INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Year A - Proper 8

GENESIS 22:1-14.  One can easily imagine this as a popular children’s story in the many centuries before being written into Israel’s sacred books. It remains an important element in the faith story of three great religious traditions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

     The story emphasizes three fundamental elements of Israel’s religious tradition: revelation of the divine will and purpose by means of an epiphany; the trust and obedience of Abraham as the representative of the whole people of God; and provision of the ritual needs for true worship.

PSALM 13.      We do not know what troubled the soul of this psalmist as he composed this typical lament. Its simplicity and beauty have engaged many who struggled to trust in God during difficult times.

JEREMIAH 28:5-9.  [Alternate]  This strange exchange between two rival prophets may seem odd to modern ears. It crystallizes the difference between true and false prophets. Jeremiah sought to clarify the simple truth that there could be no peace for Israel despite the hopeful proclamation of Hannaniah. The latter had tried to reassure the priests and the people that within two years King Jeconiah and the temple vessels would be brought back from Babylon whence they had been carried captive by King Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah hope it would come true, but he knew that the situation was far from favourable for that to happen.

PSALM 89:1-4, 15-18. [Alternate]  These are very brief excerpts from what at first appears to be a hymn of praise celebrating God’s love for the covenant people Israel. The whole psalm may not be as these passages suggest. It may also be a composite of several parts drawn from different sources.

ROMANS 6:12-23.         Having settled the question how faith in the grace of Jesus Christ overcomes our sin, Paul now turns to the moral implications of that victory. He thinks of sin no longer “exercising dominion” over us. So the issue really becomes, “who is our Lord and what does that mean for the way we live?” Paul drew an analogy with slavery, something very common in the lst century CE and most probably within the Roman Christian community itself.

MATTHEW 10:40-42.  Being received in Christ’s name is the thrust of this brief reading at the end of Jesus’ discourse of instructions to his disciples.  It reflects an ancient Jewish oral tradition which required that a man’s emissary be received with the same hospitality as would be given the man himself.

     The rewards for “prophets, righteous persons and little ones” are metaphors for the spiritual rewards to be received by all the faithful.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

GENESIS 22:1‑14.      There are many aspects to this story, not the least of which is that it is sacred to three living religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Today, the great Dome of the Rock, third most sacred site of Islam, stands on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem where this sacrifice is said to have taken place. There too stood the temple of Solomon and the Second Temple built after Israel’s return from the Babylonian exile. Herod the Great rebuilt and beautified that edifice only to have it completely razed by the Romans in 70 CE. The claim that Abraham founded the great sanctuary forms a subsidiary message of the passage.

This story has all the elements of a tribal legend. As it stands now the patriarchal father and son play only a supporting role. The central figure is Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel. The story emphasizes three fundamental elements of Israel’s religious tradition: revelation of the divine will and purpose by means of an epiphany; the trust and obedience of the patriarch as the representative of the whole people of God; and provision of the ritual needs for true worship.

Nonetheless, the story is told with a genuine pathos, expressed particularly in the naïve question of Isaac (vs. 7). One can easily imagine the legend being repeatedly requested by children and narrated by a grandfather as a family sat around a campfire in the wilderness. This would have occurred century after century for generations before becoming part of the literary masterpiece of the Elohim document in the 8^th century BCE.

From the spiritual point of view, the story has to do with the testing of Abraham’s faith in response to what God required of him. We might suppose that such an interpretation may be influenced by Paul’s theology in Galatians 3:6-9 and Romans 4:1-12. But why not Paul’s theology developing from what had already been taught by rabbis like Nicodemus or Gamaliel under who Paul studied? Jewish thought did develop the concept of the covenant relationship having been founded by Abraham’s willingness to offer Isaac in response to God’s command. The story brings to a climax the life-theme of Abraham as the man who lived by faith. This point Paul so clearly emphasized as a Jewish rabbi who came to understand of the true nature of Jesus Christ, the one sacrifice sufficient for all.

Another aspect of the story points to the way God requires that humans worship with whatever God has first given, but it also indirectly rejects human sacrifice as a form of  worship. The crucial epiphany occurs in vss. 11-12 when “the angel of the Lord” (cf. vss. 1-2 where God speaks directly to Abraham) prevents Abraham from striking the fatal blow. Child sacrifice was still a live issue in ca. 800 BCE (2 Kings 3:27) about the same period when the Elohim document is thought to have been composed. This legend may have played some part in ending the vicious practice of infanticide.

PSALM 13.     We do not know what troubled the soul of this psalmist as he composed these lines. Its simplicity and beauty have engaged many who struggled to trust in God during difficult times. The form of the psalm is that of a normal lament with three distinct parts: a complaint; an appeal and an expression of confidence in God. These can be easily discerned in the three sets of couplets - vss. 1-2, 3-4, 5-6. This may be regarded as the perfect example of the Hebrew lament.

