When I attended the Society of Biblical Literature convention this past November, I purchased a book that I'd not yet seen, The Bible as Christian Scripture: The Work of Brevard S. Childs, edited by Christopher R. Seitz and Kent Harold Richards.
Childs (1923-2007), was professor of Old Testament at Yale in 1958 till 1999 (and Sterling Professor in 1992-1999) He was known for his "canonical criticism," which focused upon the biblical text as canon, in contrast to the historical-critical method. He wrote several books, a notable one of which was Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (1979). I was very privileged to have him as my Old Testament professor at Yale Divinity School during the Fall 1979 semester, when that book was just beginning to be discussed. I am diligently searching for a letter he wrote to me in the early 00s in response to a grateful letter that I had sent to him.
During these past several years of renewing my personal Bible study, I've enjoyed studying again not only his Introduction book but some of his others. The past few weeks I've been enjoying reading through Seitz's and Richards' book, a tribute and assessment of Childs' work. (I didn't know Seitz but I vaguely remember that he was an Old Testament doctoral student at the time I did my masters degree there.)
The contents of the book:
Preface by Christopher R. Seitz
The Works of Brevard Springs Childs
Tribute to Brevard S. Childs, at the International SBL Meeting in Vienna, Austria, by Christopher R. Seitz.
Brevard Childs and Form Criticism, by David L. Petersen
The Wrath of God at Mount Sinai (Exod 32; Deut 9–10), by Jörg Jeremias
The Contrastive Unity of Scripture: On the Hermeneutics of the Biblical Canon, by Bernd Kanowski
Brevard Childs as a Historical Critic: Divine Concession and the Unity of the Canon, by Stephen B. Chapman
Theological Interpretation, the Historical Formation of Scripture, and God’s Action in Time, by Neil B. MacDonald
Faith Seeking Canonical Understanding: Childs’s Guide to the Pauline Letters, by Leander E. Keck
Childs and the History of Interpretation, by Mark W. Elliott
Biblical Theology and the Communicative Presence of God, by Murray A. Rae
The Doctrine of God is a Hermeneutic: The Biblical Theology of Brevard S. Childs, by C. Kavin Rowe
A Shared Reality: Ontology in Brevard Childs’s Isaiah Commentary, by Mark Gignilliat
A Tale of Two Testaments: Childs, Old Testament Torah, and Heilsgeschichte, by Don Collett
Reflections on the Rule of Faith, by Leonard G. Finn
Childs and the Canon or Rule of Faith, by Daniel R. Driver
Psalm 34: Redaction, Inner-Biblical Exegesis and the Longer Psalm Superscriptions—“Mistake” Making and Theological Significance, by Christopher R. Seitz
Allegory and Typology within Biblical Interpretation, by Brevard S. Childs
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Sunday, January 17, 2016
Thursday, May 21, 2015
The Pentateuch
This past winter, before the hectic semester began, I took notes from the enjoyable article on the Pentateuch in the New Interpreter’s Bible Dictionary. The author, R. W. L. Moberly, discusses issues of interpretation and content. For instance, narrative tensions can be found throughout the various books. Isaac’s blessing of his two sons (Genesis 27) implies that Isaac was near death; but Isaac died years later, after Jacob returns from his fourteen years with Laban (Genesis 29:15-30, 35:27-29) (p. 432). The number of Israelites who left Egypt seem to be a comparatively smaller group---that can be accommodated by twelve springs and by water produced from a rock (Ex. 15:27, 17:6). But elsewhere the narrative describes the group as 600,000 men on food, not including women and children, or nearly two millions people (p. 433).
Another contrast is the status of women: Exodus 20:17 places “wife” after “house,” while the corresponding commandment in Deuteronomy (5:21) places wife before house. Similarly, Deuteronomy 22:22 makes a woman accountable for her actions, although in Genesis, when Sarah is taken into Pharaoh’s harem (and later Abimelech’s), it is Abraham who is accountable (Genesis 12:18-19, 20:10) (p. 433).
Still another contrast is the difference between the Ten Commandments, usually in small details, but notably in the difference between the Exodus and Deuteronomy versions of the Sabbath commandment, where two different reasons for the commandment are given (Ex. 20:11, Deut. 5;15) (p. 433).
