John Shearman's Lectionary

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Proper 18 Ordinary 23
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost

September 5, 2010

JEREMIAH 18:1-11. The metaphor of God as the potter and humanity as clay became the theme of a popular gospel hymn in the evangelical tradition. As a prophetic oracle, however, it referred to God’s judgment against Israel for forsaking their moral covenant with God that assured their safety. This was the prophetic interpretation of events at a time when the Babylonians threatened to destroy them.

PSALM 139:1-6, 13-18. This is not only one of the great treasures of the Psalter but of all devotional literature in every religious tradition. Though it resonates with such theological concepts as the omniscience and omnipresence of God, it is essentially a prayer of intense personal devotion “in a stillness in which the soul and God are alone.”

DEUTERONOMY 30:15-20. (Alternate) We have here the Deuteronomic formula which became the motif for so much of the final rendition of the Old Testament documents in the centuries following the return of the exiles from Babylon. God’s covenant with Israel required absolute obedience to the Torah as supposedly defined by the commandments given to Moses at Mount Sinai. Life, prosperity and the inheritance of the Promised Land depended on this obedience.

PSALM 1. (Alternate) Probably composed as an introduction to the Psalter, this psalm clearly presents the implications of the Deuteronomic formula.

PHILEMON 1-21. This brief letter has an intensely personal and practical touch. It tells of a slave who came in contact with Paul and how the apostle wrote to Philemon Onesimus’ slave-master, asking for the safe return of his runaway slave. There was a bishop with the same name in Ephesus at the end of the 1^st century. Could this be his story?

LUKE 14:25-33. Think twice before you decide to follow Jesus. Be prepared to sacrifice everything. This passage states that followers of Jesus were required to let go of all they own possessions and attachments to focus their attention on their call from God. Are they really ready for what will certainly be involved? Are we?

In contrast, two brief parables appear to recommend a very practical approach to one’s commitment. Both stories reinforce the message with which Jesus confronted his disciples as they moved inexorably toward Jerusalem and the cross.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

JEREMIAH 18:1-11. This is one of the best known passages of the Book of Jeremiah because the vivid metaphor of the potter and the clay offers an exceptional homiletical opportunity. Yet it is not without its difficulties. The problem created by the composite nature of the whole book is reflected in this passage.

For the greater part of the 20^th century, scholars have recognized that several sources lie behind the Book of Jeremiah. One of those sources in the school of editors known as the Deuteronomists, some of whom may have lived in Egypt after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 586 BCE. They are said to have produced an edition of the prophecies of Jeremiah circa 550 BCE. This parable (vss.1-4) and its interpretation (vss.5-12) form one passage with distinctive marks of Deuteronomic influence. The extension of the threat of destruction from Israel (vs .6) to all nations (vss. 7-10) has the same characteristics. Scholars debate how much of the present passage originated with Jeremiah.

The fundamental Deuteronomic concept of Yahweh as Lord of history certainly lies at the heart of this passage. As the potter shapes and reshapes the clay so Yahweh determined the history of Israel and all nations. Whether the original oracle was more optimistic than the pending doom it appears to express can only be the subject of speculation. Vs.11 appears to suggest that Jeremiah uttered it as a threat in hope of a positive response. Vs.12 records what actually happened.

The familiar figure of a potter working with clay is not original to Jeremiah. Isaiah had used it before him (Isaiah 29:16). Others followed, viz. Isaiah 45:9; 64:8;  Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 33:13; Romans 9:20-21. Such frequent references would not have been unusual. Every village and town in the ancient world would have had potters to supply necessary household vessels. In archeological research, scientists would be lost without the recovered shards of pottery with which the careful observer can date the various levels of each site.

In Jeremiah 19:1-15 we find another passage with marked Deuternomic influence which identifies the location of a potters’ community near the “Potsherd Gate” to the Valley of Ben-hinnom. It was there because of its proximity to an abundant source of water in the Pool of Shiloam nearby and a stream which ran through the valley in winter. But as the passage describes so vividly, this place had a very dubious notoriety in Israel’s faith traditions. Many numerous sacrificial altars to foreign idols were  located there, including the fearful fiery furnaces of Molech used for child sacrifices. It may have been this last reference which elicited the condemnation of 19:4-6 regarding blood sacrifices of the innocent and burnt offerings of Judean infant sons.

PSALM 139:1-6, 13-18. This is not only one of the great treasures of the Psalter but of all devotional literature in every religious tradition. Though it resonates with such theological concepts as the omniscience and omnipresence of God, it is essentially a prayer of intense personal devotion “in a stillness in which the soul and God are alone.” (From Schmidt, “Die Psalmen” quoted in The Interpreter’s Bible iv, 712.)

This excerpt has a very special reference to the experience of a deeply spiritual person seeking the presence of God. All facade of human sophistication melts away as wax before a flame. The whole person lies open before God. The slightest thought or utterance is already known (vs. 4). There is no escape (vs.5). The very thought of being in such close proximity to the Most High God is awesome, in the most terrifying sense of that word.

The Hebrew word generally translated as “wonderful” (pâlîy) in vs. 6 conveys the sense of remarkable, secret or miraculous. In the second occurrence of the word in vs.14, (pâlâh) referring to humanity as part of God’s work of creation, there is a sense of uniqueness, distinction, even mystery. As such, the searching eye of God knows the devotee thoroughly (vss.13-16). There is no other way to respond than to praise God for the marvels of God’s creation and of our humanity. And yet, as geneticists have so recently discovered, there is relatively little difference between the genome of our human selves and the ordinary fruit fly buzzing around the over-ripe tomatoes in the kitchen.

For those who have experienced it, intimate contact with God is almost beyond words. In fact, those who attempt to express their experience are often regarded as slightly, if not significantly, abnormal. The mystical tradition in Protestantism has never been strong; but Roman Catholicism has a rich heritage of this form of prayer. Only recently with the opening of wider ecumenical doors has this form of spirituality begun to penetrate mainline Protestant churches. One witness to this movement is the design of labyrinths for meditative prayer while walking in church halls or gardens. Another is the increasing number of participants in contemplative prayer through such agencies as the World Community for Christian Meditation (www.wccm.org).

DEUTERONOMY 30:15-20. (Alternate) We have here the Deuteronomic formula which became the motif for so much of the final rendition of the Old Testament documents in the centuries following the return of the exiles from Babylon. God’s covenant with Israel required absolute obedience to the Torah as supposedly defined by the commandments given to Moses at Mount Sinai. Life, prosperity and the inheritance of the Promised Land depended on this obedience.

The challenge of this passage remains with us today whether we are faithful Jews or Christians. Being human, we shall always face the temptation to water down our commitment to “doing our best.” All religious traditions have their absolutes.  For Jews to live according to these high standards means to live Torah, regarded not so much as Law as the way of life. In his collection of essays, *The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians,* Robert Eisenman cites examples in the Qumran *Community Rule* of Torah being “the Way” for both Jews and early Christians. If this usage was common in Judaism at the time, Jesus would also have been familiar with the term.

This passage states for everyone the path in which God desires all committed believers to walk. The alternative, as vs. 19 makes clear, is the way of death. When we fail, as we all do, we can only throw ourselves on the mercy of God, accept forgiveness and renew our relationship with God and God’s Way. That is how we may live with a clear conscience in this life. Worth noting in particular, the words of vs. 20 assure us that obedience does not supersede love in our relationship with God.

PSALM 1. (Alternate) Probably composed as an introduction to the Psalter, this psalm clearly presents the implications of the Deuteronomic formula.

Internal evidence suggests a late date belonging to the era of Ezra or later when Israel was regarded as a religious community and the study of Torah was the mark of a religious person. It also recalls the age when Wisdom equated Torah, especially in the circle of those teachers of Wisdom of the late OT and inter-testamental period. A reference from Sirach (Eccleasiaticus) 24:23-27 dating from ca. 190 BCE expressed similar views.

One can visualize the scene depicted in the psalm. The teacher of wisdom gathered his students in a small circle under the shade of a tree. The students spend hours concentrating on Torah, as many extreme orthodox Israeli men, exempt from military service, still do in their yeshivas today. Less devoted young men scoff at such a time wasting pursuit. The attitudes of both groups clash, often noisily.

The image in vs. 4 of trees growing fruitfully when well irrigated also recalls productive plantations of fig palms I saw growing in the rich soil within a few hundred metres of the Dead Sea. They were irrigated from streams plunging down deep wadis from the wilderness of Judea. Archeologists conclude that the Qumran community, the epitome of the righteous life spent studying Torah even during the time of Jesus, obtained its water supply in a like manner. The reference in Sirach 24:23-27 also draws on the same image of plentiful water as the benefit yielded by the pursuit of wisdom, i.e. Torah.

True to the character of Deuteronomic and Wisdom literature, the psalm ends with the moral that God reckons our human ways and grants the rewards or punishments we deserve.

PHILEMON 1-21. With this reading the lectionary switches from the intensely devotional to the intensely practical.  There was a bishop in Ephesus at the end of the 1^st Christian century whose name was Onesimus. William Barclay makes the winsome argument that this letter was written by Paul to Philemon to persuade the master of the escaped slave, Onesimus, to return this “useless” fellow to him because, having been converted, he now was of great value to the apostle. Barclay also asks whether “this little slip of a letter, this single sheet of papyrus … half-personal, half-official … with no great doctrine” survived because the good bishop “insisted that this letter must be included in the collection (of Pauline epistles) in order that all might know what the grace of God had done for him.” (Barclay, William. Daily Bible Readings: Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. Edinburgh: The Church of Scotland, 1957.) Others have suggested that it was sent to Colossae and the neighboring communities with other letters of more doctrinal significance conveyed by Tychicus (Ephesians,  Colossians and ‘the lost letter’ to Laodicea as described in Col. 4:7, 16).

If this analysis is acceptable, it not only tells a touching story, but illustrates how a great theological concept Paul had expounded so well had an obviously personal and practical application. Here is the doctrine reconciliation making a remarkable difference to a very ordinary situation in NT times. It makes the doctrine live; it puts flesh and blood on what Paul had written in Galatians 3:27-29 about the inclusivity of the apostolic church.

In those days as now, slaves had only one goal: freedom. They often escaped their bondage by stealing whatever would assist them in their flight. By some happenstance, Onesimus had come into contact with Paul imprisoned in Rome or possibly Ephesus. Paul and his ministry for Christ had made all the difference in this slave’s life. If the play on the man’s name, Onesimus, is to be believed, (onesimus = useful) the slave who had been useless in Philemon’s household had now proved of great service to Paul. He seems to have been converted to the Christian faith by Paul (vs. 10).

Not only the Roman law, but Paul’s own convictions about the relationship between masters and slaves (see Ephesians 6:5-9 and Colossians 3:33-4:1) required that Onesimus be sent back to his master. Onesimus was going, however, not as a slave in chains and at great personal risk, but as a free man in Christ and Paul’s personal messenger. This letter he carried to Philemon contained the plea that the slave be freed in law and returned to Paul as the apostle’s personal aid and companion.

Whatever the true story behind the letter may have been, the letter does give us a glimpse into the life of the apostolic church. It also identified some of Paul’s fellow workers who were in Rome (or Ephesus) at this same time (vs. 23), probably in the early 60s CE. Tradition did not record very much about most of these other than what is in the NT. Mark and Luke are well-known, but not the others.

The presence of these fellow workers in the Gentile mission has caused scholarly questioning as to the exact location from which the Letter to Philemon was written. It is entirely possible that Paul wrote it during an imprisonment in Ephesus to which 2 Cor. 1:8-9 alludes. Nor can we be sure exactly who the slave-master was. The letter was addressed to Philemon, Apphia and Archippus as well as “the church in your house.” Were those named all of the same family? It would appear that Paul was laying the issue he addressed before the whole community. Such uncertainties do not in any way detract from the essential message of the letter: Paul pleads that Onesimus be set free to engage in ministry with him.

LUKE 14:25-33. Asked by a newly designated candidate for ministry what she might expect as she pursued this goal, a long-experienced pastor replied, “Don’t go into it, if you can stay out.” Puzzled by that apparently negative warning, the candidate requested a further explanation.  “Think twice before you decide to follow Jesus,” she was told. “Be prepared to sacrifice everything you may wish to gain or achieve in answering your call.”

This passage agrees with those sentiments. It states unequivocally that followers of Jesus will be required to let go of all they own and focus their attention on their call. Are they really ready for what will certainly be involved? That forthright challenge still stands. Faithful ministry in this day and age is no sinecure. It may have been so in the heyday of Christendom; but no longer. Nor was it so in the Apostolic Age as this reading makes clear. Two brief parables reinforce the message.

The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas includes two separate sayings very similar to vs. 26-27. A parallel reading also appears in Matthew 10:37-39. This most likely indicates that these are actually words spoken by Jesus and retained in the collective memory of the Apostolic Church. The parables too have an authentic ring to them as the kind of homely examples Jesus would have given to help his audience remember what he had said.

Was Jesus just being cautious and giving fair warning to those wishing to follow him as he approached the crucial event of his ministry?  Vs. 25 notes that “large crowds were traveling with him.” The moment was at hand for everyone to decide whether to go with him to Jerusalem or remain relatively secure in Galilee. John 7:66-71 records another element of this same tradition. Even without omniscience that John attributes to him, Jesus certainly would have known of the dangers that lay ahead. The parables reveal that he was making mental and spiritual preparations for any eventuality. He wanted his disciples – not necessarily the twelve alone – to be similarly prepared.

In telling this part of the story, Luke had the perspective of both the crucifixion and resurrection as well as half a century of reflection by the Christian community.  But would Jesus have included crucifixion in his calculations? He would have known that this was the preferred form of capital punishment to the Romans. It was designed to maintain public order by creating a paralyzing fear in the general populace. Apparently Pilate used it liberally. We may thus conclude that Jesus would have been fully aware of the possibility should he fall into the hands of the Roman authorities. It was the measure of his concern for those who had rallied to his cause that they too be made fully aware of the dangers they would face if their enthusiasm and loyalty carried them further in his company. Hence the ominous note of unfinished business in both the parables.

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

JEREMIAH 18:1-11. The Hebrew name of the notorious Valley of Ben-Hinnom, Gehenna, gave rise to the mediaeval concept of Hell as a place of never ending fires. In later biblical times it became the garbage dump for Jerusalem where fires burned constantly to keep the vermin under control. During the past 60 years events wrought by the history of the Middle East transformed this hated site into a place of beauty. As one walks or drives through this beautifully landscaped section in southwest Jerusalem one would never imagine that this was the site of such atrocities. And yet, one can easily imagine the fear that gripped Jerusalem every hour of every day during the Intefada. As recently as this decade armed soldiers patrol the streets nearby as crowds of tourists visit the holy sites. Is there not a strange link with Jeremiah’s prophetic words? What idol motivates the murders that have bloodied the streets of the Holy City in our time? Are not the sons and daughters of Israel and Palestine being sacrificed to strange gods once again? Does Israel’s Yahweh not ask today’s prophets to cry out, “Turn back, every one of you, from his evil course; mend your ways and your doings” (18:11).

DEUTERONOMY 30:15-20 and PSALM 1. (Alternate)  Karen Armstrong has a helpful insight in her book The Case for God (A. A. Knopf, 2009; 91-93). The rabbis who interpreted the Torah orally in their synagogues and schools, later recorded in the Misnah and the Talmud in the 2^nd to 6^th centuries CE,  did not regard the Sinai revelation as “God’s last word to humanity but just the beginning…. Revelation was an ongoing process that continued from one generation to another.” They even made emendations to the text, “by submitting a single letter that changed the original meaning. This was especially true in the “House of Studies” created late in the 1^st century by the Pharisees at Yavney. Midrash was the common method of scripture interpretation.

“The study of the Talmud is democractic and open-ended, “Armstrong writes. “Because students are taught to follow the rabbinic method of study, they engage in the same discussions and must make their own contributions to this never ending conversation. In some versions of the Talmud, there was space on each page for the student to add his own commentary. He learned that nobody had the last word, that truth was constantly changing, and while tradition was of immense importance, it must not compromise his own judgment. If he did not add his own remarks to the sacred page, the line of tradition would come to an end. Religious discourse should not be cast in stone; the ancient teachings required constant revision. “What is Torah?” asked the Bavli. “It is the interpretation of Torah.”

PHILEMON 1-21. Slavery was outlawed and ultimately banished from most of the world due to the engagement and action of devout Christians. In 1793, a convinced abolitionist, John Graves Simcoe, governor of the province of Upper Canada (now known as Ontario) persuaded the legislature to abolish slavery. This was the first jurisdiction in the world to do so. In subsequent decades until the American Civil War (aka War Between the States) and the Emancipation Proclamation, Ontario became the end destination of American blacks fleeing their enslavement via the underground railway. A significant number of the black people of the province still trace their ancestry back to those fugitives.

Fifteen years ago, two bothers, Craig and Marc Keilburger, from the suburbs of Toronto, Ontario, themselves only children, became concerned about the near slavery conditions that children in India were forced to work in weaving carpets for the European and North American consumer market. Starting by alerting their schoolmates to this issue, they went on to found a charity, Free The Children. That charity has since grown into a movement of more than one million young people in 45 countries. The concern of these youth has extended from the working conditions of child labourers in many countries to the suffering of earthquake victims in Haiti. Now university graduates, they engage schoolchildren of the world through positive peer pressure that generates empathy and action oriented programs. They have also won the support of such celebrities as the Jonas Brothers, Zac Efron and Hayden Panettiere.  

LUKE 14:25-33. The dangers of being Christian in a violent world have not passed. In recent weeks a group serving as medical aid workers in Afghanistan were executed by the Taliban supposedly for having proselytizing materials in their possession. The Scottish newspaper Sunday Herald printed this account of the massacre:

“All of the dead were associated with the International Assistance Mission (IAM), a Christian organization which has provided humanitarian relief and medical aid in Afghanistan for decades. The Taliban claimed they were killed as western spies who were preaching Christianity. However, security forces in Afghanistan say robbery was the probable motive.

“The victims included British medic Dr Karen Woo, 36, from London, who worked with aid organization Bridge Afghanistan. IAM director Dirk Frans said Woo – along with one German, six Americans and two Afghans – was coming back from a two-week humanitarian trip to Nuristan province.

“The team had driven to the province, left their vehicles and hiked for hours over mountainous terrain to reach the Parun valley in the province’s northwest. Their bodies were found next to three bullet-riddled four-wheel drive vehicles in the Kuran Wa Munjan district in the north-eastern province of Badakhshan.

“Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid in Pakistan said that his fighters killed the foreigners because they were “spying for the Americans” and “preaching Christianity”.

“Frans said that the IAM is registered as a non-profit Christian organization but does not proselytize.”

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Proper 17  Ordinary 22

August 29, 2010

JEREMIAH 2:4-13. Jeremiah addressed a spiritual crisis in Israel in the late 7th century BC.  After a long period of apostasy, the covenanted people had had very little contact with God.  Successful living in a productive new homeland had corrupted them. Worship of false gods had alienated them. Even the priests and the interpreters of the law had little knowledge of how to relate to God. Prophets were more familiar with Baal, the Canaanite fertility god. The rulers had done nothing but transgress. The nation had lost its moral compass and sense of commitment because it had exchanged its covenant relationship with God for a deity symbolized by idols.

PSALM 81:1, 10-16. This psalm begins in a joyful celebration which may have belonged in a festival liturgy celebrating the Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt. It may also have been used at the thanksgiving Feast of Tabernacles. The latter part, however, sounds more like a prophetic oracle similar to Jeremiah’s complaint that Israel had forsaken its religious roots in the worship of God.

SIRACH 10:12-18. (Alternate OT reading.) Also known as Ecclesiasticus, Sirach is in the Apocrypha of most Protestant Bibles because it was not included in the Jewish canon. Although originally written in Hebrew, Jerome did include it in his Latin Vulgate translated from the Greek version; hence its appearance in the Roman Catholic canon. This excerpt contains a strong critique of human pride and how God deals with those who are proud.

