John Shearman's Lectionary

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

 Proper 19   Ordinary 24

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost

September 12, 2010

JEREMIAH 4:11-12, 22-28. The threat of invasion by both Egypt and Babylon continued throughout the last 40 years of the nation’s independence until Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians first in 598 BCE and then was destroyed in 587 BCE. Few of the prophet’s many oracles express this threat more vividly than this one. His metaphors describing the defeat and desolation in this passage would strike with brutal force at the false security of the people in their sacred fortress city. Jeremiah saw all this as God’s doing, not the happenstance of history.

 PSALM 14. The psalmist who composed this poem at a time of atheism and depravity sought to draw the people back to their religious roots in the midst of accentuated foreign influences. This also followed the prophetic tradition of condemning the ungodly and defending the righteous and the poor.

EXODUS 32:7-14. (Alternate) In fury at the apostasy of the Israelites for worshipping a golden calf, God sends Moses down from Mount Sinai vowing to punish them for their sin. Moses pleads for the people asking God to remember the promises made to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And God changed his mind.

PSALM 51:1-10. (Alternate) The superscript to this classic psalm of penitence is misleading. It really was not from King David, but was added much later to the original text. Nor does it have anything to do with original sin. Yet it remains one of the most sincere prayers of repentance seeking God’s forgiveness.

1 TIMOTHY 1:12-17. While this letter as a whole or in part may not be from the apostle Paul, this passage speaks of Paul’s persecution of the early church and his supreme gratitude for the grace of forgiveness and new life extended to him through Jesus Christ. It certainly reads like a very personal confession. It also expressed the deep experiential and theological truth that God’s grace, repentantly received, motivates the believer to thank and praise God.

 LUKE 15:1-10. These two vignettes from the daily life of a Palestinian peasant are often overlooked. They tell the story of God’s love for the lost and the wholly undeserved grace that offers full and free forgiveness to all who seek it. Both parables emphasize the joyful celebration when the lost is found. To God, everyone is important and graciously loved. No one is excluded, not even those who do not want to be found.

  A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

JEREMIAH 4:11-12, 22-28. By Jeremiah’s time in the last quarter of 7^th century BCE, only the Southern Kingdom – Judah – remained of the once great kingdom of David. The threat of invasion from Babylon to the east and Egypt to the west was real and almost constant during Jeremiah’s ministry. This threat continued over the last 40 years of the nation’s independence until the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians first in 598 BCE and finally with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in 587 BCE. Few of the prophet’s many oracles express this threat more vividly. His metaphors of destruction and desolation in this passage would have struck with brutal force at the false security of the people in their sacred fortress city. In the intervening verses excluded from the reading, anyone could easily identify from whence the threat came.

In vss. 11-12, the sirocco or khasmin, a blistering east wind from the Arabian desert, symbolizes the ominous threat. This suffocating, dry wind still frequently sweeps in across the Jordan valley and the Dead Sea carrying clouds of stinging sand with it. When it comes, everyone must retreat into whatever shelter to be found. Hence the reference that no winnowing of grain or cleansing of garments hung out to dry. The reference to the “bare heights” calls to mind the high cliffs on either side of the Jordan valley which cuts a deep trench between Israel and its eastern neighbours.

Vs. 22 explains the meaning of the metaphor: Yahweh’s judgment upon Israel for its lack of faithfulness to Yahweh’s covenant with them. Given the opportunity for spiritual growth, they had acted like children being silly at play as children so frequently do. Morally underdeveloped because of their apostasy, they were far more skilled at doing evil than good.

Vss. 23-26 may be from a different oracle. Some scholars doubt that it was from Jeremiah at all because it contains eschatological references which are rare in the prophet’s other oracles. In vs. 23, the vision of the earth “waste and void” recalls Genesis 1:2 and, in fact, the Hebrew words are the same in that context. This whole segment elicits the chaotic pre-creation scene.

Vs. 27 is similarly controversial to many scholars who follow Peake’s Commentary in calling it “an unmitigated gloss” influenced by 5:10 and 18, which also promise that “a full end” is not Yahweh’s intention. This is immediately contradicted by vs. 28 promising a desolation imposed unsparingly by Yahweh’s command. However this segment may have been included, it gives the passage a vision of the desolation of the land resulting from the apostasy of the people. There is also the possibility that this segment of the passage could have been written after the destruction of Jerusalem when the disaster was still fresh in memory.

PSALM 14. This same psalm reappears slightly modified as Psalm 53, probably owing to its inclusion in two originally independent collections. Comparing the two psalms, especially 14:5-6 and 53:5 reveals something of the difficulties in the transmission of a particular text. Using the Greek Septuagint and other translations, scholars debate what the original behind both versions might have been.

But does this really affect the interpretation of the psalm, as some have suggested? Is there not some reference to the Wisdom period in such contrasts as “the fool” in vs.1 and “the wise” in vs.2? That the psalmist composed the poem at a time of atheism and depravity suggests the Greek period when the authors of Israel’s Wisdom literature sought to draw the people back to their religious roots in the midst of extreme foreign influences. This also followed the prophetic tradition evidenced in the vehemence of the psalmist’s condemnation of the ungodly and the defense of the righteous and the poor (vss.5-6).

The condemnation in vss. 3-4 includes the whole of society, presumably the priesthood too. An alternate reading of vs. 4b might be: “who eat up my people; they eat the bread of Yahweh, but call not on him.” Provision of food for the priesthood actually was one of the functions of the sacrificial system in the temple. A portion of every sacrifice was reserved for the use of the priests. Indeed, the poem has elements of biting sarcasm against the priests as conveyed in vs. 7.

While emphasizing the doom that awaits the faithless when Yahweh intervenes on behalf of the faithful, the psalm ends with a hopeful prayer. This points toward an eschatological conclusion, further indicating that the psalm comes from the transitional Greek period of Israel’s religious history after Alexander the Great captured Jerusalem in 333 BCE. With spiritual leadership at low ebb and deliverance not imminent, hope of salvation had been pushed into the far future.

 EXODUS 32:7-14. (Alternate) It is a pity that this brief excerpt from a great story of the Israelites worshipping a golden calf is all that we are given here. The whole story is worth setting aside all else in the Revised Common Lectionary for this week and giving it sound interpretation.

The golden calf, of course, was the kind of totem found in many early Middle Eastern and numerous other religious traditions.  It symbolized the fertility of nature and the flocks of pastoral peoples. Cecil B. DeMilles’ movie Exodus graphically displayed the sexual promiscuity associated with these religious rites.  In effect, the Israelites were returning to a familiar, but more primitive religious system than the moral monotheism to which Moses was leading them under Yahweh’s direction.

In this excerpt Yahweh shows a fury reminiscent of any human potentate frustrated by the misbehaviour of wayward subjects. In response to the apostasy of the Israelites for worshiping a golden calf instead of their deity revealed in the Decalogue, Yahweh sent Moses down from Mount Sinai vowing to avenge his injured pride. Moses pleads for the people asking Yahweh to remember the promises made long before to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Indeed, Moses’ plea sounds more like a rebuke. Convinced by Moses’ argument Yahweh changed his mind.

That in itself is a revelatory moment. Yahweh does indeed change, becoming one who forgives, if only relenting from punishing the Israelites for a time and giving them an opportunity to repent.

 PSALM 51:1-10. (Alternate) The superscript to this classic psalm of penitence is misleading. It was added much later to the original text. It really was not from King David, nor had it anything to do with his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. Contrary to later Christian interpretation of vs. 5, it does it have anything to do with original sin. Yet it remains one of the most sincere prayers of repentance seeking God’s forgiveness.

Very much aware of his sinful nature, however, (vs. 3) the psalmist accepts God’s judgment as completely justified (vs. 4). He pleads for cleansing, especially from those hidden iniquities of which a sensitive conscience is all to aware. In the depths of contrition, he acknowledges his true character.

