John Shearman's Lectionary

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

 Proper 19   Ordinary 24

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost

September 12, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

  A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING NOTES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Proper 18 Ordinary 23
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost

September 5, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Proper 17  Ordinary 22

August 29, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Proper 16 – Ordinary 21

August 22, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING NOTES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PROPER 15 – ORDINARY 20

AUGUST 15, 2010

ISAIAH 5:1-7. Israel and Judah, the northern and southern kingdoms resulting from the breakup of the united kingdom of David and Solomon, were being threatened by advancing Assyrian armies circa 722 BC. Isaiah saw this threat as God’s judgment for the injustice and apostasy of God’s people. This lyrical poem described them as a vineyard that failed to produce good fruit and so had to be destroyed.

PSALM 80:1-2, 8-19. This prayer pleads for God to save Israel from destruction as a shepherd protects his sheep. Then Israel is likened to a vine that had been brought from Egypt, prospered in a new land, but now was about to be destroyed.

JEREMIAH 23:23-29. (Alternate) It would have been better to end this reading at the natural end of the oracle and chapter (vs. 40) or at the end of a paragraph (vs. 32) in the NRSV. The whole passage conveys Jeremiah’s fierce tone of divine condemnation against the many false prophets of his time.

The burden of Jeremiah’s message is that these false prophets have completely misunderstood who God really is, and not some neighbourhood deity who reigns over a small hilltop sanctuary or one sends propitious dreams promising good favour. Instead, the word of God to the true prophet is as different as wheat from straw (vs. 28c). The dreams of the false prophets lead people astray, providing no moral or spiritual benefit at all.

PSALM 82. (Alternate) The emphasis on social justice rooted in the prophetic awareness of a just and righteous God manifests itself in this short poem. The psalm ends with a prophetic call for God to judge the earth over which God alone reigns.

HEBREWS 11:29-12:2. This passage recalls more of Israel’s religious heroes and describes how they suffered because of their faith. Then it gives the reason for this recital of their heroic endurance. We too may join them in following the example of the greatest of all, Jesus, who suffered death on the cross and now reigns with God.

LUKE 12:49-56. This apocalyptic vision of conflict about what Jesus means presents us with a picture of what may have actually happened in the community for which Luke was writing his gospel in the second last decade of the 1^st century. Confronted by Jews who had expelled all Christians from their synagogues and threatened with persecution by the Romans, it would have been natural for them to seek a deeper understanding of what was happening to them in the Jewish traditions about the end of time and the teachings of Jesus himself. No one can tell how much of these words were actually spoken by Jesus or created by Luke for his audience.

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A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

ISAIAH 5:1-7. Not long ago I drove through the rich vineyard countryside below the Niagara escarpment on the south side of Lake Ontario. The vineyards were in beautiful condition. The weather has been good. The farmers are expecting a bumper crop to deliver to the wineries. Every mile along the road has its wineries, some large, some small. Many of the larger ones draw bus loads of visitors in season to tour their facilities, taste their products and purchase their winter supply. Niagara ice wine, made from grapes allowed to freeze hard on the vines, is becoming famous around the world for its special flavor.

In The Interpreter’s Bible (vol. 5, 196) the late Professor R.  B. Y.  Scott called this “Song of the Vineyard” unique among prophetic canon. His exegetical comments give rise to an imaginative scene as one might have witnessed in Jerusalem circa 725 BCE:

A huge multitude had gathered in the temple precincts to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This vintage festival of thanksgiving was a time of song when small groups and solo voices filled the air with impromptu singing in the informal environment as people waited for the temple sacrifices to begin. Some may even have been a little inebriated from sampling too much of the early vintage. Tolerance for such frivolity did not dull the expectation of the crowd for a great celebration. This year’s crop from Israel’s vineyards had indeed been good.

The prophet Isaiah seized the opportunity to imitate one of the popular vintage songs with a different message. Perhaps because he was a priest and distinctively dressed, he caused something of a stir as people rushed to hear this new voice. His presence as well as the timbre of his voice beguiled many to listen carefully.

The opening lines of his song (vss.1-2) described the typical undertakings of the vine grower, the preparations he made and the failure he encountered. Many in the audience would have been familiar such an experience. As they listened to his next lines, (vss. 3-4) they empathized with the depth of his tragedy. In a year when so many had reaped an abundant harvest, the vine stock he had planted had yielded only wild grapes.