PSALM 112. (Alternate.) This didactic psalm resonates with both the Deuteronomist tradition with emphasis on the just rewards of the righteous combined with the prophetic tradition of social justice.

HEBREWS 13:1-8, 15-16. For Christians, ethical behavior is always rooted in faith. The dietary rules omitted from this reading make obvious reference to the strict Levitical Code, ostensibly given to Moses during the Israelites’ forty years in the wilderness. The community to which this “Letter” was written may well have been predominantly Jewish struggling with the freedom of their new faith is Jesus of Nazareth, the true Messiah.

LUKE 14:1, 7-14. Jesus had been invited to the home of a leading Pharisee for the sabbath meal. He turned out to be an unwelcome guest. First, he nearly broke up the party by healing a man afflicted with dropsy (edema, excessive retention of fluids). To add to that offence, he gave the other guests a scolding that certainly must have shamed some if not all of them. Then he turned on his host to give him a further lecture about whom he ought to have invited to dinner.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

 JEREMIAH 2:4-13. Jeremiah addressed a spiritual crisis in Israel in the late 7^th century BCE.  After a long period of apostasy, many of the covenanted people had very little contact with Yahweh. The intimacy of their religious experience in the wilderness had vanished amid successful living in a plentiful, productive new homeland (vss. 6-7). Even the priests and the interpreters of the law had no longer an adequate knowledge of how to relate to Yahweh. The false prophets were more familiar with Baal, the ancient Canaanite fertility god, and the rulers had done nothing but transgress (vs. 8). In short, the nation had lost its moral compass and sense of commitment because it had changed its faith tradition for vapid fantasies without power to save or provide for the needs of Yahweh’s chosen people (vss. 9-11).

Against this calamitous situation Jeremiah cried out on Yahweh’s behalf (vs. 12). He charged the people with two great evils which he summed up in a striking metaphor. They have forsaken the fountain of living water for cracked and leaking cisterns of their own invention.

In Jeremiah’s time (ca. 600 BCE) cisterns meant the difference between life and death if the springs went dry. This is the image that Jeremiah used to portray his people’s spiritual crisis. It would have been difficult for us in a land of such plentiful water to imagine just how challenging this metaphor would have been. Yet within the past few years, Canadians have been made aware of how valuable our water resources by two serious development. In 2007 scientists, UN agency representatives and professionals from more than 130 countries met in Sweden to discuss the world’s water needs and resources. More than 2,000 participants from 150 different business, government, water management and intergovernmental organizations gathered as the annual World Water Week launched in Stockholm. The purpose of the meeting is to create strategies and partnerships to help combat water shortages around the world.

A second issue has arisen as a result of excessive use and abuse of water in parts of the United States, and the prolonged heat wave and drought there. Canada’s abundant water resources are suddenly in demand as a commercially profitable bulk commodity rather than a public resource for the use of all at reasonable cost. At present the export of water in bulk is still illegal.

Other countries also view Canada’s fresh water with similar envy. It has been estimated that 15-20% of all the fresh water resources in the world lie within Canadian boundaries. To whom do these resources belong? What does God require of us in the near future regarding their use? How are they to be made available to those in need?

Is this not a moral and spiritual crisis for us? Are there not remarkable similarities between the spiritual crises in Jeremiah’s time and now?

PSALM 81:1, 10-16. It is thought that this psalm may have belonged in a festival liturgy celebrating the Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt. The rabbinical Mishnah  of the 2^nd century CE cited it as the psalm for the fifth day of the week. It may also have been used at the feast of Tabernacles, one of the three major “pilgrim festivals” (vs. 3).

There is no obvious reason to omit vss. 2-9.  Certainly it begins in a joyful celebration (vss.1-5) followed by a recitation of Yahweh’s past blessings to Israel especially during the Exodus, the journey through the wilderness and settlement in Canaan (vss. 6-9). The latter part (vss. 11-16), however, sounds more like a prophetic oracle similar to Jeremiah’s complaint.  Yahweh longs for the people’s faithfulness, but they follow their own devices. Vs. 10 could be associated with either the preceding or following segment.

The moon figured largely in the religious traditions of most Semitic peoples and was the basis for their calendars. The Jews were no exception. The reference to blowing the trumpet to signal the new moon may reflect an ancient superstition that evil spirits were rampant during the dark of the moon. The sounding of the ram’s horn announced the autumn festival of in-gathering which was later celebrated by the building of booths recalling the tabernacle of the Israelites’ wilderness years. In later Judaism, the new moon of the seventh month, Tishri, became Ro’sh ha-Shanah, the beginning of a new year.

Vs. 6 actually belongs with the second segment of the psalm rather than the opening praise. The “load” (“burden” – NRSV) and the “basket” refer to the tools used by the Israelites spent during their later years in Egypt as slaves conscripted to build the temple of Pharaoh Ramses II. The NEB transposes vs. 16 to follow vs. 7 on the premise that it fits the context better. It makes yet another reference to divine providence that supplied the Israelites with sustenance during their trek to the Promised Land.

The psalm contains distinct undertones of the challenge of the two ways of life and death, the blessing and the curse, Yahweh set before Israel according to the farewell address of Moses in Deut. 29-30. This was the Deuteronomic tradition that so influenced the reconstruction period of post-exilic times.

SIRACH 10:12-18. (Alternate OT reading.) Also known as Ecclesiasticus, Sirach is in the Apocrypha of most Protestant Bibles. Nor was it included in the Jewish canon. It was originally composed from notes in Hebrew by a famed teacher of Wisdom in the years just prior to the Maccabean Revolt in 168 BCE. A Greek translation appeared in 132 BCE by the grandson of Jesus ben Sirach. Jerome included it in his Latin Vulgate translated from the Greek. Hence its appearance in the Roman Catholic canon following another apocryphal Book of Wisdom and placed between the Song of Songs and Isaiah.

Maintaining a traditional Deuternomic attitude toward covenant theology and retributional morality, Sirach has many of the characteristics of Proverbs with aphorisms and acrostic poetry teaching practical wisdom to students of Sirach’s ‘academy.’

This excerpt contains a strong critique of human pride and how God deals with those who are proud. Sirach’s traditional style and ethics find full expression in these few verses. The vivid images of vss. 10-11 reveal a bold realism about death. This moves quickly to an exhortation about the source and folly of human pride. Alienation from God inevitably results in the pain and sorrow of human afflictions.

The fall of rulers from their prestigious thrones may well reflect the disturbed era in which Sirach lived. In 171 BCE, Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid inheritor of Alexander the Great’s empire, deposed the last legitimate high priest of Zadokite decent, and appointed a Benjaminite in his stead. Since the Maccabean Revolt occurred shortly after this act of treachery, the poem has a prophetic note to it. One also hears the cry for social justice in Mary’s song, the Magnificat, in the words of Sirach.

PSALM 112. (Alternate.) This didactic psalm resonates with both the Deuteronomist tradition with emphasis on the just rewards of the righteous and the prophetic tradition of social justice. Due to their acrostic style and several common terms, scholars hypothesize that it comes from the same hand as Psalm 111. It also resembles some aspects of Psalm 1, especially in vs. 1.

The generosity of the rich toward the more vulnerable of society reiterates the righteousness and reward motif that has motivated much Jewish and Christian philanthropy through the ages. All too easily, one can slip into the reverse attitude that because one is rich, one may consider oneself righteous.

HEBREWS 13:1-8, 15-16. As in so many other NT letters, this concluding chapter of this letter contains a number of admonitions to the assembly to whom it was written. These words of advice set before this congregation the high moral standards expected of them in their particular setting. The most singular preaching text of the passage is surely vs. 8.      However, can it be interpreted in today’s environment as it was intended at that time?

The dietary rules of vss. 9-14 make obvious reference to the strict Levitical code ostensibly given by Yahweh to Moses in the tent of meeting during the Israelites’ forty years in the wilderness. The community to which the letter was written may well have been predominantly Jewish struggling with the freedom of their new faith in Jesus of Nazareth, the true Messiah. Certainly an extended struggle between the Jerusalem apostolate led by James, the brother of Jesus, and the Pauline Gentile apostolate occurred within many nascent Christian communities of the lst century CE.

A contrarian view of this struggle has been extensively discussed in relation to the Qumran Community and James, in Robert Eisenman’s The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians. (Castle Books, 1996). Eisenman believes that some of the Scrolls, especially the Community Rule, the Damscus Document and the Habakkuk Pesher,  were products, not of the Essenes, but of “Zaddokite” successors to the Macabbees within the Christian fellowship. They espoused a traditional messianic and apocalyptic view of Hebrew scripture during the under the leadership of James. Prior to the Jewish War (68-70 CE), these traditionalists were driven out of Jerusalem by establishment Sadducees and Pharisees and the Pauline faction of the early Christian community who favoured Paul’s Gentile mission while also supporting the Herodian monarchy and the Romans.

It is clear that for Christians then and now ethical behavior is rooted in faith. Our relationship with Christ helps us to behave as we should toward one another. The moral counsel of vss. 1-5 springs from the faith summed up in vss. 6-8. Because we believe in the unchangeable Christ, we behave in certain disciplined ways that others may not share. We do so confidently with the help of God and following the example of those who shared this faith with us. Such a life may involve sacrifice, but we may think of such sacrifice as an act of worship offered to God.

As is so often the case in Hebrews, the whole passage expressed the prophetic spirit that continually recalled Israel to its covenantal relationship as the true form of liturgy. Yet it does justice also to the liturgical traditions which shaped the Jewish identity and culture in the post-exilic period when the reconstructed Second Temple became the focal point of national life and historical events. The Letter to the Hebrews tried to identify for Hebrew Christians the moral and spiritual reality they had both continuity and discontinuity with their ancient traditions.

LUKE 14:1, 7-14. Party time! Jesus had been invited to the home of a leading Pharisee for the sabbath meal. Then he nearly broke up the party by healing a man afflicted with dropsy (edema or excessive retention of fluids). To add to that offence, he put the other guests on the spot and gave them a scolding that certainly must have shamed some if not all of them. After all, it was their silence which provoked his rebuke. Then he recalled how they had been vying for the places of honor, presumably closest to the host or guest of honor. Luke does not tell us if Jesus was that honored guest. One can imagine some of the guests trying to win his favor by sitting close to him so they could engage him in a more intimate conversation. As the parable he told them indicates, his scorned their obsequious behavior (vss. 8-11).

Then he turned on his host and gave him a further lecture about whom he ought to have invited to dinner. Some party! Some guest! How embarrassed – or how angry – everyone must have felt when that dinner ended. Think of the many disgruntled conversations as they made their way home.

Did it really happen that way? Or is Luke just putting these teachings about honor, pride, prestige and caring for people who are marginalized in a dramatic context which still strikes home in our own hypocritical society? Isn’t Jesus portrayed here as being someone a little beyond an annoying radical who liked to ridicule the Pharisees at every turn? Isn’t this revolutionary talk?

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS

JEREMIAH 2:4-13. In Israel to this day, water is the most precious resource. Water from the Sea of Galilee and the River Jordan is pumped throughout the country as far south as Beersheba in the Negev desert so that adequate food can be grown. Even in the Palestinian communities of the Gaza Strip, the Israelis dominate the water supply to provide fertile fields and water for few thousand Israelis settlers who lived there until recently under the guardianship of the Israelis military.

It has been said, perhaps too simplistically, that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians could be resolved if the water supply could be fairly shared. In Israel itself, it is against the law to use electricity generated by imported oil to heat water for bathing. Every home and apartment has a black tank on its roof to supply water heated by the sun for this purpose. Cisterns still preserve the often sparse winter rainfall for use during the long dry summers. Yet Israeli consumption of the limited water supply is several times that of the Palestinians.

PSALM 81:1, 10-16. In his excellent paraphrase of the Psalms in the language and images of today, Jim Taylor sets this one as a parent celebrating a child’s graduation day, then asking some difficult questions: “In your celebration, where is there room for me? In your joy, what credit do you give to me? I am the one who sustained you through the tough times.” The modern metaphor transforms the psalm into a spiritual challenge as powerful as Jeremiah’s in the previous reading. Taylor’s small but helpful book gives a refreshing new slant to these old hymns.  (Taylor, James. Everyday Psalms. Wood Lake Press, 1994)

HEBREWS 13:1-8, 15-16. A brief summary of this lesson in Gathering published on the United Church of Canada’s website, said with tongue in cheek perhaps, “the lectionary has edited out the admonitions about avoiding dietary dogma. (These could be useful for those who are less than politically correct on diet.)” That appears to be a misreading of the omitted segment (vss. 9-14) of the concluding chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews. Rather, the dietary constraints seem more like the author’s warning against an ascetic heresy or the efforts of the Judaizers which was confusing the community to which he/she is writing. More details of this heresy, which some scholars believe to have been an early form of Gnosticism and others regard as more Jewish in origin, can be found in commentaries on the Letter to the Colossians.

In her book, The Case for God, (A. A . Knopf, 2009; 102) Karen Armstrong  states that  in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions faith is not belief in a creed or set of doctrinal propositions, but “a matter of practical insight and active commitment; it has little to do with abstract belief or theological conjectures.” This remains so, she strongly asserts, in Judaism and Islam, but has not existed in the Christian tradition since the 4th century CE. That was when Christians ” developed a preoccupation with doctrinal correctness that would  become its Achilles heel.”

LUKE 14:1, 7-14. At the present time in the Province of Ontario, Canada, we are just beginning to get used to what has been euphemistically called “a harmonized sales tax” (HST). It was designed to bring into a single tax that our federal and provincial governments collect on most consumer goods. Prior to July 1, 2010 separate provincial and federal sales taxes were charged on different consumer items. Businesses have generally approved the HST because it reduces the amount of bookkeeping and forwarding of the tax revenues involved to the respective governments. However, many consumers and consumer advocates have protested vociferously as a way to increase consumer taxes surreptitiously. To deal the anticipated protests, the provincial government will issue cheques in varying amounts up to $1,000 to each household depending on their reported taxable income. A portion of these payments went out before the new tax was imposed. The publicity by the government stated that the HST will save everyone money, especially lower income families, despite there being some consumer items which will now be taxed which were previously tax free.

This is the way we package public policy so as to deceive ourselves and everyone else that we do indeed care for “the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.” We mask our demands for extensive tax reductions as necessary for the good of the new global economy and the future of our grandchildren, but also mandate the reduction of the social safety net so necessary for the less advantaged.

Do we really have the kind of free, just and caring society won by bloody sacrifice which the war memorials in every church, city, town and village are intended to honor? How much are we willing to do to lift the barriers that prohibit the poor of our communities and of the world from sharing all the benefits we want for ourselves? How will our congregations go home from this sabbath’s banquet if such words were to be uttered from our pulpits?

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Proper 10  Ordinary 15
7th Sunday After Pentecost
July 11, 2010

AMOS 7:7-17. Amos, one of the twelve “Minor Prophets,” was no small man, spiritually. His sense of divine justice speaks across the millennia as loudly as ever. With fear or favour for no prince or priest, this farmer from the sticks, spoke for God in symbolic actions as clearly as in dynamic words. In this passage he predicts that God’s displeasure with Israel will result in a national disaster, an event which occurred in 721 BCE with conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by Assyria.

PSALM 82. Many of the psalms show the influence of the outspoken utterances of the prophets. One hears echoes of Amos in this psalm which may have served as a liturgical hymn in the temple in Jerusalem at the New Year to celebrate the absolute sovereignty of God.

DEUTERONOMY 30:9-14. (Alternate) This excerpt comes from what the editors of Deuteronomy presented the final message of Moses to the Israelites (chs. 29-30). It promised complete prosperity for those who obeyed the covenant law. This assumption has been much abused by those who used it as if it was the last word received directly from God. Such an attitude fails to take into account that the ethic of righteous behaviour by individuals inherent in the Mosaic code is also balanced by a profound sense of social justice.

PSALM 25:1-1. (Alternate) In the original language each stanza of this psalm begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The author may have done this to create a form of prayer not only for himself, but for the use of anyone else at a time of great distress. It appealed to God for guidance at a time of moral uncertainty and found it in the covenant law of love and righteous behaviour. This theology reflects the Wisdom literature of the late Persian and Greek period of Jewish history, about four centuries before the birth of Jesus.

COLOSSIANS 1:1-14. In these opening words of greeting and thanksgiving, Paul applauds the Colossians’ faithfulness to the gospel as his colleague, Epaphras, had instructed them. The dominant feature of their faithfulness is love. Paul’s prayer that they continue their spiritual growth in the face of a severe challenge from “the power of darkness” from which they have been rescued. These words point to a time of conflict scholars believe to have been caused by a serious heresy.

LUKE 10:25-37. One of the most familiar parables answers two universal questions:  who is our neighbour and how we are to relate to others with whom we have little in common, or even a deep sense of mistrust and hostility.
Jews and Samaritans were as hostile to one another in Jesus’ time as are Israelis and Palestinians today. Yet, like their modern counterparts, they shared the same territory. In those days, however, they also spoke the same language and held many common beliefs in the same God. But the Samaritans had intermarried with foreign tribes imported by the Assyrians after the conquest of which Amos had spoken.

A  MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

AMOS 7:7-17. It is a pity that the RCL only uses two passages from Amos and these only from the narrative segment of the book (ch.7-9). Amos deserves more than the sharing of his vision of doom with the chief priest of the royal sanctuary at Bethel.

This passage, one of series of five visions (7:1-9:8), tells us something about this earliest of the great prophets (despite his canonical characterization as one of the twelve “Minor Prophets”). Amos is believed to have lived in the period of Assyrian ascendency prior the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians in721 BCE. In his own words, he was not a professional prophet or priest, but a farmer (vs.14). What is more, he was a Judean from Tekoa, a village about 5 mi. south of Bethlehem, in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Bethel was not very much farther north of Jerusalem, but in the hill country of Ephraim, and thus in the Northern Kingdom known as Israel.

By raising his voice against the moral and social corruption of Israel (i.e. the Northern Kingdom), he encountered the opposition of the royal priesthood of that nation. At this time there were still many authorized royal sanctuaries. The centralizing of worship at the temple in Jerusalem occurred during the reign of Josiah, king of Judah (ca. 640-605 BCE) at least a century or more later.

Like most rural people, he was something of a jack-of-all-trades, for in addition to having flocks and a fig orchard, he also knew something about building and the tools of that trade. His metaphor of the plumb-line vividly expressed his total condemnation of the moral and spiritual leadership of the nation (vss.7-9). In ancient times, the plumb-line was essential to constructing a small house, a temple or a city wall. Builders depended on this simple tool, a weight suspended from a string, to make walls or columns perfectly vertical. It presented an obvious symbol of righteous behavior.

The sanctuary of Bethel had been an ancient Canaanite holy place set on a high hill. In Israelite religious traditions it had been associated with the patriarch Jacob. It had been fought over many times during the period of the Judges (12th to 11th centuries BCE) and during the reigns of both David and Solomon (10th century). When the kingdoms were divided by Solomon’s heirs, Jeroboam I (ca. 922-901 BCE) made Bethel the chief sanctuary of the Northern Kingdom (Israel). It became the centre of the cult based on the traditions of the ten northern tribes. After the exile of the northern tribes by the Assyrians in 721 BCE, it became an accursed site of restored Canaanite worship by the addition of a cult object of Asherah to the cultus of Yahweh. A century later, Josiah, king of Judah, razed the sanctuary as part of his centralizing of worship in the temple in Jerusalem, but spared the city of Bethel itself.

