John Shearman's Lectionary

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Second Sunday of Lent – February 28, 2010.

GENESIS 15:1-12, 17-18. The story of God making a covenant with Abraham formed an important link in the religious tradition of Israel. When later generations realized that they had an special relationship with God, they read this back into their ancient sagas of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

PSALM 27. This psalm originally existed as two separate psalms. Vss. 1-6 are a superb song of trust. Vss. 7-14 are a typical lament seeking God’s help in trouble. However it came about, the psalm still has great value as an expression of personal trust in God.

PHILIPPIANS 3:17-4:1. The Philippians struggled with a problem we also face every day: how to live as disciples of Jesus Christ in a hostile environment in which the majority of our neighbours do not share our convictions. Paul’s advice was to follow his example as he followed Christ in living in this world, but with totally different values to guide them: “In the world, but not of it.”  In 3:21 Paul refers to the hope of resurrection so that we shall not only be with Christ, but like him when he returns.

LUKE 13:31-35. Jesus rejected the advice of friendly Pharisees that he escape the imminent danger of Herod’s persecution. Knowing full well the risks it entailed, he had determined to end his challenge to Israel’s establishment only in Jerusalem. The pathos of his words about the holy city showed how much he cared about the ancient traditions of his people.

LUKE 9:28-36. (Alternate)   Some traditions celebrate the Transfiguration on this occasion. Please refer to the lessons listed for February 18 for an analysis of this lesson.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

GENESIS 15:1-12, 17-18. This story of how God made a covenant with Abraham may sound strange to our modern ears, but it formed a primary link in the religious tradition of Israel. It is important to remind our modern congregations that these patriarchal stories in Genesis are not history in the sense of being a factual record of actual events. Yet the truth they convey is valid nonetheless. It may help to briefly outline how oral tradition lay behind the biblical record.

The stories of the patriarch’s were tribal sagas passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth.  When later generations committed these stories to writing they particular theological points of view about Israel’s special relationship with Yahweh. They also read these attitudes back into their ancient sagas of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The sagas took on new meaning and became an integral part of Israel’s religious heritage, eventually becoming part of their scriptures.

The problems Abram (not yet given his longer name Abraham – see ch. 17) faced and took up with Yahweh were those of an appropriate heir and a territory in which to live permanently. These were tribal issues.  In subsequent centuries when the story became part of a written document, it also became a national issue. In some respects they remain so to this day, religiously and politically.

Scholars debate which of the several documentary sources of the Pentateuch, J, E or D, lie behind this narrative. It is probably a composite redacted into final form after the Babylonian exile. There is little question, however, that the story has two parts: vss.1-6 deal with the promise of an heir; vss. 8-21 deal the promise of land. Vs. 7 links the two with the standard formula still used to justify Israel’s claim to the territory occupied since the 7th century CE by Palestinians of Arab descent and other ethnic backgrounds. It has been suggested that this connective was a post-Babylonian exile addition to offset the claim of foreigners who had migrated to or forcably settled in the land. The argument persists that temporary absence from the land did not abrogate the divine promise.

Vs. 6 contains a remarkable statement which the early Christian church, beginning with Paul adopted as the basis for the doctrine of justification by faith. (Rom. 4:3, 9. 22; Gal. 3:6) For the Deuteronomist redactors, this special relationship with God was obtained through obedience to the law (Deut. 6:25; 24:13). That the two parties would keep the covenant gave Israel the right to the land. On the other hand, it has been argued that the land created the special relationship rather than vice versa. Settlement in Canaan by the invading Israelites required the theological myth of the covenant promise to sustain their claim.

The performing of a sacrifice sealed the covenant (vss. 9-11) as a religious transaction. This shaped all subsequent OT narratives in which the Israelites claim to the land was in dispute. The myth provided the mandate for the conquest of Canaan after the Exodus as well as the return from exile in Babylon. In a sense, like Britain’s Magna Carta and the American Declaration of Independence for their nations, it formed the constitutional foundation on which ancient and modern Israel were established.

The mysterious fire pot and flaming torch moving among the pieces of sacrificed flesh symbolized the sacred character of the promise of eternal possession of the land (vs. 17). The extent of the territory named (vs. 18) far exceeded anything Israel actually controlled at any time. It included the whole of the Fertile Crescent from the Nile to the Euphrates Rivers and on both sides of the Jordan River. This description was nothing short of an imaginative claim by an enthusiast for the the Davidic monarchy extinguished by the Babylonian exile.

PSALM 27. Because of the differences in style and focus, it is thought that this psalm originally existed as two separate psalms. Vss. 1-6 are a superb song of trust. Vss. 7-14 are a typical lament seeking Yahweh’s help in trouble. Both are believed to have been composed at a relatively late date after Israel’s return from exile in Babylon. However it came about, the psalm still has great
value as an expression of personal trust in God.

