Christmas 1 - December 26, 2010

Isaiah 63:7-9

            In this Sunday’s OT lesson, the prophet is recalling God’s past activity in delivering God’s people from slavery in Egypt.  This text is the beginning of what becomes a long prayer or confession and petition, calling on God to act again on behalf of God’s people: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…” (64:1). Gene Tucker says in his commentary that, unlike most of Isaiah 56-65, which is postexilic, this section probably originated as liturgical material during the Exile.  Seen in that perspective, it seems to me kind of an odd choice for the Christmas season – I would expect something more immediately celebratory of God’s present activity.  Still, there are some nice details: God “became their savior in their distress.  It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them….” (verses 8-9).  The implication for the church is that, with the Incarnation (the birth of Jesus), God has done it again!

Matthew 2:13-23

            I can’t help but notice how divergent the birth stories of Matthew and Luke are in most of their details.  Basically, they agree that (1) Mary was Jesus’ mother, (2) Joseph was his (step?)father, (3) he was born in Bethlehem, (4) angels were involved at various points in conveying God’s purposes, and (5) he grew up in Nazareth.  Otherwise, frankly they tell very different stories.  Luke includes a story about John the Baptist’s birth and says the two were cousins; he says the family lived in Nazareth to begin with and came down to Bethlehem for the census; thus the child was born “in transit,” having to be laid in a manger, where similarly transient shepherds were his first visitors; Luke says the family presented Jesus in the Temple soon after his birth, and then they headed back home to Nazareth.  Matthew tells it quite differently: the family lives in Bethlehem to begin with (no census explanation), and up to a couple of years after Jesus’ birth; they live in a house, where magi come calling (no shepherds); news of the birth provokes a massacre of young children around Bethlehem, from which the family escapes to Egypt; and it’s when they return from there that they relocate to Nazareth.  To put it bluntly, it appears to me that the gospel-writers just really did not know much about Jesus’ origins, and so different traditions developed.  The question then is, why—theologically speaking--do Matthew and Luke tell the stories they tell?

            This Sunday, in particular, we’re dealing with the part of Matthew’s story after the magi leave, when the family escapes Herod’s massacre and goes to Egypt, then returns after Herod’s death and goes up to Nazareth.  I think one of Matthew’s main theological points, the way he continually echoes the Joseph-Moses-Joshua narrative from the OT, is that Jesus’ birth is a kind of “second Exodus.”  Thus we have Joseph the dreamer (cf. Gen. 37:5-11); we have Joseph and the family ending up in Egypt (cf. Gen. 37:12ff.); we have Herod being concerned about his power as Pharaoh was, and as a result ordering the killing of young children (cf. Ex. 1); and finally, we have the family leaving Egypt and returning to Israel (cf. Ex. 14; Josh. 3).  I wonder about those magi, too – do they echo the magicians in the Exodus story who go up against Moses?  (see, e.g., Ex. 7:11)  Only this time the magicians are on God’s side!  It has possibilities…

Works consulted:

Gene Tucker's commentary on the OT reading in Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year A.