Amos delivered his prophetic oracles in the decades immediately preceding the fall of Samaria, Israel’s capital, to the Assyrians. Due to his impressive sense of Yahweh’s justice and righteousness, Amos foresaw the moral decline of the nation and the destruction that awaited Israel (vss.8-9, 17). The king during this period was Jereboam II (788-747 BCE). Assyria had reduced Damascus to poverty and powerlessness, but under a series of weak rulers did not threaten the Palestinian states. This allowed the Northern Kingdom of Israel to prosper and a rich merchant class to develop, but not to the benefit of the common people like Amos. This explains the vehement outrage of the prophet’s message. It also makes him a very contemporary voice for our own time of global capitalism and corruption in government and commerce alike have amok in immoral, money-mad enterprises.

PSALM 82. This particular psalm contains a whole set of interesting puzzles for the interpreter. The crucial question to be determined is: Who are the gods vss. 1 and 6? Several proposals have been offered. These are (1) heavenly beings or angels meeting in heavenly council over which Yahweh presides as in Job 1:6-12 and 2:1-6 and Daniel 7:9-10; (2) the national gods of the non-Israelites; (3) kings and others vested with political power who have been deified as was common in ancient times; (4) the judges of Israel.  The idea that monarchs or judges were intended is reinforced by the reference to vs.6 in John 10:34 and in the Targums. The latter were rabbinical interpretations of Hebrew scriptures in the Aramaic dialect given in the synagogues from the 1st century BCE until the 6th century CE.

The issue emphasized in vss.2-4 is a justiciable occasion: the overwhelming of the poor by being turned over to unscrupulous judges or slave masters. An assembly of gods had many parallels in ancient Near Eastern mythology. The indictment of this judicial council is clear nonetheless. Yahweh requires that justice be done for all without regard to political, economic or social status.

With the evolution of moral monotheism in Hebrew theology, the concept of lesser gods was eventually abandoned, yet not completely. It remained the stock in trade of apocalyptic writings through the late OT and inter-testamental times which greatly influenced Christian apocalyptic and eschatological writings such some of the parables attributed to Jesus and the Book of Revelation.

According to the orally transmitted laws, the Mishnah, collected by Rabbi Judah in the 2nd century CE, the psalm became a hymn sung in the temple by the Levites on the third day of the week. It may also have been sung at the New Year’s festival to celebrate Yahweh’s moral supremacy. Vs. 8 may be a liturgical addition pointing to either God’s periodic judgments of history or the eschatological judgment at the end of the age when divine sovereignty will be universally acknowledged.

DEUTERONOMY 30:9-14. (Alternate) This excerpt comes from what the editors of Deuteronomy presented as the final message of Moses to the Israelites (chs. 29-30). It has had a remarkably wide influence in subsequent religious and secular history.

The Deuteronomists promised absolute prosperity for those who obeyed the covenant law. This assumption has been much abused by those who used it as if it was the last word received directly from God. Such an attitude fails to take into account that the ethic of righteous behaviour by individuals inherent in the Mosaic code was also balanced by a profound sense of social justice.

Writing no earlier than the 6th century BCE, it should not surprise us the authors of Deuteronomy show the influence of the great prophets of justice from the 8th and 7th century BCE. The whole passage, and especially vs. 14, sound very much like Jeremiah’s oracle of the new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34). It also recalls the Shema and summative commandment in Deut. 6:4-9. For Jews, the essence of obedience to the law was a single-minded love for God and God alone.

As we know, this also became the heart of Jesus’ message. Our Gospel lesson reveals how much he understood wherein right living and communal justice had their roots. The influence of this passage spread even farther through the apostolic mission of Paul evidenced by his quoting from Deut. 30:13-14 in his letter to the Romans as he appealed to his fellow Jews to trust in the righteousness derived by faith in Jesus Christ rather than that of the law (Rom. 10:5-8).

PSALM 25:1-10. (Alternate) In its Hebrew original, this psalm has an unusual acrostic structure. Each of its 22 verse begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In this excerpt, we have only half of its full text.

Because of this form and the inclusion of several characteristics of wisdom literature, scholars attribute it to a late post-exilic period and not to David as the superscript indicates. One commentator suspected that the author was creating a form of prayer not only for himself, but for the use of anyone else at a time of great distress.

The psalm begins with a statement of trust and petition for divine help as enemies attempt to shame him without justification (vss. 1-3). He then pleads to know the ways of the Lord and to be taught to walk in Yahweh’s way (vss. 4-5). This exhibits a common theme of wisdom poetry. His next plea is for mercy dependent on Yahweh’s steadfast love (vss. 6-8). The excerpt ends in a praiseworthy acknowledgment of Yahweh’s goodness, righteousness, love and faithfulness (vss. 9-10). Many humble but faithful people have found the words of this poem not only comforting but encouraging when life serves up its inevitable trials.

COLOSSIANS 1:1-14. The debate about the authorship of this letter as one of Paul’s remains inconclusive after 150 years. William Barclay expresses the view which most cogently supports Pauline authorship. But he wonders why this letter containing the highest reach of his thought should have been addressed to so unimportant a town as Colossae then was. In doing so Paul checked a tendency which could have wrecked Asian Christianity, and which might have done irreparable damage to the faith of the whole Church.  (Daily Bible Study: Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Edinburgh: Church of Scotland, 1954.)

Paul did not evangelize the Colossian community or those other towns, Laodicea and Hierapolis, in the Lycus valley east of Ephesus. That had been the work of Epaphras, who had probably become a Christian as a result of meeting Paul in Ephesus. These new Christians may have been mainly Gentiles, but also appear to have been exposed to, if not actual followers of, some Jewish cult with a background similar to the asceticism and mystical piety of the Qumran community or later Gnostics. Writing in the 1950s, Barclay believed these esoteric elements were characteristic of the heresy later given the general title of Gnosticism. This is reinforced by Paul’s reference to the Colossians’ need to “be filled with the knowledge of God’s will and spiritual wisdom and understanding” (vs.9). This might not be Barlcay’s view today in the light of much greater acquaintance with the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1990s.

In these opening words of greeting and thanksgiving Paul applauds the Colossians’ faithfulness to the gospel as Epaphras had instructed them. The dominant feature of their faithfulness is love (vss. 4, 8). Paul’s prayer that they continue “bearing fruit” (vss.6, 10) and “be made strong” in the face of a severe challenge from “the power of darkness” (vs.13) from which they have been rescued points to a time of stress, if not persecution. In the words “love, joy, patience,” we may find allusion to the “fruits of the Spirit” Paul had elucidated in Galatians 5:22-23. Such words also lend emphasis to the Christian ethic of loving one’s enemies which Paul so eloquently expressed in Romans 12. This would further undergird the conviction that this letter is one of several Paul dictated from Rome during his imprisonment in 60-61 CE perhaps a decade or more after the conversion of the Colossians.

Eduard Schweizer’s study of Colossians (The Letter to the Colossians. Augsburg Press, 1982) showed how closely the structure of Colossians resembles Romans. There is a dogmatic section and a section dealing with practical ethical issues in the local community. This introductory segment (1:1-8) and the personal notes at the end (4:7-18) form opening and closing brackets around the main message of the letter.  Schweizer believed that the remaining vss. 9-14 of this passage may come from a baptismal liturgy and are followed by a hymn (vss. 15-20). The emphasis of these verses is spiritual knowledge, but a knowledge entirely different from that of Gnostic thought. Paul was writing of a knowledge of the will of God which had ethical implications rather than mystical secrets. The strength to live this way and “to share the inheritance of the saints in light” (vs. 12) comes from God who has given the believer a new beginning and new meaning to life through the forgiveness of sins. Such a message has deep significance for Christians in any age.

LUKE 10:25-37. The parable of neighbourliness, the Good Samaritan, came at a teaching moment when Jesus summarized the Torah in two linked quotations from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.  We have no way of knowing what motivated the man to ask Jesus the crucial question “wanting to justify himself,” as Luke tells us (vs. 29). One might well suspect, however, that Luke had had some hurtful experience with a crafty lawyer at some time in the past. He used the term “lawyer” six times in his gospel, almost always in a derogatory sense. It occurs twice in Titus, only once in Matthew and nowhere else in the NT. Furthermore, Luke did not use it in passages drawn from Mark or Q, the source some believe he shared with Matthew. Nor did Luke use it where the other gospels speak of scribes. For one steeped in the Jewish law as this man apparently was, no story could have struck a more devastating blow to his pride as a rigidly orthodox Jew.

The ancient road from Jerusalem to Jericho winds along a deep wadi flanked one either side by soaring cliffs. A modern walking trail follows its route, no more than a track on the cliffside. It is vastly easier to go down than to go up. The road descends over 3000 feet in less than ten miles. A modern autobus climbing the new highway on the heights opposite and above the ancient route must go in low gear most of the way. The trek for pedestrians must have been dangerous at any time, but particularly so in inclement weather when flash floods could have threatened to wash away the narrow track or a landslide cast a boulder on the unsuspecting traveler at any moment. In fine weather, the great danger was from robbers for whom there were ample hideouts in secluded natural caves.

The parable itself may have been fictitious, told to illustrate the point it so manifestly makes. Much loved and as important as it is in understanding Jesus’ inclusive attitude and his ethical mandate for all human relationships, it also exhibits some lively rhetoric and considerable unreality.  No knowledgeable priest or Levite, fully aware the dangers, would likely have traveled the road alone. Jesus himself appears to have walked this route in the company of his disciples on his way up from Jericho to Bethany and Jerusalem.

There would have been room on the trail, but scarcely more, for a man to lead a donkey. If the Samaritan was on his way home, he was taking a very indirect route. His journey would more likely have taken him straight north from Jerusalem via Bethel, Shiloh and Sycar. He would have gone this way only if he had business in Jericho or east across the Jordan. Again one wonders if the rescuer, his route and his ministry to the wounded victim were so identified to emphasize Jesus’ point about neighborliness. No Jew would have allowed a Samaritan to assist or comfort him in this way unless he was in extremely helpless circumstances.

According to Jewish tradition, the enmity of Jews and Samaritans dated from the 8th century BCE. The Assyrian Shalmaneser and his invading army had taken the leading citizens of Israel into exile in 721 BCE never to return. Subsequently the remaining people of the Northern Kingdom had intermarried with immigrants forced to replace the exiles. The Samaritans rejected this view as a vile Jewish canard. They identified Eli, the priest of the sanctuary of Shiloh who mentored Samuel, as the culprit who had establishing a sanctuary at Shiloh to rival the one established by Moses on Mount Gerazim.

W.M. Thomson, a missionary in Palestine, traveled the ancient road to Jericho in 1857 and described the traditional site of the inn where the Samaritan took the victim he had rescued as a caravansary. Today a small Orthodox Christian monastery stands there. It still welcomes pilgrims who dare to follow the ancient route along the footpath this parable fixed forever in human memory. Its unforgetable lesson of the inclusive love of God in Christ remains for every generation to carry to a world desperate for a way out of suicidal conflicts between tribes, nations and cultures.

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS .

AMOS 7:7-17. The prophesy condemning Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, the royal sanctuary and King Jeroboam should give pause to our contemporary church and national leaders. No human institution is free of the seeds of its own destruction. The powerlessness of church leaders and the decline of all religious institutions is surely ample evidence of this as the second decade 21st century begins. Presidents and political administrations are similarly powerless in the face of daunting natural and industrial disasters, and rampant economic recession. Is God our refuge? The prophets and psalmists seem to suggest that God is. But as Micah, a younger contemporary of Amos, said, “What does the Lord require of us?” (Micah 6:8)

PSALM 82. The message of justice conveyed in the psalm may be a little heavy for a summertime sermon, but it does lend substantial credibility to such a prophetic attitude in our contemporary environment. Those who take such a stance cannot expect to be heard with approbation in many congregations. The usual complaint is that preaching and politics should not be mixed. On the other hand, the biblical mandate of social justice for all is clear as this psalm attests, despite the often brutal attempts which have been made to suppress prophetic voices by the rich and powerful.

As this comment is being written, the leaders of the G-8 and G20 and hordes of their supporters are gathering in Huntsville, in Ontario’s holiday hinterland and in downtown Toronto to deal with the economic and geopolitical ailments of the world. Journalists from all over the world are here too to report and comment on whatever they can glean from these solemn deliberations. Also present under the watchful eyes of innumerable police and military detachments are thousands of protesters with countervailing viewpoints and not a few anarchists seeking only to disrupt what all the others are doing. One despairs that anything helpful, let alone social justice, for the world’s suffering millions will come from such expenditures of vast national and international resources. The cost of security alone is said to be $1.1 billion US. Could not that much money have been spent more beneficially in merciful justice?

(This paragraph was composed on Monday, 28.6.2010) In the aftermath of the meetings of the G20, there is a sharply divided edge to the media and public commentary on what was actually accomplished. The well designed spin of political spokespersons claim the unparalleled success of the consensus reached by those attending from around the globe. The final communique had been written long before the delegates arrived to discuss its verbalized issues and approve its final draft. The media focus was on the largely peaceful demonstrations by concerned citizens. This was countered by reports of  violence by a small minority of professional anarchists who used the shelter of these demonstrations to cause considerable violent confrontation with the massive police forces and destruction of private property. The combined police forces have also been strongly criticized for overreaction to what was perceived by many as excessive. Approximately 900 individuals were arrested, only some 400 of which will be formally charged. Those attending the actual G20 meetings were probably unaware of what was happening outside their well protected cocoon.

DEUTERONOMY 30:9-14. (Alternative) A narrow approach to prosperity based on the absolutist interpretation of vss. 9-10 of this passage found wide acceptance in the early stages of capitalism some authorities believe was driven by a harsh interpretation of Calvinism. This fostered the rise of great commercial and political empires which advanced science, technology and the global economy to a remarkable extent through the 17th to 19th centuries CE. It also resulted in brutally destructive imperial conflicts that lasted throughout the 20th century. How to adapt economic, political and technological development at a time when globalization is bringing about confrontation between vastly different religious, social and political cultures has become the challenge of the first decades of the 21st century.

A new published economic history presents a different view of how the inequalities of wealth were created in Great Britain during the Enlightenment Age. (The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1850. by Joel Mokyr. Yale University Press, 2010.) The author believes that there was no single cause among the many that other historians have identified. He does allow that effective property rights that encouraged investment did have a major influence. So did the growth of “human capital—the skills and talents—of eighteenth-century Britain, which were created, as much by practical experience and commercial culture as through formal education.”  (From a review in Harper’s Magazine by Edward Glaeser, Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University.)  Yet many of those practical men who learned from their experiences and made themselves rich did have some contact with the intellectual men of letters of their time.

COLOSSIANS 1:1-14. A genuine concern for the Colossians suffering hardship and injustice stands out in Paul’s address to their spiritual needs (vs.10-11). Giving joyful thanks is not the normal human response to such trials. Does that have a special message for any of us at a time when many are indeed buffered if not exactly suffering from the trials of economic recession or natural disaster? Paul did offer hope of “sharing in the heritage of God’s people in the realm of light.” (Vs.12) He was probably speaking of life beyond death and the travails of this life. He also spoke forcefully of standing firm in one’s convictions in this life “with fortitude, patience and joy.” (NEB) A faith that meets today’s problems is something we all both need and may find whatever our tradition.

LUKE 10:25-37. Biblical Hebrew used two words – chesed and racham which we translate into English variously as mercy, compassion or kindness. The prophets used the latter word more commonly, especially Isaiah, Jeremiah and Hosea. All of whom revealed divine mercy most vividly. The Hebrew noun meaning womb also had the sense of compassion. He writes in his new work, The Way of Jesus: To Repair and Renew The World.  (Abingdon, 2010), that the term reflects “that deep, visceral connection between mother and child, which a father, at least a good father, can also feel.” He adds that the Aramaic form of the word surviving from Jesus’ time “expressed a powerful principle in its translation of Leviticus 22:28 (in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan), ‘My people, children of Israel, since I am merciful in heaven, so should you be merciful upon earth.’  The expansion in the Targum is unquestionably innovative because the Hebrew text speaks simply of not killing an animal and her young on the same day.”

Corresponding to the Hebrew racham is the Greek word eleos. In Luke 10:37 the KJV translators used “mercy” to convey the same meaning where most modern translators have used “compassion.” The Beatitude in Matthew 5:7 used the verbal form of eleos. It is also noteworthy that in Buddhism the word anukampa is often rendered as “mercy.”

There is a classic Buddhist poem answering the question, “What should the person skilled in profitable practice do when he becomes aware of the peaceful state?” The poem begins, “ One should cultivate an unlimited mind toward all beings, the way a mother protects her only son with her life.” The words are evocative of Michelangelo’s famous statue, La Pieta, of Mary cradling the body of Jesus taken down from the cross.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Proper 9 Ordinary 14

6th Sunday After Pentecost

July 4, 2010

2 KINGS 5:1- 14. The story of Naaman, commander of the Aramean army, being cured of leprosy through Elisha, the prophet, is one of those graphic Bible stories often told to children with the added moral about the virtues of obedience. There is surely more to it than that despite of considerable ambiguity in the details. Naaman’s cure is an example of God’s gracious concern for non-Israelites.

PSALM 30. This psalm of thanksgiving for recovery from a nearly fatal illness apparently became a hymn of congregational praise in the temple liturgy. It appears to have been used on anniversaries of the rededication of the temple by Judas Maccabeus in 164 BC when it was interpreted as expressing the national experience of survival from grave oppression by Antiochus Epiphanes. It may still be used in this way at the Feast of Hanukkah.

ISAIAH 66:10-14. (Alternate) This winsome poetry bids the exiles  in Babylon to rejoice with Jerusalem. It also casts Yahweh as the mother of Israel who nurses her beloved child back to flourishing health.

PSALM 66:1-9. (Alternate) The psalmist speaks both as an individual and as a representative of the nation. He rejoices in recalling Yahweh’s mighty deeds and calls all people to join the celebration.

GALATIANS 6: (1- 6), 7- 16. Freedom does not give license for immoral behaviour. Each one has to be personally responsible for one’s own conduct, but also “bear one another’s burdens.” Those who choose to live according to the shifting values of the secular world will find themselves isolated from the effective moral and spiritual life. This life exemplifies love incarnate and is fulfilled in the life beyond death. It is the quality of life expected of individual Christians in the world and especially in the Christian fellowship.

LUKE 10:1-11, 16- 20. The theme of this passage is “the harvest,” but it is not clear whether this implies an imminent end of the age or a longer period of missionary work. The latter seems probable in the light of Luke’s general attitude of a delayed Second Coming of Christ in contrast to Matthew’s more imminent expectation. Yet the passage also has an element of warning that calls for a clear decision about discipleship which cannot be overlooked.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

2 KINGS 5:1-14. The story of Naaman, commander of the Aramean army, being cured of leprosy through Elisha, the prophet, is one of those graphic Old Testament stories told to children, perhaps with the added moral of the virtues of obedience. There is surely more to it than that in spite of considerable ambiguity in the details as they now appear in the text.

The Arameans lived in southern Syria in the area around Damascus and anti-Lebanon mountains along the northern borders of Israel. David had defeated the Arameans, but their city-state of Damascus won its freedom from Solomon. They then became persistent opponents of Israel until the late 8^th century BCE when they were overrun by the invading Assyrians.

While the king of Israel whose ire was raised to such extremes by the letter from the king of Aram is not identified (vs.7), the mutual fear of one for the other had never been overcome.  He is believed to have been Jehoram (ca. 849-842 BCE) who during his short reign was engaged in frequent wars with neighboring countries of Aram to the north, Moab to the east, and Edom to the south. He may well have had reason to be suspicious of this stranger, general of an enemy army moreover, who came bearing gifts and making such a strange request (vs.7). The present hostility of modern Syria and Israel, based on mutual threat to each other’s existence, has a long, biblically-sanctioned history, especially for the fundamentalists of both Judaism and Islam.

Some serious moral issues about disease and punishment complicate this story, especially as it develops in that part not covered by this passage. As it stands in the present limited segment, no moral interpretation is given to Naaman’s affliction with leprosy. It was the compassion of an Israelite slave-girl for her captor which ultimately brought him face to face with Elisha. A note in the NRSV points out that “leprosy” was “a term used for several skin diseases: the precise meaning (of the Hebrew word is) uncertain.” Even household mold or mildew could be described by this word.

