Category: Lectionary

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

• 458 Dropsy and Sabbath – (1) Luke 14:1-6
• 459 Place at Table – (1) Luke 14:7-10
• 379 Exaltation and Humiliation – (1) Matt 23:12; (2a) Luke 14:11; (2b) Luke 18:14
• 460 Inviting the Outcasts – (1a) Luke 14:12-14; (1b) Luke 14:21b
• 095 The Feast – not used in Year C – (1) GThom. 64:1-2; (2) 2Q: Luke 14:15-24 = Matt 22:1-13

Liturgies and Prayers

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

Other recommended sites include:

• Iona Community
• Laughing Bird
• The Text This Week

Music Suggestions

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

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.

• See also: Jesus as Healer

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

• 455 Cripple and Sabbath – (1) Luke 13:10-17
• 456 Going to Jerusalem – (1) Luke 13:22
• 163 The Narrow Door – (1) 1Q: Luke 13:23-24 = Matt 7:13-14
• 164 The Closed Door – (1) 2Q: Luke 13:25 = Matt 25:1-12
• 165 Depart from Me – (1a) 2Q: Luke 13:26-27 = Matt 7:22-23 (1b?) 2 Clem. 4:5 (1c?) GNaz. 6
• 125 Gnashing of Teeth – (1a) 2Q: Luke 13:28a = Matt 8:12b (1b) Matt 13:42b (1c) Matt 13:50b (1d) Matt 22:13b (1e) Matt 24:51b (1f) Matt 25:30b (2) Dial. Sav. 14e
• 166 Patriarchs and Gentiles – (1) 2Q: Luke 13:28-29 = Matt 8:11-12
• 031 First and Last – (1) GThom. 4:2 & P. Oxy. 654.4 (2) 2Q: Luke 13:30 = Matt 20:16 (3) Mark 10:31 = Matt 19:30
• Jesus as Healer

Liturgies and Prayers

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

Other recommended sites include:

• Iona Community
• Laughing Bird
• The Text This Week

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.

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:

• 015 Against Divorce
• 024 Blessed the Womb
• 074 Peace or Sword
• 089 Hating Ones Family
• 105 Jesus True Family

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

• 046 The Tenants – Isaiah 5
• 072 Fire on Earth – v. 49
• 254 Jesus Baptisms – v. 50
• 074 Peace or Sword – vv. 51-53
• 053 Knowing the Times – vv. 54-56

Liturgies and Prayers

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

Other recommended sites include:

• Iona Community
• Laughing Bird
• The Text This Week

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.

Lectionary

• Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 & Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
• Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
• Luke 12:32-40

First Reading: Isaiah

This week we continue with the RCL process of sampling various pre-exilic prophetic texts. Having had two weeks where we drew on Amos, followed by two weeks that used texts from Hosea, we now have the first of two weeks that offer passages from Isaiah.

Unlike his northern contemporaries, Amos and Hosea, Isaiah ben Amoz was a prophet active in the southern kingdom (Judah) during the latter part of the 8C BCE. The famous Immanuel prophecy in Isaiah 7 comes from a crisis when a coalition of anti-Assyrian states (including Israel and Syria) laid siege to Jerusalem in an effort to force the southern state to join their “coalition of the willing.” This “Syro-Ephraimite Crisis” is usually dated 10 years or so before the destruction of Samaria (capital of Israel) in 722 BCE. The collapse of the coalition is also most likely related to the destruction of the 8C Aramaean city whose massive fortifictions have been found at level 5 of the Bethsaida excavations. It seems Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria destroyed that city in 732 while on his way to subdue the kingdom of Israel. Most likely the city (Tzer?) was at that time a key element in the Syrian border defences.

Like his northern contemporaries, Isaiah attacked the social injustices that were characteristic of life in Judah at the time. He also shared their criticism of the cult of Yahweh with its assumption that God’s blessing could be assured by ritual and offerings.

These 8C prophets whose literary legacy we have inherited as part of the Jewish scriptures within the Christian Bible challenged the self-serving assumptions of the powerful elites in their own days. Their loyalty was neither to class nor nation, but to the call of God on their lives. Pushed beyond their comfort zones, they helped create a new expression of religion that would eventually escape the limits of tribalism and personal security.

