gregoryjenks

Author: Gregory C. Jenks

  • Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (22 September 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 & Psalm 79:1-9
    • I Timothy 2:1-7
    • Luke 16:1-13

    Gospel: The Shrewd Manager

    All commentators confirm what the typical Bible reader senses: this is a parable that challenges our normal way of looking at life, and of hearing Jesus. We do not anticipate hearing Jesus commend a corrupt manager, and we find it all but impossible to separate the Kingdom message of Jesus from the immorality of the characters.

    Of course, this is not the only parable to challenge our skills as active listeners.

    As we saw when discussing the Good Samaritan, the morality of the characters is not usually the focus of a parable. This is more easily recognised in parables that involve no moral agents, but is more difficult to keep in mind when the key characters seem to be enagged in immoral conduct as part of the storyteller’s art:

    When Jesus gave the Sower parable, for example, his first hearers and his modern readers would probably all agree on one thing: Jesus was not interested in agrarian reform in eastern Galilee. Whatever he might have meant one is immediately certain that agriculture is not the point of the story. But when Jesus tells parables whose content is not some morally neutral activity such as sowing or harvesting but involves a morally significant action, it may or may not be at all so clear if he is giving examples (act/do not act like this) or telling parables. It will be argued in this chapter that the parables of reversal have been turned in almost all cases into examples precisely because of this ambiguity. It will also be clear that Luke is especially fond of this type of transformed parable. (John Dominic Crossan, In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus p. 55)

    To that insight from Crossan we might add the observation that what strikes us as immoral or unacceptable behaviour will be largely determined by our own social location. Wealthy internet-connected property-owning westerners will see the failure of trust implicit in this story more keenly than a poverty-stricken landless farmer in many parts of the Third World. The horror of finding our pension plan has been obliterated by the self-serving actions of a trusted advisor is only a nightmare for those with wealth to entrust to the care of another. What is it about a corrupt trust fund manager that speaks to us of God’s empire?

    John Dominic Crossan [In Parables, 106-108] discusses this saying as one of four “action parables” that reverse the expected development of the story line. In this case, rather than being punished for his crooked bookkeeping, the manager is commended even (and especially) by his master.

    He begins by noting the care with which Luke places this saying in a wider context within Luke 16:1-13:

    There is already a scholarly consensus that a variety of applications have been added to this parable in the succeeding verse (sic) in Luke 16:1-13. The classical statement of this is in C.H. Dodd: “We can almost see here notes for three separate sermons on the parable as text.” But this consensus breaks down completely when one discusses where the original parable ended and the additions began.

    Crossan later highlights the significance of 16:2 “within the literary economy of the story.”

    Whatever is happening in 16:5-7 there was already a problem between master and servant as early as 16:2 (“wasting his goods”). When 16:2 and 16:5-7 are read together within the literary tension of the story, one has the picture of laziness organizing itself under crisis. The steward has not obtained sufficient return for the master and is therefore being removed 916:2). In such a situation he may as well get some terminal benefits from the master’s losses and so ingratiates hismelf with the debtors (16:5-7). When he is later out of a job they will, hopefully, feel grateful to him for his help and maybe even responsible for his firing (16:3-4). He has created a sort of Robin Hood image out of his inefficiency.

    After outling a three-part structure of this “carefully formed mini-drama,” Crossan concludes:

    The cleverness of the steward consisted not only in solving his problem but in solving it by means of the very reason (low profits) that had created it in the first place. In the light of this the parable ends quite adequately at 16:7. The rest, including 16:8a, is commentary.

    Bernard Brandon Scott [Re-Imagine the World: An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus, 85-95] discusses this saying in some detail. He begins by alerting us to two common misconceptions that distort many interpretations of the parable:

    This is one of the strangest and most difficult of Jesus’ parables. Two customary assumptions undermine most attempts to interpret the parable.

    • The master is God.
    • The economics system is capitalism.

    As Scott points out, those who identify the master with God then face the embarrassment of the master’s commendation of the manager for his immoral conduct. This approach results in interpretive contortions to excuse God from condoning dishonesty and to find (impose?) some other meaning on the parable. Similarly, if the underlying economic system is assumed to be capitalism we again miss the central thrust of the parable, as we are distracted by our natural empathy for the master/capitalist who has been defrauded by his corrupt employee. The actions of the master and manager need to be read within the context of an ancient honor/shame society. Scott observes:

    The manager’s situation is precarious. He is not simply out of work, as in a capitalist system. He can’t just go to look for work somewhere else. He is homeless and without resources. He will soon be in a life or death situation, for he has no way to earn a living. …

    The manager envisions as his options two of the most disgraceful things in the ancient world. “To dig ditches” is too contemporary a reference. “To dig” in the Greek probably refers to digging in the mines which is slave work and nearly always a death sentence.

    The quotation from Sirach [40:28-30, below] makes clear that begging is also a condemnation to death. Someone who is reduced to begging is without resources. Without the patronage of his master, the manager is in real danger. …

    Digging and begging are images of his desperation.

    My child, do not lead the life of a beggar;
    it is better to die than to beg.
    When one looks to the table of another,
    one’s way of life cannot be considered a life.
    One loses self-respect with another person’s food,
    but one who is intelligent and well instructed guards against that.
    In the mouth of the shameless begging is sweet,
    but it kindles a fire inside him. [Sirach 40:28-30]

    In his desperation the manager contrives to create a social space that will sustain him as the interacting lines of honor and shame enmesh around his crisis. He extends generous discounts to his master’s major debtors, and puts them in debt to him as a result. Scott continues:

    Just what does the manager do to gain the good will of his master’s debtors? Apparently he eliminates the profit or usurious interest. When the word gets back to the master of what has happened he has two options.

    • The master can repudiate his ex-manager’s action. But this would involve severe loss of face on the master’s part. When those whose debts have been so generously reduced begin to praise the master, it’s unlikely he will risk owning up to what happened.
    • He can accept his ex-manager’s action.

    What then? How is the tension — created by this shrewd move on the manager’s part — to be relieved? Scott sugegsts one way of reading the intentional tension left as the story concludes. It begins by noting that the accusation against the manager is, from the beginning, a slanderous misrepresentation. The Greek word diaballein in 16:2 has the sense “accuse” in the sense of “falsely accuse, slander, lie about.” The great Accuser in the Greek Bible is the Devil, diabolos. Our word diabolic comes from the same root. So the manager has been innocent all along, but sees no way to prove his innocence other than by demonstrating what a shrewd operator he really is (and always has been). Scott then questions whether the manager is to be dismissed after all?

    The master had originally dismissed the manager because he had [allegedly] squandered the master’s property. Now he commends him for acting shrewdly — the way a manager is supposed to act. If the master cannot repudiate the reductions in debt instituted by the manager without loss of face, do we have to imagine that the master let his dismissal stand or could he have taken the manager back?

    In the social world of 1C Palestine, where debt burdens reduced people to poverty and consigned many to slavery as a consequence, the master would not have been the object of public sympathy as Jesus’ listeners first heard this tale. As Scott points out, both the master and the shrewd manager have been dishonest. The master has been making a huge profit at the expense of his fellows, while the manager has been willing to fiddle the books to gain himself new friends.

