INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Year A - Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

MICAH 6:1-8.      In spite of all that God had done for Israel in the past and all their sacred rituals, the prophet is declaring, they had really missed the essence of what it means to be religious. Totally rejecting their sacrifices as worthless, he declares the simple truth: God requires only justice, kindness and humility.

          At a time when money seems to be so important - in taxes, welfare, debts and investment - we do well to remember this.

PSALM 15. This psalm teaches the supreme values intended to guide the moral and spiritual life of the truly religious Jew. In many respects it summarizes the highest teachings of the great prophets as well as the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy..

I CORINTHIANS 1:18-31.      The tension between living in the real world and living by Christian values was as serious an issue for the Corinthians as it is for us today. Here Paul made his forthright views on this struggle as clear as can be.

          The  power to live the Christian life lies in the self-sacrificing

attitude of Jesus who gave himself in love on the cross. All who would be disciples of Jesus are called to a similar standard. As foolish and ineffective as it may seem to unbelievers, this is God's only plan for saving the world.

MATTHEW 5:1-12.     The Sermon on the Mount is a collection of sayings of Jesus gathered at different times and places, rather than delivered all at once in a single discourse. There is much scholarly debate as to how much of it Jesus actually spoke himself and what was added later by the early church as the apostles reflected on and taught those first believers about him.

          These Beatitudes - a name derived from the Latin for “blessed” - summarize the revolutionary values intended to guide those seeking to follow Jesus. Whether Jesus himself or the apostles uttered them, they are still as challenging as ever.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS:

MICAH 6:1-8.    We know relatively little about Micah except what little can be garnered from the text, particularly 1:1, 8-16. At the same time as his better known contemporary Isaiah proclaimed his oracles from Jerusalem and the royal court, Micah spoke from the countryside in the foothills of Judah. He knew from personal experience the suffering that the policies of the governing religious and political authorities caused among ordinary people.

The times were perilous and the monarchy unstable (750-700 BCE). Traditional religious practices had declined and idolatry had become common. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was under attack and soon to be overwhelmed by the aggressive Assyrian empire. Judah, on the other hand, was able to withstand the onslaught for a time only by compromising their political and religious values, believing that Yahweh would protect them if they offered sufficient sacrifices or Adopted foreign gods to compensate for their moral depravity and gross social injustices. 

This passage is the most memorable of Micah’s oracles. It presents Yahweh as a prosecutor challenging Yahweh’s people to defend themselves against the charge of infidelity despite their historic relationship based on Yahweh’s repeated acts of redemption (vss.4-5). This relationship is intended to be both ethical and religious, but a variety of inappropriate liturgical aberrations have destroyed it (vss.6-7). In spite of all that God  had done for Israel in the past and all their sacred rituals, they had really missed the essence of what it meant to be faithful.

This condemnation of ritual sacrifices marks one of the high points not just in the OT but in the whole of scripture. Not only did Micah deem the traditional products of agriculture unsuitable, he denounced the profligate quantities of these expended uselessly in beseeching divine favor (vs.7a). But the sacrifice which he decried most severely was the offering of firstborn children. The belief popular at the time among many primitive cultures held that the most significant sacrifice one could offer to appease Yahweh was one’s eldest child.

Israel also practiced this custom, common in the ancient Middle East as attested by several OT references (see Joshua 6:26; Judges 11:30-40; 1 Kings 16:34). The Dome of the Rock  mosque in Jerusalem stands on the traditional site on Mount Moriah where Abraham believed that Yahweh required such a sacrifice of him, but also prevented it by providing a ram (Gen. 22). In Micah’s time during the reign of Ahaz (735-715 BCE), such sacrifices were made in the valley of Hinnom outside southeastern walls of Jerusalem to propitiate Molech, the god of the Ammonites. Totally rejecting these sacrifices as worthless, Micah states the simple truth that God requires only justice, kindness and humility.

At a time when money seems to be the measure of all things, we would do well to remember this ancient wisdom as we live in the global village of the 21^st century. An overview of social history shows that corporate capitalism motivated mainly by consumerism and greed is a relatively recent development. The devastating natural catastrophe caused by the recent earthquake and tsunami  in Southeast Asia may well have reawakened the more characteristic practice of generosity based on compassion and communal sharing of resources. Faith and a providential attitude sees the hand of Yahweh, the lord of history, even in such traumatic events, as Micah saw the Assyrian invasion in his time.

PSALM 15.     Where does a person go when seeking guidance in making a decision or light on some persistent affliction? The ancient custom was to repair to some place of worship and seek instruction from an oracle communicated by a priest. This psalm embodies such a practice within the Jewish tradition. It teaches the supreme values intended to guide the moral and spiritual life of the truly religious Jew. In many respects it summarizes the highest teaching of the great prophets as well as the laws found in the Books of Leviticus and  Deuteronomy. Here is Torah, literally  teaching,  in the best sense of that word. The psalm probably dates from the post-exilic period when Torah had achieved its final stages of development.

Instruction often proceeded by a traditional question and answer method such as found here. This parallels the prophetic method we have seen above in Micah 6:6-8. The psalm also exhibits liturgical characteristics. But it may have been used more at home in preparing for worship than in the temple itself. It sets forth clearly how the believer is to present himself so as to appear righteous before God and receive God’s blessing. As in the decalogue on which it may depend, there are ten qualifications (vss.2-5).Most of the sins enumerated emphasize primarily antisocial acts rather than religious transgressions.

