John Shearman's Lectionary

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURES
Fifth Sunday of Lent   March 21, 2010

ISAIAH 43:16-21. To the Israelites in exile in Babylon, this unnamed prophet whose words are recorded in Isaiah 40-55 delivered a message of great hope and promise: the exiles were going home. The capture of Babylon about 539 BC by Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians, had made this possible. The way home led through the wilderness, recalling the first exodus and the journey through the wilderness to the promised land under Moses many centuries earlier. This would happen because God willed it for God’s own people.

PSALM 126. This Song of Ascent celebrates the return of the exiles to Jerusalem. It echoes God’s intervention in Israel’s history as proclaimed in the prophecies of Isaiah 40-55. It may have been sung by pilgrims approaching the temple as part of a liturgy preparing for a new   year.

PHILIPPIANS 3:4b-14. Despite his background as a zealous Pharisee, Paul tells of giving up a promising career as a rabbi to follow Jesus. The one source of power for his new life came from his faith in the resurrection of Jesus, in which he longed to share. That had become his one goal which he now sought as zealously as he had sought to obey the Mosaic law in his youth.

JOHN 12:1-8. Mary of Bethany expressed her love and dedication to Jesus by perfuming his feet with a costly ointment. When Judas Iscariot protested the waste, Jesus acknowledged the gift as a symbol of preparing his body for burial; but he did not forget the poor as well.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

ISAIAH 43:16-21. It is always difficult to know where to begin and to end a particular selection from Deutero-Isaiah. Different commentaries are likely to make different choices as to the extent of specific poems and oracles. Generally speaking, however, the phrase “Thus says the Lord …” is a clue to the beginning of a new oracle. How several oracles may be included in a longer poem is a more complex issue.

In The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 5, p. 491ff. James Muilenburg places this selection in a longer poem extending from 43:14-44:5 of which this selection is but the second, third and fourth of nine strophes or stanzas. Muilenburg entitles the poem “Redemption By Grace.” He also states that the key to the whole poem lies in the first strophe (43:14-15) just prior to the beginning of this reading.

To the Israelites in exile in Babylon, this unnamed prophet delivered a message of great hope and promise: the exiles were to be set free and sent home. The capture of Babylon in 539 BC by Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians, had made this possible.   There was to be a new exodus. It actually occurred in 536, so this poem may well date from the intervening three years.

Vs. 16 recalls the first exodus and the journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land under Moses many centuries earlier. The passage of Israel through the sea and the subsequent destruction of their Egyptian pursuers. (vs.17) demonstrated that nature and history are both under the sovereign control of Yahweh. The prophet then calls for the exiles in Babylon to turn from memory to hope (vs.18) for a great new deliverance is about to occur.

The road home is open to them as was the road through the wilderness and across many rivers to the Promised Land. This would happen because Yahweh willed it for Yahweh’s own people.  Yahweh would provide life-giving water for them in the thousand-mile trek through the desert. That had been a crucial issue for the Israelites in their exodus from Egypt. Unlike their ancestors, the promise of water and safety from lurking wild animals would reassure those of weak faith.

The return from exile in Babylon was not only an act of divine grace but also as a testimony to Yahweh’s mighty purpose for Israel. Vs. 21 states unequivocally that Yahweh’s intent was that the exiles would declare Yahweh’s praise. Imagine the amazement of every tribe through whose territory the returning exiles passed. Two generations earlier, their Babylonian overlords had led the Israelites eastward in chains. Now they were marching homeward in a rejoicing throng spreading the good news of Yahweh’s blessed deliverance as they went.

PSALM 126. This Song of Ascent, one of fifteen contained in Pss. 120-134, celebrates the return of the exiles to Jerusalem, yet reflects life of a later, more difficult period in Israel’s history. Writing long after the event, the psalm echoes God’s intervention in Israel’s history as proclaimed in the prophecies of Isaiah 40-55 and other prophets of the post-exilic period, Zechariah, Haggai and Ezra.  These psalms may have been sung by pilgrims approaching the restored temple as part of a liturgy preparing for one of the great festivals.

Yet this particular psalm may actually be more of a lament for hard times. It begins and ends with a plea for restored fortunes. Do the references to water and the harvest suggest a time of drought? Could this be a hint that the psalm was used in the new year’s liturgy or at the harvest festival of Succoth when hope for better days was much on the minds of worshipers?

PHILIPPIANS 3:4b-14. Do you suppose that Paul either had a very low self-image or was constantly attacked for having inadequate credentials as an apostle? He seems to have felt called on to defend his qualifications on several occasions. Here he cites his background as a faithful Jew of the strictest kind. Despite this background as a zealous Pharisee, he had given up a promising career as a rabbi to follow Jesus. But note the antecedent to this self-defense. It throws his subsequent assertions into high relief.

In vss.2-3, he had castigated the Judaizers who promoted circumcision as a prior commitment for Gentile Christians. There may have been few Jews in Philippi, but obviously they were very orthodox. Archeologists have not yet discovered a synagogue among the considerable ruins of this substantial Roman administrative centre. What is more, it would seem to have been women like Lydia who first responded to Paul’s preaching at a place of prayer by the river (Acts 16:13-15). Such a situation would almost certainly give rise to jealousy and controversy from those who wished to preserve orthodox, male domination in the new community Paul was helping to create in Lydia’s house church.

In the light of these circumstances, it is not surprising that Paul should use his own experience as a zealous Pharisee to clarify for the Philippians both the sacrifices and the promises of being a Christian in a hostile world. It has even been speculated that Paul had sacrificed his own marriage to a high-born Jewish women of Jerusalem, perhaps the daughter of Caiaphas or some other dominant family.

