Dear Followers,
Thank you for reading these heretofore-weekly posts on the Revised Common Lectionary texts that I/we have been doing for the last six months or so. I seem to have hit a wall of sorts - maybe it's Lent, maybe it's work demanding more of my energy - whatever the case, something has to give and I have decided to take a break from this project. I may continue to post when a text strikes me in a particular way, but I need a hiatus from posting every week. Thanks for reading!
God's peace -
Andy(&Susan)
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Lent 1 – March 13, 2011
You can view this week’s Revised Common Lectionary texts here: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=24 (right-click the link to open a separate tab or window).
The first Sunday in the seven-or-so-week season of Lent (forty days, not counting Sundays) always gives us the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness from one of the gospels. For a long time I have been fascinated by these stories because they appear in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but Mark’s version is very different from the other two – just two very spare verses compared to eleven in Matthew, thirteen in Luke. One detail all three agree on is that Jesus was in the wilderness – or more accurately, the desert – for forty days. Matthew and Luke say he fasted for that time and then was tempted; Mark just says he was in the desert being tempted for that long. Either way, not much difference, and it’s appropriate that this story of Jesus facing his humanity and vulnerability head-on opens our Lenten season of fasting and preparation.
Matthew begins his narrative by telling us that the Spirit led Jesus into the desert in the first place, “to be tempted by the devil.” I imagine this makes us kind of uncomfortable, as we’d much rather think of temptation as something that just happens instead of something the Holy Spirit leads us to! I don’t have a good answer for that, except to point out that this story is nestled right between Jesus’ baptism and the start of his public ministry – so it’s about his identity as God’s son being confirmed. In 3:16, the Spirit descended on his to reveal him as God’s son; now the Spirit is taking him out for a test drive, so to speak, to see what kind of stuff he’s made of. Once in the desert, Jesus fasts for forty days – recalling Israel’s forty years in the wilderness, which also involved going without food (more on that below).
When Jesus has been fasting those forty days, the “tempter” comes and challenges him to turn stones into bread, “if you are the Son of God” – to which Jesus replies with a quote from Deuteronomy. This is the basic pattern of the temptations: (Devil) “If you are the Son of God, do x; (Jesus) “No, because it’s written that y.” All of Jesus’ Scripture quotations here are from Deuteronomy, which to me is a clue to the point of this whole story. For instance, Jesus responds to the stones-into-bread challenge by quoting a bit from Deut. 8:3. If we look at what comes just before that bit in Deut., Moses tells God’s people, “Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (emphasis added) It seems to me that Jesus’ temptation is about seeing “what is in his heart” and whether he’s going to be a faithful servant of God on Israel
The second temptation in Matthew’s version has the devil testing Jesus to see whether he’ll test God – challenging him to throw himself off the Temple
Finally, the devil offers Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world” if Jesus will offer the devil his worship. It’s interesting that Luke’s version of the story reverses the second and third temptations. Why? Well, it makes sense in terms of following the narrative thrust of the gospel to end the sequence in Jerusalem, as Luke does; on the other hand, in Matthew “falling down and worshipping” is something that has particular significance and happens over and over (see 2:11; 14:33; 28:9), so it perhaps makes sense that Matthew ends with this one. Anyway, here Jesus quotes from Deut. 6:13, and again the context is as follows: “When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The Lord your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear.” In other words, the earth and all it has to offer don’t come from anybody but God, so God is the one we worship.
Just to briefly tie this in with the other readings, Paul says in Romans 5:19 that Jesus’ obedience to God (which is shown in the Gospel lesson) has the effect of reversing Adam’s disobedience (which we see played out in the OT lesson).
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Transfiguration – March 6, 2011
You can view this week’s Revised Common Lectionary texts here: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=22 (right-click the link to open a separate tab or window).