Vss. 4-5 lead to the conclusion that the first part came from the hand of someone whose duties required spending a considerable amount of time in the temple precincts. A Levite who served as a choir singer might well have been the poet. He certainly rejoiced in his art as well as his faith. Music has always played a significant role in public and private worship.

The latter part of the psalm has all the basic elements of a lament pleading for divine help in a desperate situation. Vss. 7-12 describe extremely dark circumstances when the psalmist could not look even to his parents for help (vs. 10). This may be no more than a proverbial way of expressing the depths of despair into which he had fallen. Although everyone had deserted him, he was still sure that Yahweh would come to his aid. He was determined to follow the path of holiness despite the attacks of his adversaries who spread false witness against him (vss. 11-12).

In the end, his faith was his only bulwark against disaster. So in a final exhortation he reassured himself that, come what may, Yahweh would be good to him. The conclusion (vs. 14) may be a liturgical formula similar to a benediction at the end of a worship service. Who knows how many saints of past generations have used it as their own source of comfort in lamentable straits?

PHILIPPIANS 3:17-4:1. As this passage shows, Paul had a very close relationship with the Philippian congregation.  None of his other letters express his love and concern for them in such intimate terms. This could well have been due to the story told in Acts 16 that it was in Philippi that Paul first made contact with a European community and founded the first European congregation there.

The Philippians struggled with a problem we also face every day: how to live as disciples of Jesus Christ in a hostile environment in which the majority of our neighbours do not share our convictions. He faced death on a daily basis, particularly so if, as many scholars have concluded, he wrote this letter from prison either in Rome or in Caesarea Maritima, on the east coast of the Mediterranean, while on his way to Rome (Acts 25-26).

Paul’s advice was that the Philippians follow his example as he had followed Christ in living in this world, but with totally different values to guide them: “In the world, but not of it.” In 3:21 Paul refers to the hope of resurrection so that we shall not only be with Christ, but like him when he returns. But what exactly did Paul mean by “being like Christ?”

Certainly, he did not mean it in a physical sense. Paul was su re that we would ultimately be transformed into something similar to the “body of Christ’s glory” (vs. 21). Nor did he know anything about the modern science of genetics and the recent description of the human genome. But even this latest scientific discovery raises many more questions than it answers. Geneticists are now saying that all humans are 99.9% alike in our genetic makeup and, as far as the number of genes we have, remarkably like the fruit fly which has been of such use to geneticists in their research. We also share a great number of genetic traits with the chimpanzees and other members of the anthropoid apes. Are we to conclude, therefore, that genetically speaking, Jesus’ humanity was almost identical with ours? That’s a theological conundrum, isn’t it?

As always, Paul was speaking in a metaphorical and spiritual sense. It is the essence of the gospel Paul and all NT authors proclaimed that the life we have in Christ is spiritual, created by the gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift comes alive in us – and it is already there waiting to be enlivened – through our exercise of faith. It is most   effectively expressed in the love for God and others with which we learn to live day by day.

It saddened Paul greatly that many chose “to live as enemies of the cross of Christ” (vs. 18).  The essence of sin as he saw it was to continue to live in the spiritual   dysfunctional way of selfishness, greed, hate and pride that brought about the death of Jesus on the cross. A so much better way lay in the way Jesus himself had lived. That too was the way Paul himself had tried to live, however imperfectly, since his conversion on the Damascus Road. He had said as much in the paragraph  immediately preceding this passage.

Lent is a time when we may examine our lives, confess our sins and renew our commitment to live differently. While Paul knew nothing about Lent, which did not become common in the church for another millennium, this is the pattern Paul set before the Philippians and ourselves two millennia later.

LUKE 13:31-35. Jesus rejected the advice of friendly Pharisees that he escape the imminent danger of persecution by Herod Antipas. Knowing full well the risks it entailed, Jesus determined to end his challenge to Israel’s religious establishment only in Jerusalem, the city of God for which his heart ached.

In his book, Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography (Doubleday, 2000), Bruce Chilton gave a striking description of the ambivalence of many Pharisees toward Jesus. Chilton saw Jesus as an illiterate Galilean peasant rabbi who gathered about him a following of relatively humble folk who lived in the villages of Galilee rather than in fishing port of Capernaum or the larger centres of Roman culture like Sepphoris or Tiberias. The former city had been Herod Antipas’ capital, but in 21-25 CE he built and moved his center of government to Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus may have been conscripted as indentured labor in Antipas’ enterprise.

Some of the Pharisees were quite sympathetic to Jesus because they felt he was defending the traditions of Moses against the onslaught of the hated Graeco-Roman cultural influences of the larger centers. Furthermore, according to Chilton, Jesus had been a close follower of John the Baptist whom Antipas had executed unjustly. Antipas would have done Jesus in too, if he could have done so without causing a rebellion in his Galilean domain. Jesus spurned him as a sly fox (vs. 32) knowing full well that Antipas feared Jesus’ power to command significant support among his fellow peasantry as well as the more sophisticated party of Pharisees. This tour of Galilean communities (vs. 27) was, in Chilton’s analysis, an effort to raise a large following of disciples to take with him to Jerusalem. Some of those to whom he appealed were Pharisees (vs. 31; 14:1), despite his frequent clash with them because of their sharp differences about dietary and sabbatical observances.