In the first segment, the petitioner voices genuine concern that Yahweh is indifferent to his struggle against some unidentified enemy or perhaps a critical illness. This is not quite the cry of dereliction of Ps. 22, but does express very deep emotional distress. His appeal for divine help in vss. 4-5 suggests a real danger of dying at the hands of a malicious enemy. Anticipation of this enemy prevailing and rejoicing over his demise only increases the intensity of the victim’s pain.

One is reminded of the television scenes of despairing victims of ethnic cleansing, both Albanians and Serbs in Cosovo a decade ago, straggling from their burning homes to seek whatever safety they might find. More recently, the haggard faces of tens of thousands of refugees from Darfur, Sudan, bring the same horrible realities into our homes. Having faced the prospect of death only once in a relatively long life, it is not possible for me to imagine how I would face such a situation. Although the victim’s trust in God expressed in this psalm gives rise to hope, it is not the Christian hope of redemption or resurrection, but a confidence of vindication and restoration of prosperity. Such is not always the outcome, no matter how just the cause or how sincere the prayers.

JEREMIAH 28:5-9.  [Alternate]  This strange exchange between two rival prophets may seem odd to modern ears. It crystallizes the difference between true and false prophets in a time of great crisis and upheaval. Jeremiah sought to clarify the simple truth that there could be no peace for Israel despite the hopeful proclamation of Hannaniah. As one who sought to please, Hannaniah had tried to reassure the priests and the people that within two years King Jeconiah and the temple vessels would be brought back from Babylon whence they had been carried captive by King Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah hoped it would come true, but he knew that the actual situation was far from favourable for that to happen. He also believed that Yahweh still had a purpose in the disastrous experience of so many of Israel’s leading citizens and the royal court having been led away into exile as Babylonian captives.

As one of the two great prophets of the Babylonian Exile (the other being Ezekiel), Jeremiah had a very realistic view of the events his nation experienced. It is worth reading the preceding chapter 27 to gain the correct perspective on this exchange with the ever optimistic Hannaniah. Jeremiah had proposed in Yahweh’s name that Judah (the only part of the nation remaining) submit to their Babylonian overlords rather than resist. He dramatized his prophesy by donning a heavy yoke. The religious and civil authorities were incensed by such objectionable behaviour despite the severity of Jeremiah’s warning about the inevitability of failure should they do otherwise.

Jeremiah had not always been a doom-sayer, although that is what he is popularly deemed to have been. He actually wished that Hannaniah’s hopeful prophesy would come about. His deeper insight into the will of Yahweh, the Lord of Israel’s history, prevented him from sharing such optimism.

Change the channel tour own time and place and what do we see? Is God not troubled by the vicious wars, foreign occupation and counter insurgencies rampant through the Middle East? Is God not angry that we do nothing when millions are driven from their homes, murdered, raped and starved by brutal militias supported by government forces in Darfur, Sudan? What is the price in human suffering and despair of our unloading unpayable debts on so many African nations? Are we not blind to the realities of our time? Who are the prophetic voices of our time?

PSALM 89:1-4, 15-18. [Alternate.]  These are very brief excerpts from what at first appears to be a hymn of praise celebrating God’s love for the covenant people Israel. The whole psalm may not be as celebratory as these passages suggest. It may also be, as some scholars surmise, a composite of several parts drawn from different sources. Indeed, the third section (vss. 19-37) has the form of a prophetic oracle while the last section (vss. 38-51) except for the final blessing are a lament for a Judean monarch.

The theme of these few verses extracted from the first part of the psalm do celebrate the special relationship between Yahweh and the covenant people. They emphasize Yahweh’s love exhibited in Yahweh’s faithfulness. If the historical setting of these verses is the period of the Babylonian wars (597-586 BCE) immediately prior to the exile, as has been mooted by OT scholars, they express a deep trust in and hope for divine deliverance based entirely on the belief in Yahweh as Lord of Israel’s history now resting in the persons of the last kings of Judah, Jehoiachin or Zedekiah. Certainly, vss. 38-45 point to a grave political disaster in the monarch’s loss of power (vss. 43-44). Another possibility is that all the verses preceding the lament (vss. 1-37) are the introduction to the lament indicating on what grounds the appeal to Yahweh is made. The lament also ends with hope for the restoration of the Davidic monarchy,

It might be possible to use the verses selected for this reading effectively as an antiphonal call to worship. They express the meaning of sincere faith.

ROMANS 6:12‑23.    Having settled the question how faith in the grace of Jesus Christ overcomes our sin, Paul now turns to the moral implications of that victory. He thinks of sin no longer “exercising dominion” over us. The Greek verb for this is *kurieuo,* a derivative of *kurios* (= lord). So the issue really becomes, “who is our lord and what does that mean for the way we live?”

To explain further Paul draws an analogy with slavery, something very common in the lst century CE and most probably within the Roman Christian community itself. After nearly two centuries free from slavery for the most part, our society has little or no concept of what slavery meant. Modern tourists gawk at the slave pens still visible in West African ports and the slave markets in southern US cities where those pitiful ancestors of millions of Americans were bought and sold. I recall meeting a British psychiatrist who was on his way to the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean off the Carolina coast where he intended to hold special prayer services for the souls of slaves thrown overboard to lighten ships in a storm or because they had died en route to America.

