gregoryjenks

Category: Lectionary

Links to lectionary notes from the Jesus Database site.

  • Ninth Sunday after Pentecost C (21 July 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Amos 8:1-12 & Psalm 52
    • Colossians 1:15-28
    • Luke 10:38-42

    Gospel: Jesus, Women and Discipleship

    This week’s Gospel is a much-loved episode from Luke. Like the parable of the Good Samaritan that precedes it in Luke’s account, this story is found only in Luke and contributes to Luke’s representation of Christianity as a socially responsible movement that posed no threat either to Empire or privilege.

    More recently, the story of Mary choosing to sit at Jesus’ feet — and the endorsement of her choice by Jesus himself — has been cited as a prime example of Jesus’ counter-cultural affirmation of women. Kathleen Corley (“Feminist Myths of Christrian origins” in the Burton Mack Festschrift, Reimaging Christian Origins ed. Elizabeth A. Castelli & Hal Taussig, 1996) has challenged this as a myth of Christian origins that functions as a foundational narrative for modern Christian feminism, but has little historical value. In Women and the Historical Jesus (2002:60), Kathleen Corley critiques the usual interpretation of this week’s Gospel scene:

    In fact, later gospel portrayals of Jesus at meals do not show him taking a particularly radical stance. For instance, in the story of his meal with Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42), Jesus does encourage Mary, who is seated at his feet. However, although such a position does indicate that Mary is receiving instruction, her posture reflects a more conservative, matronly role, and she remains silent throughout the scene. The more radical stance would have been to invite Mary to recline with him like an equal on a banquet couch, as Jesus does with Salome in the Gospel of Thomas (Thomas 61). In these Lukan stories Jesus does not appear radical in his relationships with women; it is the women who are bold, not Jesus.

    This seems an opportune time to reflect on Jesus’ attitudes towards women and their possible place within his movement.

    Dennis Nineham

    This week’s notes will also open up the possibility of exploring our engagement with the Gospel text by becoming more aware of our own lenses as well as those of Jesus and the evangelists.

    One of the lenses that we may overlook at the top of our nose is the desire for Jesus to be perfect. Indeed, it is not so much a desire as an unexamined assumption. Many take it for granted that Jesus held and practiced pure wisdom, was free of prejudice, and in every sense a model human being. This is related to, but not the same as, the traditional doctrine of the sinlessness of Jesus.

    NT scholar, Dennis Nineham, identified this bias even in radical Christology such as that developed by the “Myth of God Incarnate” theologians in the UK back in the late 1970s. In an epilogue to that collection of essays, Nineham critiqued the ways in which Jesus’ personal integrity and character were assumed even by radical thinkers. A couple of brief extracts might suffice to illustrate the point Nineham was making.

    Nineham cites the Jewish scholar, C.G. Montefiore:

    Jesus is to be regarded as the first great Jewish teacher to frame such a sentence. … yet how much more telling his injunction would have been if we had a single story about his doing good to and praying for a single Rabbi or Pharisee! [Rabbinic Literature and Gospel Teachings, 1930:103]

    We might find ourselves echoing the sentiments of W. Durant, a secular writer whose respect for Jesus is cited by Nineham:

    Our own moral heritage and ideals are so closely bound up with him and formed on his example that we feel injured at finding any flaw in his character. [Caesar and Christ, 1944:561]

    Nineham himself outlines the problems involved in our easy assumption of Jesus’ relevance and perfection:

    Two things at any rate seem clear. First, it is impossible to justify any such claim on purely historical grounds, however wide the net for evidence is cast. … the second point … is that because of the cultural gulf that separates us from Jesus and his times, what moral perfection, or being ‘the man for others’, would have meant to him and his contemporaries might well be significantly different from what such phrases imply for us. We must therefore recognize that if the historical Jesus were to walk into the room …, the first disturbing impression might be not so much of his greatness as his strangeness. To say that, of course, is simply to state a fact about cultural change; it is not in the least to derogate from Jesus’ moral greatness or moral authority in his time. [Myth, 1977:195]

    As the date of Nineham’s essay indicates, not to mention the earlier writers that he cites, this is not a new question. It has been known to NT scholars and theologians for more than a century, and lies at the heart of Kahler’s classic distinction between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith. Most recently the sharp edges of this question have been pushed by the Jesus Seminar and Luke Timothy Johnson, respectively.

    So, as we approach this week’s Gospel we most likely have a hermeneutical lens that predisposes us to assume that Jesus was not only a significant spiritual figure, but a moral giant whose sympathies far outpaced those of his own time. For example, we rarely entertain the idea that Jesus lived in a society that embraced slavery and that he may have owned slaves himself. Perhaps of more relevance, we mostly assume that Jesus had “modern” views on the dignity of all persons and that he would have practiced some affirmative action in favor of women and other minorities.

    This week’s Gospel seems to affirm that assumption.

    Jesus is visiting with two sisters, Mary and Martha. Luke does not link them with the Bethany household, that also included Lazarus, but simply presents them as householders in a particular village as Jesus makes his way from Galilee to Jerusalem. These two women make Jesus welcome, and he accepts their hospitality. Were they inn-keepers, or simply supporters of the Jesus movement who chose not to go on the road with Jesus and his followers? Martha busies herself with the tasks involving in offering hospitality, whether as inn-keepers or associate members of the Jesus movement; but Mary settles down at Jesus’ feet to pay attention to his instruction as a teacher of wisdom. Martha snaps, and asks Jesus to send Mary in to help with the work. Jesus affirms the responsibilities Martha has embraced but also the value of the choice Mary has made. There is no resolution to the episode. Its unresolved tension is not unlike many of the parables told by Jesus. Luke leaves the reader to ponder further how they will express their discipleship: in the kitchen or in the study?

    At the very least, then, Kathleen Corley seems correct in her faint praise of Jesus’ response. This is no hero of women’s emancipation, but a sure-footed teacher drawing each woman a little deeper into her own journey of discovery. And he does not offer to make the coffee, either!

