INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Year C - Proper 7
1 KINGS 19:1-15a. Elijah the prophet was on the run from Queen Jezebel whose foreign priests he had defeated in a contest of spiritual power. He was still in God’s care, however, and after being provided with food and drink in the desert, he came at last to the mountain where God had given the covenant law to Moses. But he could never escape responsibility as God’s prophet. After a windstorm, an earthquake and a raging fire, God spoke to him with a still, small voice within to give him a new commission.
ISAIAH 65:1-9. (Alternate) In this eschatological song God offers both judgment and hope for Israel after the return of the exiles from Babylon, ca. 539 BCE. Judgment came because of a series of unholy religious practices (vss. 3-5) possibly related to a nature cult. Yet God promised not to destroy the whole people and to restore them to their traditional land.
PSALM 42 AND 43. These two psalms were originally one. The first part laments a deep sense of absence from God. Yet the psalmist hopes that he will eventually have reason to praise God. The second part prays that his faith will be vindicated as he goes to the temple to worship.
PSALM 22:19-28. (Alternate) Like all laments, this excerpt pleads with God for rescue, acknowledges God’s sovereignty and promises to be faithful. It envisions a hopeful future in which posterity will serve the Lord.
GALATIANS 3:23-29. One of Paul’s most decisive statements declares that faith in Jesus Christ has removed all barriers to a relationship with God for all who believe. He claims that the law given to Moses was like a schoolteacher disciplining us until Jesus came to make us all God’s children and heirs with Christ. Now, we are all children of Abraham and heirs of all God’s promises to Israel.
LUKE 8:26-39. This story appears to set Jesus’ compassion for the man chained among the tombs against compassion for the Gentile people of this community east of the Sea of Galilee. Is it a garbled story of a person with severe mental illness being healed after his frantic outcries had panicked the pigs? Or did Jesus fail to convince the unbelieving Gadarenes who had lost their pigs of God’s compassionate love? Even for the most sane among us, the struggle to believe can be tormenting.
A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.
1 KINGS 19:1-18. Most Westerners read a story from beginning to end. The various pericopes that present Elijah as one of Israel’s greatest prophets do not follow this orderly pattern. Scholarly opinion views some of the stories in which Elijah appears as coming from two different sets, the Elijah and the Ahab cycles. The editors of the Deuteronomic history of Israel, created after the return from exile in Babylon, wove these two sets of stories obtained from different sources into their overall narrative of the Davidic monarchy.
Only 1 Kings 17-19; 2 Kings 1:1-18; 1 Kings 21 and 2 Kings 9:1-10:31 appear to come from the Elijah cycle. The Ahab cycle includes 1 Kings 20:1-43; 22:1-38; 2 Kings 3:4-27; 6:8-23 and 6:24-7:20. The main theme of the Elijah cycle from which this week’s reading is taken is the preservation of the monotheist tradition against the Baal-worship imported by Ahab’s queen, Jezebel, daughter of the priest-king of Tyre. It has been suggested by some scholars that Psalm 45 bears evidence of being a love song in which Ahab and Jezebel appear as the two participants.
In this part of the narrative Elijah was on the run from Queen Jezebel whose foreign priests he had defeated in a contest of spiritual power on Mount Carmel. He was still in God’s care, however. After being provided with food and drink in the desert, he came at last to the mountain where God had given the covenant law to Moses.
Elijah’s forty day journey to Horeb, the mount of God (aka Mount Sinai), appears to have been more symbolic than real. It compares with Moses sojourn at Mount Sinai without food or drink as recorded in Exodus 34:28. There may be other reflections of the Sinai narrative in the Elijah story: the cleft of the rock and the mouth of the cave (Ex. 32:22 cf. 1 Kgs. 19:9, 13), the covering of the face (Ex. 32:22 cf.1 Kgs. 19:13; thousands remaining faithful (Ex. 34:7 cf. 1 Kgs. 19:18). The symbolism points to a recalling of the faithful to the ancient tradition established by Yahweh in the covenant at Mount Sinai. The particular aspect of the covenant relationship emphasized here is the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods.”