The whole consists of three parts similar to a catechism: question, answer and reward. It places significant value on moral integrity and truth. The psalmist must have lived in times when such virtues were lacking. Yet he wrote a tract equally applicable to our times.

1 CORINTHIANS 1:18-31.     The tension between living in the real world and living by Christian values was as serious for the Corinthians as for us today. Here Paul made his forthright views on this struggle as clear as can be, but he had no illusions about how these would be perceived by those outside the Christian fellowship: they would see the faith as utter foolishness (vs.18).

In the exegesis of this passage, Clarence T. Craig  speculated that it may have been the Apollos faction in Corinth, imbued with Jewish wisdom tradition, which laid too much stress upon moral precepts. (*The Interpreter’s Bible.* vol.10, 28. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1953) Undoubtedly Paul knew Israel’s wisdom tradition very well. He would have none of it. His first appeal is to scripture (vs.19) where he melds two quotations from Isaiah (29:14 and 33:18) although it is difficult to understand the relevance of these two quotations. For him, there was one source of spiritual power to live the Christian life in present circumstances, then as now: the cross of Jesus Christ.

The power lies not in the pieces of wood as mediaeval relics implied nor in the religious symbol worn as a decoration, but in the self-sacrificing attitude of Jesus who gave himself in love on the cross. All who would be disciples of Jesus are called to a similar standard. As foolish and ineffective as it may seem to unbelievers, this is God’s only plan for saving the world.

We must emphasize that Paul did not belittle learning or reject knowledge. He himself was a well educated man for his time. He was equally certain that this was not the course that led to God’s presence and power. He also believed fervently that his fellow Jews were on the wrong track because they rejected the crucified Christ. No Jew could ever believe that the Messiah would be executed in such a merciless manner. Instead they sought credible signs that the Messiah had come to bring them freedom from all oppressors. In fact, as William Barclay stated, two such supposed messiahs had appeared within the decade when Paul wrote. Thousands of credulous Jews had followed them. (“Daily Study Bible: The Letter to the Corinthians.” Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1954.)

Greeks, on the other hand, also spurned the whole idea of the incarnation of God. They sought wisdom in philosophy. Paul’s attempt to convert Athenians with a philosophical diatribe did not achieve great success (Acts 17:16-34). Paul did not seem disturbed by the lack of response from those whom the world thought wise or thought themselves to be so. The gospel he preached was for simple folk like those in the Corinthian congregation (vs.26). God chose the little people, not the great ones, to be witnesses to the initiative of grace offered in Christ Jesus.

As a young man an eminent scholar served a pastorate in a Scottish coal mining community where the men of the congregation worked in considerable danger at the coal face. One evening after discussing point of faith with one of the elders of the congregation, the minister remarked, “Jock, that’s narrow, but deep.” To which the elder replied, “At the coal face, one has to be both narrow and deep.”

Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians conveyed a similar simplicity.

MATTHEW 5:1-12. The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is a collection of sayings Jesus may have uttered at different times and places, rather than delivered all at once in a single discourse. There is still much scholarly debate as to how much of it Jesus actually spoke himself and what may have been added later by the early church.

The Beatitudes summarize the revolutionary values intended to guide those seeking to follow Jesus. Each one is a sermon in itself, and the whole passage has generated many a sermon series from pulpits of yesteryear. Those who would have a little variation from the lectionary would do well to select this passage for such a continuum.

Beatitudes appear in the OT according to a single pattern beginning with the Hebrew  word esher (blessed or happy) after which they usually described someone worthy of praise (e.g. Psalm 1:1; 2:12; Proverbs 8:34; Isaiah 56:2; Daniel 12:12). Matthew quoted Jesus using the same method and  adding the reason for this happy state.

Apart from Matthew and Luke where the formula appears most commonly, beatitudes occur seven times in Revelation (1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14), three times in Paul’s Letter to the Romans (4:7-8; 14:22) , and once in John (20:29). The main difference from OT beatitudes, however, is their stress on eschatological joy of sharing in the reign of God as opposed to receiving rewards for living  righteously here and now. The reign of God comes, the beatitudes insist, not by implementing human schemes of moral and social improvement, but by the gift of God.

Another feature to be noted is the paradoxical quality of the Matthean beatitudes. They contradict the normal expectations of ordinary people and their reactions to human experience. The people Matthew identifies are not supposed to be happy - the poor, the mourners, the persecuted.  Was Matthew writing for those of his own community as well as recording the tradition of what Jesus may have said? Was he promising release from the stresses of living in difficult times through trust in God’s action on their behalf regardless of their present circumstances? Many martyred witnesses to the faith went to their death believing that a vastly better life awaited them in the heavenly realm.

Yet the message of the Matthean beatitudes is not exclusively for a distant future.

Rather, it is for the present. The words were spoken to generate trust in God  in difficult circumstances, not simply to enable us to endure hard times. None of us can avoid the traumatic experiences that life so frequently presents. The challenge of Christian faith is to accept and live a sustaining relationship with God in the most trying circumstances. This was never more true than at this moment when in Africa and Asia millions of our fellow human beings suffer disease, privation and the effects of war and natural disasters we have never experienced let alone imagine.

 The beatitudes define the way that Jesus himself lived to the point of death as a rejected religious revolutionary and unjustly condemned criminal. Such spiritual power comes not through our most noble human efforts, but through the gift of grace as the Spirit gives us.

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