    John P. Meier

    In the third volume of his ongoing historical Jesus project [A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. 3. Companions and Competitors. Doubleday, 2001], John P. Meier offers some views on the “unclear boundaries” of discipleship and the participation of women in the Jesus movement. He begins with the following statement of the question as it engages us:

    In our reconstruction of the historical situation of Jesus’ public ministry, should the designation “disciples of Jesus” be restricted to those 1st-century Palestinian Jews who fully met the stringent requirements [of being called by Jesus, joining his itinerant band, and risking danger and hostility] listed above? To put the question more pointedly from our contemporary viewpoint: because only males are specifically depicted as summoned to discipleship by Jesus and because only males are specifically called “disciples” in the Gospels, should modern historians likewise restrict the term to males when describing the historical conditions of Jesus’ ministry? Naturally no one would object if modern writers engaged in homiletics or hermenutics should stretch the term “disciple” to include all present-day believers. But if we are intent on a sober historical reconstruction of the 1st-century situation, scholarly integrity would seem to demand that we follow the usage of our sources. Do our sources favor or undermine the view that the committed female followers of Jesus were considered disciples during the public ministry? (p. 73)

    Meier is defining his terms of reference narrowly: women followers as “disciples” during the public ministry of Jesus; not at the crucifixion, not in the post-Easter period and not in the Christian communities that formed afterwards. He is aware of the recent tendency to construct too grand an edifice on a narrow biblical base, and (characteristically) cautious in what he seeks to establish. (He would doubtless call this “sober historical reconstruction” or even “scholarly integrity,” as if more adventurous inquiry is reckless and lacking in integrity.)

    Problems in the recent debate over women in the ministry of Jesus and in the modern church often stem from pressing the few references beyond what they can tell us. This over-exegeting of the texts available is often fueled in turn by a desire to answer larger questions of relevance, questions that we do not treat here because they never entered the minds of the evangelists. (p. 74)

    It might be asked whether biblical scholarship that excuses itself from questions of faithfulness and justice in the present simply because those were not questions in the minds of the authors is anything more than a religious variant on Nero’s legendary fiddle playing while Rome was aflame? Do we study the texts for historical information, or for wisdom relevant to our questions?

    Within the conservative terms of reference that he has designed for himself, Meier offers several insights of real value. He has no doubt that Jesus had devoted female followers, but is puzzled by the failure of the Gospel tradition ever to give them the description, “disciple.” His solution is not driven by a recognition that the Gospels are late texts that reflect confict over authority and a gradual repression of women relative to the emancipation they enjoyed in the primitive Jesus movement. Rather, Meier thinks that the reality of women’s involvement in the Jesus movement (ca. 28-30 CE) simply got ahead of the available terminology and went unmentioned.

    … during his public ministry, Jesus indeed had committed women followers, but there was literally no feminine noun that could be used to describe them; there was no noun that said “female disciple(s).” (p. 78)

    He concludes:

    We are left, then, with something of a paradox. Did the historical Jesus have women disciples? In name, no; in reality — putting aside the question of an implicit as opposed to an explicit call — yes. Certainly the reality rather than the label would have been what caught most people’s attention. The sight of a group of women — apparently, at least in some cases, without benefit of husbands accompanying them — traveling around the Galilean countryside with an unmarried male who exorcised, healed, and taught them as he taught his male disciples could not help but raise pious eyebrows and provoke impious comments. As it was, Jesus was stigmatized by his critics as a bon vivant, a glutton and drunkard, a friend of toll collectors and sinners (Matt 11:19 par.), a demoniac or mad man (Mark 3:20-30 parr; John 8:48). A traveling entourage of husbandless female supporters, some of whom were former demoniacs who were now giving Jesus money or food, would only have heightened the suspicion and scandal Jesus already faced in a traditional peasant society. Yet, scandal or no scandal, Jesus allowed them to follow and serve him. Whatever the problems of vocabulary, the most probable conclusion is that Jesus viewed and treated these women as disciples. (p. 79f)

    Here we see that Meier has worked his way through to an outcome that fits with the consensus of liberal society, and we have Jesus as a sensitive new age guy who enjoys and respects women; but presumably has no sexual interests. Unfazed by scandal he affirms the women’s right to participate in the Kingdom movement, and he treats them the same as his male followers. Sober scholarship has its rewards?

    Kathleen Corley

    Enter Kathleen Corley, once more. Corley is a Fellow of the Jesus Seminar, with a long interest in women in the NT and early Christianity. In Women and the Historical Jesus she takes issue with several of the assumptions that underlie the consensus view of Jesus the modern man with advanced views concerning women.

    Corley observes that studies of women in early Christianity often use a narrative also seen in other fields of research into Christian origins. The Jewish and pagan environment is cast in negative terms, often with significant anti-Jewish stereotyping. A “time of pristine origins” is then proposed, after which one discovers a period of decay during which emerging catholicism reverts to pre-Jesus (and sub-Christian) cultural patterns. Variants of this self-serving narrative are known from other areas, including some contemporary studies of church growth and mission issues. In many cases the hypothetical pristine era (always associated with Jesus) turns out to be remarkably similar to the “new” model now being proposed by the “researcher.”

    Kathleen Corley has done everyone a service by cutting through this clutter with an eyes-wide-open analysis of the actual situation of women in the Roman empire, including Jewish women in Palestine. This is not the place to review her argument in detail, but the following gives a sense of where her research leads.

    The evidence indeed suggests that in first century Judaism women lived lives similar to those of their gentile counterparts, and that a monolithic view of Jewish women’s experience based on a few sources is no longer possible to maintain. (p. 20)

    After reciting numerous areas of private and public life where Jewish women were active in the time of Jesus, Corley cites in some detail the evidence from the conservative religious community at Qumran.

    … women and children represent over thirty percent of all burials so far excavated at the Qumran site. These burials are not on the periphery of the regular graveyards as has previously been proposed, but are interspersed throughout the major gravesites. … the presence of women and children among those buried at Qumran has gone long ignored and unexplained. And yet, the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls mention the presence of women and children in certain assemblies and liturgical celebrations, and regulate marriage and sexual intercourse … The Qumran texts further attest to the ability of women to give judicial testimony in corporate assemblies, and contain elaborations of stories of heroines of the Hebrew Bible … (p. 25)

    Corley’s summary of the situation of Jewish women during the lifetime of Jesus is as follows:

    … it must not be forgotten that the movement initiated by Jesus was both Jewish and Palestinian. Both Jesus’ teaching and the social configuration of his movement further illustrate the cultural diversity present in the Greco-Roman world and first century Palestine. This belies simplistic attempts to label Jesus, or Palestine more generally, as either “Jewish” or “Hellenistic.” While it seems likely that Jesus associated relatively freely with women, the pervasive presence of women in Jewish, Roman and Hellenistic societies generally serves to undermine the contention that this is a special characteristic of Jesus’ movement or an outgrowth of his message of the Kingdom of God. The constituency of Jesus’ movement may rather be seen to reflect changes in the later Hellenistic society, or the social constituency of which he was a part. (p. 26)

    In chapter two of her book, Corley discusses the working women in the Gospel of Mark; with a special focus on Mary Magdalene, Salome, and Joanna. A few snippets from her discussion seem worth including this week as they lift the veil of anonymity from the women whose stories are often obscured in the NT — even if only by our distance from their world.

