gregoryjenks

Author: Gregory C. Jenks

  • Pentecost 10B (5 August 2012)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a & Psalm 51:1-12
    • Ephesians 4:1-16
    • John 6:24-35

    First Reading

    This week’s first reading in the RCL continues the story of David’s sexual liaison with Bath-Sheba, the wife of one of his senior officers. Having arranged for Uriah to be murdered on the battlefront, David is now able to add Bath-Sheba to his collection of wives.

    The heart of the story concerns God’s rebuke of David for his sin. This was couched in the famous parable of the poor farmer whose only sheep was taken for the pleasure of a rich neighbor who had many many animals in his flock.

    The use of such “case studies” when seeking to gain the ruler’s decision on a particular case is also known from other stories in the OT. A similar device appears in 2Sam 14 when a woman from Tekoa (later the home village of the prophet Amos) is used by another of David’s officials to engage the king on a difficult personal matter.

    The punishment that befalls David and Bath-Sheba is harsh and unremitting. The child born as a result of their passion will become ill and die. Worse still, if that is possible, their family will never be free from intrigue and violence:

    Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house,
    for you have despised me,
    and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.
    Thus says the LORD:
    “I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house;
    and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor,
    and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun.
    For you did it secretly;
    but I will do this thing before all Israel,
    and before the sun.”

    This grim prophecy will be worked out in the narratives that follow in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings.

    While the narrative corrects the abuse perpetrated by David, the story still leaves much to be desired as a moral text. There is no hint of challenging the royal prerogative to take other men’s wives, nor indeed to enjoy sexual relations with multiple partners drawn from the harem. We are still very much in an ancient patriarchal society. There is little of the “Kingdom values” proclaimed by Jesus in such a story.

    Like so much of the biblical texts — including such cultural icons as the Ten Commandments — the social realities reflected here come from, and reinforce, a world made by and for men.

    Second Reading

    In Eph 4:1-6 we have a number of phrases intended to promote a sense of unity in a Christian community whose unity had been problematic: one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God …

    “Faith” here seems to have moved from being a trusting attitude towards God (as seen in Jesus’ own practice and in the authentic writings of Paul) to become a noun, an “object” that is held and treasured. If that is correct, then this may another clue that we are dealing with a late 1C author whose views on this point are not unlike those found in Jude 3 (“contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints”).

    These words continue to play a role in today’s church communities through their use in liturgies such as baptism services. That alone would make them words with a remarkable shelf life, and expressions of a deep continuity across the centuries.
    The second part of this passage (vss. 7-16), develops the idea of underlying unity so as to include a diversity of gifts and ministries within the faith community.

    It is not necessary to see lists such as we find here and in 1Cor 12:4-11 as definitive for church life in subsequent generations. It may be better to see both lists as time capsules that preserve a snapshot of how the early Christian communities associated with Paul organized their own lives together.

    One of the interesting things to note is that the earlier snapshot (1Cor 12) tends to speak of functions, while the later document (Eph 4) now speaks of functionaries:

    1 Cor 12:4-11

    12:4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 12:5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 12:6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 12:7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

    12:8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom,
    and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
    12:9 to another faith by the same Spirit,
    to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
    12:10 to another the working of miracles,
    to another prophecy,
    to another the discernment of spirits,
    to another various kinds of tongues,
    to another the interpretation of tongues.

    12:11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

    Ephesians 4:11-15

    4:11 The gifts he gave were that

    some would be apostles,
    some prophets,
    some evangelists,
    some pastors
    and teachers,

    4:12 equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 4:13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

    4:14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 4:16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

    What kind of community is presupposed by the description in 1Cor 12? Does the shift from functions exercised to functionaries—with the God-given authority to act within the Church—reflect a more settled vision of Christian community?

    If we tried to describe the ways in which the Spirit of God is manifest in our own faith communities, what kind of list would we develop?

    Gospel

    This is the second in a series of five Sundays that draws on John 6 for the Gospel:

    • John 6:1-21 – feeding of the 5,000 & Jesus walking on water
    • John 6:24-35 – controversy over the bread God gives
    • John 6:35,41-51 – controversy over Jesus
    • John 6:51-58 – eat my flesh, drink my blood
    • John 6:56-69 – Jesus loses many disciples

    The author moves from the story of the miraculous feeding to the discourse in which “Jesus” will develop the theme of himself being the Bread of Life that comes down from heaven. The transition is made by reference to traditional Jewish expectations that the Messiah’s appearance would be validated by certain “signs,” including miraculous bread from heaven.

