John Shearman's Lectionary

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Proper 18 Ordinary 23
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost

September 5, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Proper 16 – Ordinary 21

August 22, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING NOTES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PROPER 13  ORDINARY 18

AUGUST 1, 2010

HOSEA 11:1-11. The image of God behind this dramatic appeal to Israel is that of a loving, compassionate parent. Indeed, here God is described as the Mother of Israel. Just discipline is also the parent’s role toward her children; and God does this too.

Hosea was one of that elite company of prophets who from the middle of the 8th century cried out against the abandonment of Israel’s special covenant relationship with the only true God. The imminent threat from both Egypt and Assyria as the dominant powers of the period vying for supremacy is lifted up in vss.5-7 as the judgment of God against apostasy. This emphasizes how the divine purpose is worked out in historical events of every age.

PSALM 107:1-9, 43. This selection forms the first two antiphons of a litany of thanksgiving most likely created as a hymn for community worship at a relatively late date, no more than four or five centuries BCE. Its antiphon chorus (vss. 8, 15, 21, 31) celebrates God’s enduring love on which all Israel’s history depended.

ECCLESIASTES 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23. (Alternate) In some respects Ecclesiastes is the most irreligious book in the Bible. Nowhere is this assessment clearer than in these selected passages that seems full of disheartening despair about life and faith. But take a deeper look. Perhaps there is something worthwhile in the setting the author creates for what follows in chapter 3 that everything has it time in God’s ordering of creation.

PSALM 49:1-12. (Alternate) Like Ecclesiastes, this psalm is the product of the Wisdom school of poets who sought to create a religious environment in a difficult age after Israel’s return from exile in Babylon. There is a sense of fatalism about life and death in these verses. Yet there is both hope and faith underlying the pessimism this psalmist expressed.

COLOSSIANS 3:1-11. Paul’s letters follow a usual pattern of first stating what Christians believe, then declaring the ethical implications of those beliefs. Here he states what it means to live out one’s baptism which symbolizes the death and resurrection of Christ. He emphasizes not only the way the Christians at Colossae were to use their bodies, but also the tense relationships which may well have existed between Jews and

Gentiles.

LUKE 12:13-21. According to Luke’s Gospel, Jesus always seemed to look for a teaching moment thrust at him by someone in his audience. Here a man having a quarrel with his brother asked him to be a judge between them about a family inheritance. Instead of doing what he was asked, Jesus told the parable of the farmer so satisfied with his wealth that he forgot how brief life can be. The point of the story is that God sees life from a totally different perspective. Do we share God’s point of view?

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HOSEA 11:1-11. The image of God behind this dramatic appeal to Israel is that of a loving, compassionate parent, the “Our Father” of the Gospels and the forgiving father of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Better still, because child rearing has always been and still is for many predominately a mother’s role in most cultures, we can see here “the Mother of Israel.” This is the Mary we meet in Luke 2:41-52.

Vs. 2 recalls the Baal-worship and other forms of idolatry which so corrupted the worship of the Israelites following their settlement in Canaan, especially during the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. Hosea was one of that elite company of prophets who from the middle of the 8th century cried out against this abandonment of Israel’s special covenant relationship with the only true God. Vss.5-7 lift up the imminent threat from both Egypt and Assyria as the dominant powers of the period vying for supremacy as the judgment of Yahweh against this apostasy. Squeezed as it was between the two superpowers of that time, the prophet could see the hand of God in Israel’s situation.

The compassion of Yahweh exceeds the severity of this judgment, however, as vss. 9-11 assert. Because Yahweh is one who is merciful and loving as well as just, the anger of Yahweh, like the frightening roar of the lion, (or an angry father who only exercises authoritarian discipline?) brings Yahweh’s children to their senses and sends them home trembling like birds (vss.10-11). There could not be a more colourful prophetic image.

The promise of Israel’s return from exile has caused some scholars to hypothesize that this is a post-exilic addition to the original text of Hosea. The issue is ultimately unsolvable because no pre-exilic or other early texts exist. Furthermore, there is a vagueness and lack of specificity about the details of the promise and no mention whatsoever about the pre-eminence of Jerusalem and the temple which characterizes so much post-exilic writing. The passage really tells us more about Hosea’s concept of Yahweh’s true nature as a God of mercy and enduring love than about the events of those dangerous times.

PSALM 107:1-9, 43. This lection forms the first two antiphons of a liturgical psalm of thanksgiving, one of the true gems of the Psalter. The addition of the last verse of the psalm (vs.43) creates an exegetical problem no one has conclusively resolved: Are vss.1-32 the original thanksgiving hymn and vv.33-43 another psalm celebrating the providence of Yahweh and, in the prophetic tradition, the care of Yahweh for the needy?

Vss. 42-43 contain a wisdom saying comparable to those found in Proverbs and Job (cf. Job 22:19), but only once elsewhere in the Psalter (49:10). If this is a valid analysis, one may reasonably conjecture that it was an editor during the late post-exilic period who forged the unified psalm as it now appears. Wisdom and prophetic influences, especially those of Second Isaiah and Job, can be identified in many other phrases of the text.

The antiphonal refrain repeated throughout the first part (vss.8, 15, 21, 31), each with its own extension (vss.9, 16, 22, 32), emphasize the liturgical character of the psalm. Note especially how four distinct groups of worshippers and their particular reasons for thanksgiving have been identified in vss. 4-7, 10-14, 17-20 and 23-30. One wonders if these are descriptions of the many different groups of the Diaspora scattered abroad in various conditions after the disastrous fall of Samaria (722 BCE) or of Jerusalem (586 BCE). If so, then the psalm could have been composed for one or other of the great festivals after the exile when the Jewish Diaspora were required to return to the temple.

It has been speculated that vss. 22 and 32 give evidence of its use with the offering of the thanksgiving sacrifices. They still ring true in the praises of modern congregational worship for the universal and steadfast loving kindness of our God.

ECCLESIASTES 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23. (Alternate)  Qoheleth, the teacher of Wisdom, known more by the Latin name of the book, Ecclesiastes, was the classical cynic of scripture. These selections from the beginning of his collection of wise sayings express that characterization very well. Purporting to be Solomon, the son of David, he used this pseudonym to conceal his identity as a 4^th century observer of Israel’s moral and spiritual decline during the later par of the Persian period (539-333 BCE).

According to the late Prof.  R.  B. Y. Scott, he was not an atheist, but he did take a position “diametrically opposed to the doctrine that Yahweh (is) a personal God, had chosen Israel to be a people peculiar to himself and had made known to her his will.”  (The Way of Wisdom. Macmillan, 1971; 170) At the same time, Qoheleth was agnostic and fatalistic, which fit well with his affirmation of the existence and power of Yahweh. This found expression in his oft repeated statement that “all is vanity and chasing after wind.” In this he seemed almost ahead of his time in the direction that the Prophet Mohammed would take more than a millennium later (7^th century CE).

Qoheleth came to the conclusion that life did not have much meaning at all. As he said in 2:18-21, he despaired of his labours yielding anything from which he might benefit. Only others gained from what he had wrought. All one’s efforts yield only pain and vexation. As a result, he eschewed all but pleasure and felt that this too was the will of God (vss. 24-25 not in this reading). He must have suffered from a prolonged depression or his times must have been exceedingly oppressive.

PSALM 49:1-12. (Alternate)  In a mood not dissimilar from that of Qoheleth, this psalmist’s style can only be classified as poems of wisdom. Several other psalms also adopted a like position. (See Psss. 1; 37; 73; 91; 112; 128) They sought to instruct and exhort their audience to be faithful in trying times. Death and Sheol seem perilously close to this particular poet.

In the first couplets, the psalmist addresses a wide audience. His real target, however, may have been the wealthy living pompously and extravagantly in sumptuous homes. He appears to be reading or uttering an oracle which he describes as “a proverb” (vs. 4). Some of his contemporaries obviously benefited greatly from adopting the ways their Persian overlords from 539-333 BCE, the period during which it likely was composed.  Was it their ill gotten gain that so distressed this psalmist? He wanted people to take life as it came, especially with regard to riches.

Echoing the strong social justice of the prophets, he wanted nothing of the self-centred life. He shared Qoheleth’s view that the pursuit of wealth held nothing but vanity. Only others would reap its benefits (vs. 9). Wisdom itself held no attraction because it too would perish like all flesh.

Some scholars see this psalm as a defence of divine providence in the face of much evil. That does not appear to be more than superficial. In fact the word “YHWH” occurs only twice in the whole psalm. More pessimistic fatalism than sincere faith stands out in this excerpt. Perhaps too, this is the meaning of the unusual reference in vs. 15 to redemption from Sheol, although the reading does not include this. Was this in the same vein as Job’s claim in Job 19:25 “I know that my redeemer lives”?

COLOSSIANS 3:1-11. Where does one begin to comment about this highly theological and yet very practical ethical passage? The theology comes in vss. 1-4; the ethics in vss.5-11. As might be expected, the latter is based on the former. The resurrection of Christ which we now share, symbolically through baptism, spiritually and psychologically through faith, is the source of the power to live the Christian life. This life of sacrificial love that fulfills God’s will and purpose for us is now available to all who believe. So also is the promise to share the life and the eternal glory of Christ with God beyond death. For many of the people to whom Paul (or one of his associates) wrote this letter, the implications of this counsel meant radical change in their customary behaviour. It may still do so for us.

Paul envisions the risen and ascended Christ “seated at the right hand of God,” and therefore exercises all divine power. The image of deity as an all-powerful oriental potentate on a magnificent throne is found in most ancient religious traditions as well as in children’s fairy tales. One is reminded of the immense tapestry of the Risen Christ towering over the altar in the magnificent Coventry Cathedral rebuilt of etched and coloured glass and stainless steel beside the ruins of the old cathedral destroyed in the World War II blitz. Standing at the glorified Christ’s feet is a life-size figure a man, his head reaching no higher than the Christ’s ankles. Effortlessly, one’s eyes are lifted upward and upward to the full height of the Christ whose head reaches almost to the vaulted roof. The memory of a visit to Coventry Cathedral or looking again at a photograph of it brings vss.2-4 fully alive. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/deano/384485426/ )

So what? When the cathedral was built in the 1950s it stood in the midst of an urban community serving as the parish church for a neighbourhood that was predominately Christian. Today the cathedral’s community includes people of all races and faith traditions, most of whom are not Christian. It is a microcosm of the world as it is now. How then is the church to serve such a setting anywhere in our present world? That too was Paul’s problem in the Gentile cities like Colossae, one of the few he had not actually visited in person.

Paul found the impetus for his ethical challenge in vss. 5-8 in similar conditions. He focused on the negative aspects of this “earthly” life. It would appear that the Colossians had found a great many sexual diversions to undercut their new life in Christ. But were they so different from our own situation? Just pick up today’s newspaper or watch the latest television news or sitcoms for a contemporary view of what he meant.

The contrast with what the risen Christ empowers us to be is startling, as startling as stripping oneself of all one’s old clothes and donning new ones “according to the image of its creator” (vss.9-10) In fact, this is exactly what happened when new converts were baptized. They were stripped naked and re-clothed in new white garments to symbolize their rebirth to a totally new life. This is where we get our tradition of dressing infants in a white dress for baptism.

In vs.11 Paul clarifies just how utterly new this life is to be. All the old barriers that divide people from one another are swept away and we all become one in Christ. Scholars have pointed out the similarity of this passage with Galatians 3:28-29. Others have noted the many parallels with the Letter to the Ephesians, particularly Paul’s conception of the unity of believers in the Christian fellowship as the Body of Christ. Such is the missional reality of the great Coventry Cathedral in its English urban setting. (See their website  http://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/). This mission also calls the church universal in a world longing to see the living Christ stand among us.

The latest published data from Christianity Today magazine lists 38,000 separate Christian groups and denominations in the world. At the turn of the 21^st century, Christians made up 33% of the world’s population with approximately 2 billion adherents. Other main religious groupings were as follows in order of numerical adherents: Moslems: 19.6 % – 1 billion;  Hindus : 13.4% – 800 million; Buddhists: 5.9% – 360 million; Sikhs: 0.4% – 23 million;  Jews : 0.2% – 14 million.

Sadly, the data appears to reveal a decidedly Christian bias. Does not the behaviour of so many in our supposedly “Christian” society compare more closely to the death-dealing description of Colossae’s new converts in vs. 5?

LUKE 12:13-21. Many a farmer or business entrepreneur has been troubled by this parable. Jesus appears to say that making a good living and increasing one’s wealth is totally wrong. Not so. That isn’t the issue Jesus is dealing with in this family quarrel. The wrong lies in the greed, envy and lack of sharing which Jesus challenged as a result of someone’s demand for the division of a family inheritance. It does sound very familiar, doesn’t it?

That is an issue whether one thinks of it on a purely personal scale or on the wide spectrum of international affairs where the gap between the rich and poor nations is growing greater year by year. A similar gap exists within nations. It has just been reported in July 2010 that in India where more than one billion people live, there are more poor people than in all the continent of Africa.

Within the past two years ago, the whole world was stunned by bank failures and hasty amalgamations, and a worldwide recession of unprecedented proportions. Many families lost their homes to bankruptcy as well as their employment. Others found that the homes they were able to keep had larger mortgages than their homes were now worth. This brought about accusations that decisively countered the widely hailed myth as the ultimate success of capitalism. Some eminent economists predicted that there will yet be a depression like that of the 1930s. Few of even the wealthiest nations in Europe and the Americas are only beginning to recover.