He also acknowledges the kind of person whom the Lord desires him to be – truthful, wise in the ways of God and purged of all his self-deceiving tendencies. He longs to rejoice in righteous living springing from a clean heart and a renewed spiritual integrity (vss. 8-10).

How many conscience stricken souls have turned to this psalm as the antidote to a burden of guilt of which we long to be relieved? Despite unfortunate misinterpretations, it still rings true as the faithful expression of the penitent soul.

 1 TIMOTHY 1:12-17. Bible scholars still debate whether the Letters to Timothy and Titus were from the apostle Paul or from another Christian leader of a later generation who knew the apostle’s earlier correspondence very well. Since the middle of the 18^th century they have been generally referred to as the Pastoral Letters. They were certainly composed as pastoral letters to churches at a time of transition when faithful discipleship is called for – just like today!

Arguments against original Pauline authorship include a distinctive vocabulary and style, theological concepts, church order, credal tradition, and the problem of fitting their composition into a chronology of Paul’s ministry. Another theory argues for Pauline authorship on hypotheses that elicit even more difficulties such as the presumed release of the apostle from prison in Rome and a journey to Spain prior to a second imprisonment and execution. Or, as yet another theory contends, the letters are the work of a secretary to whom Paul gave almost total freedom of composition.

One popular theory proposes that the unknown author had before him fragments of authentic letters from Paul which he used to deal with issues in a different context at a later period. Yet a fifth hypothesis points to a composition as a literary artefact similar to others known from the late 1st century Roman literature to which personal references were added to create verisimilitude and to present Paul as an apostolic example to be followed. As yet, there is no final proof for any of these theories, and perhaps there never will be. Consensus appears to have settled on a non-Pauline author who had access to some original letters by Paul, but the date of their composition varies from 85 to 120 CE or even later.

This passage speaks of Paul’s persecution of the early church and his supreme gratitude for the grace of forgiveness and change extended to him by Jesus Christ. It certainly reads like a personal confession. Yet it also expressed a deep experiential and theological truth: the efficacy of grace repentantly received for which the believer can only thank and praise God.

As William Barclay stated in his extended analysis of the passage, Paul gave thanks that he had been saved in order that he might serve Christ. His conversion came about because of the sheer mercy of Christ, not through any initiative of his own. Remembering his former life was at once a source of great shame and also of great inspiration. He did not brood over his sin in an unhealthily depression. Rather, he remembered it as the means God had used to awaken him to rejoice in the greatness of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Hence the doxology with which the passage ends. (See Barclay, William. Daily Bible Readings: The Epistles to Timothy and Titus. Edinburgh: Church of Scotland, 1956.)

Trust and acceptance play a considerable role in “Paul’s” thinking at this point. He had been trusted with the task of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. Accepted by God for the man he was, he had accepted this heavy responsibility in the face of strong opposition by the Jerusalem apostles as well as his fellow Jews. Now he wanted nothing more than to have his hearers accept his message: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” In vs. 18, he urges Timothy to make this his mandate too.

LUKE 15:1-10. These two vignettes from the daily life of a Palestinian peasant are often overlooked because of their proximity to the much more familiar parable that follows. They tell the story of God’s love for the lost and God’s wholly undeserved grace that offers full and free forgiveness. Note that both parables emphasize the joyful celebration when the lost article is found. The allusion is to God’s joy over a sinner who repents. To God, everyone is important – and loved with an indiscriminate love. No one is excluded. This crucially significant truth speaks to our time when doubt and disbelief often overwhelm faith and guilt causes some to separate from the Christian community. In each of these two parables, we have profound theology spoken with great simplicity.

But think of how these stories may have occurred to Jesus? His home in Nazareth was on the northern slope of a low range of rugged hills overlooking the rich agricultural region, the Plain of Esraeldon. The hills were too rocky only for anything but herding sheep. How many times has he seen or had helped his shepherd neighbours searching those hills long hours into the night for a single lost sheep. Then, having found it, celebrating with them when they had brought the wandering beast safely home to the sheepfold where the rest of the flock were securely enclosed. Perhaps he had often been included in just such a celebration in a neighbour’s home in Nazareth.

Was one sheep so valuable? To a poor shepherd, a single lamb would have been precious. His whole livelihood depended on maximizing the number of lambs his herd produced and brought to marketable size. Is it any wonder that the incident sprang into Jesus’ mind as he sought to show how much God loves even the most foolish and undeserving of sinners?

As for the woman who had lost a coin, could she not be Jesus’ own mother, Mary, whose anxiety and joy he recalled so vividly? How often had he come into their humble home from his carpenter shop to find Mary happily celebrating with her closest friends over a refreshing cup of diluted vinegar-wine, a popular beverage among the poor. They made it by pouring water over the skins and stalks left over from the crushing of grapes for wine, then allowing it to ferment.

A single coin among ten would have been of great value to the struggling family, perhaps now left fatherless by the death of Joseph as legend tells it. In his Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography, Bruce Chilton infers that Jesus did not have very happy relationships with his family after Joseph died. Even a mamzer (an outcast because his birth had been suspicious), would have retained such memories of home as he wandered far and wide during his “hidden” years. As a wandering rabbi, however, he knew that memories such as these would connect directly with his audience who presumably were peasant folk too for the most part.

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING NOTES.

 JEREMIAH 4:11-12, 22-28. A quick scanning of Middle Eastern history will reveal that this part of the globe has been a cockpit of violent history since time immemorial. In many ways it still is. Archaeologists believe that human civilization began here when wandering hunter-gathering tribes turned to agriculture as they learned to plant wild grains and domesticated wild animals for staple foods. The rich lands of the Fertile Crescent that sweeps westward from the Persian Gulf up the Tigris-Euphrates River valleys across to the Mediterranean Sea and south to the Nile River valley were the basic land resource for growing populations searching for more dependable food supplies. For millennia the city states and great empires of this region sought security through armed conflicts and invasions that crossed and re-crossed this rich territory.

The region was also the birthplace of the three living monotheist religious traditions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. From the anthropological point of view, all of these traditions have been rooted in the human desire and search for peace and security. On the other hand, their religious and political institutions have also had serious problems with violent conflict as the means of self-defense or aggressive hostility toward perceived enemies that were often each other. This tragedy still defeats their highest aims that there may true peace, freedom, security and plentiful resources for abundant life. In a global society such as we now have, this is a grave danger for all humanity.

Jeremiah’s insight that this is fundamentally a religious and moral problem is succinctly expressed in vs. 22 of this passage. The inevitable end of these brutal conflicts is devastatingly portrayed in the concluding vss. 23-28 unless we change our ways.

 1 TIMOTHY 1:12-17. How important is it to encumber a sermon, as some preachers protest, with details about varying exegetical? One of the failures of the mainline churches has been to keep such complexities from congregations except in intimate bible study groups with few members. The result has been the proliferation of biblical literalism so common in the many highly publicized radio and television preachers to say nothing of journalists who often misquote scripture. Even a brief sentence or paragraph saying that there have been serious debates about the origins of several letters attributed to Paul, chief among them the Pastoral Letters, in surely enough to raise the level of understanding in a congregation.

LUKE 15:1-10. Is it ever wise to use one’s imagination in portraying the homely situation that may well have been the background for some of Jesus’ parables and teaching? At times such background narrative may well create helpful connections in the minds of those who hear. Dramatic presentations and dialogues of such passages can be very useful if well done. People remember stories much better than sound counsel delivered in carefully constructed paragraphs. Such narratives or dramas help people relate the gospel message to their own lives.

A former colleague of mine, now deceased, grew up and was a candidate for ordered ministry from St. James United Church, Montreal, Canada in the late 1930s. He told of listening with rapt attention to the preaching of Rev. Dr. Lloyd C. Douglas, noted fiction writer of Magnificent Obsession, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, and The Big Fisherman. It was Douglas’ flair for imaginative narrative preaching that drew large congregations to that great downtown church even on Sunday evenings. His ability to create imaginative scenarios for the scripture lessons was the gift that many so greatly admired. Like his preaching, his novels often sprang from questions members of his congregation asked him about the background of a single biblical incident or story. The story may be apocryphal true that a woman once approached him after a service and asked, “Whatever became of the robe that the soldiers gambled for when Jesus’ was crucified?” The result of his imaginative ruminating on that question produced what may have been Douglas’ greatest work, The Robe.