    As we noted last week, a rabbinic commentary in the fourth century captures these expectations as follows:

    Rabbi Berekia said in the name of Rabbi Jicchaq:
    As the first redeemer [Moses] so the last redeemer [the Christ].
    As it is said of the first redeemer:
    And Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on an ass (Exod. 4.20),
    so the last redeemer, for it is said: Lowly, and riding on an ass (Zech. 9.9).
    As the first redeemer caused manna to come down,
    for it is said: Lo, I cause bread to rain down upon you from heaven (Exod. 16.4),
    so the last redeemer will cause manna to come down,
    for it is said: White bread will lie upon the earth (Ps 72.16, Midrash).
    As the first redeemer caused the well to spring forth (Num. 20.11),
    so the last redeemer will cause water to spring forth,
    for it is said: And a fountain will break forth out of the house of Yahweh. (Joel 3.18).

    Central to the author’s craft here is the motif of ironic misunderstanding on the part of Jesus’ protagonists:

    So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
    When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
    Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:24-35 NRSV)

    In the Gospel of John we often find that Jesus says something, or performs some “sign” (his miracles are never simply acts of power in John, but always pointers to some deeper truth), that results in confusion and misunderstanding on the part of the observers. In many cases John seems to delight in using irony in these situations, with the uncomprehending opponents sometimes saying things that are more true than they realise.

    Examples of this can be seen in:

    • Mary and the steward at Cana (ch 2)
    • Nicodemus (ch 3)
    • Samaritan woman (ch 4)
    • Bread from heaven (ch 6)
    • Confusion over the Messiah’s origins (ch 7, esp. vss 40-44)
    • Caiaphas’ oracle (11:50)
    • Pilate and Jesus (see especially the alternative reading for 19:13)

    When Jesus challenges and clarifies their misunderstanding in John 6 the crowd responds with a line that echoes the request of the Samaritan woman after Jesus corrects her confusion:

    Crowd in 6:34 – “Sir, give us this bread always.”
    Woman in 4:15 – “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty …”

    It is also interesting to note that up until the end of this section, the group of people engaging Jesus in conversation is simply called “the crowd.” However, as their disposition becomes increasingly hostile to Jesus in the following verses, the “crowd” becomes “the Jews.”

    This way of describing the opponents of Jesus is especially characteristic of John. Of the 76 examples of this phrase in the Gospels (including duplicates between the synoptics), 62 are found in John. By way of contrast, the phrase occurs only 5 times in the Pauline corpus, and only twice in the Book of Revelation.

    The implicit anti-Semitism of this phrase was perhaps not especially significant in the original context, when most Christians were Jewish. However, even in that context, the phrase still reflected the tensions between followers of Jesus and the Torah-observant “Jews” of the synagogue communities. As time passed, the anti-Semitism encoded within such biblical texts developed into theological stereotyping of the Jewish people, ethnic discrimination and murderous pogroms. The final obscenity was the Nazi holocaust.

    Jesus Database

    Crossan analysis:
    Item: 353
    Stratum: II (60-80 CE)
    Attestation: Single
    Historicity: –

    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.

  • Pentecost 9B (29 July 2012)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • 2Samuel 11:1-15 and Psalm 14
    • Ephesians 3:14-21
    • John 6:1-21

    Introduction

    This week’s lectionary texts offer a diverse biblical experience, ranging from the predatory sexual behaviour of David to the spiritual symbolism of Christ as the holy bread that comes down from heaven to give life to the world. One imagines that few congregations will hear a sermon about David’s murderous lust, but that there will be many sermons preached on the significance of the Eucharist and the divinity of Jesus?

    First Reading: David as sacred hero and sexual predator

    It comes as something of a shock for us to find that David (who is mostly presented as a heroic figure and someone close to God) is also remembered as man who would abuse his power to take women for his own sexual gratification, even arranging for the murder of his victim’s husband to cover up his adultery.

    Indeed, the virtue of the secondary victim (Uriah the Hittite, a foreign mercenary serving as a senior officer in David’s army) is far superior to that of David. Uriah will not betray either his king nor his own troops. He is presented as a figure of classic virtue within the misogynist values of his own culture. David, on the other hand, is a corrupt and predatory ruler.

    This story had its original meaning in the vivid narrative of David’s court history (2Sam 9-20 & 1Kings 1-2). That ancient story explored the internal tensions of the Davidic House, and Bathsheba had to figure in the account since she was the mother of David’s successor, Solomon. As the story unfolds she will emerge as a woman of power and influence in the court.

    As portrayed in this narrative David is a complex and ambiguous character, although episodes and attitudes that offend modern readers may not have been understood as shameful in the circles that first composed the narrative.

    In the case of David’s sexual abuse of Bathsheba, the Bible deals with the offence in a way that hardly soothes contemporary sensibilities. Rather than depose the male who has misused his power to gain sexual favors from a woman who he was expected to protect, David continues as king and eventually marries Bathsheba. However, the child born as a result of their intercourse is struck down by God and dies after a short illness.

    As churches of all denominations are slowly facing our own histories of sexual abuse by clergy and others with power within our faith communities, this ancient story of David’s predatory sexual appetite sounds all too familiar.