Special Edition! Christmas Eve

Luke 2:1-20

            In addition to the forthcoming post on this Sunday’s Lectionary texts, I decided to do an extra posting on the Christmas Eve Gospel text, Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus. 
I am struck by how very politically subversive this text is.  Luke writes this in the style of a Roman historical narrative, setting everything in the context of what was happening in the Empire.  And yet his message is that, through events centering on this seemingly insignificant family in a backwater of said Empire, God is working on a scale much grander even than the Roman Empire.  Notice how he sets it up: verses 1-3 establish that no less a personage than the Emperor himself had decided there should be a census of his Empire – or as he regards it, “all the world.”  (Emperor Augustus clearly thinks himself pretty important.)  Verses 4-5 then tell us that, as a result of that decree from the Emperor way off in Rome, Joseph down in Nazareth has to haul ass (donkey) with his pregnant wife Mary all the way to Bethlehem.  Subversive Point #1: the Emperor has unknowingly sent the holy family to the city of David, just where the new king ought to be born.  While in Bethlehem for the census, Mary goes into labor.  And Luke tells us that “she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”  I thought the detail of the “bands of cloth” (more familiarly the “swaddling clothes”) was interesting – why this detail?  I couldn’t find a satisfying scholarly answer, but Luke’s point seems pretty clear: these are not the kind of people who can either hire out their parenting duties or buy their way into a room at the inn, so it’s bands of cloth and a manger for them.  This provides the perfect segue to verses 8ff., where Luke introduces us to the shepherds “living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.”  Subversive Point #2: turns out, these are the people to whom God’s angel announces the birth of the Messiah – not Emperor Augustus, or Quirinius, or frankly just about anybody else.  A couple of nice details in the next few verses:  1.) “Heavenly host” can also be translated “heavenly army” (as compared to the Empire’s legions); and 2.) The title “Savior” is apparently rarely used in the Gospels but was common for the Emperor!  (Subversive Points #3 and #4, anyone?)  And honestly, it never occurred to me what an unlikely “sign” of God’s activity “a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” really is.  The story finishes, verses 15-20, with the shepherds fulfilling their role as proto-apostles –  "going with haste,” “making known what had been told them,” “glorifying and praising God.”  Luke’s point throughout: through people like this poor family from Nazareth and these shepherds living in the fields, God is changing the world.  Makes a census look pretty small-time, doesn’t it?

Advent 4 – December 19, 2010

Isaiah 7:19-16 and Matthew 1:18-25

            This week I’m struck by the contrast between Ahaz and Joseph, two characters who are both given signs about what God has in store for God’s people.  First, in the OT text, the prophet invites Ahaz, the king of Judah, to ask for a sign from God.  The context is that the Northern Kingdom and Aram have formed an alliance to defeat Judah, and Ahaz is scared.  God tries to reassure Ahaz that there’s nothing to be afraid of from “these two smoldering stumps of firebrands” (7:4) – that Judah is going to be just fine if Ahaz will just cool it.  So then, in verse 10, God invites Ahaz to ask for a sign, any sign:   “Whatever you need me to show you to prove that my credit is good, just tell me.”  But Ahaz makes an excuse: “Oh, I could never do that!  It just wouldn’t be right to go and pull God’s credit report!”  In other words, Ahaz apparently doesn’t want to do business with God, he’d rather just be left alone with his fear.  God’s response?  Like it or not, Ahaz, “God is with us.”  See that young pregnant woman over there? says God.  Well, she’s going to have her baby and name it “Immanuel,” and by the time that child comes of age he’s going to be eating the kind of foods you can’t get when you’re under siege.  Why?  Because in just a few years, both Aram and the northern kingdom will both be defeated.  In other words, God’s sign comes to Ahaz, and God’s promise to God’s people, whether Ahaz likes it or not. 

            Then there’s Joseph.  While Luke’s birth narrative focuses on Mary, Matthew’s focuses on Joseph – I suppose because Matthew is trying especially hard to show Jesus’ descent from David, which comes through Joseph (see 1:16).  Joseph also gets a sign from God.  But while Isaiah shows us that Ahaz has nothing but false piety, with Ahaz’s lame excuses to God, Matthew shows us a guy who is nothing but pious – and then some.  Joseph is a “righteous” man, so when his fiancée turns up pregnant (and clearly not by him) he plans to divorce her quietly – i.e., just call off the engagement rather than subjecting her to public humiliation or worse (see Deut. 22:13ff. if you’re curious).  In other words, as a good Torah-following man, Joseph takes the most gracious path he can think of – which is why God needs to nudge him a little further.  As we well know, an angel comes to him in a dream and tells him the child is not another man’s but God’s; that the child will be named “Jesus” which is related to “Joshua” which means loosely “he saves.”  And Joseph, being true to his OT namesake, interprets the dream correctly and changes his plan, marrying Mary and naming the child Jesus just like the angel told him to.  In other words, Matthew portrays Joseph’s devotion to God as being so sincere that Joseph is open to God doing something unexpected.  And man, this text is noisy with OT echoes bouncing off the walls – Joseph/Joseph, Jesus/Joshua, “he saves”/”God is with us.”