Acknowledging himself as a prophet (vs. 33), Jesus recognized that Jerusalem was the centre of all Jewish culture and religious tradition. He must go there; but he also realized what danger lay in wait for him (vs. 34). The Jewish establishment dominated all the political and economic power structures remaining in Jewish hands. The sacrificial rituals of the temple determined not only the keeping of the ancient covenant of Israel and Yahweh, but every aspect of the city’s life. Jesus’ desire to reform and simplify the whole system mandated that he take whatever risk going there might involve. Yet, like many of the great prophets before him, he knew that his mandate came from a higher authority, from Yahweh, Lord and God of all (vs. 35), who desired not great sacrifices, but profound obedience expressed in love.

If the confession of Peter at Caesarea Philippi and the Transfiguration confirmed Jesus as Messiah/Christ, this steady procession toward Jerusalem built the dramatic tension leading to the final confrontation between the old traditions and Jesus’ new way of living within the covenant between Israel and Yahweh. However we may read the story of the Passion of Christ, we cannot escape the strong element of Jesus’ conflict with the priestly establishment. To say so is not to be anti-Semitic, but to read the gospels as they were written several decades after the events they describe. The gospels were written to interpret with faith what the authors had learned from the traditions and teaching of those seen and heard what Jesus had done and said.

Christians and church congregations still face the threat of persecution today if faith is found  at odds with dominant authorities – religious or secular. The issue of gay rights divides many congregations and denominations. The woman to be elected presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA faced strong disapproval by some of her episcopal colleagues in Africa although elected to her post by a strong majority of her denomination.  In Canada, several Anglican congregations have declared their independence from the Anglican Church in Canada over the issue of ordaining homosexuals. A  progressive minister of a congregation of The United Church of Canada In Toronto has been widely condemned for declaring her personal doubts about the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. Religious authorities frequently challenge secular officials and governments who seek to change a nation’s laws on abortion. Portugal is the latest country to experience such internal conflict during and after a plebiscite sought popular support to modernize the law.

Such examples show how vulnerable faithful Christians can be when their convictions conflict with those of civil and religious authority. Is this not the way of the cross that Jesus pioneered for us?

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
First Sunday of Lent – February 21, 2010

DEUTERONOMY 26:1-11. The offering of the first fruits of the harvest was one of the great festivals in Israel’s temple ritual. Though the story and the liturgy probably developed much later, in this passage Moses is said to have initiated the ritual as a commandment from God. The story lifts up the fundamental concept of stewardship: offering to God the first returns of our labour as an act of worship and thanksgiving, and as a symbol of the  dedication of ourselves and all our possessions to God.

PSALM 91:1-2, 9-16. This psalm proclaims the traditional faith that total dependence on God brings providential protection from evil. God does this graciously and mercifully because it is God’s nature to do so, not as a reward for good behaviour.

ROMANS 10:8b-13. Paul struggles to explain how both Jews and Gentiles can have a right relationship with God. For Jews it was by keeping of the commandments of God given through Moses. But that can only be done by faith in the lordship of Jesus Christ, Paul says to the Romans. Nothing else will suffice for either Jews or Gentiles.

LUKE 4:1-13. Immediately after his baptism, the Spirit led him into the wilderness for a time of prayer and fasting. The so-called temptations came to Jesus as inner reflections about how to do what he now perceived his divine mission to be. He could have chosen any of the three tempting ways: to satisfy his own needs by feeding himself and the crowds immediately; to gain supreme power by subjecting himself to evil; or to draw attention to himself by some spectacular performance. He rejected all three. His struggles with temptation had not ended. More were yet to come as he chose the way that led to the cross.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

DEUTERONOMY 26:1-11. The offering of the first fruits of the harvest was one of the great festivals in Israel’s temple ritual. As with most ancient festivals, the practice of dedicating the first sheaf of grain to be harvested to Yahweh had much earlier origins in the agricultural practices adopted by the Israelites when they left their pastoral life in the wilderness and settled down among the Canaanites.

An ancient taboo lay behind the offering, rooted in the concept of divine property rights. All created beings of any kind belonged to the deity and were therefore regarded as holy. Ps. 24:1 gives this concept explicit expression. Before being consumed by humans, all produce had to be “redeemed” for profane use. If this was not done, divine justice entailed retribution. The only way to resolve this problem was to give back to the deity the first part of the tabooed object, thus nullifying the deity’s prior property rights. Thus ancient Israelites dedicated the first fruits of the harvest to Yahweh. They similarly dedicated their first-born animals and gave special place of honour to their first-born sons.

