John Shearman's Lectionary

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?

INTRODUCTIONS TO THE SCRIPTURE

Second Sunday After Pentecost

Proper 5  Ordinary 10

June 6, 2010

(NOTE: During the Season of Pentecost, some traditions follow a different set of readings from the Old Testament and Psalms. These alternate readings will be included in both the brief introductions and the more complete analyses.)

I KINGS 17:8-16. (Alternate 17:17-24) This passage introduces of a series of stories in which Elijah the prophet appears as God’s spokesperson in very difficult times during the 9^th century BCE. Both passages reveal Elijah as a man of God who follows God’s directions. The alternate reading raises the serious question of how we deal with the all too common experience of having good things turn out badly. Does such experiences hinder us from following God’s will to love others with abandon, “wastefully,” as John S. Spong says?

PSALM 146. This brief psalm of praise, one of the five exultant hymns that end the Psalter, celebrates the hopes of Israel in God’s desire for freedom and justice.

PSALM 30. (Alternate) The psalmist praises God for saving him from death in a critical illness. After at first expressing overconfidence about God’s favor, he realizes how much he owes to God for answering his prayer of distress.

GALATIANS 1:11-24. To convince the Galatians of his trustworthiness, Paul reviews his past as a  faithful Jew who first persecuted the Christians in Jerusalem, then received his own call to be an apostle to the Gentiles in a direct revelation from Jesus himself.

LUKE 7:11-17. This passage tells of Jesus raising a widow’s only son is reminiscent of a similar miracle performed by Elijah. Undoubtedly that Old Testament story influenced Luke’s narrative, as the people’s astonished reaction shows.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

I KINGS 17:8-16 (Alternate 17:17-24). This passage introduces of a series of stories in which Elijah the prophet appears as God’s spokesperson in very difficult times during the 9^th century BCE. Frequent references to Elijah in the New Testament Gospels indicate how important this cycle of stories was in the Hebrew scriptures.

After the reigns of David and Solomon, a civil war had divided their kingdom in two. The northern ten tribes continued the name of Israel but were ruled by kings not descended from David with Samaria as their capital city. Judah, formed by the southern two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, was smaller and weaker, but maintained the Davidic dynasty and its capital in Jerusalem.

Elijah the Tishbite, came from Gilead, one of ten tribal regions of the northern kingdom Israel. He was a strong leader of Yahwism during a time of serious encroachment by Baalism from the coastal region of Tyre. His dominant opponent was Jezebel, King Ahab’s Tyrian queen. It is manifestly significant that these two incidents took place in Sidon, also on the coast and closely associated with Tyre.

No clear information has ever been found as to the location of Tishbe in Gilead, the name of the town from which Elijah supposedly came. Some maps do show the site of Tishbe near the Wadi Cherith in Gilead, an eastern tributary of the Jordan River. The name may have been related to an occupational name for a tribe of non-native settlers, (“one of the toshab class”) the Kenites, renamed the Rechabites, whom Solomon engaged in the importation of horses and chariots (1 Kings 10:26-29).After following instructions from Yahweh to go to the Wadi Cherith, Elijah was sustained during a severe drought and famine by ravens that brought him food morning and evening (vss. 2-7). A subsequent message from Yahweh sent the prophet to Zarephath, a town near Sidon on the Mediterranean coast. There he asked a widow for food and drink, but she pleaded that she had only enough for herself and her son before suffering from starvation. Elijah promised in Yahweh’s name that her meal and oil would never run out (vss. 8-16) Later, according to the alternate reading (vss. 17-24), the widow’s son became ill and died, but Elijah revived him in a vividly described demonstration of the power of prayer.

Both passages reveal Elijah as a man of God who obeyed divine commands to go wherever he was sent. In doing so, he provided sustenance for a widow whose jars of meal and oil miraculously never failed and subsequently raised the widow’s son from the dead.

PSALM 146. This brief psalm of praise, one of the five exultant Hallel psalms that end the Psalter, celebrates the hopes of Israel in God’s desire for freedom and justice. The prophetic theme of hope of restoration sounds through the latter part of the song. It sings the praise of Yahweh as creator and redeemer, especially of those who are powerless and marginalized.

Vs. 3 points out the sharp contrast between the trustworthiness of Yahweh and the inconsistency of mortal sovereigns. The psalmist knew this from Israel’s long history of monarchs who failed to provide peace and security for their people in violent times much like those of our time in the Middle East.

Vss. 7b-9 repeats the name of Yahweh five times, as always translated “the Lord.” One can imagine those familiar with the words joining their voices to the cantor in a jubilant crescendo as the divine tetragrammaton YHWH was recited in whatever way this sacred name was used. Then in the closing benediction proclaiming the eternal sovereignty of Yahweh, the congregation responds with a final outburst of praise.

PSALM 30. (Alternate) The psalmist praises God for saving him from death in a critical illness. After at first expressing a certain overconfidence about God’s favor (vss. 6-7), he realizes how much he owes to God for answering his prayer of distress.

It is natural for a person to be exuberant about being restored suddenly to good health. Even with modern medicine capable of curing or alleviating many of the most severe illnesses once regarded as fatal less than a century ago, the fear of death persists. The Psalmist’s fear of death was expressed in vs. 2.

The Pit was another common Old Testament term, among several others, for the abode of the dead. Sheol was by far the most common, occurring sixty six times. Unlike the others, however, it was unique to the Hebrew language, and does not occur in any other Semitic language. Generally, the various terms for the abode of the dead conveyed the idea of a permanent, shadowy, chaotic but silent place. No Old Testament reference contains any concept of punishment or torment. The concept of an infernal hell came into existence only during the Hellenistic period probably influenced by Persian ideas.

The traditional concept of illness resulting from divine anger still lingers as the philosophical matrix of the poem (vs. 5). Despite this shadowed background to the psalm and the loss of prosperity, the poet had unmitigated praise for God’s beneficence. His pride had been restored to the extent that he could question divine justice in the death he had so recently escaped (vs. 9). His mourning had been transformed into joy (vs. 11).

In the 2^nd century BC, the psalm came into liturgical use for the rededication of the temple by Judas Maccabaeus now celebrated at the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

GALATIANS 1:11-24. To convince the Galatians of his trustworthiness, Paul reviewed his past as a faithful Jew who first persecuted the Christians in Jerusalem, then received his own call to be an apostle to the Gentiles in a direct revelation from Jesus himself.