The cause of this bitter recession has been traced to human greed in the selling and re-selling of unsecured mortgages and other financial instruments no one fully understood. Every blip in the stock market indices increased the anxieties of those who had invested their savings in widely held stocks, mutual funds or trusts. An article in the financial section of the newspaper told us that major banks and investment houses with all their expertise had suffered as significantly as the modest investor. Some financial institutions were allowed to sink into bankruptcy or have been taken over by other institutions.

That may not bring much comfort to the baby boom generation of the 1950s and 60s looking forward to a comfortable retirement. It is disturbing to see their investment portfolios dwindle by 20% or more in a few months. As with so much in the NT, here is the modern version of Jesus’ parable writ large and broadcast so that the whole world may see it happening day by day. “Guard against greed in all its forms….That’s the way it is with those who save up for themselves, but aren’t rich where God is concerned.” (Luke 12: 15, 21. The Complete Gospels. Edited by Robert J. Miller, Poleridge Press, 1991.)

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

HOSEA 11:1-11. For Israel, history was not a recitation of events, but heilegeschichte – a holy story. The reference to Israel Yahweh’s use of the historical events of Israel’s past to call this holy people to obedience also comes through very forcefully. Prominent in this passage are two important references to the religious tradition of Israel. In vs. 1, reference to Israel as a child being called out of Egypt relates to the Exodus, the formative event in the nation’s history and religious tradition. Extra-biblical evidence of that event has been extremely difficult for modern historians and archaeologists to discover. Whether factual or not, the Hebrew scriptures were created around this formative tradition.

The image of the Exodus is expressed in the very first words of the passage and again in vss. 3, 4 and 8. In vss. 5-7, however, mention of Israel being returned to Egypt sounds a note of judgment against the apostasy of Yahweh’s chosen people. The Gospel of Matthew makes another use of vs.1 in Matthew 2:15 in reference to the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt. The authors of the NT read the Hebrew scriptures from a literalist standpoint and applied what they read to their convictions about Christ without regard to the historical context.

Another reference is the use of the name Ephraim as a synonym for Israel. This has a more reliable historical background. The judgment expressed in the passage limits the judgment of Yahweh to the Northern Kingdom created as a result of the civil war with Judah after the death of Solomon. In The Interpreter’s Bible Dictionary, (vol. 2, 120) W. L. Reed, formerly Professor of Old Testament at the College of the Bible in Lexington, Kentucky, gave some of the background of this terminology.

Ephraim (aka as Samaria its capital city) along with his older brother Manasseh were the sons of Joseph but adopted by Jacob. (Gen. 48:5). These tribes were among the last to settle in the hill country of Canaan to the north of Jerusalem and Judea and later captured the northern plain of Jezreel. Their distinction as separate and pre-eminent tribes in the Books of Joshua and Judges may indicate that they had different ancestral blood lines. If modern reconstructions of maps of their territory can be accepted, they also had possession of considerable territory on the east side of the Jordan River.

During the lifetime of Hosea and Isaiah, a disastrous war was fought between Syria and Ephraim (734-732 BCE). The outcome of this war was to reduce the peripheral territories of the tribe to the central mountain area. Ten years later, the whole of the Northern Kingdom of which Ephraim and Manasseh were the major parts, was subjugated to Assyrian with the fall of Samaria. These wars provided the historical setting for the prophecies of Hosea.

COLOSSIANS 3:1-11. Surprisingly the name of Jesus occurs only four times in this letter. Three of these read ‘Christ Jesus’; (1:1, 4; 2:6) the other reads ‘Jesus Christ’ (1:4). All other references to his person are in theological terminology as “Christ.” Is this significant?

John Shelby Spong thought it is. In his monograph This Rabbi Lord (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993) he wrote: “The key to this book, I believe, is our ability to distinguish between Jesus and Christ. They are not the same. Jesus was a person; Christ is a title, a theological principle. Jesus was of history; Christ is beyond history. Jesus was human, finite, limited; Christ is power that is divine, infinite, unlimited. Jesus had a mother and a father, an ancestry, a human heritage. He was born. He died. Christ is a principle beyond the capacity of the mind to embrace or human origins to explain. The name of our Lord was not Jesus Christ, as so many of us suppose. He was Jesus of Nazareth, about whom people made the startling and revolutionary claim: ‘You are the Christ.’”

Spong went on to explain: “The simplistic suggestion that Jesus is God is nowhere made in the biblical story. Nowhere! But time after time in historic episode after historic episode, the claim has been made that through Jesus, God was revealed – fully, completely, totally. …

“In Jesus of Nazareth, men and women saw the fullness of life being lived, the depth of love being shared, the courage to be being revealed. To them Jesus made known the full meaning of life, and love and being. He revealed God, and whenever God was seen in human life, that power is called Christ. ‘You are the Christ, Jesus’ – that was the claim. ‘You are the Christ, for in your life, we have seen the meaning of all life. In your love we have seen the source of all love. In your being we have seen the ground of all being.’”

As I reported in an earlier commentary a few weeks ago, I challenged Bishop Spong after he made a similar statement in a sermon in a local Anglican church. I stated that he replaced the Holy Trinity with a new triad of God as the source of life, the source of love, and the ground of being.” He agreed then added quickly, “But I would never call it the Holy Trinity.”

On the previous evening, he had stated that he felt This Rabbi Lord was one his two best books. It certainly has guided much of his thinking and writing for the intervening years.

In a somewhat lighter vein, Rev. Bill Wall, a colleague in the United Church of Canada from Regina, Saskatchewan, responded to an article published in The United Church Observer, “What makes Christians distinct?” (April 2010) He wrote in his letter to the editor (July/August 2010): “One word: Jesus. … But that answer is just the start of the debate. A friend told me recently, ‘My Jesus and my sister’s Jesus aren’t even distant cousins.’”

Wall explained, “On the one side are those for whom Jesus is the divine Son of God and the one and only saviour. On the other are those who see him as a mystic, teacher, healer, prophet or perhaps as an archetypal human, but in any case, as a human we are expected to follow, rather than a divine being we are meant to worship. It seems to me that the second option allows Christians to claim our distinctiveness without needing to exalt ourselves above people of other faiths.”

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Proper 12   Ordinary 17

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

July 25, 2010

HOSEA 1:2-10. Does God really want Hosea to marry a prostitute? But that isn’t the real story of this passage. The essence of this prophetic act lies in the meaning of the names Hosea gave to the children born of his marriage to this profligate wife. Their names symbolized Israel’s degraded moral status and conveyed the message of judgment Hosea had received from God.  The names restore the moral credibility of the prophet and proclaim God’s will that the people of God live faithfully in all respects.

PSALM 85. With this beautiful lament the psalmist pleads for God’s mercy and justice. In curious juxtaposition to the foregoing prophecy, it presents a very hopeful attitude. It voices sincere humility and asks for salvation on the basis of God’s past beneficence.

GENESIS 18:20-32. (Alternate) In recent years some Christians have grossly misused the sorry tale of Sodom and Gomorrah in the struggle against homosexuality. This introduction to the story relates how Abraham pleaded with God to save a few citizens of the two cities despite their apparent wickedness. Though the story does not say so, these cities were believed to have been located in the valley of the Dead Sea before their disappearance attributed to a violent earthquake.

PSALM 138. (Alternate) In this personal hymn of thanksgiving the psalmist offers praise to God for preserving him against unnamed enemies.  He trusts God to fulfill God’s purpose for him as an individual, but also has a vision of God bringing all nations to offer praise.

COLOSSIANS 2:6-15, (16-19). The Scottish scholar, William Barclay, called this one of the most difficult passages that Paul ever wrote. Many metaphors and images are stacked one upon the other in these two paragraphs written primarily for Gentiles. Yet the message can be summed up in one sentence: Christians grounded in their faith in Jesus Christ have been forgiven all their sins through his death and resurrection. Thus all are freed from all demands of the Jewish ritual laws and any other forms of worship or discipleship.

LUKE 11:1-13. Most of us feel rather inferior about how we pray; and so did Jesus’ disciples. Their time with Jesus, however, had shown them how much prayer meant to him and how effortless it was for him to pray. They wanted to learn from him. Would that it was so for all of us!

The brief homily that follows what we call “The Lord’s Prayer” explains the willingness of God to match our requests with a grace and kindness beyond all  measure. God’s answer may not be exactly what we ask for or expect. It is far more important that God’s will be the determining factor in our prayers, our lives, for us and for all the world.

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A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

HOSEA 1:2-10. The prophet marries a prostitute to teach the Hebrews a lesson about deserting the path of faithful living and God continuing to love. Now isn’t that a switch? How could God do such a thing as direct to the prophet Hosea to commit sin like that? Doesn’t that give our libertine generation just about all the license we need to do just about anything that is contrary to good morals and a stable, family-oriented society? As if we needed God’s permission anyway!

Well, that may be the headline news story. It certainly makes us open our eyes and prick up our ears. But that isn’t the real story of this passage. The essence of this prophetic act lies in the meaning of the names Hosea gave to the children born of his marriage to this profligate wife: Jezreel, Lo-ruhammah and Lo-ammi. These names symbolized their degraded status and conveyed the message Hosea had received from God.

A footnote in the NRSV translates Jezreel as “God sows.” Another possible translation is “may God make fruitful.”  Yet there is a significant period of Israel’s history bound up in that name.

The Jezreel valley is a very fertile agricultural region in northern Israel. It was in this valley that a bloody battle occurred in which, according to the Deuteronomic version in 2 Kings 9-10, Jehu overthrew the idolatrous dynasty of Ahab and Jezebel. Jehu then proceeded to murder all their descendants and obliterated the worship of Baal which Jezebel had introduced into Israel, the Northern Kingdom. He also killed Ahaziah, king of Judah, the southern kingdom, and slaughtered forty-two of his family. Jehu’s reward, according to this version, was to have five generations of his dynasty rule over the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In contrast, Hosea 1:4-5 tells a very different story. Because of the blood he had shed against the descendants of Ahab, Jehu’s dynasty was to be Israel’s last. This proved to be so when the Northern Kingdom fell to the Assyrian invasion of 722 BCE.

The names of Hosea’s other two children began with the negative *Lo* which in Hebrew means “No.” It is not repeated in 2:1. *Ruhammah* meant “pitied;” and *Ammi* meant “my people.” Uttered as negatives, the daughter’s name expressed Yahweh’s disfavor which was about to be visited on Israel, but not on Judah (vss.6-7). The younger son’s name meant that God had totally rejected Israel as the chosen people. (vss.9-10) Thus the parable of the children’s names restores the moral credibility of the prophet and proclaims God’s will that the people of God live faithfully in all respects.

There is good reason to question whether vs. 11 was part of the original prophecy. The verse reads as if it had been added at a later date after the return from exile in Babylon in the 6^th century BCE when there were high hopes of a restoration of the united kingdom of David and a period of great prosperity with the valley of Jezreel producing abundant crops once again.

PSALM 85. In curious juxtaposition to the foregoing prophecy, this psalm presents a very hopeful attitude. As a lament of the community, it voices sincere humility and pleads for salvation on the basis of Yahweh’s past beneficence. Some unknown historic circumstance may lie behind it, but there are no clues to what that event may have been other than that some imminent danger threatened the whole community.

We have no way of knowing when that was, but it seems likely that the psalm is post-exilic. Some scholars believe that it reflects the conditions in Judah similar to that described by Haggai (ca. 520 BCE) when Judah experienced a severe economic depression and a failure of spiritual enthusiasm (cf. Haggai 1:6-11; 2:15-19).

An eschatological element some detect in the closing vss. 8-13 has given the psalm a wider relevance. A prophetic note similar to that of Second Isaiah sounds through these lines. An earnest desire for peace and fidelity to Yahweh will yield prosperity and social justice.

The psalmist looks forward to a time of faithfulness and well-being throughout the land in his own time period. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer made this the “proper psalm” for Christmas Day. Since the author had in mind an immediate demonstration of Yahweh’s saving power, it seems most appropriate for that or any Christian celebration.

GENESIS 18:20-32. (Alternate)    In recent years some Christians have grossly misused the sorry tale of Sodom and Gomorrah in the struggle against homosexuality. This introduction to the story relates how Abraham pleaded with God to save a few citizens of the two cities despite their apparent wickedness. Though the story does not say so, they were believed to have been located in the valley of the Dead Sea and their disappearance attributed to a violent earthquake.

The heart of this passage has to do with a preliminary decision by God not to tell Abraham, God’s chosen servant, what would happen because of the grave sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. Then God does just that because God intends to reward Abraham’s faithfulness in teaching his children to be faithful and righteous (vss. 17-19).

While two of Abrahams’ visitors go on their way, God remains in active conversation with Abraham who petitions him to save the citizens of those toward fated cities. More of a negotiation than a prayer, Abraham beseeches God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of a diminishing number of persons, especially Abraham’s nephew Lot.

PSALM 138. (Alternate)   Less common than laments, which most often ended with a hopeful note of thanksgiving, this pure hymn of thanksgiving is only one of twenty such in the Psalter. It would appear that the psalmist has come to the temple to offer thanks for Yahweh’s steadfast love and faithfulness (vs. 2). His praise has to do with God preserving him against unnamed enemies in some desperate circumstances.  Indeed, he seems a little astonished at the almost miraculous nature of his experience.

The psalmist trusts God to fulfill God’s purpose for him as an individual, (vs. 8), but also has a vision of God bringing all nations to offer praise (vss. 4-6). More than that he has been spiritually strengthened so that he is assured of Yahweh’s continued help (vs. 7).

