INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Year B - Proper 12
2 SAMUEL 11:1-15. The story of David's double sins of adultery and calculated murder form the introduction to a new and troubled phase of the monarch's reign. His adultery with Bathsheba and his plan to cover it up by causing the death of her husband, Uriah, remains to this day the symbol of a very human failure: through pride great leaders often bring about their own demise.
PSALM 14. Profound wisdom and a deep sense of social justice lies behind this psalm: Before God all people are sinful. It ends with a plaintive hope that God will deliver Israel from some unstated ill fortune.
II KINGS 4:42-44. (Alternate) Surprise! The New Testament Gospels include several stories of Jesus which were dependent on Old Testament passages. This pericope from the Elisha cycle could well have been the basis for the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.
PSALM 145:10-18. (Alternate) The Book of Psalms ends with a series of hymns praising God and meditating on the nature of God. Note that these reflections are not couched in theological abstractions, but in terms describing God's actions, as was typical of Jewish thought.
EPHESIANS 3:14-21. This letter which may have begun as a liturgy for baptismal candidates at Pentecost. Its first segment (chapters 1-3) consists of a great prayer of blessing ending with rapturous petition for Christ to come alive in the hearts and lives of those who first heard it. The end result will be that those they will be filled with the fullness of God whose Spirit gives them the power to love as Christ himself loved. A final benediction ascribes praise to God who is able to do far more than anyone could ever ask or imagine.
JOHN 6:1-21. The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle that appears in all four gospels. John's version of the tradition varies from the others in revealing yet another sign of Jesus' divinity in several ways. Knowing how the multitude would be fed and the danger he was in revealed his omniscience. Performing the miracle and later walking on water while the disciples crossed the lake in a boat against strong winds revealed his omnipotence. As in other instances, John used this story to introduce a long discourse about the meaning of this sign. For John, this event became the turning point in Jesus' ministry by separating believers from disbelievers.
A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.
2 SAMUEL 11:1-15. The story of David's double sins of adultery and calculated murder form the introduction to a new and troubled phase of the monarch's reign. He had already consolidated his power and reinforced it with the nation's most important religious symbol, the Ark of the Covenant. He had become strong enough to commit his army to war with the Ammonites who
lived east of the Jordan River. Under the leadership of Joab, the army were in the process of besieging their capital, Rabbah. Perhaps unwisely, as vs. 1 appears to imply, David stayed home in Jerusalem. With too much time on his hands, he spied Bathsheba bathing on a rooftop and lusted after her. Exercising his assumed rights of power, he lies with her and impregnates her while her husband is away with the army.
After messing with another man's wife, he had made matters worse by sending for Uriah at the front and tried to get him to sleep with Bathsheba, so he would be recognized as the child's father. Faithful to his military oath not the sleep with his wife while on duty, Uriah foiled David's deception. So the king ordered him sent to the most dangerous part of the battle line where he would killed.
David's adultery with Bathsheba and his plan to cover it up by causing the death of her husband remains to this day the symbol of a very human failure: through pride and the mistaken assumptions about power, even great leaders often bring about their own demise. It does not matter that monarchs are few and virtually powerless today, it still happens to democratically elected politicians who take advantage of their positions for immoral purposes.
Henry Kissinger, former American Secretary of State once said, "Power is a great aphrodisiac." While still prime minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill vowed never to preside over the demise of the British Empire. He didn’t because the empire had already begun to disintegrate and he was soundly defeated in the next election. David's willful adultery followed the familiar pattern of human sinfulness. Perhaps Jesus had this familiar story in mind when he said, according to Matthew 5:28 "I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Many people sneered at former US President Jimmy Carter when he admitted to a journalist that he had done what Jesus condemned. In the more recent past we have seen President Clinton ruin his promising presidency and bring ignominious shame upon himself by a dalliance more common on a college campus than in the highest public office. High office does not protect even the most powerful from human corruptibility.
PSALM 14. It may astonish some to realize that this psalm is almost identical to Psalm 53. The only explanation for this double appearance is its prior existence in two distinct collections. Scholars regard Ps. 53 as the better preserved. Of note is the name of Yahweh ("the Lord") in this version while Ps. 53 uses the name Elohim ("God"), as do most of the psalms in what is known as "the Elohistic Psalter," (Pss. 42-83) associated with the Elohist Document of the Pentateuch.