Second Reading: Letter to the Hebrews

This weekend the RCL cycle begins a series of 4 readings from Hebrews:

• Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
• Hebrews 11:29-12:2
• Hebrews 12:18-29
• Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

The anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews has often been included in the Pauline corpus, but is better considered as part of the General Epistles – along with James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2 & John and Jude.

The author of this letter was far more interested in Jewish ritual and esoteric speculation about angels and figures such as Melchizedek than Paul seems to have been.

For further resources on Hebrews, see the relevant page in the Early Christian Writings web site.

The first of the extracts chosen for the RCL offers a selection from a wider catalogue of exemplars of faith:

• Abel (vs. 4)
• Enoch (vs. 5)
• Noah (vs. 7)
• Abraham (vss. 8-13)
• Binding of Isaac (17-19)
• Isaac (vs. 20)
• Jacob (vs. 21)
• Joseph (vs. 22)
• Moses’ parents (vs. 23)
• Moses (vss. 24-28)
• Israelites (vs. 29)
• Jericho’s walls (vs. 30)
• Rahab (vs. 31)
• Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets (vss. 32-38)

Gospel: Travel light on the kingdom way

This week’s selection of verses from the Gospel according to Luke seems to be an almost random gathering of traditions. Zooming out some distance may allow us to map the shape of the forest, before we come back in close to study some of the trees by the path this week:
Taking Luke-Acts as a single work extending over two scrolls, we can see the major divisions:

• Luke 1:1-4—Prologue
• 1:5-2:52—Infancy & Childhood
• 3:1-4:13—Wilderness
• 4:14-9:50—Galilee
• 9:51-19:28—Samaria to Jerusalem
• 19:29-23:56—In Jerusalem
• 24:1-51 & Acts 1:1-26—The Forty Days in Jerusalem
• 2:1-8:3—In Jerusalem
• 8:4-11:18—To Samaria
• 11:19-15:35—To the Gentiles
• 15:36-19:20—To Greece
• 19:21-28:31—To Rome

This week’s Gospel fragment comes from the major unit (Luke 9:51-19:28) during which Jesus makes his way from Galilee to Jerusalem. This section contains a great diversity of material. It is also the section where Luke most deviates from his written sources (Mark and Q), as the table of Special Luke materials indicates.

This diverse material collected here in Luke — much of it sayings attributed to Jesus — can be understood as an extended reflection on the meaning of discipleship. As Jesus travels towards his destiny in Jerusalem, Luke explores some of the contours of discipleship in the lives of his readers many decades later.

As he does throughout the larger “Special Section” of his gospel, in this week’s portion Luke has drawn together material from a mix of sources. In this case, his selections tend to develop themes of constant vigilance in anticipation of the Master’s arrival. The seemingly extended period between Easter and parousia is not to be an excuse for loss of focus.

While Luke is relatively late in the Gospel tradition, he still writes well before the patristic theologians such as Irenaeus and Hippolytus who would re-schedule the parousia until after the demise of the Roman Empire following the end-time activities of the Antichrist—for more on that theme see Antichrist Myth. Luke has not quite come to terms with the failure of Jesus to return in glory. He still lives with that expectation, even if it is rather more muted than in Paul’s writings from 50 or so years earlier.

While some Christians today continue to live on the edge of that ancient parousia expectation (witness the success of the Left Behind series), for most people our “date with destiny” lies in our mortality rather than the apocalyptic return of Jesus.

An “eyes-wide-open” approach to our own mortality seems a healthy element to include in our personal and communal spirituality.

Jesus Database

• 451 Little Flock – v. 32
• 099 Treasure in Heaven – v. 33
• 160 Heart and Treasure – v. 34
• 188 The Unknown Time – vv. 35-38
• 012 Knowing the Danger – vv. 39-40

Liturgies and Prayers

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

Other recommended sites include:

• Iona Community
• Laughing Bird
• The Text This Week

Music Suggestions

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

Lectionary

• Hosea 1:2-10 & Psalm 85
• Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
• Luke 11:1-13

First Reading: Hosea 1

This week we dip into the prophetic traditions associated with Hosea, who (like Amos) was active during the final decades of the ancient kingdom of Israel—that is, the northern and more prosperous of the two Hebrew/Jewish mini-states that developed in Palestine during the first millennium BCE. Unlike Amos, who came from Judah to preach against the rulers of Israel, Hosea was a local prophet—as were figures such as Elijah and Elisha.

