INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Year A - PROPER 12

GENESIS 29:15-28. Fantastic compared to modern marriage customs, this story seems to have no religious point to it. It was common in ancient times for sisters to be married to the same husband. On the other hand, as a tribal legend it does say something significant about Israel’s later history as the People of the Covenant. It records in story form the ancient past of the tribe of Jacob and his son Joseph that became predominant in later times.

PSALM 105:1-11, 45b. This psalm recites the national ideology and covenant doctrine as clearly as any passage in the OT. This opening segment and concluding doxology do no more than introduce the foundational theme that underlies all of the Hebrew scriptures: Yahweh is not only Israel's god and covenant lord worthy of praise, but the architect of its history.

PSALM 128. (Alternate) This is another of the fifteen Songs of Ascent (Pss. 120-134), a collection of hymns that could have been used in the New Year festival or as a group of pilgrims approached the temple. It expressed the hope of receiving simple benefits of trust and obedience to God: fruitful produce, a large family, a long life, prosperity for Jerusalem and peace for all Israel.

1 KINGS 3:5-12. (Alternate) Solomon’s prayer comes from the tradition that he possessed wisdom above all other virtues. The king’s response to the divine offer to request anything her desired took the form of a model prayer for anyone assuming a position of power and responsibility. A tone of humility stands out in the words of the prayer. Yet that is in stark contrast to what we know of Solomon from the scriptural record.

PSALM 119:129-136. In keeping with the prayer of Solomon this section of the acrostic Psalm 119 picks up a similar theme. It emphasizes the psalmist’s need for wisdom and right living derived from keeping the commandments of God.

ROMANS 8:26-39. Paul dealt in very succinct, even lyrical, sentences with several subjects of utmost significance: prayer, the assurance of salvation, predestination, the sovereignty of divine love, the unbreakable spiritual bond between the believer and God. The whole reading should be approached not as systematic theology but as the experience of profound faith by one who knew whereof he spoke.

MATTHEW 13:31-33, 44-52. More parables of the kingdom, obviously gathered from many occasions point out various characteristics of God’s reign in human affairs. Many scholars look at these isolated instances as presaging the time when all humanity will be governed by God’s love. “Heaven” refers not so much as a place to which the faithful go beyond death but to a future experience of the whole universe.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

GENESIS 29:15-28. Does this story seem unbelievable as told here? Would a father with two eligible daughters trick his prospective son-in-law as Laban did? Would the son-in-law - Jacob moreover - have been so docile as to accept such a bad bargain as a seven year delay in wedding his beloved?

[A personal aside: In a memorable pastoral situation many years ago, I was in a position to mediate in just such a family conflict. The father of the bride rejected his future son-in-law's desire to marry his younger daughter because he wanted an elder daughter to be married first. Since the couple was of legal age, we planned the marriage without his permission. He threatened to absent himself from the wedding, but relented at the last minute when the daughter called his bluff. The elder sister never did marry.]

The story in this reading seems so outrageous. We should not be so surprised because it was common in ancient times for sisters to be married to the same husband. So what was really happening here and what lay behind this legend of Jacob and his two wives?

Scholars agree that in the Jacob cycle of tribal legends we have a weaving together of traditions emanating from different sources tracing tribal origins. The personalities represent tribes rather than individuals. Furthermore, the Israelites were a disparate set of tribal groups who migrated into Palestine at different times and in different places. Some also may have been Canaanites who lived there before the Israelites came and adopted Israelite religious practices. There is also evidence that the process worked both ways. Canaanite practices also influenced and were adopted by the Israelites. This tribal conglomerate did not become politically unified in any sense until much later in the time of Saul, David and Solomon. The unified kingdom lasted only for about a century around 1000 BCE. The ideology of national identity as the covenanted people of Yahweh, so evident in the patriarchal narratives and the Pentateuch in general, concealed these realities.

The key to this story may be found in 29:1 where Jacob journeyed "to the land of the people of the east" i.e. the northern Arabian desert east of the Jordan River. As the story continues, Jacob found there a migrating tribe with vast flocks belonging to his kinsman Laban and fell in love with Rachel, Laban's younger daughter. This part of the story is excluded from our reading and comes from the J-document of an earlier, southern Israelite tradition.

The present reading (vss. 15-30) comes from the E-document which has been traced to the 8th century northern Israelite tradition with some additions from the much later priestly P-document. The two traditions had much earlier origins in different tribal legends passed down from generation to generation in total isolation. Taken as a whole, the narrative presents separate stories of tribal origins not just tales of love and deceit by two potential rogues. When the redactor/editor of the whole Jacob-Joseph cycle found these different traditions, he wove them together into the composite we now read in translation many more generations later.