    In this parable the manager gets even with the master by appropriating the master’s profit, which itself is morally suspect — for as we have seen no characters in this parable are innocent. When the master commends the manager for his shrewdness, he also reminds us that the manager is unjust or dishonest. We are reminded that the moral holiday is not really a holiday. Wrong has been done, lots of wrong on all sides.

    Jesus Database

    Liturgies and Prayers

    For liturgies and sermons each week, shaped by a progressive theology, check Rex Hunt’s web site

    Other recommended sites include:

     

    Music Suggestions

    • All the earth, proclaim the Lord – AHB 100
    • Alleluia, the gospel is among us (Bruxvoort-Colligan)
    • Jesus the Lord said I am the bread – AHB 185
    • Lord of the dance – AHB 183

    See David MacGregor’s Together to Celebrate site for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre.

  • Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (15 September 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 & Psalm 14
    • 1 Timothy 1:12-17
    • Luke 15:1-10

     

    Introduction

    Our notes this week focus on the Gospel reading.

    In the opinion of a great many contemporary Jesus scholars, the traditions found in this week’s Gospel take us very close to the core of Jesus’ own practice (what Crossan calls “open commensality”) and its underlying vision of God’s domain as the place where the broken ones and the little people come into their own (or, more correctly, God’s own). The presence of a + sign next to the inventory number for each item reflects Crossan’s positive assessment of their historicity.

    It is instructive to read these stories through the lens of the Beatitudes. The principles stated so baldly in the Beatitudes are here captured in the practice and teaching of Jesus.

    Gospel: God has a table …

    Eating with Sinners (Luke 15:1-2)

    Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

    John Dominic Crossan (Historical Jesus, 262) dismisses this accusation as a rhetorical flourish by the opponents of Jesus, rather than as a character appraisal of his companions:

    “I no more take [this charge] at face value than I do the charges against John [the Baptist].”

    Kathleen Corley reminds us that allegations such as those found here represent “the caricature of polemic and not social description” (Women and the Historical Jesus, 2002:85). She continues:

    … the connection between these two terms and their use as slander against Jesus’ or his followers’ table practice is apt, as tax collectors are connected in Greco-Roman literature with those who trafficked in prostitution and slavery, particularly to brothel keepers and pimps, those responsible for supplying women and slaves for banquets. And it was common for demeaning portraits of individuals to include insults levied against their table practice and dining companions. To malign Verres, for example, Cicero pictures his degenerate behavior at banquets with lewd women.

    The point of this familiar slander against Jesus is not simply his lack of discrimination when choosing table companions, but to suggest significant moral failure on his part as someone keeping company with sex workers and corrupt petty officials. While the historian can read the slander in reverse and use it as evidence that Jesus included women and other social outcasts among his followers, the slander is more a marker of social conflict between Jesus and his opponents rather than an index of his personal values and conduct.

    Crossan (Historical Jesus, 261) asks: “What acts of Jesus begot the charges of gluttony, drunkenness, and keeping very bad company?” In offering a response to his own question, Crossan writes:

    In the first as in the twentieth century, a person might create a feast for society’s outcasts. The could easily be understood even or especially in the honor and shame ideology of Mediterranean society as a benefaction and one of extremely high visibility. No doubt if one did it persistently and exclusively there might be some very negative social repercussions. But, in itself, to invite the outcasts for a special meal is a less socially radical act than to invite everyone found on the streets. It is that “anyone” that negates the very social function of table, namely, to establish a social ranking by what one eats, how one eats, and with whom one eats. It is the random and open commensality of the parable’s meal that is its most startling element. One could, in such a situation, have classes, sexes, ranks and grades all mixed up together. The social challenge of such egalitarian commensality is the radical threat of the parable’s vision. It is only a story, of course, but it is one that focuses its egalitarian challenge on society’s mesocosmic mirror, the table as the place where bodies meet to eat. And the almost predictable counteraccusation to such open commensality is immediate: Jesus is a glutton, a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He makes, in other words, no appropriate distinctions and discriminations. He has no honor. He has no shame.

    In an unrelated discussion later in his book, Crossan writes further about commensality (shared table) as something that was (and is?) absolutely basic to Christian community. Two excerpts will give something of the flavor of his discussion:

    Here, I think, is the heart of the original Jesus movement, a shared egalitarianism of spiritual and material resources. I emphasize this as strongly as possible, and I insist that its materiality and spirituality, its facticity and symbolism cannot be separated. The mission we are talking about is not, like Paul’s, a dramatic thrust along major trade routes to urban centers hundreds of miles apart. Yet it concerns the longest journey in the Greco-Roman world, maybe in any world, the step across the threshold of a peasant stranger’s home. (p. 341)

    I cannot emphasize this too strongly: commensality is not almsgiving; almsgiving is not commensality. Generous almsgiving may even be conscience’s last great refuge against the terror of open commensality. (p. 341)

     

    The Lost Sheep (Luke 15:3-7)

    This familiar parable survives in three versions:

    THOMAS 107
    Jesus said, The (Father’s) imperial rule is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine and looked for the one until he found it. After he had toiled, he said to the sheep, “I love you more than the ninety-nine.” [Complete Gospels]

    LUKE 15:4-7
    “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

    MATTHEW 18:12-14
    What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.

    It is interesting to note that the version in Thomas has a rather more predictable ending. Certainly, from the sheep’s perspective it is greatly to be preferred over Luke’s version where the happy farmer calls his friends and neighbors over for a celebration where (presumably) the recently-rescued sheep is the main item on the menu.

    Underlying this parable is a radical vision of God as wastefully generous in her dealings with humankind. This parable, like the Lost Coin that follows in Luke 15, celebrates an interpretation of life as something very different from the “repent-or-burn” ideology of the religious right. Here is a superb example of the abundance mentality at work. Forget the ninety-nine safe sheep! Seek the solitary stray and enjoy it in the company of your friends and neighbors.

    There is—says Jesus—something of God’s domain in this slippery little story.

    The Lost Coin (Luke 15:8-10)

    Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

    This story—deriving more from the domestic sphere of life—seems to make a similar point to the previous story of the lost sheep; and perhaps also to the following story of the prodigal son.

    The element of hyperbole is once more present in this story.

    While silver coins are “small change” in our world, they were serious money in the time of Jesus. Not only so, but none of the Jewish rulers who issued coins during the 150 or so years from John Hyrcanus to Herod and his sons minted silver coins. Every local Jewish coin was bronze, and most them were the prutah—worth about 1% of a silver denarius. Some silver coins were issued from local mints, such as Tyre, under special licence from Rome. Gold coins were even more rare, and only ever minted in Rome. For the woman in this story to have 10 silver coins would have struck Jesus’ audience as most remarkable. In any event, they would have appreciated the diligence with which she went about searching for the lost coin. It was worth 100 prutot!

    God is more willing to forgive than we are ready to imagine.

    As with the once-lost but now-found sheep, so the recovered silver coin is presumably consumed in the celebrations with the friends and neighbors.