Whatever Elijah’s actual experience may have been, he could never escape responsibility as God’s prophet. After a windstorm, an earthquake and a raging fire, God spoke to him with a still, small voice within and gave him a new commission. Such theophanies and their accompanying natural phenomena were common in Israel’s tradition, especially in the patriarchal narratives in Genesis. They were not peculiar to the Israelites, however, and can be found in traditions of other ancient peoples. In the Psalms and some of the prophets, the warrior image of Yahweh is often accompanied by similar violent natural phenomena (Pss. 18:7-15 & 46:1-7; Nahum 1:2-6; Habakkuk 3:8-15; Jeremiah 10:13.) These are instances where Yahweh is identified as having a special relationship with Israel alone.
Numerous homilies on the still, small voice have concentrated on the inner voice of conscience. That often tends to be guilt-laden. So it may have been for Elijah and called forth some self-justification (vss. 13-14). True as that may be, emphasis needs to be placed more heavily on continuing reflection on the divine mission to which Israel was originally called and is now summoned to return (vss. 15-18).
ISAIAH 65:1-9. (Alternate) Scholars have had considerable difficulty dating this passage. It appears to be the work of the school of prophet-poets sometimes referred to as Third Isaiah (Isa. 56-66). Like the poem that follows it in ch. 66, it expresses the eschatological vision of “a new heaven and a new earth” (vs. 17) as well as uttering judgment against Israel’s past aberrant religious practices. It would appear that God offers both judgment and hope for Israel after the return of some of the exiles from Babylon, ca. 539 BCE. By no means did all those who had been transported return to their homeland.
The poem consists of ten strophes, although only the first four make up this extract, and not all of the fourth is included (vs. 10). The first strophe (vss. 1-2) presents the accessible nature of Yahweh and voices the complaint against Israel for not heeding the divine call. The second strophe (vss. 3-5) describes the corruption of Israel’s covenant tradition. Exactly what the heretical worship practices were cannot be determined. They seem to have had something to do with a nature cult (vss. 3-5). But that had been a continual temptation for Israel since the time of the earliest settlement in Canaan where some of them had adopted the traditional fertility religious practices of Baal worship of the Canaanites.
While in exile, had some Israelites been seduced by the religious rituals of Babylonian tradition too? It would have been surprising if that was not so. The naming of several aspects of such rituals - sacrificing in gardens, burning incense “on the bricks,” (or “on the roof tops,”) sitting in tombs, and eating swine’s flesh, all point to a bizarre cultus. In Babylon, there was a cult of the god Ninurta for which the pig was either sacred to the god or a totem. Swine’s flesh, anathema to all Semitic cultures, could be eaten under special ritualistic occasions.
Whatever the unholy religious practices may have been and however much these were abhorrent to Yahweh (third strophe, vss. 6-7), Yahweh was not yet willing to cast them on to the scrap heap of history. Yahweh promised not only to preserve a remnant of the people but to bless and restore them to their traditional homeland (fourth strophe, vss. 8–10).
The naming of Sharon and the Valley of Achor (vs. 10) intentionally redirected the Israelites’ imagination homeward. The Plain of Sharon is still the rich agricultural plain along the Mediterranean coast north from Jaffa to the foothills of Mount Carmel. The Valley of Achor was a small wadi which once formed the boundary between the tribal lands Judah and Benjamin, south of Jericho along the northwestern edge of the Dead Sea. It is very dry but also very fruitful when well irrigated. That practice had been extensively used in the Judean and Negev deserts by the Idumeans. Not far from the Valley of Achor, the Essenes created their eschatological community of Qumran. The providential image inspired by these names conveyed just such a vision for the faithful remnant.