These two societies shared many common traditions, but also held deeply divergent views on some matters. Despite the best efforts of the biblical story-tellers to convince us otherwise, it is most unlikely that they were descendants of Hebrew tribes who had escaped from Egypt several hundred years earlier, nor were their rival societies simply the shattered fragments of a once powerful Davidic empire stretching from the Suez to Mesopotamia.

Whatever the actual historical realities, the Old Testament is a gift to the world from these two ancient societies that shared a common sense of being in a covenant with a god called Yahweh and, more importantly, shared the growing sense that there could only be one such deity. The roots of western monotheism lie in the tangled story of this religious insight, and Hosea reflects a period when the “Yahweh alone” theology was beginning to assert its profound criticism of idolatry and polytheism.

Hosea’s own prophetic odyssey begins with the very personal struggle of being married to someone who was sexually unfaithful, and that became a powerful metaphor for the spiritual adultery of Israel who had betrayed her divine Spouse.

For a useful set of online and traditional resources on the Book of Hosea, see the iTanakh Hosea page.

Second Reading: Colossians

This week continues the series of NT passages from Colossians that began last week.

Colossians is one of the letters whose attribution to Paul is widely questioned by critical scholars. After citing various accounts of the arguments for and against Pauline authorship, Peter Kirby offers this practical advice:

My position is, thus, that the authenticity of Colossians is a matter over which reasonable people may disagree. As to its dating, we may follow this dictum for Colossians: if authentic, place it as late as possible, but if inauthentic, place it as early as possible. It was probably written towards the middle of the period c. 50-80.

For a useful set of online and traditional resources on the letter to the Colossians, see Peter Kirby’s Early Christian Writings Colossians page.

Gospel: Jesus’ teaching on prayer

Luke has gathered together a number of traditions—mostly from the earliest layer of the Sayings Gospel Q—about Jesus instructing his followers on the subject of prayer.

The most significant of the items is a version of the Lord’s Prayer that differs in significant respects from the more familiar version drawn from Matthew. There are extensive notes on the Pater Noster at 120 The Lords Prayer, including links to commentary on individual petitions.

Jesus Database

• 120 The Lords Prayer: (1a) 1Q: Luke 11:(1)2-4 =(!) Matt 6:9-13; (1b) Gos. Naz. 5; (1c) Pol. Phil. 7:2a; (2) Did. 8:2b.
• 027 Forgiveness for Forgiveness: (1) 1Q: Luke 11:4a = Matt 6:12; (2) Mark 11:25(26) = Matt 6:14-15; (3) Luke 6:37c; (4a)1 Clem. 13:2b; (4b) Pol. Phil. 2:3b.
• 449 Friend at Midnight: (1) Luke 11:5-8;
• 004 Ask Seek Knock: (1a) Gos. Thom. 2 & P. Oxy. 654:2; (1b) Gos. Thom. 92:1; (1c) Gos. Thom. 94; (2) Gos. Heb. 4ab; (3) 1Q: Luke 11:9-10 = Matt 7:7-8; (4) Mark 11:24 = Matt 21:22; (5a) Dial. Sav. 9-12; (5b) Dial. Sav. 20d; (5c) Dial. Sav. 79-80 ; (6a) John 14:13-14; (6b) John 15:7; (6c) John15:16; (6d) John16:23-24; (6e) John 16:26;
• 149 Good Gifts: (1) 1Q: Luke 11:11-13 = Matt 7:9-11;

Liturgies and Prayers

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

Other recommended sites include:

• Iona Community
• Laughing Bird
• The Text This Week

Music Suggestions

• All my hope on God is founded – AHB 465ii
• Celtic Alleluia (AOV/TiS)
• Companions on a Journey
• Lead us heavenly Father lead us – AHB 492
• Now thank we all our God – AHB 14
• Praise the God who changes places – TiS 178
• Praise to the living God – AHB 7
• Shine Jesus shine

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