Works consulted:

J. J. M. Roberts' notes to the Isaiah text and Dennis Duling's notes to Matthew in the HarperCollins Study Bible.

Advent 3 – December 12, 2010

Isaiah 35:1-10

The original context of this week’s OT reading would appear to be the exile of God’s people in Babylon; the prophet promises that God will save his people and bring them home.  I notice that the images are all sharp contrasts - a desert and blooming flowers (verse 1), strength and weakness (verse 3), blindness and sight, deafness and hearing (verses 5-6), dry land and rivers (verses 6-7), joy and sorrow (verse 10).  The prophet’s message: God’s coming makes that kind of radical difference.

I believe the imagery of verses 1-2 alludes to an actual phenomenon that occurs in arid places: certain flowers can grow there, they’re dormant when it’s dry and then they bloom aggressively when it rains.  In fact, to me this entire reading works best when read hyperbolically rather than literally.  In verse 3, the prophet says that when God shows up, those with bad knees are going to want to pour on the extra effort to make the trip home.  Then in verses 5-6, I hear the prophet saying that for those who haven’t anything much to see or hear or talk or sing about in awhile, all of a sudden it will be like their eyes and ears and mouths have been unplugged.  (I’m reminded of the Hold Steady concert I went to this past summer – the guitar sound was so full and loud that it just washed over me, and I heard more than I had in a long time.)  Of course, the gospels see these verses somewhat differently - see below.

I have to say that a big, wide highway that nobody can miss, devoid of wildlife (verses 8-9), is unfortunately not a happy image in my mind as it conjures the smell of asphalt and diesel exhaust for me.  Maybe a better way to think about it is a continuous stream of people – God’s people returning home with their freedom papers in hand, singing and celebrating all the way, so that predators human and otherwise stay far away.  Now that’s a pretty picture.

Matthew 11:2-11

            John the Baptist again figures heavily in the Gospel text this week.  It begins with Matthew telling us that John was in prison (the historian Josephus corroborates this detail – see last week’s post).  Matthew says John heard about Jesus’ activity and sent some of his disciples to find out if Jesus was indeed the “one who is to come” – i.e., the Messiah.  Incidentally, it appears to me that the seams in Matthew’s story are showing a bit here, since supposedly John already recognized Jesus as the “more powerful one to come” back in 3:13.  The relationship between John and Jesus is a little ambiguous, and all four gospels go to some pains to try to explain it, especially the question of why Jesus got baptized by John. 

Anyway, Jesus answers the question posed by John’s disciples by pointing out what he’s been doing (verses 4-6) – the idea is that these actions are the very ones described in various passages in Isaiah – see especially today’s OT lesson as well as 61:1.  Jesus’ point: he is bringing God’s reign to the world!  I especially like verse 6: all we have to do to be blessed by the Kingdom is not resist it. 

What are verses 7-11 getting at?  Jesus is saying that John wasn’t somebody who got blown this way and that by trends, nor was he as powerful person like Herod (the guy in the soft robes and palace who had put him in prison); rather, he was a genuine prophet in the OT tradition who was driven only by the need to say what God had given him to say.  In that sense, John is kind of a midwife of the Kingdom, confirming that Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish eschatological hopes and helping to bring about the transition to God’s reign.  Final note: Jesus’ reference to “the least” in verse 11, as well as John being in prison and Jesus’ references in verse 5 call to my mind the “sheep and goats” passage in Matthew 25.

Advent 2 – December 5, 2010

Isaiah 11:1-10

            The OT lesson this week looks forward to a new age under a new king from David’s line.  God’s people experienced their glory days under David and his son Solomon, when Israel was a unified kingdom and the Temple was first built in Jerusalem.  The prophet portrays David’s family tree as now just a stump, but promises a surprising new shoot from that royal stump.  (Good image for wintertime, when the trees appear lifeless, but in actuality the buds are already there waiting for spring.)  Just as God’s spirit was on David (see 1 Sam. 16:13), that spirit will also be with this new king.  And like Solomon (see 1 Kings 3), this king will also be a wise judge.  Notice, he’ll restore the balance in the scales of justice, tipping them back toward the poor and the meek, and prosecuting oppressors to the fullest extent of the law.  Incidentally, it seems to me that that image of “striking the earth with the rod of his mouth” is an allusion to Moses and his displays of power before the oppressive Pharaoh. 

