INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Year B - Fifth Sunday After Epiphany

 

ISAIAH 40:21-31.   This passage is one of the most majestic in all of the Old Testament. Its rhetorical questions confront us with great theological issues and answers them with a far-reaching faith. The images and metaphors of these poetic lines may seem dated and even quaint. Yet they still speak to the most scientifically oriented minds of a Creator of this vast universe who is ever present and powerful to those who faithfully wait for God to act. Written during Israel's exile in Babylon, it offered hope for oppressed refugees longing to return to their homeland a thousand miles away.

 

PSALM 147:1-11, 20C.   One of the five songs of praise ending the Psalter, this psalm

reflects the same mood of waiting in faith for God to act. It celebrates what God has done throughout Israel's long history of a covenant relationship based on God's steadfast love.

 

1 CORINTHIANS 9:16-23.    Paul here speaks very personally of his difficult relationship with the Corinthians. The heart of the matter appears to have been his authority as an apostle and the support the Christian community in Corinth gave him. His only purpose was to proclaim the gospel so that as many as possible might come to know Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.

 

MARK 1:29-39.   Healing the sick and disabled had an important place in Jesus' early

ministry in Galilee. It did not seem to matter who needed his help. He cared for everyone of whose need he became aware. He did not perform these miracles for any reason other than to proclaim the reign of God's love in human affairs. To maintain this as the one goal of his ministry, he needed to be in constant fellowship with God through prayer.

 

 

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

 

ISAIAH 40:21-31.   This passage is one of the most majestic in all of the Old Testament. Its rhetorical questions confront us with great theological issues and answers them with a far-reaching faith. The images and metaphors of these poetic lines may seem dated and even quaint. They still carry much weight for the modern searcher for truth who will look in faith beyond observable facts and manipulative human reason.

 

For instance, vss. 22-23 depicts God as a supreme potentate seated above the earth in the three tiered universe common to biblical cosmology. God looks down from this height so that human beings appear like grasshoppers. (Or like people on the street seen from the observation decks of the CN Tower in Toronto. The God this

poet sees has power to roll out the sky like a curtain. The image recalls other curtains sacred to Israel's religious tradition. When Israel was in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt, the tabernacle (i.e. tent) in which the ark of the covenant was kept was made of ten finely woven curtains. In the temple in Jerusalem a great curtain separated the most sacred space, the Holy of Holies, from the court of Israel where the congregation assembled for worship.

 

The rulers of nations do not reign eternally as God does. Their impermanence parallels that of crops that are sown and soon wither in a drought or are swept away by a storm (vs. 24).  God has no equal as the whole created universe declares when the stars can be seen at night (vss. 25-26).  We now know what the ancient Hebrews did not know,  that these specks of light are other planets, suns and galaxies millions of miles away in outer space. The mystery of creation still speaks to the most scientifically oriented minds of a Creator who is ever present and powerful to those who are faithful. Despite all the marvelous devices with which we can now scan the farthest reaches of the universe, no one has been able to say conclusively how it all began. Scientific hypotheses remain statements of faith in cosmological research, but do not deny the creative mind of God behind it all. On the other hand, creationism, intentional design and the biblical accounts of creation are religious and theological statements, not a scientific theory. They cannot displace the efforts of science to discover what lay behind the “Big Bang” that cosmologists posit as the initial force with which the universe began. Some scientists and theologians still work to bring together the conflicting concepts of the origin of our universe.  (See The Metanexus Institute

http://www.metanexus.net/metanexus_online/index.asp .

 

Written during Israel's exile in Babylon, this passage offered hope for oppressed refugees longing to return to their homeland a thousand miles away.  They waited in hope although some had wandered away from their historic faith doubting that God even knew where they were or what they were doing (vs. 27). This makes its message doubly relevant in our time when millions of displaced people huddle in foreign lands far from home. The passage ends with a magnificent recital of how divine grace effectively empowers those who wait faithfully for God to act.

 

 

PSALM 147:1-11, 20c.   One of the five liturgical songs of praise called the hallelujah psalms ending the Psalter (Pss. 146-150), this psalm reflects the same mood of waiting in faith for God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. It celebrates what God has done throughout Israel's long history of a covenant relationship based on God's steadfast love. Probably it was sung during New Year's celebrations or at the Feast of Tabernacles.

 

The psalm shows influence of the unknown authors of Isaiah 40-66 who wrote during and after the exile in Babylon. Vs. 4 almost repeats word for word part of Isa. 40:26. Vs. 2 indicates that the psalmist also knew of the rebuilding of the temple during the period of Nehemiah and Ezra. Thus it must be regarded as of relatively late date, no earlier than the 5th century BCE.

 

Vss. 7-9 with their emphasis on the providence of God seem to fit the Feast of Tabernacles, a time of thanksgiving for the harvest. Vss.10-11 recall Ps. 33:16-17 which may well have been composed in the same period. Both psalms recall Israel's long history of subjugation by more powerful nations and of the need to put their trust in God rather than in military strength.

 

The final shout of praise at the end of vs. 20 may be confusing to those who read this psalm during public worship and could well be omitted. 

 

 

1 CORINTHIANS 9:16-23.    Anyone who thinks that congregational life and ministry is easy only has to read Paul's Corinthian correspondence. We may have only part of the exchange of correspondence that went on after Paul had completed his mission there. A great deal of scholarly energy has been spent trying to decipher how the present two letters can be reorganized so as to make a cohesive and orderly whole. It would appear that the heart of the matter lay in some very divided loyalties to several apostles who had visited Corinth at different times. In vss. 5-6 just prior to this passage Paul named Barnabas and Cephas (Peter's Aramaic name) in particular. Earlier, he had also included Apollos (1:12).