For his part, Elisha seemed only concerned to show his power as a prophet of Yahweh (vs. 8). He appears to have been somewhat dismissive of the king’s helplessness. However, this may have been a reflection of the editor who included the story in the Elisha cycle. Naaman only sought to acknowledge the power of Yahweh as a last resort, even if he had to take some soil from Israel back to Aram with him to do so. (vss.15-17) This, of course, is typical henotheism, the concept of a god having power only within the territory of a specific tribe or nation state.

The reply of the Israelite king to Naaman’s request (vs. 7) oversimplifies the current belief that the king had divine powers. This was not unknown in those cultures where monarchs had priestly as well as political roles to fulfill. On the other hand, the subsequent action of Elisha exemplifies an editorial correction that the power to heal was not the possession of either king or prophet, though the latter were often attributed with greater powers than the former, as in this case. For us who turn to the New Testament to understand the Old, we find that in Luke 4:27 Jesus referred to Naaman’s cure as an example of God’s gracious concern for non-Israelites. Is this not the true moral emphasis behind the story as we have it in 2 Kings 5?

PSALM 30. This individual psalm of thanksgiving for recovery from a nearly fatal illness apparently became a hymn of congregational praise in the temple liturgy. If the superscription is to be believed, it appears to have been used on anniversaries of the rededication of the temple by Judas Maccabeus in 164 BCE. Later Judaism interpreted it as expressing the national experience of survival from imminent disaster. It may still be used in this way at the Feast of Hanukkah. Another possible way to look at it is in terms of the individual Jew as representative of the whole nation in much the same way that the Suffering Servant of Deutero-Isaiah represents the whole community of exiles in Babylon.

Despite the psalmist’s rejoicing for divine help in time of dire need, he is also conscious of Yahweh’s anger at his false overconfidence before he fell sick (vss.6-7).  Such an attitude comes naturally to anyone who enjoys great success. We see it exemplified in persons of wealth and power. It has been said that one must have a very large ego to become the political leader or the chief executive officer of a large corporation. A former Canadian prime minister who governed well after winning three minority elections, once said that a majority made a prime minister a virtual dictator. As we have seen in Canada, Great Britain and the USA, democratic elections often reveal great folly in those elected with a very large majority.

A sense of bargaining with Yahweh enters into the supplication in vss.8-9. The questions are not merely rhetorical. Such a challenge to Yahweh depended on the ancient belief that a god with no one to praise him/her was an extinct deity. That did not occur because the worshiper was saved from death when his repentance brought forth Yahweh’s forgiveness and his lament became a song of joyous thanksgiving (vss.10-11).

ISAIAH 66:10-14. (Alternate) The winsome poetry of this oracle bids the exiles  in Babylon rejoice with Jerusalem. The prophet pictured that holy city, to which the exiles would soon return, as an infant seeking comfort by nursing at its mother’s breast (vs. 11). The prophet also casts Yahweh as the mother who nurses her beloved child back to flourishing health (vss. 12-13). Not only that, but Israel’s prosperity would return so that other people would see that Yahweh was with his servants, Israel.

The great insight of Deutero-Isaiah and his school of prophets was to see his people as the servants of Yahweh. At this time of year usually marked by national celebrations in both Canada and the US, the people of our nations may be in the early stages of mourning and needing reassurance about the failures of our governments. It might be well to recall that much of our power, prosperity and international reputation depend on the ways in which our countries can be servants to one another and to other peoples rather than lording it over other people in arrogant superiority. In her 1984 work, The March of Folly: From Troy to Viet Nam, historian Barbara Tuchman pointed out that blindly overestimating a nation’s privilege, power and influence had been the cause of numerous military defeats and the fall of great empires. This failure of purpose came about through what Tuchman called “destructive stupidity.” She also included the Crusades of the 12^th and 13^th centuries and six successive Papacies of the 15^th and 16^th centuries as examples of the Christian Church suffering from this same destructive folly.

PSALM 66:1-9. (Alternate) One interpretation of this psalm describes it as a liturgy of thanksgiving by a person of wealth and national prominence. As a liturgical psalm, that person may be speaking both as an individual and also as a representative of the nation. He rejoices in recalling Yahweh’s mighty deeds and calls on all people to join the celebration. It is also possible that the latter part of the psalm not included in this reading (vss. 13-20) may be from a separate work.

After an initial outburst calling on others to join his praise (vss.1-4), the psalmist recalls some of the mighty acts of Yahweh. Most significant of all in Israel’s religious memory is the Exodus and trek through hostile territory to the Promised Land (vss. 6-7). The selection ends with a summons to all people to praise Yahweh for keeping Israel alive during such turbulent times. This could well be prayer of every nation as they celebrate their national festivals.

GALATIANS 6:(1-6), 7-16. Freedom does not give license for immoral behavior, Paul wrote at the end of his Letter to the Galatians. Each one has to be personally responsible for one’s own conduct, but also each one is charged to “bear one another’s burdens” (vss.1-5). Paul also issued a strong warning about moral overconfidence.

There are serious implications, he goes on to say, in all we do. Those who choose to live according to the shifting values of the secular world will certainly find themselves isolated from the effective moral and spiritual life exemplifying love incarnate fulfilled in the life beyond death (vss. 7-9) This is the quality of life expected of individual Christians in the world and especially within the Christian fellowship (vs.10). In other words, as said elsewhere in the gospels and epistles of the NT, we have to live in the world, but also remember that we are not exclusively citizens of this world.

If this appears to be a somewhat ambiguous stance to take, one only needs to look at the ministries of both Jesus and Paul. This issue lies behind the narratives of the gospels. Paul incited great opposition from the religious authorities of the day. The Letter to the Galatians was written to counter this official stance among the Jewish Diaspora of the time.

The Apostle Paul may have suffered from poor eyesight and needed someone to help him put his letters into manuscript form. In vs.11 he takes up the pen himself to reiterate his concern that the “circumcised” do not compel the Galatians to return to the covenant of Judaism requiring total obedience to the Law of Moses. By concentrating on the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross, Jews and Gentiles alike will be part of the new creation God intends for all (vss.11-15).

Yet Paul still had a soft spot in his heart for his fellow Jews. He prayed for them to have peace, and for mercy on all “Israel of God” (vs.16). It is a touching personal note from someone who had suffered such hostility from his fellow Jews.

LUKE 10:1-11, 16-20. Note that this is a second “missionary journey” on which Jesus sends some of his followers. In Like 9:1-6, he sent out “the twelve;” here it is “seventy others,” implying that “the twelve” stayed with him this time at some central base. If this occurred during the final journey (cf. 9:51), it was an interruption in what B. H. Streeter once called “a slow progress towards Jerusalem.” On the other hand, Hans Conzelmann has argued that it “introduces into the scheme material which itself does not belong there, as shown by 10:17.” (The Theology of Luke. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1961, p.67) Conzelmann also notes that there is a clear distinction between the apostolic character of “the twelve” and the role of “the seventy” as agents or messengers. The difference lies in the “power and authority” given to “the twelve” (9:1) and the message given to “the seventy.”

The theme of the passage is “the harvest” but it is not clear whether this implies an imminent end of the age in eschatological terms or a longer period of missionary work. The latter seems probable in the light of Luke’s general attitude of a delayed Parousia in contrast to Matthew’s more imminent eschatology. Yet there is an element of warning that calls for a clear decision about discipleship which cannot be overlooked. (vss.11-12).

John Dominic Crossan has presented an interesting approach to this passage as exemplifying the contrasting methods of the post-apostolic church in proclaiming the gospel by word of mouth and communal behavior. His hypothesis is that there were two distinctive approaches, one by resident householders who developed a type of “domesticated gospel of the kingdom” and one by a more radical itinerant and necessarily smaller group who developed an apocalyptic gospel. This established a dialectic which enabled the gospel to spread more effectively, especially in the late 1^st and early 2^nd centuries CE and could do so for our time as well. Crossan believes that this is both a clarifying and a helpful view at this stage in our understanding of the NT. His excellent article “Jesus And The Kingdom” in Jesus At 2000, edited by Marcus J. Borg discusses this view with considerable force.

It appears too that Luke had in mind two OT passages as he composed this pericope: Exodus 24:1, 9-16; and Numbers 11:16-25. The former passage was the precedent Luke followed for the appointment of the seventy other disciples for their mission. The latter passage identified Yahweh’s response to the Israelites complaints about the scarcity of traveling in the wilderness compared with their plentiful supply of food and drink during their captivity in Egypt. It also served as the precedent for the part of Luke’s narrative when Jesus assured the seventy that their needs would all be met while they carried out their mission.

The woeful rebuke of Choraizin, Bethsaida and Capernaum (vss.13-15) have a parallel in Matthew 11:20-23. Many scholars believe that most these commonalities likely come from Q (Quelle), the unknown source on which both Luke and Matthew drew some of their material. Others discount the existence of Q. There is a significant difference in Luke’s version, where the “deeds of power” are not repeated three times as in Matthew. In Luke 24:49 the apostolic community is not to be “clothed with power” until Pentecost. This appears to counter the observation above, however, that for their first mission, the apostles were given “power and authority.” (Cf. Num. 11:25) The intent of the curse on the three towns, nonetheless, was to urge their repentance (vs.13).

When the seventy returned to excitedly report their success, Luke had Jesus assure them that despite their meaningful rejoicing they had not yet seen all that lay ahead as his mission moved forward. This was meant to encourage Luke’s own community in difficult times that the all the powers of evil would be subject to the reign of God’s love.

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING NOTES:

2 KINGS 5:1- 14. A modern version of henotheism occurs in the belief that a specific nation such a Great Britain, Canada or the United States, or a specific political system such as socialism or capitalism, exhibits the highest Christian values. It also motivated the South African theory of apartheid, or racial separation which for nearly fifty years denied political rights to all but the five per cent Caucasian members of the population. Many white South African Christians truly believed that they were doing God’s will by maintaining their strict regime by totally oppressing their black and ‘coloured’ mixed race neighbours.

The current FIFA World Cup of Football is evidence of how far South Africa has come since 1993 when Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years from Robbin Island prison. A year later he was elected as that nation’s first black African president.

A brief comment on nationalism, patriotism and religious establishment.

This week marks the national holiday of both Canada (July 1) and the United States (July 4). Can we detect a note of nationalism running through all the OT passage in this week’s readings? Is it ever right to preach nationalism or patriotism from the pulpit? A well-known American religious television program broadcast around the world has such a feeling to many non-Americans. Should national flags be flown in church sanctuaries? Try to install or remove such a flag and see what happens!

Is belief in God essential to any nation’s existence? It is worth noting that while the proclamation, “In God we trust,” became popular during the American Civil War, it did not become the official national motto until 1956. It is also the national motto of Nicaragua. The phrase “under God” was not added to the American Pledge of Allegiance until 1954. Did the  rapid church growth after World War II, the threat of the Cold War and a concurrent rise of patriotism have anything to do with this?

The Canadian Constitution was not adopted until 1982. Part I of that Constitution is called “The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom” and begins with these words, “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law: …”

Is a constitutional document essential in the modern world? Unlike many other countries, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (its formal name) does not have a written constitution. On the other hand, in Great Britain, only England has an established church, The Church of England. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, the church has been disestablished for many years. In the United States, the First Amendment of the Constitution forbids the federal government from making any laws respecting religious establishment.

GALATIANS 6:(1-6), 7-16. Contemporary events illustrate how the best intended actions can be seen in different lights from different viewpoints.

On June 22, 2001 Pope John Paul II visited Ukraine and held masses there which were attended by smaller crowds that expected. This papal visit attempted to heal the one thousand year old rift between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches. The visit was well received by two branches of the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church, but it was boycotted and severely criticized by the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest church in Ukraine.

This could be understood when one realizes that the papal visit began on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Mary, a Roman Catholic feast inaugurated by Pope Pius XII in 1945 and dedicated to the conversion of Russia. On the other hand, the Orthodox Churches were just beginning to recover from 75 years of suppression by Communist dictatorship.

In the Middle East and even within different branches of Islam, there are differing public attitudes and official policies toward the existence of Israel. There is also great suspicion toward those nations regarded as western, democratic and Christian. The opposite attitudes toward Islam is also true within those nations.

In religious and theological circles in our time, even a radical progressive like John Shelby Spong states unequivocally his belief in life beyond death, although he does not articulate this conviction in any way. ( Eternal Life: A New Vision. HarperOne, 2009. 212.)

LUKE 10:1-11, 16-20. The three towns of Choraizin, Bethsaida and Capernaum were situated on the northern end of the Sea of Galilee. Choraiszin and Bethsaida  were on opposite sides of the Jordan River where it flowed into the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum, where Jesus made his Galilean headquarters, was a fishing town a few miles further south along the western shore toward Tiberias. They lay on the main trade and military route, the Via Maritima, from Damascus, Syria, to the Meditarranean. It is likely that all three towns had a very mixed population of both Jews and Gentiles.

Tiberias had been built by Herod Antipas  ca. 25 CE to serve as the capital of his tetrarchy of Galilee and Perea.  Though it had been chiefly a Gentile city, it became a place of refuge for Jews from Jerusalem after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE and was named as one of the four sacred cities in Palestine. About 150 CE, the Sanhedrin was moved to Tiberias from Sepphoris, another Graeco-Roman city about 15 miles up in the western hills of Galilee north of Nazareth. Subsequently influential schools of rabbinic studies were established in Tiberias.

In Luke’s time, however, (ca. 85-90 CE) the rivalry between Jews and Gentiles, and between Jews and Christians, in this area may have been very intense. It would appear that Luke’s intent in this passage was to urge the Christian mission everywhere in the Gentile world to continue unabated in the face of mounting opposition because it had been instituted by Jesus himself during the latter stages of his Galilean ministry. This remains the dominical mandate for evangelism motivated by the Spirit.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Proper 8 Ordinary 13
5th Sunday After Pentecost
June 27, 2010

2 KINGS 2: 1- 2, 6-14. This story tells how the spiritual leadership of Israel changed in the last half of the 9th century BC. Traveling with his mentor from one holy site to another, Elisha saw Elijah taken up in a chariot of fire and picked up the older prophet’s fallen mantle symbolizing that he had become Israel’s leading prophet.

PSALM 77: 1-2, 11-20. This complex psalm has two quite separate parts. The reading includes only the introduction to a personal lament, then skips to the second part which sounds more like a hymn alluding to the mighty acts of God throughout Israel’s history and in the violence of nature. This suggests that the psalmist was more troubled by some unnamed community calamity than by a personal disaster.

1 KINGS 19: 15-16, 19-21. (Alternate)  New orders from God for Elijah directed him to return to Israel to anoint a new king for Israel and for their northern neighbours, the Arameans (aka Syrians) and to anoint a new prophet, Elisha, to take his own place. Having done as directed, he found Elisha ploughing with a yoke of oxen. Slaughtering the oxen, Elisha used their equipment to prepare a sacrificial feast before leaving his family to follow Elijah as his disciple.

PSALM 16. (Alternate) This prayer expresses a simple trust in God. After criticizing the worthless gods of other nations, the psalmist meditates on the benefits of worshiping Israel’s Lord.

GALATIANS 5: 1, 13-25. Here the Christian ethic is writ large so that he/she who runs may read it. It is God the Spirit who gives us the basis for our ethical intentions and actual performance as Christians in the local contexts in which we live and move. Paul describes how this happens according to the choices we make about our everyday behaviour.

LUKE 9:51-62. Already bound for Jerusalem and the cross, Jesus decided to take the mountain route through Samaria rather than usual route to the east down the Jordan valley. As with many political and ethnic rivalries still, this enmity took on religious overtones. By Jesus’ time, this hostility had lasted more than 700 years since Israel’s ten northern tribes had been conquered by the Assyrians. Good Jews that they were, two of Jesus’ more hot-tempered disciples immediately gave full expression to the traditional attitude toward the Samaritans who refused them entrance to their village. James and John wanted to call down punishment on these people who rejected their beloved Master. Does this not sound familiar in our day?

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

2 KINGS 2:1-2, 6-14. What happens when the spiritual leadership of a religious community or a nation changes? That issue rises out of this lesson. Before dealing with it, some other points need to be considered first.

In his introduction to I and II Kings in The Interpreter’s Bible (vol. 3, p.13) Norman Snaith noted the many similarities between the Elijah cycle of stories in I Kings and the Elisha cycle in II Kings. He also noted that the latter group may have been written by a less competent author as an imitation of the Elijah cycle. They lack the same dramatic power in spite of the similarities. Nonetheless, Elisha did play a decisive part in the shaping of the events of his time, and in some respects was more outstanding than Elijah. Perhaps the author had knowledge of Elisha’s political importance and this led his biographer to write up the traditions which had gathered around him. The claim that he was the true successor of Elijah certainly was on the mark.

This insight comes very much to the fore in the determination of Elisha to travel with Elijah from one holy site to another until they crossed the Jordan by a miraculous dividing of the waters. The scene is reminiscent of the crossing of the Red Sea and of Joshua leading the Israelites across the Jordan into the Promised Land of Canaan. It was intended as a symbol of the renewal of Israel’s religious heritage. When finally Elisha saw Elijah taken up in a chariot of fire and retrieved the older prophet’s fallen mantle, he knew that he had come into the spiritual inheritance he had so earnestly sought.

The existence of sizable “companies of prophets” at the various holy sites of Bethel and Jericho (vss. 3, 5, 7) indicated that the prophetic tradition did not rest on haphazard, ecstatic inspiration of certain great individuals. A consistent system for maintaining “the word of the Lord” existed during the period of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. In his seminal book, The Relevance of the Prophets (Toronto: The Macmillan Company, 1947)  Professor R. B. Y. Scott described these “prophetic guilds” as “recognized bodies of prophets who appear to be acting in concert at various times in the history of the twin kingdoms…. As a rule they spoke with one voice. But exceptional men among them (in addition to the ‘Master’) acted independently, and it was they and not the ‘madmen of the spirit,’ (i.e. ecstatic prophets) who stood in the line of Moses and were the ancestors of the great prophets of the classical period.” (p. 48) An obvious reference to this Mosaic tradition of prophecy stood out in the dividing of the waters of the Jordan by both Elijah and Elisha.

All of this points to the conclusion that the succession of spiritual leadership can be governed in an orderly fashion in which both human and divine influences can be fully exercised.

PSALM  77:1-2, 11-20. This complex psalm appears to have two quite separate parts. This has caused some scholars to suggest that it originally existed as two separate compositions woven together by a later editor. The reading includes only the introduction to a personal lament, then skips to the second part which sounds more like a hymn alluding to the mighty acts of God throughout Israel’s history. This suggests that the psalmist (or the final editor) was more troubled by some unnamed community calamity than by a personal disaster.

A profound spiritual lesson can be learned from this interpretation. In times of crisis and the fragmentation of communal ethics and social upheaval, a review of our religious history can be a helpful antidote to the fear and despair that tend to overwhelm us. This does not assume that all forms of religious response to social crisis should be regarded as beneficial. In this century as in most previous ages, religious leaders have frequently served those who would preserve the status quo rather than voice the need for radical change in the tradition of the great prophets.

When we call to God for help through our fear and despair, God leads us through mighty floods, though not necessarily into green pastures and quiet pools of fresh water. The double images of vss. 16-20 are of violent thunderstorms and Israel’s experience of crossing of the Red Sea. A cursory reading of the Exodus story reveals how turbulent and distressing was that period of Israel’s religious history, if indeed it was a historical event at all.

1 KINGS 19:15-16, 19-21. (Alternate)  Soundly rebuked by Yahweh for deserting his post under the strain of persecution, Elijah received new orders for his ministry as Israel’s leading prophet. Yahweh directed him to return to Israel to anoint a new king for Israel and for their northern neighbours, the Arameans, (inhabiting modern Syria with its capital at Damascus). As if to underline his failure, Elijah also received orders to anoint a new prophet, Elisha, to take his own place as spiritual leader of the nation.