Three words stand out in what Paul had to say about the gains he had received in knowing Christ: righteousness, faith and resurrection. William Barclay defines what those words meant to Paul: Righteousness meant “a right relationship with God.” Faith meant “taking Jesus Christ at his word;” and “accepting what God offers you through Christ.” Resurrection meant “the guarantee of the importance of life in this body in which we live; … the guarantee of the life to come; …the guarantee that in life and in death the presence of the risen Lord is always with us.” (The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. Edinburgh: Church of Scotland, Daily Bible Readings.  77-79.)

Paul now knew that the one source of power for his new life came from his faith in the resurrection of Jesus, in which he longed to share. That had become his one goal which he now sought as zealously as he had sought to obey the Mosaic law in his youth.

It is not unusual for converts to be forceful enthusiasts for their new faith. Conviction tends to transform even normal life experiences into opportunities for witness. Church history has many such ardent evangelists. Some, like John Henry Newman, a prominent Anglican churchman of Oxford, converted to Roman Catholicism, and became a cardinal of his new tradition.  John Newton, a degraded slave trader, was known as “the perpetual deacon of Olney” and left numerous saintly hymns celebrating his new faith.

JOHN 12:1-8. Women play an unusually large part in John’s Gospel. In this incident, Mary of Bethany, expressed her love and devotion to Jesus by perfuming his feet with a costly ointment and wiping them with her hair. We know who Mary was from John’s explicit identification (vs.1) which follows Luke 10:38-42. But she was not the same woman who performed a similar act according to Luke 7:36-50. That error is still being offered by some interpreters. Nor was she Mary Magdalene with whom the Western church identified her from the 6th century CE, a fictional assessment followed by modern movies. The Eastern church rejected this mistaken identification. John’s story, however, does show some dependence on the Synoptic tradition of Mark 14:1-9 and Matthew 26:1-13.

Jesus appears to have made the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus his headquarters during his last visit to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. It is not difficult to see why. Bethany was a hamlet just over the eastern ridge of the Mount of Olives. Today, when one looks eastward toward the Mount of Olives from any vantage point in the city overlooking the Kedron Valley, one can see the spire of the ancient church erected on the traditional site of the home where this incident occurred. The minaret of a nearby mosque is even more visible. The distance to Bethany from the Beautiful Gate to the Temple would have been no more than three kilometres; and less than that from the traditional site of the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives.

There the Bethany family gave a dinner party for Jesus. Martha and Mary played their customary roles. Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair was a most astonishing display of affection and devotion. Is it too much to give a 20th century Freudian interpretation of this demonstrative display? Many devoted Christians has found their piety and their sexuality strangely and simultaneously enhanced.  Perhaps this was what motivated the confusion of Mary of Bethany with Mary of Magdala, although there is no scriptural evidence that the latter was in any way promiscuous.

Judas was quick to put an economic value to what happened. John had his own agenda in casting Judas in the role of a thief (vs. 6). John may have used this as a warning to some of the members of his own diaspora community in the latter decade of the 1st century. Here Judas corresponds to the Ephesian “evildoers … who claim to be apostles but are not” in Revelation 2:2; or to the Laodicean “rich (who say) I have prospered, and I need nothing,” in Revelation 3:17.

When Judas Iscariot protested the waste, Jesus acknowledged the gift as a symbol of preparing his body for burial; but he did not forget the poor as well. They would be with us always and needing our concern and help. As the parable of Matthew 25:31-46 so beautifully describes, our gifts to anyone in need, large or small, are tokens of our loyalty and commitment, as well as expressions of our love for Christ.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010

JOEL 2:1-2, 12-17. With the warning sound of trumpets, the prophet sounds the alarm that the fearsome Day of the Lord is at hand. There is still time to repent, though there may still be uncertainty that all the fasting a sacrifices will be sufficient to dissuade Yahweh from punishing wayward Israel.

ISAIAH 58:1-12 . (Alternate) Countering the popular displays of repentance by fasting, the prophet pleads that Israel’s returned exiles make justice their true form of repentance. Only then will the Lord restore their prosperity and rebuild their ruined cities.

PSALM 51:1-17. As the sub-title indicates, this classic psalm of repentance has traditionally been connected with David’s adultery with Bathsheba. Many scholars doubt this reference. It could just as well be read as the sincere expression of penitence by any sinner at any time.

2 CORINTHIANS 5:20b – 6:10. Paul quite rightly linked the Christian message of reconciliation with God to the ministry of every Christian. He cited plainly the many difficulties he had experienced in carrying out this ministry and the plethora of spiritual gifts he had been given to do it.

MATTHEW 6:1-6, 16-21. From the collection of sayings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount comes this insightful observation: The essence of true penitential prayer is to be found in its secretive quality. On the other hand, making a public display for self-centred reasons is the essence of hypocrisy.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

Liturgical and popular practices related to Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and Lent developed relatively late in the history of the Christian Church. Even in the Roman Catholic tradition, these special days of penitence and spiritual renewal have been widely celebrated only since the year 1000. In recent years, many churches of the Protestant tradition, which rejected them almost totally at the time of the Reformation, have taken them up again. Liturgical practices of penitence, however, have a sound biblical background as the lessons assigned for Ash Wednesday clearly reveal.