PSALM 42 AND 43. These two psalms were originally one, but possibly for some unknown liturgical reason became separated. Some Hebrew manuscripts still have them as one, so the separation could have occurred during transmission from one manuscript to another. There is also some indication of dependence of the second on the first in 42:9 and 43:2. Then there is the refrain repeated in 42:5, 11 and 43:5. These elements sustain the argument for unity. The lectionary editors agree.
In the first part of the psalm, the poet laments a deep spiritual depression caused by his sense of absence from Yahweh’s presence (vs. 2). It could have been an actual absence from Jerusalem and the homeland of Israel where participation in temple festivals was once possible. Vs. 6 appears to suggest that the exact location was near the sources of the Jordan on Mount Hermon, possibly in enemy hands at the time. Wherever the psalmist was, he expresses distress at conflict in his community (vss. 42:3, 10). Scoffers took the present circumstances as evidence that Yahweh had deserted Israel or that there really was no god at all.
The psalmist’s memories of joining the throng of worshipers processing to the temple elicited great pain (vs. 4). Yet the psalmist hoped that he will eventually have reason to praise Yahweh once again within the temple. The idea that he could worship anywhere else had occurred to him (42:8; 43:2), but like many modern folk, it just didn’t seem to the same. We all like to worship in familiar sanctuaries. The second part of the psalm picks up this hopeful theme as the poet prays that his faith will be vindicated and that he will once again go to the temple to worship and to offer sacrifices as before (43:3-4).
PSALM 22:19-28. (Alternate) Like all laments, this excerpt pleads with God for rescue, acknowledges God’s sovereignty, expresses the worshipper’s thanksgiving and vows to be faithful. It envisions a hopeful future in which posterity will serve the Lord.
With the exception of vss. 19-21, the remainder of this passage does not fit well with the preceding segment (vss. 1-18). Indeed, the repetition of vs. 11 in vs. 19 suggests a deliberate transition. This has caused scholars to suspect that the first segment was an individual lament to which the song of hopeful thanksgiving was added so that the whole might serve in the liturgical setting of the temple when anyone might come to offer thanks for deliverance from some affliction.
In vs. 21 two images of grave danger indicate how critical the situation had been for the psalmist. Lions of the Mesopotamian type still roamed the Jordan Valley and into the rich pasture lands and agricultural villages of Palestine well into the Christian era. The wild ox was the bos primigenius, called the aurochs in Europe, had been domesticated to some extent, although many still existed in the wild. Domesticated, the ox served in many capacities from ancient times. Sometimes it was used as a sacrificial beast of great value. The original wild ox still roamed the foothills of the Syrian mountains in biblical times frightening the populace with its long horns and fierce nature.
The psalmist, however, expressed the conviction that Yahweh was to be feared more than any wild beast. Therefore, he urged that Yahweh be praised (vs. 22-23). He had an even more significant reason for praise and thanksgiving: Yahweh had not despised or rejected the afflicted, but had heard his cry (vss. 24-26). This brought forth the prophetic assurance that once their realized Yahweh’s sovereignty, all nations would join Israel in the worship of Yahweh (vss. 27-31). Even the unborn would know and worship the Lord when they heard of Yahweh’s deliverance of the oppressed.
GALATIANS 3:23-29. Coming from the gentile city of Tarsus, Paul knew well what a struggle it was to survive as a Jew in such a foreign cultural milieu. When Paul lived there, the site of Tarsus had been occupied for some 3000 years. Its founding by noted heroes of Greek mythology was the subject of many legends. A Hellenistic Greek city, in Roman times it became the capital of the province of Cilicia, prosperous as a seaport and for industries such linen weaving and sail and tent-making. It also achieved fame as a centre of learning from which had come several noted Stoic philosophers. It well deserved its Pauline designation as “no mean city.” (Acts 21:39) The exact size of the Jewish element of the population is unknown, but it is unlikely to have been more than a small minority.