Unless one regards vss. 17-18 as an interpolation into the narrative, there seems little reason to omit them from the reading. In fact, they provide a reasonable assurance that Israel has not been completely apostate as Elijah had complained in his own pathetic defense (vs. 14).

Having done as directed, Elijah threw his mantle over Elisha who immediately ran after the prophet signifying his acceptance of his new role. Elijah hesitated about what he had done, but then relented when Elisha wished to return to say farewell to his parents. Slaughtering the oxen, Elisha used their equipment to prepare a sacrificial feast before leaving his family to follow as Elijah’s servant.

The story gives us insight into ancient prophetic succession. An oddity in this narrative is the anointing of Elisha when the normal practice was to anoint only monarchs. The cycle of stories about Elijah does not end here as might be expected, but there is an unmistakable break in the narrative between this episode and the next. Scholars believe that the two cycles probably come from different sources at different periods in the 8th century BCE as well as being adapted by the post-exilic Deuteronomist editors ca. 550 BCE.

PSALM 16. (Alternate)  This  prayer expresses a profound trust in God very similar to Ps. 23 and other psalms (e.g. Pss. 4, 11, 62, 131)  The psalmist meditates on the spiritual benefits of fellowship with God whose favour has yielded many blessings. He rejoices in his favoured status and is reassured that his righteousness will be rewarded. He will be received into Yahweh’s presence rather than being cast away into the shadowy existence of Sheol as the Jews regarded life beyond death (vss. 10-11.)

The mood of the psalm reflects the attitudes of the post-exilic period when strict obedience to the covenant law was linked directly to personal well-being.

GALATIANS 5:1, 13-25. Few passages in Paul Letter to the Galatians carries as much weight for the individual Christian and the faith communities to which we belong. Here the Christian ethics is writ large so that he/she who runs may read it. Douglas John Hall and other theologians have called attention to the ontological and intentional realities which must undergird ethical Christian behavior in the world now so confused as it is by secular and competing, but relativist, ethics. It is God the Spirit who gives us the ontological basis for our ethical intentions and actual performance as Christians in the local contexts in which we live and move. Nothing else more effectively defines who we are.  In this passage Paul describes how this happens.

By the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we have been freed from all that prevents us from doing as God desires. In the words of Jesus, (vs.14) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We are loved by God, therefore we can love others and ourselves. Any other ethic brings the catastrophic result of destructive conflict (vs.15).

“The works of the flesh” which Paul enumerates in vss. 19-21 are nothing more than the inevitable indulgences of selfish living. Because the reign of God is exclusively the reign of love, none of these acts can ever lead us, individually or communally, to experience, love and serve God in the mundane lives we all live.

Paul then enumerates the gracious gifts which come when the Spirit bears fruit in our lives. Acting from this premise, no law can regulate or deter us from holy living. Indeed, this is the life expected of those who would be followers of the Way. All this comes about because of Jesus Christ has pioneered the way for us. We belong to him; we can do no other than be enlivened by his Spirit whether in moments of spiritual contemplation or in the feverish activities of a busy day.

LUKE 9:51-62. Already bound for Jerusalem and the cross, Jesus decided to take the mountain route through Samaria rather than usual route down the Jordan valley. The hostility between the Samaritans and the Jews had lasted for more than eight centuries since the remnant of Israel’s Northern Kingdom had intermarried with the foreign population the Assyrians had imported into Israel following the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE. (2 Kings 15:13-31; 17) As with many political and ethnic rivalries still, this enmity took on religious overtones which John summarizes in Jesus’ conversation with the woman of Sychar (John 4:1-42.) Good Jews that they were, two of Jesus’ more hot-tempered disciples immediately expressed the traditionally hostility toward the Samaritans who refused them entrance to their village. James and John wanted to call down punishment on these people who rejected their beloved Master.

There is reason to believe that the text is corrupt at this point. Several ancient textual sources including those used in translating the KJV followed a reference first found in Marcion (c. 150 CE) adding the words, “as Elijah did.” (See 2 Kings 1:9-16) Most modern translations include this in a marginal note as they also do with a greater extension of vs. 55: “and he said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of; for the son of man came not to destroy men’s lives but to save them.”

In her study of Luke in the Westminster Bible Companion Series, Sharon H. Ringe (Westminster John Knox Press.1995) makes the point that the reference to Elijah is reminiscent of actions taken by that (2 Kings 1:1-12). Whereas in a previous situation, (Lk. 4:25-27) Jesus referred to Elijah in a positive way, here he rejected “the prophet’s fiercer side.” In both instances, however, Luke used the allusions to introduce major new sections of his narrative. Here had Jesus make clear that “old animosities cannot define life in the new community gathered around Jesus.”

However the actual text may have existed in the original, Luke saw this as a teaching moment for Jesus. When an enthusiastic follower gushed about his loyalty, Jesus rebuked him with a promise of homelessness. This was not the kind of Messiah that prospective disciple was seeking. Jesus called another person to follow him, but the man offered the excuse of having to bury his recently deceased father. And yet another wished to say farewell to his family. Jesus responded to both with challenges that still seem harsh to our ears. Were these Jewish or Samaritans whose discipleship he refused? In either case, does this not contradict the previous reference that Jesus had ruled out “old animosities?”

In an “intimate biography” of Jesus, Rabbi Jesus, (Doubleday, 2000) Bruce Chilton inferred that Jesus himself had been forced to leave his home in Nazareth because of the hostility of the community and of some of his own family. Because of his status as a memzer (literally, “a bastard”) due to his suspect paternity, he had not even been permitted to attend the funeral of his father Joseph. If valid – and that is impossible to prove – such experiences may well have affected his attitudes expressed here.

However we may interpret this apparent harshness, Jesus was saying that the demands of God’s reign of love presents us with a higher loyalty than that of filial duty or family responsibility. He concludes with a metaphor that has little meaning for most people today. He likens this challenge of discipleship to that of a farmer plowing a field behind a single beast or a small team. One can only drive a straight furrow by looking forward to the distant goal, a point at the end of the field. In many respects, this kind of loyalty is characteristic of the eschatological age. As John Knox (the modern American biblical scholar, not the giant of the Scottish Reformation) commented in his expository note in The Interpreter’s Bible, (vol. 8, p. 183): “Only in a miraculously new order where men do not live on bread, and where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, can the Kingdom of God fully come. Whether we agree with such a view or not, a passage like this is bound to disclose the grounds for it.”

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

2 KINGS 2: 1- 2, 6-14. In recent years several appointments to the Senate of Canada, such as a Roman Catholic nun and the former Moderator of The United Church of Canada, Very Rev. Lois Wilson, (both now retired) gave a prominent public role to prophetic voices on the Canadian and global scene. However political such appointments may be, a true prophet will not necessarily be co-opted by the political system if she or he maintains her moral and spiritual independence, as did Elijah and Elisha in ancient Israel. The Very Rev. Dr. Wilson only accepted the appointment to the Senate on condition that she would sit as an independent.

On the other hand, the alliance of very conservative religious voices with conservative political parties in both Canada and the United States has introduced a negative element of political opportunism which has serious implications for social cohesion. As time passes, however, this disruptive influence may recede as conservative policies lead both nations away from their heritage as liberal democracies and into generally unpopular wars in Asia. It remains to be seen what long term impact these trends will have on the social fabric of both nations and the future policies of their respective governments.

PSALM  77:1-2, 11-20. Within the next week, both Canada and the United States will celebrate their national holidays. However comfortable many of us whoa re citizens of these two most blessed nations of the world may feel, we can readily see that beneath the surface there is a great deal of social unrest which breaks into the open from time to time. Current crises in the handling of public revenues, education and health services, energy and water supplies, the declining quality of the air we breathe and the imminent threat of climate change are symptoms of how distressed our society may be.

In this year 2010, there is the growing international dilemma of how to address the devastating oil well explosion, the death of thirteen oil rig workers and subsequent spillage of millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The future of traditional ways of life for many people living along the shoreline of the gulf is in grave doubt. So too is the effect this disaster will have on the worldwide production of petroleum products. Will there be political fallout for President Obama and the US Congress in the forthcoming midterm elections? Are not all these issues are occasions for lament, not self-satisfied congratulations about the wealth and security of our two nations?

1 KINGS 19: 15-16, 19-21. (Alternate) Elijah found his successor ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen. That is an extremely large team to draw a relatively small agricultural instrument. It must have some symbolic meaning beyond the narrative. Could it refer to the twelve tribes of Israel now deeply divided between the Northern and South  Kingdoms? If so, it may have expressed the hope, possibly of a later editor, that the kingdoms would once more be united under a Davidic heir.

GALATIANS 5:1, 13-25. Father Thomas Keating, a spiritual companion to many from diverse denominational backgrounds, once described how the Spirit effects change in our ethical behaviour when we engage in meditative prayer : “We are sitting on the cross of Christ….thus, in a receptive mode of being,….consenting to God’s grace. In emptying, we open ourselves to redemption.”

The late Professor James S. Thomson, then Dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University, Montreal, in the middle of the last century, interpreted to his senior class what the person and work of Christ as Saviour and Redeemer implied. He said that we had gone about as far as we can in understanding what this meant for the behavior of individual Christians. That had been achieved through the evangelical movements from the mid-18th to mid-20th century, from the Wesleys to Bonhoeffer and Tillich. What Christians in the next century or two would be required to achieve was the application of this same ethic to social and global issues of all kinds.

Fully sixty years after that prophetic observation was made, we are now in the midst of doing trying to do what that eminent teacher foresaw. What better guide to the missionary enterprise where each one of us lives can we find than what Paul cites in this letter to the Galatians?

A retired military officer joined a Bible study group after retirement from a long military career. As the group worked through the implications of “the fruits of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22-23, this officer spoke of his wide experience as  commandant of several military bases. Moral issues had confronted him almost daily. In retirement he accepted a role as a pastoral counselor in his local congregation giving whatever help he could to other men struggling with complex moral issues. Even clergy of his acquaintance turned to him to share their moral dilemmas. The Spirit was working through him in many different ways.

LUKE 9:51-62. Many a modern minister’s family has been greatly distressed when The challenge involving a serious conflict of loyalties and responsibilities has been literally interpreted. Professor Knox put the whole series of challenging incidents in this chapter in a different context. We do not know the concrete situation in which Jesus spoke these words. This series of incidents has the single purpose of setting forth the paramount importance of the reign of God and the supreme loyalty it demands of us. Everything else is irrelevant to that purpose. We must interpret many of the stories and parables of Jesus with this same characteristic economy.

In recent months there has been much discussion among Roman Catholic people as to whether married priests would have prevented much of the child abuse that has done great damage to that church in recent years. One of the arguments offered by the Vatican for a celibate priesthood is that the priest is able to offer himself totally to his ministry without the encumbrance of marital and familial duties. At the same time, numerous married clergy from other churches have been accepted and indeed invited to seek admission as Roman Catholic clergy while still maintaining their marital status.

A Roman Catholic member of the administrative staff of a United Church congregation in my community told me recently in glowing terms of how excellent a pastor her priest had been. “And he is married with children too!” she exclaimed. She was speaking about a former minister of The United Church of Canada. At one time he and I had both been members of the same Presbytery.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Proper 6  Ordinary 11

Third Sunday After Pentecost

June 13, 2010 .

1 KINGS 21:1- 21a. This simply told tale echoes across the centuries as brilliant example of how the Israelites put their message about God’s justice so even a child could understand. The depressed bumbling of Ahab make for great irony and the deceit of Jezebel clearly describes how the powerful victimize the powerless. The dramatic words of Elijah reveal how God feels about such selfish injustice.

2 SAMUEL 11:26-12:10, 13-15. (Alternate)   This conclusion to the story about David’s lustful adultery with Bathsheba forcefully conveys the moral lessons that God’s justice is meted out equally to kings and commoners alike. The prophet Nathan confronted David about his deceitful arranging for Uriah’s death so that he might marry Bathsheba. Despite David’s confession of sin, Nathan declared God’s judgment against the king: Bathsheba’s child will die.

PSALM 5:1- 8. This lyrical lament may well have been recited by temple singers to the music of flutes. It tells worshipers making their way into the temple that God hears their cries for help because God has only steadfast love for all who follow God’s righteous ways.

PSALM 32. (Alternate) This prayer of confession has nothing to do with King David’s confession. It contains a hopeful expression of God’s forgiveness for any penitent relying on the steadfast love of God. This is something in which we too can truly rejoice.

GALATIANS 2:15- 21. Paul cites the basic difference between Jews and Gentiles as resting on the law given to Moses when he led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. Then Paul strikes down that distinction because Jesus Christ has established an entirely new relationship with God for Jews and Gentiles alike. It depends on faith in Jesus Christ who was crucified and raised from the dead to live in anyone who believes.

LUKE 7:36- 8:3. In this passage Luke told several things about Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. He had friends among the Pharisees and one invited him to dine. He rebuked his host for neglecting a customary welcome. He also had great compassion for this disreputable women always thought of as a prostitute.

The parable Jesus told to drive home his message must have cut the Pharisee to the quick. The point of the whole incident is that forgiveness depends on our faith in God’s compassionate love, not on how righteous we may strive to be.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

1 KINGS 21:1- 21a. This simply told tale echoes across the centuries as brilliant example of how the Israelites put their message about God’s justice so even a child could understand. Yet its fine points speak to our age as crisply as it formed one of what is known as “the Elijah cycle” of stories about one of Israel’s greatest prophets and his conflict with King Ahab and his Tyrian queen, Jezebel. Two other cycles of stories closely related to this one featured the prophet Elisha and the reign of the weak King Ahab. Scholarly debates have not completely settled how the three have been melded into the whole of the Book of Kings. Several incidental narratives are scattered in different places in I and II Kings.

It is thought that these three sets of stories originated in the Northern Kingdom in late 9^th century BCE. They existed separately and circulated centuries before being included in the Book of Kings by an editor of the Deuteronomic school. Written after Israel’s return from the exile in Babylon in the late 6^th or early 5^th century BCE, the main concern of the Deuteronomic editors of the Book of Kings was the struggle to maintain the worship of Israel centralized in the temple Jerusalem against the incursions of alien gods. They believed that it was Israel’s infidelity to the worship of Yahweh and the Torah which brought the great disaster of the Babylonian exile upon them.

In this particularly dramatic incident, the depressed bumbling of Ahab make for great irony and the deceit of Jezebel clearly describes how the powerful can victimize the powerless. The dramatic words of Elijah reveal how God feels about such selfish unfairness.

Just reading the story to its conclusion at vs. 29 would make a great sermon in itself. If one chose to elaborate and draw parallels to present times, one would find ample illustration in the economic and political injustices rampant in the world as we see these described in our news media.

2 SAMUEL 11:26-12:10, 13-15. (Alternate)  This conclusion of the story about David’s lustful adultery with Bathsheba forcefully conveys the moral lesson that God’s justice is meeted out equally to kings and commoners, to rich and poor alike.

Whether or not this was indeed an historical event from the later years of David’s reign can never be proven. However, the narrative bears the marks of a much later time in the 8^th and 7^th centuries BCE when justice had become an important element of the preaching of Israel’s great prophets Amos, Micah and Isaiah.

The prophet Nathan confronted David about his deceitful arranging for Uriah’s death so that he might marry Bathsheba. But the wily prophet doesn’t do it with a blunt charge of misbehaviour. He skillfully tells a parable about a rich man who coveted his poor neighbour’s lamb. The rich man stole the poor man’s lamb to provide a feast for a visitor. When David challenged the prophet to identify the culprit of this injustice, Nathan pointed his finger directly at the king and in Yahweh’s name condemned the king for what he had done to Uriah and Bathsheba.

Despite David’s confession of sin, Nathan declares God’s judgment against the king: Bathsheba’s child will die. More than that, David’s household would experience nothing but strife, a prophecy that subsequent events proved. Indeed, by the time the story was redacted in the post-exilic period, the Davidic dynasty had disappeared.

PSALM 5:1-8. This lyrical lament may well have been recited by the temple singers to the music of flutes. It may have been used as a prayer during the morning sacrifice (vs. 2). While it is written as if sung as a solo, it tells worshipers making their way into the temple that God hears their cries for help because God has only steadfast love for those who follow God’s righteous ways.

We can only imagine the specific circumstances in which the psalmist had composed this prayer. It would appear that he was beset by a menacing group of fellows Israelites. He had suffered from their boastful arrogance and slanderous lies vividly described in vss. 6 & 9. The psalmist found relief from this unbearable annoyance in the assurance of Yahweh’s steadfast love communicated through worship (vs. 7). This results in his commitment to Yahweh’s righteousness, i.e. the Torah.

Vs. 7 contains what may be an oblique reference to the Babylonian exile. The psalmist may not have  been in the temple precincts at all, but far away in Babylon and turning toward the temple as he uttered his morning prayers (cf. Daniel 6:10). It is logical to assume, therefore, that the psalm comes from the post-exilic period.

The varying readings of vs. 3b suggest that this is so. The KJV has added the words “my prayer” to the Hebrew text, “I direct my prayer to thee, and will look up,” to convey a clearer sense of its assumed meaning. The RSV gives an alternate reading: “I prepare a sacrifice for thee, and watch.”  The NEB tends to agree: “I set out my morning sacrifice and watch for thee, O Lord.” The NRSV, however, stays closer to the Hebrew text conveyed by the KJV: “in the morning I plead my case to you, and watch.” The rather obscure Hebrew verb *‘awrak* (= prepare) does have several meanings, but chiefly “to arrange or put in order.” One may choose which one to prefer.

PSALM 32. (Alternate) This prayer of confession has nothing to do with King David’s confession. It is one of series of penitential psalms frequently used in the Lenten season. The others like it are Pss. 6, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143. It belongs to a class of wisdom psalms designed to instruct the faithful in times of sickness and distress. Like all theology in the ancient Middle East, it closely links sickness ands sin.

Although attributed to David in the superscription, it actually comes from the late Persian or early Greek periods (4^th century BCE) when wisdom literature strove to maintain the true faith of Israelites in the moral law of the ancient covenantal tradition.

Whatever its origins, the psalm contains a hopeful expression of God’s forgiveness for any penitent relying on the steadfast love of God. It describes quite effectively the process of being forgiven: sincere penitence, the acceptance of forgiveness, the resolution to guilt. It also includes a didactic moral with a touch of irony about our human resistance to true penitence. The psalm ends with a shout of praise for God’s compassionate grace in which we can truly rejoice.

GALATIANS 2:15-21. Paul’s primary concern in his Letter to the Galatians was to prevent recently converted Jews and Gentiles from falling away from the simple freedom of their new faith under attack from other Jewish Christians. These “Judaizers” had persuaded them that to be Christians they must also follow the strict Jewish laws. This conflict came a consequence of the division between the Jerusalem and Antioch Christian communities within two decades after the resurrection. In this passage Paul cited the basic difference between Jews and Gentiles. It rested on the law of the covenant given to Moses when he led them out of slavery in Egypt.

In Paul’s estimation, his fellow Jews were wrong in assuming that they put themselves in good standing with God (“justified” – vs. 16) by keeping the laws designed to create ritual purity worthy of admission to God’s covenant. Dietary restrictions and circumcision were the particular aspects of the covenant law against which Paul was arguing. Gentiles could not easily accept such rigorous purification as practical expressions of their relationship with God. Realizing this, and pleading freedom from the ritual restraints of the Jewish tradition, Paul worried that his Galatian friends would desert the Christian community altogether. As anyone who has been in conflict situations, in times of crisis it does not take much to create doubt and disaffection in the minds and hearts of Christian believers.

Then, in a series of rhetorical questions, (vss. 16b-17) Paul strikes down the distinction he had drawn between Jews and Gentiles. Jesus Christ has established an entirely new relationship with God for Jews and Gentiles alike. It rested on faith in Jesus Christ who had been crucified and raised from the dead to live in anyone who believes. The English translation of what Paul was saying is by no means easy to grasp.