Suddenly the meter of the song changed. In short abrupt words the vintner’s anger burst forth. His disappointment had turned to fury. He will devastate the vineyard that failed so miserably (vss. 5-6.) Knowingly, many agreed with his decision. It was the only thing to do.

Then suddenly, the prophet uttered the real meaning of his song (vs. 7). The vineyard was a metaphor for Yahweh’s covenant people; and the devastation to come Yahweh’s was judgment against them for their rebellion against the sacred covenant.

One can imagine the shock that swept through the crowd as the prophet stared at them, meeting eye after eye until heads turned away in dismay and shame as he pressed home his powerful condemnation.

PSALM 80:1-2, 8-19. This lament offers a prayer for deliverance using similar imagery from Israel’s vineyards. The metaphor occurs in prophetic oracles other than that of Isaiah and in the Gospels as well. (See Jeremiah 2:21; Ezekiel 17:1-10; Hosea 10:1; Matthew 21:33-42; John 15:1-8) Here it is used as a synonym for the Israelites in general. Or, if the tribal names of vss.1-2 are considered in addition to such geographical features as the cedars and “the River,” probably the Euphrates (vss.10-11), the Northern Kingdom in particular is intended.

These geographical references represent the imagined boundaries of the Davidic kingdom to an extent which the great king never achieved. Vs. 8 refers to the vine being brought out of Egypt, an obvious reference to the Exodus. Thus the poet uses imagery to express the intended glory of Yahweh’s people in the Promised Land.

Vss.12-13 constitute a reality check. The walls have been broken down and wild animals now feed in the vineyard. The threat of invaders was by no means imagined. After Solomon’s death, the Northern Kingdom never enjoyed much security. The specific period referred to from the 10^th to the 8^th centuries BCE cannot be identified, but could well be close to the Assyrian invasion and destruction of Samaria in 721 BCE.

Vs. 17 personifies the nation as a human being. Some older versions, including the KJV and the RSV, retain the phrase “the son of man” which some regard as a messianic interpretation not intended by the psalmist.

The lament ends as usual with a vow in vs.18-19. “Never again!” is a phrase often used by religious devotees when repenting their transgressions. Its sincerity has to be measured by the behavioral change that follows, not the beauty or sanctity of the prayer.

JEREMIAH 23:23-29. (Alternate) It is a mystery why the reading has been terminated at vs. 29 rather than at the natural end of the oracle and chapter (vs. 40) or at the end of a paragraph (vs. 32) in the NRSV. The whole passage conveys Jeremiah’s to fierce condemnation on behalf of Yahweh against the many false prophets of his time.

The burden of Jeremiah’s message is that these false prophets have completely misunderstood who Yahweh really is. Yahweh is not some neighbourhood deity who reigns over a small hilltop sanctuary or sends propitious dreams promising good favour. Instead, the word of Yahweh to the true prophet is as different as wheat from straw (vs. 28c). The dreams of the false prophets lead people astray, providing no benefit for them.

Reading this passage recalls the plethora of television and radio evangelists and prophets one can tune in to almost any day of the week. Their broadcasts outnumber those of more careful and helpful analysts and religious commentators many times over. Their message has more to do with a political agenda or making a profit from their audience than proclaiming the good news of God’s love in Christ.
PSALM 82. (Alternate) The emphasis on social justice rooted in the prophetic awareness of a just and righteous God manifests itself in this short poem. Yet these few verses depict an unusual scene.

Like the introduction to the Book of Job (Job 1:6), vs. 1 portrays a heavenly council over which Yahweh presides. Yahweh addresses the assembled “gods” or “children of the Most High.” This phrase appears only in Job and Genesis 6:2, 4. They seem to be heavenly beings exercising some authority on earth. Yahweh excoriates them for aiding and abetting injustice among the people by favouring the wicked. They have failed to do due diligence in helping the poor and weak who have no knowledge or understanding. Failure to do what is required will bring death to these “children of the Most High.”

The psalm ends with a prophetic call for Yahweh to judge the earth over which Yahweh alone reigns.