JOEL 2:1-2, 12-17. Joel is one of the unknown prophets of the OT. Scholars have noted a close resemblance of his writings with those of the better known 8th century BCE prophet, Amos. Unlike Amos, he was concerned with worship of the temple, most likely the Second Temple of the post-exilic period. Many
scholars believe that his work dates from a relatively peaceful time during the late Persian period, ca. 400 BCE, when the leadership of Israel had, to a considerable extent, fallen to the high priesthood. Joel’s great hope lay in the restoration of the nation to its previously privileged role as the divinely chosen people. He couched this hope in strong apocalyptic terms recalling the declarations of earlier prophets.

With the warning sound of trumpets, the prophet sounds the alarm that the fearsome Day of the Lord is at hand. There is still time to repent, though there May still be uncertainty that all the fasting a sacrifices will be sufficient to dissuade Yahweh from punishing wayward Israel.

The emphasis on liturgical practices in vss. 12, 14 and 15-17 shows how deeply committed Joel was to the traditional ways of showing that penitence was real. On the other hand, vs. 13 contains the classic expression of the Israel’s faith in the divine qualities of grace, mercy, slowness to anger and abounding steadfast love.

ISAIAH 58:1-12. (Alternate) Countering the popular displays of repentance by fasting, the prophet pleads that Israel’s returned exiles make justice for the oppressed their true form of repentance. Only then will the Lord restore their prosperity and rebuild their ruined cities.

In vss. 1-5, after sounding a trumpet (shofar – a ram’s horn) to get the people’s attention, the prophet condemns in the most adamant terms the proffered symbols of repentance. Fasting in particular receives his vituperative censure. Coupled with this, he warns the people that this will not get Yahweh’s attention.

Beginning with vs. 6, he then goes on to delineate the kind of repentance Yahweh seeks: social justice for the oppressed, the homeless and the poor. Only this will receive Yahweh’s blessing and result in Yahweh’s gifts of prosperity thus enabling them to rebuild their ruined cities.

The historical allusions in this passage point to the decades immediately following the return of the exiles from Babylon. Impoverished and dispirited, they failed to recognize that true repentance had to be implemented by a sharing of limited resources. This could be read as a powerful message for our own time when globalization has created a still wider gap between rich and poor. Times like these call for an even greater commitment to social justice, not only within one nation but throughout the global village. Would it not be an appropriate measure of our repentance to increase our gifts to those less fortunate than ourselves – the Haitian disaster relief, for instance – than to “give up” anything else for Lent.

PSALM 51:1-17. As the sub-title indicates, this classic psalm of repentance has traditionally been connected with David’s adultery with Bathsheba. Many scholars doubt this reference, yet it finds persistent expression in many pulpits. The actual historical incident behind the psalm, if any, remains unknown. The final two verses omitted from this reading suggest a post-exilic date when ritual sacrifices would have been offered in the restored temple in Jerusalem. The earlier verses could just as well be read as the sincere expression of penitence by any sinner at any time. Indeed, many a despondent soul has found them helpful in saying what one’s own words cannot say. They open the penitent heart to God.

Many have found the words of vs. 5 very troublesome. The KJV appear to shift blame for one’s evil behaviour on to one’s parents, grandparents and beyond. This may be in keeping with the OT tradition voiced in Exodus 20:5 where “the iniquity of the fathers (is visited) upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate (Yahweh).” (See also Exodus 34:6-8; Number 14:17-19; Deuteronomy 5:8-10) While modern psychology may recognize that behaviour often has roots in family systems of long standing, that is not the import of more recent translations of the text. The NRSV wording, “I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me,” presents a paraphrase of the Hebrew, which definitely implies parental iniquity. Another view holds that the literal translation anticipates a later Jewish concept of evil inclination. We are all sinners alienated from God and never were anything else.

Many sins remain quite unknown to the sinner. It takes a deep examination of the soul to recognize that some things we do can never be sanctioned by God, although sinners are never beyond sanctification. “A clean heart and a right spirit” do come from an examination of one’s actual relationship with God and the acceptance of divine forgiveness. It results from the work of the Holy Spirit within us (vss. 10-11) and brings more than joy to the forgiven sinner. One remains a sinner, but now as a forgiven sinner one gains a mission. Not only do the sinner’s ways change, but one becomes a messenger of God’s grace for others.

Perhaps more than any other institution in the past century, Alcoholics Anonymous has fulfilled this mission in North American society through its twelve step program. Anyone who has shared in this mission even to a minor extent knows how sacrificial it can be. Vs.17 truly expresses the reward of the acceptable sacrifice. Was this not also what voiced in Romans 12:1-2 and again in the next passage assigned for Ash Wednesday?

2 CORINTHIANS 5:20b – 6:10. Paul quite rightly linked the Christian message of reconciliation with God to the ministry of every Christian. He cited plainly the many difficulties he had experienced in carrying out this ministry and the plethora of spiritual gifts he had been given to do it. Paul’s ministry began when he met the risen Christ on the Damascus Road. We do not know the exact nature of the psychic experience of the encounter, but we do know what followed: a life totally dedicated to bringing the gospel to Jews and Gentiles alike. Wherever he went, he became the perfect example of an ambassador for Christ.

This passage deals with the challenges of such a positive ministry in direct contrast to the negative aspects of Lent that we so often emphasize. The first step is to be reconciled to God oneself. That took a considerable length of time for Paul. It is not possible to discover his exact movements in those early years because the narrative of Acts 9:26-30 do not completely correspond to his own account in Galatians 1:17. In his Corinthians letters, Paul did make a strong case for the severity of his trials as an apostle. In 2 Cor. 6:4-5 he quickly summarizes some of these, but vss. 6-10 balances them with an even longer list of the gifts he had been given to overcome them.