Paul often appeared as a person uncertain of his acceptance in the early Christian Church. In several of his letters, notably Corinthians and Galatians, he tried to reinforce his apostleship by frankly acknowledging how he had persecuted the church. At times he revealed a very low self-image, to use a modern psychological term for this personality trait. (Cf. 1 Cor. 15:9; Eph. 3:8)

On the other hand, Paul did not leave the matter there. He quickly asserted that his call to be the apostle to the Gentiles came directly from Jesus whose risen presence he had experienced in a dramatic epiphany on the Damascus Road. Because he was so deeply conscious of and perhaps still felt guilty about his previous life, he put that experience in the context of grace. In vs. 15 of this passage, he also described his vocation as preordained from birth.

Paul’s further elaboration of what he did after his conversion does not correlate with other summaries we have of that period. Except in this passage, no mention is made of his three year Arabian sojourn. He could have been referring to the vast stretch of territory along the major trade route from Damascus to the Red Sea ,formerly known as Edom/Idumea, then in the hands of the Nabateans whose capital was in Petra southeast of the Dead Sea (Cf. Acts 9:26-30; 26:12-20).

None of the sources should be treated as biography. However, in his Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography, Bruce Chilton states that it was during this time that Paul “worked out the implications of his vision for himself during three years of self-imposed exile from all the people he knew, whether in Jerusalem or Tarsus.” Thus we are left with somewhat incoherent details that must remain forever so, despite the adamant claim in Gal. 1:20, “In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!” Even the apostle must be seen as one who looked back on his life, in this passage at least, with some ambivalence.

LUKE 7:11-17. This passage tells of Jesus raising a widow’s only son was reminiscent of a similar miracle performed by Elijah. (1 Kings 17:17-24) Undoubtedly that Old Testament story influenced Luke’s narrative, as the people’s astonished reaction shows (vs. 16).

The emphasis in the story here was on Jesus’ compassion for the widow, not on his power to raise the dead. It exhibited Jesus’ gracious concern for the most vulnerable and helpless. By touching the bier, he exposed himself to contamination according to traditional Jewish holiness code. At the same time, he demonstrated that liturgical purity yields to the higher law of mercy (cf. Numbers 19:11). It is noteworthy that Jesus’ final action of giving the resuscitated man to his mother repeats the exact words of 1 Kings 17:23.

As Prof. George Caird asserted, there is no doubt the early church did have strong convictions that Jesus did return to life those whom others had declared dead. (Caird, George B. St. Luke. Pelican New Testament Commentaries, 1963, 110) Jesus is the source of life, Luke forcefully asserted in this pericope. So also should we be making the same assertion today.

While the story as Luke told it may cause skepticism to modern minds, there are significant values for our time to be found in his brief narrative of the miracle. To see the relevance of this pericope, we need only think of the contrast between governmental spending on weapons of war and that spent on education, health and alleviation of poverty in many nations including our own. There is also the steadily widening gap and lack of compromise between progressive and conservative political economies in Europe and North America regarding the ways to respond to the current financial crisis brought on by ever increasing national and international debt. Jesus did not offer political or economic solutions to modern problems. He did give us insight into God’s way of dealing with human misery and distress with endless compassion and kindness.

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

I KINGS 17:8-16. (Alternate 17:17-24). John Shelby Spong wrote the following in his weekly newsletter for May 5, 2010, in which he discussed the tragic death of a 25 year old daughter of close friends:

“Is it not in loving another and in giving ourselves to another that the essence of living and the joy of meaning are found? It is not easy to be human, but does not the joy outweigh the pain? So we have to choose. I choose life and love. I choose life-giving relationships even though this means that I must eventually endure pain and loss….

“If God is experienced as the source of life, then the only way to worship God is by living fully and, the more fully I live, the more this God, this source of life, becomes visible. I now see God as the source of love that is also in every living thing. Love is the power that enhances life and it is present in plants that turn their leaves to the sun, in the birds that feed their young in the nest, in the cat that licks the fur of its kittens, but this instinctual life-giving power comes to self-consciousness only in human beings. If God is experienced as the source of love, then the only way I can worship God is by loving wastefully, and the more wastefully I love, the more I  make God visible. “(Emphasis mine.)

GALATIANS 1:11-24. One historian described the Paul’s Arabian period as “a mysterious pause, a moment of suspense, in the apostle’s history, a breathless calm, which ushers in the tumultuous storm of his active missionary life.” See this website:

http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/paul.html .

Another website elaborates:

(http://www.truthinhistory.org/tracing-the-steps-of-the-apostle-paul.html)

“From the reading of the text in Acts 9:26-28 one would get the impression that Saul went directly from his escape at Damascus to Jerusalem. By his own admission he clarified the fact in his letter to the Galatians (1:16-17) that he “conferred not with flesh and blood” nor consulted with the Apostles in Jerusalem; but the Lord’s choice for him was to go to Arabia to be trained in the school of the Spirit in order that he might receive greater revelations concerning the mysteries of the Gospel of the glorified Christ.

“Nowhere in the Scriptures does it indicate which part of the vast area of Arabia he went to, but we can safely assume it was somewhere east of Damascus. In the writings of Luke in the book of Acts, he omits any mention of Paul’s trip to Arabia. At that time the area known as Arabia included the region governed by Aretas ( II Cor. 11:32) which extended from Damascus and east of the Jordan River south to Edom with Petra as its capital.”

Bruce Chilton added a note to his brief summary of the Arabian hiatus that there was no significant penetration of successful proselytizing among the   Nabateans in Acts. “Not mentioning Arabia would be sensible, however, if an apostle dear to Acts had tried to convert people there and gotten nowhere.” (Chilton, Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography. Image Books, Doubleday, 2004. 276, n.12)

LUKE 7:11-17. Is there some reason to think of Luke’s Gospel as a further extension Mark’s structure of the narrative of Jesus’ life as stories invented by to tie in with the weekly lectionary in the Hellenist Jewish synagogues? In Jesus for the Non-Religious J. S. Spong presents this thesis as the basis for  understanding how the Gospels were composed. The theory was first proposed by Michael Goulder (1974) following Austin Farrer who had discarded the Q theory dating from the early 20^th century (1957, 1966). This highly speculative approach states that Jesus life and death first set forth in Mark can be seen as a interpretive liturgy for Hellenist Jewish Christians of the Diaspora still gathering on the Sabbath in synagogues on the great Jewish festivals from Rosh Hashanah to Passover. Similarly, in Matthew and Luke the scriptures were read and reinterpreted in terms of the period extending from Passover to Rosh Hashanah again.