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

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Proper 16 – Ordinary 21

August 22, 2010

JEREMIAH 1:4-10. Like many who experience such a meeting with God, Jeremiah at first demurred because of his youth. That brought forth both reaffirmation and reassurances from God. Such confirmation comes as an intense inner confidence of being chosen. Like so many similar calls to Israel’s great prophets, Jeremiah’s prophecies reveal a firm grasp of the election motif founded on the Mosaic covenant.

PSALM 71:1-6. This psalm appears as a traditional lament, but does not repeat parts of the classical lament form of an appeal, a complaint, a petition and a vow of thanksgiving in regular sequence. It connection with the previous lesson about Jeremiah’s call is in vs. 3.

ISAIAH 58:9b-14. (Alternate) This is one of four strophes of a poem that extends through the whole of ch. 58 dealing with the kind service that pleases Yahweh. The prophet seeks to inspire the exiles returning from Babylon to a deeper faithfulness to the covenant tradition.

PSALM 103:1-8. (Alternate)   This psalm, or at least this selection of it, has been committed to memory by and brought comfort to countless generations. It captures the breadth and depth of human experience, but places utter dependence of the believer on the grace and mercy of God.

 HEBREWS 12:18-29. By alluding to well-known parts of the Torah, the Jewish scriptures, this passage stresses the distinction between the covenant of God with Israel at Mount Sinai and that of Calvary, where  Jesus Christ was crucified. While Sinai stressed the majesty, unapproachability and sheer terror of God, Calvary stressed the glory that awaits the Christian believer in the assembly of the saints in the heavenly Jerusalem. This festive gathering is not only with the angels and the martyred saints, but brings the believer into the very presence of God and Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant.

LUKE 13:10-17. As he often did, Luke placed a woman at the centre of the story. The lay leader of a synagogue challenged Jesus indignantly. Was he more concerned about protecting his turf and buffering against anticipated criticism from more orthodox fellow Jews? Jesus condemned his hypocrisy while the audience rejoiced at what they saw Jesus doing.

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 A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

 JEREMIAH1:4-10. We know who Jeremiah was and approximately when he lived from the brief introductory note which precedes this passage. As a member of a priestly family, possibly a descendant of Abiathar whom Solomon had exiled to Anathoth. (1 Kings 2:26-27), he had a cause to defend. The exact date of his call as a prophet is still disputed among scholars, but certainly it was during the last quarter of the 7^th century BCE. According to narrative details later in the book, he was still alive in Egypt after Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 BCE (40:1- 44:30).

Vss. 4-5 suggest that the traditions of his ancestors had a great influence on him. This prepared him to be open to such a life-changing spiritual experience as a call to be a prophet, i.e. a spokesperson for Yahweh, rather than a predictor of events to come.

Like many who experience such a meeting with Yahweh, Jeremiah at first demurred because of his youth (vs.6). That brought forth both a reaffirmation and reassurances from Yahweh (vss.7-8). Such confirmation comes as an intense inner confidence of being chosen. Like Hosea a century earlier, Jeremiah’s prophecies reveal a firm grasp of the election motif founded on the Mosaic covenant.

Jeremiah’s experience of election included a vision similar to that of Isaiah. In this instance, however, the hand of Yahweh, not a live coal carried by a seraph, touched Jeremiah’s mouth giving him the power to speak in Yahweh’s name (vss. 9-10). Visual or auditory spiritual experiences may be interpreted by some as hallucinations of an overly imaginative religious mind. Yet a vast company of deeply committed persons have testified that their vocational experiences come from a deepening faith, not infrequently after a very traumatic experience in everyday life.

Julian of Norwich, a female mystic of the 14^th century, had mystical visions which are just one example of such “holy hallucinations.” Her “Showings” or “Revelations” have attracted a good deal of attention in recent years because of their unusually graphic descriptions of Jesus’ sufferings on the cross and the assurance she received from these that “all will be well.” These experiences came to her as she recovered from a nearly fatal illness, possibly a physical or mental illness related to the Black Death in which she appears to have lost most of her family.

This story of Jeremiah’s call tells us that faith interprets whatever happens as having spiritual significance. Are there prophets like Jeremiah or Julian of Norwich who will help us to interpret the signs of our traumatic times with equal assurance that the Lord of History has not abandoned the universe to a destructive fate?

PSALM 71:1-6. W. Stewart McCullough, the exegete in The Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1955, vol. 4, 372) assigns this psalm a unique title, “The tired refuge of an aged saint.” There are references to old age in vss. 9 and 18. Though the psalm appears to be a lament, it does not adopt the typical classical form of such a psalm with an appeal, a complaint, a petition and a vow of thanksgiving in regular sequence. Instead, it repeats some aspects of this formula more than once.

In this introductory excerpt vss. 1-3 almost exactly repeat the words of Psalm 31:1-3 with a second appeal immediately following (vss. 4-6). One can speculate that a copyist added the opening lines to the original beginning. If vs.4 is the opening line, it throws us right into the psalmist’s reason for calling out for divine intervention. He is beset by enemies, a theme continued throughout the rest of the lament. Lifelong experience drives the petitioner to seek refuge from God while at the same time offering God due praise (vss. 5-6). Seeking closer contact with God in troubled times is the natural response for anyone who lives a life of faith.

ISAIAH 58:9b-14. (Alternate) Scholars tell us that not all the poetry of Isaiah 40-66 can be attributed to the unnamed prophet of the Exile. Those poems in chs. 56-66 may actually be from a later school, sometimes called Third Isaiah. They modelled their poems after his style. This is one of four strophes of a poem that extends through the whole of ch. 58 dealing with the kind service that pleased Yahweh. The prophet sought to inspire the exiles returning from Babylon to a deeper faithfulness to the covenant tradition.

While dating the poem may have its difficulties, at least one commentator believes that it stands somewhere between the prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah and Zechariah. Vss. 11-12 give fairly clear clues that reflect the actual circumstances in Jerusalem and Judah when the exiles returned home. No prophet stands alone and this is particularly noticeable in this poem. Vss. 9-10 show the definitive influence of the earlier prophets of social justice. Echoes of the Deuteronomic Code in admonitions about keeping the Sabbath also resound through vs. 13.

Vs. 14 wraps the whole poem in the traditional promise made long before to Jacob that the land of Palestine would belong his descendants. However mythical and unhistorical that event may have been, it inspired the national dream of the Zionist movement in the late 19^th century. It also motivated the Balfour Declaration of 1917 adopted by the British government in 1917: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” In 1948, the United Nations created the modern state of Israel base on this declaration. In the more than half century since, the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians has had its roots in this biblical promise and its political implications.

PSALM 103:1-8. (Alternate)   This psalm, or at least this selection of it, has been committed to memory and by and brought comfort to countless generations. It captures the breadth and depth of human experience, but places utter dependence of the believer on the grace and mercy of God.

As one commentator put it, “Scarcely any other part of the OT lets us perceive the truth that God is love so intimately.” One wonders if Paul had this psalm in mind as he wrote to the Ephesians: “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3: 18-19.)

“The Pit” referred to in vs. 3 stood as a synonym for Sheol, the shadowy existence beyond death from which there could be no hope for return. The vivid image in vs. 4 of “youth being renewed like the eagle’s” brings to mind the longevity, strength and size of that majestic bird, but it may also refer to either the annual molting of every bird during which they cannot fly well. Or it may recall the legend of the phoenix rising out of the ashes. The poet of Job also spoke of that legend (Job 29:18). Deutero-Isaiah also used a similar image (Isa. 40:31).