Though the liturgical celebration of this festival probably developed much later, in this passage Moses is said to have initiated the ritual as a commandment from Yahweh. This passage is part of a major section of Deuteronomy (chs. 12-26) written as if Moses delivered the law on almost all aspects of the covenanted nation’s life as revealed by Yahweh on Sinai. It is an imaginative reconstruction dating from the late 7th century at the earliest, possibly six or seven hundred years after the assumed time of Moses.

For us, the passage lifts up the fundamental concept of stewardship: offering to God the first returns of our labour, now usually measured in monetary terms, as an act of worship and thanksgiving, and as a symbol of the dedication of ourselves and all our possessions to God. However we may make the dedication – by an offering presented during worship or by a pre-authorized remittance from our bank accounts – the meaning is the same. By this sacramental act, we are committing ourselves to live in God’s way. The temptation we all face is to short-change God by neglecting to make an offering commensurate with our means.

Another aspect of this sacred stewardship is gaining more and more popularity in the developed nations. Environmental stewardship means that we must make use of the gifts of God in the natural world for the benefit of all, but not abuse them only for personal consumption and so destroy the quality of life for all on this planet. Our greatest challenge is to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels to satisfy our profligate habits. This is particularly difficult for us who have lived so long as if we are the dominant creatures to whom all nature is to be subjugated for our benefit (Gen. 1:29-30). With global warming causing great changes to the planet’s natural, interdependent systems, this is the time for us to reconsider our role and adopt a stringent stewardship of the planet’s resources as the only means to bring about a more balanced future for all humanity and our planet. Lent is a good time to begin practicing these personal disciplines as our part in environmental stewardshp. It  may mean giving up some of our profligate consumption and accepting higher standards for our lifestyle so that others who have little may have basic their needs met.

PSALM 91:1-2, 9-16. This psalm proclaims Israel’s traditional faith that total dependence on Yahweh brought providential protection from all evil. It may be claimed that the psalmist has little or no awareness of the complexity of the problem of evil. The perils of living in an imperfect world do not seem to worry him or detract from his absolute trust. This recalls Ps. 46 as a similar confession of trust.

The first two verses create some interesting images. Was the psalmist, possibly a Levite whose duty kept him close to the temple precincts, taking shelter from the blazing midsummer sun in the shadow of the temple? The massive structure communicated something of the mysterious omnipotence that so dominated the Israelite concept of the deity.

The word translated Almighty in vs. 2 also conjures up some ancient concepts of the divine being. The Hebrew word is shaddai, a name for Israel’s deity supposedly dating from the patriarchal period more than a thousand years before the 6th century BCE priestly document of the Pentateuch used it almost exclusively. The name referred to a mountain deity whose typical theophany was in a storm. The power of this god was not manifested in nature, but by protecting the family or tribe, upholding its social life and guiding its historical pilgrimage tot he Promised Land. This is the intent of its use in the context of this psalm. The name El Shaddai also appeared extensively in the Book of Job where it expressed the omnipotent majesty of deity, not surprising because that book probably also dates from the 6th century BCE or a little later.

It would appear that the psalm was chosen for the first Sunday of Lent because vss. 11-12 are quoted by Satan in tempting Jesus in Matthew 4:6 and Luke 4:10-11. On the other hand, we should interpret the devoutly expressed trust metaphorically rather than literally as Satan did. Jesus replied in such a way as to deflect such a literal interpretation by quoting another scripture text from Deuteronomy 6:16. Scripture texts so quoted may easily contradict one another.

The concluding vss. 14-16 give a different bent to the psalmist’s trust. The basis for it lies in the covenant love between Yahweh and Israel which extends to each individual Israelite. The RSV and NEB convey this better than the NRSV: “Because his love is set on me, I will deliver him; I will lift him beyond danger, for he knows me by my name.” (NEB) El Shaddai does this graciously and mercifully because it is his nature to do so, and it is in fulfillment of the covenant, not a reward for good behaviour.
This passage belongs to one of the major segments of Paul’s letter – chs. 9-11 – in which he struggled to explain how both Jews and Gentiles can have a right relationship with God through faith alone. His audience would appear to have been a predominantly Jewish community in Rome, so he was at pains to clarify the reasons for his Gentile mission and his attitude to the rejection of the gospel by many of his fellow Jews. In his classic Moffat New Testament Commentary (1932),  C.H. Dodd suggested that this section may even have stood alone, perhaps as a sermon, which Paul incorporated into his letter. If so, what a sermon!

ROMANS 10:8b-13. For Jews, Paul claimed, their relationship with God depended on keeping of the commandments of God given through Moses. He condemned his fellow Jews for their unenlightened ways. They had chosen a good end – relationship with God – but pursued it by the wrong means. He went on to claim that a true relationship with God could only be attained through faith in the lordship of Jesus Christ.  Nothing else would suffice for either Jews or Gentiles.