On May 13, 2010 J. S. Spong summarized the composition of the Gospels In his weekly newsletter published on the Internet:

“What Mark had done was to provide Jesus stories appropriate to the synagogue celebrations from Rosh Hashanah (the John the Baptist story) to Passover (the crucifixion story). Rosh Hashanah, however, comes in the mid fall of the year and Passover comes in the early spring, so the gospel of Mark only covered six and a half months of the twelve month year, leaving out the five and a half months that separate Passover from Rosh Hashanah. There was, therefore, a desire after Mark’s gospel appeared to fill in that blank space with additional Jesus material, which soon became an imperative need. Within about a decade, Matthew wrote the first expansion of Mark and aimed his story at the disciples of Jesus who worshipped in rather traditional Jewish synagogues. Luke wrote the second expansion of Mark and he aimed his story at the community of Jesus’ disciples who worshipped at synagogues that were made up of dispersed Jews and those Gentile proselytes, who were beginning to be drawn into the synagogue community.” (Origins of the New Testament – Part XXIII: Matthew and the Liturgical Year of the Synagogue in An New Christianity For A New World. Subscribe to website at $26 US annually here: http://www.johnshelbyspong.com/publicsite/index.aspx.)

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Third Sunday of Easter

April 18, 2010

 ACTS 9:1-6. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus marked the crucial turning point for the early church. As a multilingual, scholarly Jewish rabbi of the Diaspora (Jews who lived outside Israel), his controversy with the Jewish apostolic community in Jerusalem carried the Gospel beyond its Jewish boundaries. His many letters to congregations he founded began the process of creating the uniquely Christian scripture now forming our New Testament.

PSALM 30. This psalm of thanksgiving for recovery from a near-fatal illness came into liturgical use celebrating the re-dedication of the temple after the Maccabean Revolt of 165 BC. Its references to deliverance from death make it appropriate for use during the Easter season.

REVELATION 5:11-14. In John’s vision, the Lamb had been given the authority to open the scroll revealing God’s purpose of redeeming all of creation. The Lamb symbolized the crucified Christ whose victory over death began God’s final redemption. The twenty-four elders represent the task of the church to make God’s redemptive purpose known to the whole world.

JOHN 21:1-19. Scholarly consensus regards this chapter as an appendix to the Gospel. Jesus appeared in Galilee to several disciples who had returned to fishing. He showed that he had been raised from the dead by eating with the disciples. He also restored Peter’s leadership in the apostolic church in the light of Peter’s earlier denial.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

 ACTS 9:1-6. (Alternate reading includes vss. 7-20.) The conversion of Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus to persecute those who believed in Jesus’ resurrection marked the crucial turning point for the Apostolic Church. Some scholars go so far as to say that it was the beginning of the church. They argue that without Paul and his mission to the Gentiles, the church would have remained a Jewish sect and would have vanished with the Jerusalem Christian community in the disastrous Roman-Jewish War of 69-70 CE. The only other sect of Judaism to survive was the Pharisees. Over the next two or three centuries, they evolved into rabbinic Judaism.

What exactly do we know about Paul? As a multilingual, scholarly Jewish rabbi of the Diaspora, he was uniquely equipped to carry the Gospel beyond its Jewish boundaries. He was born a Hellenistic Jew in Tarsus, Cilicia and hence a Roman citizen. More than likely he was named both Saul and Paul from birth, his Jewish and Roman names. Tarsus was a seaport on the Mediterranean coast of Cilicia, now southern Turkey.  Paul’s family were engaged in commercial trade, for at times Paul made his living as a “tentmaker” or “leatherworker.” (Acts 18:3) It was then necessary for a rabbi to have a trade to live by. In some respects, however, that was an unusual trade for a Pharisee to follow. The Talmud of later rabbinic Judaism regarded tanning as a disreputable occupation for the devout. Because of the odours caused by their work, tanners were forced to live outside the city walls. Simon the tanner in whose house Peter had a vision of many unclean animals being declared clean lived by the seaside in Joppa. (Acts 9:43)

Paul called himself a strict Pharisee. (Phil. 3:5). A rising party within Judaism in the first half of the lst century CE, they assumed the leadership of the Jewish community after the destruction of the temple. The synagogues of the Diaspora became the main centres for their teaching ministry, as for Paul himself. According to Acts 22:3, Paul’s mentor was Gamaliel, the leading Pharisee of the day. Gamaliel (aka “the Elder”) was a member of the Sanhedrin, and the grandson of the famous Rabbi Hillel (ca. 60 BCE – 20 CE). His leadership prior to the Roman-Jewish War contributed largely to the influence of the Pharisees after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 CE. His grandson, Gamaliel II, led the Palestinian Jewish community in the last two decades of the 1^st century CE and the first two of the 2^nd century. His determined opposition to the Christian community resulted in their banishment from the synagogues after the assembly at Jabneh (Jamnia) ca. 85 CE.

It is unlikely that as a council of elite Jews with limited administrative and policing powers, the Sanhedrin had yet become the rabbinical court which later created the codification and commentary of rabbinic law in the Talmud and Mishnah after 200 CE. More probably, in Paul’s time, it had a role of administering the temple tax system and restraining the religious fervour of the recalcitrant Jewish population on behalf of their Roman overlords.

Following his conversion, Paul appears to have had a falling out with the Pharisees while at the same time making use of his earlier loyalties in his defense as an apostle. (Acts 15:5 cf. 26:5; Gal. 1:13-14.) Before then, with a mandate from the high priest to the Jewish synagogues in Damascus, he set out to bring all the members of the Christian sect he could identify back to Jerusalem as prisoners for trial before the Sanhedrin. One commentator has suggested that Paul’s mission to Damascus was “an under-cover operation” in which the prisoners would have been kidnapped and brought back to Jerusalem secretly. (Quoted from Hanson, R.P. C. The Acts, [Oxford, 1965] in A.N. Wilson’s Paul: The Mind of the Apostle. New York: Norton, 1997.) This possibility argues strongly for Paul having a responsible position in the temple police under the authority of the high priest and very closely aligned with the Roman administration.