    Is this collective celebration perhaps essential to the story? Are we perhaps more often like the grumpy elder brother in the Prodigal Son? With our “Four Spiritual laws” and our airtight theories of the Atonement, have we overlooked the extravagant generosity of the Mother who is simply happy to welcome all her chicks back into the warm security of her wings?

    While those of us who are religious (whether right or of some other disposition) may complain like the proverbial elder sibling, God rushes out to embrace the dissolute who may be more desperate than repentant. Who cares how the sheep was separated from the flock? Who cares how the coin got to be where it was eventually found? Who cares what the prodigal has done with his premature inheritance?

    Let the heavens rejoice! Another sinner has turned back to God.

    Jesus Database

    Liturgies and Prayers

    For liturgies and sermons each week, shaped by a progressive theology, check Rex Hunt’s web site

    Other recommended sites include:

     

    Music Suggestions

    Traditional:

    • O worship the king, all-glorious above – AHB 67
    • Spirit of mercy, truth and love – AHB 316
    • When I Survey the wondrous cross – AHB 258
    • Amazing grace – AHB 56

    Contemporary

    • Blest Are They – AOV 1-055, GA 477
    • Seek ye First – AHB 745
    • Companions on the Journey – AOV 1-188
    • You Are Near – AOV 1-112, GA 451

    See David MacGregor’s Together to Celebrate site for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre.

  • Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (8 September 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Jeremiah 18:1-11 & Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
    • Philemon 1-21
    • Luke 14:25-33

    First reading: The potter and the clay

    The reading from Jeremiah 18 continues the lectionary selections from this influential OT book, and serves up a vivid metaphor of humanity as clay in the hands of a potter/god:

    So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. (Jer 18:3–6 NRSV)

    In the ancient world pottery was as common as plastic containers in our own kitchen cupboards, or used envelopes next to the phone prior to the email revolution. In one respect, Jeremiah is engaging in a very routine action as he visits the potter. To hear the “word of the LORD” requires him to pay attention to the everyday and the routine. “Those with eyes …,” Jesus might observe?

    On the other hand, the significance of the ordinary and everyday become quite non-routine and unconventional, when Jeremiah hears what the “word of the LORD” is for him at the potter’s shop:

    At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the LORD: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings. (Jer 18:7–11 NRSV)

    This passage represents a significant shift in ancient ideas about the covenant relationship between a community and its god(s).

    Here we find Jeremiah disclosing the “fine print” of the covenant. Rather than being an unconditional deal that locks Israel into exclusive worship of Yahweh in return for perpetual preferential treatment over other nations, the covenant compassion of Yahweh is as likely to result in the heathens being forgiven and the chosen ones being punished. These are grounds, indeed, for the prophet to appeal to the “people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem” to review their own conduct. Being chosen is no longer sufficient for exclusive “most favored nation” status. Instead, it all turns on whether the nation chooses evil or turns from evil.

    This idea was to find a distinctive expression in the story of Jonah. In that story – and to the serious discomfort of the prophet – the people of Nineveh turn from evil and are spared by Yahweh. It is a strange tale to include in the Jewish and Christian Bibles, but it is there precisely because it is such a prophetic text.

    Second reading: Philemon

    Paul’s letter to Philemon is one of the shortest texts in the New Testament, yet even so the lectionary is not able to assign the complete work for reading in church this week. Surely it is a good thing to read entire books when the opportunity to do so arises, and to discover afresh their character as occasional correspondence. Rather than carefully composed timeless documents, these are everyday acts of communication about real life issues in the lives of ordinary people. Like the potters shop, early Christian letters are routine and conventional aspects of daily life. Yet these letters can deliver a radical re-reading of life, and that is exactly what we see happening in this brief personal note from Paul to a wealthy Christian named, Philemon.

    In this scrap of a letter, Paul invites Philemon into a new and more generous space as a disciple of Jesus.

    The conventional response to a runaway slave, as Onesimus seems to have been, was to punish the offender in any way that master chose. Paul seeks not just the reinstatement of Onesimus without punishment, but his recognition by Philemon as a fellow-believer and a brother in Christ.

    Paul had no canon law or ecclesiastical constitutions on his side as he overturned the unbroken tradition of many thousands of years in Mediterranean communities. He simply appealed for Philemon to recognise the new status that all three of them shared, and to “do the right thing.” Most likely Paul had no idea how this would all work out, or what a revolution in the human spirit he was starting. It certainly took his readers many hundreds of years to work out the fine print of this part of the new covenant traditions, and in some respects we still do not get it.

    Scriptures are like that. They seem to affirm the tradition, but they also subvert, challenge and reform the tradition. It can be controversial, and often is. But then it was in Paul’s day as well.

    Gospel: The Cost of Discipleship

    This week’s Gospel comprises materials known from various “locations” within the early Jesus tradition. We have some items that are unique to Luke, others that seem to come from the Common Sayings Tradition found in the Sayings Gospel Q and Thomas, as well as another that has even wider attestation.

    This set of material dealing with the cost of discipleship fits well within the larger unit (Luke 9:51-19:28) in which Luke uses the motif of Jesus’ journey towards Jerusalem as both the symbol and the occasion for an exploration of what it means to be a disciple.

    Hating One’s Family

    In ancient Mediterranean societies the family was the fundamental and all-pervasive social reality. For Jesus to promote “hatred” of one’s own family still strikes us as odd, but nowhere near as forcefully as it would have struck his contemporaries. Perhaps a modern equivalent would be for Jesus to demand hatred of our own mothers. In our culture, “Mother” is one of the last remaining icons. We might gain some sense of the counter-cultural stance adopted by Jesus if we imagine a Christian renewal movement that called on its adherents to reject their mothers.

    The extended quotation from John Dominic Crossan in The Historical Jesus (1991:299-301) that we used three weeks ago, may be worth revisiting at this point:

    The family imagined [in Q] has five members: father, mother, son, daughter, and son’s wife, all living together in the one household. “Note,” as Bruce Malina advises, “that there is no mention of son-in-law, since it was the new wife who moved into her husband’s house, not the husband into the wife’s family” (1981:101). I emphasize immediately that this is not simply saying that families will be split over Jesus, with some believing and some disbelieving. The division imagined cuts between the generations, the two parents against the three children, and vice versa. But it does not tell us which group is on Jesus’ side. We cannot presume that parents are against Jesus and children for him, or vice versa. Indeed, the point is not belief or disbelief at all. It is, just as in Micah 7:6, the normalcy of familial hierarchy that is under attack. The strife is not between believers and non-believers but quite simply, and as it says, between the generations and in both directions. Jesus will tear the hierarchical or patriarchal family in two along the axis of domination and subordination. Second, and even more significant, is that the division imagined cuts across sex and gender. That point is underlined by the version in Gospel of Thomas 16, which, despite having “five in a house: three will be against two, and two against three” gives only one example, and that the dominant male one: “the father against the son and the son against the father.’ That obscures the saying’s point: the split is between generations but across the genders. There can be women just as much as men on the side of Jesus, or on the other side for that matter. I return to that point below in considering Jesus’ missionaries, but even now it is already apparent: what happens to women if the patriarchal family is split asunder?
    A similar point is made with 089 Hating Ones Family [1/2], although the protagonist of the saying is given in masculine gender. The opposition is with one’s “father and mother … brothers and sisters” in Gospel of Thomas 55:1-2, “father and mother” in Gospel of Thomas 101, “father or mother … son or daughter” in Q/Matthew 10:37, and “father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters” in Q/Luke 14:26. In other words, whatever number of generations are mentioned, both genders are always in question. I incline, therefore, to read 089 Hating Ones Family [1/2] in the light of 074 Peace or Sword [1/2] as referring, despite its male format, to both genders. Jesus, on the other hand, refuses to get involved in 097 The Disputed Inheritance [1/2], in which sons disagree over the father’s inheritance. He is not that kind of divider.
    Finally, there is 015 Against Divorce [1/4], an especially well-attested saying of Jesus. The formulation of the divorce law in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is strictly anthropocentric: “when a man takes … marries …writes … puts … sends …” It concerns how a husband divorces a wife and says nothing whatsoever about how a wife divorces a husband. It does not have to do so because the law does not allow it. Unlike, say, Greek, Roman, or Egyptian law at the time of Jesus, Jewish law did not allow the wife to initiate divorce proceedings. Adultery, furthermore, was also androcentric. It was always a crime against male honor and male rights. Seen against such a cultural situation, the texts in 015 Against Divorce [1/4] are strikingly anomalous. That is not because both 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 and Mark 10:10-12, but not its parallel Matthew 19:9, have adapted Jesus’ saying to a wider Greco-Roman ambiance — they therefore forbid divorce either by husband of wife or by wife of husband — it is because the saying of Jesus situates itself directly in the androcentric tradition of Jewish Palestine but says,

    (1) Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery,
    and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
    (Sayings Gospel Q: 1[or 2?]Q: Luke 16:18 = Matthew 5:31-32)

    (2) Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. (Mark 10:11)

    (3) If he put his wife away and marry another he also commits adultery himself.
    (Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1:6b)

    John Kloppenborg has seen most clearly the implications of the term ‘adultery” against the Mediterranean background of an anodrocentric or even phallocentric honor and shame ideology. “By saying that the male who disembeds his wife and remarries commits adultery against her … Jesus implies that honor is not (only?) androcentric — I use the term descriptively rather than pejoratively — but (also or equally) gynecentric. Honor is still understood as a pseudo-commodity but it belongs as much to a woman as it does to a man. Hence a man can ‘steal’ his own wife’s honor by divorcing her and remarrying … In Palestine of Jesus’ day, which did not permit women to initiate a divorce, the dignity of women was not … easily guarded. It is for this reason that Jesus uses the dramatic term ‘adultery’ in so surprising a way. He thus brought sharply into focus the wife’s honor. It is as much to be protected and respected as the husband’s honor and the woman is as vulnerable to damage as the male” (1990:195). The opposition here is not just to divorce. To forbid divorce one has only to say that divorce is never legal. That is exactly what happens in the much less radical 252 Moses and Divorce [2/1]. The attack is actually against “androcentric honor whose debilitating effects went far beyond the situation of divorce. It was also the basis for the dehumanization of women, children and non-dominant males” (1990:196). When 074 Peace or Sword [1/2] is read in conjunction with 015 Against Divorce [1/4], Jesus sets parents against children, and wife against husband, sets, in other words, the Kingdom against the Mediterranean. But not just against the Mediterranean alone.

     

    Carrying One’s Cross

    The cross has long been the definitive symbol of Christianity and its founder. As early as the 50s of the first century, Paul (writing in 1 Corinthians) could simply use “the cross” as a recognised symbol of a much larger set of ideas and beliefs:

    For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

    ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’

    Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

    To many NT scholars the post-Easter development of this motif eliminates the possibility of this saying originating with Jesus. The Jesus Seminar, for example, rejected the saying from the database of authentic Jesus sayings on the grounds that its post-Easter understanding of the cross as the defining symbol for Jesus could not be fitted with his historical situation prior to Easter.

    On the other hand, John Dominic Crossan — who was co-chair of the Jesus Seminar — affirms the historicity of this tradition:

    The complex 044 Carrying Ones Cross [1/3] could be dismissed almost immediately as a retrojection of Jesus’ death back onto his own prophetic lips. This would be especially persuasive if it were found only in Mark 8:34, but it is found in both Gospel of Thomas 55:2b and the Sayings Gospel Q at Luke 14:27 = Matthew 10:38, neither of which show any great interest in the historical crucifixion of Jesus. On the other hand there is the following text:

    If you want to be crucified, just wait.
    The cross will come.
    If it seems reasonable to comply, and the circumstances are right,
    then it’s to be carried through, and your integrity maintained.
    (Epictetus, Discourses 2.2.20; Oldfather, 1.228-231).

    There is, therefore, no need to take Jesus’ saying as either retrojected or projected prophecy. Jesus “was discussing,” as Leif Vaage put it about Epictetus, “the (possible) consequences of following a certain philosophy … The cost of adopting a particular way of life is … graphically imagined … The fate portrayed … certainly seems a conceivable outcome of the kind of social challenge and outrageous behavior” (1989:173) seen so often throughout this chapter.*

    [* The Vaage reference is to “Q1 and the Historical Jesus: Some Peculiar Sayings (7:33-34; 9:57-58,59-60; 14:26-27)” Forum 5/2, 1989, 159-76.]

     

    Tower Builder and Warrior King

    These two parables are without parallel in either the Jesus tradition or the rabbinic tradition.

    As an aside, it worth noting that the Tower Builder is perhaps the only parable of Jesus that reflects his traditional involvement in the building crafts of his time. For someone typically understood to have been a “carpenter’s son,” Jesus shows little interest in the family craft when shaping his wisdom that otherwise draws so deeply on his observations of everyday scenes. We hear of farmers, fishers, housewives, tenants, crooked judges, etc. But rarely of buildings, of furniture, or of those who make them.

    Maybe we have built too grand an edifice on the single occurence of tekton (carpenter) in Mark 6:3 (=Matt 13:53)?

    Whether or not Jesus was actually a construction worker or a timber craftsman, these two parables pick up from the wider wisdom tradition insights about prudential consideration of major projects:

    By wisdom a house is built,
    and by understanding it is established;
    by knowledge the rooms are filled
    with all precious and pleasant riches.
    Wise warriors are mightier than strong ones,
    and those who have knowledge than those who have strength;
    for by wise guidance you can wage your war,
    and in abundance of counsellors there is victory.
    Wisdom is too high for fools;
    in the gate they do not open their mouths.
    [Proverbs 24:3-7]

    Gerd Lüdemann [Jesus 2000:361f] is typically more sceptical than many other NT scholars concerning the historicity of the Jesus traditions, but he is inclined to hold his judgment in the case of these two parables:

    In my view there is more to be said for the authenticity than for the inauthenticity of these verses. Here the speaker is a wise man who, as in Thomas 98, observes the harsh reality and foresees the difficulty of carrying out a challenging plan. Unfortunately the context of these parables is unclear, so it does not become evident what kind of self-examination is called for.