HEBREWS 11:29-12:2. Like a prosecutor in a law court, the author presents the case for faith with a powerful list of witnesses in this second half of the Hebrews 11. The roll call of heroes and heroines of faith cover the history of Israel from the Exodus to the tribulations and civil conflicts of the Hasmonean period from circa 142-63 BCE. It points to the historical reality that faith alone enabled Israel to survive through those violent centuries. Surely this is not surprising to us who have experienced similar “end of the century of holocausts.”

The implications of this long citation of faithfulness in the face of unparalleled oppression come to the fore in the conclusion of the passage in 12:1-2, which William Barclay describes as “a well-nigh perfect summary of the Christian life.” He elaborates by showing that this life has a goal, an inspiration, a handicap, a means, an example and a presence. (See Daily Bible Readings: The Letter to the Hebrews. Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press;194-197) The metaphor of a long-distance race carries the message to its conclusion. The goal which brings joy in its achievement, however, is not to win a race, but to have direct access to God through Christ.

An interesting feature of this conclusion is that the author uses only the simple human name of Jesus, not the theological names of Christ or Son of God, or his designation as “the great high priest.” It is the human experience of Jesus, and in particular his endurance of the cross, which fits our need for an example to follow as “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” The Christian life is not a 100-metre dash, but an exhausting marathon. Paul used a similar metaphor in writing to the Philippians from prison in Rome (Phil. 3:12-14).

If, as many commentators believe, The Letter to the Hebrews was addressed to a church facing imminent persecution and possible martyrdom, we need nothing less than faithfulness that endures unto death. This spiritual insight may mean nothing now to Christians in the so-called “First World.” African and Asian Christians have a different story to tell. We may yet need their testimony as militarism, tribalism and terrorism in the aftermath of racist colonialism of earlier times, take their toll in the 21^st century.

LUKE 12:49-56. The question arises immediately as to whether or not Jesus actually spoke in these terms. The ideas resemble much Jewish eschatology of the time.  Luke’s eschatology tended to emphasize a delay in the Parousia, but this passage has a much greater sense of immediacy about it. Is Luke here thinking ahead to Jesus’ Gethsemane experience (22:39-46) and thereby presenting his readers fifty years later with a similar warning of severe trials to come? Furthermore, is it not also true that Christian faith and behavior do at times create conflict such as this passage describes?

Luke has drawn together several sayings from Q which Matthew distributes elsewhere. (Cf. Matthew 10:34-36; 16:1-2) So there must have been a certain collective memory of Jesus’ teaching that the end of the age would involve harsh judgment and division. Were Jesus and Luke not being as realistic as any observant person should have been, given the tenuous state of affairs at the time when they lived?

John Dominic Crossan presents a novel approach in limiting the actual words of Jesus to the aphorism about a divided household. He notes that the division is not dependent on faith in the reign of God or on Jesus himself. He also points to the emphasis on generations rather than gender. He suggests that the reign of God’s love tears families apart along the axis of power, particularly power that is abused as parental power has often done.

Another progressive scholar, Bruce Chilton, frequently presents Jesus as very abrasive in his teaching style. If this is what the anticipated messianic kingdom would be like, this teaching would inevitably raise considerable controversy in his audience. Ever ready for an argument on some fine point of the Torah or its implications for daily life, the Jews were notorious for the fervor with which they debated and re-debated each issue a new rabbi defined.

On the other hand, we have to deal with the incredulity of the modern western mind. Eschatology is as far from our concerns during our August vacation as Middle Eastern terrorism and African tribal conflicts . How do we interpret these strange words for those who meet us in the comfortable pews week by week? Underneath their facade of sophistication do we not all have real anxieties about the future? Perhaps the answer lies in the phrase that ends this passage, “to interpret the present time,” (cf. NEB “this fateful hour”) as Jesus and Luke did in their time. Is God not saying something to us in the events of our own time?

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

HEBREWS 11:29-12:2. We do not need to look far from our own time for heroes who pursued the goal of faith to which the author of this letter/essay referred. We have witnessed similar commitment in leaders such Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. By their words and actions these men eloquently put forth a vision of racial harmony as the only possible perception of God’s intention for our time and paid dearly for their vision. Desmond Tutu caught the vision and led his nation to a deeper commitment to truth and reconciliation in the midst of strong opposition from some of those whose domination had ended. What they saw was “a foretaste of the future in the present,” as Frances Taylor Gench put it. “God’s design for our humanity becomes visible in lives of radical trust and costly obedience.”