En route to Damascus, Paul had an epiphany which he subsequently interpreted as being met by the risen Christ. (1 Cor. 15:8) There are major discrepancies between Luke’s version of this experience in Acts 9 and Paul’s own description of it in Galatians 1:11-17. The two make one point in common: The Jesus-story was never the same after this “conversion.” A.N. Wilson claimed, “The historicity of Jesus became unimportant the moment Paul had his apocalypse.”  According to Wilson, Paul’s genius shaped the Apostolic Church because he had a much wider experience of life in the Mediterranean world. He had also witnessed the religious experience of people other than Jews and their conversion to Christianity. This gave him a richer language-store and a different myth-experience, than some of the other NT writers whose “mythologies were limited to Jewish liturgy and folk-tale.”  (Wilson, 72-73) Thus he was chiefly responsible for transforming the Church into a Gentile institution.

 PSALM 30. This is a psalm of thanksgiving by a single individual for recovery from a near-fatal illness. Vss. 1-5 reflect this life-restoring experience. The illness had brought him so near to death that his healing was like redemption from the underworld (vs. 3). Thus his experience had given him a very personal sense of God’s favour as he offered his thanksgiving.

The next segment of the psalm (vss. 6-10) draws a picture of the psalmist’s former prosperity and false confidence: “I shall never be moved.” Devout though he may have been, he had been stricken with near fatal illness. He interpreted this as having overlooked the possibility that he might fall from God’s favour for no explicable reason other than that God might frown on him. In his distress, he cried out for help. His lament went so far as to employ the ancient belief that a deity with no one to praise him was extinct (vs. 9). In the end, it was God’s gracious initiative that saved him and gave him a new opportunity to sing God’s praise. (vss. 10-11)

W.R. Taylor, the exegete of this psalm in The Interpreter’s Bible (iv, 158), points to the superscription of the psalm as proof that the psalm came into liturgical use on the anniversaries of the dedication of the temple after the Maccabean Revolt of 165 BC. By then it was no longer a personal hymn of thanksgiving, but had become an expression of national faith that their survival was God’s doing and due solely to God’s grace and power. Such references to deliverance from death also make it relevant during the Christian celebration of Easter.

 REVELATION 5:11-14. This excerpt from John’s vision of the scroll (vss. 1-14) has lent itself to several interpretations. According to the late Professor George Caird, the scroll contains “God’s redemptive plan, foreshadowed by the OT, by which he means to assert his sovereignty over the sinful world and so achieves the purpose of creation….The redemptive plan, initiated by the archetypal victory of Christ, awaits further fulfilment in the victory of the Conquerors, which will contribute to the final victory of God.” (G.B. Caird. The Revelation of St. John the Divine. Black’s New Testament Commentary. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1966. p. 72.)

In John’s vision, the Lamb had been given the authority to open the scroll revealing God’s purpose of redeeming all of creation. The Lamb, of course, is the symbol for the crucified Christ whose victory over death is the beginning of God’s final redemption. To make God’s redemptive purpose known to the whole world is the task of the church, “the royal house of priests” drawn “from every tribe, tongue, people and nation” (vs.10) and here represented by twenty-four elders (vs. 8), twelve for the tribes of the Older Covenant and twelve for the New Israel, the Church.

Caird noted that John does not think of Christ has withdrawn from the scene of his earthly victory to return only at the Parousia. Rather, his faithful followers continue to exercise his royal and priestly functions.

(cf.. 1 Peter 2:9-10) Further, Caird identified the similarity between John’s and Paul’s thinking about the cross: God had already reconciled the whole universe to himself (Col. 1:20). To make this act of amnesty and reconciliation known to the world is the task of the church. Yet the success of God’s holy purpose in already being celebrated in the heavenly court.

 JOHN 21:1-19. By scholarly consensus, this chapter is now regarded as an appendix to the Gospel. Jesus’ final post-resurrection appearance took place in Galilee where several of the disciples had returned to fishing. William Barclay clarified the quadruple intent of the chapter: to prove that Jesus had indeed been raised from the dead; to proclaim the universality of the church; to re-establish the leadership of Peter in the apostolic church; and to point to John as the last of the apostolic witnesses. Each of these purposes is substantiated in the details of the story.

Who but someone who knew the Sea of Galilee would have been able to tell the fishermen where to cast their nets? Barclay described how two modern travelers in the Holy Land, W.M Thomson in The Land and the Book and H.V. Morton, saw something very similar to this happen. Who but a close friend would have prepared a seaside breakfast for the weary fishermen?

As in the pericope about the empty tomb, it was John who first recognized the reality of the situation: that Jesus was calling to them from the beach. But it was Peter who took action by jumping into the water and wading ashore to greet him. The fire, the fish and the bread are not merely symbolic details with which John so dearly liked to embellish his stories. They were real evidence for John’s community that Jesus was alive.

The 153 fish have something more to tell us. Barclay recounts three of the many ingenious suggestions as to their meaning. He concludes, however, that the net is a symbol of the universal church which is large enough and strong enough to embrace people of all nations. Inclusiveness and diversity are its chief characteristics.

That Peter drew the net to the shore led to his later conversation with Jesus. This exchange with its thrice repeated question and command, “Do you love me?… Feed my sheep” is the way John told how Peter was reinstated as the pastoral leader of the church. This must have had special meaning for John’s community for whom the Apostle John was the dominant personality among the disciples. We know that some sense of rivalry as to who was the greatest did exist. This was John’s way of saying that each had his special gifts to bring to the young church, gifts which Christ himself had fully recognized and acknowledged.

Finally, John’s contribution was not overlooked. Whereas Peter was named the pastoral leader of the church, John was the longest surviving witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Quite possibly, John had just died, or was still alive, but no longer capable of any activity. The Parousia which had been expected within the lifetime of the apostles had still not occurred. The author of the Fourth Gospel used this exchange between Peter and Jesus about John to deal with this concern in his own community. Christ will come according to his own and God’s timing, unhastened by our anxiety in waiting or desire to see the end.

PREACHING POINTS. 

• These readings all contribute to the theological truth of what German scholars call heilegeschicte – faith history. This concept developed from the Jewish conviction that God’s ultimate purpose was being worked out in the history of Israel. The Apostolic Church with its base in Hebrew scriptures and theology also adopted this approach to its destiny. The Book of Revelation expressed this faith through the mystical visions of John.