One thinks immediately of 20th century heroes of faith such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela whose lives similarly exemplified what Paul saw as being an ambassador for Christ. It is not the worthiness of character or the depths of one’s penitence, but the spiritual gifts provided by the Holy Spirit that gives such men and women the power to be who they are. Moral authority springs from encountering Christ in what was for Paul and countless others since a life-changing experience that enabled them to change the history of the their own and subsequent times.

MATTHEW 6:1-6, 16-21. From the collection of sayings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount comes this insightful observation: The essence of true penitential prayer is to be found in its secretive quality. On the other hand, making a public display for self-centred reasons is the essence of hypocrisy.

Few of us have a memorable skill in prayer. Even those who practice silent, contemplative prayer often have difficulty concentrating for any length of time. The human mind is so easily distracted by what is happening around us. For this reason, the counsel Jesus gave in this excerpt could be useful to everyone who sincerely desires to experience the presence of God in prayer. He himself took time apart for personal spiritual renewal in prayer in quiet places apart from the crowds that constantly pressed around him.

Jesus was also saying that ostentatious piety, expressed either in the mellifluous words of prayer or the giving of substantial gifts to the poor, only affect one’s spiritual health in negative ways. Those who seek to do this for personal aggrandizement receive just that kind of reward. In the Hebrew language there was no word for what we call “alms.” In that tradition, however, generosity to the poor was both required and praised (e.g. Deut. 15:11; Job 29:11-16). In the Sermon on the Mount, piety and almsgiving are synonymous. Paul urged his communities to make special efforts to remember the poor. Without question, this must be one aspect of a sincere response to God, not the chief means of obtaining such a relationship.

In the second part of this reading, Jesus similarly discredited ostentatious fasting, although that too had been an ancient tradition in Israel. The great liturgical fast occurred on the Day of Atonement. It could be undertaken on other occasions too: in personal mourning, intercession or petition for Yahweh’s aid, or as a national act in the face of some calamity. Total abstinence from food indicated absolute dependence on and submission to Yahweh. As we saw in the reading from Isaiah 58 above, the prophetic view held that whatever moral value fasting might have should be enhanced by compassion for the poor and continual social justice.

It would appear that in Jesus time, despite there being a strong connection between fasting and prayer, the practice had become something of a fetish for the publicly pious. Is our use of ashes spotting the forehead a similar ostentation? Did Jesus direct the main thrust of this passage at the Pharisees in particular? Their meticulous attention to details of the law would have made them a prime target for his sarcasm. He directed his followers to do their fasting in private and with certain aspects of rejoicing. Unlike John the Baptist and the Pharisees, he did not urge them to be too strict about it. Primarily, he recognized it as a spiritual discipline.

Perhaps it was for this reason that the early church adopted the practice, especially in preparation for baptism. By the late 4th century, Cyril of Jerusalem was counseling a forty day pre-baptismal fast prior to Easter, the traditional time for baptizing new catechumens. By the 5th century it had become the subject of discussion as having an apostolic origin. Rightly or wrongly, this was the probable origin of the later Lenten fast. It is not impossible that the general practice of a Lenten fast made a spiritual virtue of a real necessity. During the Early Middle Ages (aka Dark Ages) food production had fallen to such a low level as to force the reduction of food consumption during the late winter and early spring. Our English word Lent itself is no more than a Germanic word for spring when the hours of daylight lengthen.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 7, 2010

ISAIAH 6:1-13. Here we have another classic example of a prophet called to a special ministry. As the smoke of the morning sacrifice wafted through the temple, Isaiah had a vision and heard an angelic voice praising the holiness of God. He then realized his own and his fellow Israelites’ unworthiness before God. One of the angelic beings touched his lips with a live coal, thus cleansing him to speak. Isaiah heard the voice of God calling for a messenger and he responded. But the message God gave him to deliver was one of unmitigated judgment.

PSALM 138. Unlike most of the psalms, this hymn of thanksgiving by an individual is thought to be from a small “Davidic collection.” (Psalms 138-145.) This meant that it was ascribed to King David rather than being composed by him. It expresses gratitude for God’s blessing as well as trust in God’s love and purpose.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-11. In this passage beginning his great confession of the resurrection, Paul states as simply as possible what he had learned from the apostles. He had met some of them – notably Peter (Cephas) and James – in Jerusalem when he returned there some time after his conversion. First, he concentrated on the facts he had been told. Could this summary have been what the apostles in the earliest Christian community were teaching in the first years after the resurrection? Then he too makes his claim as “the least of the apostles” and reiterates his dependence on God’s grace for that.

LUKE 5:1-11. Behind the gospels as we now have them, there was a long tradition of stories about Jesus’ teaching and miracles repeated by word of mouth before being put into written form. Toward the end of the 1st century CE Luke gave a much more elaborate story than either Mark or Matthew. He connects this story of a miraculous catch of fish with the calling of the first disciples. John tells it as one of Jesus’ resurrection appearances (John 21). Taken together, the tradition represents a promise of the ultimate success of the apostolic mission.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

ISAIAH 6:1-13. Here we have another classic example of a prophet called to a special ministry. My OT professor, the late Rev. Dr. R.B.Y Scott, made this passage the starting point for his lectures on prophecy. He had written a highly regarded book, The Relevance of the Prophets, and at the time he was lecturing to us at McGill in 1948, he was writing the introduction and exegesis of Isaiah 1-39 for The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 5. His analysis of this passage in this latter volume is a valuable contribution to the understanding of prophetic visions and oracles.