Until slavery was abolished, belatedly in the USA in 1860 (though still practiced inNAzi German concentration camps and in Sudan according to news reports), a slave was no mere servant whose labor was at an employer’s disposal for a limited period of time and specific tasks. A slave was the absolute possession of his or her master, having no freedom whatsoever, no matter what the task at any time day or night for whatever purpose his master chose. More than that, a slave could be bought or sold like a piece of furniture, a bushel of grain or a beast for slaughter without regard of any family connections or the character of the purchaser. Worse still, if a slave woman bore children, even sired by the master, her offspring could be sold like cattle too. Even the most courageous of soldiers, if taken prisoner in battle, faced a similar fate.

Paul claimed to be “speaking in human terms” (vs. 19), but the vividness of his analogy must have been unimaginably clear to his readers who had such personal acquaintance with that ghastly institution.  Not that a Christian was totally freed to live in a libertine manner. Having been freed from slavery to sin, we are now “enslaved to God.” That means nothing short of sanctification, a wholly different kind of life the end of which is not death, but eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord”  (vss. 22-23).

What Christ has done for us in freeing us from slavery to sin can best be summed up by lines from George Matheson’s hymn, “Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.” The final verse of that hymn reads: “My will is not my own, till thou has made it thine; if it would reach the monarch’s throne it must the crown resign; it only stands unbent amid the clashing strife, when on thy bosom it has leant and found in thee its life.”

MATTHEW 10:40‑42.    What does it mean to be received in Christ’s name? That is the thrust of this brief reading at the end of Jesus’ discourse of instructions to his disciples. Its parallels are found in Luke 10:16 and Mark 9:37. It defines what the coming of Jesus meant to the Matthean community and how the apostles and other early Christian leaders were to be received. In some ways it also parallels Paul’s “ambassadors for Christ” affirmation in 2 Cor. 5:20. An ancient Jewish oral tradition later recorded in the rabbinical Mishnah ca. 150 CE required that a man’s emissary be received as the man himself. It would appear that this attitude is reflected in vs. 40. But it goes further to extend the authority of the apostles stated in 10:1 to that of emissaries of Christ and of God.

Vss. 41-42 identifies three different groups of Christians: prophets, righteous persons and “little ones.” Were these distinguishable leaders of the church in Matthew’s time? If so, what offices and functions did each have? In his *Church Order in the New Testament,* (SCM Press, 1961) Eduard Schweizer makes the point that the official religious offices belonged to the old order of Judaism and paganism. All authority, including that of priesthood, belonged to Christ alone. “It is true that the whole church shares in it but that does not apply to an individual or group that would be distinguishable from the other, non-priestly members....As a general term for what we call ‘office’, namely the service of individuals within the church, there is, with few exceptions, only one word *diakonia* (= service).” (Schweizer, 173-4)

On the other hand, prophecy was as old as Israel’s earliest religious experience. The prophetic tradition held throughout the NT era. Jesus and John the Baptist were considered prophets. Warnings about false prophets appear throughout the NT. Paul dealt actively with charismatic prophets who spoke in tongues and tried to define how their utterances should be tested before being accepted as authentic (1 Cor. 14:9; 1 Thess. 5:20-21; cf. 1 John 4:1). It was not until the Ephesian letter was composed, probably by a later disciple of Paul using his name, that we find the office of prophet set beside that of apostle, evangelist, pastor and teacher (Eph. 3:5; 4:11). The distinction is not as clear as one would like to have it. According to Schweizer, however, Ephesians “show(s) a definite development ... in which the church is seen more and more as a world-wide unity that attains even cosmic range.... The apostle is no longer simply the father of a particular local church,... but becomes the foundation of an entity that is developing on a world-wide scale.” (108-9)

The same analysis applies to Matthew’s Gospel written in the ninth decade of the 1^st   century CE. What Schweizer said of apostles can be said also of prophets, gifted preachers of the gospel whose ministry was not limited to a single community, but traveled far and wide proclaiming the kerygma of the resurrection and its meaning for those who believed.

Then who were “the righteous person” and the “little ones” of vss. 41-42 whose kindly reception would bring the same reward? Sherman E. Johnson, exegete of Matthew’s Gospel in *The Interpreter’s Bible*, suggests that these were euphemisms for “tested and honored Christians” and “ordinary disciples” respectively (vol. 7, 377). The cup of cold water was a metaphor for any minor service rendered to one of these. A minister who had served in a poverty-stricken parish during the Great Depression of the 1930s observed that his reward consisted of scarcely little more than that. Even in poor rural parishes in the 1950s, a pastor might expect to receive gifts of freshly slaughtered meat or game, vegetables or fruit from family gardens when making a pastoral call.

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