    This is surely one of those parts of the Bible where the acclamation, “[For/Hear] the word of the Lord,” is an invitation to wrestle with the meaning of the text rather than to accept it at face value. What does the Spirit say to the churches today through such a passage?

    Indeed, how can such an account be read aloud in the liturgical celebration? Given the statistics on sexual abuse, how will such a story impact on victims and perpetrators?

    Although not included in the collection, this story could well qualify for inclusion in Phyllis Trible’s powerful monograph, Texts of Terror.

    Second Reading: Filled with the fullness of God

    The passage from Ephesians 3 seems to express the reflections of a maturing and self-aware Christian tradition. While traditionally attributed to Paul, Ephesians has none of the urgency of preparing for the apocalyptic return of Jesus that we find in authentic texts from the first generation, and especially in Paul. Instead, we find a question more familiar to Christians in subsequent generations: namely, how do we experience the holy reality of God within ourselves?

    The concept of glorifying God “in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations for ever and ever” seems a long way removed from Paul’s understanding of Christianity. Such a turn of phrase presupposes a more settled Christian community that expects itself to have a longstanding role in the divine purposes.

    While most likely not written by Paul, this text still provides a 1C example of the natural trinitarianism found at the spiritual heart of lived Christian experience. Whatever historical reconstruction of Christian origins we find persuasive, this prayer captures the essence of Christianity as a way of living as people of faith. The passage is also profoundly trinitarian without any attempt to define and coerce. It simply celebrates the Christian experience of God: as Father of all, as Spirit, and as Christ within us.

    Gospel: Jesus feeds five thousand

    This is the first in a series of five Sundays that will draw on John 6 for the Gospel:

    • John 6:1-21 – feeding of the 5,000 (vss. 1-15) and Jesus walking on water (vvs. 16-21)
    • John 6:24-35 – controversy over the bread God gives
    • John 6:35,41-51 – controversy over Jesus
    • John 6:51-58 – eat my flesh, drink my blood
    • John 6:56-69 – Jesus loses many disciples

    Miracle of the multiplication

    This Byzantine mosaic is preserved under a modern church today, but it was once part of a church which commemorated Jesus’ feeding of the 5000.

    Tabgha mosaic of fish and loaves tb n011500 wr.jpg
    SOURCE: BiblePlaces.com
    Behind the story about Jesus using five loaves and two small fish to feed a multitude in the wilderness lies the harsh reality of life under military occupation by a foreign empire. The Roman occupation was one of the basic facts of life for Jews in ancient Palestine: and it was a reality that challenged their sense of identity and destiny.

    Occupation by foreign powers tends to have that effect, as can be observed in more recent experiences of occupation and exploitation. As we have seen in the emergence of militant fundamentalism in so many different religious communities, the “occupation” can be cultural or economic and need not involve a direct military presence. After an initial response of retreat and seeming decline, a repressed culture can sometimes resurge with a fresh vision and a renewed sense of identity.

    Like their modern counterparts in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, many Jews during the Second Temple period looked forward to a time when the people of God would not suffer under the yoke of foreign domination. Many held to an apocalyptic form of eschatology that helped to explain the present predicament while also promising a better outcome through a sudden divine reversal of their circumstances, and some actively resisted by force of arms.

    Jesus’ disciples and the earliest Christians more generally, would have included people who held each of these views.

    While there was an upsurge of messianic expectation among Jewish people in this period, there were great variations in this expectation of a messiah. Groups such as the Qumran community by the Dead Sea expected both the traditional royal/military savior as well as a second priestly/religious one.

    What all these ideas had in common was a divinely anointed figure sent to rescue Israel from oppression. The Messiah (Gk, christos) was not necessarily expected to perform miracles but, as Chapman (The Orphan Gospel, 1993:49ff) points out, the Messiah was expected to rescue God’s people from oppression. In many cases, this expectation took the form of a “second Moses” (cf Deuteronomy 18.15).
    There were three possible signs by which people expected to tell that the new Moses had come amongst them (see the examples cited in Chapman, 1993:53f):

    • victory over the turbulent waters
    • giving of the Law
    • miraculous feeding with “bread from heaven”

    The following citation from a rabbinic commentary in the 4C CE captures these expectations nicely:

    Rabbi Berekia said in the name of Rabbi Jicchaq:
    As the first redeemer [Moses] so the last redeemer [the Christ].
    As it is said of the first redeemer:
    And Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on an ass (Exod. 4.20),
    so the last redeemer, for it is said: Lowly, and riding on an ass (Zech. 9.9).
    As the first redeemer caused manna to come down,
    for it is said: Lo, I cause bread to rain down upon you from heaven (Exod. 16.4),
    so the last redeemer will cause manna to come down,
    for it is said: White bread will lie upon the earth (Ps 72.16, Midrash).
    As the first redeemer caused the well to spring forth (Num. 20.11),
    so the last redeemer will cause water to spring forth,
    for it is said: And a fountain will break forth out of the house of Yahweh. (Joel 3.18).