The prophetic tradition of justice and Yahweh’s covenant with Moses  also stood out in the poet’s mind. Rooted in grace and mercy these remained the hallmarks of Israelite theology and could never be hidden in the liturgical hymnody of Israel. While no date can ever be proved and there is no sign of an acrostic, the existence of 22 verses in the psalm corresponds to the number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This may point to a relatively late origin when liturgists and the teachers of Wisdom sought to bring the ancient traditions to view for fresh consideration by each new generation.

HEBREWS 12:18-29. The author of the so-called “Letter to the Hebrews” knew the Torah thoroughly and may have had a copy of the Greek Septuagint (LXX) close at hand while composing this extended theological essay. In this passage there are several references to the covenanting of Israel at Mount Sinai. We can detect allusions to Exodus 19:12-13, Deuteronomy 4:11, 5:23-27 and 9:19. The real focus of these allusions, however, is the contrast between the covenant of Sinai and that of Calvary, between Moses and Jesus Christ.

The very first words of this passage tell us where the author comes down. Here too Mount Zion and Jerusalem stand as symbols for the heavenly city and the presence of God. (Note: Our English word “Calvary” derives from the Latin word calvaria meaning “skull” translated from the Aramaic Golgotha.)

While Sinai stressed the majesty, unapproachability and sheer terror of being confronted by Yahweh (vss.18-21), Calvary stressed the glory that awaits the Christian believer in the assembly of the saints in the heavenly Jerusalem (vss. 21-24). This festive gathering is not only with the angels and the martyred saints, but brings believers into the very presence of God and Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant.

These contrasting scenes lead to a warning which is in itself a further contrast (vss. 25-29). The voices of Moses and of Jesus uttered distinctive messages, but they spoke with totally different authority. According to the author of this letter, Jesus delivered the perfect message of the Gospel, not the imperfect message of the Torah. By recalling several references to various psalms (Pss. 114:7; 68:8; 77:18), the writer drives home his point that we are obligated to worship and serve God with due reverence so that we may indeed find ourselves embraced by the sovereignty of divine love which shall not pass away.

While the multiple references to Israel’s history and the covenant of Sinai may be entirely scriptural, it is also probable that the author intended them to be read against the background of the actual events of the last two or three decades of the first century of the Christian era. Jerusalem and its temple had been destroyed by the Romans in 69-70 CE. The surviving Jews and Jewish Christians alike had been widely dispersed throughout the empire. Both struggled to survive and maintain their traditions in a social and political environment increasingly inhospitable to moral monotheism, let alone a new eschatological messianism. The final shaping of the Hebrew canon progressed rapidly at this time, reaching its culmination at the rabbinical Synod of Jamnia ca. 85-90 CE. It is generally agreed that this distinctive Christian apologia was composed about this same time. It would be accepted as part of the uniquely Christian canon in the next century.

Is it not entirely feasible that the whole motive behind the composition of The Letter to the Hebrews was the appearance of the Hebrew canon as the authoritative scriptures of the Jewish people? Would not this hypothesis be strongly reinforced by the extensive quotations from the Hebrew canon, especially if the purpose of the document was, as the classical view of the book held, to prevent Jewish Christians from turning back to Judaism?

LUKE 13:10-17. The old issue of how to mark the sabbath surfaces once again in this pericope. And again as he often does, Luke places a woman at the centre of the story. One has to wonder if “Luke” was, in fact, a well-educated woman like Lydia or Priscilla who concealed her identity behind an obviously male name and that of an obscure fellow traveler of Paul.

The healing of the woman crippled for eighteen years caused yet another confrontation between Jesus and the religious authorities. In this case the leader of the synagogue, a layman, challenged Jesus indignantly. Was his a genuine religious concern rooted in the Torah or was he just protecting his turf and attempting to buffer anticipated criticism he would face from his more orthodox fellow Jews?

Jesus lashed out in condemnation of such hypocrisy. He drew a parallel between the compassion he had just shown for the woman and the perfectly normal care the man would give his beasts of burden, sabbath day or not. One senses the bitter sarcasm in Jesus’ voice, designed to silence the man’s protest and show him up as a fool in front of the assembled community, his dominant male peers in particular. The cutting edge of Jesus’ rebuke put him to shame. Gathered around the three, the whole crowd rejoiced. One can almost hear them clapping with glee, especially the women.

Point, set and match to Jesus of Nazareth. The woman left triumphantly to celebrate her new freedom from pain and disability with a coterie of her friends. Jesus smiled with pleasure as he watched them go.

How do we decide what to do on our sabbath day? Isn’t the best way to determine whether our plans are caring and compassionate; or selfishly focused?

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING NOTES.

JEREMIAH 1:4-10. That Jeremiah was a priest as well as a prophet should not be surprising. Watching his forebears trying to remain faithful to Israel’s covenant with Yahweh as they conducted the liturgies and sing the praises of Israel could well have inspired a religious experience in the young boy. That commitment to ministry runs in families is still a common phenomenon.

In my own ancestry, we can identify almost every generation from the beginning of the 17^th century with one or more members of the ordained clergy or prominent lay leaders of the church. I recall vividly standing beside my parents, singing hymns in a congregation where 20 worshipers was a crowd. Both parents were active lay leaders in the congregation and the children of lay leaders in other congregations. Several of my siblings also took leadership roles in their congregations. The family often sang similar hymns at home on Sunday evenings as my mother played an old pump organ. At any point on the branches of the genealogical tree, the commitment could cease. Only God knows where or when.

The message Jeremiah received had historical characteristics, indicative of the turbulent times in which he lived. Like ourselves, Jeremiah ministered during a period often described as “fin de siècle” (in English: “end of the century”). That French phrase describes the two decades spanning the turn of a century or a millennium. During this period some have seen contemporary events taking on a more intense and critical significance as society moves toward unknown and uncharted changes resulting from technological, social and political upheavals.

We have just lived through two decades that could well be seen from that perspective. This “fin de siècle” anxiety may be more of a psychological phenomenon than a historical fact. Human relationships, even on a personal level quite apart from national and international events, always have causative antecedents which bring about subsequent results. Events occur in every period to create the impression of trauma and disaster with resulting angst.

PSALM 71:1-6. Vs. 6 presents an excellent opportunity to address one of the critical moral issues of our time, the debate on scientific research into and cloning of embyronic cells. Of course, the psalmist was totally ignorant of such sophisticated scientific issues that confront us today. Life in his mother’s womb was about as much as the psalmist knew. How he got there had some relation to sexuality and human reproduction, but apart from that, the process of conception and embryonic development was a mystery. It is most likely that the Hebrews shared the general view of most ancient cultures that the male sperm was the vessel, frequently called “the seed” as in plants, in which life was transmitted from generation to generation. The female womb, though important, was no more than the receptacle in which life of the child grew before birth.

On the other hand, the life of a child in the womb, whether the child was male or female, was also considered as a sacred gift of Yahweh to the Israelites. Israel’s covenant with Yahweh as a specially chosen people added a further element of holiness to sexuality, conception and childbirth. Religious controls over sexual practices and marriage also sprang from this sense that human sexuality is holy. It is this element of holiness which religious traditions have added to the debate about embryonic research and cloning.

This is an issue with which all religious people must struggle: When does “human” life begin in the spiritual as well as the physical sense? A further issue is whether a clump of cells less than a week old with the potential for growing into a child in a mother’s womb has eternal as well as temporal value. To some extent the debate can be avoided by the harvesting of stem cells from the umbilical blood of a newborn infant. This issue has to be set over against the value of the medical benefits scientific research may derive for other living humans with a deficient genetic structure or diseases which may be healed through the introduction of new embryonic or umbilical stem cells.

We may well have something to contribute to the debate among puzzled members of our congregations. After all, we proclaim the gospel of eternal divine love incarnate in a child born in a mother’s womb. Put it this way: When did Jesus become a living, human being?