The ancient temple in Jerusalem faced east. The daily sacrifice was offered as the sun rose over the horizon formed by the Mount of Olives. Rays from the rising sun flooded into the temple through its great doors causing its burnished gold and copper accouterments to shine gloriously. As the smoke of the morning sacrifice wafted through the temple, Isaiah, saw a vision and heard angelic voices praising the holiness of God.

Isaiah was possibly a cousin and certainly a courtier of King Uzziah, who had just died. Uzziah’s reign was one of the longest of the kings of Judah, 783-742 BCE. In his last years he suffered from leprosy and was replaced by his son Jotham as regent. This was also the time when Assyrian power was on the rise throughout ancient Mesopotamia and the wider Middle East. Uzziah’s reign included an expansion into both Philistine territory to the west that controlled trade routes to Egypt and Edom, to the south where there were valuable trade routes to Arabia. As the prophecies of Amos and Micah also reveal, this was a very prosperous period in the nation’s history.

In this passage Isaiah was in mourning and went into the temple, as was his wont, to offer a lament. As he worshiped in the familiar surroundings, he sensed the divine presence in a dramatic new way. God, of course, is invisible; yet Isaiah did have such a vision. Or was it just the hem of God’s robe and the attending seraphim, which represented the divine presence to him? Quickly afterward, Isaiah recognized his own unworthiness before God and that of his fellow Judeans. The experience overwhelmed him. That he should become the prophet to proclaim God’s judgment on his nation’s moral and spiritual decay was furthest from his imagination. Great revelations come to faithful men and women in the midst of the mundane experiences of life.

In Isaiah’s vision, one of the angelic beings touched his lips with a live coal from the altar, thus cleansing him to speak for God. He heard the voice of God calling for a messenger and he responded, “Here am I, send me.” But the message God gave him to deliver was one of unmitigated judgment. It must have been a fear-filled experience. To be called to speak God’s judgment against his own people would have frightened the most courageous of men or women in that day of woeful events as is in ours. One only has to hear or see to the attack ads created for contemporary political campaigns to realize how much the prophet exposes him or herself to community ridicule.

Yet there are men and women willing to present the divine alternatives to our petty human machinations of history. The people are the ground-breakers for new advances in faith and witness to the purposes of God in the world. It was so for Isaiah, who with Amos and Micah in the late 8th century BCE set forth a vision of divine justice and righteousness which remains as convincing for us as it was for them. These elements of Israelite prophecy had close affinity to the actual events of that time when the great empires of Assyria and Egypt were in conflict. Israel, the northern kingdom, and Judea itself was constantly threatened with invasion and the imposition of foreign religious practices.

PSALM 138. Unlike most of the psalms, this hymn of thanksgiving by an individual is thought to be from a small “Davidic collection.” (Psalms 138-145.) This meant that it was ascribed to King David rather than being composed by him.

There are some twenty such hymns of thanksgiving by individuals preserved in the religious literature of Israel. Isaiah 38:10-20 and Jonah 2:2-9 are examples found in the OT. The apocryphal books of Ecclessiasticus (Sirach), the Psalms of Solomon and the Odes of Solomon contain others.

Like most others, this psalm is from a post-exilic date. The absence of any thanksgiving sacrifice points to an unusual level of spiritual development rarely found except in some of the prophetic literature which condemned the temple sacrifices. Or it may date from a time before the reconstruction of the temple when the normal sacrifices could not be celebrated. It also reflects a universalism echoing that of Second Isaiah (vss. 4-6) for earthly kings are said to worship God as do the humble; and God does not despise their praise. The psalm ends with an declaration of trust in God’s love and purpose. Vs. 8 certainly provides a very preachable text.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-11. Paul states as simply as possible what he had learned from the apostles whom he met in Jerusalem when he returned there some time after his conversion. This probably occurred less than a decade after the resurrection. Some scholars believe it may have been no more than a year or two. Could this have been an early Christian creed? It summarizes what the apostles were teaching in those first years after that momentous event when the apostolic church was feeling the full flush of its new faith.

One point stands out in Paul’s repetition of this statement of faith. To him, the resurrection was something experienced by those few who had seen and spoken with the risen Christ. It was also Paul’s firm conviction that the same risen Lord had appeared to him on the Damascus Road. The ambiguity between faith and fact remains with the Christian community to this day. Faith does not attempt to be factual. Rather it expresses a spiritual interpretation of deep and often inexplicable psychic experiences. It uses the language of image, symbol and metaphor to describe what persons of faith have experienced amid the ebb and flow of ordinary events which a reporter or historian might well record differently as observed facts or strange myths.

The resurrection experience symbolized for Paul and the other apostles that Jesus Christ, who had been executed as a criminal, was very much alive. Death had not conquered him; he had conquered death and was now with them in spirit. There were still many living in Paul’s time who could testify to this experience. The reference to the risen Christ’s appearance to five hundred people may be an alternate reminiscence of Pentecost as that event had been told to Paul by the apostolic community.

Quite possibly Paul was the first to connect the death of Christ to the ancient Israelite tradition that sin could be forgiven by the shedding of blood. This belief had its roots in the ancient practices of offering sacrifices to the deity common to all ancient religious traditions. In some traditions human sacrifice had also been quite commonly practiced. Even in Israel as late as the 7th century BCE reign of Manasseh (ca. 687-642 BCE) there had been evidence of this. Among the Jews, animal sacrifice in lieu of human sacrifice was related closely to the celebration of the both Passover and Yom Kippur. In this context Paul interpreted the crucifixion of Jesus as a self-offering which had a similar effect of dealing with the human problem of sin and alienation from God.

