INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Year C - Second Sunday of Lent

 

GENESIS 15:1-12, 17-18.  The story of God making a covenant with Abraham formed an important link in the religious tradition of Israel. When later generations realized that they had an special relationship with God, they read this back into their ancient sagas of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

 

PSALM 27.     This psalm originally existed as two separate psalms. Vss. 1-6 are a superb song of trust. Vss. 7-14 are a typical lament seeking God's help in trouble. However it came about, the psalm still has great value as an expression of personal trust in God.

 

PHILIPPIANS 3:17-4:1. The Philippians struggled with a problem we also face every day: how to live as disciples of Jesus Christ in a hostile environment in which the majority of our neighbours do not share our convictions.       Paul's advice was to follow his example as he followed Christ in living in this world, but with totally different values to guide them: "In the world, but not of it."  In 3:21 Paul refers to the hope of resurrection so that we shall not only be with Christ, but like him when he returns.

 

LUKE 13:31-35. Jesus rejected the advice of friendly Pharisees that he escape the imminent danger of Herod's persecution. Knowing full well the risks it entailed, he had determined to end his challenge to Israel's establishment only in Jerusalem. The pathos of his words about the holy city showed how much he cared about the ancient traditions of his people.

 

LUKE 9:28-36.  (Alternate)   Some traditions celebrate the Transfiguration on this occasion. Please refer to the lessons listed for February 18 for an analysis of this lesson.

 

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GENESIS 15:1-12, 17-18.  This story of how God made a covenant with Abraham may sound strange to our modern ears, but it formed a primary link in the religious tradition of Israel. It is important to remind our modern congregations that these patriarchal stories in Genesis are not history in the sense of being a factual record of actual events. Yet the truth they convey is valid nonetheless. It may help to briefly outline how oral tradition lay behind the biblical record.

 


The stories of the patriarch's were tribal sagas passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth.  When later generations committed these stories to writing they particular theological points of view about Israel's special relationship with Yahweh. They also read these attitudes back into their ancient sagas of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The sagas took on new meaning and became an integral part of Israel's religious heritage, eventually becoming part of their scriptures.

 

The problems Abram (not yet given his longer name Abraham - see ch. 17) faced and took up with Yahweh were those of an appropriate heir and a territory in which to live permanently. These were tribal issues.  In subsequent centuries when the story became part of a written document, it also became a national issue. In some respects they remain so to this day, religiously and politically.

 

Scholars debate which of the several documentary sources of the Pentateuch, J, E or D, lie behind this narrative. It is probably a composite redacted into final form after the Babylonian exile. There is little question, however, that the story has two parts: vss.1-6 deal with the promise of an heir; vss. 8-21 deal the promise of land. Vs. 7 links the two with the standard formula still used to justify Israel's claim to the territory occupied since the 7th century CE by Palestinians of Arab descent and other ethnic backgrounds. It has been suggested that this connective was a post-Babylonian exile addition to offset the claim of foreigners who had migrated to or forceably settled in the land. The argument persists that temporary absence from the land did not abrogate the divine promise.

 

Vs. 6 contains a remarkable statement which the early Christian church, beginning with Paul adopted as the basis for the doctrine of justification by faith. (Rom. 4:3, 9. 22; Gal. 3:6) For the Deuteronomist redactors, this special relationship with God was obtained through obedience to the law (Deut. 6:25; 24:13). That the two parties would keep the covenant gave Israel the right to the land. On the other hand, it has been argued that the land created the special relationship rather than vice versa. Settlement in Canaan by the invading Israelites required the theological myth of the covenant promise to sustain their claim. 

 


The performing of a sacrifice sealed the covenant (vss. 9-11) as a religious transaction. This shaped all subsequent OT narratives in which the Israelites claim to the land was in dispute. The myth provided the mandate for the conquest of Canaan after the Exodus as well as the return from exile in Babylon. In a sense, like Britain's Magna Carta and the American Declaration of Independence for their nations, it formed the constitutional foundation on which ancient and modern Israel were established.