He used his own experience as the main illustration of his argument. Does he not claim to have invalidated not just certain parts of the Judaic law, but the legalist tradition as a whole? Trying to understand Paul’s impact on both Judaism and Christianity, many scholars have followed this train of thought in the past century and a half. It was not so much Jesus, but Paul who is regarded as the architect of the Christian tradition distinct from its earlier roots in Judaism. We may firmly counter such a view by showing that, according to this passage, Paul himself believed that his faith depended entirely on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Great though it had been, he did not depend on his personal impact on the communities to which he had proclaimed the Gospel.

But what did he mean in vs. 19 that “through the law I died to the law? There may well be some specific act of transgression the memory of which still bothered Paul’s conscience.  We get much the same impression if we compare this passage to Romans 7:7-12 where he identifies a sin but does not specifically state what that sin might have been. It could have been something he coveted, but had to relinquish because it was unattainable or because his changed relationship with Christ prevented its achievement.

Paul had found a new hope, nonetheless. It was in Christ. Whatever his sacrifice had been, he saw it as being personally crucified, yet he was alive as never before. He knew this not because of anything he had done, but because Christ had forgiven him and had given him a much greater commission. He now could live for Christ assured that the risen Christ was with him always. Indeed the Spirit of Christ was alive in him transforming him day by day into a new creation. That was the faith which sustained him. His entirely new relationship with God rested on faith alone. If this were not so, he claimed in his final point to clinch his argument, then Christ had died for nothing.

LUKE 7:36-8:3. In this passage Luke told us several important things about Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. One can easily assume that Jesus’ most ardent opposition came from those who belonged to the party of the Pharisees. On the other hand, he also had many good friends among this ultra-religious party and this one had invited him to dine. Some Jewish rabbis today believe that Jesus himself was a member of the Pharisees.

In his Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography, Bruce Chilton based much of his analysis of Jesus’ ministry on the frequency of his dining out with just about anyone who would invite him. Certainly, some of those who opposed him accused him of being a glutton and an alcoholic. Luke had reported that charge immediately before this passage. Chilton regarded Jesus’ penchant for being a guest at other people’s homes as being particularly significant in marking out his differences with the priestly authorities as well as the Pharisees.

When a sacrifice was offered in the temple, part of the offering was burned on the altar, but most of it was divided between the priests and the worshiper for their own consumption. Jesus may have regarded the temple sacrifices as dining in the presence of God. It culminated, in Chilton’s view, in the intimate fellowship meals of which the Last Supper was only one instance.

According to this pericope, Luke presented Jesus as not being afraid to rebuke his host for neglecting the customary welcome he ought to have received. The normal customs of the time required that on the arrival of his guests, the host would provide water for them to freshen up after walking through dirty and dusty streets. Ritual washing was also required of everyone who ate at home or as invited guests at a feast. In all probability, this stringent practice was frequently ignored, especially far from Jerusalem in Galilee.

The story set up an interesting contrast between Jesus rebuke of his host and his compassion for this interloping woman. Apparently she just came in off the street uninvited, knowing that Jesus was there. Perhaps she had followed him. She has always been thought of as a prostitute or an adulterer, but she could well have had other well-known sins which characterized her demeanor. Her presence quite naturally upset the host. He remonstrated with Jesus for allowing such a person to touch him thus making him impure according to the strict interpretation of the laws governing such behavior.

The parable Jesus told to drive home his message must have cut the Pharisee to the quick. Comparison with Paul’s words to the Galatians reveals that both are very clearly the good news Jesus came to reveal and make effective in reconciling us with God and with one another. The point of both passages is that forgiveness depends on our faith in God’s compassionate love, not on how righteous we may strive to be.

It is important not to ignore 8:1-3, Luke’s brief statement naming certain women who followed Jesus. In subsequent centuries, the unnamed woman who interrupted the feast at the home of the Pharisee has been conflated with Mary Magdalene and/or Mary of Bethany (vs. 2). More recent scholarship has shown this to be completely wrong. Miriam (Mary) was the most common Jewish name for women in those days. Throughout his gospel Luke showed that women held a special place in Jesus’ life and ministry. With regard to Mary Magdalene legend and fiction have made much of this.

So has feminist scholarship of the late 20^th century. In her study of Luke, however, Sharon H. Ringe has shown that the roles women filled in the ministry of Jesus did not differ from the customary roles for women in those times. In this instance, we have relatively little information about these particular women. Some of them had been healed by Jesus of evil spirits and demons, but that does not imply that they were sinful or of disreputable moral character. We are told that some of them were women of means. Apparently they chose to make use of their wealth in supporting Jesus’ ministry and joining him on the road to Jerusalem. Several of them reappeared in Luke’s Passion narrative. It would only amount to fruitless speculation to reconstruct anything more from what Ringe described as “a mere opening and closing of the curtain to indicate a new scene.”

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

PSALM 5:1-8. What happens during our liturgies? In 2009 a Conference on Performing Self and Community: Ritual and Ritual Practice was held at McGill University, in Montreal, Canada. Papers from this conference were published in Volume 37:2009 issue of ARC: The Journal of the Faculty of Religious Studies. These papers attempt to respond to the question, “What does scholarship on ritual have to say in the 21^st century?”

The papers range through many religious and secular fields. Some titles seem far away from religious studies, but on closer examination contain to be very appropriate hypotheses and incisive if tentative insights for our time. For instance, among the titles of papers are:  “Etiology, Neurology, and Emergence: Reductionism in Biological Perspective on Religious Rituals;” “ An Examination of Virtual Rituals Found in Online Gaming;” and “Rituals and the Everyday: Performing Food and Sex in Contemporary Visual Arts.” The major world religious traditions and specific pastoral concerns are not neglected: “Ritual is Not Religion: Exploring Balagangadhars’ Proposal for Understanding the ‘East;’” and “Journeys in Grief: Theorizing Mourning Rituals.”

Though not always easy reading, the introduction and thirteen papers may prove quite challenging for a summer of study. ARC is indexed in the Religion Index One: Periodicals published by the American Theological Library Association (http://www.atla.com/) and other well known social science indexes. Individual copies of the journal may be obtained for $15 Cdn within Canada and $15 US outside of Canada from ARC, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University, 3520 University Street,  Montreal, QC H3A 2A7 Canada. Cheques should be payable to “ARC, FRS, McGill University.” Annual subscriptions are $30 Cdn and $30 US per annum. The Faculty’s webpage is

www.relgstud@mcgill.ca.

GALATIANS 2:15-21. There is an ancient legend that part of the price Paul paid when he met Jesus on the Damascus Road was to give up any hope of marriage to the daughter of Caiaphas, the high priest. Was this an indirect reference to such an experience? It was unusual for a young rabbi not to marry and such a marriage would have been immensely advantageous to any ambitious young rabbi. How he would have coveted that! Dare we speculate that this could have been the reason why the “Judaizers” followed him wherever he went and tried to undo all he had done in the predominately Gentile cities of Galatia? As a servant of the high priest he had deserted his commission and had gone over to the enemy. How could that ever be forgiven by the priestly authorities whom he had betrayed?

Who were the Galatians? Primarily, they were the descendants of a tribe of Celts who had broken away from the main Celtic migration in the 7^th and 6^th centuries BCE. Originally from western Asia, they migrated up the basin of the Danube River in Europe to eventually settle first in Switzerland (known as Helvetians), and France (known as Gauls). Later they had crossed to southern England and Ireland. This break-away migration through Bulgaria and Greece to Asia Minor had taken place in the 3^rd century BCE. A relatively small but rather warlike tribe, they had settled in the central Anatolian plain at the invitation of the king of Bythinia. There they subsequently became known as Galatians.

See these websites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatians; and

http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/migration/chapter113.html#1 .

LUKE 7:36-8:3. Do justice and political reconciliation ever meet? During one of Nelson Mandela’s visits to Canada, a member of the Parliament of Canada publicly condemned the South African leader as a communist who had advocated violent revolution in South Africa before and during his imprisonment. However true or false that accusation may have been, the gift Mandela has given to the world in his long struggle against apartheid cannot be denied. His long life has showed how the worst of enemies can be reconciled through the forgiving love of God working through ordinary people of every race and creed. This too is gospel.

Reconciliation can be seen too in current if tragic events. Quite recently a remarkable reconciliation between Poland and Russia has resulted from the death of many Polish political and military leaders in a plane crash near Smolensk. The Polish delegates were on their way to meet with their Russian counterparts and mark the anniversary of the massacre of more than 20,000 Polish military, political and intellectual leaders at Katyn Forest near Smolensk in April and May 1940 on the orders of Joseph Stalin.

On May 24, 2010 Ontario’s educational television station TVO held an hour long debate on the extent and character of this reconciliation featuring a Canadian, two Polish and two Russian political scientists now teaching at different Canadian and American universities. Among the five was Nina  Khrushcheva, the granddaughter of former Soviet president, Nikita Krushchev. At the end of the debate the question arose whether or not the Russians had apologized to the Poles for Stalin’s criminal behaviour. No, they conceded, it was not an apology, but it was an admission that a terrible crime had been committed.

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INTRODUCTIONS TO THE SCRIPTURE

First Sunday After Pentecost – Trinity Sunday

May 30,  2010

PROVERBS  8:1-4, 22-31. The Book of Proverbs comes from a type of creative writing known as Wisdom literature. It gets this name from the way in which it presents religious teachings as ancient, inherited wisdom to guide the morally and spiritually inexperienced. The Books of Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes and some Psalms also belong to this class. In this passage, Widsom is personified as God’s first creation who also shared in all other acts of creation. Wisdom is often equated with the Holy Spirit.

PSALM  8. The psalmist first contemplates the glory of God manifested in the wonders of the heavens. This brings to mind a reflection on the place of humanity in creation. Sadly, by taking the text literally, we have excessively exploited our role as God’s vice-regents with “dominion” over nature.

ROMANS  5:1-5. Two of the most important doctrines of our faith had their roots in this passage: justification and sanctification. Justification means putting our trust in the power and goodness of God whose grace gives us peace instead of the sinful conflict between God’s will and our will. This transforms our moral character. We are not only changed, but we also find hopeful assurance that God’s love reigns in this hostile world. Through God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, love becomes the sole motivation for all our behaviour, i.e. we are sanctified, made holy and worthy representatives of God in the world.

JOHN 16:12-15. In Jesus’ final discourse to his disciples, John defines for his own community the purpose of the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. This is the closest any New Testament author comes to a statement of the doctrine of the Trinity. The role of the Spirit is to guide the church into all truth. The fundamental criterion of truth for the church is that it must always witness to Christ and seek to reveal God’s purpose. This requires much careful reflection before being expressed in life.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

PROVERBS 8:1-4, 22-31. The Book of Proverbs comes from a type of creative writing called Jewish Wisdom literature. It gets this name from the way in which it presents religious teachings as ancient, inherited wisdom to guide the morally and spiritually inexperienced. The Books of Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes and some Psalms also belong to this class. Outside of the standard canon of scripture, however, many other books of Wisdom literature were written to interpret the ancient tradition in different styles. Some are contained in the Old Testament Apocrypha. Two of these, Ecclesiasticus (also called The Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach, or just Sirach) and The Book of Wisdom, are also found in the accepted canon of the Roman Catholic Church.

One of the features of Wisdom literature is the personification of Wisdom. The recasting of this human characteristic as a person with a clearly defined role within the divinely mandated order of the universe is at once a theological and a literary tour de force. Wisdom is often equated with the Holy Spirit.

The late Professor R.B.Y. Scott, formerly of McGill and Princeton Universities, wrote a trenchant paragraph in his book, The Way of Wisdom, (New York: Macmillan, 1971, p. 212). This comment brings together references to Proverbs 8:1-21 and the apocryphal book Sirach 4:11-19 and 24:19-22.

“Wisdom came to every people and nation. Yet it was in Israel alone that she took root and became embodied in the Law of Moses. Thus the idea of Wisdom, on one level is a quality of human life to be attained through training and the gift of God, and on a second level is personified almost as a goddess offering herself to mankind … as an emanation from God himself. She is God’s Word, spoken in the divine assembly in the presence of the heavenly host. Here the streams of gnomic wisdom, prophetic word, covenant faith, and personal religious devotion converge and coalesce in wisdom piety.”

In the latter segment of this reading, vss. 22-31, Wisdom makes the claim of being God’s first creation who subsequently shared in all other acts of creation. This characterization may well owe something to Greek philosophy in which the material and the spiritual were so distinct as to isolate God from God’s creation. On the other hand, it may be no more than a later development of the Hebrew concept of holiness which came to the fore in post-exilic Judaism and also resulted in the separation of God from the created world.

During the last several centuries, we have tended to displace divine wisdom with expanded human knowledge based on scientific experiment and rational analysis by inductive reasoning. Advances made in such fields as neurology, psychology, psychiatry and pharmacology have given us the sense that the spiritual realm or soul really do not exist beyond the neural synapses of the human brain.

Recent experiments in brain scanning with highly sensitive technology have revealed that certain areas of the brain are less active and others more active during religiously motivated meditation. The research appears to show that this occurs particularly when a transcendent state is reached. Some refer to such a state as reaching a higher or deeper level of consciousness. In biblical terms, this might well be related to the angelic visitations,  dreams and visions that occur in many biblical narratives. Joseph in Egypt, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, Mary, mother of Jesus, and John, the author of Revelation come immediately to mind.

PSALM 8. The psalmist first contemplates the glory of God manifested in the wonders of the heavens. One can imagine a devout courtier like Isaiah standing on the flat rooftop of his Jerusalem home or a herdsman like Amos watching over his resting flock on a Judean hillside. As either of them gazed into the heavens they saw the panoply of stars spread out above them and a full moon rising over Jordan. We who have spent summer nights at Canadian camps and cottages or watched the northern lights illuminate a winter sky know well how such a scene gives one first an overwhelming sense of awe and then a deep humility in realizing how infinitely small and insignificant we are.

The psalmist reflects not only on the minute place of humanity in such a vast universe. Even as he brings his faith to bear on his sense of smallness, he knows that we have a special relationship with the Creator of this universe and hence a special relationship with the created world in which we presently live. (vss.5-8).

The environmental issues for us are vastly different than they were when this psalm was composed. Sadly, by taking the text literally, we have excessively exploited our role as God’s vice-regents with “dominion” over nature. That calls for repentance and radical change in our attitudes and our actions, individually, communally, globally. We must think of ourselves as stewards rather than dominators of creation. We can only continue to praise our Sovereign Lord’s majestic name if we accept total responsibility for restoring our right relationship with God’s creation.

That does not mean that we must espouse all the extreme aspects of the environmental cause. Growing a small garden or planting a few trees may contribute more than joining a protest which turns to mob violence in a vain attempt to persuade the politically and economically powerful to cease destroying the planet. Changing our driving habits, using electricity more cautiously or heating our homes more temperately may achieve the same end. Equally foolish, however, are the declarations of politicians and political parties supported by powerful lobbyists and spokespersons for special interests that concern for the environment is only a personal moral issue, not a matter for public debate and democratic decisions.

ROMANS 5:1-5. While two of the most important doctrines of our faith, justification and sanctification, receive full exposure from 3:21-8:39, this passage serves as link between the two. Justification means putting our trust in the power and goodness of God whose grace gives us peace instead of the sinful conflict between God’s will and our will. In 3:21-4:23 Paul had dealt extensively with the means by which we have been given a new status in our relationship with God. In this subsequent section of the letter he tells us why God has done this: it has made our salvation possible. Paul also elaborates the implications for everyone who believes: it transforms our life in the world, i.e. we are sanctified, made holy.

One of the best analyses on the passage is in C.H. Dodd’s commentary in the Moffat’s New Testament Commentary Series. He regarded this passage as a transition from justification to sanctification. The key to the whole segment is vs.9: “Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.” Those words – justification, sanctification and salvation – have tended to become code words for Christian theology and preaching. Our task is to communicate what they mean to people who no longer know the code as did our spiritual ancestors.

In his analysis of the passage, Dodd so clearly points out that “salvation” is not just a new status, like being elected the vice-president of a labor union or graduated with an advanced degree from a particular university. It is a new life. It is a new  in being delivered from death, with the assurance of life beyond death; and it is a new in being forgiven and able to overcome what had previously been wrong in our lives; it is new in given the freedom to do what is right. Salvation not only happens after death when we come into the eternal presence of God. It is ethical and behavioral, effecting what we do and say, and how we live here and now .

Faith as Paul understands it is nothing less than trust in the power and goodness of God to bring this transformation about for each one of us. This trust results in a profound change in our relationship with the spiritual and the material world, a relationship we access not by our own efforts, but through Christ. It also transforms our moral character and our relationships with everyone and everything we meet in everyday life. We not only change our behavior, we also find hopeful assurance that God’s love reigns in what constantly appears to us as a world that is hostile to love and right living. Through God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, i.e. we are made holy – sanctified.

No, we don’t immediately become saintly in the sense of performing a superabundance of good works and causing miracles to happen. “Supererogation,” in the Roman Catholic doctrine of saintly living means doing more than duty required by specially devoted individuals. This no longer applies when God grants the gift of the Spirit with unconditional love for each and for all. We simply find our lives motivated in every way by love. More and more, we become people like Jesus, the one person in whom the Spirit of God dwelt fully.

JOHN 16:12-15. On this particular Sunday we usually concentrate on what traditional creeds have called “the Holy Trinity” – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The authors of the New Testament, rooted primarily in the Hebrew thought and written in Greek, did not give us a clear definition of what the later doctrines and creeds stated in orderly propositions. Those were the product of long reflection by Greek and Latin scholars on what the New Testament had said about the earliest Christian experience.

Not surprisingly, it was the Western Latin Church centred in Rome which espoused most fervently the Trinitarian doctrine thrashed out amid much controversy at the church councils of the 4^th and 5^th centuries. At the time of the Reformation in the 16^th century, the Protestant churches adopted this as the orthodox doctrine. Every time we repeat one of the traditional creeds we give expression to this doctrine. However, the terms and definitions of the Trinity may no longer have much meaning to modern church members no matter how many times we may learn them by rote and to endlessly recite them.

In Jesus’ final discourse to his disciples, John defined for his own community the purpose of the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the closest any New Testament author came to a statement of the doctrine of the Trinity, except perhaps for the Trinitarian baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19. Here John gave a much more functional definition of how the Trinity actually touched the life of the apostolic community.

The role of the Spirit was to guide the community into all truth. Obviously, John did not believe that “truth” consists of what he has written or that it could be found  only in the scriptures. He was speaking of spiritual truth rather than the philosophical, historical or scientific truth which has so enthralled the modern world since the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment three centuries ago. His understanding of truth was much more dynamic. One might go so far as to say that it was inspirational in that it was – and is – always available.

John also gave us a means of determining what is spiritually true and what is not.  The fundamental criterion of truth for the church is that it must always witness to Christ and reveal God’s purpose that love shall reign in all relationships throughout the whole of creation.

This does not provide us with an easy formula for discerning what is required of us as we seek to perform the discipleship of love in the contemporary world. It requires much careful reflection before being expressed in the ordinary affairs of daily life. Those who dream of travel to distant galaxies in search of other inhabitants of the universe will quickly realize that dramatic presentations such as we revel in through television and movies still do not remove us from the moral discipline of love.