Gench continued: “Hebrews maintains that the saints of every generation empowered by faith to endure suffering and even death if need be, because they know that their ultimate destiny is in the hands of the unseen God whose promises are sure. And because they know that he purposes of God will not fail to be achieved despite all appearances to the contrary…. We are one with them waiting for the final realization of God’s saving purposes. And because Jesus Christ and the new covenant established in his death represent the fulfillment of God’s promises, Hebrews maintains that he saints of preceding generations will ‘not, apart from us’ who believe in Christ, ‘be made perfect.’” (Hebrews and James. Westminster Bible Companion Series. Westminster John Knox Press, 1996; 64-66.)

Nearly fifty years ago at a conference in Green Lake, Wisconsin, I met several people who left an indelible mark on me. One was a military chaplain who had landed with the Marines on Iwo Jima for the battle that may well have turned the struggle of the Pacific theatre of World War II in the direction of victory. He had subsequently trained as a psychiatrist and, at the time I met him, filled a unique role in leading a specialized course in group dynamics for clergy. Although it was long after meeting him, I came to realize how much he helped me see how one person can effect change by faithful living in community.

The other person was a young Japanese missionary on the island of Okinawa. She was the only member of her immediate family to have survived the bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945. She had been out of town visiting an aunt on the day of that holocaust. Her experience convinced her to become a minister and offer her services to the Japanese people of Okinawa where the vast American military base was located and seriously affected the lives of the permanent residents there.

Like myself, this young Japanese woman was greatly intrigued by the conflict we witnessed between a brash young Methodist minister and a quiet but strong Mennonite minister. These two men became close friends over the two week course when the Mennonite realized and shared openly that it was the brassy buttons on the Methodist’s jacket that so disturbed him. They reminded him of the way the Prussians had persecuted him Mennonite ancestors in Germany a century or more ago.

LUKE 12:49-56. In 1949 when Mao Ze-Dong had led the Communists in triumph into Beijing, the late Professor J. S. Thomson said to a class discussing what the meaning of that event might be, “Who knows what will happen if the Chinese people decide to move?” More than fifty years later, one in every five persons on this planet is Chinese. Is this what President George W. Bush had in mind when he uses the phrase “some rogue nation” and described the threat for which he wanted the American military to be armed with dazzling new weapons in space? The booming Chinese economy may soon overtake that of the United States. Is divine sovereignty in geopolitical and economic affairs not the essential point of this passage in Luke’s gospel?  “We are not alone. We live in God’s world.” (The New Creed. The United Church of Canada.)

Do any of the so-called experts, analysts and commentators we follow so carefully for their views really know what lies ahead? The best strategic minds of our day can only guess, but cannot penetrate the mists of the future. History holds its secrets until they happen. Did Jesus really know what lay ahead of him as he “set his face toward Jerusalem?” Did he fully realize what the cost would be when he overthrew the tables of the priests’ moneychangers in the temple courts?

In the summary chapter in his 1993 work, This Hebrew Lord, entitled “The Non-Religious Christ,” John Spong stated that the possibility of death was always in Jesus’ mind from the time of his baptism and temptation. As time passed, he also became aware that neither his teaching nor his healing acts had convinced even his closest disciples that he possessed the power of divine love to bring peace, healing and liberty to life in all would accept it. Only at the Last Supper did the full price of his mission finally come to him – and, as he prayed in Gethsemane, he wanted to avoid it. “He would live love out in the face of every human distortion of love.” He died on the cross leaving all in the hands of God, not knowing for sure what God had in mind for himself or for his followers. It was only after his death in the loneliness of a criminal’s crucifixion that those who had known him most intimately came to realize who he was and what he had been trying to say and to do all along.

In his ultimate sacrifice in love he communicated the full, the abundant, the inescapable grace of God’s love and became for all humanity “the author and perfecter of our faith.” (Heb. 12:2) The New Testament is the record of his closest followers themselves and others they convinced coming to believe that he was indeed the Saviour and Messiah/Christ. They rallied to carry on his ministry of sharing God’s love. The history of the Church is the record of those innumerable saints who have stumbled, failed, fallen and risen once more to struggle on in their footsteps. Are we ready to follow?

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST -

PROPER 14 – ORDINARY 19

AUGUST 8, 2010.