    … the presence of women among Jesus’ followers was a controversial characteristic of his movement. Mark 2:14-17 records both that Jesus was accused of reclining at table with “tax collectors and sinners” (the latter is a euphemism for “prostitutes”) and that a group of women “followed and served” Jesus throughout his entire ministry (Mark 15:40-41). … The descriptions of these women suggest that at least Mary Magdalene and Salome came from the lower classes of antiquity, and were either working women, hired servants, slaves or runaway slaves. (p. 27)

    Nearly 50% of the women in second temple Palestine were named either Mary (Mariamne) or Salome. … This reinforces the likelihood that Mark preserves the earliest and best list in terms of reflecting the Palestinian situation of Jesus, naming two Marys and one woman named Salome. (p. 32)

    About these women Mark tells us little. Mary Magdalene is the most fixed name of a woman disciple in the tradition. … Rather than identifying her by the more common means of a male relative, Mary’s name indicates that she came from Magdala, a village on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, about three miles north of the city of Tiberius. The identification of Mary with a particular geographical location puts emphasis on the character of that location, rather than on her family, her father or a husband as a means of identifying her. Magdala was one of the better known fishing towns along the Sea of Galilee, and was known to Josephus by the name Tarichea, meaning “salt fish.” Josephus also mentions that the city had a hippodrome, which indicates its Hellenistic character. Since Mark records that many of Jesus’ first male followers came from the ranks of fishermen who worked along the Sea of Galilee (Mark 1:16-20), and that Mary Magdalene was with Jesus from his earliest travels in Galilee (Mark 15:40-41), it is quite likely that Mary Magdalene was a fisherwoman herself. (p. 32f)

    Women among the working poor practiced many trades in antiquity; women could be shopkeepers, butchers, innkeepers, weavers, waitresses, shoemakers, prostitutes, professional mourners and musicians, or fishers. In rural areas women could run farms with their husbands, engage in a trade, or run inns in their homes; in towns and cities women shared the responsibility of managing small businesses. (p. 33)

    The realities of life for lower class women contributed to the elite perception and devaluation of their character, and led to the stereotyping of lower class women as promiscuous, whether this reputation was realized in the form of prostitution or not. The association of Jesus with both working class women and at least one woman of a higher position could further explain the tradition associating him with “sinners/prostitutes” (Matt 21:31-32). Despite her standing, a woman like Joanna might well have been labeled a whore for her association with other women and men beneath her station. (p. 33f)

    The association of Mary Magdalene with demon possession serves to connect her to frequent tomb visitation and the contact with spirits of the dead (necromancy). In Mark, this devalues her witness to the resurrection, and functions to bar her from any connection to the Twelve … However, given that in antiquity possession by gods or spirits was associated with creativity and prophetic powers, any such narrative portrayal of Jesus’ women followers would be problematic. In view of the reports that Jesus himself was thought to be mad (John 8:48; Mark 3:20-21) and possessed by a demon … this charge of demon-possession places Mary Magdalene not in the category of Peter and the Twelve, but that of Jesus, or even John the Baptist (Q 7:33). Since men with such characteristics were commonly labeled as prophets, this charge against Mary Magdalene strongly suggests that she might be identified not merely as a follower of Jesus, but as a prophet who was later demoted by an early Christian tradition that also demoted John. Jesus, John, and Mary would then have all exhibited similar behavior at an early point in their lives. Although she is likely only one of many to have received exorcism from Jesus’ hand, Mary’s prominence in early Christian tradition sets her apart from others merely healed by Jesus. If indeed she was a prophet similar to Jesus and John, her words and sayings either were simply lost, or were incorporated into the Jesus tradition itself. She too began her life in a Galilean village, as a fisherwoman from the village of Magdala, who fished alongside the men on the shores of the Sea of Galilee as did many of the working women of the area. Fisherwoman or not, such a working class woman was one of the several kinds of women who joined Jesus and his retinue. (p. 34f)

    Jesus Database

    Liturgies and Prayers

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

    Other recommended sites include:

    Music Suggestions

    Traditional hymns:

    • Come as you are
    • The Lord is my shepherd
    • Pentecost Prayer
    • God gives us a future

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

  • Eighth Sunday after Pentecost C (14 July 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Amos 7:7-17 & Psalm 82
    • Colossians 1:1-14
    • Luke 10:25-37

    First Reading: Amos 7

    This weekend we begin a series of several readings from the prophetic books of Amos and Hosea:

    • Amos 7:7-17
    • Amos 8:1-12
    • Hosea 1:2-10
    • Hosea 11:1-11

    Amos and Hosea are important as the first of the famous “eighth century (BCE) prophets” whose public activity distinguished them from other prophets who worked under the auspices of the palace or the temple. Both men were active in the northern kingdom of Israel, although Amos seems to have come from the southern kingdom of Judah. While they stood out from their peers on the public payroll, they are our earliest examples of the “Hebrew prophets” whose words have been a sacred treasure for generations of Jews and Christians over more than two millennia. The exact relationship between the prophets and the books that now bear their names is unclear, but their prophetic activity resulted in the formation of texts that would later become part of the Bible. The books would, in time, give these prophets of ancient Israel a legacy that continues to our own time.

    The passage from Amos this week represents the classic conflict between the “freelance” prophet and the religious officials employed in the state cult. The sacred violence encoded in this ancient story will rightly offend modern sensibilities, but the more profound challenge is to our self-serving assumption that theological training and ministerial status within the church or academy make us better placed to discern what the Spirit is saying to the churches. The story celebrates the dignity of the religious amateur; someone with no personal interest in the survival of the religious institutions, but an authentic relationship with the Sacred. Such “outsider insiders” are subversive threats to the temple and its clergy. As Amos, Jeremiah and Jesus all discovered; the religious professionals rarely welcome such a stranger in their midst. Go home! Lock him up. Crucify him!

    The lectionary invites us to reflect on the contrast with the Good Samaritan story. The religious professionals come off badly in that tale as well, while the unwelcome stranger—with an entirely wrong religious pedigree—turns out to be a godsend.

    Second Reading: Colossians

    This weekend we also begin a series of several readings from the letter to the Colossians:

    • Colossians 1:1-14
    • Colossians 1:15-28
    • Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
    • Colossians 3:1-11

    Colossians is one of the letters attributed to Paul but there continues to be significant debate about its authenticity. For an introduction to the letter, and to the critical issues involved in assessing its character, see the Colossians page in the Early Christian Writings web site.