    This citation also illustrates the pesher interpretation of biblical texts which was so popular in ancient times. With such an approach to the sacred texts, phrases could be lifted out of context and seen as timeless aphorisms that spoke directly to the contemporary situation of the reader. It is helpful to keep this style of biblical interpretation in mind, when pondering the way in which the first Christians understood the Hebrew Bible and applied its phrases to aspects of the life of Jesus.
    Related to such an approach to sacred tradition is the interest in symbolic numbers. Just as the number “666” sends a shiver down the spine of the Christian person, so the pious Jew of ancient times would respond to the symbolic power of numbers. Key numbers included five, seven and twelve.

    The symbolism of the feeding miracle is especially developed in John 6 with its extended discourse by Jesus on himself as the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to all who eat it. Such a line of thought cannot be plausibly attributed to Jesus, but it does reveal the increasingly complex ways in which 1C Christians began to reflect on the meaning of Jesus.
    While the symbolic significance of Jesus feeding the multitudes in the wilderness with miraculous bread is clear, the historicity of the account is problematic.

    Although the miracle of the loaves is the only miracle to be reported in all four Gospels, the Jesus Seminar voted every occurence of this tradition BLACK; an entirely negative assessment. It did allow a GRAY vote for the proposition that “A group of at least 500 people participated in a visionary experience, which came to be regarded as an appearance of the risen Jesus. [1 Cor 15:6]”

    Gerd Lüdemann (Jesus, 45) offers the following historical judgment of the account in Mark 6: “The formation of this story derives from the needs of the community. Its historical value is nil. Anyone is free to accept the table fellowship of Jesus and his followers as a starting point for the rise of this story. But that is rather different from the feeding of the 5000.”

    Even John P. Meier shies away from the miraculous element of this tradition. In Marginal Jew (II,966) he suggests that the Gospel stories of Jesus feeding a multitude preserve a tradition about “some especially memorable communal meal of bread and fish” but does not think it possible to offer a judgment on whether anything miraculous was involved in the meal event. See pp. 950-967 for his complete discussion.
    The distinctive features of John’s version of this well-known tradition have also attracted some comment, and these are reviewed at length by Raymond Brown (Gospel of John AB 29, 236-50). The following elements are peculiar to John’s version of the story:

    • Passover timing of the miracle
    • Identification of Philip and Andrew
    • Some specific terms used: paidarion (“lad”), barley loaves, and opsarion (“dried fish”)
    • Marked eucharistic features
    • Pressure to proclaim Jesus as a king

    The eucharistic features of the account in John are especially interesting, as they possibly involve parallels with the OT story of Elisha feeding a crowd with barley loaves:

    A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.”€ But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” So he repeated, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD. (2Kings 4:42-44 NRSV)

    Brown notes that there may also be some link to the tradition found in the Didache:

    And with regard to the fragmented Bread:
    “We thank you, our Father,
    for the life and knowledge
    which you have made known to us
    through Jesus your servant.
    To you be glory forever.
    /4/ As this < … > lay scattered upon the mountains
    and became one when it had been gathered,
    so may your church be gathered into your kingdom
    from the ends of the earth. (Did 9:3-4) [Hermenia]

    Brown (p. 248) comments:

    Besides the obvious parallels with John’s account in the use of klasma [“fragmented bread”], eucharistein [“give thanks”], synagein [“gather”] (the last of which is peculiar to John’s multiplication account), we should note that only John emphasizes that the multiplication took place on a mountain, and only John mentions the theme of Jesus as king (vs. 15).

    Gospel: Jesus calms the stormy sea

    For material relating to the calming of the sea in the second half of this week’s Gospel see:

    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.

  • Pentecost 8B (22 July 2012)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • 2Samuel 7:1-14a and Psalm 89:20-37
    • Ephesians 2:11-22
    • Mark 6:30-34,53-56

    Introduction

    This week we see how the three major Western lectionaries differ in their handling of the Gospel materials. The natural process at this point would be to do as the ECUSA lectionary does: take the narrative up to and including the feeding of the 5,000. However, the RC and RCL do not include Mark’s account of this miracle as (beginning next week) they are going to take us to John 6 for an extended reflection on the Bread of Heaven theme. Where the RC lectionary prescribes just Mark 6:30-34, the RCL also includes vss 53-56.

    First Reading: A royal House for David

    The first reading continues the series on the reign of David. Following the account of his capture of Jerusalem (2 weeks ago) and the installation of the Ark of the Covenant – a traditional cultic focus for the ancient Israelite tribal league – in his new capital (last week), this week we read of David’s plans to build a temple in Jerusalem.

    In most societies prior to the Enlightenment (and more specifically the Peace of Westphalia in 1648) there was a close relationship between the ruler and the religous hierarchy. This survives in an attentuated form in the established churches of some European nations (e.g., the Church of England, the Church of Scotland and the various national/State churches of Scandinavia: Denmark, Finland , Norway and Sweden) but is perhaps best attested in nations that recognise Islamic law. The modern nation of Israel also represents a specific example of an intentional link between a religion (Judaism) and the state.