     

    Renouncing All

    Verse 33 is found in no other Christian text, although it is consistent with a number of other sayings attributed to Jesus:

    Presumably this saying has been created by Luke to provide a suitable conclusion to the series of sayings that he has gathered from various sources.

    Jesus Database

    Liturgies and Prayers

    For liturgies and sermons each week, shaped by a progressive theology, check Rex Hunt’s web site

    Other recommended sites include:

     

    Music Suggestions

    Traditional List

    • O God our help in ages past – AHB 46
    • Praise the Lord with joyful cry – AHB 108
    • Take my life and let it be – AHB 520
    • Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go – AHB 480

    Contemporary List

    • Give thanks to the risen Lord – AOV 1,015
    • The Lord is my shepherd – AOV 1,126

    See David MacGregor’s Together to Celebrate site for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre.

  • Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (1 September 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Jeremiah 2:4-13 and Psalm 81:1, 10-16
    • Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
    • Luke 14:1, 7-14

    First reading: Cracked cisterns

    This week’s passage is part of the opening complaint by Jeremiah as he sets out God’s case against the people of Judah. These opening oracles extend through the first six chapters of the book. They are significant texts in the history of Jewish religion as here we find Jeremiah invoking the traditions about the exodus from Egypt and the period in the wilderness. These traditions tend to be more associated with the northern kingdom (Israel) and they seemed to have played a lesser role in the southern kingdom (Judah), where the the dominant covenant traditions revolved around the promises to David and the significance of Zion as the city of the Temple. After the fall of the northern kingdom around 722 BCE, it seems that some of the northern traditions were adopted by the southern kingdom as it expanded its influence northwards into areas previously ruled from Samaria. The exact process by which this happened is not fully understood, but it is part of the larger historical process that saw Jerusalem become the custodian of the Israelite tradition and eventually gave us the Old Testament.

    For Jeremiah to appeal to these traditions in the way we find him doing here, we must assume that the Mosaic traditions formerly associated with the north have now taken root in the south.

    Towards the end of this week’s lectionary passage, Jeremiah uses the metaphor of the cistern. God is compared to a fountain of living water, but the people have chosen to dig themselves cisterns that are so faulty they cannot even hold water. This is a vivid image, and it reflects the reality of life in the hill country of Jerusalem and its environs. In a landscape bereft of rivers, people valued springs and wells as natural sources of fresh water. With technological advances around the beginning of the Iron Age (ca 1200 BCE), people were able to carve cisterns in the limestone rocks and line them so that the winter rains could be captured and stored for the dry summer. A cracked cistern would leak and be of no use to the people who depended upon it for survival. It is vivid metaphor, and one that evokes the NT metaphor of Jesus as the source of living water.

    Gospel: Table and Kingdom

    The verses designated for this week’s Gospel are part of a larger unit in Luke 14:

    • 14:1-6 A Sabbath healing by Jesus
    • 14:7-11 Parable of the Wedding Guest
    • 14:12-14 Instruction on Hospitality
    • 14:15 The Messianic Banquet
    • 14:16-24 Parable of the Feast

    [In passing, we can observe that Luke’s version of the Parable of the Feast is not read at any point in this year’s cycle. Matthew 22:1-13 is used for Proper 23 in Year A, but we never get to hear Luke’s version in the Sunday liturgy, even though scholars see it as closer to the original than Matthew’s form.]
    Concerning this whole complex, John Dominic Crossan [In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus, 1973:68f] observes:

    The literary situation is as elegant as it is artificial, so that the parable in 14:8-11 has been smoothed into its present place by the application to Jesus’ fellow guests in 14:7 although there is no evidence that their taking of the first places created any problems with the “actual” situation of the meal where Jesus was present. The parable, opened by 14:7, concludes with 14:11 concerning the reversal of the exalted and the humble which, as already seen, involves the eschatological judgment of God.

    Crossan continues:

    The injunction contained in 14:8-10 does not fit particularly well with its opening application and neither does it go well with its concluding 14:11. In itself it has to do with table etiquette and its motivation could be described at its most positive as utterly banal and at its most negative as rather immoral. One is told to take low seats at a banquet in order to be moved up higher and obtain glory before one’s fellow guests. If one jumps immediately from earthly table etiquette to eschatological rewards, it may be possible to accept the parable as it stands. As one might humble oneself on earth to obtain earthly glory, so should one humble oneself on earth to obtain heavenly glory. This is possible but not totally convincing. Another interpretation can be offered … In 14:8-10 the literal point is a somewhat amusing everyday experience in which one can easily imagine a situation of polar reversal. Jesus is saying in effect: can you imagine a situation in which a man in first place ends up in last place and vice versa? The story tells of the quite convincing possibility of a man who takes the first seat at a banquet, others arrive and take the intermediate seats, so that when a guest of great distinction arrives the first person must not only give up his first place but take the lowest. This example of situational reversal shows how the Kingdom arrives so that one experiences God’s rule as that which turns one’s world upside down and radically reverses its normalcy. The Kingdom is not one’s ultimate concern but that which undermines one’s ultimate concern.

    As noted above, the Parable of the Wedding Feast has come down to us in three versions:

    • GThom. 64:1-2
    • Luke 14:15-24
    • Matt 22:1-13

    Each version is quite distinctive, although a common story can be seen underlying all three. The International Q Project reconstructs the original story as follows:

    A certain person prepared a [large] dinner, [and invited many]. And he sent his slave [at the time of the dinner] to say to the invited: Come, for it is ready.
    He came to the first (and) said to him: My master invites you. he said: I have bills for some merchants. They are coming to me this evening. I will go (and) give instructions to them. Excuse me for the dinner. he came to another (and) said to him: My master has invited you. He said to him: I have bought a house, and I have been called (away) for a day. I will not have time.
    He came to another (and) said to him: My master invites you. he said to him: I have bought a village. Since I am going to collect the rent, I will not be able to come. Excuse me.
    He went to another (and) said to him: My master invites you. He said to him: My friend is going to marry, and I am the one who is going to prepare the meal. I will not be able to come. Excuse me for the dinner.
    The slave went away. He said to his master: Those whom you invited to the dinner have asked to be excused. The master said to the slave: Go out on the roads, and whomever you find, invite, so that my house may be filled.

    Crossan [Historical Jesus, 261f] suggests:

    All three extant versions have interpreted and applied the parable to their own situations by contextual connections and intratextual developments. I think, however, that a common structural plot is discernible behind them all. … It is the random and open commensality of the parable’s meal that is its most startling element. The social challenge of such egalitarian commensality is the radical threat of the parable’s vision. It is only a story, of course, but it is one that focuses its egalitarian challenge on society’s mesocosmic mirror, the table as the place where bodies meet to eat. And the almost predictable counteraccusation to such open commensality is immediate: Jesus is a glutton, a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He makes, in other words, no appropriate distinctions and discriminations. He has no honor. He has no shame.