 

The mysterious fire pot and flaming torch moving among the pieces of sacrificed flesh symbolized the sacred character of the promise of eternal possession of the land (vs. 17). The extent of the territory named (vs. 18) far exceeded anything Israel actually controlled at any time. It included the whole of the Fertile Crescent from the Nile to the Euphrates Rivers and on both sides of the Jordan River. This description was nothing short of an imaginative claim by an enthusiast for the the Davidic monarchy extinguished by the Babylonian exile.

 

 

PSALM 27.     Because of the differences in style and focus, it is thought that

this psalm originally existed as two separate psalms. Vss. 1-6 are a superb song of trust. Vss. 7-14 are a typical lament seeking Yahweh's help in trouble. Both are believed to have been composed at a relatively late date after Israel's return from exile in Babylon. However it came about, the psalm still has great value as an expression of personal trust in God.

 

Vss. 4-5 lead to the conclusion that the first part came from the hand of someone whose duties required spending a considerable amount of time in the temple precincts. A Levite who served as a choir singer might well have been the poet. He certainly rejoiced in his art as well as his faith. Music has always played a significant role in public and private worship.

 

The latter part of the psalm has all the basic elements of a lament pleading for divine help in a desperate situation. Vss. 7-12 describe extremely dark circumstances when the psalmist could not look even to his parents for help (vs. 10). This may be no more than a proverbial way of expressing the depths of despair into which he had fallen. Although everyone had deserted him, he was still sure that Yahweh would come to his aid. He was determined to follow the path of holiness despite the attacks of his adversaries who spread false witness against him (vss. 11-12).

 

In the end, his faith was his only bulwark against disaster. So in a final exhortation he reassured himself that, come what may, Yahweh would be good to him. The conclusion (vs. 14) may be a liturgical formula similar to a benediction at the end of a worship service. Who knows how many saints of past generations have used it as their own source of comfort in lamentable straits?

 

 


PHILIPPIANS 3:17-4:1.     As this passage shows, Paul had a very close relationship with the Philippian congregation.  None of his other letters express his love and concern for them in such intimate terms. This could well have been due to the story told in Acts 16 that it was in Philippi that Paul first made contact with a European community and founded the first European congregation there.

 

The Philippians struggled with a problem we also face every day: how to live as disciples of Jesus Christ in a hostile environment in which the majority of our neighbours do not share our convictions. He faced death on a daily basis, particularly so if, as many scholars have concluded, he wrote this letter from prison either in Rome or in Caesarea Maritima, on the east coast of the Mediterranean, while on his way to Rome (Acts 25-26).

 

Paul's advice was that the Philippians follow his example as he had followed Christ in living in this world, but with totally different values to guide them: "In the world, but not of it." In 3:21 Paul refers to the hope of resurrection so that we shall not only be with Christ, but like him when he returns. But what exactly did Paul mean by "being like Christ?"

 

Certainly, he did not mean it in a physical sense. Paul was sure that we would ultimately be transformed into something similar to the "body of Christ's glory" (vs. 21). Nor did he know anything about the modern science of genetics and the recent description of the human genome. But even this latest scientific discovery raises many more questions than it answers. Geneticists are now saying that all humans are 99.9% alike in our genetic makeup and, as far as the number of genes we have, remarkably like the fruit fly which has been of such use to geneticists in their research. We also share a great number of genetic traits with the chimpanzees and other members of the anthropoid apes. Are we to conclude, therefore, that genetically speaking, Jesus' humanity was almost identical with ours? That's a theological conundrum, isn't it?

 

As always, Paul was speaking in a metaphorical and spiritual sense. It is the essence of the gospel Paul and all NT authors proclaimed that the life we have in Christ is spiritual, created by the gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift comes alive in us - and it is already there waiting to be enlivened - through our exercise of faith. It is most   effectively expressed in the love for God and others with which we learn to live day by day.

 


It saddened Paul greatly that many chose "to live as enemies of the cross of Christ" (vs. 18).  The essence of sin as he saw it was to continue to live in the spiritual   dysfunctional way of selfishness, greed, hate and pride that brought about the death of Jesus on the cross. A so much better way lay in the way Jesus himself had lived. That too was the way Paul himself had tried to live, however imperfectly, since his conversion on the Damascus Road. He had said as much in the paragraph  immediately preceding this passage.

