INTRODUCTIONTO THE SCRIPTURE
Year A - PROPER 19
EXODUS 14:19-31. The passage tells us that the Israelites discovered that God was with them, protecting and guiding them. All Pentateuch documents regard this as a symbol of the presence and protection of God as the Israelites made their way through the wilderness to the Promised Land. The phrase “the pillar of cloud and fire” symbolized that God was present to Israel. Told from the point of view of a people under constant stress from many external enemies, the story elicits a sense of security and trust. But what of the Egyptians? Did God not care about them too?
EXODUS 15:1b-11, 20-21. [Alternate] This poem is essentially a victory song or psalm celebrating the destruction of the Egyptian pursuers of the fleeing Israelite slaves as the will of God. Though God appears throughout the poem only in the second or third person, God is the central character celebrated as the providential master of Israel’s fate.
PSALM 114: This song, also known as “The Egyptian Hallel”, may have been composed for the celebration of the Passover. Another possible origin may have been for the celebration of God as the Lord of history in an enthronement ceremony at the new year. It looks back to the great deliverance from Egypt which was the source and strength of Israel's faith. Exactly when it came into liturgical use is unknown.
GENESIS 50:15-21. [Alternate] This passage brings the story of Joseph to an end interpreting the whole sequence of events that befell him as fulfilling God’s purpose.
It carries forward the familiar theme of the whole Book of Genesis and the patriarchal narratives that God is the Lord of Israel’s history from beginning to end.
This is held to be true regardless of the vicissitudes of their individual and by implication tribal experiences.
PSALM 103:(1-7), 8-13. [Alternate] In words that have comforted countless generations, the psalmist celebrates divine mercy and grace extended to all who pay God due reverence.
ROMANS 14:1-12. Paul gives more sound practical counsel to the Romans. He touches on dietary customs, marking the sabbath (difficult for many slaves who were forced to work), passing judgment on others, and being sensitive to the weaknesses of others. This advice differs radically from how Paul thought and lived before he was converted and began to follow Christ. Just such distinctions mark true discipleship and separated the early Christians from Jews.
MATTHEW 18:21-35. The parable reveals a ruthlessness in God's judgment that seems uncharacteristic, yet it contains one of Jesus' most important teachings. It also illustrates the principle of forgiveness expressed in the Lord's Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” (Matt. 6:12, 14-15) It shows how freely and fully God forgives, and how much God expects us to forgive others whom we feel may have wronged us.
A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS:
EXODUS 14:19-31. A pillar of cloud by day and fire by night leading the Israelites to the sea through which they passed on dry ground. Were they seeing a volcanic eruption? Were they traveling along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea where a mighty wind first drove back the sea, then huge waves washed back onshore engulfing the pursuing Egyptians? Those are the most likely natural explanations, but they can never be proved. Other scholars have suggested alternative explanations.
The idea of the pillar of cloud and fire may derive from the pillars of Solomon’s temple or from the smoke that rose from the altar of burnt offering, and was borrowed to portray the divine presence during the Exodus. Or it could have been as brazier burning wood which scouts used to mark the way for military and commercial trains through unknown territory. It has even been speculated that many of the elements of the Exodus story are reworked reminiscences of the immense volcanic explosion on the island of Thira in the Aegean Sea about 1470 BCE which gave rise to the Greek legend of Atlantis. (http://www.angelfire.com/hi/alhawk/atlanthira.html)
But that isn’t the point of this part of the Exodus story. It tells us that the Israelites discovered that God was with them, protecting and guiding them. All Penteteuch documents regard this as a symbol of the presence and protection of Yahweh as the Israelites made their way through the wilderness to the Promised Land. The phrase “the pillar of cloud and fire” is repeated in several other places in the J and E documents, in Nehemiah 9:12 & 19, and Psalm 99:7. The Priestly author omits the pillar, but wrote of the theophany as “cloud and glory.” Generally, the symbol meant that Yahweh was present to Israel.
Told from the point of view of a people under constant stress from many external enemies, the story elicits a sense of security and trust. But what of the Egyptians? What of the women whose husbands, sons and brothers rode in those chariots that became clogged with mud and were swept under the returning sea? An ancient Jewish midrash told of Yahweh weeping as the Hebrews celebrated because, "the Egyptians are my children too!" In some respects this is a very sad story, a sadness found in both legend and history.