LUKE 13:10-17. While Israel generally is regarded as a modern secular state, it still must give appropriate recognition to the more fundamentalist religious elements of its Jewish population. In the past weeks an open debate between ultra-orthodox rabbis who control the powerful rabbinical council have been in open conflict with Reformed and Conservative rabbis, many from the USA, who want the rules for who is an acceptable Jew in modern Israel relaxed so that their liturgies, marriages and other practices will be treated as valid.

Debates about the traditional Law of Moses still disturb the body politic to a considerable extent. Such arguments have serious political implications for the current government. The Likud party depends on the ultra-orthodox parties for sustaining a majority in the Knesset.

In recent years on any Sabbath day in Jerusalem, cars driven through parts of the city inhabited by ultra-orthodox Jews have been pelted with rocks and other debris for doing what is forbidden by the local residents.

“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”  Did Jesus turn this fourth commandment on its head? Well, he went to the synagogue, didn’t he? Didn’t that give him the freedom to spend the rest of the day freely, doing whatever he liked? Or did he just give us permission to do only what was good and loving and helpful for others?

That was a common view when I was a child in a small community in Quebec, Canada, that was 95% French Roman Catholic. The general rule in our town was that if you attended mass on Sunday morning, it was quite acceptable to go visiting, attend baseball or ice hockey games, the horse races or a political meeting in the afternoon. This was also the general practice for the few Protestant village and farm families when the morning chores were done. Was this local culture the reason why many of my generation in the Protestant families married Roman Catholics and raised their children in that religious tradition? Was it the family culture of two of the families most regularly at worship subsequently there were two members of the order of ministry and several lay leaders in that and later in other congregations?

Many years later I read a book, “The Revenge of the Methodist Bicycle Company,” describing the struggle for a more open Sunday in Toronto in the 1890s. For several years the city council had struggled to keep the street railway system out of bankruptcy. Finally, it was decided against the stern opposition of some of the leading Protestant churches, the council voted to let the street railway operate on Sundays.

The argument mounted against it was that the labouring folk who were the greater users of the system would go off to the beaches or skating rinks on Sundays. They would then be too late or tired to attend the Sunday evening services. In those days, those were always the best attended services. There was no better form of Sunday evening entertainment than the lively singing and a rousing sermon. That was the time and place when young people did their courting in an acceptable milieu.

However, a group of Methodist businessmen organized a new company that manufactured the newly invented bicycle. All summer long, the folk who wanted to go to Toronto’s famous lakefront beaches could do as they pleased by getting themselves bicycles and riding away while the street cars passed by empty and losing even more money by operating on Sundays.

It was another 40 years before professional baseball or hockey games were allowed in Toronto. And another 30 years before stores and shopping centres were permitted to open for business.

So how do we spend our Sundays in 2010 when only a small minority of the people anywhere ever go near a church to worship? Does it matter any more in this secular age? How is faith expressed most effectively on the Sabbath day?

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 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

ASCENSION OF THE LORD

Thursday, May 13, 2010.

 [These readings are provided for those who celebrate the Ascension of the Lord on the appointed day or on the following Sunday, the Seventh Sunday of Easter.]

ACTS 1:1-11. The author of the Acts of the Apostles, traditionally believed to have been Luke, intended his work to be the completion of the story he had to tell. The main character, however, was not Jesus but the Holy Spirit. In order for the narrative to continue, the hero of the gospel had to leave the scene.

Not fully understanding the messianic message, the disciples wanted to know what lay ahead. Jesus had to repeat his counsel that the future was known only to God. Their role was to wait for gift of the Spirit and to be witnesses to what they had seen and heard while he had been with them. They stand amazed as the risen Christ ascends to the clouds symbolizing his divine sovereignty.

PSALM 47 or PSALM 93. Both of these psalms came from a small collection celebrating the sovereignty of God. They were probably used at the annual celebration of the enthronement of God as Israel’s true monarch.

EPHESIANS 1:15-23. This is the heart of a typical Hebrew berakah, or celebratory prayer of praise and thanksgiving. Here Paul, or some other author writing in his name, celebrates the sovereignty of God represented by the redemptive work of Christ.

LUKE 24:44-53. Jesus’ final appearance to his disciples included a slightly different account of the ascension. Before leaving, he taught them to interpret his messianic mission, for which he now commissioned them, in relation to the Hebrew scriptures. Before beginning their witness, they were to await the gift of the Spirit.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

ACTS 1:1-11. As the first paragraph points out, the author of the Acts of Apostles intended his work to be the completion of the story he had to tell. The main character, however, was not Jesus of Nazareth, as in the Gospel of Luke, but the Holy Spirit. In order for the narrative to continue, the hero of the gospel had to leave the scene.

It should be noted, however, that the details in this passage differ from those in the concluding paragraph of the gospel. In the latter instance, the departure took place immediately after Jesus’ final appearance. In this instance, there have been many appearances over a period of forty days. According to this narrative, the apostles had to wait several more days before being baptized by the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ instructions to wait in Jerusalem until they received the Spirit provided the necessary linkage between the two versions.

Ever wishing to know what lay ahead and still thinking in earthly terms, the disciples asked if this was the time for the restoration of the Israel’s kingdom. The messianic message had still not fully dawned on them. So Jesus had to repeat his counsel that the future was known only to God. Their role was to receive the Spirit and to be witnesses to what they had seen and heard while he had been with them.

In vss. 7-8, Jesus further stated the inclusive, universal nature of their mission. As Galileans, most of the apostles would have recognized this when he named Samaria. But the hyperbole “to the ends of the earth” would have been stretching their minds to a considerable extent. Are we fully aware even yet of what that commission means? Does it mean merely telling of Jesus and preaching the gospel in distant lands? That was the evangelical goal at the beginning of the 20th century when the slogan (“winning the world for Christ in this century”) was bruited throughout North America. We definitely failed to do that, didn’t we? So what does the mission look like now that our missionary evangelism, widely condemned as religious imperialism, has met a resurgence of other traditions of faith?

As in these opening paragraphs of Acts, this is no time for standing gazing at the clouds. We have work to do between the ascension of Christ and his promised return. Of this we can be certain, this incident is all the assurance we need that Jesus Christ is sovereign Lord over all.

PSALM 47. This psalm is often included with Pss. 93, and 96-98 as Psalms of Yahweh’s Enthronement. Just as in the Babylonian liturgy, the god Marduk was installed to exercise dominion over the nations at the beginning of the new year, so also post-exilic Israel adopted a similar liturgical celebration for the new year’s festival.

The psalmist celebrates the sovereignty of Yahweh over all nations, but supremely over Israel whom Yahweh loves. The opening verse summons all peoples to join Israel in rejoicing. This has been interpreted as a triumphal song of victory over the Canaanite gods whom Yahweh displaced after the conquest of the land by the Israelites. The supreme Canaanite god, Ras Shamra, also received the distinction of being called the Most High. The term quickly became a significant designation for Yahweh in the Israelite ideology.

In vs. 5-7, the image of Yahweh “going up” amid a fanfare of trumpets described a procession of Yahweh as represented by the monarch amid enthusiastic applause of the multitude. The pageantry of the coronation of the British monarchy follows a very similar pattern. The monarchs and heads of state of the world’s many nations gathered when Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953. More recently, we have seen heads of many states gather for the funerals of national figures like King Hussein of Jordan, Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Presidents of the United States of America.

The last image of vs. 9, the shields of the earth, symbolizes the role of monarchs as the protectors of their people. In like manner, the psalmist claims that those shields for Yahweh, Sovereign above all others.

PSALM 93. (Alternate) This psalm belongs to the same group of enthronement psalms identified by the early 20th century German scholar Mowinckle. The idea of the kingship attributed to the chief god had a long and well established history in other near Eastern traditions. The New Year festival of enthronement provided a necessary reiteration of this myth. Israel adopted this myth early in its religious history, hence the references to creation in vss. 2-4. The concept came to the fore in the post-exilic period when the human monarchy no longer existed. This psalm reflects both periods. In vs. 5, the reconstructed temple of Yahweh and the Torah displaced the human monarch as the symbolic representative of Yahweh(s sovereignty.