    The reading this week is from the opening address of the letter, which has been considerably elaborated to include reference to specific persons and events known to the recipients. As the final few lines of this week’s portion indicate, as also does the early Christian hymn that seems be cited in the portion that will be read next week, Colossians expresses a highly developed Christology. Here we see the theological ideas and the devotional language of the “Christ cult” cutting loose from its Jewish moorings and moving out into the deep ocean of contemporary speculative thought. This not only seems inconsistent with Paul’s usual way of describing Jesus, but also to contradict the portrayal of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. In Colossians, the “kingdom/empire of God” that Jesus proclaimed has become the “kingdom/empire of God’s Son” as the messenger becomes the message in the emerging Christology of the early Church. Whether we have some of Paul’s final thoughts on Jesus here, or (more likely) an echo of Paul’s thinking in the words of a later writer, we are some distance from either Jesus’ own self-awareness or the testimony of his earliest followers.

    Gospel: The good Samaritan

    The following notes come from the Jesus Database page for the parable of the Good Samaritan:

     

    John Dominc Crossan

    Crossan discussed this parable in some detail in his classic 1973 study, In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus. Crossan took issue with the previous consensus view that the Good Samaritan was an Exemplary Story, arguing instead that it be seen as a parable of reversal. He outlines the significance of the distinction as follows:

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

    Crossan notes that the question about eternal life seems to have been derived from the Sayings Gospel Q, while the parable seems not to have originally circulated in combination with that question. In addition, the logical inconsistency in the meaning of “neighbor” in the dialogue with the lawyer and in the parable itself suggests that material from two different sources has been combined in Luke 10. As Crossan points out:

    The parable of 10:30-35 would fit quite well with 10:28-29 showing that the neighbor is anyone in need; and it would also fit well with 10:36 indicating that the neighbor is the one who assists another’s need; but it cannot go with both 10:27,29 and 10:36 simultaneously. (p. 58)

    According to Crossan, the “creative moment when 10:25-28 was added to 10:30-36” belongs in the pre-Lukan stage of the tradition. He notes the following formal structure in the unit inherited by Luke:

    Question (lawyer) – 10:25 & 10:29
    Counter-Question (Jesus) – 10:26 & 10:30-36
    Answer (lawyer) – 10:27 & 10:37a
    Counter-answer (Jesus) – 10:28 & 10:37b

    Prior to the creation of a double controversy dialogue, the question of the original meaning of the story as parable remains open.

    First of all, Crossan notes the long description of the actions of the Samaritan (10:34-35) in constrast to the very brief mention of the attack by the robbers and the inaction of the clerics:

    … even in English translation, far more space (66 words) is devoted to this description than to any of the other elements in the story. Why? When the hearer is confronted with the rhetorical question in 10:36 he might negate the process by simply denying that any Samaritan would so act. So, before the question can be put, the hearer must see, feel, and hear the goodness of the Samaritan for himself. The function of 10:34-35 and its detailed description is so to involve the hearer in the activity that the objection is stifled at birth. He has just seen a Samaritan do such a good action in very exact detail. (p. 62)

    The social significance of a Samaritan as hero is critically important to this story:

    If Jesus wanted to teach love of neighbor in distress, it would have sufficed to use the standard folkloric threesome and talk of one person, a second person, and a third person. If he wanted to do this and add a jibe against the clerical circles in Jerusalem, it would have been quite enough to have mentioned priest, Levite, and let the third person be a Jewish lay-person. Most importantly, if he wanted to inculcate love of one’s enemies, it would have been radical enough to have a Jewish person stop and assist a wounded Samaritan. … the internal structure of the story and the historical setting of Jesus’ time agree that the literal point of the story challenges the hearer to put together two impossible and contradictory words for the same person: “Samaritan” (10:33) and “neighbor” (10:36). The whole thrust of the story demands that one say what cannot be said, what is a contradiction in terms: Good-Samaritan. On the lips of the historical Jesus the story demanded that the hearer respond by saying the contradictory, the impossible, the unsay-able. The point is not that one should help the neighbor in need. … But when good (clerics) and bad (Samaritan) become, respectively bad and good, a world is being challenged and we are faced with polar reversal. (p. 62f)

    There remains the issue of how such a powerful parable of reversal could be transposed into an exemplary story. Crossan suggests the transition is easy to understand as the Gospel moved from its original Jewish context to Gentile communities where the sectarian tensions had no significance. The commendable charity of the Samaritan character in the literal meaning of the story offered sufficient insight for the non-Palestinian audience at the same time as its original sectarian edge was lost from view:

    This distinction of two points [literal and metaphorical] is usually clear and noncontroversial in most of the parables of Jesus. Take, for example, the parable of the Wheat and the Darnel in Matt. 13:24-30. Imagine a hearer of Jesus nodding his head in agreement that here was a wise man and that he himself had just learned what to do if ever he found himself in such an agricultural crisis. Our judgment would be immediate: he has missed the point completely; or, more precisely, he has mistaken the literal point for the metaphorical point. … When we move from the “amoral” world of agriculture into parables which present “moral” actions, the danger of confusing the literal and metaphorical is greatly increased. If the protagonist is presented in a downright immoral action, confusion ensues, but at least the distinction between literal and metaphorical is usually maintained. The classic example of this confusion, of course, is the parable of the Unjust Steward in Luke 16:1-7. … But all of this becomes even more distressingly easy to do when the major protagonist of a parable is performing a morally good action on the literal level. In this case it is very simple to remain on this level and convert the parable into an example. This is exactly what has happened to the Good Samaritan in the course of its transmission. (p. 63f)

    Crossan’s final assessment of the Good Samaritan is evocative:

    The literal point confronted the hearers with the necessity of saying the impossible and having their world turned upside down and radically questioned in its presuppositions. The metaphorical point is that just so does the Kingdom of God break abruptly into human consciousness and demand the overturn of prior values, closed options, set judgments, and established conclusions. But the full force of the parabolic challenge is that the just so of the metaphorical level is not ontologically distinct from the the presence of the literal point. The hearer struggling with the contradictory dualism of Good/Samaritan is actually experiencing in and through this the inbreaking of the Kingdom. Not only does it happen like this, it happens in this. (p. 64)

     

    James D.G. Dunn

    Dunn (Jesus Remembered, 2003) observes:

    … in telling the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus must deliberately have intended to shock his hearers by presenting a Samaritan as hero, when Samaritans were usually regarded as half-breeds and apostates (Luke 10:30-37). At the very least, the parable suggests that Jesus’ concern to break down boundaries within Israel may have extended beyond the bounds of Israel, though we should beware of romanticizing Jesus’ conscious intentions at this point.

     

    Robert W. Funk

    Funk made the Good Samaritan a special focus of his work on parables and the poetics of biblical narrative in a series of studies: Parables and Presence (1982), The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (1988) and Honest to Jesus (1996).