• Well into the 20^th century two British historians Arnold Toynbee (1889 -1975) and Herbert Butterfield (1900 – 1979) similarly believed that instances of the hand of divine providence could be discerned in human history. Toynbee saw it in the rise and fall of civilizations. Butterfield saw it in the hard won victory of the two World Wars of the 20^th century and the hope for more peaceful, cooperative times in the future.

• The fundamentalist belief that the Rapture will happen any day now and can be discerned in the events reported in the media tries to convey a similar point of view. But this is not a conviction expressed in the Christian scriptures. Its roots are found instead in the late 19^th century “premillinarian dispensationalism” of English evangelical preacher John Darby. (The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation. By Barbara R. Rossing Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 2004, Hardback, 212pp., $24.00).

• A small chapel at Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee not far from Capernaum marks the site where the incident recorded in John 21 is traditionally believed to have occurred. (http://www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/tabgha-church-of-primacy-of-peter.htm) Nearby are a spot where seven springs provide a flow of fresh water to the lake. Fish still gather there to feed on algae near the springs. Tabgha is an Arabic translation of the Greek word heptapegai which means “seven springs.” Thus, the great draught of fish drawn in by the fisherman may not have been so miraculous. Some scholars believe that the catch of 153 fish represents all the known nations of that time.

• A mosaic from a 4^th century CE chapel in the floor of the present chapel at Tabgha reveals nearby the traditional site of the feeding of the five thousand.

[AUTHOR’S NOTE:  We have the unusual opportunity of choosing between several lessons celebrating distinctive aspects of the liturgical and secular calendars: The Second Sunday after Christmas; The Holy Name of Jesus; and The New Year. All three sets of lessons are set out below.]

JEREMIAH 31:7-14. Scholars tell us that this passage contains ideas not found in Jeremiah’s prophecies, but which are very prominent in Isaiah 40-66, the work of an unknown prophet or his followers during the exile in Babylon. It promises Israel’s return from exile in many foreign lands and the re-establishment of the nation to everyone’s joy and prosperity. This redemptive action will result from nothing other than God’s gracious goodness.

PSALM 147:12-20. The second of five Hallelujah psalms which close the Psalter celebrates the special relationship Israel had with God. Its message is summed up in the words of vs. 20: “He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his ordinances.”

SIRACH 24:1-12. (Alternate)   The book known as “the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach” (aka Ecclesiasticus from the Latin name given to it by St. Jerome) was not included in the Hebrew Scriptures nor in Protestant Bibles. It was among the several books known as Wisdom literature included in the Scriptures of Roman Catholicism. Dating from the 2nd century BCE, it consists of maxims and aphorism of worldly wisdom and social prudence.

This passage presents Wisdom personified as a woman speaking before the assembly of heaven. She describes herself as participating in creation even though she herself was created by God. She also claims a God-given special role in Israel’s destiny as the chosen people.

WISDOM OF SOLOMON 10:15-21. (Alternate) Like Sirach, Proverbs, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, the Wisdom of Solomon, was included in the Wisdom literature of Roman Catholicism, but not in the Hebrew Scriptures or Protestant Bibles. Although attributed to King Solomon, it was composed in Greek in the last century BCE by a Greek speaking Jew. This passage describes how Wisdom, again personified as a woman played a role in Israel’s Exodus from Egypt.

EPHESIANS 1:3-14. In writing to the Colossian congregation threatened by a destructive heresy, Paul opened his letter with some very kind and generous words. He praised them for remaining faithful to the gospel and the Christian way of love that Epaphras had taught them. He prayed that they would continue to grow in their knowledge of God’s will and strong in their witness to the faith as they had first received it. This is still an appropriate message for us who are so easily persuaded by the attitudes and practices of our own culture to adopt some other alternative than the Christian way.

JOHN 1:10-18. Looking at Jesus from the perspective of perhaps sixty years after his death on the cross, John assessed what the coming of Jesus into the world really meant. For those who believed in him and accepted the grace and truth now available through him, it meant a new life of spiritual power as the children of God. So also it may be for us as we complete one year and are about to begin a new year of living in God’s grace.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

JEREMIAH 31:7-14. One of the most obvious revelations of the current Christological debate is the strength of the literalist approach to scripture, even in the mainline churches. Here is a passage which offers an excellent opportunity to discuss in a sensible way, the composite nature of the scriptures as we presently have them and the still valuable spirituality of the message conveyed in the words. God as the gracious providential Protector and Redeemer of Israel IS the story of the Old Testament to which all the priestly, prophetic and poetic voices contributed, no matter when or where they appeared throughout Israel’s history. Thus the editors who put together the Book of Jeremiah could include a poem from the later, but unknown, prophet of the Exile among the oracles of the prophet whose ministry may have ended soon after  Jerusalem was devastated by the Babylonians in 586 BC and most of the leading citizenry, the prophet among them, were led away into exile.

PSALM 147:12-20. From the temple liturgy for the New Year or the Feast of Tabernacles comes this Hallelujah Chorus celebrating God as the Creator of the universe and Sustainer of Israel. It is believed to have been composed as a liturgical psalm in the early 4th century BC. The influence of the prophetic oracles of the unknown prophet of the Exile (Isaiah 40-66) can be detected in several places.

EPHESIANS 1:3-14. John C. Kirby, formerly of McGill University, Montreal, made a strong case that this prayer at the beginning of Ephesians, “both in language and in form, is patterned after the Jewish berakah, a prayer of praise and blessing of which there are numerous examples in the Old Testament. He points out that some scholars divide these poetic verses into stanzas having separate themes.

OTOH, Kirby suggests that the ideas so tumble over one another as to defy such analysis. He accepts the view of another scholar, Masson, that “the tone of wonder and awe which runs through the whole passage, the slow mediatative style, the solmenity of the language, the repetition of the phrase ‘to the praise of his glory,’ which is the main purpose of all berakoth, show us the origin of this way of approaching God. Thoroughly Christian in content – though many of the ideas have been taken over from Judaism they have been baptized into Christ – it is yet thoroughly Jewish in attitude.”

JOHN 1:10-18. What the gospel meant to John’s audience certainly would not be what it may mean to us 1900 years later. He was writing for a Hellenistic culture from a Hebraic perspective. He chose the word Logos to describe Jesus which he may well have drawn from Philo, the Alexandrian Jew steeped in Greek thought who was a contemporary of both Jesus and Paul. His emphasis in this passage is to focus attention on both the continuity and the discontinuity between Israel’s tradition and that which the Christian gospel was bringing to the Greek-speaking world.