The author of the earlier story (J) apparently knew nothing of Jacob serving fourteen years for his two wives. The custom of serving time for a bride was common among ancient Arabian tribes. The tale about Laban foisting his elder daughter Leah on Jacob may have been an invention of the northern tribes designed to defend her descendants= tribal rights and downplay the role of the more powerful tribal descendants of Rachel. Leah's name meant Awild cow@ which may have referred to her wilderness roots. She was reputed to be the mother of the several tribes: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah. Rachel, whose name meant Aewe@, has a softer, pastoral referent. She became the mother of the powerful Joseph tribe which ultimately dominated the whole country. Of course, it is the winners of such rivalries who record the history.

The basis for this ideology is to be found in Yahweh's deeds. The psalm begins with a summons to the worshiping assembly to make these deeds known "among the peoples" i.e. Gentile peoples who do not believe. The psalm quickly becomes both a hymn praising Yahweh and a proselytizing sermon. Vs. 4 appears to be addressed as much as much to the outsiders as to Israelites. One thinks of the design of the temple with its open, outer court serving as the place where Gentiles could draw near to watch and hear the liturgies to which only male Israelites were admitted. Praise often exaggerates a relationship. Such is the case in describing the covenant Yahweh initiated with Abraham. So in vss. 7-11, not only is the covenant defined as universal and eternal, it receives such poetic hyperbole as "the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations." The same segment contains the Pentateuch tradition of the covenant renewed with each the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The centrepiece of patriarchal covenant, of course, was the promise of Canaan as the patriarch's inheritance (vs. 11). Israel's responsibility for keeping their part of the covenant receives little emphasis throughout the whole of the psalm. Praise and thanksgiving to Yahweh for his "wonderful works" provide the main content.

The psalm forms a liturgical celebration of the covenant. Its existence was known at the time of the Chronicler(s) who wrote during the latter part of Persian period of Israel's history (539-330 BCE), or perhaps even as late as 250 BCE. Ps. 105:1-15 can be found verbatim in 1 Chronicles 16:8-22 as the hymn which David sang when the ark was brought to Jerusalem. Other remaining parts of 1 Chronicles 16:23-36 can be found in Pss. 96 and 106. All these psalms have been thought to celebrate the renewal of the covenant at the New Year festival.

PSALM 128. (Alternate) This is another of the fifteen Songs of Ascent, a collection of praises that could have been used in the New Year festival or as a group of pilgrims approached the temple. It expressed the hope of receiving simple benefits of trust and obedience to God: fruitful produce, a large family, a long life, prosperity for Jerusalem and peace for all Israel.

This is a very simplistic approach to our common spiritual experience. But life is not always that simple. Good things do not always happen to good people. The standard alternative approach is to either look ahead to a better life after death; or to seek to draw near to God in the midst of life=s trials seeking strength to endure or comfort in sorrow and despair. The exemplary model for Christians is that of Jesus facing the cross.

1 KINGS 3:5-12. (Alternate) Solomon=s prayer comes from the tradition that he possessed wisdom above all other virtues. Accordingly, the collectors of the Hebrew canon in the 1^st century CE maintained the tradition by attributing to him the Book of Proverbs and the Songs of Solomon (aka Song of Songs or Canticles).

The idea of an epiphany in which God speaks to human in common in religious literature, especially the OT, but not exclusively so. Dreams are also a common way in which such religious experiences are said to happen. As is usual, in this case the initiative came from Yahweh who asked the young king in a dream what he desired. The king=s response took the form of a model prayer for anyone assuming a position of power and responsibility. It is said that when Harry Truman, formerly a haberdasher from Missouri, was named president on the death Franklin D. Roosevelt, he offered this prayer in public, which gained him the much public sympathy.

A tone of humility stands out in the words of the prayer. Yet that is in stark contrast to what we know of Solomon from the scriptural record of his reign. The context for this reading is remarkable too. Solomon had made a political alliance with Egypt through marriage to one of Pharaoh=s daughters. The narrator of the story, however, gave the rationale for the epiphany and prayer as the continuing practice adopted from the Canaanites of offering sacrifices in high places (i.e. hills regarded as sacred). Such sacred sites where religious practices had been carried on by many generations are identifiable as far back as the days of the patriarchs. That the passage had been heavily influenced by the Deuternomic tradition of centralizing worship in the temple in Jerusalem can be seen in vs. 14 excluded from this reading.

Yahweh’s response to Solomon’s prayer characterizes the subsequent reign of the last king of a united Israel as something sublime. If that were the expectations of the young monarch, he certainly did not live up to them. The seeds of the nation=s disunity were sown in his time as the ruler of the disparate tribes of Israel.

Some may recall the great expectations of the British people when Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952 in the early years of post-war reconstruction. Even though she received great respect through the more than 50 years of her reign, she herself admitted glumly that there were many unhappy times. She characterized the year 1992, the 40^th year of her reign, as the Aannus horribilis.@ This was due to two marriage breakdowns and a divorce in her immediate family and the serious fire in part of Windsor Castle. That is to say nothing of the vicissitudes of national life through the last half of the 20^th century.