Scholars have suggested that, despite its individualistic style, it was composed at the time the temple was being rebuilt after the return form exile in Babylon.

Some versions of the Septuagint attributed it to the prophet Zechariah although it is included in a small collection (Pss. 138-145) of psalms attributed to David, but almost certainly not written by him.

COLOSSIANS 2:6-15 (16-19). A cursory analysis of this passage cannot begin to discover all that it has to offer to the careful reader or preacher. One could spend many days making sense of what William Barclay called of the most difficult passages that Paul ever wrote. One metaphor and image upon another crowd into these two paragraphs. Yet is it sufficient to sum up in one sentence all that Paul is saying, as in the following attempt to do so?: “We are rooted in Jesus Christ, forgiven through him and freed from all cultic demands.” (UCC Online Resource. “Gathering.” Edited by Marilyn Leuty and Fred Graham.)

Paul’s metaphors centered on both the human and the risen Christ. He saw Jesus as the one human being in whom the Spirit of God had fully dwelt (vs. 9). He also saw Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord. To these images he added the image of the Christian community as the body of the risen Christ of which Jesus Christ himself was the head. Baptism by immersion in water had become for him a symbolic sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ. The effect of baptism was to erase all record of sin and the demand for moral justification before God. God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ also removed all necessity for the ritual laws symbolized by Jewish circumcision. In other words, every other religious tradition and all their multiplicity of ritual, dietary and physical practices no longer had any spiritual validity or moral implications. The only thing Christians needed was the spiritual gift of forgiving grace made available to all freely and unconditionally through Christ symbolized by baptism. This alone assured the spiritual growth that results in life with and for God.

In dealing with this passage it is important to remember that the Colossian Christians were being assailed by a rival philosophy which its proponents claimed was necessary in addition to the Christian faith in order to be saved. Scholars have identified this philosophy by different names and definitions, but without reaching any final consensus. In his commentary Edouard Schweizer dedicated more than eight pages of an excursus to analyzing it. He called it a syncretistic Jewish Pythagorean rite about which Philo of Alexandria had complained and which had infiltrated into Jewish families. William Barclay saw it more as a mix of ascetic beliefs and practices drawn from both Gnosticism and Judaism. The Gnostics espoused intellectual knowledge and astrology. Asceticism with its rules and regulations come direct from Judaism. F. W. Beare described the Colossian heresy as having roots in Hellenistic religious syncretism, but also including some Jewish elements.

One wonders if our increased understanding of the influential Essene sect based in Qumran would cause each of these eminent scholars of the past generation to consider them as the likely candidates for Paul’s denunciation. In his masterful study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Geza Vermes describes this literature as a collection of rule books, biblical interpretations, poetry, wisdom, sectarian calendars, liturgical texts, astrological horoscopes and descriptions of human features related to the dates of a person’s birth. This would appear to fit Paul’s protest remarkably well.

It is possible that there were two different, conflicting groups, one Hellenistic Greek and one Diaspora Jewish, striving to capture those who had begun to live as Christian disciples following the initial instruction they had received from Epaphras.  Perhaps Barclay came closest to the truth when he said simply: “We do not know precisely and in detail what that teaching was.” All we can say is that this letter was written to a congregation in the midst of a very intensive moral and spiritual struggle. That places this reading as one which has extremely helpful counsel for any congregation struggling in the context of our crisis-ridden Western civilization.

In the final analysis, what Paul was saying to the Colossians and to us is that faith in Jesus Christ crucified and raised from the dead is all we really need for a healthy moral and spiritual life. There are behavioral implications enough to keep us all well occupied as we seek to advance God’s reign of love on earth.

See also: Barclay, William. Daily Bible Readings: Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. Edinburgh: The Church of Scotland, 1957.

Beare, F.W. The Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. 11. Nashville: Abingdon, 1955.

Schweizer, Edouard. The Letter to The Colossians: A Commentary. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1976.

Vermes, Geza. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Allen Lane, The Penquin Press, 1997.

LUKE 11:1-13. So what is it with prayer? Most of us feel rather inferior about how we pray; and so did Jesus’ disciples. Their time with Jesus, however, had shown them how much prayer meant to him and perhaps how effortless it was for him to pray. Quite naturally, they wanted to learn from him. Would that it was so for all of us!

In a little daily devotional book, The Meaning of Prayer, published by Associaton Press of the YMCA in 1915, Harry Emerson Fosdick described prayer in one simple phrase: “friendship with God.” But is that what the formal words of the Lord’s Prayer in vss. 2-4 convey? Certainly the story and admonitions that follow seem to concentrate more on what we may ask of God rather than enjoying the experience of being with God as friend with friend. In some respects, Fosdick pointed out, this is an immature or childish way to pray: “Childishness in prayer is chiefly evidenced in an overweening desire to beg things from God, and a corresponding failure to desire above all else friendship with God himself.”

Fosdick then quoted this prayer of Thomas à Kempis: “Grant me, O most loving Lord, to rest in thee above all creatures, … above all riches and art, above all fame and praise, above all sweetness and comfort, above all hope and promise, above all favors and gifts that thou canst give and impart to us, … above all things visible and invisible, and above all that thou art not, O my God. It is too small and unsatisfying, whatsoever thou bestowest, whilst thou art not seen and not fully obtained. For surely my heart cannot truly rest, nor be entirely contented, unless it rest in thee.”

Yet this lesson seems to suggest the very opposite of what Thomas à Kempis and Fosdick were saying. Jesus encouraged his disciples to be persistent in asking. In the Lord’s Prayer, there are three specific requests: for daily bread; for forgiveness and the freedom to forgive others; and for deliverance from life’s inevitable trials. The exact meaning of the word *epiousios* (Eng. = ‘daily’) is obscure since the word has never been found anywhere else in biblical or other Greek texts. Furthermore, the story of the persistent friend and its exposition in the light of God’s gracious, loving nature as “the heavenly Father” do suggest that we are expected to do as Paul states in Philippians 4:6  “In everything by prayer and thanksgiving let (our) requests be made known to God.”

In the end, we must realize that the disciples’ practice of faithful prayer in any time or place may take one of two forms: the prayer of quiet contemplation or the prayer of thanksgiving and petition. Neither one is better than the other. If Luke 4:42-44, John 17, and the Gethsemane experience are any indication, it is likely that Jesus himself adopted both means of seeking God’s presence, God’s guidance and God’s provision for both body and spirit. His prayer life fully exemplified the life of friendship with God.

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

HOSEA 1:2-10. On what does a nation’s moral credibility depend? That is a question about which Christians should constantly struggle. Is it to be open and accepting of many different behavioural patterns? Or is it to be rigidly opposed to any and every behaviour that appears to deny “our family (or community) values?”

Puritanism has shaped a significant part of North American cultural and religious history. Europeans tend to smile with not too secret self-conceit when we hold our political leaders to a higher moral standard than they do, or than we ourselves are willing to follow. OTOH, we also have high regard for our athletic heroes, some of whom have achieved their status despite some very questionable moral behaviour? There is no question, nonetheless, that all of western civilization has been based on the acute sense of moral responsibility of individuals and nations to be found in the ancient Ten Commandments and moral outcries of Israel’s great prophets.

LUKE 11:1-13. Bruce Chilton has built his latest book around the Aramaic version of the Lord’s Prayer. (The Way of Jesus To Repair And Renew The World. Abingdon Press, 2010.) In the introductory chapter he gives what he says is the original Aramaic form and translates it into English as follows:   (My) father/source — your name will be sanctified — your Kingdom will come — give me today the bread that is coming — and release me my debts not bring me to the test.

“Each of these affirmations and petitions involves a way in which a human being responds to God,” he writes.  He then deals with each in a separate chapter to which he gives a single word heading:  Soul; Spirit; Kingdom; Insight; Forgiveness; Mercy; Glory. These titles seem to be taken from the English not the Aramaic version. Finally he summarizes the whole in a chapter he called “Mindful Practice.” There he points out that Jesus lived out the prophetic powers and divine revelation he had inherited from the prophets of Israel.

“Jesus intended to pass on to his followers the inheritance, not merely of believers but of any person who wishes to understand him. They are the pillars of humanity and the continuance of civilization that we can build upon, if we are patient enough to discern them. These are the resources not only of belief but also of learning to become human with Jesus as a guide, and they identify powers within people – despite the variety and hardship of their conditions – that reside within them because they a re God’s children. They only await our recovering them so that we may repair and renew a broken world, starting with our broken selves.” (Chilton, 17. Italics mine.)

In the chapter “Spirit” Chilton discusses the last of the petitions, “release me my debts – not bring me to the test!” (Punctuation his.) He further states that “temptation was constant in Jesus’ life, and he conveyed to his disciples the necessity of resisting it, not simply on one’s own strength, but in prayer. Jesus had broken barriers of convention and prejudice, and he needed to create his own personal form of prayer as a means of distinguishing the transcendent from the temporal, productive transgressions from personal exaltation.”

So how shall we pray in the 21^st century? Above all, let us be real. This is a time when there is much to be distressed about — illness, conflicts, disasters, poverty, famine. Who can count the number of issues to be anxious about and to bring before God in prayer? But it is into such a world that Jesus was born and lived. He is with us still and wants to know just how we think and feel, who we are praying for and how we act in his name.

Then let us be persistent. That is a message of the sermonette that follows the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11:5-15. It could not be said in plainer words. An elderly preacher of an earlier age said in the typical theological terms of that time, “We should shake the gates of Heaven with our prayers!”

Let us be joyful in our prayers. Check out the number of times the word “joy” and its related terms appears in scripture, especially in the Psalms and the New Testament. There are hundreds of them.

A non-religious source of spirituality suggested that to expel the negativity from our thinking and living we need to meditate to be well, to be happy and to be filled with loving kindness.

(http://www.care2.com/greenliving/how-you-can-unhook-from-negativity.html?page=2 )

Paul and Silas were not happy to be in prison in Philippi, but they were joyfully singing at midnight. (Acts 16:25ff) Years later from Caesar’s’ prison in Rome he wrote to those same Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice.” To the Colossians he or one of his disciples wrote, “May you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father.” (Col. 1:11-12)

Finally, let us be quiet. Prayer is the expression of our being in the presence of God. We can be sure that God knows who we are; but do we? When we come know who we are in the essence of our being, we transcend ourselves and find the peace and the love for God, our neighbours and ourselves that Jesus so fully exemplified in the way he prayed.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Proper 11 Ordinary 16

8th Sunday After Pentecost

July 18, 2010

AMOS 8:1-12. In another vituperative outburst against social injustices of his time in the 8th century BC, Amos vividly describes the fate that is about to befall his people. In an amazing series of images beginning with a basket of over-ripe summer fruit and ending with a famine, he depicts God=s unrelenting judgment against the economic,  political and religious chicanery of the rich toward the poor.

PSALM 52. Again echoing the words of Amos, this psalm reiterates God=s judgment for social injustice and false piety. The reference to Zion in vs. 6 indicates that these charges may have been directed against the religious leaders.

GENESIS 18:1-10A. (Alternate) This odd little story tells of God appearing to Abraham in the guise of three travellers to promise that they would have a son in their later years. However incredible, its intent was to lead Abraham and his descendants to an ever deeper trust.

PSALM 15. (Alternate) The similarity of this psalm with the teachings of Deuteronomy and Leviticus points to a time after Israel=s return from exile when religious leader sought to instruct the populace in the ancient tradition of the covenant law.

COLOSSIANS 1:15-28. Modern versions of this passage divide it into three paragraphs. The first speaks of the pre-existent, human, crucified and resurrected Christ. The second speaks of the reconciliation God effected through Christ. The third presents the vision of what God is doing in creating this new humanity and the cosmic universe in which we live and serve as did Paul. Few statements of the whole gospel Paul proclaimed have the sweep of this one.

The most puzzling part of the passage is Paul=s claim to be “completing what is lacking in Christ=s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” Does he really mean that the suffering of Christ on the cross was lacking some way? More likely, the phrase emphasizes that the Passion of Christ was the central focus of Paul’s faith and the church’s reason for being.

LUKE 10:38-42. The lovely story of Jesus visiting Mary and Martha never ceases to raise romantic views of their relationship now featured in a modern novel. Jesus felt welcome in their home in Bethany and made his headquarters there when in Jerusalem. It lay only a short two kilometres east of the city on the Mount of Olives.

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A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

AMOS 8:1-12. Amos in his most vituperative outcry condemns the injustice of his society. The passage contains some vivid metaphors. The basket of summer fruit catches the eye immediately. In Canada, summer fruit is soft because its water content is very high, so it spoils very quickly. Most summer fruit seasons are very short, a couple of weeks at most. In the heat of a summer in Israel, that would take no more than a few hours. Scholars suspect, however, that the metaphor is more of a play on words as footnotes in the NSRV indicate. The Hebrew for a summer fruit is aqayits; but in vs.2 “the end” is aqets.

If that is not enough to attract attention, the image in vs. 3 of the songs of the temple turned into wailing and dead bodies … cast out in every place leaves nothing to the imagination. The most secure place in Jerusalem or any other city was the temple, the site of sanctuary. It usually was the last place of resistance against an invader. In my home town, an armed rebellion by French Canadians against the British colonial government in1837 was fought to its bloody end in the local parish church. Marks of the cannon balls used to flush out les Patriotes are still visible in the church’s stone walls. The end of the battle brought a merciless search of the village by the victorious troops for any would-be escapees. The legend of the rebel patriots heroic defense has grown with time. I clearly recall how it was portrayed in the colorful floats a great parade on the 100^th anniversary of the battle. Histories written for subsequent anniversaries are replete with legends as well as facts.