Spiritual reflection and meditation, waiting for the Spirit to lead us into truth, are not habitual forms of religious discipline for most of us in the Reformed tradition. As we are pushed more and more to the margins of current events and realize that we are a dwindling minority in an almost entirely secular society, there are signs that the contemplative life may indeed be a special gift of the Spirit for our time. Significant movements toward renewed interest in basing our daily lives on meditation are to be found in most religious traditions. In our own tradition, Roman Catholics seem to have done more of this in an organized way than Protestants. Some of these,  such as the World Community for Christian Meditation (http://www.wccm.org/) have been influenced not only by the Benedictine monastic tradition, but by the Tibetan Buddhist tradition led by the Dalai Lama. The Irish Jesuits have also contributed to this movement through their daily practice of prayer and journaling based on lectionary readings from scripture (http://www.jesuit.ie/prayer). A similar contribution has been made in the Carmelite tradition found on a website sponsored Dr. Phil St. Romain from Great Bend, Kansas. (http://shalomplace.com/index.html)

We should not neglect, however, the long tradition of daily Bible readings, and prayer practiced for many years by countless devoted Christians in several different Protestant traditions. More important than the source of our contemplative practices, however, are the commitment and the daily dedication to pursue whatever method we adopt. Only so can we sense the gradual change in our spiritual life and growth in grace as the Spirit leads us into a greater of the truth that is in Christ Jesus.

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

PROVERBS  8:1-4, 22-31. The other side of the debate about divine wisdom argues that heightened and even hyper-religious experiences can occur in people whose brains have been damaged in specific areas. People who are regarded as  mentally ill due to a chemical malfunction of the neural system may also exhibit distinctive, if also somewhat bizarre religious feelings and attitudes. We simply do not yet know why certain brain changes are associated with religious feelings. Nor do we know whether or not the human brain simply invents the religious insights which have filled the scriptures of many different religious traditions. Long before humans learned to write, they communicated such experiences for countless generations in the languages we now read from a page.

God is not contained in any book or in any brain. God is God, transcendent yet immanent in creation. God can only use the consciousness of the divinely created human brain incorporated in a complex system of body and mind to communicate with us. This is Wisdom as the Jewish tradition experienced it. In several NT authors of the Christian canon, of which John’s Gospel and the Letter to the Colossians are noteworthy, Jewish Wisdom and the Logos of Greek philosophy, combined with the OT tradition of the redemptive Messiah to create a new synthesis that subsequently gave rise to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

JOHN 16:12-15. Nowhere in our Christian scriptures is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity stated as a proposition of belief or statement of faith. Everywhere in our scriptures is the Holy Trinity perceived as present and active as the effective spiritual, creative power in all of life. Through faith in Jesus Christ and participation in his life and faith, as well as inspired, directed and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we have access to the triune God, the ultimate transcendent Being and Life.

Scripture is not something absolute in and of itself. It points to something transcendent (or Someone) beyond itself. Seen in this light, scripture thus becomes a means of grace by which the Holy Spirit helps us to transcend what is a mundane existence in a brutal, violent and unfriendly world.

Is it also possible that this can said of the writings of other religious traditions that do not come to the same conclusion about Jesus Christ that we do? This is the conclusion toward which Wilfrid Cantwell Smith’s led us in his final work, What Is Scripture? (Fortress Press, 1993)

It took the church four centuries or more of often divisive debate and confrontation with what many called heresy to come to a meaningful and cohesive statement of the synthesis expressed in our traditional Trinitarian creeds. Yet, as we have seen above, there is evidence of the work of what the Church later defined as the Holy Trinity in many parts of the NT. It was a dawning of a new consciousness of the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

The words of Professor Alan Richardson, (1905-1975) sometime Professor of Christian Theology in Nottingham University, are appropriate in this instance: “The one true God of the old Jewish faith, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, had now acted in a new way: what was involved was not (so to speak) an enlargement of God, but an enlargement of man’s revealed knowledge of God – not the taking of two other ‘persons’ into the divine society, but the revelation of God’s different ways of being God, now understood (but only within the mystery of faith) for the first time.”  (An Introduction to t he Theology of the New Testament. SCM Press, 1958.)

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Seventh Sunday of Easter (If Ascension not observed here)
May 16, 2010  

ACTS 16:16-34. With this double miracle story Luke makes the point that in Paul’s ministry, as in that of the other apostles, the divinely empowered ministry of Jesus continued. The miracle of casting out a demon from the girl with the spirit of divination seems to have been a distraction setting up the apostles’ imprisonment. Their release from prison and the conversion of their jailer would serve to convince Luke’s Gentile audience of the authenticity of the Christian message.

PSALM 97. This psalm is one of a group of psalms celebrating the enthronement of God. The others are Pss. 47, 93, 96, 98 and 99.

REVELATION 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21. The passage repeats many earlier references that point beyond the present to the second coming of Christ. That will be a time of judgment (vss. 12, 14-15) when those who are faithful will be admitted to the holy city and those who are impenitent will be excluded. The closing verses have a distinctive liturgical ring to them. They begin with an invitation to communion from Jesus himself (vss. 16-17) and end with a prayer by the expectant church (vss. 20b-21).

JOHN 17:20-26. This prayer almost certainly contains few if any actual words of Jesus. Rather, it is John’s interpretation of what Jesus’ life, death and resurrection meant for the Christian community for which he was writing late in the 1st century. Summarizing the discourse which began in chapter 13, as well as the whole gospel, it attempts to inspire and encourage John’s own community of disciples many years later.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

ACTS 16:16-34. With this double miracle story Luke makes the point that in Paul’s ministry, as in that of the other apostles, the divinely empowered ministry of Jesus continued. What we perceive in this story, however, may not always be what the author intended. Some particular points need to be drawn from the details.

First, the miracle of casting out a demon from the girl with the spirit of divination appear to have little or nothing to do with Paul’s mission. From his point of view it seems more like inconvenient distraction than an object of compassion. Then it became the basis for the charge laid against Paul and his companions. Those who perpetrated this gross injustice upon both their innocent victim in the first place and the apostle who freed her from them had only one motive: to avenge their monetary loss. (vs.19).

Paul and Silas were charged as Jews, not as Christians. They were accused of “advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” (vs. 21) Cultural differences had little significance in such a cosmopolitan city as Philippi. Obviously the spurious charge bore no relation to their mission. It served only as an excuse to arouse the hostility of the local community against Jews who had recently been expelled from Rome by Emperor Claudius. Anti-Semitism may have been named only in the late 19^th century, but it certainly existed nineteen centuries earlier.

The miraculous liberation of Paul and Silas from prison and the conversion of their jailer would serve to convince Luke’s Gentile audience of the authenticity of the Christian message. Yet there is more to the story than the striking text which has generated so many evangelistic sermons: “What must I do to be saved? …. Believe on the Lord Jesus….”  One might go so far as to say that this exchange was no more than the opening gambit in the jailer’s conversion. Vs. 32 plainly informs us that more instruction followed as Paul and Silas “spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in his house.” In spite of the fact that baptism of the whole household followed “that same hour …without delay,” this did not occur without further catechetical instruction. These details leave no room for an anti-intellectual attitude toward conversion.

The story also gives us an opportunity to identify and respond to an important contemporary justice issue. The idea of a mentally sick or intellectually impaired girl being enslaved for profit sounds incredibly abusive to us. But is it so far from what we hear is happening on our own city streets? To save money governments have closed psychiatric wards and permanent care hospitals, then  released patients be cared for or to care for themselves through drug therapy. In allowing this to happen without public protest, are we not also perpetrating no less abuse?

A book by the late renowned urban scholar, Jane Jacobs, The Coming Dark Age, describes the growing number of homeless, helpless mentally ill and addicted people living on Toronto streets as one of the signs of the city’s decline even though the city produces many billions in taxation for federal and provincial governments while having too little to pay for essential public services.

PSALM 97. This psalm is one of a group of psalms celebrating the enthronement of God. The others are Pss. 47, 93, 96, 98 and 99) In many respects, the vocabulary of all these psalms is similar. This enthronement celebration occurred at each Jewish New Year. It acknowledged God’s awesome power, God’s justice and God’s absolute supremacy over all creation.

Jewish theology did not depend on abstractions. Anthropomorphism – defining the nature of God in terms of human characteristics – was featured in much of the Jewish concept of divinity. Perhaps it could not have been otherwise. The human mind abstracts from what it observes in the immediate environment such symbols and metaphors it can use to describe in words what is essentially indescribable.

Does God really reign majestically from a throne enveloped in “clouds and thick darkness?” Of course not, but these images enable this poet to convey the ideas of divine power, sovereignty, righteousness and justice. In fact, vss. 2-5 actually describes a violent thunderstorm raging over the mountains. In vs. 6, the storm has passed and glorious sunlight reflects the divine glory for all to see.

In vss. 7-9, the poet’s vision shifts from nature to religious objects of worship. The Greeks and Romans espoused many religions and absorbed them in a syncretist fashion. Their temples and cities were filled with idols of a wide variety of gods (as Paul saw in Athens in Acts 17). Israel’s prophets fought a continuing battle against such idolatry and false religion, although there is ample evidence that they too did succumb to syncretism. The psalmist shared this prophetic faith. He did not deny the existence of idols, but unequivocally declared their worthlessness (vs. 7) and Yahweh’s sovereignty over all (vs. 9). Hence there could be both hope for deliverance and security for the faithful, righteous believer. (vss.10-12)

REVELATION 22:12-21. The immediately preceding passage (vss. 6-11) indicated clearly that this reading formed part of the epilogue to the book.  This segment breaks into the middle of John’s testimony about his conversation with the angelic messenger whose words John recounted after being warned to worship God and not the messenger, as John had begun to do. That warning brings to the fore a singularly important truth about scripture: It is not the Bible, nor the words of the Bible, nor the one who preaches the Bible message who is to be worshipped; but God alone, for God alone is holy.

The passage repeats many earlier references and points beyond the present to the second coming of Christ. That will be a time of judgment (vss. 12, 14-15) when those who are faithful will be admitted to the holy city and those who are impenitent will be excluded. Professor Caird believed that John expounded a “realized eschatology “in which the final coming of Christ in judgment or reward is constantly anticipated in the crises of individual and corporate life. It exists in the midst of the daily life of Smyrna and Pergamum, Babylon, and the other cities to which John was writing Jerusalem.  So also the eschatological judgment of the Book of Revelation applies in Halifax and Victoria, Ottawa and London, Washington, Canberra and Moscow.

The closing verses have a distinctive liturgical ring to them. They begin with an invitation to communion from Jesus himself (vss.16-17), move on to a hortative warning and end with a prayer by the expectant church (vss. 20b-21). The invitation is open to “whoever hears.” Those who hear will also respond together with the antiphonal voices of the disciple community, “Come!”

The words of warning that nothing should be added or excluded from the book are somewhat curious.  Did John intend that his book should be read in the churches to which it was addressed, then passed on to the next town to be read there? Scrolls like the one for this text were extremely difficult and expensive to compose in those days. At first only a single copy existed. Multiple copies were made only as the decades passed and travelling missionaries moved from place to place created a demand for each church to possess its own copy for closer study.

One of the characteristics of Jewish scripture was that its text should be regarded as inviolate. Everything written must be preserved intact. (Deut. 4:2; 12:32) Few of the New Testament authors, especially those who wrote letters, had such an attitude toward their work. However, they did regard the Hebrew scriptures as authoritative. They had taken over this view from the rabbinic Judaism of the Pharisees. The scriptures had been given by God through revelation to the patriarchs and prophets to be communicated to generations that came after them. 2 Timothy 3:15-17 expressed this view completely.

John did not regard himself as the authority on which his book rested. His testimony was of Jesus, who is coming soon (vs. 20) but who also continually makes himself known to the gathered community in the breaking of bread and prayer. As Caird says, “he is using liturgical language to express what transcends liturgy. No one who has read his book can have any illusions about what the prayer is asking. It is a prayer that Christ will come to win his faithful servant the victory which is both Calvary and Armageddon.”  (G.B. Caird. The Revelation of St. John the Divine. Black’s New Testament Commentary. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1966. p. 288)

JOHN 17:20-26. This prayer almost certainly contains few if any actual words of Jesus. Instead, it consists of John’s interpretation of what Jesus’ life, death and resurrection meant for the Christian community for which he was writing in the last decade of the 1st century CE. It also summarizes the discourse which began in chapter 13 as well as continuing much of same theme found throughout the Gospel as proclaimed from the beginning.

The whole prayer covers familiar themes: Jesus death and resurrection as glorification; eternal life as knowing God through faith in Jesus, the Christ/Messiah; the disciples as those chosen to represent Christ in and to the world; and the disciples’ need to be sustained in their mission through the truth they have received from Jesus and now are to share with the world.

In this excerpt, John attempted to inspire and encourage his own community of disciples as many as 60 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus as revealing the true nature of God as love became  the central message of the apostolic church. Their faithfulness in difficult times would keep them in loving fellowship with each other, with Christ and with God. It would also enable them to accomplish their mission of making the “glory” of Christ, the Son of God, known as well as maintain the elusive spiritual unity the mission requires.

This is still good news for us two thousand years later. Alas, through subsequent generations and probably in John’s own time, the disciple community has never achieved the level of faithfulness to which this prayer summoned us. Yet we must still make it our own prayer for our own community and our own time. For as this prayer bids: We must all be one, so the world may believe.

ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

ACTS 16:16-34. Do we at times take advantage of those who are disabled? Can this lesson be stretched to be of use for a sermon on the evil of such behaviour?

Some forty or more ago at a county fair in central Pennsylvania, I witnessed and actually filmed the re-enactment of the public execution by hanging of a young woman which had occurred in that community in the late 19^th century. As the narrator of the story told the audience, the young woman was probably “retarded.” (That was the term used then for an intellectually impaired person.) She had given birth to a child out of wedlock. The father of the child had never been identified. But when the child had died soon after birth, the mother had been charged and convicted of murder.

I have not recalled this horrible spectacle in many years. It came to mind as I prepared comment on this passage. The film has long since faded and been destroyed. I was surprised that time has not erased the incident from my memory. Was this any different than the tragic mistreatment of the Philippian girl from whom Paul drove out the demon? Was my filming of the re-enactment any different?

PSALM 97. Even our traditional beliefs and creeds have become idols for many Christians. Escaping from the metaphors of ancient traditions is no less a problem for us in the 21^st century.  Will our Christian traditions survive in the face of popular rejection, universal secularism and rampant atheism?  For a very challenging witness to the necessity of doing so, see such new approaches proposed by Bishop John Shelby Spong in his Eternal Life: A New Vision (HarperOne 2009), Gretta Vosper’s With Or Without God,” (HarperCollins 2009), and Andrew Prior’s “Progressive Christianity” website,

http://churchrewired.org/progressive-christianity.html.

REVELATION 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21. The legacy of the apostolic view of the inviolate character of the Hebrew scriptures hampered interpretation or commentary from the 1^st to the 19^th centuries CE. In the 2^nd century Marcion questioned the authority of the Hebrew texts as did the Alexandrians Clement and Origen in the 3^rd century.  At the same time the traditional view led to restrictive theological attitudes which placed undue sanctity in the inerrant words themselves rather than safeguard the message they communicate. Even Thomas Aquinas in the late Middle Ages and Calvin during the Reformation accepted this view. As late as the turn of the 20^th century, the Methodist Church in Canada charged a theological professor with heresy for adopting and teaching an alternative approach based on the developing theories of historical and literary criticism of NT texts. In some parts of the Christian tradition, the debate still rages unabated as ultra-conservative radio and television preachers reveal every day of the week.

JOHN 17:20-26. In1904, representatives of three Canadian Protestant denominations – the Methodists, the Presbyterians and the Congregationalist – began serious discussions about uniting in a determined effort to meet the challenges of a relatively young country rapidly expanding as immigrants from Central Europe poured into urban areas and across the western prairies. Within a decade, the terms of union had been fully negotiated and agreed upon before being interrupted by the fury of World War I. It took until 1924 for all the needed ecclesiastical and legal ratifications to be completed. On June 10, 1925, the first General Council of the United Church of Canada met in Toronto, Ontario. About one third of the Presbyterians, chiefly in central and eastern Canada, withdrew and formed a continuing Presbyterian Church. The United Church of Canada chose as its defining motto the Latin words of John 17:21a Ut Omnes Unum Sint. (“That all may be one.”)

My own personal experience of church union occurred through an interesting series of events. For at least three generations my family had been members of the Congregational Church. In 1919 my parents and maternal grandparents settled in a Montreal suburb where there was one small Presbyterian church. They were fully accepted and my father served a lay representative to Montreal Presbytery for the three point pastoral charge. He voted in favour of church union that created Montreal Presbytery of The United Church of Canada. He continued as a lay member of Montreal Presbytery until shortly before his death in 1982.   I believe I am one of the first United Church ministers to have been baptized, confirmed and ordained after church union. There are even fewer of us alive today.

A further attempt at union between the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church in Canada failed in the early 1970s after a twenty-five year search for a mutually acceptable view of the nature of ministry. Before the negotiations reached an impasse, a shared hymn book was published and adopted by both denominations. Today,  a generation later, many Anglican and United Church congregations in outlying regions share facilities and are served by each other’s ordained clergy. A corporate union still remains our hope and the goal toward which we press in a very much more complicated world.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Third Sunday of Lent – March 7, 2010

ISAIAH 55:1-9. Gracious, merciful acceptance by God for all who seek such a relationship stands out as the theme of these magnificently poetic lines. But God does not ignore human sin. God seeks human repentance, a meaningful change in one’s behaviour for this relationship to be effective. This is necessary, the prophet emphasizes, because of the distinction between our human ways and God’s ways.

PSALM 63:1-8. The longing of the human heart for a relationship with God gives this psalm an intense feeling personal devotion. It expresses an abiding trust and confidence in God fully dependent on God’s constant love and  protection.

1 CORINTHIANS 10:1-13. Paul draws on the story of the Israelites in the wilderness breaking their covenant with God to challenge the Corinthians to live differently than their morally and  spiritually corrupt society. The great benefit of the Christian life, he states in vs. 13, is not that they will be tested by their circumstances, but that God will not let them be tested beyond their strength to endure.

LUKE 13:1-9. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who later condemned Jesus to death, had murdered a group of worshipers as they offered sacrifices in the temple. Another group had been killed by a falling tower. As Messiah, Jesus used these incidents to call his fellow Jews to repent and believe in him. The parable of the fig tree confronted them with the prospect that there could be a limit to God’s forbearance.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

ISAIAH 55:1-9. If one wishes to know where Paul obtained his basic theological conception of the grace of God brought to its fullest expression in Jesus of Nazareth, one need look no further than this poem. Scholars generally agree that the superb poetry of Deutero-Isaiah’s (chs. 40-55) come to a natural close. All the themes identified in the opening poem in 40:1-11 as well as the major emphases of all subsequent oracles echo through this composition. The remainder the book (chs. 56-66) is believed to have been composed by others who followed his general themes and style.

Here is the consolation of Israel: forgiveness for individuals and community, Israel’s mission of reconciliation through suffering, a vision of universal salvation, a new exodus in the return of the exiles, the redemption of creation – all accomplished because Israel’s God, Yahweh, wills it so and will make it possible. Yahweh’s covenant promise is the vehicle through which this will be done.

Gracious, merciful acceptance by Yahweh for all who seek such a covenant relationship stands out in these magnificent lines. But Yahweh does not ignore human sin.  Yahweh seeks sincere human repentance, a meaningful change in human behavior, for this relationship to be effective. This is necessary, the prophet emphasizes, because of the distinction between our human ways and Yahweh’s ways.

Of special note is the emphasis placed upon listening intently for the word of Yahweh.  Throughout the OT and particularly in the prophets, “the word of the Lord” is the medium of revelation. In vss. 2-3 Yahweh bids Israel listen so that they may live. By this means Yahweh made known Yahweh’s will and purpose, especially for Israel as the chosen people. The content of the revelation Yahweh desires Israel to hear is the everlasting covenant. Beyond the mere hearing of the word, however, is the reason for the revelation and the covenant. Israel is to be a witness to the peoples of all nations. Despite many transgressions and failures to be what they had been called to be, Yahweh had not given up on them. Yahweh’s purpose would be accomplished even as the rain and snow make the soil fertile for a productive harvest (vs. 10-11) and the renewal of all creation (vs. 12-13).