All through his Letter to the Romans, Paul quoted rather freely and literally (perhaps from memory) from the Greek Septuagint version of the Jewish scriptures. He was not much concerned, however, with the context of the passages he quotes. Vss. 6-8 refers to Deuteronomy 30:11-14. He simply tried to say that salvation in Christ is available to all and cannot be achieved by human effort. In vs. 11, he quoted from Isaiah 28:16; and in vs. 13 from Joel 2:32. His purpose was establish that Jesus is Lord and to reassure his predominantly Jewish audience that the sovereignty of Christ is not only effective for Jews and Gentiles alike, but was prefigured in the Jewish scriptures.

Thus Paul, a scholarly young rabbi before his conversion, pled his case before fellow Jews by drawing extensively on the sacred literature of his people. A glance at chs. 9-11 in the NSRV shows many of the quotations in poetic style and stand out on the pages. The quotation from Joel in vs. 13 refers to the Jewish conviction that when the end of the world came, those who called on the name of the Lord (i.e. Yahweh) would find safety in the kingdom of the Messiah. Paul merely transposed this verse to convince his now Judaeo-Christian audience as to how safe they were in accepting the fundamental creed that Jesus is Lord.

LUKE 4:1-13. This passage takes us back to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Yet it was not the report of a single incident. S. MacLean Gilmour said that this is “a commentary on the entire course of Jesus’ ministry.”  Jesus must often have been tempted to prove the authenticity of his mission by displaying  miraculous powers and undertaking the role of a political Messiah.  (The Interpreter’s Bible, viii, 83).

The issue of power and how Jesus was to use it runs through the whole of the gospel story. His healing miracles were social dynamite to the astonished multitudes. They were an immediate threat to the religious authorities in Galilee, but especially in Judea and Jerusalem. Jesus constantly had to face the question of when and how to use the power of God in him. He became conscious of that power through the infusion of the Spirit at his baptism.

Immediately after his baptism, he retreated into the wilderness for a time of prayer and fasting. The so-called “temptations” came as a time of deep inner reflection about his baptismal experience and how to do what he now perceived his divine mission to be. All three gospels assert that it was the Spirit and not Satan which motivated him to withdraw for this time of contemplation.

But what exactly was this experience? Did it result from the intensely emotional spiritual insight of his baptism in which he totally and compassionately identified himself with the common folk despite being aware of his divine nature and mission? Was he hallucinating because of his lack of food and water? Had he discovered in a flash of insight that the root of the world’s suffering lies in the misuse of power?

Who but Jesus could have told the disciples and their successors in the Apostolic Church about his experience and its meaning for his ministry? Could this have been one of the things he told them after the resurrection? Or, could this be the gospel authors’ reflection on who this strange person in their midst really was and what his arrival in their Galilean villages meant for them and for future generations of believers?

Jesus – and by implication, the church which still represents him in the world – could have chosen any of the three tempting ways to tell what the story of his life, death and resurrection is really all about. First, he could satisfy his own needs by feeding  himself, thus immediately negating the very essence of his message to love God and others in every possible way. After all, human institutions exist because in some way or another they meet the needs of those who create them. The church is no exception as its attention to property and worldly possessions so obviously demonstrates.

Secondly, he had a choice of gaining immediate and supreme power by subjecting himself to the forces of evil. All through history, this has been the choice of the politically and economically powerful, as the devastating wars of the last century manifested so clearly. All too frequently the church has aided and abetted this power-seeking urge in dominant en and not a few women.

Jesus’ third option would draw attention to himself by a spectacular theatrical performance. How could anyone fail to recognize who he was if he did this? He rejected all three options. Or did he? It never ceases to amaze me that time and again, Jesus’ miraculous healings and other acts of mercy did exactly what the third temptation indicated he should not do. Perhaps it was just the way the gospels tell the story and the way the later kerygma of the apostolic church focused attention on this strange person. Nonetheless, the biblical narrative places him at its very centre and asks the eternal question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Nor were Jesus’ internal struggles ended with this incident so briefly reported by Luke. Many more were yet to come as he chose the way that led to his death by crucifixion in a relatively short time. His message that the kingdom of God was at hand, indeed had already arrived with him, continually created the problem of distinguishing between personal opportunism and the radically new ways he proposed to bring God’s sovereign love into all human relationships.

Christian history through the centuries demonstrates how much his followers failed to live up to his real intent. Sadly, we have not rejected the various options of continuing Jesus’ ministry in and to the world. This point needs to be made again and again in every community of faith. Meeting our own needs, the desire for and rewards of power have continually prevented us from doing as he did in laying down his life for those whom he loves.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Proper 17 Ordinary 22
Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
August 30, 2009

SONG OF SOLOMON 2:8-13. Biblical scholars still debate what kind of literature this beautiful collection of poems with vividly erotic metaphors really is. Is it dramatic dialogue? Is it a manual for love within the marriage relationship? Is it an allegory of God’s love for Israel or Christ’s love for the church? Or is it a celebration of God’s gift to us of human sexuality? Attributed to Solomon, the text actually comes from Hebrew Wisdom literature of a much later date, but may have had origins in much earlier times.