    In ancient societies the ruler often held a significant position within the community’s sacred system. It is therefore not surprising to find that the legends about the origins of Judah’s monarchy – the fabled “House of David” – included traditions about the divine selection of David, and also his role in the establishment of the temple and its rituals.

    2 Sam 7 is a key biblical text for the davidic theology that was to play such an important role in ancient Israel, in early Christianity, and in subsequent history.

    David is portrayed in a positive light here, with his staff prophet (Nathan) immediately endorsing his master’s proposal to erect a temple to Yahweh in the new capital. We might do well to imagine Nathan as the ancient equivalent of a Senior Policy Advisor to a politician. As the story unfolds, God lets Nathan know that his initial enthusiasm for the king’s building plans in misplaced.

    David is not to build Yahweh a house (temple), but Yahweh will build a house (dynasty) for David!

    At the heart of the Nathan oracle is a word play on the Hebrew word bayit, house. What purports to be a simple story about a new oriental ruler wishing to build a temple in honor of his patron god (as all successful kings did), becomes instead a claim that David’s family has an exclusive, unconditional and permanent contract to govern Israel. No other individual and no other family can ever aspire to that role within the Jewish tradition. What politician would not welcome such a deal?

    Historically the situation is rather more complex. As the Bible tells the tale, after the death of David’s immediate successor (Solomon), God changed his mind and imposed a variation on the contract. A rival king was established in Israel, based in Samaria and ruling over the northern (and wealthiest) parts of the country. The davidic dynasty retained power only in the backward and impoverished southern region centered on Jerusalem.

    Since the Bible comes to us through the southern community, we tend to consider the northerners as apostates and rebels. In the biblical narrative they become the “Samaritans,” commonly (but erroneously) understood as a mixed race with less authentic claims to Hebrew ancestry. (The implicit racism in such biblical teachings is usually overlooked.)

    The later revision of Israel’s sacred history that we find in Chronicles is mostly concerned with Jerusalem as the home of the Temple. As such it largely ignores the majority of Israel found in the northern kingdom. Chronicles celebrates David as the founder of the Temple, the composer of its liturgies, and the patron of its sacred guilds. The parallel version for this week’s reading is found in 1 Chron 17, but the fascinating political reinterpretation comes in 1 Chron 22 as David prepares to die. Knowing that they could not re-write history to the extent of having David build their beloved Temple, the Chroniclers still manage to make David the effective founder:

    22:1 Then David said, “Here shall be the house of the LORD God and here the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”22:2 David gave orders to gather together the aliens who were residing in the land of Israel, and he set stonecutters to prepare dressed stones for building the house of God.22:3 David also provided great stores of iron for nails for the doors of the gates and for clamps, as well as bronze in quantities beyond weighing,22:4 and cedar logs without number–for the Sidonians and Tyrians brought great quantities of cedar to David.

    David is disqualified, not because God has no need of such a habitation (as in 2 Sam 7) but because David has blood on his hands as a warrior-king;

    22:8 But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood in my sight on the earth.22:9 See, a son shall be born to you; he shall be a man of peace. I will give him peace from all his enemies on every side; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days.22:10 He shall build a house for my name.

    Finally, David commissions Solomon to build the Temple:

    22:14 With great pains I have provided for the house of the LORD one hundred thousand talents of gold, one million talents of silver, and bronze and iron beyond weighing, for there is so much of it; timber and stone too I have provided. To these you must add more.22:15 You have an abundance of workers: stonecutters, masons, carpenters, and all kinds of artisans without number, skilled in working22:16 gold, silver, bronze, and iron. Now begin the work, and the LORD be with you.”

    The tradition that a descendant of David must always be king was later to influence to Jewish expectations of a messiah, someone chosen by God to deliver the Jews from their oppressors and inaugurate a golden age of prosperity and peace. Such ideas played an important part in the way that some of Jesus’ followers understood his significance, and may have contributed to the rulers’ decision to have him killed.

    The significance of “son of David” as a title for Jesus quickly diminished as the Jesus movement became an increasingly Gentile religion with no interest in Jewish hopes for national restoration. For most Christians these days its primary value is as a prophetic legitimation of Jesus, rather than any serious view of Jesus as a Jewish nationalist warrior.

    Second Reading: A post-ethnic phenomenon

    This is the second in our series of readings from Ephesians that commenced last weekend.

    Ephesians 2 seems to reflect a Christianity that is now self-consciously Gentile although still aware of its Jewish origins.

    We are not yet at the explicitly anti-Semitic prejudice of Marcion in the middle of the 2C, but at a point when the fierce conflicts over the inclusion of gentiles that marked some of Paul’s authentic writings seem to be happily resolved. Jew and Gentile are at peace within the church, and the (ascendent?) Gentiles need to be reminded gently that they should remember that they were once outsiders.