The last Sunday before Lent – and the last of the season of Epiphany - is always Transfiguration Sunday, owing to the general location and function of this story in the gospels. That is, it’s a big, powerful revelation of Jesus’ identity before the events leading to his passion and death. As the Epiphany season commences with a voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism identifying him as “my beloved son,” so it closes with that same voice again identifying Jesus and telling his inner circle of disciples, “Listen to him!”
I’ve always thought the Transfiguration story was one of the strangest episodes in the gospels – to me it’s always seemed to just come out of nowhere, this big interruption in the flow of the narrative. Truth is, though – and maybe it has something to do with its strangeness – it’s one of the best attested stories in the gospels. It appears in Matthew, Mark (9:2-10), and Luke (9:28-36), in each following Jesus’ prediction of his coming death. It’s referred to in 2 Peter, as we see in the week’s Epistle reading. Even John includes a story with some odd similarities in 12:28-30: Jesus is speaking about his death and there’s a voice from heaven, which the crowd thinks is just thunder (cf. the “cloud” in the other gospel accounts??).
As I read the story now, the occurrence of the Transfiguration in Matthew’s narrative makes a little more sense to me. Since Jesus’ baptism, he’s been calling and teaching and working with his disciples, they’ve seen him heal and feed and calm storms, and the time comes in ch. 16 for a serious conversation about who he is – what you might call the first semester final exam, which must be passed before they can go on to Discipleship 102. “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asks, and Peter has the answer: “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” Jesus then hands Peter his A+, commending him at some length in a bit (vs. 17-20) that the other gospels don’t include. Then in 16:21, they jump right into the second semester material: “From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem
And that’s the point at which the Transfiguration occurs. It’s as if, here at the beginning of the second semester the disciples – maybe Peter especially – need a refresher on who Jesus is. What’s interesting to me about this story is (1) the way it ties together past and future, and (2) the way it’s both similar to and different from Jesus’ baptism.
On the first point, obviously the vision of Jesus chatting with Moses the lawgiver and Elijah the great prophet (and traditionally the forerunner of the Messiah) ties Jesus to Israel Mount Sinai , the “cloud” of God’s glory covers it, and God speaks to Moses. Here, we see Jesus taking just his “inner circle” of disciples up a “high mountain,” where a “bright cloud overshadow[s] them” and God speaks. (Note: here God speaks not to Jesus but to the disciples.) Matthew also has the added bit (v. 2) about Jesus’ face “shining like the sun,” which recalls Moses when he came down from the mountain (see Ex. 34:29). This bit about Jesus shining like the sun also clues us in that this is a vision of Jesus’ future as well: earlier in his story (13:43) Jesus said that “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father. Let anyone with ears listen!”
On the second point, this story is certainly similar to Jesus’ baptism in its focus on Jesus’ identity; in its location here at the beginning of Act II (as the baptism started Act I); and in the voice from heaven identifying Jesus as “my son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased.” The significant difference here is the command to “Listen to him!” The idea being, I think, “Listen to what he’s saying about suffering and death and the cross and losing your life, or you’ll miss the point entirely.” There’s also, it seems to me, an urgency to the “listen to him!” like “don’t lose focus now because things are only going to get harder from here on out.”
Which brings us back full circle to the place of Transfiguration Sunday in the Christian year. We’re reminded that the season of Lent that we’re about to enter is really important, as it leads up to the events and the mysteries that are at the very heart of our faith. As if God is saying to us too, “Pay attention!”
Works Consulted:
Dennis Duling’s notes to the Matthew text in the HarperCollins Study Bible
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Epiphany 8 – February 27, 2011
You can view this week’s Revised Common Lectionary texts here: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=20 (right-click the link to open a separate tab or window).
Isaiah 49:8-16a
This week’s OT text is from the part of Isaiah (chapters 40-55) referred to as “Second Isaiah,” which dates from the period of the Babylonian Exile (J.J.M. Roberts says “probably” between 545 and 539 BC, just before God’s people were allowed to return to their land). These chapters carry an overall tone of comfort, of promise that they will be going home. The thing that most strikes me about this reading is the emphasis on God’s timing – that God will act on behalf of God’s people when the time is right, and in the meantime God’s people should not lose faith and hope.