The Jewish religious philosopher, Martin Buber, once said that the stories found in our liturgies help us to live on the brink of the holy. They can open evidence for us of the wonder and mystery of true relationship. On October 4, 2005 Jews the world over mark Rosh Hashanah, their New Year, when God is praised as the Lord of history and Savior of God’s People, Israel. Nine days later, the most sacred day on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, will also be celebrated with fasting and prayer. On October 10, Canadians will be celebrating Thanksgiving and on October 18, our Jewish neighbors will celebrate Sukkoth, their harvest thanksgiving. In all these celebrations will any prayers be offered for and new relationships created with the suffering poor of the world for whom there is no protecting providence or the Promised Land envisioned in the story of the Exodus?
EXODUS 15:1b-11, 20-21. [Alternate] This poem is essentially a victory song or psalm celebrating the destruction of the Egyptian pursuers of the fleeing Israelite slaves was the will of God. Though God appears throughout the poem only in the second or third person, God is the central character celebrated as the providential master of Israel’s fate. The latter two verses introduce Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron, leading a chorus of women essentially repeating the opening words of the song of Moses.
There isn’t much to be said for the triumphalism of these poems. It sounds excessively chauvinistic to non-Jewish ears. On the other hand, Judaism can and does celebrate in its religious rituals the providence of God in the survival of the Jewish people through unimaginable difficulties, exiles, persecutions, pogroms and the Holocaust of the mid-20th century. Secular historians do not explain very well how else this unprecedented survival may have occurred except as a religious aspect of Jewish culture.
Can Christians who share the Hebrew scriptures with Judaism also rejoice in the providence of God through millennia of history? In a memorable series of radio broadcasts and subsequently published book, a noted British historian, Herbert Butterfield, of Cambridge University, spoke in a similar way regarding the Allied victory in World War II. It is much more difficult to see the providence of God in the currently destructive war against terrorism early in this 21st century. Certainly, ideological triumphalism is not appropriate.
PSALM 114. “In Jewish practice,” commented W. Stewart McCullough in *The Interpreter’s Bible* Vol. 4, 599 (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1955) “Pss. 113-118 are known as the Hallel and they have long since established for themselves a place in the liturgy of Judaism’s great festivals.” This song, also known as “The Egyptian Hallel”, may have been composed for the celebration of the Passover. Another possible origin may have been for the celebration of Yahweh as the Lord of history in an enthronement ceremony at the New Year. It looks back to the great deliverance from Egypt which was the source and strength of Israel's faith. Exactly when it came into liturgical use is unknown.
Some very common issues surface in these few verses. These issues are still evident when people of different cultural and ethnic background interact. In vs. 1, we find the problem of communicating when people speak different languages. That is happening in our own country this very day. Israel’s faith in Yahweh’s sovereign dominion over its history as celebrated in their temple liturgies comes to the fore in vs. 2. Does our worship constantly repeat that refrain or are we so doubtful as to believe that God has left humanity to its own violent end? As a noted British theologian once said, “Would God have let mankind get at the matchbox if the foundations of the universe had not been fireproof?”
Nor has the psalmist overlooked divine sovereignty over natural forces. Vss. 3-8 recognize that in the strange events which some would describe as natural, the Israelites saw the mighty acts of God on their behalf. It may be difficult to have faith in God’s sovereignty over the environment in the midst of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. Faith may interpret such natural disasters differently. Crossing the sea and later the Jordan, and the shaking of Mount Sinai in the presence of Yahweh giving Moses the tablets of the law were seen in such a light by this liturgist and all the authors of Israel’s faith-history.
A touch of irony appears in vss. 5-7 where the poet teases the mighty sea, the Jordan River and the mountains for their reaction to the presence and power of Yahweh. Vs. 8 looks beyond the flight from Egypt to the wandering in the wilderness when the Israelites complained that they thirsted for good water and Moses struck a rock with his rod to produce a flowing spring. That leads into next week’s lectionary.
GENESIS 50:15-21. [Alternate] This passage brings the story of Joseph to an end interpreting the whole sequence of events that befell him as fulfilling God’s purpose.
It carries forward the familiar theme of the whole Book of Genesis and the patriarchal narratives that God is the Lord of Israel’s history from beginning to end. This is held to be true regardless of the vicissitudes of their individual and by implication tribal experiences.
The incident has a very human touch. With Jacob dead, Joseph’s brothers feared that he might hold a grudge against them and punish them for selling him into slavery in Egypt. Wisely, they sought to make their peace with him as Jacob had asked them to do. Note that it was out of fear and for the sake of their father’s memory, not only that they themselves had at least some sense of repentance for the evil they had done. The tearful interchange that followed gave the story a final emotional twist.
Joseph’s response states the moral of the whole Joseph narrative: God intended it for good. This can also be used to bring out the providential and redemptive nature of even the simplest experiences of human families. That too is the lesson to be learned from the whole sweep of Jewish history.