 

Lent is a time when we may examine our lives, confess our sins and renew our commitment to live differently. While Paul knew nothing about Lent, which did not become common in the church for another millennium, this is the pattern Paul set before the Philippians and ourselves two millennia later.

 

 

LUKE 13:31-35.  Jesus rejected the advice of friendly Pharisees that he escape

the imminent danger of persecution by Herod Antipas. Knowing full well the risks it entailed, Jesus determined to end his challenge to Israel's religious establishment only in Jerusalem, the city of God for which his heart ached.

 

In his book, *Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography* (Doubleday, 2000), Bruce Chilton gave a striking description of the ambivalence of many Pharisees toward Jesus. Chilton saw Jesus as an illiterate Galilean peasant rabbi who gathered about him a following of relatively humble folk who lived in the villages of Galilee rather than in fishing port of Capernaum or the larger centers of Roman culture like Sepphoris or Tiberias. The former city had been Herod Antipas' capital, but in 21-25 CE he built and moved his center of government to Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus may have been conscripted as indentured labor in Antipas' enterprise.

 

 Some of the Pharisees were quite sympathetic to Jesus because they felt he was defending the traditions of Moses against the onslaught of the hated Graeco-Roman cultural influences of the larger centers. Furthermore, according to Chilton, Jesus had been a close follower of John the Baptist whom Antipas had executed unjustly. Antipas would have done Jesus in too, if he could have done so without causing a rebellion in his Galilean domain. Jesus spurned him as a sly fox (vs. 32) knowing full well that Antipas feared Jesus' power to command significant support among his fellow peasantry as well as the more sophisticated party of Pharisees. This tour of Galilean communities (vs. 27) was, in Chilton's analysis, an effort to raise a large following of disciples to take with him to Jerusalem. Some of those to whom he appealed were Pharisees (vs. 31; 14:1), despite his frequent clash with them because of their sharp differences about dietary and sabbatical observances.

 


Acknowledging himself as a prophet (vs. 33), Jesus recognized that Jerusalem was the center of all Jewish culture and religious tradition. He must go there; but he also realized what danger lay in wait for him (vs. 34). The Jewish establishment dominated all the political and economic power structures remaining in Jewish hands. The sacrificial rituals of the temple determined not only the keeping of the ancient covenant of Israel and Yahweh, but every aspect of the city's life. Jesus' desire to reform and simplify the whole system mandated that he take whatever risk going there might involve. Yet, like many of the great prophets before him, he knew that his mandate came from a higher authority, from Yahweh, Lord and God of all (vs. 35), who desired not great sacrifices, but profound obedience expressed in love.

 

If the confession of Peter at Caesarea Philippi and the Transfiguration confirmed Jesus as Messiah/Christ, this steady procession toward Jerusalem built the dramatic tension leading to the final confrontation between the old traditions and Jesus' new way of living within the covenant between Israel and Yahweh. However we may read the story of the Passion of Christ, we cannot escape the strong element of Jesus' conflict with the priestly establishment. To say so is not to be anti-Semitic, but to read the gospels as they were written several decades after the events they describe. The gospels were written to interpret with faith what the authors had seen and heard.

 

Christians and church congregations still face the threat of persecution today if faith is found  at odds with dominant authorities – religious or secular. The issue of gay rights divides many congregations and denominations. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA is facing strong disapproval by some of her episcopal colleagues in Africa although elected to her post by a strong majority of her denomination. An Episcopal congregation in Los Angeles is fighting in court against investigation by the Internal Revenue Service because its minister made statements from the pulpit construed by the IRS as participating in the election campaign in 2004. A progressive minister of a congregation of The United Church of Canada In Toronto has been widely condemned for declaring her personal doubts about the divinity of Christ. Religious authorities frequently challenge secular officials and governments who seek to change a nation’s laws on abortion. Portugal is the latest country to experience such internal conflict during and after a plebiscite sought popular support to modernize the law.

 

Such examples show how vulnerable faithful Christians can be when their convictions conflict with those of civil and religious authority. Is this not the way of the cross that Jesus pioneered for us?

 

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