EPHESIANS 1:15 23. According to one scholar, John C. Kirby, the first three chapters of the letter take the form of a typical Hebrew berakah, or celebratory prayer of praise and thanksgiving. This passage forms the heart of that prayer.   Here Paul, or some other author writing in his name, celebrates the sovereignty of God represented by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Some of the psalms follow the same pattern and contain the same basic ingredients: God as creator and deliverer of Israel. (Cf. Ps. 105) Similar prayers have also been found in the Dead Sea scrolls from Qumran written in the 1st century CE with which Paul may well have been familiar. (Ephesians: Baptism and Pentecost.McGill University Press,1968)

Primarily, the faith of the apostle and the Ephesians in the absolute sovereignty of Christ finds expression in this prayer. On the other hand, there is a narrative aspect to the passage. It is addressed not to God, but to the recipient community. As Kirby pointed out, what may have begun as a liturgy and a sermon for baptismal candidates at Pentecost was later re-written as a formal letter in somewhat traditional style. This would account for the narrative of vss. 15-16 where the apostle speaks directly to his intended audience. The succeeding verses of the passage give the content of his prayer for them lifting up his essential message of absolute divine sovereignty exercised through Christ.

Many scholars have noted the similarities between this letter and the Letter to the Colossians. In Colossians 1:4 an almost identical phrase to the phrase in vs. 15 appears: “your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints.” Commenting on the meaning but not the correlation of the two passages, Eduard Schweizer wrote that this can only mean that faith must be lived out as love in the same way that Jesus lived and died. This characteristic distinguishes the church community from its secular environment. “Knowledge of Christ is characterized so emphatically as something that must be lived out in an ethical way…. Christ is the place in which the community lives, the atmosphere in which it thrives, and which does indeed permeate it.” (Schweizer, Eduard. The Letter to the Colossians: A Commentary. Augsburg, 1982)

The special gift Paul prayed these Christians would receive through their faith and the love they embody is the wisdom and revelation of God, a knowledge of God, the source of all life and truth. Significantly, the Greek text uses the word sophia rather  than gnosis. This distinguished the true Christian revelation from the Gnostic mysteries that so plagued the church during the 2^nd century CE. Yet the apostle also claimed that an “enlightenment” does occur, but in the heart, not the intellect. The knowledge received comes in the form of a hope and an awareness of the future inheritance to which God’s power destined the believers. This power was evident in the resurrection and ascension of Christ to the right hand of God – i.e. to the place of divine sovereignty.  Being now in Christ, as his body, Christians were assured of sharing in the same inheritance as their Lord and Saviour.

The power of faith is not only oriented to the distant future or even to life beyond death for each one of us. The gift is also for living in the present. It is as if the future had already happened. In Christ, the apostle was saying, it had already happened for those who have been baptized. In a very elaborate way, he reiterated exactly what baptism symbolized for him: to die and be buried with Christ then raised with Christ to live entirely committed in love for God and for others.

LUKE 24:44 – 53. In this passage, Luke tells us that as he took his final leave of the disciples, Jesus did several things. He confirmed what the Hebrew scriptures had prophesied about him. He taught them to interpret those scriptures in reference to his messianic mission of revealing God’s love for all humanity. He then commissioned them to undertake this same mission in his name. He bid them wait in Jerusalem until they had been empowered for their mission. Finally, he gave them his blessing. While waiting, the disciples engaged in their traditional worship in the temple (vs. 53).

It is obvious that as late as the 80s CE when Luke’s Gospel was written, Christians  still regarded themselves as a part of historic Israel. On the other hand, they had no scriptures other than those with which they were familiar. So it was natural that they should look to the sacred literature of Judaism, whether in Hebrew or more probably in Greek, for a foreshadowing of what they had witnessed and were now commissioned to spread throughout the world. Not only the words of Jesus of Nazareth whom they now called the Messiah/Christ , but the wisdom of the ancient writings of the Torah, prophets of Israel, the Psalms and other writings were to guide them in their witness.

The ascension received was not fully described in the brief sentence at the end in this account. Jesus made no more than a quiet exit with a prayer of blessing. Did Luke already have in mind the sequel to his narrative and keep the more dramatic departure for that story? Professor George Caird noted that this quiet leaving has a close resemblance to the account in John 20:19-29. Some manuscripts of Luke were even amplified by interpolations from John. The stress on witness and the command to remain in Jerusalem provide a significant link to the more expanded version in the early chapters of Acts. The apostolic witness remained centred in Jerusalem until the Sanhedrin undertook a severe persecution after the martyrdom of Stephen.

Note also the absence of any mention in this passing of the Spirit to the apostles. For the early church, the Spirit was not a doctrine or a person as the later Trinitarian creeds stated, but to quote Caird “an access to power to be received.” (cf. Acts 19:2, 1 Thess. 1:5,  Heb. 2:4) In effect, Luke’s narrative ended with Jesus having departed and the disciples worshipping daily in the temple, the same place where it began in 1:5.

ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

(Related to all the above passages.)

In one way or another each of these readings refers to heaven. But what is heaven for us today? We need to remember that Jewish thought was not analytic and rational, as has been Western Christian thought since the Enlightenment. They used imaginative storytelling as their interpretive instrument. We might well call them creative right brain people, not left brain intellectuals. Thus their stories were intuitive and not always as explicit as we might wish, leaving us with numerous questions. For instance, how did they conceived “heaven” in Acts 1:1-11? Or did they conceive it at all, other than to imagine that Jesus “was taken up” (analémphté. from analambanein, repeated twice (vss. 1, 11) and hinted at a third time (vs. 9). The Greek word for heaven, ouranos, is not in the original text although it appears in most English versions.

In the two Psalms, God is perceived as an imperial potentate seated on a high throne. That metaphor was drawn from the most powerful political personage known in ancient times. The metaphor expressed a sense of infinite power, something which Israel lacked during the greater part of its history. Was that why King David was so greatly celebrated in their religious and political history?

Once again in the passage from Ephesians, heaven is alluded in typical Jewish manner. There we also find the same OT metaphor of Jesus enthroned at God’s right hand, but extended almost to infinity: “far above all government and authority, all power and dominion, and any title of authority that can be named, not only in this age but in the age to come.” (Oxford. NEB 1970) In short, hyperbole was used to define what lies beyond human experience and consciousness.

From modern astronomy and space research we know that heaven is not “up there.” The Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, “the first man in space,” is attributed with saying that “he looked and looked but did not see God.” To which someone replied, “If you did not see him on earth, how could you see him in space?” Nor would he have seen heaven, as John envisioned in Revelation 19-20.

If heaven does not have a geographical location or a physical reality, what then is “heaven” for us today? Is it just an imaginative metaphor for the dwelling place of God and now of Christ? Or is it just a pious hope currently being trashed by scripturally ignorant atheists like Dawkins et al?

Heinz Conzelmann in his The Theology of St. Luke (Fortress Press 1960) stated that Acts 1:11 suggests that the present is the time between God’s two advents seen as acts of salvation in Jesus Christ, the Incarnation and the Parousia.. He further claims that “the present is a time for hope, not psychological doubt, for it possesses the Spirit…. The present age is for Luke still a secular one, but it is possible to withstand the world. It is because Christian hope is based in redemptive history that the expectation of the temporal end of the world is not merely a traditional appendage, but an essential part of the hope.”

This insight comes from both Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:2, 4, & 9. In each instance, when Jesus took leave of the disciples he reassured them that they would receive the Spirit. That came on the Day of Pentecost. The Ascension took place ten days earlier marking the exaltation of Jesus following his humiliation on the cross. It was on this story of the Ascension that the Christian concept of transcendence and the hope of experiencing a better future was based. In Luke’s narrative, Pentecost would not have been possible, without the Ascension. Nor would the Christian life and history of the Church in this world, however ambiguous, have been possible. Our transcendent faith that God always has been, is still, and always will be in control of the universe is proclaimed in the Ascension narrative.