ISAIAH 1:1, 10-20. Isaiah is without doubt the greatest of Israel’s prophets.  He survived through one of the stormiest periods of Judean history (circa 745-700 BC). He was so highly regarded nearly two centuries later that the work of another group of anonymous prophesies were added to his and now appear in chapters 40-66.

Although believed to belong to the royal court, he vehemently condemned the injustices of his time. In this passage he thundered against the ruling classes, likening them to the rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah. His message presented God’s claim for social justice rather than elaborate rituals and sacrifices.

PSALM 50:1-8, 22-23. This psalm stands in the tradition of the great prophets like Isaiah. It even repeats some of the same phrases as Isaiah’s condemnation of unworthy rituals, but offers an antidote in sincere prayers of thanksgiving.

GENESIS 15:1-6. (Alternate) Abraham receives from God the promise of an heir and countless descendants. This has become the classic claim of all Jews to their eternal existence as a people.

PSALM 33:12-22. (Alternate) Reiterating the promise of God to Abraham,  the closing part of a relatively late psalm celebrates the providence of God for all those who render God due reverence.

HEBREWS 11:1-3, 8-16. This passage celebrates faith and those who have shown themselves to be some of Israel’s greatest faith-heroes. After giving what is for many a somewhat confusing definition of faith, it turns to show how faith had resulted in action by Israel’s great patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

LUKE 12:32-40. The early church believed in the return of Christ at some unknown but imminent time. This passage seems to fit into that tradition. We can find similar elements of it in different contexts both Matthew and Mark (vss. 33-34 = Matthew 6:19-21; vss. 35-40 = Mark 13:33-37). This reveals that a common tradition existed about the meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. He came to inaugurate God’s reign of love in human affairs and would soon return to accomplish this for all eternity.

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A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS:

ISAIAH 1:1, 10-20.

In the introduction to his commentary on Isaiah 1-39, in The Interpreter’s Bible (vol 5, 162) the late Professor R. B. Y. Scott described Isaiah as “an aristocrat of the spirit. He moved like a prince among men. He spoke with the dignity and moral authority which he knew befitted an ambassador of the Most High, and it is evident that he was a product of the finest culture of Judah.”

If Scott’s speculations are accurate, he was both in a favored position to observe the society and its cultic practices which he so severely condemned. It is also surprising that he was able to do so for so long against his own class who perpetrated the very evils he condemned. As Scott also wrote: “Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others, he may have been a priest for his vision of God came as he stood where the priests stood between the porch and the altar.”  This would account for his long prophetic ministry extending through one of the most turbulent times of the nation’s history from about 742 BCE to 701 BCE when Assyria posed a constant threat, the Northern Kingdom of Israel disappeared altogether and Judah narrowly avoided doing so too.

The body of this reading is especially noteworthy for one of Isaiah’s class since it gives a graphic statement about the futility and the disgrace of worship when the lives of worshipers are absorbed in grave injustice. To say that God is more concerned with human relationships expressed through just economic practices than with formal acts of worship in a stately temple would have been as anathema among the religious establishment then as it is now. Not that Isaiah rejected all formal worship. He only sought to point out that worship must be, as Scott stated, “the expression and symbol of reverence for the moral character of God and the corresponding moral standards which should characterize his people.” Human conduct must be a reflection and imitation of God’s justice, goodness, truth, kindness and mercy. In this Isaiah was not alone, but one with all the great prophetic voices of Israel – Amos, Hosea, Micah and Jeremiah.

It is obvious that Isaiah was speaking to the upper classes of Judah in particular. The common people could not have afforded the exorbitantly costly offerings at the frequent festivals cited in vss.11-14. It was the wealthy too who oppressed the defenseless orphans and widows of vs. 17. The implications of refusal by the elite to follow the path of justice and mercy are set forth in vss.18-20. No unconditional forgiveness is offered as some modern interpretations may suggest. The alternative comes through as clearly as in the Deuteronomic Code of Jeremiah’s time a century later: Repent or be destroyed.

PSALM 50:1-8, 22-23. Just exactly how did the prophetic tradition affect the Psalter? Here is one excellent example. As W. Stewart McCullough states in The Interpreter’s Bible (vol. 4, 260): “All the features (of this psalm) stand in the prophetic tradition… (Yet how) the writer handl(ed) the matter of animal sacrifices goes quite beyond the pre-exilic prophets who pronounced the sacrifices of unrighteousness inefficacious, by showing the fundamental unimportance of sacrifice.”