In his New Testament Words, (Westminster Press, 1974) William Barclay has a helpful comment on the way John used this word as a bridge between the two cultures:
“In Jewish thought we have two great conceptions at the back of the idea of Jesus as the Word, the Logos of God. First, God’s word is not only speech; it is power. Second, it is impossible to separate the ideas of Word and Wisdom; and it was God’s Wisdom which created and permeated the world which God made….
“The idea of a mind, a Logos ruling the world fascinated the Greeks…It was the  Logos which put sense into the world. Further, the mind of man himself was a little portion of this Logos….This conception was brought to its highest peak by Philo, who was an Alexandrian Jew, and who had the aim of joining together in one synthesis the highest thought of Jew and Greek….
“Now we can see what John was doing when he uttered his tremendous statement, ‘The Word was made flesh.’  (i) He was clothing Christianity in a dress that a Greek could understand…. (ii) He was giving us a new Christology…. (a) Jesus is the creating power of God come to men. He does not only speak the word of knowledge; he is the word of power. He did not come so much to say things to us, as to do things for us. (b) John is the incarnate mind of God. We might well translate John’s words, ‘The mind of God became a man.’”

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
The Holy Name Of Jesus – January 1, 2010

NUMBERS 6:22-27. This passage may be more familiar to congregations as a benediction at the close of worship or in a traditional baptismal liturgy. In the thought of its own time God’s blessing consisted of material things as well as spiritual benefits.

PSALM 8. The psalmist first contemplates the glory of God manifested in the wonders of the heavens. And yet, the psalmist also reflects on the minute place of humanity in such a vast universe.

GALATIANS 4:4-7. Unfamiliar with the later tradition of the virgin conception of Jesus, Paul gave a theological and scriptural interpretation to the birth of Jesus. He focused on the redemption of all humanity effected through Jesus, the fulfillment of Israel’s hope. Stating that God’s Son was “born of a woman, born under the law,” he places Jesus in continuity with Jewish tradition.

PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11. (Alternate)  This early Christian hymn may well have been composed by Paul himself. Nowhere else in all his letters does he rise to such eloquence of speech or give such a clear definition of how the apostolic church understood the Jesus story.

LUKE 2:15-21. This passage with its more homely happiness and wonder is frequently hidden behind the angelic announcement and glorious rejoicing in the previous verses. It is best read slowly and with emphasis on each scene: the shepherds’ surprise at the angels’ message; their hasty decision to go to Bethlehem to find the child; the discovery of the manger where the baby lay as they had been told. (If vs. 16 is read in haste we can even get all three of the Holy Family into the manger at same time!) The mention of Mary’s meditation as the shepherds departed to spread the good news left a quieter mood in the stable. Finally, the naming of Jesus at the time of his circumcision according to the Jewish custom is the one link Luke’s nativity story has with Matthew’s.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

NUMBERS 6:22-27. This passage may be more familiar to congregations as a benediction at the close of worship or in a traditional baptismal liturgy.  It may have existed from earlier times and have been incorporated into the priestly document (P) now forming part of the Pentateuch.  Its words are similar to those found in Pss. 67:1 and 4:6b. The basic concept is that of divine grace. The Mishnah, a rabbinical interpretation of the Torah dating about 200 CE, held that it was used daily in the temple.

As it stood in the thought of its time Yahweh’s blessing consisted in material things as well as spiritual benefits. Plentiful crops, productive herds, seasonable weather, even military victory would be sincerely hoped for. These were seen as acts of divine providence for Yahweh’s people. A shining face would have been interpreted as a sign of pleasure. When shown to other people, it indicated a strong personal relationship (cf. Pss. 31:16; 80:3, 7, 19) or a bond of friendship (2 Sam. 2:22; Job 22:26). That, of course, was the permanent relationship of Yahweh to Israel.

Peace – Shalom – is still the standard blessing of the Middle East. Shalom is more than an absence of discord. It represents a state of well-being and security, something sadly lacking in the interpersonal and communal relationships of the modern Middle East. While visiting there, I approached and made eye-contact with a man of Arabic descent.  I spoke the traditional greeting in Hebrew- Shalom. Then I repeated it in Arabic version – Salaam. He responded in exactly the same way. I wondered if both of us felt safer because of that momentary eye-contact and greeting.

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 he would have sen the panoply of stars spread out above him or possibly 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 an overwhelming sense of how infinitely small and insignificant we are.

And yet, the psalmist reflects not only on the minute place of humanity in such a vast universe. He also 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 masters 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.

GALATIANS 4:4-7. Unfamiliar with the later tradition of the virgin conception, Paul gave a theological and scriptural interpretation to the birth of Jesus.  Stating that God’s Son was “born of a woman, born under the law,” he places Jesus in continuity with Jewish tradition. In some respects, this could be interpreted as a rebuttal of the doctrine of the virgin conception, although Paul probably did not intend it to be so. He may not even have known about the somewhat later tradition cited only in Matthew and Luke.

If Jesus was born “under the law,” then his birth must have been regarded as the natural result of human sexual activity rather than the asexual descriptions of later Gospels. For Mary to have given birth before marriage would have been a serious transgression of the law as defined by Deut. 22:13-28 and as alluded to in Matthew’s narrative. As a child bride prior to pubescence, common in those days, she could have conceived before her menstrual cycles began. Geza Vermes argues this position in his The Nativity: History and Legend (Penguin 2006). Paul, however, wrote to the Galatians circa 50 CE, possibly 25-30 years before the birth narratives were written. If there was an earlier tradition of the virgin conception, Paul did not share it.

Instead he focused on the redemption of all humanity effected through Jesus, the fulfillment of Israel’s hope. The phrase “the fullness of time” expresses the prophetic view that God is sovereign over all history.  So God’s plan will be fulfilled according to God’s timing when the Messiah, Jesus Christ, reigns as the divinely appointed sovereign of the world. The redemption of which Paul spoke (vs. 5) began with coming of Jesus, the Messiah. This “already but not yet” eschatological process will be completed only at the Parousia.

Paul conceived the idea of believers being adopted as children of God and heirs with Christ (vs. 5b-7) as the fulfillment of both his Jewish heritage and his Christian faith. This was also the new status of the Galatians. God’s promise to Abraham, including freedom and election as God’s chosen people, had been made good through Jesus. But the Christian communities in Galatia included Gentiles as well as Jews. The main theme of the letter declared that Gentiles and Jews alike were now freed from slavery to “the elemental spirits of the world” (vs. 3) and to the law of Moses. In Greek mythical thought, present also in late Jewish apocalypticism, the elemental spirits were believed to rule human lives as well as the natural world. Paul was contemptuous of this polytheistic idolatry.