PSALM 103:(1-7), 8-13. [Alternate] In words that have comforted countless generations, the psalmist celebrates divine mercy and grace extended to all who pay God due reverence. Extending mercy and forgiveness and thereby bringing reconciliation can be a very powerful tool in any distressed human relationship.
The psalmist’s point of view holds that this only reflects what God constantly does for us in pardoning our sin and graciously forgiving our failures. Unlike human relations, however, where we often forgive in a calculating way, God forgives because it is God’s nature to do so. It is characteristic of the steadfast and constant love God has toward us individually and to the whole of humanity.
ROMANS 14:1-12. Paul gives more sound practical counsel to the Romans. He touches on dietary customs, marking the sabbath (difficult for many who were forced to work), passing judgment on others, and being sensitive to the weaknesses of others. This advice differs radically from how Paul thought and lived before he was converted and began to follow Christ. Just such distinctions mark true discipleship.
The problems for Christians in those days had more to do with Jewish dietary constraints rather than the quality of the food. Because Gentiles had few such constraints, they ate more freely than did their Jewish neighbours. These differences gave rise to conflicts within the apostolic community and the wider Christian fellowship as several other NT references indicate. (Acts 10:9-16; 11:1-10; 15:29; Galatians 2:11-13) Paul had this problem very much in mind as he wrote to this multicultural congregation in Rome (vs.1-2). In vs. 14, he elucidated the basic Christian principle regarding dietary laws in exactly the same way Jesus had done by his controversial practice of eating with tax collectors and sinners (Matt.9:11; Mark 2:16; Luke 5:30; 7:34).
In the 19th and 20th centuries the total abstinence movement widened the application of this passage to the consumption of alcoholic beverages. That issue did not appear to come into Paul’s thinking. On the other hand, vss. 7-12 do present an approach which could well be adopted as the rule of life for all kinds of behaviour. Whatever we do should honour God and Jesus Christ who died for us (vss. 8-9). Furthermore, in vss. 10-12 he counters our human propensity to be judgmental of one another and sets before us personal accountability to God alone. It seems obvious that Paul knew how difficult that would be for most of the Romans - and for us in our own time. It is always so much easier to have strict rules from an external authority by which to determine right from wrong. The truly Christ-like life, Paul was saying, is lived solely under the sovereignty of God.
The quotation in vs. 11 is from Isaiah 45:23. There it referred to the plea to the exiles in Babylon to return to Yahweh whose desire is that all peoples shall worship Israel’s saviour God. Much the same reference reappeared in the early Christian hymn in Philippians 2:5-11 giving strength to the hypothesis that the hymn was Paul’s own composition.
MATTHEW 18:21-35. Let the imagination float on these two pericopes. What caused Peter to ask this question? Was it something related to his business as a fisherman? There is an old tradition that Zebedee, father of James and John, was Peter’s partner in a contract to supply fish for the priests of the temple in Jerusalem. Had there been a quarrel over some spoiled fish due to a late delivery such a long distance from Galilee? Peter’s question, however, brings forth a marvelously exaggerated response and a parable that teaches true forgiveness: the grace of forgiveness has no limits.
The parable of the wicked servant reveals a ruthlessness in God's judgment that seems uncharacteristic, yet it contains one of Jesus' most important teachings. It also illustrates the principle of forgiveness verbalized in the Lord's Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” (Matt. 6:12, 14-15) It shows how freely and fully God forgives, and how much God expects us to forgive others whom we feel may have wronged us.
Although written nearly fifty years ago, Sherman E. Johnson, former dean and NT scholar at The Church Divinity School of the Pacific, commented in his exegesis of the passage: “He who forgives is dealt with on the basis of mercy, but he who fails to forgive has no right to expect anything more than strict judgment on his own sins.” (*The Interpreter’s Bible,* Vol. 7, 476. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1951.) The person who refuses to forgive only does damage to his/her eternal soul.
One point to note is the vast difference in the two debts. Just the numbers alone quite apart from the coinage emphasizes this, a ratio of 100 to 1. Ten thousand talents would have a value of millions of dollars today. A hundred denarii (each worth a day labourer’s wage at that time) would be worth only a relatively few dollars in today’s currency. Such exaggeration is found in many of Jesus’ parables. He told these little stories in this manner to drive home his point.
This sets the Christian way apart in an age when so many persons and groups utter angry denunciations or act violently toward those who differ with them. Is this merely an ideal toward which we should strive? Or could it be the most practical way of settling our differences and living together as neighbours in a world which we now realize is increasingly pluralistic in so many respects?
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