    This Sunday we focus not on the Parable of the Feast, but rather on Luke’s embellishment of the parable. Bernard Brandon Scott [Re-Imagine the World, 2001:113] comments as follows:

    Luke seems more concerned with those invited after the first reject the invitation. This fits with the way Luke’s gospel situates the parable. The scene is set at the dinner of a prominent Pharisee (Luke 14:1) and the larger context is Luke’s travel narrative (Luke 9:51-19:27). Jesus initiates a discussion of table manners, noting first that one should not initially go to the highest seat, but the lowest. Then the host will invite you to move up. In an honor/shame society, to be shamed by having miscalculated and assumed too honorable a place would be a great loss of face. Jesus then turns this little bit of wisdom into a moral statement: “Those who promote themselves will be demoted, and those who demote themselves will be promoted” (Luke 14:11). From this he draws a bit of counter wisdom advising his host not to invite his friends or those whose presence would give him greater honor, but “Instead, when you throw a dinner party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (Luke 14:13). Then, he says, you will be truly congratulated! The parable is then related in Luke as an example of this counter wisdom.

    The core insight about proper modesty at a banquet is ancient Jewish wisdom, and can be found in the following passage from Proverbs 25:6-7:

    Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence
    or stand in the place of the great;
    for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’
    than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.

    What seems to be distinctive is not the theme of modesty when choosing a seat at a banquet, but Jesus’ application of the theme of unexpected reversal to promote his vision of a “community of equals” in God’s new domain.

    This subversive wisdom of Jesus is seen in many of his sayings, including the Beatitudes. The particular saying around which Luke may have fashioned his “table manners” instruction scene is known from three different passages:

    All who exalt themselves will be humbled,
    and all who humble themselves will be exalted. (Matt 23:12)

    For all who exalt themselves will be humbled,
    and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Luke 14:11)

    I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other;
    for all who exalt themselves will be humbled,
    but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14 )

    James D.G. Dunn [Jesus Remembered, 2003:412-17] underlines the significance of this theme of reversal in the message and mission of Jesus:

    As many have observed, a persistent theme in the Jesus tradition is that of eschatological reversal. One of its most striking expressions appears in the collection of beatitudes … [e]schatological reversal is a theme repeated elsewhere in Jesus’ kingdom teaching, particularly in Matthew. It is the child who typifies the kingdom participant: only such will enter (Mark 10.14-15 pars.; Matt. 18.3). In contrast, the rich will find it exceedingly hard if not impossible to enter the kingdom (Mark 10.23-25 pars.). Matthew also has a saying about toll-collectors and prostitutes ‘preceding you into the kingdom of God’ (Matt. 21.31). Particularly prominent is the great(est)/least motif: the kingdom is like a mustard seed, smaller than all seeds, but when grown is greater than the other herbs (Mark 4.30-32 pars.); the disciples argue about who is greatest (Mark 9:34 pars.), that is, no doubt, in the kingdom (Matt. 18.1,4); in Matthew’s version (Matt. 20.21) the request by/for James and John is that they should be granted seats on Jesus’ right and left in his (obviously) future kingdom (‘glory’ — Mark 10.37); it is the servant who is ‘great’; the Baptist is greatest among those born of women, but the least in the kingdom is greater than he (Matt. 11.11/Luke 7.28).

    The challenge of those words to our communities of the comfortable as we gather around the table of Jesus this weekend is too obvious to need further comment at this point.

    Jesus Database

    Liturgies and Prayers

    For liturgies and sermons each week, shaped by a progressive theology, check Rex Hunt’s web site

    Other recommended sites include:

     

    Music Suggestions

    See David MacGregor’s Together to Celebrate site for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre.

  • Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (25 August 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Jeremiah 1:4-10 & Psalm 71:1-6
    • Hebrews 12:18-29
    • Luke 13:10-17

    First Reading: Jeremiah

    This week we begin a series of several Sundays when the first reading is drawn from Jeremiah. The scroll of the prophet Jeremiah is the second of four large scrolls that comprise the Latter Prophets in the Jewish Bible; commonly known as the Tanakh, an acronym for Torah (Law), Nebi’im (Prophets), and the Kethubim (Writings). The following extract from The Once and Future Bible provides a brief introduction to the book of Jeremiah.

    The second prophetic book preserves traditions associated with Jeremiah. Jeremiah is described as coming from a rural priestly family, from the village of Anathoth in the tribal territories of Benjamin, to the north of Jerusalem. Despite their negative impact on the priestly functions of his own family, Jeremiah seems to have supported the reforms under Josiah that required the closure of the village high places as worship was centralized in the Jerusalem temple. However, Jeremiah did not think that the presence of the temple would guarantee the inviolability of Zion nor protect it from divine wrath.

    In this respect Jeremiah differed from Isaiah, but around one hundred years separated them and much had changed in the meantime. For Isaiah, it was an article of faith that YHWH would not allow Zion to fall into the hands of its enemies. This confidence seemed to have been validated by the collapse of the Syro-Ephraimite coalition (735–734 BCE) and, even more so, by the seemingly miraculous escape from the siege by the Assyrian forces in 701 BCE. As Jeremiah saw it, neither city nor temple guaranteed safety to a city that did not act with justice and did not remain loyal to YHWH. Jeremiah stands at the gates of the temple and proclaims:

    Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, says the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim.

    These were inconvenient truths that challenged the misplaced confidence of the establishment. They find an echo in the perspective of Jesus when he sets himself against the temple establishment some 600 years later. The ancient conflict between prophet and priest is in plain view, and Jeremiah would soon find himself in peril for his bold words. He survives to see his dire predictions fulfilled, before being forcibly taken to Egypt by a group of Judean refugees after the murder of the Babylonian governor, Gedaliah.

    It is possible that Jeremiah parted company with the Deuteronomistic reformers who had come to power during the reign of Josiah. He seems to have lost confidence in the capacity of a book of the law to bring about holiness. Perhaps it was the experience of having his own prophetic texts cut to shreds and dropped in the fire that moved him to imagine a different kind of covenant. This covenant would be inscribed on the human heart, rather than on tablets of stone. It would need no religious authorities to instruct people on how to observe its requirements.

    The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jer 31:31–34)

    Second Reading: Hebrews 12:18-29

    This week we are almost at the end of a long series of Sundays where the second reading has been drawn from the Letter to the Hebrews.