Amos prophesies an inevitable and immediate catastrophe in response to the corruption he sees everywhere about him. His oracle makes explicit the reasons for this catastrophe in vss. 4-6. It depicts the economic injustices of Amos’ own time and place. Now, his words have become universal as the globalization of business and industry has seized economic advantages everywhere. The wealthy people and the developed industrial nations reap profits and expand their power at the expense of the poor in rest of the world. Many of the most vulnerable people in our own communities are sinking rapidly into poverty as they are forced to the margins of a money-driven society.

A threat of earthquakes, floods, darkness in broad daylight, and public mourning like that for an only son draw a devastating picture of how great the coming catastrophe would be (vss. 7-10). This is followed by a searing description of famine throughout the land (vss. 11-14).  Famine was not uncommon in Israel because water sources are so scarce and rainfall relatively light. If the fall and spring rains did not come as expected, crop failure was all but inevitable. One of the core issues in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the availability of water.

The prophesy rises to its climax in a brilliant clarification of what has really gone wrong. As severe as they are, it is not the natural disasters which will cause such an incredible catastrophe, but the spiritual vacuum throughout the nation. The real famine is Anot a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of a hearing of the words of the Lord@ (vs. 11b).

How elegantly contemporary is this word of the Lord of History. Are there any prophets like Amos willing to speak such words to our world?

PSALM 52. Echoing the words of Amos, this psalm reiterates God=s judgment against social injustice and false piety. The reference to Zion in vs. 6 indicates that these charges may have been directed against the religious leaders. It also points to a later period than that of King David.

The righteous are like a spreading olive tree, says the psalmist at the end of a most vengeful condemnation of the rich and powerful. A note of self-righteousness has crept into the self-awareness of vss.6-8. But does the grateful devotion of vss.9-10 overcome the viciousness of vss.1-5?

One aspect of the work by the editors of the Psalter was their search for a time in ancient stories of David’s life when such an attitude could be attributed to the hero-king. This editorial practice dates from the post-exilic period long after David=s time (ca. 1000 BCE) when the praises of Israel’s religious tradition were being collected and new psalms written to create a composite set of scrolls for use in the reconstructed temple in Jerusalem, possibly in 5^th century BCE.

In The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 4, p.273, W. Stewart McCullough wrote that like Ps. 58 this psalm recalled invectives of the great prophets (cf. Isa.22:15-19). Yet the psalmist also wished to express trust and confidence in a time when men were debating the problem of the comparative values of good and evil from a utilitarian standpoint of what was profitable for life in their own time (Cf. Pss. 1; 37; 49)

While having the form of a lament, the psalm denounced wickedness and assured the righteous of vindication. Like other psalms and writings in which the relation of piety to success, happiness, and long life is vehemently discussed, this was an attitude of the reconstruction era. We can find this ideology prevalent in much of the Old Testament, based in large part on the theological concept of Israel as Yahweh=s chosen and covenanted people. The books of Job and Ecclesiastes show that this attitude was not universally accepted. Righteousness and wealth do not necessarily follow each other in human behavior.

GENESIS 18:1-10A. (Alternate) This odd little story tells of God appearing to Abraham in the guise of three travellers to promise that they would have a son in their later years. Since this anecdote came from J, the earliest of the four documents which compose the Pentateuch, it presents a relatively primitive description of a theophany. The motif of deity appearing in the guise of three men has much in common with other ancient religious literature. The legend could well have existed in the pre-Israelite settlement in the region of Hebron.   Abraham=s hospitality also follows the traditional custom of tribal societies. Such hospitality usually resulted in a blessing. For this reason alone, the story would have been remembered with great favour in the long oral tradition preceding its documentation.

Specific clues imbedded in the narrative define the incident as a theophany. It occurred Aby the oaks of Mamre, very near modern Hebron, Israel. Regarded to this day as a holy place, with the Arabic name of Ramet el-Khalil (the height of the friend of the merciful One), it lies not far from the tomb of Abraham and Sarah, sacred for both Moslems and Jews. Archeologists have found a 9^th century BCE pavement marking the spot where once the oak of Mamre may have stood. It also marked the place where Jews captured during the revolt of Bar Kocheba  (135 CE) were sold as slaves. Byzantine Christians partially rebuilt a basilica there after its destruction by Moslems in 614 CE.

Other clues to the sanctity of the location also exist in the narrative: the length of Abraham=s speech and the generosity of the feast he prepared for the guests. Three measures of meal amount to about four pecks, a dry measure equal to 2 imperial gallons, 9.9 litres or 8 US quarts. This would have been used to bake flat breads. A young calf would provide an ample meal for four men with plenty left over for the women, children and servants. Vineyards in the region still yield plentiful grapes, so most likely wine would also have quenched the thirst of the three guests.

However incredible, the intent of the story was to lead Abraham and his descendants to an ever deeper trust in Yahweh.

PSALM 15. (Alternate) The similarity of this didactic psalm with the teachings of Deuteronomy and Leviticus points to a time after Israel’s return from exile when religious leader sought to instruct the populace in the ancient tradition of the covenant law.

Behind it may lie a more ancient tradition: the practice of approaching a place of worship to obtain an oracle from a priest. This would guide the supplicant in making a decision or throw light on the meaning of some calamity. Or the supplicant might ask for an interpretation of a sacred law as to his/her duty in a new situation. It cannot be considered a liturgical psalm, but one used in preparation for worship. Psalm 24 contains a liturgical rendition of a similar religious attitude.

The phrase “your holy hill represents the reality of all ancient Israel’s sacred sites. More than likely it stands as a generic term for the specific name Zion. Not only Israelites, but all ancient people built their simplest sanctuaries and greatest temples on heights so that they could be seen from afar. Archeologists still see the evidence of such Aholy hills@ on every tell or mound they investigate.

The ethical measure of the prospective worshiper leaves little to the imagination. Even in recent times, some Protestant denominations of the Calvinist and Presbyterian tradition, held preparation services during the week before a quarterly celebration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The purpose of these services was for the assembled congregation to examine their moral conduct and seek forgiveness in much the same way that the Roman Catholic Church practices the sacrament of Confession, now called Reconciliation.

Of special note too, this moral process banned such financial transactions as lending money at interest and taking bribes. False oaths also had no place in the strict discipline invoked by this psalmist. Steadfast ethical behaviour alone mattered to this understanding of Yahweh=s will.

COLOSSIANS 1:15-28. Christ is the image of the invisible God (vs.15) is only one of many preachable texts in this passage. Perhaps nowhere else in the whole of the Pauline corpus do we find a clearer description of what Paul meant by his metaphor of “the new creation” in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21.

By dividing the passage into three paragraphs as does the NRSV, we can see that the first speaks of the pre-existent, human, crucified and resurrected Christ. The second speaks of the reconciliation God effected through Christ. The third presents the vision of what God is doing in creating this new humanity and the cosmic universe in which we live and serve as did Paul.

If there is a tendency in our preaching to limit reconciliation to the human part of the created universe, this passage should dispel that less than complete understanding of God=s purpose. Just as creation came into being through Christ, Paul claims in vs.16, so also all creation and not just the human race will be recreated through being reconciled to God through Christ=s life, death and resurrection. (vs. 20) That includes all of us who like the Colossians were once estranged from God. (vss. 21-22)

Yet the promise comes with the responsibility of maintaining this new relationship of faith (vs.23). Prevenient grace takes effect when it meets faithful response. The grace that reconciles us to God does not change. Its effectiveness in our lives and through us in the world is inhibited when we no longer respond in faith, hope and love. So Paul goes on to show what this has meant in his own life as an apostle proclaiming this good news (vss. 24-26). He could do no other than link his ministry as an apostle to his experience of conversion and reconciliation.

The most puzzling part of this passage is Paul’s claim to be “completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that, is the church. Does he really mean that the suffering of Christ on the cross was lacking some way? William Barclay says that this is no more than another way of building up and extending the church. “Anyone who serves the Church by widening her borders, establishing her faith, saving her from errors, is doing the work of Christ. And if such service involves suffering and pain and sacrifice, that affliction is filling up and sharing the very suffering of Christ Himself.”  (Daily Bible Readings: Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. Edinburgh: The Church of Scotland, 1957.)

F.W. Beare gives a more extensive exegesis in The Interpreter’s Bible. ( Vol. 11, p.177. Nashville: Abingdon, 1955.). He states that this was the basis for the doctrine of a treasury of merits (formally called supererogation) first authorized in the papal bull by Clement VI in 1343. This doctrine made the sale of indulgences possible and ultimately led to the strong reaction of Protestant theologians and exegetes two centuries later.

Beare points out, however, that Paul in no way suggests that his sufferings he create a store of merits which are available for the account of the church at large. He never regarded his sufferings as an atonement for the sins of other Christians. The issues of atonement for sin did not enter into Paul=s consideration. His sufferings may have been vicarious, but not punishment for sin. He endured them in the interest of others. They were not in any sense a recompense for the sins of others. Paul was saying simply that suffering is part of the Christian vocation. As Jesus had said, “the servant is not greater than his Lord.” The world will treat Christians with hostility as it treated Christ. Nor does the phrase “the deficiencies of Christ’s afflictions” imply that the sufferings of Christ were insufficient in some way to accomplish their purpose of redemption. Paul was not putting the economy of redemption under review. His underlying belief was that the afflictions of the church are also Christ’s afflictions. Thus the sufferings of Christians as Christians would continually supplement the sufferings of their Master. The experience of suffering would become an experience common to Master and servants.

Eduard Schweizer believes that Colossians is a heavily edited, but authentic Pauline letter. He also asserts that Paul or his editor was exaggerating in this statement. It goes further than anything we can find elsewhere in Paul. It would have been alien to him to say anything about suffering being endured for the sake of the church. (The Letter to The Colossians: A Commentary. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1976., p.99ff.) Schweizer concludes that the expression “Christ’s afflictions” is never used in the New Testament for the Passion, nor for Jesus’ experience of suffering in general. Nor does the church take on and continue the sufferings of Christ which in themselves effected redemption of the world.

The death of Christ brought about the redemptive reconciliation with God once and for all. The apostle’s affliction’ or being afflicted can be regarded as that which comes from participating in the anticipating proclaiming the gospel, thus making it effective in such a way as to let faith attain its fullness among the Colossians and among other communities throughout the world. The sufferings of which Paul speaks are those endured in the community for the sake of Christ, or in Christ. What the community experiences, Paul also experiences and vice versa. This allows his message to become more credible. He and they, and we too, represent Christ in the world. We are to live to bring Christ’s work as the redeemer of the Christian community and the whole cosmos to its fulfillment. Our place of ministry is right where we are now, wherever that may be. And that may well involve us in a discomforting degree of suffering.

LUKE 10:38-42. Martha frets; Mary listens. Or is that an over-simplification of the story? Jesus does seem to rebuke Martha for her task-driven anxiety and to praise Mary for sitting as his feet listening to what he said. This has been the traditional interpretation which some people have pushed to the extreme by claiming that faith and contemplative spirituality are better than works and active service. It is unlikely that Jesus meant to draw such a distinction. Life for Jesus had a much greater balance of both prayer and action, worship and work. He spent his days teaching and healing, but also frequently withdrew to a quiet place for prayer and contemplation of the presence of God in stillness and silence.

Contemplative spirituality is certainly an important facet of the Christian life. The modern Protestant tradition has left it mostly to Catholicism – Anglican, Roman and Orthodox – where it is practiced as a significant means of spiritual formation and daily devotion. Wesley eschewed it, especially in its monastic form, though he urged his converts to follow his own daily practice of the presence of God and the reading of devotional classics such as Thomas à Kempis. Wesley also adopted the love feast and established the class meeting as a means of spiritual support for their continued development. In recent years, some Protestants have turned to Roman Catholic spiritual directors in search of a more effective spiritual life.

In this decade the Internet offers open access to a wide variety of contemplative practices in both Western Christian and Oriental traditions of Buddhist, Hindu and other origins. An unusual combination of several of these traditions can also be seen in some of these web sites. Our Protestant tradition has been rightly criticized for being too activist and task-oriented. Yet this does not obviate the need for action as a vital expression of faith and commitment. Spreading the Good News of God’s redeeming love in Christ does require effective action.

The actual text of what Jesus said to Martha may have come down to us in somewhat garbled form, since various readings of vss. 41-42 survive. Whatever may have been Jesus’ original words, it would appear that he may well have urged Martha to seek first the Reign of God and let other things assume their proper place within that spiritual context, as Matthew 6:33 states. That leaves plenty of room for exegetical and homiletical interpretation.

Some Additional Preaching Notes.

COLOSSIANS 1:15-28. Last Sunday at our local church I was surprised to meet one of the policemen who had been on duty all week during the G8/G20 crisis in Toronto. I asked him if he had been on duty that week. I was surprised because that trying challenge for our police forces occurred only hours after the funeral of his wife of more than 30 years. She had died following an eighteen year battle with cancer.

“Oh, yes,” he replied, then added, “It was only a very small minority of really bad guys in the midst of a lot of very peaceful people wanting to be heard.”

I had seen him once before in fully uniform weighed down by his protective vest and armament. He and a partner were patrolling the stands at a major league baseball game. Seeing him at worship made me realize that by doing his duty under what must have been the most difficult circumstances exemplified very clearly what Paul told the Colossians. We are to live in Christ amid the pain and tribulations of this world as it is.

A brief essay: Liturgy happens in many ways and everywhere.