    This suggests a time when the question was not how best to include the Gentiles, but rather how best to protect the church’s Jewish members.

    The language used suggests that this passage looks back on its foundational period as some considerable time in the past. Most NT scholars find it hard to imagine Paul speaking of his own time in the way we find here:

    2:19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,2:20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.2:21 In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord;2:22 in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

    The “apostles and prophets” identified as the foundation of the new spiritual edifice seem to be described in a way that reflects the perspective of a later generation. Could Paul have ever spoken of himself, or Peter and James, in such terms?

    Within the RCL set of texts, the thematic interplay with the Temple text in 2 Sam 7 is also interesting. If Ephesians is from the second generation of Pauline thought, then it may reflect a tendency to see Christianity as a spiritual temple replacing the physical edifice destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

    Christians had a distinctive answer to question of God’s location. As their Jewish neighbours Christians increasingly focused on the community gathered around Torah in the aftermath of the temple’s destruction, Christians affirmed that Jesus was the embodiment of God, the sacrament of divine presence and the source of those blessings once thought to be the perogatives of the priests.

    Early Christians had to establish a new sense of identity that displaced traditional loyalties to tribe, city or empire. Contemporary Christians still find ourselves wrestling with questions of identity and loyalty as we mostly live in societies that affirm secular values yet continue to assert the supremacy of the state over the individual (and over dissident religious communities). One expression of this tension is the dismisssal of religious critics as “meddlesome priests” with the sometimes explicit suggestion that clergy/churches should limit themselves to spiritual questions. Is the time approaching when Christian churches will embrace a more prophetic stand over against their own societies, and finally move away from the faded legacy of cultural privilege for one religion or one church?

    Gospel: Glimpses of a Galilean holy man

    Mark 6:30-32 – The Disciples Return

    This brief passage completes the story of Jesus sending the disciples out in pairs to proclaim the coming of God’s commonwealth, and to celebrate its presence in healings and shared meals (see Mark 6:7-13). Mark interrupts that narrative with the account of John being executed by Herod Antipas (vss. 14-29), but now concludes the mission of the disciples with a brief description of their return.

    In this story (and in the preceding story about Antipas and John), there is just the slightest hint of the impact of the primitive Jesus movement in Galilee during the late 20s of the first century. In last week’s passage Antipas hears word of Jesus and his followers, and concludes that John is back from the dead. In this week’s reading, “many were coming and going” (vs. 31). In other words, Jesus was at the center of a network of opposition activists with increasing influence in the villages of Galilee. Antipas had eliminated John, would he now have to get rid of John’s disciple and successor?

    We can be sure that Herod Antipas would have been keeping a close eye on Jesus and his growing network of supporters.

    With our usual focus on what became of Jesus after Easter we tend to overlook the social and political dynamics of Jesus prior to Easter, yet it is in the actions and wisdom of the historical Jesus that Christians see God’s priorities expressed in human flesh.

    For an excellent account of the social impact of Jesus and the government’s likely “interest” in his activities, see Gerd Theissen, The Shadow of the Galilean: The Quest of the Historical Jesus in Narrative Form.

    It is interesting to reflect on the point that “Jesus before Easter” was a political activist, whose fate was to be eliminated by the powers that be. “Jesus after Easter” becomes an otherworldy theological figure who is rarely understood as having political significance. Only when safely removed from human society by his elevation to divinity could the empire of Rome embrace the Holy One of Nazareth.

    Some questions to ponder:

    • How do we hold together the social and political implications of Jesus and his message?
    • Would a church that truly embraced the character and mission of Jesus ever win (or accept) the status of a national or state church?
    • If the god of the prophets refused a temple in Jerusalem (preferring the freedom of the nomad’s tent), how can it be that Christians, Jews and Muslims invest so heavily in real estate and political privileges?

    For poetic exploration of some related themes, see 191_Leader_as_Servant#Poetry
    Mark 6:33-34(35-44) – Feeding of the Multitudes

    Mark 6:53-56 – Healings at Gennesaret

    Mark’s summary description of Jesus’ power to heal, and the response of the people from that region, is very similar to the description of Apollonius of Tyana in the account by Philostratus:

    When it became certain that he had arrived, people flocked to him from all over Greece aglow with anticipation; never had so many gathered for an Olympic festival as on this occasion. People came straight from Elis and Sparta, from as far away as Corinth; even the Athenians came, although they are not from the Peloponnesus. And there were people from Megara who were then lodging at Olympia, together with many from Boeotia, and from Argos, as well as leading citizens of Phocis and Thessaly. Some of these folks had already made Apollonius’ acquaintance, but were anxious to acquire additional knowledge from him. [Life of Apollonius of Tyana 8.15]

    The idea that people wished just to touch the passing healer, is also seen in the way Peter and Paul are described in the Acts of the Apostles:

    Now many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. None of the rest dared to join them, but the people held them in high esteem. Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by. A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured. (Acts 5:12-16 NRSV)

    God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit said to them in reply, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. When this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, everyone was awestruck; and the name of the Lord Jesus was praised. Also many of those who became believers confessed and disclosed their practices. A number of those who practiced magic collected their books and burned them publicly; when the value of these books was calculated, it was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. (Acts 19:11-20 NRSV)

    The following article may be of interest:

    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 the following sites for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre:

  • Pentecost 7B (15 July 2012)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • 2 Samuel 6:1-5,12b-19 and Psalm 24 (or Amos 7:7-15 and Psalm 85:8-13)
    • Ephesians 1:3-14
    • Mark 6:14-29

    Introduction

    At first glance the readings from the Hebrew Bible and the Gospel passage have little in common. However, they do share a common interest in the question of place: how is the presence of the sacred to be recognised and affirmed?

    • One Jewish response to that question is found in the tradition of the Ark of the Covenant – an object whose exact form and significance is lost to us, but which was remembered as a symbol that was not tied to a specific location.
    • Another Jewish response, and one shared with many other communities in Palestine as well as in other places, is to identify the “dwelling place of the Name” with a specific holy site. In time Jerusalem came to have that significance for the Jewish tradition, but the alternative reading from Amos reflects a stage when there were rival royal sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan. Interestingly, none of the prophets from the 9C BCE or the 8C BCE condemn these northern sanctuaries or criticise their use of the golden calf as a symbol for Yahweh.
    • The Gospel reflects the Christian belief that God is to be found in Jesus, and in the community of people gathered around his message and program—to cite John A.T. Robinson’s evocative phrase, Jesus is “the human face of God.”

    First Reading: Putting God in his place

    The Ark of the Covenant

    For the First Reading, the RCL continues its series of readings from the rise of David. This week we have the account of the transfer of the “Ark of the Covenant” into David’s new capital, Jerusalem.

    The Ark was a traditional Hebrew holy object, perhaps some kind of portable shrine. According to sacred legend, it had been created by Moses following divine instructions during the time of the exodus. Along with the large copper serpent affixed to the temple wall, sacred objects such as the Ark later became a theological embarrassment to an increasingly iconoclastic Jewish tradition.

    • Wikipedia article [1]

    Photographs of modern reconstructions of the Ark:

    • View of the Ark [2]
    • Detail of the winged figures [3]

    Its significance in this passage is to serve as tangible expression of God’s blessing of David. By bringing the Ark of Yahweh to his new capital, David is sometimes thought to have been engaged in a political strategy to align the traditions of the ancient Yahwistic confederacy with the royal ideology of Jerusalem.

    Earlier tribal league notions of equality under the covenant are about to be displaced by a centralized royal state which will tax the population to finance the full array of public institutions expected of any self-respecting Middle Eastern power at the time. In time the traditional 12 tribes of Israel become little more than administrative zones for the king’s tax collectors.

    In fact, such an interpretation of the text attributes greater historicity to the account than it deserves. It is unlikely that David was engaged in anything as grand as the empire building program attributed to him by the Deuteronomistic historian. Nor was the pre-David political situation anything like the well-developed 12 member amphictyony proposed by classic mid-20C histories of ancient Israel.

    However, we can appreciate that the narrative seeks to portray David as a pious Yahwist who was devoted to traditional forms of Israelite religion. Within the world of the biblical narrative, the reception of the Ark into Jerusalem represents a transition from the tribal league model to a royal model. The hopes of the nation now rest on the faithfulness of the king and the end of the story (in 2 Kings) will show that the nation is destined for disaster under such an arrangement.

    This episode is a key element in the larger story, but we should not mistake it as a memory of some historical event; let alone speculate on the political and religious strategies of a “David” who is more of a mythical character here than a figure of history.

    Amos

    The prophet Amos appears in the Hebrew Bible as the first of the prophets whose words (rather than their legendary actions) are recorded as a prophetic message to subsequent generations. As such Amos marks an important transition in the development of the biblical religious tradition, as the prophetic book begins to displace both priest and prophet, those two traditional authorities in ancient Israel’s religion.

    • Introductory essay on Amos [4]

    In the excerpt set for this week we have an account of Amos confronting the priest in charge of the royal sanctuary at Bethel. While Amos escapes with his life (unlike John the Baptist following his confrontation with Herod Antipas), the confrontation serves as a reminder of the inherent conflict between those who speak for God’s values and those who exercise power in human society. Like John and Jesus after him, Amos is a prophet who must declare the message God gives him to deliver.