    Funk’s characteristic way of approaching the parable is captured in the following sentence:

    Parable interpretation for Jesus is allowing oneself to be drawn into the story as the story line dictates, and then to face the choices the plot presents. (1996:171)

    With that basic principle of interpretation in mind, Funk sketches the emotional responses of the hearers as they recall the dangerous situation of the road between Jerusalem and Jericho (see Wadi Qilt photos) and as they adopt positive or negative responses to the stereotypical representation of the callous clerics. Key to Funk’s interpretation of the parable is the suggestion that the hearers find themselves in the ditch with the victim, watching the priest and Levite pass by and then seeing the approach of a despised Samaritan:

    Who in the audience wanted to let himself or herself be helped by a Samaritan? This is the primary challenge because the appearance of the Samaritan makes sense on no other basis. Had the victim in the ditch been a Samaritan and the hero an ordinary Judean, then the question would have been reversed: who in the Judean audience wanted to play the role of hero to a Samaritan victim? Further, the role of the victim is the inferior role, the role of the helper the superior one. Listeners would have found it more congenial to adopt the role of the helper as their own than to accept the status of victim. (1996:176f)

    Funk offers this interpretation of the parable:

    Once it is understood that the parable is a fantasy — a fantasy about God’s domain, an order of reality that feeds on but ultimately overturns the everyday world — it is but a short step to the view that the story is not about a stickup on Jericho boulevard at all. It is about a new order of things, a new reality that lies beyond, but just barely beyond, the everyday, the humdrum, the habituated. Then the parable is understood as an invitation to cross over. The ability to cross over will depend, of course, on both the tenacity with which one holds to the inherited order of reality, the received world, and on one’s willingness to cut the ties to comfortable tradition. The parable is pitted against the power of the proven. Making the transition under such circumstances does not come easily. But, then, Jesus never suggests that it is easy — only that it is obvious. (1996:177)

    A little later Funk observes:

    The parable, however, is not about Samaritan helpers. It is about victims. No one elects to be beaten, robbed, and left for dead, Yet in this story the way to get help is to be discovered helpless. The parable as a metaphor is permission for the listener to understand himself or herself in just that way. There were many in Jesus’ society who could identify with that possibility without strain. Others could not imagine themselves being helped by a Samaritan. That is where the difference lay: how his listeners understood themselves. In the parable only victims need apply for help. The meaning of the parable cannot be made more explicit than that. Listeners may respond to the parable as they wish. They may accept help or they may refuse it. The story is not tyrannical: it does not dictate. But it does set the terms. (1996:179f)

    Finally, Funk attempts to transpose the parable into a proposition:

    In any restatement we must remember to retain something of the metaphorical quality of the parable itself. That suggests two propositions:

    1. In God’s domain helps comes only to those who have no right to expect it and cannot resist it when it is offered.
    2. Help always comes from the quarter from which one does not and cannot expect it.

    We might reduce these two statements to one:

    In God’s domain help is perpetually a surprise. (1996:180)

    Jesus Seminar

    The commentary in The Five Gospels notes:

    As a metaphorical tale that redraws the map of both the social world and the sacred world, the Seminar regarded this parable as a classic example of the provocative speech of Jesus the parabler.

     

    Samuel Lachs

    Lachs [Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament, 282] notes that some earlier interpreters considered “Samaritan” to be a change introduced by Luke to make his parable more suitable to a Gentile audience. They prefer “Israelite” or even “sinner” (am ha-aretz). More recent parables research (see Crossan and Funk above, as well as Scott below) sees the cognitive dissonance introduced by the appearance of the heroic Samaritan as essential to the point of the parable as told by Jesus.

     

    Gerd Lüdemann

    Lüdemann [Jesus, 332] reflects older German scholarship (Bultmann, Jeremias, et al) who understood this parable to be an Exemplary Story:

    The example story certainly goes back to Jesus and illustrates love of enemy (cf. Matt. 5.44a). Jesus shows how a Samaritan who is hated by the Jews performs a loving service to a Jew whom he really should have hated. The story is so impressive because it is not a Jew who loves his enemy but the Samaritan, regarded as the enemy, who loves a Jew.

    John P. Meier

    In “The Historical Jesus and the Historical Samaritans: What can be Said?” [Biblica 81 (2000) 202-32] Meier opts for the authenticity of this parable:

    Along with many critics, I consider it more likely that, while the Parable of the Good Samaritan shows the redactional style and theology of Luke in its final form and placement, it is not simply a creation of Luke but goes back to his special L tradition. The introductory dialogue between a lawyer and Jesus on the two commandments of love (Luke 10,25-29) seems to be Luke’s recycling of a tradition also found in Mark 12,28-34 || Matt 22,34-40. The exact nature of the source Luke is using (Mark? Q? L?) is debated by scholars. In any case, Luke’s need to refashion an older tradition to make it a suitable introduction to the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the fact that nevertheless the introduction does not perfectly fit what it is supposed to introduce probably indicate that the parable itself is an earlier tradition taken over by Luke and reworked for his larger theological and literary plan. Whether the parable goes back to the historical Jesus is more difficult to say, though Christian piety and sentiment, if not hard-nosed critical arguments, certainly favor the idea.

     

    B. Brandon Scott

    Brandon Scott’s most recent parables study [Re-Imagine the World] devotes a chapter to the Good Samaritan. Scott accepts that Luke has turned an older parable into an example story, and it is to the interpretation of the earlier parable that he devotes most of his discussion (pp. 55-64). While his approach to parable interpretation is very close to that of Crossan or Funk, Scott spends more time exploring some of the features of the parable: for example, the significance of the victim being left “half-dead” (Gk: hemithane):

    If the priest thinks he is dealing with a corpse, he might calculate that he must avoid it, for otherwise he would suffer impurity. According [to] the command in Leviticus, a priest is not allowed to touch a corpse. But in the Mishnah and Talmud there are extended discussions on this verse, making finer and finer graduations all to the point that if the corpse is abandoned, that takes precedence over the Leviticus rule. Taking care of an abandoned corpse takes precedence even over studying the Torah. But then again, all these fine distinctions stem from learned discussions of the rabbis, so a priest, who follows the strict construction of the Torah, might set them aside as just liberal reductions of the Torah’s true meaning. If on the other hand, “half-dead” means that the man is close to the death, then the priest’s duty is clear. He must come to the man’s aid. (p. 59f)

    In the end, Scott offers a similar interpretation of the parable to those given by his Jesus Seminar colleages, Crossan and Funk:

    A hearer has three options.
    “In real life this would never happen. It’s only a story, fiction.”
    Such a person has forfeited the parable’s opportunity of envisioning life anew. Such people remain in the same old world in which they have always dwelt. This is almost always the response of the literal minded, who refuse the option of imagination.
    A second option is to identify with the Samaritan.
    For a hearer who wants to remains in the hero’s role, that is the only alternative. For some few in Jesus’ audience this may have been an option. But such people are already different and do not live by the normal values of the Palestinian world of the first century.
    Finally, a hearer can identify with the man in the ditch.
    If we want to stay in the parable and experience a new world, that is our only available choice. Having begun the parable in expectation of playing the role of the hero, one ends in the role of the victim, being taken care of by one’s mortal and moral enemy. The parable announces that the savior is a Samaritan — the hated one. (p. 62)

    His final comment on the meaning of this parable is as follows:

    Jesus’ parable … point of view is that of the victim, the one in need of help. It proposes a new world in which the wall between us and them no longer exists and even more that one of them can come to the aid of us. (p. 64)

    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.