It starts out referring to a “time of favor” and a “day of salvation” when God will help his people, and it goes on to describe how God will care for the people when that time comes and they journey back home. God will feed them and quench their thirst (vs. 9-10), and God will be bringing home exiles from all over (v. 12). Vs. 14-16 address the question whether God has forgotten Zion (Jerusalem Zion
I’m betting this concept of God acting according to God’s timing is difficult for most of us, who live with the general expectation of being able to get anything-anywhere-anytime. Yet, isn’t it true that the really big and amazing things – like birth, healing, reconciliation - happen in their own time and require faith and patience?
Matthew 6:24-34
This week’s Gospel reading is quite appropriate in the context of Matthew’s gospel: just a little earlier in the story, at least four of the disciples whom Jesus is addressing here quit their jobs in order to hit the road with him (see 4:18-22). And just a couple of chapters after the Sermon on the Mount we see Matthew himself leave his tax booth in the same way (9:9). So it makes sense that his followers might be worried about how they’re going to make ends meet; and it makes sense that this passage would speak to folks who may have lost their jobs, or who live on the edge economically. What’s interesting to me is that even those of us who have plenty to live on can identify with this kind of anxiety. It makes me think Jesus might really be onto something here.
I think we tend to have kind of a duel reaction to this text. On the one hand, we think, “You’re right, Jesus – I shouldn’t worry, everything will be o.k.” On the other hand, we kind of bristle: “But don’t we need jobs?! And is it really a bad idea not to set some extra aside for the worries that tomorrow brings?”
But what is Jesus saying here? He’s not saying, “Don’t work” or “Don’t earn a living,” but rather “Don’t worry.” (Note: in vs. 25-34, the word “worry” appears no less than six times.) I don’t know about you, but it’s the worrying about life more than life itself that always does me in. No sooner have I completed a task at work than I’m worrying about how it’s going to play out. And when things are going well, I can still worry because something might change, in fact everything could unravel! Worrying is my way of trying to control the future, or change the past. “Maybe I should have done x instead of y. What if z happens – what will I do then?” And the real problem with worrying is that it’s completely atheistic: it leaves no room for God.
Which is why Jesus points out the birds and the lilies: because God takes care of them. And doesn’t it stand to reason that God will also take care of us? “Your heavenly Father knows you need all these things,” he says. Jesus is calling us to replace all our worrying with a little faith in God’s providence; and if we need to busy ourselves with something, “strive first for the kingdom of God
Works Consulted:
J.J.M. Roberts’ notes to the Isaiah text in the HarperCollins Study Bible
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Epiphany 7 (Part 2) – February 20, 2011
Matthew 5:38-48
This week’s Gospel reading gives us the rest of chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mount. E.P. Sanders cautions us to keep in mind the kind of criticism of the Law that is being voiced here. It’s not, “The Law says x, but the Law is wrong; do y instead.” Rather, Jesus’ approach is, “The Law allows you this much leeway, but I say you should hold yourselves to a stricter standard.” For example, in v. 38 Jesus refers to Torah provisions about the proper damages for personal injury (see, e.g., Ex. 21, Lev. 24). In legal speak we would say that the Law prescribed compensatory damages (an eye for an eye) but not punitive damages. Jesus suggests foregoing the entire lawsuit, so to speak. What I hear him saying here is, Try a different approach. What would it be like if, when someone hit you on one cheek, instead of doing what was expected (hitting them back, suing them for battery) you offered them the other as well? He gives other examples of this kind of behavior, and I’d offer a couple of notes here. “Coat” and “cloak” in v. 40 aren’t very accurate – the first garment was a shirt worn next to the skin, and the second was the outer robe. It makes for a pretty arresting (and humorous) picture: somebody threatens to take the shirt off your back, and you end up standing there naked in front of them. Also, in v. 41 the verb is “if anyone ‘presses you into service’ one mile” – kind of a military image.