The article lists several similar examples, reflecting the different traditions that have been brought together in the writing and editing of what became the canonical text. But I was particularly interested in points made in the section "Genesis as ‘the Old Testament of the Old Testament’" (p. 434-435). The focus is on the fact that, in Exodus 3:13-15, God reveals the divine name to Moses as a new name, and in Exodus 6:2-3, it is stated that the patriarchs knew God, not as YHWH but as El Shaddai. But in Genesis, God uses the divine name (Gen. 15:7, 28:13), and the name is frequently used throughout the book (p. 434).
A possible explanation is that, for the hypothesized writers named as the Elohist and the Priestly sources, the divine name was made known to Moses but not before, while the source called the Jahwist used the divine name all along, in Genesis 2, in Gen. 4:26, and so on. Still, these different traditions were preserved together when Genesis was written. (Another explanation is that the divine name was familiar to the authors and used in the test, even if it is anachronistic: p. 435.)
Moberly writes that the divine name becomes attached to the covenant of Moses and therefore to holiness and exclusivity (as in Exodus 12, where the Egyptians did not known the true God.) And yet, the Lord named by the divine name YHWH is traditionally called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob---Moses' forebearers. As Moberly puts it, “The one God can apparently be known in markedly different ways. This poses the ancient problem: how should one recognize as religiously authoritative material that is full of religious practices different from or even forbidden by Mosaic torah (compare, e.g., Jacob’s setting up a pillar in Gene. 28:18 with the strong prohbition of such in Deut. 16:22)?” (p. 435).
Moberly suggests that the patriarchs “become types and/or figures of Israel” for instance, Abraham’s journey to Egypt. The Abraham stories aren’t rewritten to reflect later religious realities but they remain authoritative heritage for Israel. Christians, of course, do the same thing in their interepretation of Abraham, Moses, and other aspects of the Old Testament (p 435).
Another interesting point made in the article concerns the Shema, not only Deut. 6:4-5 but also Deut. 6:6-9. Christians tend to ignore 6-9 as Jewish practices. Yet Christians feel scriptural obligations to follow other teachings of scripture (as in the "do this" of 1 Cor. 11:23-26, et al.). It’s just that Christians have appropriated other practices for their own heritage. "Of course, some Christians traditionally have practiced equivalent to those of Deut. 6:6-9, most obviously int he regular recital of the Lord's Prayer and in the display of the prime Christian symbol of the cross---often on a necklace but also over the gates of critics in the historic Christian empire of Byzantium, where they symbolically depicted the identity and allegiance of the place one was entering, just as Deut. 6:9 envisages the working of the Shema doing for Israel's homes (private space) and cities (public space). Deuteronomy does not envisage the recital and display of an equivalent to the Shema, but of the Shema itself. Yet Christians only receive Deuteronomy as part of the larger canon of Scripture… and that makes the difference" (p. 437).
Another contrast is the status of women: Exodus 20:17 places “wife” after “house,” while the corresponding commandment in Deuteronomy (5:21) places wife before house. Similarly, Deuteronomy 22:22 makes a woman accountable for her actions, although in Genesis, when Sarah is taken into Pharaoh’s harem (and later Abimelech’s), it is Abraham who is accountable (Genesis 12:18-19, 20:10) (p. 433).
Still another contrast is the difference between the Ten Commandments, usually in small details, but notably in the difference between the Exodus and Deuteronomy versions of the Sabbath commandment, where two different reasons for the commandment are given (Ex. 20:11, Deut. 5;15) (p. 433).
The article lists several similar examples, reflecting the different traditions that have been brought together in the writing and editing of what became the canonical text. But I was particularly interested in points made in the section "Genesis as ‘the Old Testament of the Old Testament’" (p. 434-435). The focus is on the fact that, in Exodus 3:13-15, God reveals the divine name to Moses as a new name, and in Exodus 6:2-3, it is stated that the patriarchs knew God, not as YHWH but as El Shaddai. But in Genesis, God uses the divine name (Gen. 15:7, 28:13), and the name is frequently used throughout the book (p. 434).
