matthew employs this event as a literary device designed to illuminate the person and work of Jesus through parallels with Hebrew scriptural people and events. Thus, we ought not to obsess over whether and to what extent the slaughter of the innocents correlates with any particular historically verifiable event.

Peter's Outer Cape Portico

A place where prophets, apostles and poets meet in the lessons for each Sunday of the church year

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