What’s Jesus getting at? I think vs. 43ff., where he tells us to love our enemies, bring the preceding verses into focus so that the idea is, Whenever somebody approaches you as an adversary, don’t accept their definition of the relationship; instead, respond as a friend and redefine the relationship. He goes on to say (v. 45) that loving our enemies and praying for our persecutors is a way of being children of God; i.e., this is what God is like. And the goal, after all, is to act the way God acts, to reflect God’s nature. A better translation of v. 48 is, “Be complete, therefore, as your heavenly Father is complete.” The adjective has the same root as telos, meaning “end” or “goal.”
Works Consulted:
E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus
Friday, February 18, 2011
Epiphany 7 (Part 1) – February 20, 2011
I’ve got out-of town depositions today, so I’m posting in two parts this week. By the way, you can view this week’s Revised Common Lectionary texts at http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=19 (right-click the link to open a separate tab or window).
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
The OT book of Leviticus gets a bad rap; and true enough, there’s some harsh and some puzzling stuff in there. But I remember the first time I read it, being struck by how very practical an approach to religion it describes. We can tend to spiritualize and ethereal-ize our faith to the extent that it loses all grounding in practice. Well, the Levitical approach will bring you back to earth quick.
If there’s a theme to Leviticus, I think it’s this: God is holy, and God wants his people to be holy because we belong to God; the way we “be holy” is by doing certain things that show we belong to God. This week’s OT reading communicates that theme clearly. It starts with God’s admonition to the people (v. 2) to “be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” It then follows with examples of practicing holiness. For example, in verses 9-10, we are told that providing for the poor and foreigners is to be part and parcel of how we make a living: instead of squeezing out all the profit we can, we’re to sacrifice some of our profit margin for those in need. Likewise verse 13, says we’re to practice concern for laborers. I take it a boss might want to “keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning” to make sure the worker shows back up for work the next day; i.e., “Good day’s work - I’ll pay you when you get here for work tomorrow.” Instead, Leviticus says laborers are to be treated with dignity and respect. Verses 17-18 talk about loving our neighbors, and it embarrasses me to no end when I think about how “love your neighbor as yourself” gets pop-psychologized - e.g. “you have to first love yourself in order to love others.” It seems to me the point is, “Don’t harbor grudges against each other; instead, resolve your conflicts, because you are a community and you need each other.”
One final observation: each of the admonitions here concludes with the declaration, “I am the Lord your God.” The idea – these practices flow from the nature of God. Again, God is holy and these practices are the way that we as God’s people reflect that holiness.
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
Sometimes Paul’s logic gets the better of him and he goes off on these tangents, spinning out some metaphor or theological concept until it’s really not clear what he’s saying. I see some of that going on in this text. Verses 12-15 are left out partly because they’re one of these tangents; and then there’s another sort of tangent at the end of the reading. The one point I will zero in on is in vs. 16-17, where Paul tells the Corinthian Christians that they are God’s temple and God’s Spirit dwells in them. In the NRSV there’s a footnote calling attention to the fact that the “you” there is plural: Paul is not saying that our individual human bodies are God’s temples (i.e., this is not some middle school sex ed fodder), but rather that the congregation is altogether God’s house, where God’s Spirit lives. As we’ve been following these readings the last few weeks and have seen (1) that Paul’s concern is conflict in the church and (2) that Paul has employed these different metaphors – garden, building – to illustrate the life of the congregation, this is pretty clear to us. So, Paul’s point: nasty conflict in the church tears down God’s own building project!
Stay tuned for reflections on the Gospel text!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Epiphany 6 – February 13, 2011
You can view this week’s Revised Common Lectionary texts here: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=18 (if you right-click the link you can pull them up in a separate tab or window).