    In the passage this week the author is reflecting on the ancient traditions of the theophany at Mt Sinai, when the Ten Commandments were first given to the tribes of Israel gathered at the foot of the mountain. Rather than focus on the content of the theophany (the Decalogue), the writer reflects on the sanctity of God expressed in the “special effects” that are part of the story in Exodus:

    On the third day in the morning there was thunder and lightning and a dense cloud on the mountain, and the sound of a very loud horn; all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their place at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely covered with smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire, and its smoke went up like the smoke of a great furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently. When the sound of the horn grew louder and louder, Moses was speaking and God was answering him with a voice. (Exodus 19:16–19 NET)

    The point of this comparison by the unknown author of this early Christian text was to highlight the sacred mystery at the heart of the Christian faith, and to call for a deep respect for the radical otherness of God. Some popular current expressions of Christianity emphasise casual intimacy with God and seem almost to domesticate God so that our personal needs for protection and success take center stage. This kind of religion sells well. It packs the pews with eager, hand-waving enthusiasts. Yet religion deals with a deeper reality; something awesome, at times even scary. As this writer himself said a little earlier in the letter, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31 NET)

    Gospel: Jesus heals a crippled woman on the Sabbath

    It is probably safe to assume that Luke’s purpose when including this story in his gospel was something other than to preserve the memory of a healing miracle by Jesus. There must have been something about this story that offered Luke some additional reason for using it. Two of the distinctive features of this piece of tradition are, first of all, that the healing occurs on the Sabbath, and secondly, that the person healed is a woman. Given the point of the pronouncement made by Jesus at the end of the story, it seems that the decisive element for Luke was the breaking of the conventions around the Sabbath. When compassion requires us to act, not even the holiness of the Sabbath should stop us from acting.

    Lectionary logic

    As an aside, it is always fascinating to observe the choices made by the lectionary designers as they select certain passages and omit others from the list of texts to be read in the Sunday liturgy. This week we see the RCL and RC/ECUSA lectionaries diverging in their choices for the Gospel.

    The table outlining Special Luke’s narrative of the journey to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51-19:28) shows that all three major Western lectionaries skip the difficult passage in Luke 13:1-9. However, this is because they each used that passage on the Third Sunday of Lent. Not surprisingly, then, all three skips those verses at this point in the year.

    What is not so clear is why the RC and ECUSA lectionaries jump over the healing story in 13:10-17 and go instead to the series of sayings in 13:22-30.

    Healing on the Sabbath

    One of the hallmarks of Jesus’ ministry seems to have been his activity as a healer. While Hal Taussig challenges this aspect of the Jesus tradition (on the grounds that healing would not be a core activity for Jesus the wisdom sage), others—such as Marcus Borg—point to the multiple attestation for this activity, and the historical parallels with other Spirit persons.

    In Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (1998:160-62), Marcus Borg provides some insights into the healing of the crippled woman on the Sabbath day:

    The non-Markan sabbath conflict stories all follow a common pattern. Jesus, taking the initiative, healed a person in the presence of opponents and then legitimated his action with a rhetorical question that referred to common human behavior. Two are peculiar to Luke:

    Luke 23:15-16: Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?

    Luke 14:5: Which of you having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well will not immediately pull him out on a sabbath day?

    … In each case, Jesus invited them to consider what they naturally did when they saw an animal in need (thirsty) or suffering (fallen into a pit) on the sabbath.

    Interestingly, Jesus’ argument was not halakhic, that is, not based on appeal to legal deduction or precedent. In all likelihood, there was no legal ruling on the matter within the mainstream of Judaism. In the absence of a legal ruling, commonsense compassion would naturally determine the course. Compassion — the movement within humans (within the bowels or the womb in Hebrew thought) in the presence of creature-suffering — would lead to attending to the animal’s needs. Thus compassion in the presence of human suffering became the implicit criterion for exceptions to sabbath law. The movements of compassion took precedence over the requirements of holiness.

    Luke’s account of Jesus’ response in the story of the crippled woman adds two further details. The explicit identification of the woman as a “daughter of Abraham” did not mean simply that she was Jewish, as if that needed underlining. Rather, it may point to the inclusiveness of Jesus’ concern, just as the explicit identification of Zaccheus as a “son of Abraham” did. Describing the woman’s healing as an untying from Satan’s bondage (besides being parallel to untying an animal so that it might drink) links her healing to the plundering of Satan’s kingdom, which elsewhere in the synoptics is associated with the power of holiness understood as a transforming energy, notably in the confrontations between the “holy one” and the unclean spirits. Though one must be careful not to press the detail, perhaps the sabbath is seen as an especially appropriate day for the holiness of God to be active.

    In none of these cases did the healing seem to be a strategic suspension of sabbath law, as neither danger to life nor particular exigencies of the mission were involved. Instead, these violations of sabbath law as then understood seem to be programmatic, flowing out of the alternative paradigm which Jesus taught: the sabbath was a day for works of compassion. This change did not mean that the sabbath was abrogated, rather, it was subordinated to deeds of compassion rather than to the quest for holiness.

    Quoting Q

    The selection set for the RC/ECUSA lectionaries is basically drawn from the Sayings Gospel Q, as the list of data from the Jesus Database indicates.

    The hypothesis of a lost written source (a “sayings gospel”) that preserved sayings of Jesus from a period prior to the composition of our extant Gospels is widely — but not uniformly — accepted by critical scholarship. The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas confirmed that such a genre existed in early Christianity: a collection of sayings without any reference to the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

    One of the best online gateways to information about the Sayings Gospel Q is Peter Kirby’s Early Christian Writings – Lost Sayings Gospel Q page:

    Jesus Database

    Liturgies and Prayers

    For liturgies and sermons each week, shaped by a progressive theology, check Rex Hunt’s web site

    Other recommended sites include:

     

    Music Suggestions

    Traditional hymn suggestions:

    • All people that on earth do dwell – AHB 10
    • From all who dwell below the skies – AHB 42
    • God whose farm is all creation – AHB 94
    • Disposer supreme and judge of the earth – AHB 355

    See David MacGregor’s Together to Celebrate site for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre.

  • Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (18 August 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Isaiah 5:1-7 and Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19
    • Hebrews 11:29-12:2
    • Luke 12:49-56

     

    First Reading: The vineyard of the Lord

    This week’s passage from Isaiah offers a prophetic parable that would later be taken up in the traditions associated with Jesus, as the parable at 046 The Tenants.

    Second Reading: Exemplars and encouragers

    The reading from Hebrews 11 and 12 continues on from last week. As the catalogue of heroic people of faith gets longer the information provided about each character reduces until eventually we are simply given a list of categories:

    And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.

    Interestingly, not all the events are known to us from extant stories. Even where we do know the traditions to which the author refers they are not always from the canonical traditions of the Hebrew Bible. This list provides a glimpse into the diverse religious literature of the Second Temple period and the popularity of holy adventure tales among people at the time.

    The concluding metaphor of the faithful life as an athletic competition in the gymnasium may not strike us as bold, but it cuts right across ancient Jewish taboos on participating in such events (where the athletes were naked). Despite the profound interest of the Letter to the Hebrews in esoteric Jewish traditions (angels, Melchizedek, temple priesthood, sacrifices, etc), we seem to have a community that is both familiar with the Hellenistic gymnasium and comfortable using it as a metaphor for the holy life.

    Gospel: Jesus, cause of division

    As noted in last week’s notes, Luke has an extended section (Luke 9:51-19:28) in which Jesus is depicted as traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem and where Luke’s treatment of the material differs significantly from Mark.

    One of the aspects of discipleship addressed in that material concerns the controversy and division that could erupt when someone became a Christian. Much as Luke likes to portray Christians as model citizens with a respect for good order, he had to address the reality that Christianity caused division within families and communities, and that discipleship could be costly in social terms.