Scholars have long noted the liturgical style of the Letter to the Colossians. There is a distinct sense of poetry and praise in 1:15-20. Conzelmann regards it as a hymn taken from an earlier source for use in this setting. He claims that there are similar concepts in this hymn to be found in the Greek Pythagorean philosophers of the lst century BCE and in Philo, the Alexandrian Jews of the 1^st century CE. Others, like G. B. Caird for instance, believed that its origin is irrelevant and could be Paul’s own composition.

The latest issue of ARC: The Journal of the Faculty of Religious Study (Montreal: McGill University, 2009.) contains several important essays on ritual and ritual practice. The lead article by Steven Engler dealt with the theory derived from some unusual practices of exorcism in a powerful mixture of Christian Catholicism, neo-Pentecostalism and African animism among descendants of former Brazilian slaves. (“Brazilian Spirit Possession and the Theory of Ritual.” 1-28.) Quoting an earlier source by Maurice Bloch (“Ritual and Deference,” 2006) Engler pointed out that in liturgical matters one relies on “the authority of others to guarantee the value of what is said or done.” Hence the use of prayer books, traditional hymns, liturgical clothing, seasonal candles and paraments. In studying the Bible too we often appeal to authorities (as I have done above) in a ritualistic way so as to strengthen our discussion with their superior knowledge.

Many years ago when still a bachelor, I was invited to supper by an Anglican colleague. He wife left his wife in the kitchen to care for two very young children and prepare the meal for the unexpected guest. I was directed to join him at evensong in the small white church next to the rectory. Proudly my host displayed for me the accoutrements of this exquisite little chapel. “We have better paraments than even the cathedral,” he told me with great pride. I wondered how and why such a small parish could spend such large sums of money of what my denomination regarded as superfluous decorations.

Since I was the only other person present I reminded him that his wife would have supper ready and suggested that it wasn’t necessary for him to conduct the service just for me. “It isn’t for you,” he snapped back. “It’s for God. Even if no one is here, we must always have evensong at six o’clock.” He then proceeded to ring the bell in the steeple to call whoever heard to attention that he was doing so. For the next twenty to thirty minutes he conducted the traditional evensong while his wife waited for us to arrive late for supper.

Just a few years ago in Montreal I dropped into the Anglican Cathedral to see some of the stone work put in place by my paternal great-grandfather, a master stonemason, during the building of that historic church 150 years ago. I was again just in time for evensong and again I was the only person present except for the curate who conducted the liturgy.

In contrast, as these paragraphs were being composed, Canada’s Queen Elizabeth was been given a last farewell at the end of a nine day royal visit to three provinces. Everywhere she went in several stops along the tour she was greeted by rousing cheers from large crowds eager to see their Queen. There was also the traditional honour guard in dress uniform to be inspected by their commander in chief with an artillery unit of four guns sounding the royal salute in the background.

In Halifax, Nova Scotia she formally reviewed an international fleet gathered in Halifax harbour. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, she was invited to lay the cornerstone of new National Museum of Human Rights. In Ottawa, she addressed the Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill. In Toronto, Ontario, she unveiled a plaque commemorating the 150th anniversary of the dedication of Queen’s Park by her great-grandfather, before he was crowned King Edward VII. Queen’s Park is the site of the Ontario Legislature. She also visited the Research In Motion factory in Waterloo, Ontario, where Blackberries are manufactured. She was formally presented with the new model of that communications instrument.

At each stop of the tour she was greeted by brief addresses by the Prime Minister or  other official dignitary to which she was invited to reply. On the eve of her departure she was honoured at a state dinner and given several gifts on behalf of the Canadian people marking this occasion of her 22^nd visit to this country. In her brief response she expressed her thanks for the warm welcome given to her and her husband once again. She also referred to the fact that when she spoke at the United Nations on the following afternoon, she would do so as Queen of Canada. She is the formal head of state of this country. The Governor General is the Queen’s representative and acts in her stead when she is not in the country.

These ceremonies can only be regarded as political and secular liturgies. All societies and cultures perform similar secular liturgies on specific national or cultural occasions such as the inauguration of a president or the presentation of a sports championship trophy like the World Cup of Football or the World Series of Baseball. In the introductory Propedia volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s 15^th edition, the late Wilfred Cantwell Smith noted the similarity of liturgy and symbolism in Sunday afternoon football games in the United States to the church liturgies of Sunday mornings in American churches.

LUKE 10:38-42. There is another surprising aspect to this pericope. Seen from Luke’s perspective, Martha was criticized for doing exactly what her traditional culture dictated. She was getting the meal for her guest, expending considerable energy in doing so. She is then portrayed as whining because her sister was not helping her. On the other hand, Mary was praised for just sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to him. But was Mary not also quietly criticized too. Unlike the other disciples in other instances or even the lawyer in the previous pericope, she didn’t interact with Jesus. Was she just mooning there in enthralled silence? She was given no commission to act, just her presence acknowledged. Sharon H. Ringe comments in her exposition of this passage: “Whatever may have been Jesus’ relationship with women followers, Luke allots them carefully circumscribed roles. For them, the life of discipleship – at least in Luke’s church – promises few real changes.” (“Luke.” Westminster Bible Companion Series. Westminster John Knox Press, 1994.)

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Proper 9 Ordinary 14

6th Sunday After Pentecost

July 4, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING NOTES:

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

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

A brief comment on nationalism, patriotism and religious establishment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Proper 7  Ordinary 12
Fourth Sunday After Pentecost – June 20, 2010.

1 KINGS 19:1-15a. Elijah the prophet was on the run from Queen Jezebel whose foreign priests he had defeated in a contest of spiritual power.  He was still in God’s care, however, and after being provided with food and drink in the desert, he came at last to the mountain where God had given the covenant law to Moses. But he could never escape responsibility as God’s prophet. After a windstorm, an earthquake and a raging fire, God spoke to him with a still, small voice within to give him a new commission.

ISAIAH 65:1-9. (Alternate)   In this eschatological song God offers both judgment and hope for Israel after the return of the exiles from Babylon, ca. 539 BCE. Judgment came because of a series of unholy religious practices (vss. 3-5) possibly related to a  nature cult. Yet God promised not to destroy the whole people and to restore them to their traditional land.

PSALM 42 AND 43. These two psalms were originally one. The first part laments a deep sense of absence from God. Yet the psalmist hopes that he will eventually have reason to praise God. The second part prays that his faith will be vindicated as he goes to the temple to worship.

PSALM 22:19-28. (Alternate)  Like all laments, this excerpt pleads with God for rescue, acknowledges God’s sovereignty and promises to be faithful. It envisions a hopeful future in which posterity will serve the Lord.

GALATIANS 3:23-29. One of Paul’s most decisive statements declares that faith in Jesus Christ has removed all barriers to a relationship with God for all who believe. He claims that the law given to Moses was like a schoolteacher disciplining us until Jesus came to make us all God’s children and heirs with Christ. Now, we are all children of Abraham and heirs of all God’s promises to Israel.

LUKE 8:26-39. This story appears to set Jesus’ compassion for the man chained among the tombs against compassion for the Gentile people of this community east of the Sea of Galilee. Is it a garbled story of a person with severe mental illness being healed after his frantic outcries had panicked the pigs? Or did Jesus fail to convince the unbelieving Gadarenes who had lost their pigs of God’s compassionate love?  Even for the most sane among us, the struggle to believe can be tormenting.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

1 KINGS 19:1-18. Most Westerners read a story from beginning to end. The various pericopes that present Elijah as one of Israel’s greatest prophets do not follow this orderly pattern. Scholarly opinion views some of the stories in which Elijah appears as coming from two different sets, the Elijah and the Ahab cycles. The editors of the Deuteronomic history of Israel, created after the return from exile in Babylon, wove these two sets of stories obtained from different sources into their overall narrative of the Davidic monarchy.

Only 1 Kings 17-19; 2 Kings 1:1-18; 1 Kings 21 and 2 Kings 9:1-10:31 appear to come from the Elijah cycle. The Ahab cycle includes 1 Kings 20:1-43; 22:1-38; 2 Kings 3:4-27; 6:8-23 and 6:24-7:20. The main theme of the Elijah cycle from which this week’s reading is taken is the preservation of the monotheist tradition against the Baal-worship imported by Ahab’s queen, Jezebel, daughter of the priest-king of Tyre. It has been suggested by some scholars that Psalm 45 bears evidence of being a love song in which Ahab and Jezebel appear as the two participants.

In this part of the narrative Elijah was on the run from Queen Jezebel whose foreign priests he had defeated in a contest of spiritual power on Mount Carmel.  He was still in God’s care, however. After being provided with food and drink in the desert, he came at last to the mountain where God had given the covenant law to Moses.

Elijah’s forty day journey to Horeb, the mount of God (aka Mount Sinai), appears to have been more symbolic than real. It compares with Moses sojourn at Mount Sinai without food or drink as recorded in Exodus 34:28. There may be other reflections of the Sinai narrative in the Elijah story: the cleft of the rock and the mouth of the cave (Ex. 32:22 cf. 1 Kgs. 19:9, 13), the covering of the face (Ex. 32:22 cf.1 Kgs. 19:13; thousands remaining faithful (Ex. 34:7 cf. 1 Kgs. 19:18). The symbolism points to a recalling of the faithful to the ancient tradition established by Yahweh in the covenant at Mount Sinai. The particular aspect of the covenant relationship emphasized here is the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods.”

Whatever Elijah’s actual experience may have been, he could never escape responsibility as God’s prophet. After a windstorm, an earthquake and a raging fire, God spoke to him with a still, small voice within and gave him a new commission. Such theophanies and their accompanying natural phenomena were common in Israel’s tradition, especially in the patriarchal narratives in Genesis. They were not peculiar to the Israelites, however, and can be found in traditions of other ancient peoples. In the Psalms and some of the prophets, the warrior image of Yahweh is often accompanied by similar violent natural phenomena (Pss. 18:7-15 & 46:1-7; Nahum 1:2-6; Habakkuk 3:8-15; Jeremiah 10:13.) These are instances where Yahweh is identified as having a special relationship with Israel alone.

Numerous homilies on the still, small voice have concentrated on the inner voice of conscience. That often tends to be guilt-laden. So it may have been for Elijah and called forth some self-justification (vss. 13-14). True as that may be, emphasis needs to be placed more heavily on continuing reflection on the divine mission to which Israel was originally called and is now summoned to return (vss. 15-18).

ISAIAH 65:1-9. (Alternate)    Scholars have had considerable difficulty dating this passage.  It appears to be the work of the school of prophet-poets sometimes referred to as Third Isaiah (Isa. 56-66). Like the poem that follows it in ch. 66, it expresses the eschatological vision of “a new heaven and a new earth” (vs. 17) as well as uttering judgment against Israel’s past aberrant religious practices.  It would appear that God offers both judgment and hope for Israel after the return of some of the exiles from Babylon, ca. 539 BCE. By no means did all those who had been transported return to their homeland.

The poem consists of ten strophes, although only the first four make up this extract, and not all of the fourth is included (vs. 10). The first strophe (vss. 1-2) presents the accessible nature of Yahweh and voices the complaint against Israel for not heeding the divine call. The second strophe (vss. 3-5) describes the corruption of Israel’s covenant tradition. Exactly what the heretical worship practices were cannot be determined. They seem to have had something to do with a nature cult (vss. 3-5). But that had been a continual temptation for Israel since the time of the earliest settlement in Canaan where some of them had adopted the traditional fertility religious practices of Baal worship of the Canaanites.

While in exile, had some Israelites been seduced by the religious rituals of Babylonian tradition too? It would have been surprising if that was not so. The naming of several aspects of such rituals – sacrificing in gardens, burning incense “on the bricks,” (or “on the roof tops,”) sitting in tombs, and eating swine’s flesh, all point to a bizarre cultus. In Babylon, there was a cult of the god Ninurta for which the pig was either sacred to the god or a totem. Swine’s flesh, anathema to all Semitic cultures, could be eaten under special ritualistic occasions.

Whatever the unholy religious practices may have been and however much these were abhorrent to Yahweh (third strophe, vss. 6-7), Yahweh was not yet willing to cast them on to the scrap heap of history. Yahweh promised not only to preserve a remnant of the people but to bless and restore them to their traditional homeland (fourth strophe, vss. 8–10).

The naming of Sharon and the Valley of Achor (vs. 10) intentionally redirected the Israelites’ imagination homeward. The Plain of Sharon is still the rich agricultural plain along the Mediterranean coast north from Jaffa to the foothills of Mount Carmel. The Valley of Achor was a small wadi which once formed the boundary between the tribal lands Judah and Benjamin, south of Jericho along the northwestern edge of the Dead Sea. It is very dry but also very fruitful when well irrigated. That practice had been extensively used in the Judean and Negev deserts by the Idumeans. Not far from the Valley of Achor, the Essenes created their eschatological community of Qumran. The providential image inspired by these names conveyed just such a vision for the faithful remnant.

PSALM 42 AND 43. These two psalms were originally one, but possibly for some unknown liturgical reason became separated. Some Hebrew manuscripts still have them as one, so the separation could have occurred during transmission from one manuscript to another. There is also some indication of dependence of the second on the first in 42:9 and 43:2. Then there is the refrain repeated in 42:5, 11 and 43:5. These elements sustain the argument for unity. The lectionary editors agree.