PSALM 45:1-2, 6-9. This unusual psalm takes the form of an ode by a court poet for a royal marriage. More secular than religious, it appears to refer to a princess of a foreign country wedding the king of Israel.

DEUTERONOMY 4:1-2, 6-9 (Alternate) All of Israel’s former history was measured against the doctrinaire standard set forth here. Attributed to Moses, it was actually composed in the late 7th century BCE. See 2 Kings 22 for the apparent “rediscovery” of the law while the temple was being refurbished during King Josiah’s reign circa 621 BCE. As the whole Old Testament narrative reveals, this standard was an ideal which no former or subsequent generation could meet.

PSALM 15. (Alternate) This psalm teaches the supreme values intended to guide the moral and spiritual life of the truly religious Jew. In many respects it summarizes the highest teachings of the great prophets as well as the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

JAMES 1:17-27. Because it makes few references to Jesus Christ, the Letter of James was one of the very last to be included in the Christian scriptures. It has more of the flavour of a moral essay attributed to James, the brother of Jesus. It may well be a collection of his sayings compiled after his martyrdom or a formal letter encouraging its recipients to live in a strictly ethical and deliberately spiritual way at a time of threatened persecution.

MARK 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23. In this biting rebuke of the Pharisees for their excessive attention to purification rituals, Jesus defined what true piety is: commitment from the heart totally dedicated to loving service of God and for others Quoting from Isaiah 29:13, he condemns their hypocrisy. We can tell from the explicit details of Jewish purification rites in vss. 3-5 that Mark had a Gentile audience in mind.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

SONG OF SOLOMON 2:8-13. Biblical scholars still debate what kind of literature this beautiful collection of poems with vividly erotic metaphors really is. Is it dramatic dialogue? Is it a manual for love within the marriage relationship? Is it an allegory of God’s love for Israel or Christ’s love for the church? Or is it a celebration of God’s gift to us of human sexuality?

The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford University Press, 1993) identifies five different ways it which it has been interpreted through the centuries: A popular Jewish view regarded it as an allegory of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. Christians reinterpreted this as the relationship between Christ and the Church. The mediaeval monk, Bernard of Clairvaux, wrote eighty-six sermons most of which were based on the allegorical interpretation of only the first two chapters.

Some early Greek versions copied it as a drama with various sections assigned to specific speakers. This theory was popular in the 19th century. Others saw it merely as a collection of lyrical love poetry for which there was ample precedent in other cultures, especially similar collections in Egyptian and Palestinian literature. Still others believed it had liturgical origins, while a few felt that due to the absence of any mention of God, it could be understood as a parable about theological themes such as Israel’s covenant with Yahweh.

Attributed to Solomon, it actually comes from Hebrew Wisdom literature of a much later date, perhaps from the 5th or 4th centuries BCE. It contains words derived from both Persian and Aramaic, leading to a similar conclusion. Its subject matter and vivid imagery made it a popular teaching tool.

Toward the end of the 1st century CE when the Hebrew canon was being finalized, some rabbis objected to its inclusion. One of the great rabbinical leaders of the time is said to have made a persuasive and memorable speech likening it to the Holy of Holies. Another rabbi was quoted as saying that anyone sang it as a secular piece fit only for banquet halls or taverns, that person had no place in the world to come. It has been used in the celebration of Passover in some Jewish traditions.

The passage selected here contains some of the most imaginative lyrics of the whole book. It depicts youthful, passionate romance in full flower. Two voices lend credibility to the dramatic interpretation. Vss. 8-9 are in the voice of the young woman hearing the approach of her lover. Vss. 10-13 are composed as if she was hearing him plead with her to escape with him to the countryside vibrant with the sounds and smells of spring. Because the poet had such sensitivity to how the young woman in love might feel and respond, one has to wonder if the author was a woman.

PSALM 45:1-2, 6-9. It is a pity that this psalm selection is so truncated. It is unusual in that it takes the form of an ode by a court poet for a royal marriage. Vs. 1 makes it evident that this was the poet’s intent. The superscription indicates that it was created by or for the Korahites, one of the families of Levitical priests from the Hebron area. In post-exilic times, they became one of the two great guilds of temple singers. Pss. 42, 44-49, 84-85 and 87-88 may have come from their hymn book.

Despite frequent references to Yahweh, the content of the psalm are more secular than religious. They refer specifically to a princess of a foreign country wedding the king of Israel. It may even have been the queen or a princess from Ophir, possibly in Arabia or East Africa (vs. 9). The first few verses sing the praises of the king. Then the poet turns attention to the beautiful princess who is leaving her father’s house (vs. 10) for a new lord (vs. 1l). The wedding procession has already begun to make it s way to the king’s palace (vs. 12b-15). For its final paean, the poet returns to the king whose marriage to this princess is for one purpose alone: to beget more heirs so that his dynasty will continue. As we have seen from the Davidic narratives in 2 Samuel, the times required the birthing of many sons.