  • Seventh Sunday after Pentecost C (7 July 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • 2 Kings 5:1-14 & Psalm 30
    • Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16
    • Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

    First Reading: Kings and prophets in Israel and Syria

    This passage with the famous story of Naaman being healed (albeit somewhat reluctantly) by the prophet Elisha is a reminder that the ancient Kingdom of Israel was one of several small states in the region for much of the historical period covered in the Old Testament.

    Then as now, Syria enjoyed some strategic advantages over its smaller neighbours as a result of its location and size.

    Ancient Israel was sometimes an ally of Syria and at other times bitter rival.

    This passages reflects the ambivalence of the historical relationship, not least by omitting the names of either ruler so the tale becomes almost timeless.

     

     

    Second Reading: See what large letters

    As we come to the end of a series of Sunday readings from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, it is interesting to observe the personal touch as Paul apparently writes a few words of his own to a letter that has presumably been dictated to a scribe with more developed writing skills. Had he any idea that his letter would become a religious classic and eventually find its way into a Christian edition of the Bible, he may have practiced his writing skills a little more!

    Strangely, the set passage for this week omits the even more personal concluding sentences as Paul reflects on his own physical participation in the suffering of Jesus:

    From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body.
    May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.
    (Gal 6:17-18 NRSV)

    We catch a glimpse of the pain caused to Paul by the troubles in Galatia as well as a hint of his own spirituality as a devotee of Jesus in those final lines.

     

     

     

    Gospel: The mission of the 70

    Luke develops traditions that seem to come from the earliest layers of the Sayings Gospel Q, and which Matthew has also knows.

    Behind both these Gospels lies the earliest Christian practice of itinerant prophets, known from works such as the Didache but also in the practice of Paul. Indeed, the passage from Galatians 6 may preserve a version of the saying about the worker deserving his pay:

    • Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. (Gal 6:6)
    • Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. (Luke 10:7)
    • Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. (Matt 10:9-10)

    The relevant section from the Didache reads as follows:

    CHAPTER 11 – CONCERNING TEACHERS, EMISSARIES, AND PROPHETS

    TEACHERS:
    1) Whoever comes to teach you in accordance with all these things we’ve written here, receive him.
    2) But if the teacher himself goes astray, teaching another doctrine which would undermine this doctrine, do not hear him; but if his teaching provokes you to greater righteousness and increases your knowledge, welcome him.

    EMISSARIES & PROPHETS
    3) Concerning the emissaries and prophets, Deal with them according to the decree of our Teaching.

    EMISSARIES:
    4) Let every emissary that comes to you be received.
    5) But he must not remain longer than one day, unless it is absolutely necessary, in which case he may stay another. But if he stays three days, suspect him as a false prophet.
    6) When the emissary leaves, send him with only bread to sustain him to his next destination. But if he asks for money, be assured that he is a false prophet.

    PROPHETS:
    7) Do not test or judge any prophet who speaks according to the Spirit.
    8) But be warned; not everyone who speaks according to the Spirit is a prophet, but only those who walk in the Spirit. Therefore, from their consistent behaviors can you discern the false prophet.
    9) And every prophet who commands food to be brought to him in the Spirit will not eat from it, unless he is a false prophet;
    10) Every prophet will teach the truth, but if he doesn’t practice his own words, he should be regarded as a false prophet.
    11) And every prophet who has proven that they are in fact genuine, whose illustrations occasionally appear too worldly when teaching about the Body of Believers, yet he scrupulously does not teach others to copy his illustrations, shall not be judged negatively among you, for God will judge righteously. For his example came from the ancient prophets.
    12) Whoever says in the Spirit, “Give me money,” or something similar thing, do not listen to him. But if he solicites that you give to the needy, none should judge him.

    CHAPTER 12 – RECEPTION OF BELIEVERS
    1) Everyone who comes should be received, but then you should watch him. Under scrutiny you will gain insight into his character.
    2) If he is a traveler, help him according to your ability. But he should not be allowed to stay with you more than two or possibly three days.
    3) But if he desides to stay longer, and is a craftsman, put him to work.
    4) But if he is not skilled, make a careful judgment as to his living conditions as a fellow believer among you, making sure that he is not allowed to be idle.
    5) But if he doesn’t cooperate, he is a user – even trading on Christ for profit. Beware of such as this.

    CHAPTER 13 – SUPPORT OF PROPHETS
    1) Every true prophet who settles among you is deserving of his food.
    2) A true teacher is also worthy of his food.
    3) For this reason, Store all the first-fruits of your wine, grain, cattle, and sheep. Give these to the prophets, for they are your high priests.
    4) If a prophet does not reside among you, distribute it to the poor.
    5) If you make bread, give the first-fruit according to the instruction.
    6) In this manner, when you open a container of wine or oil, give the first-fruit of it to the prophets.
    7) And concerning your money, clothing, and all possessions, give the appropriate first-fruit, according to godly discretion, and give according to the instruction.
    [SOURCE: Ivan Lewis, The Teaching of Twelve 1998.]

    Since the practice of itinerant missionaries was gradually abandoned as the Christian communities became more settled, we may well be dealing with a very ancient tradition at this point.

    Interestingly, the cluster 001 Mission and Message is the most strongly attested of all the items in the Crossan Inventory.