In the first part of the psalm, the poet laments a deep spiritual depression caused by his sense of absence from Yahweh’s presence (vs. 2). It could have been an actual absence from Jerusalem and the homeland of Israel where participation in temple festivals was once possible. Vs. 6 appears to suggest that the exact location was near the sources of the Jordan on Mount Hermon, possibly in enemy hands at the time. Wherever the psalmist was, he expresses distress at conflict in his community (vss. 42:3, 10). Scoffers took the present circumstances as evidence that Yahweh had deserted Israel or that there really was no god at all.

The psalmist’s memories of joining the throng of worshipers processing to the temple elicited great pain (vs. 4). Yet the psalmist hoped that he will eventually have reason to praise Yahweh once again within the temple. The idea that he could worship anywhere else had occurred to him (42:8; 43:2), but like many modern folk, it just didn’t seem to the same. We all like to worship in familiar sanctuaries. The second part of the psalm picks up this hopeful theme as the poet prays that his faith will be vindicated and that he will once again go to the temple to worship and to offer sacrifices as before (43:3-4).

PSALM 22:19-28. (Alternate)   Like all laments, this excerpt pleads with God for rescue, acknowledges God’s sovereignty, expresses the worshipper’s thanksgiving and vows to be faithful. It envisions a hopeful future in which posterity will serve the Lord.

With the exception of vss. 19-21, the remainder of this passage does not fit well with the preceding segment (vss. 1-18). Indeed, the repetition of vs. 11 in vs. 19 suggests a deliberate transition. This has caused scholars to suspect that the first segment was an individual lament to which the song of hopeful thanksgiving was added so that the whole might serve in the liturgical setting of the temple when anyone might come to offer thanks for deliverance from some affliction.

In vs. 21 two images of grave danger indicate how critical the situation had been for the psalmist. Lions of the Mesopotamian type still roamed the Jordan Valley and into the rich pasture lands and agricultural villages of Palestine well into the Christian era. The wild ox was the bos primigenius, called the aurochs in Europe, had been domesticated to some extent, although many still existed in the wild. Domesticated, the ox served in many capacities from ancient times. Sometimes it was used as a sacrificial beast of great value. The original wild ox still roamed the foothills of the Syrian mountains in biblical times frightening the populace with its long horns and fierce nature.

The psalmist, however, expressed the conviction that Yahweh was to be feared more than any wild beast. Therefore, he urged that Yahweh be praised (vs. 22-23). He had an even more significant reason for praise and thanksgiving: Yahweh had not despised or rejected the afflicted, but had heard his cry (vss. 24-26). This brought forth the prophetic assurance that once their realized Yahweh’s sovereignty, all nations would join Israel in the worship of Yahweh (vss. 27-31).  Even the unborn would know and worship the Lord when they heard of Yahweh’s deliverance of the oppressed.

GALATIANS 3:23-29. Coming from the gentile city of Tarsus, Paul knew well what a struggle it was to survive as a Jew in such a foreign cultural milieu. When Paul lived there, the site of Tarsus had been occupied for some 3000 years. Its founding by noted heroes of Greek mythology was the subject of many legends. A Hellenistic Greek city, in Roman times it became the capital of the province of Cilicia, prosperous as a seaport and for industries such linen weaving and sail and tent-making. It also achieved fame as a centre of learning from which had come several noted Stoic philosophers. It well deserved its Pauline designation as “no mean city.” (Acts 21:39) The exact size of the Jewish element of the population is unknown, but it is unlikely to have been more than a small minority.

Minority groups seek many means to survive. Jews adopted their religious traditions as their way of confirming their identity. We do not know whether Paul became an ardent Pharisee in Tarsus or later in Jerusalem. In either case, however, he would have been considered an outsider, first in Tarsus as an ardent Jew meticulous about keeping the law of Moses and then as a Hellenist in Jerusalem with an accent and an attitude. When he met the Christian community wherever he went after his conversion, he found at a safe haven. This reality shines through this high point in his letter to the Greek-speaking Christians of Galatia.

This passage contains Paul’s most decisive statement that faith in Jesus Christ has removed all barriers to a relationship with God and with one another for all who believe. He claims that the law given to Moses was like a schoolteacher disciplining us until Jesus came to make us all God’s children and heirs with Christ of all God’s gifts.

Paul himself had been a life-long learner. He did not come easily or quickly to the conclusion he so briefly summarizes in these few sentences. According to his own words in 1:18 and 2:1, it had taken him at least 17 years before he was well known to the apostolic community in Jerusalem. Even then, he was considered an outsider rather than a leading apostle (2:6-10). So when he wrote in 3:23-24 about being imprisoned and disciplined until Christ came, he was speaking out of his own learning experience and recognizing it as something everyone could experience. As a Pharisee, the law had been his schoolteacher, then it became a prison and Christ had been his liberator.

Paul gives us several other experiential images in this passage. By their new faith relationship to God, he and the Galatians too had become children of God and joint heirs with Christ. They had been dressed in new Christ-garments through baptism. New converts in the early church were baptized naked and re-clothed in a new, white garment. One can presume that Paul had also been baptized in this manner. He certainly knew what it meant to be delivered from slavery to the law and free to proclaim his faith with the considerable gifts of communication he possessed. His facility with languages – Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, in all probability – gave him additional freedom to roam far and wide among the Hellenistic Jewish Diaspora and Gentile cities he had visited throughout Galatia. and other Roman provinces of Asia Minor (modern Turkey).

However Paul may be perceived in our day as being prejudiced toward women in general and their role in society, he also appears to have had remarkably good relationships with a considerable number of individual women. His letters and the records of his travels in Acts identify numerous women with whom he worked and in whose homes he stayed. He considered them as co-workers. He expressed friendship for both men and women equally, seeing them as united with him in the body of Christ.

All this was exceptional for a 1st century Jew from such a strong Pharisaic tradition. Today, Moslems, Jews and Christians rightfully claim their spiritual descent from the patriarch Abraham to a large extent because of Paul’s creative genius in making the gospel known throughout the ancient Middle East. This passage from his letter to the Galatians expresses that unique vision exceptionally well.

LUKE 8:26-39. This unusual story appears to set Jesus’ compassion for the man chained among the tombs against compassion for the Gentile people of this community southeast of the Sea of Galilee. Gerasa (apparently mistaken by Matt. 8:28 as Gadara and by other ancient authorities as Gergesa) was foreign territory in what was then the Roman tetrarchy of Philip, another son of Herod the Great and half-brother of Herod Antipas who executed John the Baptist. Today it is recognized as an archeological site at Um Qeis in northwestern Jordan near its border with Syria, but has never been excavated. We know that it was a Gentile city because the people who lived there herded pigs. Archaeologists distinguish between Jewish and Gentile sites by the presence of pig bones.

Jesus’ exorcism of the demons afflicting this man who lived among the tombs seems at once both puzzling and bizarre. We can only speculate how to identify the man’s specific illness. As was the case with many serious medical conditions in those times, his family and neighbors would have interpreted it as common demon possession. Their solution was to run him out town. That forced him to survive in the local cemetery. There he could do no harm except to himself and be gossiped about in the marketplace of Gerasa as “Crazy Jack.” But as reported in this pericope, the incident reveals obvious marks of grave impurity for any Jew: a demon-possessed maniac living in a cemetery near a place where a herd of pigs wandered freely.

In any case, when Jesus confronted whatever the demons were, the reaction created a panic in the pigs. Jesus’ conversation with the demons about their name, “Legion” and their desire not to be sent back “to the abyss” reads like a fictional embellishment in the oral tradition which lay behind the gospel source. The abyss was the prison where Satan and his demons were believed to dwell for eternity (cf. Rev. 20:3). Popular belief also held that while waiting for their ultimate banishment demons wandered the earth in search of a dwelling place. They especially favored tombs and deserted places as well as those people we would call seriously ill.

It is difficult to understand how Jesus could send the man home to tell his neighbors that their pigs had been drowned. One explanation may that this is a garbled story of the demoniac being healed after his frantic outcries had panicked the pigs. Another view frankly admits that the story suggests that although Jesus healed the man, he failed to convince the unbelieving Gerasenes of God’s compassionate love for all victims of dreaded illness. After all, they had lost their pigs.

How loving could that be? Wasn’t this a failure on Jesus’ part despite having exorcized the demon? After this, Jesus did not extend his ministry further east of the Jordan, but returned to Galilee. There was one happy Gerasene, however. The man who had been healed could not keep this miracle to himself and went about telling everyone he met what Jesus had done for him. Perhaps that – and only that – is the whole point of the story.

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING NOTES.

1 KINGS 19:1-15a. Is this another “Elijah time” for the Christian church? Experiencing significantly decline in membership, ordained clergy and social influence, the church today appears to be suffering  much as Elijah did. Following World War II in North America, there was a great growth spurt for about the next quarter of the 20th century. The beginning of decline in my own denomination can be traced to 1967. That was about the end of what population sociologists ad economists call “the Baby Boom.”

The children and grandchildren of that generation no longer flock to the church and build new religious and educational facilities as their parents and grandparents did. Secularism driven by wealth greater than that enjoyed by any previous generation seems to have captured former church people en mass. In the past decade or two in what could be called a turn of the century debacle many studies and consultants’ programs have  offered more and better ideas to restore congregational growth in every denomination, all to no avail.

The decline continues, even among those massive congregations on the verge of metropolitan areas that number in the tens of thousands. They seem to offer little more than a fearful security in traditional fundamentalism in return for allegiance and financial support.

Perhaps this is the time to reflect on what God’s mission really is at this time. That could be the theme of each member’s individual reflection during the summer down-time. What is the true meaning of this regression? What spiritual insights can come out of the truth that may be waiting for us to discover? It is not as if this has not happened before in the history of the church, as Kenneth Scott Latourette’s well-known history of Christian missions since the beginning of the church,  so clearly shown in The Unquenchable Light (1940).

GALATIANS 3:23-29. Paul’s family trade would appear to have been that of leather working (Acts. 18:3). It has also been speculated that his family was fairly wealthy. Due to extensive use of leather products in those times, that  would have quite likely. But tanners were not highly regarded among Jews. It was customary for them to live outside the towns and cities due to the smell and refuse accumulated by their work. In a Gentile centre like Tarsus, pig leather would have been widely used and valuable, but anathema to Jews.

Did Paul’s ardent Pharisaism result from his rejection of his family’ trade? Was that why he made his way to Jerusalem to learn at the feet of the great Gamaliel I, a leader among the Pharisees in the Sanhedrin? Was another aspect of his conversion his willingness to return to his trade to maintain  opportunities for preaching the gospel in Gentile centres like Tarsus, Corinth and elsewhere? (1 Cor. 9:6-7) Not only all types of people, but all types of work do yield such opportunities for any Christian. Is there a sermon there?

LUKE 8:26-39. Is there a possible link between this pericope of Jesus’ extending his ministry into hostile Gentile territory east of the Jordan and Isaiah 65:3-6? The theory has been proposed that prior to the writing of the earliest NT gospels many of the stories about Jesus’ ministry were reinterpretations of lectionary passages read sabbath by sabbath in the synagogues of the 1st century. In Luke’s case, these would have been synagogues of the Jewish Diaspora in Gentile cities in the last decades of the century. This occurred during the period of oral transmission of the apostolic experience of Jesus. (Gulder, Spong et al.) It is quite feasible to read this pericope in that light.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURES
Sixth Sunday of Lent – March 28, 2010
Liturgy of the Palms and Liturgy of the Passion.

Author’s Note: The Revised Common Lectionary includes the first two lessons of the celebration focusing on the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. If preferred, the celebration may be centred on the Passion of Christ using the second set of lessons. After each set of lessons, some “Preaching Points” have been added to assist in getting some thoughts for sermons started.  My son,  Rev. David Shearman, of Central-Westside United Church, in Owen Sound, Ontario, has joined me in contributing to these suggestions.

PSALM 118:1-2, 19-29. This psalm attributed some unidentified victory to Yahweh rather than to Israel’s military prowess. The use of the first person singular probably indicates that the person concerned may have been a king or high priest as representative of the whole nation. At some later date,   along with Pss. 113-117, it was adapted for liturgical use as one of  “The Hallel Psalms” sung at one of the great festivals.

LUKE 19:28-40. According to Luke, following Mark’s earlier Gospel, Jesus had planned his entry into Jerusalem by warning the owner of the colt that he would need the beast for this occasion. That the colt had never been ridden emphasized the aura of the incident Jesus’ intended to create. The donkey was regarded as a peaceful beast willingly serving its master, thus creating an image of a servant rather than a conquering king. Matthew elaborated the story to include two animals as in a messianic prophecy from Zechariah 9:9-10. Jesus himself took no part in the celebration. Instead, he rebuked  the Pharisees who complained about the crowd of disciples displaying their joyous expectations.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

LITURGY OF THE PALMS.

PSALM 118:1-2, 19-29. This psalm may have been sung originally as an individual  hymn of thanksgiving, but quickly became a congregational hymn used to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. One of the six psalms of the Hallel (Pss. 113-118), pilgrims sang it as they approached the temple on this and other high holidays. It is yet another of the Psalms given a messianic interpretation by the Apostolic Church. Several NT passages alluded to it.

The person who originally sang this hymn (the “I” of the text) may have been the king or high priest, but it soon was reinterpreted as the personification of the nation and sung antiphonally with several parties singing allotted parts.

The “gates of righteousness” (vs. 19) referred to the massive gates at the entrance of the temple precincts representing the holy presence of Yahweh at the centre of the nation. The words would have been sung by the priest at the head of the procession of pilgrims.