The next verses follow appropriately as the prophet says there won’t any longer be predators and preyed-upon (verses 6-7), nor will there be any need for the fear and suspicion that we so take for granted (verse 8).  The images of babies and children in this text, I think, spur us to imagine what it would mean for our children to grow up in a peaceful world.

Romans 15:4-13

The Epistle text also deals with peace, but Paul is talking here particularly about peace between Jews and Gentiles in the Christian community.  Why?  Not just because there was tension between these groups with their different approaches to the faith (and there was), but because Paul saw it as proof that God’s kingdom had indeed dawned that Jews and Gentiles were worshiping and serving God together in the church.  That’s why it’s important that we “welcome one another just as Christ has welcomed us”: when we do, we embody God’s reign in Christ, and we also embody the HOPE that we’ll eventually see the completion of that reign.  Notice that Paul is appealing to both Jews and Gentiles (verse 8 is especially deft), referencing the Jewish scriptures and pointing out that Jesus both fulfilled God’s promises to Israel and at the same time opened God’s household to the Gentiles.

Matthew 3:1-12

I can’t ever read this text without recalling a certain episode of the TV show “In Search Of” dedicated to John the Baptist.  At one time, I was a big devotee of that Sunday evening show which gave equal time to Amelia Earhart, Atlantis, Nostradamus and the Loch Ness Monster.  John the Baptist was the topic one week, and I still remember the characteristic cheap, grainy dramatization of him living in the desert, dressed in animal skins and eating locusts, and of his death by beheading—all narrated in voiceover by Leonard Nimoy.  I remember, too, that it wasn’t until JB made “In Search Of” that it ever occurred to me that he was anybody weird!

And in the scheme of biblical figures, I don’t think he’s particularly weird – he’s basically a prophet in the classic OT tradition.  He is an interesting figure, though.  It’s interesting that all the gospel-writers include him in the story, and go to some lengths to explain the relationship between him and Jesus.  This is probably oversimplifying things, but it suggests that he was an important figure in first-century-AD Palestine and that Jesus was connected in some way, at some point, with his movement.  He shows up in first-century Jewish historian Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews.  Josephus was writing about sixty years later in Rome, under the sponsorship of the emperors, so his work has its own slant.  He discusses John the Baptist in one section, describing his movement and that he was put to death by Herod Antipas because Herod was scared he might incite a rebellion.  Josephus doesn’t connect John with Jesus (though he also discusses Jesus elsewhere).  Josephus says John “was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order of the putting away of some sins, but for the purification of the body; supposing that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.”  (Antiquities bk. 18, ch. 5.)  Then he says that, because John drew a crowd, Herod feared he might start a rebellion.  Matthew commentator Daniel Harrington makes two observations which I think are particularly relevant here.  First, he notes that Josephus talks about John’s preaching in somewhat abstract terms – “virtue,” “righteousness,” “piety” – and that these terms would have meant different things to (gentile) Romans and to Jews.  Romans would have understood the terms philosophically, while Jews would have understood them biblically as having social and eschatological implications.  Harrington also says, and I’ll take his word for it, that Josephus tends to downplay Jewish eschatological claims; certainly in this case, it doesn’t necessarily follow from John’s just being a wise and popular preacher that he’d be likely to foment a rebellion!

And that brings us back to Matthew.  Who is JB for Matthew?  1)  He connects Jesus to the OT prophetic expectations: he’s the voice crying in the wilderness, he looks and acts like Elijah.  2)  He clears the way for the kingdom, calling God’s people to repentance and promising bigger things to come.  And 3) He says it’s not enough to rest on whatever laurels we might have lying around (Abraham as our ancestor, having given at the office, etc.) – to participate in God’s kingdom we need to bear good fruit (an image that links up nicely with the Isaiah text about the shoot out of the stump?). 

Works Consulted:

Daniel Harrington’s Matthew commentary in the Sacra Pagina series

Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, an old version I picked up somewhere for free