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
“Deuteronomy” literally means “Second Law,” but in the Jewish tradition the book is called by the Hebrew phrase meaning “These are the words” – a phrase that begins the book and is repeated at points throughout (see 29:1). Deuteronomy is presented as a recapitulation of the Law by Moses at the point when God’s people are about to enter the promised land. Today’s OT reading is Moses’ summation after he has finished speaking to the people. I think it’s helpful to back up just a bit and start with verses 11-14. Moses tells the people that, after all, God has laid it all out for them, not hiding the ball but instead making very plain what God expects. So “the word is very near to you…in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” (v. 14) Now, he says, it’s in their hands: they can choose to follow the Law and they will enjoy a good, long life in the promised land; or they can ignore the Law and consequently “you shall not live long in the land…” (v. 18). Moses’ last appeal: “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live...” (v. 19).
This reading reflects a theological perspective (referred to, conveniently, as “deuteronomic theology”) that took hold after the Exile, as God’s people struggled with how and why the Exile happened. They settled on the interpretation that the Exile was the consequence of their disobedience and heedlessness of God’s law. So here’s Moses telling the people at the outset, on the edge of the promised land, that if they follow God’s law they will be blessed, and if they don’t they will be cursed. On a certain level this point of view makes some sense – it’s kind of an extension of, “If you play with fire you’ll likely get burned.” On the other hand, it can be taken too far: as the story of Job points out in another part of the OT, just because someone is suffering (or prospering) doesn’t mean it’s the result of disobedience (or faithfulness).
It’s helpful to note that, even in Deuteronomy, the “curses” aren’t the end of the story. At the beginning of chapter 30, Moses tells the people how to repair the broken relationship with God: “Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back.”
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
In this week’s Epistle reading, Paul circles back around to the point that prompted his reflections on the power of weakness and the wisdom of foolishness. He says, the reason he’s stuck to the basics with these folks – the cross, say – is that loftier subjects such as spiritual gifts are only appropriate for mature, spiritual people – and they are neither. “I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.” (v. 1) (He doesn’t spare their feelings, does he?) And he says, as long as they’re quarreling, trying to one-up and outdo each other, they won’t ever be ready for spiritual things. Paul’s advice: look beyond the differences between the human authorities – “Paul”, “Apollos”, etc. – that are dividing them. Paul and Apollos, after all, are just laborers in the field who each played a small role their faith – Paul planting the seeds, Apollos watering – but it’s God who has really been growing their faith the whole time.
The above is a pretty deft rhetorical move on Paul’s part, as it diminishes what divides the Corinthians (differences between Paul and Apollos) and brings to the fore what unites them (God). But as anyone who has tried to get people with differing theological views to put them aside and “focus on God” knows, it’s really hard. And I think the reason it’s hard is that the ways we understand “God” may also differ in some profound ways. Maybe the trick is to remember that God is ultimately mysterious and beyond our intellectual grasp, as is our unity in God.
Matthew 5:21-37
More from the Sermon on the Mount in this week’s Gospel text: these “you have heard it said…but I say” pieces are often referred to as the “antitheses.” This reading covers the antitheses dealing with murder/anger, adultery/lust, divorce, and oaths. It’s important to remember that Jesus has set these up by saying he hasn’t come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (vs. 17-20). So Jesus isn’t saying here “Law bad, my words good”; rather, if anything he’s telling his followers to take the law farther, to follow the requirements of the law to their logical conclusions. Rather than just “not murdering,” he says, why don’t we also avoid anger and work on reconciling with each other before things get out of hand (saves legal expenses too! (vs. 25-26)). Rather than “not committing adultery,” how about avoiding the lust that leads to adultery? Instead of “at least give a certificate of divorce,” try staying married; instead of “not swearing falsely,” avoid the whole problem by just leaving it at “yes” and “no” and then doing what we say we’re going to do. As E.P. Sanders says, this section isn’t “opposition” to the law but, if anything, a heightening and intensifying of the law. More to come next week, when we get the rest of chapter 5.
Works Consulted:
Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch, Studying the Old Testament: A Companion
E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus
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