Profound wisdom and a deep sense of social justice lies behind this psalm: Before Yahweh all people are sinful. But those who are atheistic receive special condemnation. The end state of unbelievers is to be greatly feared (vs.5a). A time of retribution is at hand. Neglect of a spiritual relationship with Yahweh results in the destruction of truly human nature. As Augustine of Hippo said in his Confessions, "Thou has made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee."
The psalm ends with a plaintive hope that Yahweh will deliver Israel from some unstated ill fortune. The great prophets often spoke of an imminent threat of foreign invasion or subjugation to a foreign overlord as the penalty for the apostasy of the people. This would indeed be an unmitigated disaster. In those times each nation was held to have a different god whose power and authority protected the people. This religious tradition regarded defeat in battle or a foreign invasion as spiritually ruinous as well as politically and economically catastrophic. In many respects, this still occurs today as a result of wars.
II KINGS 4:42-44. (Alternate) The story is a simple one, but is linked with the preceding pericope of another miracle at Gilgal during a famine (4:38-41). At the time of the first fruits after the famine, a man brought his thankoffering, twenty loaves of barley, to Elisha, the man of God. Elisha instructed that the loaves be given to the assembled prophetic company of one hundred (“the sons of the prophets”). So little among so many? At the prophet’s insistence, the donor obeyed. And as the prophet had promised, there was enough and some left over.
Long ago the obvious parallel of these anecdotes from the Elisha cycle with the feeding the five thousand in the four Gospels caught the attention of anyone reading the scriptures. On the other hand, one commentator complained that the feeding of the hungry in these stories does not really compare with those in the Gospels because “those who are reported to have wrought them do no occupy the altitude of the personality of Jesus.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, II.209)
Be that as it may, many New Testament passages, including several stories of Jesus, were dependent on Old Testament passages. This pericope from the Elisha cycle may well have been the basis for the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. After all, in the latter part of the 1st century CE, the only scriptures the authors of the New Testament knew were the Hebrew scriptures, probably in the Greek version, known as the Septuagint. They could only understand Jesus in the light of what they had read in those more ancient and revered texts.
PSALM 145:10-18. (Alternate) Like several other psalms, in Hebrew this hymn of praise takes the form of an acrostic. Each couplet begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. (Cf. Psalms 9-10, 25, 34, 37, 111-112, 119). This poetic form developed relatively late and characterized poetry of the wisdom teachers of the Persian and Greek periods in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. Despite that severe structural limitation, the psalm possesses a surprisingly rich spiritual power.
Though the concept of Yahweh as a powerful monarch had developed much earlier, the idea of Yahweh’s sovereignty over all nations came to the fore only during the prophetic period from the late 8th to the 6th centuries BCE. The psalm glorifies Yahweh as a ruler whose greatness is beyond human comprehension (vs.3). Yahweh’s mighty, miraculous acts give rise to this praise (vss. 4-5). But it is Yahweh’s faithful, compassionate justice and tender care for all people which draws the greatest praise from the psalmist (vss.17-20). Therefore, the psalmist repeats his vow made in vs.1 to “speak the praise of Yahweh” and summons “all flesh” to join him (vs. 21).
Few other OT passages reach the inspirational level found in praising Yahweh’s constant love that this psalm expresses (vss. 8-9). What a pity that this part of the psalm has been omitted from this reading. Nonetheless these few verses reveal the richness of the psalmist’s personal faith. He fixes his hope not only the sovereignty of divine love (vss. 10-13), but Yahweh’s everlasting faithfulness (vss. 14-18). Herein too lies our hope for these difficult times.
EPHESIANS 3:14-21. As previously noted, this letter which may have begun as a liturgy for baptismal candidates at Pentecost. Its first segment (chapters 1-3) consists of a great prayer of blessing (similar to a Jewish berakah) ending with this rapturous petition that Christ come alive in the hearts and lives of those who first heard it. The author was probably not Paul, but one who knew his teaching well. Christian tradition as well as the added the title and address at the beginning of the letter attributed it to the great apostle to the Gentiles.
Vs. 14 contains a vivid image of a person at prayer. Standing was the normal Jewish posture for prayer. Prostration represented particular intensity. Bowing the knees, presumably with the face lifted upward and the hands spread out, would appear to be somewhere between normalcy and ecstasy. William Barclay, however, thought that the prayer was from Paul himself and was so intense that he was probably prostrate.