     

     

     

    Jesus Database

    • 001 Mission and Message: (1a) 1 Cor 9:14; (1b) 1 Cor 10:27; (2) Gos. Thom. 14:2; (3) 1Q: Luke 10:(1),4-11 = Matt 10:7,10b,12-14; (4) Mark 6:7-13 = Matt 10:1,8-10a,11 = Luke 9:1-6; (5) Dial. Sav. 20 [53b, or 139:9-10]; (6) Did. 11-13 [see 11:4-6 & 13:1-2]; (7) 1 Tim 5:18b.
    • 050 Harvest Is Great: (1) Gos. Thom. 73; (2) 1Q: Luke 10:2 = Matt 9:37-38; (3) John 4:35
    • 147 Lambs Among Wolves: (1a) 1Q: Luke 10:3 = Matt 10:16a, (1b) 2 Clem. 5:2;
    • 010 Receiving the Sender: (1) 1Q: Luke 10:16 = Matt 10:40; (2) Mark 9:36-37 = Matt 18: 2,5 = Luke 9:47-48a; (3) Did. 11:4-5; (4a) John 5:23b; (4b) John 12:44-50; (4c) John 13:20; (5) Ign. Eph. 6:1.
    • 446 The Seventy Return: (1) Luke 10:17-20;

     

    Liturgies and Prayers

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

    Other recommended sites include:

    Music Suggestions

    Traditional

    • Jesus shall reign – AHB 136
    • Break thou the bread of life – AHB 334
    • Lord Jesus Christ you have come to us – AHB 451
    • We sing the praise of him who died – AHB 262

    Contemporary

    • I, the Lord of sea and sky (Here I am Lord)
    • Celtic Alleluia
    • Make me a channel of your peace
    • Sent forth by God’s blessing

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

  • Sixth Sunday after Pentecost C (30 June 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 & Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20
    • Galatians 5:1, 13-25
    • Luke 9:51-62

    First Reading: The ascension of Elijah

    In ancient Jewish tradition, Elijah becomes one of two missing mortals from the biblical narrative.

    Like Elijah, Enoch was understood to have been taken up into heaven on the basis of this information in Genesis 5:

    When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him. (Gen 5:21-24 NRSV)

    Both Enoch and Elijah become significant figures in the development of apocalyptic eschatology since they were deemed to have access to otherwise secret knowledge about the divine intentions.

    • In the case of Enoch, we have the development of the traditions now found in 1 Enoch (still part of the Ethiopian Bible), 2 Enoch (from the Old Slavonic Bible) and 3 Enoch (a Kabbalistic Jewish text).
    • In the case of Elijah we have his eschatological role in canonical texts (understood to be the messenger of the covenant in Malachi 3:1; cf. Mark 9:11-13 and parallels).

    On the significance of the ascension of Elijah for Luke, see the lectionary notes for Ascension.

    Second Reading: The fruit of the Spirit

    In this section of his letter to the Galatians, Paul is offering instructions for their life together. As part of this, he develops the idea of two contrasting sets of fruit:

    • fruit that comes from “the flesh” and needs to be constrained by the Law
    • fruit that comes from “the Spirit” and is beyond the scope of any law

    This kind of fruit is characterised by 9 different virtues:

    • love
    • joy
    • peace
    • patience
    • kindness
    • generosity
    • faithfulness
    • gentleness
    • self-control

    It is possible that Paul is developing the traditional saying attributed to Jesus – 041 Trees and Hearts, but it is perhaps more probable that a common Jewish religious metaphor lies behind all these examples. In any case, Paul does not connect his instruction with traditions about Jesus nor with a direct revelation from “the Lord.”

    Gospel: Turning towards Jerusalem

    This week’s Gospel is a significant turning point in Luke’s narrative.

    • From the baptism of Jesus by John until now, Jesus has been active in Galilee.
    • At 9:51, Jesus acts in synchronicity with his destiny and prepares to travel to Jerusalem.
    • Every incident from here on will happen “on the way to the cross”

    Luke begins with two short episodes that develop the theme of discipleship:

    • a Samaritan village refuses to offer hospitality to a pilgrimage group bound for Jerusalem
    • three would-be disciples seek excuses from the immediate cost of discipleship

    The incident with the Samaritan village is not unexpected (given what we know of Jewish/Samaritan relations at the time), but it does jar with Luke’s representation of the Samaritans in his narrative:

    • the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37)
    • the tenth leper (Luke 17:11-19)

    On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:11-19 NRSV)

    • the conversion of the Samaritans (Acts 8:5-17)

    The cost of discipleship is the major focus of this week’s passage.

    Three no-nonsense sayings capture the stark realities of discipleship:

    The first two cut right across the normal social expectations of the time, while the third underlined the sense that this journey, once chosen (whether by Jesus or by any of his followers), could not be reversed. There would be no escape clause for Jesus in the story that now begins to unfold, and there will be none for any who follow his way.

    It is interesting to observe that the final stricture (no turning back) is found only in Luke, and is not attested in the much earlier Sayings Gospel Q. Is it possible that Luke has created this saying on the model provided by the preceding example, to meet the needs of his own audience in the early 2C (or even mid-2C) when increasing social pressure might have influenced some converts to Christianity to recant?

    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

    • Amazing Grace – AHB 129
    • Brother, sister, let me serve you
    • Come as you are
    • Father welcomes all his children
    • Halle, halle
    • One church, one faith, one Lord – AHB 456
    • Rejoice in God’s saints – AHB 470

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

  • Fifth Sunday after Pentecost C (23 June 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • I Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a & Psalms 42 and 43
    • Galatians 3:23-29
    • Luke 8:26-3

    First Reading: The still small voice

    This week’s reading from 1 Kings takes us back to a point in the story prior to last week’s reading.

    Having overcome the prophets of Baal in a religious contest on Mt Carmel, Elijah flees to the traditional site of divine revelation, “Horeb, the mountain of God.” What follows is one of the classic spiritual stories of the Western religious tradition:

    At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” [1Kings 19:9-13]

    The mountain is a traditional site for a theophany in the Bible:

    • Moses (Sinai) – Exodus 3, 19, 24 and 32
    • Elijah (Horeb/Sinai) – 1 Kings 19
    • Jesus (Transfiguration) – Mark 9 and parallels

    In this case, in place of the traditional theophany signs (cloud, thunder, lightning, earthquake and fire), the awesome presence of God is communicated through “a thin whispering voice.”

    Like Moses at the burning bush, Elijah is overcome by the power of the divine powerlessness.

    Michael Macrone offers this comment on the meaning of this passage:

    What follows is a rather drawn-out introduction, in which God first teases the prophet with wind, an earthquake, and a fire before finally manifesting himself in a “still small voice” — Renaissance English for “a soft, whispering murmur”; that is, a breeze. Since this voice argues Elijah out of his mood and sets him back on a holier track, some commentators have identified it with “the voice of conscience.” Indeed, the message of these verses seems to be that God need not appear to men embodied in great natural forces — though he certainly can do this — but may also reveal himself directly, softly, and personally, like a voice in the mind. [Grace Cathedral Online]

    Second Reading: The new humanity—beyond difference

    At the heart of this week’s NT reading is the startling declaration of Paul that every traditiona distinction based on gender, race or social status ceases to have effect within the new social reality generated by the Christian community:

    As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” (Gal 3:27-29 NRSV)

    The churches have rarely lived up to the radical insights given expression in that statement, but a modern paraphrase might go something like the following:

    • There is no longer Christian West or fundamentalist Islam,
    • there is no longer First World or Third World,
    • there is no longer straights and gays;
    • for all of us are one in the Anointed Jesus