While we may react rather negatively to the traditional patriarchal attitudes of this psalm, we should not completely disregard its significance to the Hebrew tradition. Its inclusion in the Psalter may well have resulted from an allegorized interpretation. The Targum of this psalm, an Aramaic interpretative paraphrase from late pre-Christian times, treated it as an allegory of the marriage of the Messiah to his bride Israel. Early Christian interpreters also followed this approach as Revelation 22:17 appears to suggest, except that the bride in this latter instance is the Church.

DEUTERONOMY 4:1-2, 6-9 (Alternate) All of Israel’s history was measured against the doctrinaire standard set forth here. Attributed to Moses, various parts of the Book of Deuteronomy were actually composed in the late 7th and 6th century BCE. See 2 Kings 22 for the apparent “rediscovery” of the law while the temple was being refurbished during King Josiah’s reign circa 621 BCE. That reformation followed an extended period of gross idolatry and moral decline during the long reign of Manasseh (697-642 BCE). The Deuteronomists regarded Manasseh as the worst of the Davidic monarchs. But as the whole Old Testament narrative reveals, the standard they set was an ideal which no former or subsequent generation could match.

As Deut.1:5 indicates, these are the supposedly the words of Moses as he prepared the Israelites for entry into the Promised Land. In chs. 1-3 he had recited many of the experiences of the Exodus and the wandering in the wilderness. This gave the historical background against which the rest of the book is set. In 3:23-29 he acknowledged that Joshua, not he, will lead them across the Jordan. The intent of this reading was to introduce the Torah, the moral constitution which is to guide the national life in the Israelites new homeland. The details of that constitution begin at 4:44.

Repeated references to observing the statutes and ordinances in this passage add a certain gravity to Moses’ address. Instructions to make these forthcoming laws known “to your children and your children’s children” add dramatic intensity to the moment. The scribes who created this composite work had great literary skill as well as resolute purpose in performing their task.

Reading this brief excerpt leaves no doubt about the rigorous moral life expected of all Israelites. The passage also contains the two of the three central unities of the whole book: Israel is one people and Yahweh is God alone who can be worshiped beside no other god. The third unity does not appear until later in 12:5-14, i.e. there is only one place of worship where an altar is to be set up and sacrifices offered. This latter element was the purpose of Josiah’s reformation, but lasted only a few decades before the Babylonians razed the temple in Jerusalem and led the priesthood and leading citizens of the nation into captivity (598-586 BCE). Yet it was during that captivity that the Book of Deuteronomy took its final shape.

PSALM 15. (Alternate) Where does a person go when seeking guidance in making a decision or light on some persistent affliction? The ancient custom was to repair to some place of worship and seek instruction from an oracle communicated by a priest. This psalm embodies such a practice within the Jewish tradition. It teaches the supreme values intended to guide the moral and spiritual life of the truly religious Jew. In many respects it summarizes the highest teaching of the great prophets as well as the laws found in the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Here is Torah, literally teaching, in the best sense of that word. The psalm probably dates from the post-exilic period when Torah had achieved its final stages of development.

Instruction often proceeded by a traditional question and answer method such as found here. This parallels the prophetic method we have seen in passages as Micah 6:6-8. The psalm also exhibits liturgical characteristics. But it may have been used more at home in preparing for worship than in the temple itself. It sets forth clearly how the believer is to present himself so as to appear righteous before God and receive God’s blessing. As in the Decalogue on which it may depend, there are ten qualifications (vss.2-5). Most of the sins enumerated emphasize primarily antisocial acts rather than religious transgressions.

The whole psalm consists of three parts similar to a catechism: question, answer and reward. It places significant value on moral integrity and truth. The psalmist must have lived in times when such virtues were lacking. Yet he wrote a tract equally applicable to our times.

JAMES 1:17-27. The Letter of James is one of the anomalies of the New Testament. Because it makes few references to Jesus Christ, it was one of the very last to be included in the Christian scriptures. It has more of the flavour of a moral essay attributed to James, the brother of Jesus. Of course, this claim has been disputed almost from the time the church set about the task of defining the NT canon. It may well be a collection of the sayings of James compiled after his martyrdom or a formal letter encouraging its recipients to live in a strictly ethical and deliberately spiritual way at a time of threatened persecution.

Despite certain inconsistencies, its language is fairly good Greek with a few Semitic phrases here and there. It also has the form of a literary letter typical of the 1st century introducing and developing specific themes. In 5:12 it appears to repeat one saying which Matthew 5:34-37 attributes to Jesus himself. However, the letter lacks any knowledge of the teaching of Paul, but does include some references to Palestinian culture. Scholarly estimates of its origin and date place it in Judea in the 60s CE immediately preceding the Jewish revolt against Rome that ended in the fall of Jerusalem.