The viewpoint of the psalmist in vss 16-21 (excluded from this lection) stated that at the time he wrote legalistic tendencies were becoming ascendant as the definition of pious living. Yet he warned those fore whom he wrote against undue obsession with the legalisms to the neglect of the sincere worship and social justice.

A theophany, another facet of prophetic experience, begins in vss.5-6, where the psalmist reaffirmed God’s righteousness and judgment as the basis for God’s covenant with Israel. Vs.8 made a brief introduction to a strong admonition concerning sacrifice and the remainder of that segment (vss.9-15, also excluded) lifted up God’s ownership of all the creatures and/or produce used in sacrificial worship.

The nature of divine judgment comes to the fore more extensively in vss.16-21. Lip service to the Torah is no substitute for true spirituality. In true prophetic manner the closing vss. 22-23 reiterated the earlier statement (vs.14) that God prefers thanksgiving rather than sacrifices and wants worship that issues from thankful people who live faithfully.

GENESIS 15:1-6. (Alternate) Does theophany or any deeply spiritual experience spring from an intense inner struggle? This brief story from the J document (attested by the use of JHWH/YHWH, “the Lord”) would seem to suggest so. The passage describes how Abram (aka Abraham) received from Yahweh the promise of an heir and countless descendants.

The first inkling we get is that Abram’s had a vision in which Yahweh took the initiative in response to Abram’s fear (vs. 1). But Abram still doubted, protesting that he had no son to be his direct heir other than   Eliezer of Damascus who had been Abram’s slave (vss. 2-3). Nothing should be made of the locale “Damascus” from which the servant came. The NRSV notes that the Hebrew is uncertain as does Strong’s 1899 Exhaustive Concordance of the KJV.

Yahweh dealt directly with Abram’s angst by promising that he would indeed have a rightful heir of his own issue. The promise went much further. Abram’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars. Unquestionably a hyperbole, this still rings through the millennia as the classic claim of all Jews to their eternal existence as the People of Promise.

Vs. 6 stands out in Christian memory because it became Paul’s great instance of faith rather than righteousness as the catalyst for salvation in Galatians 3:6-9. This interpretation must have become part of the Christian tradition for again in Hebrews 11:8-16 cites Abraham as the great exemplar of faith.

PSALM 33:12-22. (Alternate) Reiterating the promise of God to Abraham, the closing part of this relatively late psalm celebrated the providence of God for all those who render God due reverence. This excerpt has a distinct nationalistic tone to it and could be appropriately applied to almost any nation at a time of great distress. Although it set forth conditions for attaining God’s favour, the initiative as to the choice of which nation shall be God’s People is still God’s alone as the sovereign Lord of history.

The striking image of the “eye of God” reflects the lyric poetry of Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Isa. 40:18-28). The image in vss. 13-15 portrays a powerful sovereign looking over his fiefdom calculating by what means he may command the loyalty of his people. Neither political or military power is  enough. Only a reverent trust that generates love proves sufficient (vss. 18-19).

A church sanctuary no longer in existence had a circular stained glass window high above the central pulpit picturing a human eye looking down on the congregation. It had a distinctively negative effect on some worshipers who saw it as the “eye of God” witnessing all their thoughts and actions. While vs. 15 does lend some force to that interpretation, it is countered by the trusting attitude with which the psalm ends. By putting trust in God’s steadfast love, expressed so totally in Jesus Christ, we have no reason to fear the judgment of our God.

HEBREWS 11:1-3, 8-16. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for….” Oh my! What trouble that Greek word hupostasis (here translated “assurance”) has caused through the centuries! Yet this is its only appearance in the NT. Granted that most arguments about it were linguistic and theological, related almost exclusively to the true nature of the Person of Christ in the 4^th and 5^th centuries CE. Here the word is used to define the “essence” of faith. What follows in this excerpt from one of great passages of the NT is a recitation of the achievements of those who acted on faith.

Vs. 2 states that “by faith” they “received approval”– from God, one presumes, though this is not specifically stated. Vs. 3 goes on to define faith as our attitude, conviction or trust that there is an invisible, spiritual realm or energy which not only influences but actually created and determines what happens in the visible, external environment in which we live from day to day.