    Gospel: Jesus and the Gerasa demoniac

    In The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. (Yale UP, 2000), Dennis R. MacDonald devotes a chapter to this story. He begins by noting the typical elements of a Hellenistic exorcism tale:

    Typically told, an exorcism brings the exorcist and the demoniac (or an agent for the demoniac) into contact and then lets the exorcist and the reader learn of the victim’s condition, such as deafness, convulsions, antisocial behavior, or preternatural cognitive powers, as in Mark 1:24: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” The exorcist then rebukes the demon or demons and demands departure (the apopompe). Often the exorcist sends the spirit or spirits into the wilderness, the earth, the sea, or a living host (the epipompe). The demon may dramatize its exit by producing violent effects, and the crowd, amazed, acknowledges the exorcist’s powers. (p. 63)

    MacDonald then notes the unusual features of this account which have made many scholars question the character of this episode:

    • Of the exorcisms in the NT only this one begins with a voyage.
    • The detailed graphic description of the victim’s antisocial behavior is unparalleled.
    • The demons refuse to obey Jesus’ command to leave the man, and negotiate for more favorable terms.
    • The request for the demon’s name is unparalleled and results in a puzzling answer, “Legion, for we are many.”
    • The permission for the demons to possess a nearby herd of pigs is unparalleled.
    • The extended epilogue with the hostile reaction by the townsfolk has no parallel in any other miracle story. The witnesses usually celebrate the achievement.
    • The demoniac’s request to follow Jesus is not typical, nor is Jesus’ refusal to accept him as a disciple, and neither is the instruction for him to return home and tell everyone what Jesus has done for him. All these elements seem out of place.
    • This is the only NT exorcism that ends with a voyage.

    In looking for possible influences to explain this strange story, MacDonald suggests two well-known Homeric tales: Circe the witch (who turned Odysseus’ men into swine and would later see them drown in the sea) and the famous story of Cyclops. After several pages of detailed analysis, MacDonald offers a summary of “the remarkable density and order of parallels between the stories of the Cyclops and the Gerasene.”

    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

    • Dear Lord and Father of mankind – AHB 519
    • God, you are clothed with light – AHB 423
    • In Christ there is no East or West – AHB 391
    • Morning has broken – AHB 91
    • O Jesus I have promised to serve you – AHB 514
    • O Master, let me walk with thee – AHB 522

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

  • Fourth Sunday after Pentecost C (16 June 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • 1 Kings 21:1-10, (11-14), 15-21a & Psalm 5:1-8
    • Galatians 2:15-21
    • Luke 7:36-8:3

    First Reading: Ahab and the vineyard of Naboth

    While Ahab seems to have been one of the most successful kings in the northern kingdom of Israel, he is depicted as a deeply flawed and evil character by the Bible’s narrative:

    Omri slept with his ancestors, and was buried in Samaria; his son Ahab succeeded him.
    In the thirty-eighth year of King Asa of Judah, Ahab son of Omri began to reign over Israel; Ahab son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD more than all who were before him.
    And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a sacred pole. Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him. (1Kings 16:28-33 NRSV)

    This week’s story of the expropriation of a vineyard from its traditional owner, Naboth, represents Ahab and his wife, Jezebel, as self-serving tyrants with no regard for the covenant obligations of Israel.

    Further information about Ahab and the Omride dynasty is available at:

    Second Reading: The faith of Jesus saves

    The doctrine of justification by faith has been central to Christian theology, at least in the West, since the European Reformation.

    In popular thought this is usually expressed as being “saved through faith in Jesus Christ” and we find three such phrases in this week’s passage from Galatians:

    We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. (Gal 2:15-21 NRSV)

    The underlying Greek phrases can be translated as we see here in the NRSV, but it has also been observed that the more natural meaning in the original Greek is better expressed by phrases such as:

    • through the faith (faithfulness) of Jesus
    • justified by the faith (faithfulness) of Christ
    • by the faith (faithfulness) of the Son of God

    There is continuing debate about the best way to translate these terms, but it is clear that two very different emphases are involved. In the traditional translation since the Reformation, the emphasis falls on the faith (trust) which the Christian directs towards Jesus. In the alternative translation (which seems to reflect the meaning of the original Greek in its ancient context), the emphasis falls on the faith that Jesus practiced, or the faithfulness of Jesus, as the ground of salvation.

    (It is important to note in passing that the phrase “And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus” (v 16) is an entirely different concept. The Greek text is kai hemeis eis Christo Iesoun episteusamen – and the phrase is intended to describe the belief in Jesus that Paul and his readers share.)

    The case for the less familiar translation is strengthened when we notice that in Romans 4, where we find similar ideas and terms used by Paul, the salvation flowing to the Jews on the basis of Abraham’s faithfulness is contrasted with the faithfulness flowing to all people on the basis of Jesus’ faithfulness.

    Gospel: A slippery scene at Simon’s home

    There are four versions of this story in the NT:

    • They are available in a horizontal line synopsis at Lent 5C.

    Lüdemann comments on the Mark passage: “The historical yield of the tradition is nil. But it does reflect the closeness of Jesus to a probably notorious woman of Galilee (cf. on Luke 7:36-50).” [Jesus, 94]

    In his comments on the Lucan version, Lüdemann suggests that Luke knew the Mark story yet deviated from his usual practice of following Mark closely in the passion account in order to bring this story (in an amended form) to an earlier location in his Gospel. He notes the addition of explicit mention of the sinner status of the woman in vss 37 and 39 (and the forgiveness of her many sins in vss 47, 48, 49). He then concludes:

    If the story of the woman who was a sinner must be regarded as a mere development of Mark 14:3-9 it is unhistorical. But as the encounter of Jesus with a prostitute comes from the Lucan special tradition, this may be historical. For the contact of Jesus with shady people is a fact. The historicity of the encounter of Jesus with a prostitute is supported by the criterion of offensiveness. (p. 308)

    The judgement of the Jesus Seminar is summarised in The Five Gospels:

    This story has been recounted by all four narrative gospels. There are significant variations in the four versions, yet there is also remarkable agreement on the basic ingredients of the tale. The setting of all versions is a meal, or symposium, at which the owner of the house is present. A woman anoints Jesus during the meal (not before or after it) with a jar of perfume. Members of the party object to the woman’s action and Jesus defends her. The similarities in the setting and plot suggest that one incident or story lies behind all four versions. Yet because of the variations in other details, the Fellows of the Seminar decided that the original version of the incident is irretrievable.

    Gene Stecher’s poetic reflection on this episode explores the keyword, kalon (beautiful/good thing).

    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

    • Alleluia No 1
    • Amazing Grace – AHB 556
    • He is Lord
    • My song is love unknown – AHB 257
    • O worship the king, all-glorious above – AHB 67
    • Shout for joy
    • The Summons

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

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