This petition expresses the hope that the Spirit of God would strengthen his audience spiritually (vs. 16). That would come about through Christ dwelling in their hearts. This is the imaginative effect of faith in Christ. As the old Sunday school chorus resoundingly proclaimed, they would have "the love of Jesus down in their hearts." The image Paul used was that of a tree firmly rooted in the ground.
In his recent book, Rabbi Paul, Bruce Chilton states that Paul’s success as an evangelist lay in his ability to convey to others the saving experience of the formation of Christ within them. In the life, death and resurrection of Christ, the fullness of the love of God had been made abundantly clear. Through the working of the Spirit in the believer, Christ came alive once again so that our human lives become a reflection of him.
Like a swiftly changing video, the image in Paul's mind changed to one that appears almost architectural or even astronomical. To know what a building is like, it must be measured in all its spatial perspectives - length, breadth, depth, height. The love of Christ is such that it cannot be measured or fully comprehended. Indeed, when the love of God in all its fullness invades, dwells in and fills the human heart, as Barclay and Chilton note, it is as if Paul has asked us to look at the whole universe and measure it. This will give all who believe the power to love as Christ himself loved.
A final benediction ascribes praise to God who is able to do far more than anyone could ever ask or imagine. The NSRV translation loses much of the poetic grandeur of the KJV: "Now unto him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think ...." An early 20th century evangelist once put in this way: "God is able to do all that we ask or think;... above all that we ask or think;... abundantly above all that we can ask or think; ... exceeding abundantly above all that we can ever ask or think."
That is how Paul thought of the church, a fellowship of infinite, boundless, universal, eternal love. The church exists to give glory to God who could do all that through love fully revealed in Jesus Christ. Would that this were so!
JOHN 6:1-21. The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle that appears in all four gospels. John's version of the tradition varies from the others in that this miracle depicts yet another of the distinctive signs by means of which Jesus reveals his divinity. Mark and the other synoptic gospels tend to use it to deepen the mystery about Jesus' identity.
Knowing how the multitude would be fed and of the danger he was in revealed his omniscience (vs. 6). Performing the miracle not only filled the crowds' need for food, but convinced them that he was "the prophet who is to come into the world" (vs. 14). This may be a reference to Elijah whose return was thought to precede the coming of the Messiah. On the other hand, it may actually be a messianic reference. Immediately John reports that Jesus realized that the crowd intended "to make him king," according to their perception of the Messiah. Knowing this is another indication of Jesus' omniscience. Later, walking on water while the disciples crossed the lake in a boat against strong winds revealed his omnipotence. These several small clues represent John's intention that the events pointed beyond themselves to Jesus' divine nature.
The passage cannot be read in isolation from the rest of the chapter. As in other instances throughout the Fourth Gospel, John used this miraculous sign to introduce a discourse by Jesus about its true meaning (vss. 25-59), including another of his "I am ..." sayings (vs. 35). Furthermore, John saw these events and the discourse as the turning point in Jesus' ministry. The narrative of the discourse is set in a running debate with "the Jews" (vss. 25, 28, 34, 41-42, 52). The end result separates believers from disbelievers, including many of his erstwhile disciples (vs. 66).
Did John have access to a tradition unknown to the earlier gospel authors? More than likely, John knew the same tradition as they, but had engaged it as a theological reflection more explicitly suited his literary purpose. No hidden Messiah as in Mark; no new Moses as in Matthew; no compassionate friend of Jew and Gentile as is Luke; this is the sovereign Son of God, fully revealed in all his power and glory. He moves steadily forward knowing where he is going and what he must do to achieve his mission, almost above the ebb and flow of the world around him, yet in total control of all that happens.
Disciples, crowds, opponents alike all contribute to his self-revealing ministry. As at the moment of the first creation, in him light had come into the world. Exposed to this light, all people must decide where they stand, in the light with him or hiding from him in the darkness of their alienation. By him food for body and spirit is freely provided. Each person has only to decide whether to accept or reject it. To see him exercise his creative and redemptive power with a few loaves and fish or walking on water is not just astonishing, it is terrifying even to those who have been closest to him. Once reassured as to who he really is amid the stormy waves and strong winds, they are safely ashore (vss. 18-21).
The passage can be seen as a midrash, a theologically interpretive narrative. The events form a microcosm of life. Without expressing it in so many words, it asks and answers the question: "Who do you say that I am?"
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