Note too that Paul adds himself as “the least of the apostles.” One view of the narrative in Acts presents Paul and Peter as rivals for leadership of the Gentile mission. In Galatians and here, Paul gives some basis for this hypothesis. He numbers himself among the apostles, though with self-deprecating diminution. He goes on to reiterate his total dependence on God’s grace for his status and gives his fellow apostles credit where credit is due. They all share the resurrection faith which is the heart of the gospel for us as well.

LUKE 5:1-11. (Author’s note: This passage is also covered in a new blog posted here: http://studiesinluke.blogspot.com. Look on the list to the left for #7 – Calling The First Disciples. The content of this blog introduced a Bible study with a group of seniors at Glen Abbey United Church, Oakville,ON, Canada.)

Luke tells this story of a miraculous catch of fish in connection with the calling of the first disciples. His version is much more elaborate than the brief accounts of Mark and Matthew. John tells it as one of Jesus’ resurrection appearances (John 21). Behind the gospels as we now have them, there was a long tradition of stories about Jesus’ teaching and miracles repeated by word of mouth before being put into written form. Assuming that all versions referred to the same event, which some commentators doubt, they speak to the future mission of the apostolic church. It appears to be a promise of ultimate success though not without long and difficult toil on the part of the disciple community.

At first, the ekklesia (i.e. the apostolic church) meant simply a group of Jews of humble origins, many of them unlettered and poverty stricken, who had responded to the preaching of Jesus and believed in his resurrection. Then as now, fishing was not always a lucrative occupation, but one which required much skill and patience, hard work and long hours. These men were partners in a small business in which they had invested their whole lives. Catching and marketing of fresh fish, a major food in Galilee at the time, was not always a profitable trade. In that climate, the fish would have to be caught during the night and sold in the marketplace within a few hours. Often the results were disappointing. However, this story is told for its metaphorical significance rather than as a factual vignette of the harsh life of the Galilean fisherman.

Luke has a way of weaving the whole tradition into his story as he tells it. His audience was two generations removed from the events he narrates and unfamiliar with the places in which those events occurred. So he did not have to be concerned about chronological order. His intent was primarily evangelical. For instance, he has Peter call Jesus first “Master,” then “Lord.” Those are titles which Luke reserves for disciples. Non-disciples used the term, “Teacher.” The title “Lord” appears in Luke twenty-one times; twelve of them in pericopes peculiar to Luke. It can be argued that here Luke was thinking in post-resurrection terms when the apostles had fully realized that Jesus was the Messiah for whom such a title was appropriate. As has been pointed out many times, the original creed of the apostolic church was the simple statement, “Jesus is Lord.”

So also Peter’s confession of sinfulness in his plea that Jesus depart from him is appropriate to a post-resurrection attitude. It reiterates the gospel call to repentance as the antecedent to Christian discipleship. Luke had emphasized this as the message John the Baptist had preached (3:1-20) and which Peter had also proclaimed in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:38. It may also have some reference to Peter’s denial of Jesus in the court of the house of Caiaphas (22:54-60).

The late Professor G. B. Caird pointed to Jesus’ choice of these “hard-working but intensely loyal men, ever aware of their own shortcomings, as those whom he needed to carry the gospel into the world.” Does not the present evangelistic environment call for a disciple community of similarly dedicated, loyal and hard-working persons? Certainly not those who may lay claim to moral perfection or spiritual greatness would not fit the requirements. Caird’s analysis of this passage is a valuable contribution to the understanding of how prophetic visions and oracles affect us: “On Simon at least the impact he made was a profoundly moral one, resulting in a sense of sin. It was not the miracle that brought him to his knees but the grandeur of sheer goodness.” (Caird, G.B. Saint Luke. The Pelican New Testament Commentary, 1965.)

These readings could be used on Sunday, January 10 instead of the readings for The First Sunday After Epiphany.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
The Epiphany of The Lord – January 6, 2010

ISAIAH 60:1-6. It cannot be repeated too often that the writers of the Gospels depended to a considerable extent of the Hebrew Scriptures that they knew. This passage from the unknown prophet of the Babylonian exile, styled as the Second Isaiah, is almost certainly the source for Matthew’s story of the visit of the Magi bearing gifts for Israel’s new born king. Both very ancient and modern depictions of that event and the carol, We Three Kings of Orient Are, also take their basic elements from this passage.

PSALM 72:1-7, 10-14. Here again we find elements of the popular rendition of the Christmas story. Probably written to celebrate a king’s coronation or birthday it emphasizes the prophetic image of a just and effective monarch who receives honour and tribute from many nations.

EPHESIANS 3:1-12. Paul cites his understanding of the mystery of Christ which had been revealed to him in his conversion from a radical Pharisee to a Christian apostle. Jesus Christ had come to bring about the reconciliation of Gentiles to God through faith. Paul’s whole ministry rested on this insight. For a devout Jew to say this indeed qualified as a divine mystery, as Paul reiterates several times in this passage. The liturgical Season of Epiphany celebrates this revelation.

MATTHEW 2:1-12. Matthew tells quite a different story than does Luke about the birth of Jesus. It would appear to be original to the author of the gospel himself, evidenced by misquoting of a text from Micah 5:2-4 that the coming of the Messiah had been prophesied by one of Israel’s best known prophets. This characteristic of Matthew shows that he was writing for a Jewish audience late in the 1st century AD. The issue with which the early church had wrestled for several decades was the inclusion of Gentiles in the Christian community founded by Jews.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS. It cannot be repeated too often that the writers of the Gospels depended to a considerable extent of the Hebrew scriptures that they knew. In fact, they knew no other scriptures for Paul’s letter had only begun to be circulated and what we know as the New Testament had not yet been collected into a canon as the official documents of the church. Rather, those early Christians under the leadership of the apostles, all of them Jews, sought out whatever passages in the Hebrew Scriptures they could find which they then interpreted as pointing to Jesus as the Messiah long promised to Israel. This process went on for at least a generation or two after the death and resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.