The new relationship with God through Christ made everything different in their relationships with each other and with the particular cultural milieu in which they lived. Paul would spell out just what that meant in the latter segment of the letter (especially 5:13-6:10). So as well as fulfilling their heritage, the relationships born of their new-found faith in Jesus Christ, rather than any previously held convictions, would also give rise to a definite discontinuity with that same heritage. Their new spiritual inheritance as a result of receiving the gift of the Spirit made all this possible.

PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11. (Alternate)  This early Christian hymn may well have been composed by Paul himself. Nowhere else in all his letters does he rise to such eloquence of speech or give such a clear definition of how the apostolic church understood the Jesus story.

As a rabbinical student in Jerusalem before his conversion Paul would have heard of three significant elements of this song: Its lyrical form was similar to the great Levitical hymns of the temple. The apostolic story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was a personal concern of his teacher, Rabbi Gamaliel.  The humble poverty of the Christian community was well known too, made up as it was predominately of Galileans and the lower classes with few men and women of prominence among them.

In carefully constructed Greek words and phrases, Christ is seen as the key figure in a divine drama in which he yields up his co-existence with God, assumes human form and suffers the humiliation of death by crucifixion. Those who have difficulty understanding whether or not Jesus was divine has only to consider Paul’s statement about his true nature. The word huparchein (translated as “being”) described the very inner nature or essence of a person. As William Barclay said: “It describes the innate, unchangeable, unalterable characteristics and abilities of a man which, in spite of all the chances and the changes, and in any circumstances, remains the same.” (The Letter to the Corinthians: Daily Bible Readings. 1957, 43.) Coupled with that was the Greek word for “form.” In this case, morph‚ was used rather than schema. Morph  referred to the essential form as opposed to the outward form, schema, that continually changed. So Jesus’ unchangeable nature was divine.

At the same time, Paul said, Jesus did not think that his divinity “was something to be exploited” as the NSRV puts it. Again the Greek word is beautifully descriptive. Harpagmos comes from the verb which means “to snatch” or “to clutch.” Either English word would fit the situation. As Barclay points out, either he had no need to snatch at equality with God; or he did not need to clutch it, “as if to hug it jealously to himself. And to refuse to let it go.” On the contrary, Paul says in amazement, Jesus gave it all up, humiliating himself as a slave obedient to the point of suffering the utmost shame of crucifixion in total contrast to the glory and honour of divinity. Barclay again: “There is no passage in the whole New Testament which so movingly sets out the utter reality of the godhead and the manhood of Jesus Christ, and which makes so vivid the inconceivable sacrifice that Christ made when he laid aside his godhead and took manhood upon him. How it happened we cannot tell. The end is mystery, but it is the mystery of a love so great that we can never fully understand it, although we can blessedly experience it and adore it.”

The hymn does not end there however. It goes on to sing of the exaltation of Jesus to the place of glorious sovereignty with God where heavenly and earthly worship is offered to him as to God.

The confession ‘Jesus is Lord” is at once the earliest Christian creed and an acknowledgment of Jesus’ divinity. Paul used that designation only three times in his letters and each time with worshipful sincerity and awe. The other two are found in Romans 10:9 and 1 Corinthians 12:3. This was said to be the essential confession each convert repeated at baptism. All the Philippians had made this same confession. All later creeds of the Christian church derived from it. There was – and is – nothing more that needs to be said as a statement of faith. For all time, this confession commits the one who says it sincerely to a life in which Jesus reigns supreme and so fulfills the will and purpose of God.

LUKE 2:15-21. This passage with its more homely happiness and wonder is frequently hidden behind the angelic announcement and glorious rejoicing in the previous verses. It is best read slowly and with emphasis on each scene: the shepherds’ surprise at the angels’ message; their hasty decision to go to Bethlehem to find the child; the discovery of the manger where the baby lay as they had been told. (If vs. 16 is read in haste we can even get all three of the Holy Family into the manger at same time!) The mention of Mary’s meditation as the shepherds departed to spread the good news left a quieter mood in the stable. Finally, the naming of Jesus at the time of his circumcision according to the Jewish custom is the one link Luke’s nativity story has with Matthew’s.

The name Jesus, however significant to us, was not unique in any way. It was common enough in earlier Hebrew literature. Its original form was Joshua, or more fully Yehoshuah, and meant as Matthew pointed out, “Yahweh is salvation” or “Yahweh saves.” In his various histories of the Jews, Josephus named nineteen persons with that same name all from the 1st century CE. It has been hinted that the name increased in popularity reflecting a growing nationalism after the Maccabean War (165 BCE) and even more so during Roman times after 65 BCE. Some manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew named Barabbas, Jesus Barabbas to distinguish him from Jesus of Nazareth who died in his stead (Matt. 27:16-17). A novel, Barabbas, by the late Swedish Nobel laureate for 1941, Pär Lagerkvist (1891-1974), gave considerable emphasis to the way the coincidence of names affected the robber in the years after the crucifixion.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
New Year’s Day – January 1, 2010

ECCLESIASTES 3:1-13. The reading of this passage is customary at the beginning of a New Year. It emphasizes the significance of passing time and change. But it also reflects the deep sense of changelessness that Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, (Heb. Qoheleth) expressed with a remarkable frankness.

PSALM 8. [See above re The Holy Name of Jesus.)

REVELATION 21:1-6A. John has a vision of the whole of creation redeemed and renewed at the end of history. This is what awaits the faithful and thus makes endurable those bitter experiences of persecution experienced by the seven churches of the Roman province of Asia.

MATTHEW 25:31-46. This parable tells us that the reign of Christ will begin with a final judgment. But it is a parable, a metaphorical story told to persuade people on how to live as they prepare for that inevitable experience, not a description of what the event will be like whenever it occurs. The story also has an eschatological and a messianic emphasis set in place by its very first clause, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all his angels with him ….” That is a typical description from the apocalyptic tradition derived from Jewish literature of the late centuries BCE greatly influenced by forerunners in both the prophetic and possibly the wisdom traditions. (See Ezekiel 38-39; Isaiah 24-27; Zechariah 12-14.) Its stock-in-trade was revelation through visionary experience. This parable contains some very vivid images of that kind.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

ECCLESIASTES 3:1-13. The reading of this passage is customary at the beginning of a New Year. It emphasizes the significance of passing time and change. But it also reflects the deep sense of changelessness that Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, (Heb. Qoheleth) expressed with a remarkable frankness.