Minority groups seek many means to survive. Jews adopted their religious traditions as their way of confirming their identity. We do not know whether Paul became an ardent Pharisee in Tarsus or later in Jerusalem. In either case, however, he would have been considered an outsider, first in Tarsus as an ardent Jew meticulous about keeping the law of Moses and then as a Hellenist in Jerusalem with an accent and an attitude. When he met the Christian community wherever he went after his conversion, he found at a safe haven. This reality shines through this high point in his letter to the Greek-speaking Christians of Galatia.
This passage contains Paul’s most decisive statement that faith in Jesus Christ has removed all barriers to a relationship with God and with one another for all who believe. He claims that the law given to Moses was like a schoolteacher disciplining us until Jesus came to make us all God’s children and heirs with Christ of all God’s gifts.
Paul himself had been a life-long learner. He did not come easily or quickly to the conclusion he so briefly summarizes in these few sentences. According to his own words in 1:18 and 2:1, it had taken him at least 17 years before he was well known to the apostolic community in Jerusalem. Even then, he was considered an outsider rather than a leading apostle (2:6-10). So when he wrote in 3:23-24 about being imprisoned and disciplined until Christ came, he was speaking out of his own learning experience and recognizing it as something everyone could experience. As a Pharisee, the law had been his schoolteacher, then it became a prison and Christ had been his liberator.
Paul gives us several other experiential images in this passage. By their new faith relationship to God, he and the Galatians too had become children of God and joint heirs with Christ. They had been dressed in new Christ-garments through baptism. New converts in the early church were baptized naked and re-clothed in a new, white garment. One can presume that Paul had also been baptized in this manner. He certainly knew what it meant to be delivered from slavery to the law and free to proclaim his faith with the considerable gifts of communication he possessed. His facility with languages - Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, in all probability - gave him additional freedom to roam far and wide among the Hellenistic Jewish Diaspora and Gentile cities he had visited throughout Galatia. and other Roman provinces of Asia Minor (modern Turkey).
However Paul may be perceived in our day as being prejudiced toward women in general and their role in society, he also appears to have had remarkably good relationships with a considerable number of individual women. His letters and the records of his travels in Acts identify numerous women with whom he worked and in whose homes he stayed. He considered them as co-workers. He expressed friendship for both men and women equally, seeing them as united with him in the body of Christ.
All this was exceptional for a 1st century Jew from such a strong Pharisaic tradition. Today, Moslems, Jews and Christians rightfully claim their spiritual descent from the patriarch Abraham to a large extent because of Paul’s creative genius in making the gospel known throughout the ancient Middle East. This passage from his letter to the Galatians expresses that unique vision exceptionally well.
LUKE 8:26-39. This unusual story appears to set Jesus’ compassion for the man chained among the tombs against compassion for the Gentile people of this community southeast of the Sea of Galilee. Gerasa (apparently mistaken by Matt. 8:28 as Gadara and by other ancient authorities as Gergesa) was foreign territory in what was then the Roman tetrarchy of Philip, another son of Herod the Great and half-brother of Herod Antipas who executed John the Baptist. Today it is recognized as an archeological site at Um Qeis in northwestern Jordan near its border with Syria, but has never been excavated. We know that it was a Gentile city because the people who lived there herded pigs. Archaeologists distinguish between Jewish and Gentile sites by the presence of pig bones.
Jesus’ exorcism of the demons afflicting this man who lived among the tombs seems at once both puzzling and bizarre. We can only speculate how to identify the man’s specific illness. As was the case with many serious medical conditions in those times, his family and neighbors would have interpreted it as common demon possession. Their solution was to run him out town. That forced him to survive in the local cemetery. There he could do no harm except to himself and be gossiped about in the marketplace of Gerasa as “Crazy Jack.” But as reported in this pericope, the incident reveals obvious marks of grave impurity for any Jew: a demon-possessed maniac living in a cemetery near a place where a herd of pigs wandered freely.