 

Here Paul spoke very personally of his difficult relationship with the Corinthians. The specific issue was whether or not he had the right to claim support from the Christian community in Corinth. They had given it to others. Why not also to him? The issue must have disturbed him greatly for he became so emphatic as to be almost incoherent. Scholars have found the Greek text very difficult to decipher.

 

What Paul seemed to be saying is that as an apostle he could have claimed the same support they gave to others, but he did not. His only purpose was to proclaim the gospel so that as many as possible might come to know Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. He did so without making any claims whatsoever on the Corinthians. This could have been grounds for boasting (vss. 15-16), but he chose to do this of his own free will (vs. 17) because he had been commissioned as an apostle and sought only to do what he felt called to do.

 

In vss. 19-23, Paul introduced what has been for some a very confusing example of how he had carried out his commission. He had become all things to all people so that he might "save some" (vs. 22). How far does that kind of freedom go?  For Jews? For Gentiles? For the strong? For the weak? Was he just being hypocritical?

 

Boswell told a story that Samuel Johnson also acted like this. When a country clergyman complained that the people his congregation were so dull that they could only talk about runts (small cattle), one elderly lady retorted that Samuel Johnson would have learned to talk of runts too. He learned to speak the same language they spoke so that he could talk to them on their level.

 

In his inauguration address as 44th president of the USA on January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was expected to deliver a soaring rhetorical masterpiece. Afterward, many critics in the media declared that his address had been very ordinary if not disappointing. One of the most quoted passages sounded very plain, almost homely and rustic. Maclean’s, Canada’s national newsmagazine, printed it on its cover beside a very natural picture of the president against a black background looking off page toward a light that enhanced his smile and made him appear very comfortable but determined. The quotation in white type against the dark background read: “We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

Were not those words spoken to the ordinary working people of the USA and the world who looked to President Obama with hope for better times ahead as he had promised in his election campaign?

 

What has developed in the days since the inauguration has been a flurry of determined activity and decision making that has astonished many and quieted even the most acerbic of his critics. One of the most severe commentators who bitterly opposed his election has begun to claim rather plaintively that he does not wish the president to fail. He only wants to criticize the sycophant media that so blatantly support every move the president makes.

 

Paul had one factor which controlled all his behavior. He had to be totally committed to Christ's law of love. That alone determined how he behaved in any given situation. As he said in 2 Cor. 5:14, "For the love of Christ urges us on (KJV - "constraineth us"; RSV - "controls us") because we are convinced that one has died for all." The success or failure of every ministry depends on this and this alone. Yet this is not a mandate for every free agent pastor to ignore the institutional constraints most modern denominations require of their pastors. There are boundaries to free will which measure our discipleship.

 

 

MARK 1:29-39.   Healing the sick and disabled had an important place in Jesus' early

ministry in Galilee. It did not seem to matter who needed his help. He cared for everyone of whose need he became aware.  In this passage, he healed Peter's mother-in-law, then a whole host of people who crowded around the door of the house at sundown.

 

I have visited the presumed site in the restored village of Capernaum where a modern chapel shaped like a large boat stands over the site designated as the house of Peter. One can easily imagine the scene. The news of Peter's mother-in-law being ill had cast a pall over the town. Then suddenly someone saw her fully restored to health, bustling about getting a meal ready for her visitor. How could that be? The name of the visitor spread even faster. Jesus of Nazareth had come and had made her well. The town was abuzz. Any and everyone who had something wrong hastened to Peter's house to see what Jesus could do for them. Before darkness settled over the town, everyone who needed it had been given his full attention and had been healed.

 

The recent biography, William Osler: Life in Medicine, by Michael Bliss (University of Toronto Press, 2002) gives details of how such a ministry of healing revolutionized the whole structure of medical services in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The son of a rural Canadian Anglican clergyman, Osler brought one special gift to every patient who came to him and every hospital where he served. He cared about people who were sick and their need for better health. In the Montreal General Hospital, in John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and as Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, he had one mission: Why are these people sick? How can they be helped to be made well? The patient was the most important person in the whole system. Attending to their need was the one mission for which the medical system functioned. He gave special attention to children who were frequently ignored or pushed aside by medical practitioners and institutions.

 

Without saying it in so many words, Bliss leaves the impression that Osler was the living embodiment of Jesus Christ, the Great Physician. Governments, health insurance companies, hospitals, every person engaged in health services and every part of the most modern health care system need to be reoriented toward this mission of sharing the love of God by helping the sick get well.

 

Jesus did not perform miracles of healing for any reason other than to proclaim the reign of God's love in human affairs. To maintain this as the one goal of his ministry, he needed to be in constant fellowship with God through prayer. In vss. 35-39 Mark included a beautiful little pericope about Jesus getting up before dawn and going out to a deserted place to pray. That is where he got his power to do what he did. His relationship with God was the key to everything he could ever say or do.

 

When the disciples found him and reported that all the good folk of Capernaum were looking for him, he told them he must push on to neighboring towns to "proclaim the message there also." It wasn't enough just to stay and bask in the praise of what he had done yesterday. There were countless more people in many other places who needed to hear what he had to say: that God loved them and wanted to help them have a more abundant life.

 

So off he went throughout Galilee proclaiming this message by word and deed to all who would listen and share in his mission. As Laurence Freeman, OSB, has written, “The kingdom, the presence sense of the immediacy of the divine presence, is close at hand, and upon you, within you and among you, not just in his historical context but in all human life.” (Christian Meditation Newsletter, vol. 32, no. 4, December 2008)  We have only to follow in his footsteps in the cities and towns and villages where we live and work and play. Whatever we say or do either proclaims or denies this same message.

 

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