But hope, like transcendence, is an aspect of human consciousness. Is heaven, then, no more than the universal consciousness that lifts our muddled meanderings from birth to death to a spiritual state where we really experience eternal life? To put it In the words of Bishop John Shelby Spong: “The goal of all religion is not to prepare us to enter the next life; it is a call to live now, to love now, to be now and in that way to taste what it means to be a part of a life that is eternal, a love that is barrier-free and the being of a fully self-conscious humanity.”

Spong goes on to identify three issues that everyone who thinks about heaven and/or eternal life must face: 1) Does this vision free us to trust the journey through the vicissitudes and tragedies of life? 2) Is it sufficiently personal as to be real as people demand? And 3) will we know our loved ones? He answers the first two very positively , although not in the traditional vocabulary. Regarding the third he is more equivocal: “If any of us is to share in the eternity of God, these lives that are so deeply a part of who we are must also share in that eternity with us. That is quite enough for me.” (Eternal Life: A New Vision. HarperOne, 2009. 204; 207-209)

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

Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 9, 2010

 ACTS 16: 9-15. This important transitions story marks the beginning of what scholars call a series of eyewitness accounts in which the pronouns switch from “they” to “we.” Scholars have assumed that the man who appeared to Paul in the night was Luke himself, the presumed author of Acts.

The passage also marks the beginning of the Christian mission in Europe. Of all the congregations Paul founded, he had warmest feelings for the Philippians, as his letter to that community shows.  

 PSALM 67. This simple hymn of praise may well have been a thanksgiving prayer after a successful harvest had brought relief from a severe famine. The psalm may have been sung antiphonally during the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jewish thanksgiving festival. The untranslatable word, Selah, may have indicated a place for cymbals to sound.    

 REVELATION 21:10, 22-22:5. In John’s closing vision, he saw God’s holy city of the redeemed, for which God and Christ provide eternal light and life. A vision by the prophet Ezekiel and the Garden of Eden provided Old Testament models for the New Jerusalem. All believers may share this beatific vision made possible by the visible presence of God and Christ. Note that the whole scene takes place on earth, there is not temple or church, and God’s dwelling is among us, not “in the distant heavens” or outer space.

 JOHN 14:23-29. In these words attributed to Jesus John summed up the essential meaning of the Christ coming among us. His promise to send his Holy Spirit to dwell in, guide and strengthen his disciples is still valid. He is the ever present Lord available to everyone in all of life’s daily experiences.

JOHN 5:1-9. (Alternate)   This alternate reading presents us with the narrative of another miracle that leads to an expository discourse about Jesus’ authority deriving from God rather than from the legal restrictions of the Jewish Sabbath.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

 ACTS 16:9-15. This is one of the important transitions in the story Luke is telling in Acts. It is the beginning of what scholars call a series of eyewitness accounts in which the pronouns switch from “they” to “we.” It has often been questioned whether Luke himself was the man who appeared to Paul in the night. But debate about the source of the “We” passages has generally concluded with Ramsay’s thesis of 1896 that these came from the author of the two volumes, the Gospel of Luke and Acts traditionally attributed to Luke.

It is significant that all the eyewitness passages (this one, together with 20:5-19, 21:1-18 and 27:1-28:16) include extensive sea voyages. This has prompted some analysts to suggest that Luke had access to a travel diary, perhaps his own or that of some other companion of Paul. Secondly, the effect of the “we” passages, according to Brevard Childs, “is to bring a broader confirmation of the apostolic witness and ground the material in a communal experience.” This literary device is distinct from other literary techniques Luke uses, but serves the same theological purpose of witnessing to the common faith proclaimed by all the apostles. It “render(s) the testimony in a particular fashion which serves to bridge the gap between the original author and the subsequent reader.” (Childs, Brevard S. The New Testament As Canon – An Introduction. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985.)

Of all the congregations with which Paul was associated, he had warmest feelings for the Philippians, as his letter to that community showed. Yet unlike his visits to the Jewish Diaspora in Galatia, he did not find a synagogue in Philippi. Was there no Jewish community in that important Roman city? Or were they too few in number, since only ten male Jews were required to form a synagogue? Lydia appears to have been a Gentile “worshipper of God” (vs. 14) in whose home Paul made his headquarters?

The Greek word thus translated, sebomenos (Eng. = devout), appears several times elsewhere in Acts along with phoboumenos (Eng. = God-fearing) describing Gentiles who demonstrated sincere spiritual concerns. (cf. 10:2; 13:43, 50; 17:4, 17; 18:7). It is also possible that “a certain woman named Lydia” actually means “a woman from Lydia,” an ancient kingdom which under Rome became part of the province of Asia in which the prosperous city of Thyatira was located. If so, she may be identified with either Euodia or Syntyche of Phil. 4:2.

It also appears that she was a business woman or a widow who had taken over her former husband’s trade, as identified by being “a seller of purple.” Purple was the most valuable of ancient dyes, the source of which was a mollusk, each shade created by using different species of mollusk. The Hebrews valued the colour highly as a symbol of distinction, wealth and royalty. However we hypothesize about such minutiae, one thing is certain: in this instance, Paul’s testimony in Philippi marks the beginning of the Christian mission in Europe of which we too are the heirs.

 PSALM 67. This simple hymn of praise may well have been a thanksgiving prayer after a successful harvest had brought relief from a severe famine. (vs. 6)  It most likely found an appropriate place in the feast of Tabernacles (Succoth) prominently observed after the Exile. As a time for singing and dancing, this festival featured many liturgical compositions which may also have included such Psalms as 113-119 and 136.

The untranslatable word, Selah, which occurs twice in the text, may have indicated a place for cymbals to sound. The superscription indicates that stringed instruments were also used as accompaniment. Human voices in chorus, however, made the main music of worship in the temple. The psalm would have been sung antiphonally.

Another notable quality of this psalm is its missionary character drawn from such sources as Deutero-Isaiah and Jonah. God’s goodness to Israel, so visible in the abundant harvest, should be a revelation to all the world of God’s righteous ways in dealing with those who trust God. Accordingly, all nations should join Israel in reverence and praise.

REVELATION 21:10, 22-22:5. In John’s closing vision, he sees the New Jerusalem, God’s holy city of the redeemed, for which God and Christ provide eternal light and life. New Testament authors generally used Old Testament references to tell of how God’s redemptive purpose would be fulfilled through Christ. The models for the New Jerusalem were a vision by the prophet Ezekiel (47:1-12) Ezekiel and the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:9-10). This beatific vision is made possible for all believers by the visible presence of God and Christ.

Quite rightly, the reading excludes the dimensions and description of the holy city, for these are symbolic. In fact, there is a double symbolism in that the city is also a bride bejewelled for her wedding.  So conservative an interpreter as Dr. Billy Graham has said that this passage does no more than describe heaven as a beautiful place where the faithful will live eternally with and should not be taken literally. But this is not heaven which John envisions.

Note especially where 21:10 places this eternal city of the redeemed. Most conceptions of the future life of the redeemed relocate earthbound creation and humanity to heaven. John does the very opposite: the heavenly city comes down to earth. There but one meaning for this statement. As Professor George Caird has pointed out: “To the crack of doom Jersualem can never appear otherwise than coming down out of heaven, for it owes its very existence to the condescension of God and not to the building up of men.”

The absence of the temple also has considerable significance. It symbolizes two essential aspects of Jewish thought and religion. One the one hand, it clarified the distinction between the holy and the common, the clean and the unclean. The temple was holy in that it had been set aside for the special service of God, separated from everyday, common use. On the other hand, the temple also represented the presence of God in the midst of God’s people, and God’s claim on the whole of the secular world. The fact that there is now no temple in the holy city means that the divine presence is no longer confined to a sanctuary set apart, but pervades the whole city and the world it represents.