In any case, when Jesus confronted whatever the demons were, the reaction created a panic in the pigs. Jesus’ conversation with the demons about their name, “Legion” and their desire not to be sent back “to the abyss” reads like a fictional embellishment in the oral tradition which lay behind the gospel source. The abyss was the prison where Satan and his demons were believed to dwell for eternity (cf. Rev. 20:3). Popular belief also held that while waiting for their ultimate banishment demons wandered the earth in search of a dwelling place. They especially favored tombs and deserted places as well as those people we would call seriously ill.
It is difficult to understand how Jesus could send the man home to tell his neighbors that their pigs had been drowned. One explanation may that this is a garbled story of the demoniac being healed after his frantic outcries had panicked the pigs. Another view frankly admits that the story suggests that although Jesus healed the man, he failed to convince the unbelieving Gerasenes of God’s compassionate love for all victims of dreaded illness. After all, they had lost their pigs.
How loving could that be? Wasn’t this a failure on Jesus’ part despite having exorcized the demon? After this, Jesus did not extend his ministry further east of the Jordan, but returned to Galilee. There was one happy Gerasene, however. The man who had been healed could not keep this miracle to himself and went about telling everyone he met what Jesus had done for him. Perhaps that - and only that - is the whole point of the story.
SOME ADDITIONAL PREACHING NOTES.
1 KINGS 19:1-15a. Is this another “Elijah time” for the Christian church? Experiencing significantly decline in membership, ordained clergy and social influence, the church today appears to be suffering much as Elijah did. Following World War II in North America, there was a great growth spurt for about the next quarter of the 20th century. The beginning of decline in my own denomination can be traced to 1967. That was about the end of what population sociologists ad economists call “the Baby Boom.”
The children and grandchildren of that generation no longer flock to the church and build new religious and educational facilities as their parents and grandparents did. Secularism driven by wealth greater than that enjoyed by any previous generation seems to have captured former church people en mass. In the past decade or two in what could be called a turn of the century debacle many studies and consultants’ programs have appeared offering better ideas to restore congregational growth in every denomination.
The decline continues, even among those massive congregations on the verge of metropolitan areas that number in the tens of thousands. They seem to offer the fearful a security in traditional fundamentalism in return for allegiance and financial support.
Perhaps this is the time to reflect on what God’s mission really is at this time. That could be the theme of each member’s individual reflection during the summer down-time. What is the true meaning of this regression? What spiritual insights can come out of the truth that may be waiting for us to discover? It is not as if this has not happened before in the history of the church.
GALATIANS 3:23-29. Paul’s family trade would appear to have been that of leather working (Acts. 18:3). It has also been speculated that his family was fairly wealthy. Due to extensive use of leather products in those times, that was not unlikely. On the other hand, tanners were not highly regarded among Jews. It was customary for them to live outside the towns and cities due to the smell and refuse accumulated by their work. In a Gentile centre like Tarsus, pig leather would have been widely used and valuable.
Did Paul’s ardent Pharisaism result from his rejection of his family’ trade? Was that why he made his way to Jerusalem to learn at the feet of the great Gamaliel I, a leader among the Pharisees in the Sanhedrin? Was another aspect of his conversion his willingness to return to his trade to maintain his opportunities for preaching the gospel in Gentile centres like Tarsus and elsewhere? Not only all people, but all types of work and trades do yield such opportunities for any Christian. Is there a sermon there?
LUKE 8:26-39. Is there a possible link between this pericope of Jesus’ extending his ministry into hostile Gentile territory east of the Jordan and Isaiah 65:3-6? The theory has been proposed that prior to the writing of the earliest NT gospels many of the stories about Jesus’ ministry were reinterpretations of lectionary passages read sabbath by sabbath in the synagogues of the 1st century. This occurred during the period of oral transmission of the apostolic experience of Jesus. (Gulder, Spong et al.) It is quite feasible to read this pericope in that light.
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