Although its use in Christian scriptures invariably refers to Jesus, “the stone which the builders rejected …” (vs. 22) may have come from an old Hebrew proverb. It may have referred to a stone that was too large to be used anywhere but as a cornerstone anchoring a whole wall of a building. Today, most public buildings like churches have a ceremonial “cornerstone” marking the date it dedication and naming the architect who designed it. The psalmist used it to point out that Israel, though despised by the Gentile world, had become an honourable and beloved people in Yahweh’s sight.

The day of rejoicing in vs. 24 is the day of the festival, but is not specifically identified. This may well be the Feast of Tabernacles, for in vs. 27 the festal procession to decorate “the horns of the altar” probably best fits with that festival. The horns were protrusions at each corner of the altar possibly created for just such a decorative purpose or on which the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled (cf. Lev. 4:7).

Vss. 28 and 29 given what appears to be a double ending to the psalm. More likely, vs. 28 is the original ending for the individual hymn of thanksgiving, while vs. 29 is the  ending to the congregation hymn. Alternatively, the first is sung by the celebrant priest while the second is the antiphony sung by the congregation.

LUKE 19:28-40. Those who have visited Jerusalem may have walked the same path that Jesus took from Bethany and Bethphage on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives over the ridge and down the western slope toward the city gates. It is no more than two miles (three kilometres), if that. Presumably the village Jesus indicated was Bethany where he later seems to have made his headquarters during  his Passion  Week.

According to Luke, following Mark’s earlier Gospel, Jesus had planned his entry into Jerusalem by warning the owner of the colt that he would need the beast for this occasion. Was it at the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary in Bethany, that he had arranged for the colt? That the colt had never been ridden emphasized the aura of the incident Jesus’ intended to create by acting out the Old Testament prophecy from Zechariah 9:9-10. The donkey was regarded as a peaceful beast willingly serving its master, thus creating an image of a servant rather than a conquering king. Matthew elaborated the story to include two animals as in the prophecy. By choosing the lowly beast of burden Jesus sought to allay the nationalistic feelings the prophecy engendered.

The disciples began the celebratory procession by throwing their cloaks on the colt and setting Jesus upon it. Quickly joining the celebration, people began strewing their cloaks on the path as he rode along. Note that Luke makes no mention of branches being strewn in the way, neither from palm or any other trees as in Mark and Matthew. Palm branches were used in traditional Jewish celebrations of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:40; Neh. 8:15.) but not Passover.  The palm was an almost universally sacred symbol throughout the ancient Near East. In pre-Christian times it was a symbol of victory and was used in that sense in John 12: 13 and Revelation 7:12.

As the procession moved down the Mount of Olives, a whole multitude of disciples began to praise God. Presumably these were Galileans who had come for the Passover festival and now recognized Jesus whose miraculous deeds they had been witnessing for some time. Luke’s version of their song differs from the one recorded in Mark because he chose words from Ps. 118:26. Originally they were sung by the high priest welcoming pilgrims to the temple. Luke included the word “king” to signal that the crowds believed they were participating in the coronation procession of the Messiah.

Jesus himself took no part in the celebration. Instead, he rebuked  the Pharisees who complained about the crowd of disciples displaying their joyous expectations. His words appear to show that he shared the disciples’ messianic convictions, at least in Luke’s mind.

Preaching Points:

This is a Day of Rejoicing. How do we celebrate in the face of what we know will happen? Does our foreknowledge add or detract from our understanding of the reading? If not, how can the celebration of Palm Sunday be made truly celebratory?
The Gospel lesson is so well known that is may seem impossible to make it “hearable.” Why not use the Psalm as the basis for the sermon? Try emphasizing the cornerstone text (Ps. 118:22). What is the cornerstone of our faith? Does having our faith rejected, sometimes even by our spouse or children, diminish or strengthen it? How can we celebrate that?

LITURGY OF THE PASSION.

ISAIAH 50:4-9A. The unnamed prophet of Israel’s Babylonian exile whose poetry is included in Isaiah 40-55 describes the response of persecuted people to their suffering. The longer poem (vss.1-11), from which      this reading is an excerpt, portrays the exile as the result of the nation’s sin against God (vs.1). The prophet-poet uses this reflection as a teaching    moment. Though written in the 6th century BC, the poem was seen by the    early Christian church as a prophecy of Jesus’ wholly unjust trial and    execution.

PSALM 31:9-16. Again the Christian church has interpreted this psalm with reference to the Passion of Christ. Orignally it was a lament and plea for God’s protection from persecution by false accusers. Though not in this  reading, according to Luke’s Gospel vs. 5 of this psalm was uttered by Jesus on the cross: “Into your  hand I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)

PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11. Paul may have found this hymn in use in one of the congregations he visited, or he may have created it himself. Note that while it does equate Jesus with God (vs. 6,) Jesus did not exploit that honour. Rather, it emphasizes his humanity, his death obedient to God’s will, and his exaltation so that he may be worshiped as Lord of all.

LUKE 22:14-23:56. It is not intended that the whole story of the Passion should be read during public worship, though this is often done in a special, extended service accompanied by  musical  selections and hymns. It could be used for personal devotions, however, throughout Holy Week.

Note how as the story progresses many people come and go, each having contact with Jesus in one way or another. In the end, Jesus is alone in death, commits himself into God’s keeping, and is buried in a unused tomb. Despite its apparent gloom, the story nonetheless has a deep sense of worship about it.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

ISAIAH 50:4-9A. We tend to select only excerpts of OT passages with reference to our Christian liturgical themes and seasons. This passage is yet another example of that kind of adaptation. We need to understand both the setting and significance of the original which was never  intended to prophesy the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

The unnamed prophet of Israel’s Babylonian exile whose poetry is included in Isaiah 40-55 describes the response of persecuted people to their suffering. Chapter 50:1-11 is a poem of four strophes (or stanzas: vss. 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-11). It portrays the exile as the result of the nation’s sin against Yahweh’s covenant  (vs.1) and contrasts this with Yahweh’s faithfulness and that of the servant of Yahweh who suffers for his loyalty. Though written in the 6th century BC, the poem was seen by the early Christian church as a prophecy of Jesus’ faithfulness throughout his trial and unjust conviction and death on the cross.

The early church had only the Jewish scriptures from which to discover the relationship between the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to which they were witnesses and the purposes of God as revealed in the historical and religious traditions of Israel. It is not surprising, therefore, that the apostolic community made some unusual connections between various passages and their experience of the crucified and risen Christ. The obedient, faithful and persecuted servant of this passage gave them exceptional insight into the sufferings of Christ and their own sufferings under persecution in subsequent years.

It is hypothesized by redaction critics of the NT that instead of being actual accounts of what happened, the various versions of the Passion story were created, each from a different theological perspective, for very different audiences, and as expositions of relevant OT passages such as this one. Mel Gibson’s controversial movie, The Passion of Jesus the Christ, while drawing on all four gospels, has given a mediaeval interpretation to those sufferings more in keeping with Isaiah 52:13-53:12. While the NT does contain some reference to the great suffering and shame caused by  crucifixion, as in Hebrews 12:3, that is not its main emphasis. As Otto Piper, formerly of Princeton Seminary, put it, “While in the OT the believer becomes so occupied with his own suffering that he seems to lose sight of the rest of the world, the follower of Christ feels as a result of his suffering a deep compassion for the sufferings of others.” (Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. IV, 453.)

This prophecy puts greater emphasis on the trust of the persecuted one in Yahweh in order to encourage fellow sufferers. Physical violence plays a limited role in the action (vs. 6). Rather, this is a teaching moment (vs. 4) when the suffering servant is certain of his innocence and of Yahweh’s vindication. He also envisions an end to the persecution (vss. 8-9). It is this victory over suffering through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which becomes a central theme of the NT.

PSALM 31:9-16. Again the Christian church has interpreted this lament and plea for God’s protection from persecution by false accusers with reference to the Passion of Christ. According to W. Stewart McCullough in The Interpreter’s Bible,IV, 158ff, the psalm in its entirety consists of three laments woven together (vss. 1-8; 9-12; 13-18) and concluding with a hymn of thanksgiving (vss.19-24). This selection includes only the middle segments. Its two parts consist of the cry of someone who is suffering from some undefined illness (vss. 9-12) and of someone menaced by false accusations. The parallel with the Passion story is obvious, especially in vss.11-13. One could easily imagine Jesus reciting the prayer in vss. 14-16 as he stood silently before his accuser and bore the cross along the Via Dolorosa.

Or was it only in the imagination of later generations of Christians to magnify events along Via Dolorosa so that these became precious to the faithful in “the Stations of the Cross?” All four gospels have very little to say about the journey from Pilate’s seat of judgment to the place where the crucifixion actually occurred. Only the incidents about Simon of Cyrene being compelled to carry the cross and the wailing of the women of Jerusalem appear in the gospel narratives. The actual route of the journey to the place of crucifixion is lost among the ruins of the many destructive assaults on Jerusalem over the millennia. Archeologists and historians believe that following the Via Dolorosa is a sincere devotional journey with little relationship to the historical events at that time.

Though not in this reading, vs. 5 of this psalm was uttered by Jesus on the cross according to Luke’s narrative: “Into your hand I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46) This gives further evidence of how the early church searched their Hebrew scriptures to better understand and communicate the Gospel.

PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11. This is an early Christian hymn outlining the essential creed of the early church. In a few well chosen words it recites the whole sequence of the Incarnation, ministry, crucifixion, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus as described in the gospel records. But Paul had not read any of the gospel narratives which were all written after his own death. He knew only what the first apostles had proclaimed or had taught him after his conversion. It may be that he found this hymn in use in one of the congregations he visited, or he may have created it himself.

In NSRV the passage appears as poetry with some aspects of parallelism, one of the characteristics of Hebrew poetry. William Barclay noted that it may well be an elaboration of 2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”

Note that it does seem to equate Jesus with God (vs. 6). Yet Barclay examined the original Greek more closely, as did E.F. Scott in The Interpreter’s Bible, XI, 48ff. Barclay came to the conclusion that this verse does express the “innate,  unchangeable, unalterable characteristics and ability of the man…. So Paul begins by saying that Jesus was essentially, unalterably, and unchangeable God.”

If it is easily accessible, Barclay’s exegesis of this passage in his Daily Bible Readings Series, The Letter to the Philippians, Colossians and Philemon, is well worth examining in detail. In particular, his definition of the two Greek words for “form” – morph‚ and schema – is helpful in understanding what he believes Paul claimed as the essential divine nature of the human Jesus: “The morph‚ (the word Paul uses) never changes …. However Jesus’ outward schema might alter, he remained in essence and in being divine.”

The humiliation of Jesus as a servant (again the word is morph‚) emphasizes his humanity and his death obedient to God’s will. This humiliation leads to his exaltation so that he may be worshiped as Lord of all. The seven week Season of Easter, from the Resurrection to Pentecost, celebrates this exaltation.

LUKE 22:14-23:56. It is not intended that  the whole story of the Passion should be read during public worship, though this has been done in a special, extended service accompanied by musical selections and hymns. Which segment should be used as the Gospel lesson for worship on Passion Sunday is a matter of considerable choice. The whole passage could be used for personal devotions, however, throughout Holy Week. A liturgy of the palms would have to look to Luke 19:28-40 as an alternative reading.

Note how as the story progresses that many people come and go, each having contact with Jesus in one way or another, and some role to play in the drama. The first to leave are those closest to him, Peter being that last. They were followed by his most hostile opponents, the chief priests and scribes when they delivered him to Pilate. Then Pilate himself gave up trying to administer justice and gave in to political expedience.

Quickly thereafter came Simon the Cyrene who carried the cross, the weeping women of Jerusalem, the two other criminals, the Roman centurion, and finally the crowds. In the end, Jesus commits himself into God’s keeping, and dies alone to be buried in an unused tomb.

In Jerusalem today, two sites are shown to tourists as probable locations of the place of crucifixion and burial. Without question, the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands is the more elaborate and traditional in Christian lore. Only since the late 19th century has the site of the Garden Tomb been favourably regarded as an alternate location.  The truth is that the actual place of Jesus’ death and resurrection are forever lost. The four Gospels each give a different version of the Passion story based on their differing theological standpoint and intentions as authors writing for very disparate communities.

A television documentary broadcast during the week of March 4, 2007 on the Discovery Channel in the USA and Visions in Canada presented a controversial discovery of ten stone burial ossuaries containing bones and three skulls had been located some years ago in a tomb in Jerusalem. The boxes were inscribed with the names of Jesus, Miriam (Mary), Miriamne (Mary Magdalene), and several others, presumed to be members of Jesus’ family. The documentary also claims that DNA has been found on two of the ossuaries which are not related – those of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. This suggests that Jesus and Mary Magdalene may have been married. Church authorities, theologians and archeologists all discounted the validity of this discovery. As with Gibson’s portrayal of the crucifixion, it is clear that the interpreter’s own theology determines which site or what objects are acceptable as a places or relics to inspire devotion and to be appropriately venerated. It was so also for the authors of the four Gospel narratives.

Luke’s version is not so much the climax to his Gospel as it is “a major turning point in salvation history, inaugurating the new period of the church and its universal mission. This period would be covered by the book of Acts.” (Reginald H. Fuller in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, 365. In other words, for Luke, the Passion story is only the middle, not the ending of what Jesus came to do. And so it is for us, despite the sometimes brutal concentration of attention on the crucifixion as in Gibson’s movie of Jesus’ twelve last hours.

Preaching Points.