ISAIAH 60:1-6.

This passage from the unknown prophet of the Babylonian exile, styled as “the Second Isaiah,” is almost certainly the source for Matthew’s story of the visit of the Magi bearing gifts for Israel’s new born king. Many ancient and modern depictions of that event and the carol, We Three Kings of Orient Are, also take their basic elements from this passage. As the passage stands, however, it presents a clear description of Yahweh’s activity within human history interpreted metaphorically as giving light where darkness has previously prevailed. This, of course, recalls the first act of creation in Genesis 1: the creation of light where there had been only chaos and darkness. It also reiterates the theme of the first poem in the collection of Second Isaiah (40:5): “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed….”

If this passage was written from Babylon, as many scholars believe, it could be a reminiscence of dawn over Jerusalem as the sun rises over the Mount of Olives flooding the holy city and its temple with the radiant splendour. As the city awakened, many faithful Jews would have flocked toward the sacred precincts to witness the morning sacrifice. In the prophet’s vision, not only faithful Israelite sons and daughters returned from exile gathered there. With them came people of many nations and even their kings bringing the wealth of their countries from afar as offerings acceptable on Yahweh’s altar (vss.3, 7).

The phrase “the glory of the Lord” in vs. 1 (Heb. kabhodh) appears extensively in Isaiah and elsewhere in the OT. It is a central word for divine self-revelation or epiphany. The Christian festival and the liturgical season of Epiphany have this fundamental meaning. It refers not only to the revelation of Christ to Gentiles, but the self-revelation of God in Christ to the whole world.

The prophet’s vision is eschatological. Dawn and sunrise over Jerusalem occur daily. Pilgrims and tourists still flock to see the site dominated for many centuries by the golden Dome of the Rock, third most sacred site of Islam. Jews and Christians gather to pray too at the foot of the Western Wall. That is all that remains of the temple which once towered above the huge ashlars on which Herod the Great had built a broad expanse around the temple. To this day the vision of Second Isaiah remains unfulfilled.

Only to a limited degree has the day arrived when people of all nations will worship there together in peace. Conflicts frequently break out even as people come to pray. This happened when a visiting Egyptian diplomat approached the Al-Aqsa mosque and was forbidden entrance by fundamentalist Moslems. Another riot broke out when a former Jewish prime minister dared to enter the same mosque with an armed troop of Israeli soldiers.

Yet, the passage offers hope that the day will come when all people have the same vision as this ancient prophet and make their commitment to bring about the time of rejoicing in worship of the God who wills that it be so.

PSALM 72:1-7, 10-14. Here again we find elements of the Epiphany story, especially a deep concern for social justice. Probably written to celebrate a king’s coronation or birthday, the psalm emphasizes the prophetic image of a just and effective monarch who receives honour and tribute from many nations.

The psalmist pleads that the king will exercise justice above all throughout a long reign. He also desired that there be prosperity in the land. As the Books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles attest, by no means were these common features of Israel’s monarchy. So we have an idealized version of what the monarch should be and do for his people. The psalmist was a poet, however, not a historian or political scientist. Nonetheless, he incorporated the theme of social justice from the great prophets of Israel into a profoundly meaningful prayer.

It would not be difficult to extrapolate from these verses a vision of what any modern political leader might bring to a new mandate. As the new year begins, in both Canada and the USA we are entering what could be a time of political campaigns leading to federal elections. Any political leader seeking election might well use this idealized vision as the basis for setting priorities for our two nations.

Although not included in this reading, vs. 8 was the motto adopted by Canada’s Fathers of Confederation in 1967 in naming our country “The Dominion of Canada.” No longer a dominion of the British Empire, but an independent nation with its own Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms, our struggle continues to create the just society envisioned by the psalmist.

EPHESIANS 3:1-12. As we have seen in other references, the Letter to the Ephesians remains one of the anomalies of the Pauline corpus. Without its title, which may indeed have been added at a later date, it could well be taken as a letter from rather than to the Ephesians. It has been regarded by some scholars as the missing “letter to Laodicia” (Colossians 4:15-16). John Kirby, formerly of McGill University, Montreal, decided that it was originally a baptismal liturgy and sermon for Pentecost that was later transformed into a letter for wider circulation. Kirby’s analysis stated that this passage marked the beginning of the exhortative homily which continued through the remainder of the letter. He did not believe that it was an authentic Pauline letter, but one written anonymously by a disciple who knew the apostle’s story and thought exceedingly well some decades after Paul’s death. (Kirby, John C. Ephesians: Baptismm and Pentecost. MvGill University Press, 1968.)

The author – “I Paul … a prisoner for the Lord” – cites his understanding of the mystery of Christ which had been revealed to him at the time of his conversion from a radical Pharisee to a Christian apostle. Jesus Christ had come to bring about the reconciliation of Gentiles to God through faith. Paul’s whole ministry rested on this insight. For a devout Jew to say this indeed qualified as a divine mystery, as Paul reiterates several times in this passage (vss. 2, 4, 5, 9). The liturgical season of Epiphany celebrates this revelation.