    Second Reading: A letter to the Ephesians

    This week we begin a series of readings from the Letter to the Ephesians. In the RCL cycle, 7 successive Sundays will draw on this major NT writing:

    • Eph 1:1-14
    • Eph 2:11-22
    • Eph 3:14-21
    • Eph 4:1-16
    • Eph 4:(17-24)25-5:2
    • Eph 5:11-21(22-31)
    • Eph 6:10-20

    Ephesus was a significant Greek city in Roman times, and its physical remains continue to attract tourists and pilgrims:

    • Archaeological Site [5]

    The authenticity of the letter to the Ephesians is questioned by most NT scholars, but strongly defended by more conservative scholars. If it is an authentic Pauline writing, Ephesians would have to come from late in Paul’s life (early 60s). On balance it seems unlikely that Paul could have written such a letter. Ephesians may be better understood as revealing how the theology of Paul was modified as his legacy was assimilated into the emerging catholic Christianity around the end of the 1C.

    • Online Resources [6]
    • Introductory Essay on Ephesians [7]

    Gospel: Herod kills John the Baptist

    Herods in the New Testament

    It can be helpful to clarify the various “Herods” who appear in the NT writings. Mahlon Smith’s “Into His Own” site provides a detailed chart[8], complete with brief biographical sketches on each member of the Herodian families.

    In this case, we are dealing with Herod Antipas, the youngest surviving son of Herod. Smith describes his reign as follows:

    Though only governor of two small provinces, Antipas locally styled himself “king” & used the name “Herod,” to bolster his claim that he was the true heir to his father’s legacy. With the aid of Roman armies he crushed Galilean rebels & then turned to urbanizing southern Galilee, rebuilding the regional capitol [ Sepphoris ] that the Romans had destroyed in the civil war & dedicating it to the emperor Augustus [calling it Autocratoris: “the Emperor’s city”]. After his Roman patron Tiberius became emperor [14 CE], Antipas decided to build a new & even more splendid Roman style capital for Galilee on the western shore of Lake Gennesaret , naming it Tiberias . To protect his southern flank he formed an alliance with the Arab kingdom of Nabatea by marrying the daughter of the king of Petra, Aretas III, whom he later divorced to marry Herodias , the wife of his half-brother, in total disregard for Jewish Torah.

    Like his father Antipas was wary of conservative Jewish critics of his regime & quick to crush popular rabble-rousers, most notably John (Johanan) the Baptizer. His Jewish subjects never forgave him for executing one whom they regarded as God’s agent. When Aretas avenged his daughter’s disgrace by dealing Herod a decisive defeat [36 CE], many regarded it as divine retribution for John’s execution. Antipas’ royal pretensions were further humiliated when the new emperor, Gaius (Caligula) , named his brother-in-law, Agrippa I , “king” over the neighboring provinces [37 CE]. Antipas’ protest of the young emperor’s decision & his demand for equal rank, however, caused Caligula to depose him & send him into exile. He died soon after at Lyons [in France].

    For further insight into Galilee under the Herodian ruler, see:

    • Josephus: Galilee under Antipas [9]

    John the Baptist

    L. Michael White (University of Texas at Austin) says of John the Baptist:

    Our knowledge of the figure of John the Baptist is very limited. We have only those references to him in the Christian gospels, where he stands alongside of Jesus. We also have references to him in the Jewish historian, Josephus, who was writing toward the end of the first century. So John the Baptist is clearly a very important figure of the time. He was a renowned kind of eccentric, it appears, from the way that Josephus describes him. More … [10]

    Harold W. Attridge (Yale Divinity School) comments on the execution of John:

    John the Baptist was killed because he was critical of the contemporary Herodian ruler, Herod Antipas. All of the sources agree on that, both Josephus and the testimony of the gospels. Exactly what was involved in that critique is not entirely clear. The material in the gospels suggests that it had to do with Herod’s marital practices and his personal morality. There may have been something more political involved in John’s condemnation of Herod, insofar as Herod Antipas was tied in intimately with the Roman imperial authorities. In any case, John was executed by Herod as a troublemaker and a political upstart. Now, we don’t know how that impacted Jesus, whether on the basis of the death of John he reconsidered the apocalyptic message that had come from John or whether he wanted to continue it and extend it. Both are possible. He never takes a direct stance on that. More … [11]

    Jesus Database

    See also:

    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 the following sites for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre:

  • Bethsaida 2013

    For anyone interested in joining the 2013 Bethsaida excavations program, including additional days in Jerusalem and Jordan, the preliminary details are now available at:

    http://www.jesusdatabase.org/index.php?title=Bethsaida_2013

    The preliminary itinerary is currently being costed and an updated version will be posted to the above page as soon as it is available.

    At the end of June 2012 we had almost 40 people who have expressed an interest in the 2013 tour, but numbers will be limited to 25. Once the first 25 deposits have been received, additional names will be placed on a wait list in case a vacancy becomes available at a later date.

  • Photos of special finds – Bethsaida 2012

    The Bethsaida project photographer, Hanan Shafir, has posted a set of images of people posing with the special objects they found at Bethsaida in 2012. They give a nice personal touch to the story, as well as featuring the variety of smaller objects found this season.

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