Most people in the congregation this Sunday will not likely be at any midweek, Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services. For them the crucial homiletic opportunity is on Palm or Passion Sunday. How to make best use of this opportunity presents some difficulty in choosing the best text and theme for this liturgy and sermon. It cannot all be done at once. It might best to review the themes used throughout Lent and bring them toward a natural conclusion. This will not come this Sunday, of course, but on Easter when we celebration the Resurrection of our Lord.

Any one of the personalities appearing the Passion narrative may be used as the focal point of a sermon. Leslie D. Weatherhead’s Personalities of the Passion, first published in 1941 and republished several times would be a helpful resource.

In a recently published work Craig Evans and N.T. Wright have suggested that the gospel accounts describe with reasonable accuracy the execution practice of the Romans and the burial practices of the Jews. [Jesus, the Final Days: What Really Happened (Westminster John Knox, 2009)] While the crucifixion emphasized the terror of the experience for victims and witnesses alike, the burial was designed to comfort the mourners that the end of life had come without any hope of life beyond death.  The Pharisees did believe in resurrection, but they were a  minority party at this time. Most Jews did not share their conviction.

Arguing the pro’s and con’s of the Passion narrative itself is not advisable. This  a time for belief, not lifting up questions of doubt. The true meaning of the word “believe” is not credulously accepting the literal details of the narrative, or any specific sacrificial or salvationist theology, as the final word on why Jesus died. To believe means to discover what we mean by the love that compelled Jesus of Nazareth, Messiah/Christ and Son of God, to accept his own death by cruel execution as a political  criminal who had committed treason. Does he love me that much? How then should I love him and show his compassion for those whom he calls my neighbours?

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

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

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

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

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

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
The Transfiguration – February 14, 2010
Last Sunday After Epiphany

EXODUS 34:29-35. This is an imaginative description of what might have happened after Moses came face to face with God. Moses had been in the very presence of God to receive the commandments. His brother Aaron and all the Israelites knew this because his face shone. This strange phenomenon symbolized that these commandments had come from God, not from Moses himself. The shining presence in God’s messenger represented the divine authority behind the commandments.

PSALM 99. This is the last of a series of psalms used in the temple ritual, which some scholars believe celebrated the enthronement of God as Israel’s ruler at the new year festival. It focuses on God’s justice and praises God for providential and merciful guidance throughout Israel’s history from the time of Moses onward.

2 CORINTHIANS 3:12-4:2. Because Paul had quite another purpose in mind, he reinterpreted the story of Moses covering his shining face with a veil. He declared that God’s authority comes not from the commandments Moses brought to the Israelites, but from the risen Christ who is now present with the church through the gift of the Spirit. So the church is able to speak truthfully and authoritatively for God as we proclaim the gospel.

LUKE 9:29-43. Luke tells of the transfiguration of Jesus with the same Old Testament lesson in mind to make the same point Paul made: Jesus represents God and God’s authority along with Moses and Elijah. The healing of the epileptic child proves that this is no pious hope, but a spiritual reality breaking in upon the natural scheme of things in a distressed world. Our troubled time needs to hear this hopeful message.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

EXODUS 34:29-35. The tendency of biblical scholarship since the beginning of historical-critical inquiry has been to dissect the whole of the Pentateuch, including the Book of Exodus, into source documents authored by unknown hands at different periods of Israel’s history and finally edited into a composite whole. This fragmentation detracted from what many scholars now see in the Book of Exodus: one of the foundational books of holy scripture, for Jews and Christians alike.

No one denies that the structure of Exodus is composite; but it also may be seen as a deliberately structured whole designed for a particular theological purpose. In chapters 33 and 34 this purpose becomes clear. In the renewal of the covenant and the presentation of a second set of stone tablets bearing Yahweh’s commandments, the presence of Yahweh among Yahweh’s chosen people is revealed in all its glory. This above all else, despite Israel’s persistent apostasy and the continued opposition of Israel’s enemies, formed the central point around which all subsequent Jewish history, ritual and faith revolved. This passage presents an imaginative description of what might have happened after Moses came face to face with God.

A tent where Moses met face to face with Yahweh (33:7-11) represented the divine shekinah, (usually described as “the radiant glory,” but literally, “the dwelling” or “that which dwells”). In the ensuing dialogue, Yahweh renewed the covenant with Israel based on mercy and grace, not on Israel’s obedience (34:6-7). In this lesson we have a description of how the people of Israel recognized that this had happened: the shekinah was reflected in the shining face of Moses. This strange phenomenon of the shining presence in Yahweh’s messenger symbolized that the commandments and the covenant of promise had come from Yahweh, not from Moses himself.

Much the same phenomenon is used today in democracies where laws are promulgated in the name of the nation as a whole. In Canada or the United Kingdom, the monarch is the symbolic representation of the nation. In the USA, the president fills this role. In ancient Israel, this representation embodied by Moses provided the nation with its unique identity as the chosen people. The commandments thus became the divinely mandated response to this special relationship and the ultimate authority in the daily life of Israel.

The issue confronting us in this text has to do with our authority for representing Jesus Christ and the living God in our daily lives. A growing number of people have turned to meditation as a means of reconnecting their lives with the divine authority they seek to practice. We owe much of the revival of this facet of our Christian tradition to our Roman Catholic ecumenical partners. A number of devotional websites have been created to assist those unfamiliar with this practice. These include such sites as the World Center for Christian Meditation http://www.wccm.org; Dr. Phil St. Romain’s Shalom Place: The Heartland Center for Spirituality, http://shalomplace.com; and Sacred Space accessible at http://sacredspace.ie/. Another helpful source for guided meditations is the book and CD, The Healing Oasis by Sharon Moon with Gary Sprague, composer and musician, issued by The United Church Publishing House in 1998. While these practices may not recreate for us the experience of the divine shekinah, they may in and of themselves be useful spiritual practices in our anxious age when we seem to have little or no control over our lives.

PSALM 99. According to some scholars, this is the last of a series of psalms used in the temple ritual, probably sung in two or more parts, to celebrate the enthronement of Yahweh as mythical sovereign of the universe as well as of Israel. Scholars have included Psalms 47; 93; 96-99 in this series. This ritual was thought to have been based on non-Jewish traditions adapted for use in Israel at the new year festival. Such celebrations are known to have been common in Babylonian, Ugarit and Moabite traditions. Other scholars dispute this interpretation and regard these as psalms for the sabbath rather than for the new year. On the other hand, they may reflect some specific but indeterminate historical situation. The data is insufficient to prove any of these points of view.

Most likely the psalm dates from the time of Zerubbabel at the end of the 6th century BC, when the temple was being rebuilt following the return of the exiles from Babylon. As several prophetic references indicate, there was an awakening of messianism during this period. (Haggai 2:2-9, 20-23; Zechariah 3:8; 4:8-11; 6:11-12.) Messianism and monarchy were inextricably linked in the theology of the later books of the OT and intertestamental literature.

As we have it now, the psalm celebrates Yahweh’s holiness and justice, and praises Yahweh for providential and merciful guidance throughout Israel’s history from the time of Moses onward. In vss. 6-7 there is a reference to Moses, Aaron and Samuel as priests representing the people before Yahweh and receiving from Yahweh the terms of the covenantal relationship as we have seen described in Exodus 33-34. This is no easy transaction based on special favour. Vs. 8 stipulates that it is the forgiving nature of God which maintains the relationship, while at the same time avenging Israel’s wrongdoings.

The psalm ends with a summons to worship in the sacred temple on the holy mountain of Jerusalem. In the television clips one sees of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, one can quickly discern the persistent sense of holiness and total identification which modern Israelis exhibit toward the site of the temple. I have been there and shared in the practice of praying at what is believed to be all that is left of the temple created by Herod the Great (37-4BCE). One feels a certain empathy for this attitude. Sadly, this same attitude is not extended to the magnificent Islamic mosques which tower over the site and which are just as sacred and worshipful to Moslems as the Western Wall is to Jews. Yet these holy sites have been the source of much anguish and conflict between Jews and Moslems for more than the past half century.

2 CORINTHIANS 3:12-4:2. One of the significant facets of biblical interpretation comes to the fore in this passage. Whatever its original meaning, a specific passage may be used by a later author/interpreter to make a point quite different from that intended by the original author. This was a common practice of NT authors as may seen from their frequent quotations from the only scriptures they knew, the Hebrew scriptures. Most likely they had before them the Greek translation of the Hebrew text composed in the 3rd century BCE by Jews living in Alexandria, Egypt. They freely reinterpreted their selected quotations to convey a message relevant to their own context without regard to the intent of the original passage. Their purpose was to proclaim Jesus of Nazareth as the long promised Messiah/Christ. Don’t we still do that all the time, often in polemical voice as Paul seems to have used here?

Behind this passage stands the OT lesson from Exodus 34. Paul refers directly to the time Moses covered his shining face with a veil. Because he has quite another purpose in mind, Paul saw in this story another interpretation of how the divine presence and truth are authoritatively expressed. Throughout chs. 2 & 3 Paul has been expounding the validity of his apostleship. His confidence in doing so, he claims, is dependent on the superiority of the new covenant he and other apostles preach. He makes a rather negative reference to the shekinah reflected in Moses’ face (vs.7) which is now fading because the old covenant is being set aside. That old covenant simply condemned the Israelites, it did not save them, he claims. Now, however, the new covenant justifies believers; it establishes a right relationship with God which the old covenant failed to do. He goes so far as to liken the veil over Moses’ shining face to the veil he claims lies over the minds of the people of Israel because they refuse to believe in Christ.

This may sound to us supersessionalist, if not blatantly anti-Semitic; and so it has been interpreted. Let’s not deny it as many Christians still do so to the extent of excluding faithful Jews as “the people of God.” (See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersessionism) One of the reasons Paul was so fiercely opposed by his fellow Jews was their belief that he had abandoned the sacred tradition that Israel alone was God’s chosen people. In fact, Paul was trying to say that the old covenant was not wrong, but that it was incomplete. It was but one step along the way to the full revelation of God’s nature and God’s saving love as Jesus Christ had made this known. How do we feel when radical Christian interpreters (e.g. Bishop John Spong) declare that our present understanding of the orthodox Christian tradition is just as incomplete?

The metaphor of the veil covering Moses face and so veiling the minds of believers from the truth in Christ plays an unusually large place in this passage. William Barclay had some interesting insights about this veil and how it still may affect us through prejudice, wishful thinking, fragmentary thinking, disobedience or an unteachable spirit.

Paul goes on to declare that the relationship of Christians in Corinth with God and God’s authority in their lives comes not from the commandments of Moses, but from the risen Christ who is now present with the church through the gift of the Spirit. So the church is able to speak truthfully and authoritatively for God as it proclaims the gospel. What is more, now that they (and by inference, we also) behold the presence of God fully revealed in Jesus Christ and the Spirit, we are being transformed into his likeness. This transformation is not effected by us, but by the Spirit of Jesus Christ himself.

LUKE 9:29-43. Who really knows exactly what Transfiguration means? The word itself translates the well-known Greek term, metamorphoo (English = metamorphose). One is compelled to ask not what it means, but if it really happened. Since the 2nd century CE it has been the subject of much speculative interpretation. Was it, as 2 Peter claims a verification of the Second Coming (2 Pet. 1:16-18)? Was it a misplaced tradition of a post-resurrection appearance to Peter, James and John? Was it, as Matthew 17:9 declared, a vision? Was it a kerygmatic story created by the apostolic church to teach that the messiahship of Jesus was supported by the law and the prophets?

Writing for a Gentile faith community living in a different context, Luke drew on the same Old Testament lesson from Exodus 34 as Paul had in writing to the Corinthians. He wanted to make the same point Paul made, but he said it in a very different way without the polemical attitude Paul voiced. He told this story to point out that Jesus is the one who represents the divine presence in the world and possesses divine authority and power to save. But Luke did not see Jesus as abrogating the old covenant in the same way many believe Paul had done. Along with Matthew (5:17), he saw Jesus as fulfilling the covenant witnessed to by both Moses, as representative of the original covenanted community of Israel, and Elijah, the representative of the whole prophetic witness throughout Israel’s faith history.

What is more, Luke tied this symbolic experience, so vividly recalled by the apostolic community represented by Peter, James and John, to the mission of the apostolic church in the real world where human sickness and distress abounded. The healing of the epileptic child proved that the divine presence and redeeming grace which the church proclaimed is no pious hope, but a spiritual reality breaking in upon the natural, chaotic state of a diseased and distressed world. This interpretation of the Transfiguration, recalling as it does the transfiguration of Moses and the prophetic witness to God as sovereign Lord of Israel’s faith and history, seems far more relevant to our times than Paul’s tortured polemic.

On the other hand, we must also recall that Paul and Luke had quite different purposes in mind. Paul wrote a personal communication to one of the congregations he had founded and which suffered from a serious crisis of disunity. The conflict raging in Corinth, perhaps between Jews and Gentiles as in Galatia, had not only divided the community, but threatened to destroy the very work Paul had so patiently carried out there. Paul would be of all people most surprised to find that his letter was now “holy scripture.” Luke wrote to convince a leader of the Gentile community, or a wider audience of both Jews and Gentiles, that the Christian faith was no threat to peace and welfare of the Graeco-Roman world in which they were living, but indeed its only hope for survival.

If one prefers to regard this as a credible, historical event in the life of Jesus, one must see it for what it meant to him as much as to the apostles. It confirmed Jesus in his mission and prepared him for the difficult trials that lay ahead. To quote D. M. Beck in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (iv.687): “Luke places more emphasis on Jesus, who, facing death, found in prayer the support with him of great spiritual leaders and especially God who chose him for the way of suffering, death and resurrection.” That may well have been all that Luke sought to do.