The conflict between those apostles who supported James and the Jerusalem community and those who supported Paul’s mission to the Gentiles did not end with the death of either James or Paul in the early 60s CE. It may actually have become more intense after the destruction of the temple during the Jewish-Roman war of 68-70 CE when the party of the Pharisees dominated the synagogues of the Jewish Diaspora. In asserting their identity as Jews obedient to the Torah, the Pharisees also formulated a canon of scripture authorized for study by the faithful. The ideology of Israel as the chosen people would not have appealed to many non-Jews. If, as Kirby avers, this letter did not appear or circulate until circa 90 CE, one can see it as an apology for assertive Christian missionary activity in those same communities where God-fearing Gentiles were drawn to a more acceptable message than the Pharisees permitted.

In this passage, the author of the letter clearly presents an alternative argument. Gentiles are indeed included in God’s promise and purpose, “fellow heirs, members of the same body and sharers in the promise in Jesus Christ through the gospel” (vs. 6). For proclaiming this gospel persistently and consistently, Paul had suffered many trials and imprisonments fomented by his own fellow Jews. Indeed some scholars believe that it may have been during his imprisonment in Ephesus that some elements of this letter took shape.

Those of us who are “servants of the same gospel” wrestle with another but not dissimilar conflict to which this passage may well speak. The underlying issue of our age is the inclusiveness or exclusiveness of the Christian gospel. Can we assert that our tradition is alone and exclusively “the revealed mystery” of God? Who now are the excluded “Gentiles”? Have we made our Christian tradition into an ideology as exclusive as that of the Pharisees of the 1st century CE? Does God’s grace not include those who have through succeeding centuries followed the traditions of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and all other ways in which humans of other cultural milieux have been conscious of a Transcendent Being who touched and transformed their lives as ours have been touched and transformed? Is it God’s purpose to bring all faith traditions together in confessing Christ as the one and only way to believe and live?

Do the words of Augustine of Hippo still hold true: “By means of Christ who is human you proceed to Christ who is God. God is indeed beyond us. But God has become human. What was far from us has become, by the mediation of a man, very near. He is the God in whom you shall dwell. He is the man by way of whom you must reach him. Christ is at once the way you must follow and the goal you must reach.” (Augustine of Hippo. Sermons, 261, 6) In what way is Jesus Christ “the way, the truth and the life” for us in the 21st century?”

MATTHEW 2:1-12. Matthew tells quite a different story about the birth of Jesus than did Luke. It would appear to be original to the author of the gospel himself, evidenced by the misconstruing of a text from Micah 5:2-4 that the coming of the Messiah had been prophesied by one of Israel’s best known prophets. As with other NT authors, it was characteristic of Matthew to search the Hebrew Scriptures for passages which could be reinterpreted as messianic prophecies pointing to Jesus.

This characteristic of Matthew shows that he was writing for a Jewish audience late in the 1st century CE. The issue with which the early church had wrestled for several decades was the inclusion of Gentiles in the Christian community founded by Jews. This story, quite possibly a parable or a midrash rather than a historical narrative, is Matthew’s response to that conflict.

Foreigners, as the magi certainly were, came seeking the newborn king of Israel whose signal star they had been following for some time. They could not have been Jews for they asked Herod questions which a Jew would have already known. Legend has it that they came from the east, but that cannot be proven from the story’s details. The phrase “from the east” could just as well be translated as “at its rising.” That would mean that they could have approached from the west, since stars only rise in the east.

The astrological event that led them to Jerusalem could one of several known astronomical occurrences – a supernova; a bright conjunction of two planets, Saturn and Jupiter, within the astrological zone of Pisces, the sign of the Jews This occurred three times in 7 BCE. Halley’s comet was also visible in 7 BCE. Or it could have been a very bright morning star like Venus or Mercury. But these are all speculative quibbles. We shall never know for sure what they saw or who the magi really were. An excellent analysis of the various possibilities appeared in a republication of articles from The Bible Review in December 1993 and December 2001. The publication is no longer extant, but the articles are available through the Library of and membership in the Biblical Archaeology Society.

Nor is it certain that Matthew did not write his narrative using some actual data but with his eye even more directly focused on the Hebrew scriptures such as the one he misquotes. He could also have quoted Isaiah 60:3; Numbers 24:17; Pss. 68:29 and 72:10. From these poetic statements, later generations assumed that the magi were kings as depicted in earliest paintings on the walls of catacombs. Instead they may have been Zoroastrian priests who spent a great deal of time observing and interpreting the stars so vividly seen in the Middle Eastern nights of that era. Of course, they could also have been priests and kings, as monarchs frequently were in those days. It is conceivable that Matthew also knew of a delegation of Parthian magi going to Rome to pay homage to Nero at Naples in 66 CE. They are said to have gone home “by another way.”

We have tended to idealize and romanticize the story in so many ways that we have neglected its more obvious meaning. It would appear that Matthew told this story to help his audience draw the conclusion that the prophecies being fulfilled by Jesus’ birth were about foreign nations coming to Jerusalem to worship Israel’s God. This note of religious universalism is prominent in many parts of the OT, but especially in Isaiah 40-66, a collection of prophetic poetry with which Matthew would certainly have been familiar.

As Christians we may fervently hope that the meaning of the story will not be lost on modern audiences at a time when religious traditions seem to clash rather than coalesce around the worship of the God whom we know in Jesus Christ. But who is to say that within the new millennium God will not bring about the reconciliation through love for people of all religious traditions? This seem impossible at this time. As we start this year of our Lord 2010, we would do well to recall that, as our ancestors believed, each year is a twelve month period of God’s infinite and eternal grace.

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