He is not an atheist, but neither did he share the traditional Jewish theology of Yahweh’s choice of Israel as a special people. He even counseled against unquestioniedparticipation in the traditional religious rites of Israel. In the end, he is both an agnostic – one cannot know God, but only acknowledge God’s existence and power – and a fatalist – nothing can be done to change the way things are.

How then did it become a part of the Hebrew Scriptures? We simply do not know for sure, but it must have won approval of the religious authorities and the worshiping community as the canon was being finalized during the 1st century CE. So it must have been in common use during that time and finally was authorized on the grounds that it was genuine religious teaching.

The book is thought to have originated during the time of Alexander the Great and his immediate successors. That was time of great upheaval, uncertainty and insecurity for Israel and its religious institutions. The sentiments of this passage that everything must happen in its own time according to God’s timing and not our own were probably very helpful to some who struggled to believe in a divine purpose for human life and history.

PSALM 8. [See above re The Holy Name of Jesus.)

REVELATION 21:1-6A. John has a vision of the whole of creation redeemed and renewed at the end of history. This is what awaits the faithful and thus makes endurable those bitter experiences of persecution experienced by the seven churches of the Roman province of Asia.

Many Old Testament references colour this vision – the creation, the city, the bride. Perhaps the most important insight of the passage is that “now God’s dwelling is among mortals.” (vs. 3) This reaffirms God’s coming into the world in Jesus Christ for the single purpose of redeeming the world and reconciling humanity and all creation to God’s original purpose.

The late Principal George B. Caird, of Mansfield College, Oxford, wrote in his magisterial commentary on this passage, “In some ways this is the most important part of the book, as it is certainly the most familiar and beloved.” It is the promised answer to the plea of every martyr, “If only we knew where it is all going to end! Much of John’s vision, and much of the human history it depicts and interprets, becomes intelligible, credible, tolerable, when we know the answer. Here is the real source of John’s prophetic certainty.” (The Revelation of St. John the Divine. Black’s New Testament Commentary, 1968.)

The image of the vanishing sea has great significance. It represents the ending of history in the same way that creation out of chaos began history when “the earth was a formless void and darkness was over the face of the deep.” (Gen. 1:1-2) The descent of the holy city, New Jerusalem, and the voice from heaven announcing its meaning, also represents a whole new order that is taking place. The distinction between heaven and earth disappears. No longer is heaven the dwelling of God and earth the dwelling of humans. Now God’s dwelling is with us. The Incarnation has reached its true end: Immanuel, God with us. (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23) As we have seen above, the bride from heaven are also a quotation from Isaiah 25:6-8.

The voice from the throne is, of course, the voice of God first heard at the very opening of John’s visions (Rev.1:8).  All things are being made new; a complete transformation is taking place, not just in the seven churches to which John was commanded to write, but in all places of God’s dominion, God is forever making all things new. Paul had the same vision as voiced in 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:16-18; 5:16-17; Col.3:1-4. But John sees it on a cosmic scale whereas Paul saw it in the individual believer. As Caird put it: “Blind unbelief may see only the outer world, growing old in its depravity and doomed to vanish before the presence of holiness; but faith can see the hand of God in the shadows, refashioning the whole. The agonies of earth are but the birth-pangs of a new creation.”

God’s naming of the Alpha and the Omega do not mean that God is just at the beginning and the end, as the deist philosophy would have it, creating then allowing creation to run without intervention. God is the living God who confronts humanity at every step of the way. All that we have and are as humans within God’s creation, and above all our salvation, is the work of God from start to finish. God requires nothing of us but the openness of faith, a thirst for God to be satisfied with nothing less that the water of life.

MATTHEW 25:31-46. This parable tells us that the reign of Christ will begin with a final judgment. But it is a parable, a metaphorical story told to persuade people on how to live as they prepare for that inevitable experience, not a description of what the event will be like whenever it occurs. The story also has an eschatological and a messianic emphasis set in place by its very first clause, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all his angels with him ….” That is a typical description from the apocalyptic tradition derived from Jewish literature of the late centuries BCE greatly influenced by forerunners in both the prophetic and possibly the wisdom traditions. (See Ezekiel 38-39; Isaiah 24-27; Zechariah 12-14.) Its stock-in-trade was revelation through visionary experience; and this parable contains some very vivid images of that kind.

In vss. 31 and 32 there are two images of the judgment which may seem to be unusually juxtaposed. The first envisages a typical a royal court where the monarch is surrounded by courtiers and the whole populace is gathered before the throne waiting for a critical decision. The second describes the much humbler scene of a shepherd at the end if a day separating sheep from goats as they enter the fold for the night. The task was an easy one, for in the Middle East sheep are generally white and goats black. The monarch’s task might not be so easy, for the character of human beings is much more complex.

The story does simplify the basis on which the judgment is made. It has to do with how each person responds to everyday opportunities to help others in need. The length and detail with which this poignant emphasis is described assures even the hasty reader that this is what the story means.  The reign of Christ and God’s eternal judgment are going on right now with each decision and action we take. How we live today has eternal consequences. We are to witness to the reign of Christ in the way we serve him in faithfulness, kindness and love to our neighbors in need.

Yet this parable is not a simple story offering polite moral counsel for those seeking for ethical behavior to create a kinder, gentler, self-satisfied society. Coming as it does immediately before the Passion story, this parable connects our time in history and the time of Jesus as an historical person with the reality of eschatological judgment at the  end of time. The way this parable describes how the faithful are to live is the way Jesus lived “as one that served.” His actions constantly affirmed his messianic character.

Matthew constantly reminded his audience of this in his choice of names by which he referred to Jesus of Nazareth, in this instance the OT messianic figure of the Son of Man. As he turned to the all important concluding section of his gospel, Matthew was saying that in Jesus the Messiah the divine judgment which Israel has anticipated for so long had arrived. The gospel speaks across the millennia with the same clarion call of judgment: the crucified and risen Jesus, the ever present ‘God with us,’ is now deciding who will have a part in the eternal reign of love fulfilled in God’s creation. One could not find a better lesson for the beginning of a New Year.

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

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

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

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

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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