This passage contains several good but isolated preaching texts or themes: vss. 17-18; 19-21; 22-25; 26-27. As a whole, it presents the view that those who belong to the believing community must avoid adopting the ethics of its oppressors. It reflects a dependence on God and strict adherence to Judaeo-Christian morality. Like so much other counsel of the NT in the gospels and in the Pauline corpus, it encourages the practice of ethical standards which separate Christians from their easy-going cultural milieu. No permissive “everybody does it” attitude can be found throughout the letter. This high moral standard is most clearly defined in the very last clause in vs. 27.

Nor is this strict emphasis on moral behaviour isolated from the ultimate divine purpose. The idea of the Christian community as “the first fruits” of a new creation comes out in vs. 18 and reverberates throughout the passage. Yet this does not inhibit good living. Rather, those who live in obedience to this strict moral standard find that it liberates and blesses (vs. 25). One might well compare this passage with the opening declarations of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 known as the Beatitudes. Was that the “word” and “law” to which James referred in vss. 22-25?

While Luther, immersed as he was in Pauline theology, condemned the Letter of James as “that wretched book,” a thousand years earlier Augustine had given a more balanced view: “That which is called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist. From the beginning of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christianity.” The letter has been regarded as a collection of isolated sayings and brief homilies which were not originally unified. But it also has the form of a literary letter, which a disciple of James may have preserved from remembered homilies after his death in 61 CE. These few excerpts from the religious environment of Judean Christianity in the 50s and 60s CE reflect its close identity with Judaism. Jesus and his brother had been raised in a similar religious environment. At the time this letter was composed Christianity might well have been regarded as a Jewish sect. The high Christology found in Paul and the later Christian scriptures had not yet filtered down to the birthplace of the new tradition.

MARK 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23. If James represents a Judaic Christian perspective, this confrontation with the Pharisees represents a tradition emanating from a very different milieu. In this biting rebuke of the Pharisees for their excessive attention to purification rituals, Jesus defined what true piety is. Apparently this tradition was sufficiently well known that Matthew also used it in his gospel (Matt. 15:1-20).

We can tell from the explicit details of Jewish purification rites in vss. 3-5 that Mark had a Gentile audience in mind. Most probably, the gospel was written for a Christian community made up primarily of Gentile believers who knew little about the strict Levitical Code which the Pharisees strove so hard to impose on 1st century Judaism. A note in The Complete Gospels (Polebridge Press, 1992) suggests that in this passage the Pharisees are stock characters acting as Jesus’ main antagonists while the disciples act as surrogates for Mark’s audience. In vss. 3-5, he addressed his audience directly on the assumption that they will not comprehend the Jewish rules of food preparation.

The incident took place in Galilee where Jews wrestled with strong Roman and Hellenist cultural influences. Not far from Nazareth in the Galilean hills, Herod Antipas had his capital at Sepphoris until about 20 CE when he constructed a new capital city at Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. The ancient trade and invasion route from Damascus to the Mediterranean passed through the heart of this same region. The Pharisees had reason to fear these foreign threats to Jewish religious traditions. Raised in a more cosmopolitan milieu, Jesus was bound to have more open attitudes than the stricter Judaism that the Pharisees and their Judean followers represented.

Not only that, the Pharisees expertly interpreted the law to suit their own comforts. Quoting from Isaiah 29:13, Jesus condemned their hypocrisy (vss. 6-7). Mark probably knew the Greek version, for that is what he quoted, although not exactly. Isaiah’s prophetic outburst must have been well known in the Christian community because Paul quoted Isa. 13:14 in 1 Cor. 1:19.

Phony piety that is self-serving and corrupting still exists in every religious tradition, Christians not excepted. In the 1950s, every corporate executive on the rise made his religious affiliations as well known as his service and country club associations. One widely used church fund raising method sought out the wealthiest or most prominent person in a community, regardless of his participation in the life of the church, and used him to influence others to give more generously than they might have done without his leadership. In both Canada and the United States in recent years, there has been particularly prominent evidence of pious persons bent on achieving political power.

True piety, Jesus said, means commitment from the heart totally dedicated to loving service of God and for others (vss. 20-23). All of the evil intentions named here as defiling a person result in behaviour that is exactly opposite to the compassionate virtues he identified as the essence of the law. An attitude of loving God and neighbour more accurately represented the sense of communal justice and mutual well-being so characteristic of the great prophets of Israel. Neither they nor Jesus had any desire to abrogate the covenant law. Unlike the Pharisees, however, they did not regard legalistic minutiae as the be all and end all of faithfulness. Theirs was more generous, more compassionate morality which found its strength in a committed relationship to God expressed in thankful worship and service. This should be our moral standard too.

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