    The tradition found in Luke is mostly from the Sayings Gospel Q, and in most cases also has parallels in the Gospel of Thomas. This double independent attestation from two very early sources underscores the primitive character of this tradition. To be a disciple was to be embroiled in confict with one’s own kin.
    Fire on Earth

    • Jesus said, “I have cast fire upon the world, and look, I’m guarding it until it blazes.” (Thom 10)
    • “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49)

    Jesus’ Baptism

    • I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! (Luke 12:50)

    Peace or Sword

    • Jesus said, “Perhaps people think that I have come to cast peace upon the world. They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war. For there will be five in a house: there’ll be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, 4and they will stand alone.” (Thom 16)
    • Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Luke 12:51)
    • “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. (Matt 10:34-36)

    Knowing the Times

    • They said to him, “Tell us who you are so that we may believe in you.” He said to them, “You examine the face of heaven and earth, but you have not come to know the one who is in your presence, and you do not know how to examine the present moment.” (Thom 91)
    • He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? (Luke 12:54-56)
    • He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. (Matt 16:2-3)

    These sayings are part of a wider set of traditions that set Jesus in conflict with conventional attitudes towards the family as the primary social reality in the ancient world. See especially the following items:

    In commenting on this conflict in The Historical Jesus, John Dominic Crossan (1991:299-301) writes of the way that it cut across the generations of the traditional patriarchal family:

    The family imagined [in Q] has five members: father, mother, son, daughter, and son’s wife, all living together in the one household. “Note,” as Bruce Malina advises, “that there is no mention of son-in-law, since it was the new wife who moved into her husband’s house, not the husband into the wife’s family” (1981:101). I emphasize immediately that this is not simply saying that families will be split over Jesus, with some believing and some disbelieving. The division imagined cuts between the generations, the two parents against the three children, and vice versa. But it does not tell us which group is on Jesus’ side. We cannot presume that parents are against Jesus and children for him, or vice versa. Indeed, the point is not belief or disbelief at all. It is, just as in Micah 7:6, the normalcy of familial hierarchy that is under attack. The strife is not between believers and non-believers but quite simply, and as it says, between the generations and in both directions. Jesus will tear the hierarchical or patriarchal family in two along the axis of domination and subordination. Second, and even more significant, is that the division imagined cuts across sex and gender. That point is underlined by the version in Gospel of Thomas 16, which, despite having “five in a house: three will be against two, and two against three” gives only one example, and that the dominant male one: “the father against the son and the son against the father.’ That obscures the saying’s point: the split is between generations but across the genders. There can be women just as much as men on the side of Jesus, or on the other side for that matter. I return to that point below in considering Jesus’ missionaries, but even now it is already apparent: what happens to women if the patriarchal family is split asunder?

    A similar point is made with 89 Hating One’s Family [1/2], although the protagonist of the saying is given in masculine gender. The opposition is with one’s “father and mother … brothers and sisters” in Gospel of Thomas 55:1-2, “father and mother” in Gospel of Thomas 101, “father or mother … son or daughter” in Q/Matthew 10:37, and “father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters” in Q/Luke 14:26. In other words, whatever number of generations are mentioned, both genders are always in question. I incline, therefore, to read 89 Hating One’s Family [1/2] in the light of 74 Peace or Sword [1/2] as referring, despite its male format, to both genders. Jesus, on the other hand, refuses to get involved in 97 The Disputed Inheritance [1/2], in which sons disagree over the father’s inheritance. He is not that kind of divider.

    Finally, there is 15 Against Divorce [1/4], an especially well-attested saying of Jesus. The formulation of the divorce law in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is strictly anthropocentric: “when a man takes … marries …writes … puts … sends …” It concerns how a husband divorces a wife and says nothing whatsoever about how a wife divorces a husband. It does not have to do so because the law does not allow it. Unlike, say, Greek, Roman, or Egyptian law at the time of Jesus, Jewish law did not allow the wife to initiate divorce proceedings. Adultery, furthermore, was also androcentric. It was always a crime against male honor and male rights. Seen against such a cultural situation, the texts in 15 Against Divorce [1/4] are strikingly anomalous. That is not because both 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 and Mark 10:10-12, but not its parallel Matthew 19:9, have adapted Jesus’ saying to a wider Greco-Roman ambiance — they therefore forbid divorce either by husband of wife or by wife of husband — it is because the saying of Jesus situates itself directly in the androcentric tradition of Jewish Palestine but says,

    (1) Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery,
    and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
    (Sayings Gospel Q: 1[or 2?]Q: Luke 16:18 = Matthew 5:31-32)

    (2) Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. (Mark 10:11)

    (3) If he put his wife away and marry another he also commits adultery himself.
    (Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1:6b)

    John Kloppenborg has seen most clearly the implications of the term “adultery” against the Mediterranean background of an anodrocentric or even phallocentric honor and shame ideology. “By saying that the male who disembeds his wife and remarries commits adultery against her … Jesus implies that honor is not (only?) androcentric — I use the term descriptively rather than pejoratively — but (also or equally) gynecentric. Honor is still understood as a pseudo-commodity but it belongs as much to a woman as it does to a man. Hence a man can ‘steal’ his own wife’s honor by divorcing her and remarrying … In Palestine of Jesus’ day, which did not permit women to initiate a divorce, the dignity of women was not … easily guarded. It is for this reason that Jesus uses the dramatic term ‘adultery’ in so surprising a way. He thus brought sharply into focus the wife’s honor. It is as much to be protected and respected as the husband’s honor and the woman is as vulnerable to damage as the male” (1990:195). The opposition here is not just to divorce. To forbid divorce one has only to say that divorce is never legal. That is exactly what happens in the much less radical 252 Moses and Divorce [2/1]. The attack is actually against “androcentric honor whose debilitating effects went far beyond the situation of divorce. It was also the basis for the dehumanization of women, children and non-dominant males” (1990:196). When 74 Peace or Sword [1/2] is read in conjunction with 15 Against Divorce [1/4], Jesus sets parents against children, and wife against husband, sets, in other words, the Kingdom against the Mediterranean. But not just against the Mediterranean alone.

    That final flourish from Crossan’s word processor underscores the challenge implicit in this week’s Gospel. How are the values and assumptions of our society at odds with the Kingdom values proclaimed by Jesus? Is the lack of division between the generations and across the genders a sign that we no longer hold to any alternative values with sufficient tenacity to alarm or alienate those who disagree with us?

    Jesus Database

    Liturgies and Prayers

    For liturgies and sermons each week, shaped by a progressive theology, check Rex Hunt’s web site

    Other recommended sites include:

     

    Music Suggestions

    Traditional

    • Glorious things of thee are spoken – AHB 374
    • Through all the changing scenes of life – AHB 30
    • Your hand, O God, has guided – AHB 389

    Contemporary

    • This day God gives me – AHB 570
    • Celtic Alleluia – TiS 257
    • Servant Song – TiS 650
    • Here I am, Lord – TiS 658

    See David MacGregor’s Together to Celebrate site for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre.

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