Abraham is cited as the exemplar, pursuing God’s promise though he would not see it accomplished in his lifetime (vss. 8-16). Yet using him in this instance has its difficulties, even though he is the great hero of faith for three living religious traditions – Jewish, Christian and Moslem. The skeptic might well ask, “What did it get him?” And answer, “A life of wandering in search of a better homeland he never reached!”

Is it enough to say as vs.16 does that people of faith are sojourners through this life? Is this not a pessimistic escapist approach to living faithfully in the world? Does it not deny the view that God intends to redeem the whole of creation rather than to save only those who are faithful and remove them from the wickedness and destruction of the world? Does God really intend simply to transfer those spiritual ones who have faith from this “vale of tears” to a “sweet and blessed country, the home of God’s elect?” Perhaps we need to rethink what Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall calls “our creaturely destiny” in the framework of Christ’s redemptive work in his life, death, resurrection and ascension.

William Barclay’s study of this passage has a fine opening: “To the writer to the Hebrews faith is a hope that is absolutely certain that what it believes is true, and that what it expects will come. It is not hope which looks forward with wistful longing; it is hope which looks forward with utter certainty. It is not hope which takes refuge in a perhaps; it is hope which is founded on a conviction.” (Daily Bible Study: The Letter to the Hebrews. Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1955; 144-145.)

More recently, Frances Taylor Gench noted that the word faith is found twenty-four times in Hebrews 11 alone, and more than in any other book in the NT. She contends that what the word means for this unknown author “is closer to the meaning of faithfulness. It speaks of faith as active obedience. It is that characteristic of the Christian life that enables one both to persevere even in the midst of difficult circumstances and to step out into the unknown with the courage to live in a risk and vigourous way. … It enables believers to live by a vision of the realities of God and God’s purposes for the earth, a vision that is not yet present or visible to the eye. It empowers believers to move into the future with trust and confidence, knowing that the future belongs to God.” (Hebrews and James. Westminster Bible Companion Series. Westminster John Knox Press, 1996; 63.)

LUKE 12:32-40. So was Jesus talking to his disciples about the here and now or eschatologically? The eschaton in late Hebrew and early Christian thought was that moment when the arrival of the new age was imminent at any moment. It was not some far off future event when history would be wound up and everything set right with the world at the coming of Messiah/Christ? Was this interpretation of Jesus’ words by Luke merely ethical counsel for the contemporary world or eschatological and apocalyptic?  Scholars have been divided about the exact time references of these three pericopes. If they are all teachings of Jesus himself, they obviously come from different periods of his ministry and were gathered into their present context by Luke himself.

Each of the three pericopes uses a different teaching method. Vss. 32-34 contains an assurance peculiar to Luke, a radical but direct ethical instruction and a proverb: “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” What follows is almost a corollary: “(Therefore) sell your possessions, and give alms.” In other words, simplify your life; lighten your burden of material assets so that your spiritual journey will no longer be impaired by their weight. The proverb, “Where your treasure is, there will your hearts be also,” could well be from the ancient treasure of Jewish wisdom, exemplifying the prophetic spirit of justice with which that literature was imbued. One questions whether or not this pericope has a parallel in Matthew 6:19-21 as some have argued. Only the proverb seems to be identical; the context expressed a similar though not identical thought.

Vss. 35-38, however, is an allegory which also contains a warning that the Parousia may be delayed. It has certain elements in common with parables in Mark 13:33-37 and Matthew 25:1-13. Neither Jewish rabbis nor Jesus himself used allegories. Those were primarily Hellenistic teaching methods. The early church quickly adopted this teaching method from its Greek converts and from the writings of Philo, the thoroughly Hellenistic Alexandrian Jew.  Luke himself may well have been one of those converts to Judaism who had embraced the Christian gospel.

The eschatological aspect to this story reverses the ordinary state of human affairs. The servants await the master to come home from a wedding banquet, possibly through all three night watches. When he does come and they respond to his knock at the door, he will sit them down to a feast and serve them himself. That is a total reversal of the ordinary state of affairs. Obviously, it referred to the messianic banquet at the end of the age, a common feature of Jewish eschatology.