ROMANS 8:26-39. There are so many preachable texts in this passage that one is at a loss to choose where to place the emphasis. Paul dealt in very succinct, even lyrical, sentences with several subjects of utmost significance: prayer, the assurance of salvation, predestination, the sovereignty of divine love, the unbreakable spiritual bond between the believer and God.

The whole reading should be approached not as systematic theology but as the expression of profound faith by one who knew whereof he spoke. On the other hand, the passage has been frequently misused to debate abstruse theological points as well as to soften the harsh blows of human tragedies and accidental deaths. In many respects, this is a meditation on what it means to have a close, personal, faith relationship with God as one who is a child of God and joint heir with Jesus Christ.

How do we pray when we don't really know how? That is the first question Paul answered. The Spirit helps us. William Barclay quoted C.H. Dodd in putting it as succinctly as possible: "Prayer is the Divine in us, appealing to the Divine above us." Barclay continued in his paraphrase of C.H. Dodd's analysis of vss. 26-30: "We cannot know our own real need; we cannot with our finite minds grasp God's plan; in the last analysis all that we can bring to God is an inarticulate sigh which the Spirit will translate to God for us." (Daily Bible Study: The Letter to the Romans. Edinburgh: The St. Andrew Press, 1957.)

Most scholars confirm that John Calvin and those who followed him made a serious error in basing the theological concept of predestination on this passage. Gerald Cragg makes the point that "predestination in its various forms is much less a theory of the relation between the divine initiative and the human will as an attempt to state the results of an indubitable experience." (The Interpreter's Bible, vol. 9, 526.) It is the discovery, Cragg asserts, that "life is surrounded by God's love and transformed by God's grace."

Both Paul and his mid-20th century expositor knew what that was like. The late Gerald Cragg, sometime professor of systematic theology at United Theological College, Montreal, and Andover-Newton Seminary, Amherst. MA, sailed with his family from Britain to Canada on the ill-fated Athenia. A German submarine torpedoed the ship off the Irish coast on the very first day of World War II. After several hours in the water, the four members of the Cragg family were picked up by separate lifeboats, but each was unaware that the others had been survived until they reached safe harbour in Halifax. The experience not only shaped Professor Cragg's future ministry as a pastor and teacher, but also contributed to his all too early death.

Vss. 31-39 have been used frequently - perhaps too frequently - to bring comfort to the bereaved at funeral services. These words are not for times of mourning, but for every day and for all of life. Their soaring, lyrical phrases leave one breathless before the imaginative vision of what faith means for all who struggle with the countless storms with which life buffets us. The key to this assurance of our faith is God's sovereignty in life and death revealed for all time and eternity in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God's Son. "We are not alone. We live in God's world .... In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us." (The New Creed. The United Church of Canada, 1968, 1992) Because God loves us, nothing will be able to separate us from God.

MATTHEW 13:31-33, 44-52. Jesus' way of telling parables had no equal; yet by no means were his parables unique. The OT contained many. Jewish teachers did not clearly distinguish between proverb, allegory, aphorism or metaphor. Storytelling came as naturally to them as to any tribal community with a long heritage filled with vicissitudes of tragedy and triumph. The NT records 30 vignettes which were specifically identified as parables. If we add other examples which are not called 'parables,' the number increases to about 80.

Among the five included in this reading, we find parallels not only in Mark and Luke, but in Ezekiel, Daniel, Paul's Letters to the Corinthians and to the Galatians, and the apocryphal and Gnostic work, Gospel of Thomas. For instance, the parable of the mustard seed (vss.30-32) shows striking similarities to Ezekiel 17:23 and Daniel 4:20-22. A possibly earlier form of the parable of the yeast is found in the Gospel of Thomas (Saying #96). On the other hand, the saying may reflect the Passover custom of removing all yeast from every Jewish household mandated by Exodus 12:15. Paul's use of the same metaphor in 1 Corinthians 5:6 and Galatians 5:9 indicates that it must have been common in Jewish teaching. Again, the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price (vss. 44-46) resurfaced in the Gospel of Thomas (Sayings #109 and #76).

Is it not quite possible that Jesus made use of stories and metaphors which he found in common currency among his own Galilean people? They contain the kind of folk-wisdom which developed out of the natural physical, social and economic environment in which he grew up. Each one had one simple point to make. They illustrated better than any profound philosophical utterances the simple truths he wished to convey about God, God's love and sovereign purpose to redeem the world. As simple stories from everyday life, they also served to conceal his message from those hostile to him. He also intended that they disarm his audience, the better to penetrate their natural resistance to anything which might change their lives. Finally, to an illiterate audience they were memorable. All five of the parables in this reading exhibit these characteristics. That we have them to ponder and learn from 2,000 years later confirms how effective this means of teaching proved to be.

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