Still more must be said about John’s vision of the holy city. The disappearance of the old and the condescension of the new conveys a dynamic redemptive message. Into the holy city come the nations and kings of the earth. Those who once trampled the holy city under foot have now come with willing tribute to adorn it. As Caird wrote: “Nothing from the old order which has value in the sight of God is debarred from entry into the new…. The treasure that men find laid up in heaven turns out to be the treasures and the wealth of the nations, the best they have known and loved redeemed of all imperfections and transfigured by the radiance of God….Nowhere in the New Testament do we find a more eloquent statement than this of the all-embracing scope of Christ’s redemptive work.”  (G.B. Caird. The Revelation of St. John the Divine. Black’s New Testament Commentary. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1966. p. 278-280.)

 JOHN 14:23-29. We cannot tell if any of these words attributed to Jesus were part of the remembered tradition of what he actually said.  John appears to have cobbled together several disjointed themes within this much loved chapter of his Gospel. The way in which the editors of the lectionary have separated the various readings only serves to make the problem worse. There seems to no reason to separate Judas’ question (vs. 22) from the answer Jesus gave (vs. 23-24), nor to isolate that question and answer from the preceding segment about keeping the commandments to receiving the Father’s love. There is, however, some justification for the separation of the next segment (vs. 25ff) which the NRSV designates by a new paragraph. The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1952,  p. 707-715) seems to have done better by placing vss. 18-31 in three distinct sections: vss. 18-24, “the threefold union;” vss. 25-26, “the second Paraclete saying;” (the first Paraclete saying is in vss. 15-17) and vss. 27-31, “peace, joy and security.” In many respects, all such distinctions are speculative, for the original Greek text had no paragraphing or punctuation whatsoever and was written in capital letters.

In this particular reading, John was dealing with the issue of the church living in a hostile world at the end of the 1^st century CE without the visible presence of Christ. He told his community through these words attributed to Jesus that obedience and love are the conditions ruling the life of the church and therefore guaranteeing the sense of Christ’s living presence as God’s representative. He then went on to make an additional promise that the Holy Spirit would teach them and bring to their remembrance all that Christ had said to them. Was John here speaking about the Jesus’ story he was then actually writing down for his community? And did he also refer to what Calvin many centuries later would describe as “the inner testimony of the Spirit” enabling us to interpret holy scripture?

The final parting words John had Jesus speak have brought peace and security to countless distressed Christians. John obviously regarded the trials his community might be facing as similar to that which Jesus himself faced the night he was betrayed. The closer he came to the cross, the greater was Jesus’ sense that his ultimate of security lay in loving obedience to God’s will, not in his own desire for a longer life. This did not in any way remove him from the consequences of what others like Judas Iscariot, Caiaphas or Pilate would do. This was no facile counsel like “love God and do what you will,” as Augustine said five centuries later. Rather, this was the ultimate act of faith. For the disciples, for John’s community and for us, this is still so, as vs. 29 assures us.

JOHN 5: 1-9. (Alternate)   The reason for this alternate reading is not immediately obvious. It presents us with the narrative of another miracle that leads to an expository discourse about Jesus’ authority deriving from God rather than from the legal restrictions of the Jewish Sabbath.

John is very specific about the location of the pool called Bethzatha, but modern archeology has never satisfactorily discovered it. His description of the porticoes gives some background details about that fill out the where many invalids sheltered awaiting for the moment when an eruption of the water would provide a magical cure.

At first glance, Jesus’ challenge to the paralytic seems uncaring. Why else would he have laid there for thirty-eight years? Or is this just an extended period of time that John used to make the miracle seem all the more astonishing? The paralytic’s response seems pathetic, but still emphasized his credulity in the legend that the pool had magical powers.

Jesus’ initiative in selecting this man among many at the pool focused attention on his authority what God desires for every invalid: health of body, mind and spirit. Performing this miracle on the Sabbath set up the issue John wished to discuss at greater length: Jesus’ conflict with the Jews about his authority over all of life.

Additional Preaching Points:

• ACTS 16: 9-15.  Despite Lydia’s appearance only in this passage, creating a fictional background story about her could be a useful means of introducing the significant role women played in the ministry of Paul. Paul’s letters often referred to specific women who became leaders in the church or whose quarrels mitigated the appeal of the gospel and the mission of the church. This would counter the negative references to women often raised in some circles today against the role of women in leadership positions in the church or business.

• PSALM 67. Having recently witnessed from afar the 60th    anniversary of the refounding of Israel, we can easily imagine the unrestrained celebrations of the Feast of Tabernacles during which this psalm may have had a significant part.

Bruce Chilton hypothesized that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and angry driving of the moneychangers from the temple actually occurred on the Feast of Tabernacles. The triumphal into Jerusalem entry was a parade celebrating that feast, not a political statement at Passover as the synoptic gospel narrative depicts. The upsetting of the money changer’s tables was Jesus’ protest against the lucrative commercialization of sacrifices which he believed every Jew had the right to present from his own means, however meager. (Chilton, Bruce. Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography. Doubleday, 2000.)

• REVELATION 21-22.  For those who may have missed it, Rev. Ron McCreary, of Gray Memorial United Methodist Church, Tallahassee, FL, commented that John’s vision of the New Jerusalem coming down out of  heaven from God and the assertion that God will tabernacle (NRSV “dwell”) with humankind, is a vision of the answer to the phrase from the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven.”

This important insight is in keeping with such positive attitude toward history described in the new work of Jeremy Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization. Rifkin presents the view that, in the age of global electronic communication, following the empathic directive traditionally expressed in the Golden Rule is the best way to avoid total disaster through global conflict or environmental neglect.    (See more in Additional Preaching Points accompanying the lessons Fourth Sunday of Easter, April 25, 2010.)

• JOHN 14:23-29. It may seem inviting to link this gospel excerpt with a similar English words “dwelling” and “dwell” used in Revelation 21:3.  But be careful because the Greek words used in each instance were notably different. In John 14, the Greek verb was meno (English = remain; abide in KJV); “make our home” in NRSV); whereas in Revelation, the Greek verb was skéno (English = tabernacle). There was not only a different emphasis, but a significantly different meaning.

 Meno implied an enduring state of being present in the here and now, with a expectancy permanence in the future. Skéno referred to the tent or tabernacle where Yahweh was believed to reside temporarily as a symbol of protection and communion during Israel’s wandering in the wilderness. But in Revelation 21:1 & 22, there was no temple in the New Jerusalem, for it had vanished with the first earth, and God and the Lamb were its temple. Therefore, linking the two passages implies that it is the Spirit that makes the presence of God and Jesus Christ a permanent reality to the Church in every age, not the magnificent temples that we erect “to the glory of God.”

•  JOHN 5: 1-9. (Alternate).  Several sites in ancient Jerusalem have been considered as possible locations for the Pool of Bethesda (Beth-Zatha). A discovery made in 1888 by a German archaeologist best meets the biblical description.  In Jesus’ times it lay on the north side of the Old City walls at the foot of what was then known as Mount Bethzetha. Today it lies within the grounds of property owned by the “White Fathers,” near the Church of St. Anne. This is also close to the Arch of Ecce Home where the Via Dolorosa begins. This site suits well with descriptions by Origen and Eusebius in the 3^rd and 4^th centuries CE. Today tourists are shown this site as the best verified.  

Vs. 4 in the KJV regarding angels disturbing the waters does not exist in the best manuscripts. Scholars regard it as a 2^nd century CE interpolation. It was included in a footnote in the RSV and NRSV. The legend is believed to have risen to explain the phenomenon of a spring occasionally erupting in a ruddy stream of water.

There is doubt as to the pool’s use for the purpose named, the Sheep-Pool in vs. 2. It is believed to come from the practice of sheep being washed in a liturgical ceremony to prove their unblemished quality for sacrifice at the Passover. If so, a nearby gate, no longer visible beneath the massive north walls of the temple precincts, would have given access to the temple for the actual sacrifice.

For more information see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Fathers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda

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