The third pericope (vss. 39-40) returns to the typical form of a parable. Matthew 24:43-44 has a parallel, so the source may well have been Q as suggested in The Complete Gospels, edited by Robert J. Miller states. (Sonoma, CA: Poleridge Press, 1992. p.284.)  Both references counsel being prepared for the unknown moment when the Parousia occurs. An almost identical warning occurs in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, one of Paul’s earliest letters, suggesting that this may indeed be a dominical teaching. On the other hand, an almost identical thought can be found in 2 Peter 3:10 and Revelation 3:3 which came at much later dates, indicating that the idea of an imminent Parousia persisted even to the end of the 1^st century or later.

Preaching on any part of this passage encounters expository difficulties; preaching on all three parts could prove virtually impossible. What is more, the Second Coming seems a rather heavy subject for a summer sermon. Congregants are sure to ask about the Rapture, so popular with some television preachers of recent decades.

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS.

ISAIAH 1:1, 10-20. In vs.10 the reference to Sodom and Gomorrah has a different connotation to many ears today because of the mistaken association of those vanished cities with homosexuality. What Lot invited the citizens of Sodom to do to his daughters rather than his sons was more than despicable (Gen. 19:4-8). Isaiah referred to these two fated cities simply as figures of moral destruction. They were set in deliberate contrast to the Torah, the authoritative teaching of the Israel’s tradition of which Isaiah was a staunch defender. The subsequent verses declared unequivocally that God required authenticity in Israel’s worship. His point was that such authenticity should have been based on the ethical demands of the ancient covenant verbalized in the Torah.

PSALM 50:1-8, 22-23. We need to ask ourselves continually whether our liturgies are mere words or actual expressions of the heart, mind and soul. That is how the disciples and the apostolic church remembered the prayers of Jesus. His were no anguished words sent heavenwards or recited from ancient texts.

I recall as a child before I was old enough to go to school my mother and my grandmother taking me to their regular meetings of the Ladies Aid (later known as the Women’s Association). They always began their meetings with prayer and it was always the same – the Lord’s Prayer recited by heart. But it still sounds in my memory as a prayer of the heart, not merely mumbled words. Those women most of them came from local farms and very few of them educated beyond elementary school if that. But they knew their Lord. So his prayer came naturally to their lips when my grandmother, their group leader, began their meetings by saying, “Let us pray.”

HEBREWS 11:1-3, 8-16. What is faith? Where do religious experience and spirituality lie? Is it in our human consciousness deep within the maze of the billions of neural connections that make it possible for us to think, be aware of our mental experiences, and express ourselves in meaningful words?

That would appear to be the case as research into the psycho-neurological aspects of religious experience seems to indicate. This is not yet proven to the satisfaction of rational scientific minds. Yet not even the most rational and agnostic among us, let alone the atheists, can argue that humanity in all its variations through many millennia have had experiences of a religious nature which can only be regarded as of a transcendent reality beyond the mundane physical experiences of everyday life.

In a brief daily devotional, Felix Carrion, coordinator of The Stillspeaking Ministry, United Church of Christ USA, wrote of the interpretation of the parable of the sower and seed in Luke 8:11-15. To him it defined the spiritual experience all of us long for:

“When you are in true possession of your life, this is your life at work (toiling, discerning, understanding, struggling, growing, producing). No one can find your life for you. You alone know it or don’t; you alone find it or don’t. Others will try for you. But Jesus warns us big against this. Only you can know and speak to the meaning of your life. Nature doesn’t play politics. Your true self doesn’t play politics. Neither does God.”

LUKE 12:32-40. In her excellent study of Luke’s Gospel, Sharon H. Ringe places the first of these three pericopes in a section with Luke 12:22-30 with the heading, “Confidence and Anxiety.” The passage concerns the reign of God “where abundance flows out of God’s own sufficiency and generosity.” The counsel to dispose of one’s wealth is “the hallmark of a different economy where alms-giving is not just a doling out of extras, but it is a fundamental reallocation of material and social goods according to the canons of justice.”

Ringe includes the remainder of this reading in another section (vss. 35-48) headed “Warnings About the Urgency of the Times.” Like many other interpreters, she believes that this refers to the church’s expectation of the return of the resurrected Jesus. This is not a frequent theme found in Luke but still a call to continue the church’s “attentive waiting for that day, however delayed it may be in coming.” (Luke. Westminster Bible Companion Series. Westminster John Knox Press, 1995; 180)

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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 10  Ordinary 15
7th Sunday After Pentecost
July 11, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

A  MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING POINTS .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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