For the authors of the NT and for Christians ever since, Jesus is the word come from God.  (John 1:1-18; Hebrews 1:1-4) As one Roman Catholic commentator on this passage said in traditional theological terms that Jesus did not return to God void but achieved the end for which he was sent:  to give expression to God’s infinite love and compassion, to enter into our humanity,  to show us how to live, to bring hope and salvation to all who walk in darkness.

What God intended for Israel, to be a witness to all peoples, God is now accomplishing through us still. “Each of us is a word of God, spoken only once at our creation, to give continuing expression to God’s love and compassion. What a blessing!   What a challenge!   We must achieve the end for which we were sent.  We will not return to God void. Yet with his word, Jesus, God has given us all that we need to achieve the end for which we were sent — if we but ask.” (From Maxine Shock, OP, Lenten Seeds. Heartland Center For Spirituality. (http://www.shalomplace.com)

For those seeking an emphasis on social justice so prevalent in the prophets of Israel, vss. 10-13 provide an excellent text for our own time. What is our personal, corporate and national environmental footprint in this day of global crisis? How shall we repent enough to make a difference for future generations to live as well as we have? What must we do to be saved? Repentance always means change.

PSALM 63:1-8. The longing of the human heart for a relationship with Yahweh gives this psalm an intense feeling  personal devotion. It expresses an abiding trust and confidence in Yahweh fully dependent on Yahweh’s constant love and protection. Even as it now stands in our English versions, it has been highly valued by countless generations.

Yet there are problems occasioned by a possible confusion in the order of the verses as they now stand. Scholarly examination of the original text suggests that vss. 6-8 should follow vss. 1-2. This transposition creates a typical lament. Distressed by hostile enemies, the devout soul seeks Yahweh’s presence in the sanctuary. There finding the spiritual resources for courage and confidence in Yahweh, the psalmist makes a vow to sing praises to God all his life. Initial despair leads to devotion which enriches faith and ends in praise.

While not included in this reading, vss. 9-11 seem to have little to do with the rest of the psalm and could have been added by another hand. Yet there is some reason to believe that the outburst of vindictiveness expressed in vs. 10 reflects the intensity of the psalmist’s spiritual struggle.

It may be helpful to read a modern paraphrase of the psalm like that by Jim Taylor in his Everyday Psalms. (Wood Lake Books, 1994). Jim entitles his paraphrase with the title “Holy Presence” and a question and answer: “Why do we need downtown churches? Because a few people still come there to seek sanctuary.” He then gives a moving testimony of someone seeking respite from the meaningless scurry of the contemporary rat race. In his Psalms/Now, (Concordia, 1973) Leslie F. Brandt depicts a thirsty child reaching for a drink as a metaphor of this psalmist reaching for and finding God.

1 CORINTHIANS 10:1-13. Paul was probably a much younger contemporary of Jesus, but did not meet him until his unique resurrection appearance to Paul on the Damascus Road. As a well-educated Pharisee of the Hellenistic Diaspora rather than a peasant Galilean, Paul may well have read the Hebrew scriptures in Greek and interpreted them within the context of his own generation and culture. Because Paul died before the destruction of the temple ending the first Jewish Revolt of 66-70 CE, it would be interesting to speculate how Paul might have dealt with that event and the subsequent triumph of the Pharisees in Judaism. We may well have one such reaction by a Christian leader in the unknown author of the Letter to the Hebrews.

One of the characteristics of early Christian preaching and teaching, including that of Paul, was to use OT passages not merely as illustrations, but as the very basis for their instruction in the new faith tradition and the Christian way of life. In this passage Paul drew on the story of the Israelites in the wilderness breaking their covenant with God to challenge the Corinthians to live differently than their morally and spiritually corrupt society. But Paul was both honoring and condemning his ancestral traditions as he wrote to what may have been a predominantly Gentile Christian audience. He also likened the events of the Exodus led by Moses to the Christians’ experience of baptism and the eucharist. In vss. 3-4 he even identified the manna and the rock which Moses struck to obtain water with the spiritual food and drink of the sacraments.

But what was Paul really saying to his Corinthian friends? That receiving the Christian sacraments will not save them as the Exodus and the wilderness experience in themselves did not save the Israelites? The words “a some of them did” sound like a drumbeat through this passage. Because of the Israelites’ idolatry,  he claimed, most of those who fled Egypt died in the wilderness long before the remnant straggled into the Promised Land. Their wandering away from the way mandated by Yahweh, so they met their doom.  Adherence to ritual is no guarantee of being in right relationship with God. Living must correlate with liturgy.

Or was Paul confronting some other issue in Corinth? As a devout and learned Jew, Paul knew full well the traditional link between idolatry and sexual immorality which so frequently enticed his ancestors in the wilderness. Witness the brutal treatment of those who married Moabites and adopted the fertility god Baal of Peor described in Numbers 25:1-9.  Paul sternly warned the Corinthians that their sexual behavior could well have the same result, if for no other reason than that it is a common human failing (vss. 7-8, 11-12). The seaport city of Corinth was notorious for sexual promiscuity and licentious living. The Corinthians had something to learn from the experience of the Israelites.

At the same time, Paul did not leave them without a word of encouragement. The great benefit of the Christian life, he stated in vs. 13, is not that they will be tested by their circumstances, but that God will not let them be tested beyond their strength to endure. Here, as always in Paul’s declaration of the Christian way, the grace of God was operative, not simply human moral effort. One has to wonder if Paul would preach or write in a similar vein to our North American culture.

LUKE 13:1-9. Luke gives us a glimpse of the violent and hostile world in which Jesus lived. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who later condemned Jesus to death, had murdered a group of worshipers as they offered their sacrifices for the temple. Strangely, there is no other ancient record of this atrocity. Another group had been killed by a falling tower, part of Jerusalem’s fortifications  near the important water source, the  pool of Siloam and its reservoir. Such tragedies would naturally produce great fear among common people. In the simplistic conventions of the times, these incidents would have been used by religious leaders to warn the general populace that such events resulted from sin on the part of the victims.

Jesus explicitly refuted this simplistic traditional belief. Calamity can happen to anyone, sinner and righteous alike. As Messiah, Jesus used these incidents to call his fellow Jews to repent and believe in him. He foresaw disaster ahead for his people. Their only hope was to accept him for who he was and fulfill their historic mission of making God known to the world. In saying this, he clearly challenged the traditional view that the Jews held of their election as God’s covenant people. All Jews regarded this divine favor with great pride. They looked for a Messiah who would rout their oppressors and establish Israel’s worldly dominance. As the true Messiah come from God, Jesus had a quite different mission.  The parable of the fig tree confronted them with a last chance to recognize him and to respond to God’s mercy, or find that there is a limit to God’s forbearance.

What seems puzzling is why Luke inserted these teachings at this point in his narrative written for a Gentile audience.  There is every likelihood that Luke was reporting an oral tradition of words Jesus’ actually spoke. The parable of the fig tree has the sense of Jesus’ Galilean origins and his preference for rural vignettes like this. Or could Luke be interpreting for his audience 50 years later certain historical events of which they already knew well?

Pilate was recalled from his post in 36 CE after a similarly murderous act against Samaritans.  The fall of Jerusalem to Titus in 70 CE would still have been fresh in everyone’s mind when Luke wrote about 85 CE. As Paul did in his letter to the Corinthians, could Luke have been calling his audience to repentance and pleading with them to change their ways lest a similar fate befall them? To reject Jesus’ way was to put themselves in the same danger as the many victims of Roman oppression so extremely exemplified in the sacking of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple. It was unnecessary for Luke to remind his audience that Jesus himself was a victim of Roman injustice.

In a fascinating little book drawn from a series of BBC radio broadcasts in 1946, historian Herbert Butterfield, of Cambridge University, made a case for his conviction that God allows humanity the freedom to commit enormous sins such as the two world wars and holocausts of the early 20th century. (Christianity and History, 1949.) Yet there is a sense, he claimed,  that these great atrocities are also the very acts by means of which Providence resets the course of history.  One can certainly read the OT stories of the Exodus and the Exile in Babylon in this light. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus can also be accounted for in this manner.

Indeed, it was Butterfield’s faith as a liberal Christian which motivated his study of the modern era as “providential.” From this approach, he drew the conclusion that the purpose of history is, from the personal point of view at least, to engage in doing what is right and good following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.  He ended his broadcasts with these words:

“The hardest strokes of heaven fall in history upon those who imagine that they can control things in a sovereign manner, as though they were kings of the earth, playing Providence not only for themselves but for the far future …. And it is a defect in such enthusiasts that they seem unwilling to leave everything to Providence, unwilling even to leave the future flexible, as one must do….

“It is agreeable to all the processes of history, therefore, that each of us should rather do the good that is straight under our noses. Those people work most wisely who seek to achieve good in their own small corner of the world and then leave the leaven to leaven the lump, than those who are forever thinking that life is vain unless one can act through the central government, carry legislation, achieve political power and do big things….

“We can do worse than remember a principle which both gives us a firm Rock and leaves us the maximum elasticity for our minds: the principle: Hold to Christ, and for the rest be totally uncommitted.”

Although Butterfield spoke more than 60 years ago, his words still have potent meaning for us. We live in a similarly violent time when our providential God may once again be intervening to reset the course of world history. Is that the meaning we may take from the end of the Cold War, the break up of the USSR, and the present struggles of the world’s wealthiest nations to overcome the current global recession? Does Haiti’s natural disaster resulting from the earthquake on January 12, 2010 give us the opportunity to respond to God and change our ways? Will we heed the warning or ignore it to our sorrow? Is the basic issue of our time not also a matter of how far we may test God’s forbearance?

1 SAMUEL 2:18-20, 26. How does a family bring up children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” as one traditional baptismal liturgy reads? This scripture tells us that it can best be done by exposing them to the worship and teaching of our faith. Yet, as the passage just prior to this one relates, that isn’t all there is to it. The sons of Eli the priest did not follow in their father’s footsteps to become Israel’s spiritual leaders. That role fell to Samuel, who became one of Israel’s greatest prophets.

PSALM 148. We tend to forget that God loves all the created universe as well as the human race. This psalm summons all of creation to praise God just for being, as are God’s people Israel.

COLOSSIANS 3:12-17. The heart of Christian worship and ethics, wrote Paul, is to create loving relationships – with God, with other people, and with God’s creation. To make his point more vividly, Paul introduces a metaphor about putting on new clothes. It is often said that in the early church newly baptized Christians were dressed in new, white robes as a symbol of the new life Christ had given them. Another metaphor of the indwelling Christ brings out the spiritual growth that comes from worshiping and witnessing within the Christian fellowship.

LUKE 2:41-52. In much the same way that he drew from Hannah’s Song in 1 Samuel 2:1-10 for a model of Mary’s Song in Luke 1:46-55, Luke elaborated on the story of Samuel’s growth under Eli’s tutelage in the Old Testament lesson above. Thus he clarified for his readers that Jesus was a very human person, but with unusual spiritual insight and understanding. An early Christian heresy, called Docetism, claimed that Jesus was divine, but only seemed to be a real human being. In the traditional view based on scripture, he is both fully human and divine.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

1 SAMUEL 2:18-20, 26. The story of Eli and his sons is a tragic one. It appears to have been told to emphasize the contrast between Samuel’s childhood and that of the two wayward sons of Eli. Their sins appear to have been against religious customs or else demanding privileges which were not their due. (2:12-17). One commentator noted that this is an example of clericalism even in early Israel. It should surprise no one that there is still ample evidence of this human fault in clergy today as church leaders seek to protect themselves, their clergy and their institution from widespread public scandals .

The point at issue in our reading, however, deals with Samuel and the way his family was rewarded for dedicating their son to service of Yahweh. For our time this issue might be stated in the words of one traditional baptismal liturgy: How does a family bring up children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?” By exposing them to the worship and teaching of the faith, this scripture tells us. Would that it was so simple! Many communities have tales to tell of faithful church members whose children betrayed everything the parents had stood for.

The sons of Eli the priest did not follow in their father’s footsteps to become Israel’s spiritual leaders. That role fell to Samuel, who subsequently became one of Israel’s great prophets. We know that dedicated parenting isn’t all there is to it. Even the most piously trained young people sometimes rebel against their parents’ devotion. How many adults absent themselves from the church because they claim to have had too much of it in their youth?

In practice, it is impossible to tell when and how parental efforts to educate their children religiously will be effective. We are dealing with moral and spiritual matters in which results are notoriously difficult to determine. Some would use authoritarian means to achieve the end they desire. That would be self-defeating, however, since it is an exercise of power rather than advancing the processes of education and spiritual development. Practiced by governments on a regional or national level, it becomes theocracy – a religious state where law is determined by religious mandate rather than by justice for all. This has become an important issue in some fundamentalist Islamic countries where Islamic shariah law has been enforced.

A few years ago, a great deal of publicity was given to a situation in the southern American state of Alabama where the chief justice of his state was removed from office because he defied a judgment by the federal court to remove a monument bearing the Ten Commandments he had erected at the entrance to the state court building. The federal court had ruled that the monument constituted a government endorsement of Christianity, so violating the separation of church and state. The judge argued that being constantly made aware of the laws of God would beneficially effect obedience to the laws of the nation.

PSALM 148. This is the third of five hallelujah psalms at the end of the Psalter. It summons all of creation to praise God just for being. So are God’s people Israel. The well-known hymn, “This is my Father’s world,” found its motif here. We do tend to forget that God loves all the created universe as well as the human race. The psalm has a liturgical structure with vss. 5-6, 13 -14 forming antiphons which could have been sung by a Levitical chorus.

The theological concepts of the psalm developed late in Israel’s history. Yahweh is transcendent, far removed from creation. There are several intervening heavens arranged concentrically like the walls of a city or superimposed one on the other. These concepts reappear in 2 Corinthians 12:2, 4; and again in Hebrews 4:14 and 7:26, so it must have been well-known in rabbinical Judaism. On the other hand, the celestial beings and stars worshiped as gods in other eastern traditions are here seen as
subordinate to Yahweh.

The “horn for his people” (vs. 14) which Yahweh raises up is a symbol of strength and dignity drawn from the horns of animals in the Israelites’ flocks, their ancient source of wealth and power, but not possessed by other animals, particularly those that preyed on the flocks. But is there another possible interpretation of the phrase?

In Exodus 27:2, the instructions for the building of the altar included horns at each corner. They were made of wood covered with bronze. Probably of Canaanite origin and possibly similar to the horns of a ram or a bull, tradition held that this was the most important part of the altar, with special powers to protect those seeking asylum. Adonijah and Joab grasped the horns of the altar to save themselves from Solomon during the struggle for succession to David (1 Kings 1:50; 2:28).

Instructions for sin offering (Leviticus 4:7, 18, 25) also states that the priest should wipe some of the blood of the sacrificial animal on the horns of the altar. Lev. 8:14 refers to this being done by Moses when he ordained the Aaronic priesthood. Aaron did so also when he performed the sin offering ( Lev. 9:9). This gives a symbolic significance of divine power resting in this appurtenance of the sacred altar. By the time the psalm came into liturgical use in the late post-exilic period, it is possible that the historic symbolism remained regardless of the ancient sacrificial practice or sacred accountrements of the temple still remained.

COLOSSIANS 3:12-17. Much scholarly energy has been expended in debating whether or not Colossians was written by Paul or by someone else. Perhaps the most satisfying conclusion to this observer, though admittedly unprovable, is that of Eduard Schweizer: The letter was composed by Timothy on behalf of Paul and himself while the apostle was imprisoned in Ephesus. (1:1)

The heart of Christian worship and ethics, this passage says, is to create relationships – with God and with other people. This is the special work of Christ whom believers encounter in their life together as the church in the real world. Thus the list of five virtues which the Christian must “put on.” These are summarized by “love” in vs. 14 and supplemented by the “peace of Christ to which you were called in the one body.” This all refers to the life of the Christian community, most likely a contentious mix of Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, employers and employees, perhaps even slaves and free.

To make his point more vividly, Paul reiterates a metaphor about “putting on” as one puts on new clothes contrasting with the “putting off” the five evils of v. 8. In the early church when catechumens came to be baptized, they took off their old clothes and were dressed in new, white robes as a symbol of the new life Christ had given them.

Another metaphor of the indwelling Christ brings out the spiritual growth that comes from the worshiping and witnessing of the Christian fellowship. The dynamic for creating the new relationships the church brings to the world is what Schweizer calls “the stream of love flowing from God to humankind via Christ.” In these times when the church’s influence has been so greatly diminished and we exercise our faith on the margins of society, this important ministry of the whole people of God is often neglected.

LUKE 2:41-52. In much the same way that he drew from Hannah’s Song in 1 Samuel 2:1-10 for a model of Mary’s Song in Luke 1:46-55, Luke elaborated on the story of Samuel’s growth under Eli’s tutelage in the Old Testament lesson above. However, this story should not be interpreted as Jesus’ bar mitzvah, a practice developed in rabbinical Judaism no earlier than the 15th century CE.

Luke clarifies for his readers that Jesus was an very human person as well as having unusual spiritual insight and at least an elementary awareness of his divine mission. The portrait we have here is of a headstrong adolescent who disappeared from the company of Galilean travelers as they left Jerusalem after the Passover festival. He went missing for three days, a terrifyingly long time for his anxious parents. They finally found him in the temple questioning the learned scholars about spiritual matters.

Naturally, Mary rebuked him, as all mothers would. Instead of submitting to her rebuke, he answered her back. The distance between the boy and his parents was already widening, in spite of Mary’s treasuring of this memorable experience. Who was this child-man who so mystified them?

In his biographical study of the biblical record, Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography (Doubleday, 2000), Bruce Chilton reasoned that Jesus was actually an outsider, a mamzer, even in his own family because of his unusual birth. (The term mamzer meant one born outside of his parents’ marriage.) Chilton believes that Jesus fled from Nazareth to join John the Baptist’s movement calling for repentance as young as sixteen or seventeen. Both those who hold to the virgin birth and those who do not can take some rationale for their respective points of view from this story. It would seem that Luke’s intention in telling it was the provide a narrative which later generations would codify in traditional creeds that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.

An early Christian heresy, still evident in some parts of the church today, claimed that Jesus was divine, but wasn’t a real human being. Today this may be no more than an overemphasis on Christ’s divinity in contradiction to the easy humanizing of Jesus and his ethical message so prevalent in our post-Christendom culture and the renewed search for “the historical Jesus” many traditionalists find so disturbing. On the other hand, to minimize the humanity of Jesus is as heretical as overemphasis on his divinity. Luke does not attempt to do anything more than tell his story and leave the reader to answer the crucial question which confronts us all: Who is this?

Nearly a century ago, some of the Protestant churches in Canada developed two strong teenage youth programs as a counterpart to the Scouting movement. The boys’ groups were called TUXIS and the girls’, CGIT (Canadian Girls In Training). TUXIS was an acronym for the program’s motto: “You and I training for service with Christ and nothing but Christ between us.” TUXIS groups were formed as midweek activities of Sunday school classes in many local congregations. Both of these groups had as their biblical basis the text of Luke 2:52 (KJV): “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”

This text provided the four basic elements of the program of these two groups: healthy growth of mind and body, and of one’s social and spiritual relationships. A few of the boys’ groups lasted until the early 1950s, but eventually succumbed to a lack of strong male leadership and competition from the Scouting movement. A significant number of male lay and ordained leaders of the church received their strongest religious education from participation in TUXIS groups. There are still CGIT groups in some congregations of The United Church of Canada. Many of the prominent lay women as well as diaconal and ordained ministers of the present generation in the United Church began their leadership training in CGIT.

Panentheism holds that the divine spirit dwells in each person and in all of creation. It is not too much to say that the panentheism which characterizes the theology of many contemporary clergy stems from passages like this. Luke’s narrative in chapters 1 & 2 points to Jesus as being a human person in whom the Spirit dwelt from the time of his conception and was evident to him as early as his visit to the temple in Jerusalem when he was twelve years old.

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