A possible explanation is that, for the hypothesized writers named as the Elohist and the Priestly sources, the divine name was made known to Moses but not before, while the source called the Jahwist used the divine name all along, in Genesis 2, in Gen. 4:26, and so on. Still, these different traditions were preserved together when Genesis was written. (Another explanation is that the divine name was familiar to the authors and used in the test, even if it is anachronistic: p. 435.)
Moberly writes that the divine name becomes attached to the covenant of Moses and therefore to holiness and exclusivity (as in Exodus 12, where the Egyptians did not known the true God.) And yet, the Lord named by the divine name YHWH is traditionally called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob---Moses' forebearers. As Moberly puts it, “The one God can apparently be known in markedly different ways. This poses the ancient problem: how should one recognize as religiously authoritative material that is full of religious practices different from or even forbidden by Mosaic torah (compare, e.g., Jacob’s setting up a pillar in Gene. 28:18 with the strong prohbition of such in Deut. 16:22)?” (p. 435).
Moberly suggests that the patriarchs “become types and/or figures of Israel” for instance, Abraham’s journey to Egypt. The Abraham stories aren’t rewritten to reflect later religious realities but they remain authoritative heritage for Israel. Christians, of course, do the same thing in their interepretation of Abraham, Moses, and other aspects of the Old Testament (p 435).
Another interesting point made in the article concerns the Shema, not only Deut. 6:4-5 but also Deut. 6:6-9. Christians tend to ignore 6-9 as Jewish practices. Yet Christians feel scriptural obligations to follow other teachings of scripture (as in the "do this" of 1 Cor. 11:23-26, et al.). It’s just that Christians have appropriated other practices for their own heritage. "Of course, some Christians traditionally have practiced equivalent to those of Deut. 6:6-9, most obviously int he regular recital of the Lord's Prayer and in the display of the prime Christian symbol of the cross---often on a necklace but also over the gates of critics in the historic Christian empire of Byzantium, where they symbolically depicted the identity and allegiance of the place one was entering, just as Deut. 6:9 envisages the working of the Shema doing for Israel's homes (private space) and cities (public space). Deuteronomy does not envisage the recital and display of an equivalent to the Shema, but of the Shema itself. Yet Christians only receive Deuteronomy as part of the larger canon of Scripture… and that makes the difference" (p. 437).
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Traveling Mercies
I met the Old Testament professor Walter Brueggemann the other day. I was working on a new writing project at our nearby coffee shop, and he came in for coffee because he was in town for a local event. I was a little starstruck as I introduced myself and told him I used his books in some of my classes.
A few days later, my project took me into his commentary on Exodus (1), and I was intrigued by his thoughts about the tabernacle. As always on this blog, my thoughts here aren't "mine" at all but are notes about the Bible from books I like.
Here is the concluding paragraph (NRSV) of Exodus:
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of their journey; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.
Brueggemann contrasts the presence of the Lord in the tabernable, with the fact that the tabernable by its nature is portable for the Israelite’s journey. Sometimes it is the Ark of the Covenant that “contains” the presence (as in Numbers 10:33-36). In this Exodus text, the presence is contained in the cloud and the fire. “One can see that, in the collage of ark-cloud-fire-glory, Israel struggles to articulate presence that is powerfully known and confidentally trusted but that has not been made directly available for administration” (p. 979).
This articulation of presence has its dangers, as in priestly elitism, and overstatement concerning presence. Nevertheless, the presence of God in the tabernacle shows “God’s own resolve and commitment” to the community, to limit God’s freedom as it were to accompany the community journeying “in a world of emptied, one-dimensional profanation” (p. 979).
The dual themes of “abiding presence” and “traveling fidelity” continues in the New Tetament, with Jesus abiding with his people (e.g., John 14:23) and journeying “on the way” with the disciples---and authorizing them to journey and travel, too, as he is promises to be “with you always” (Matt. 28:19-20) (p. 980). It isn't just a matter of God's omnipresence, but also God's pledge to accompany us.
In this passage there is also the powerful theology of “traveling mercies.” Brueggemann points out that the promises of God’s presence has already been seen in Gen. 28;15 and 46:4), and see see it here, as well as the psalms. (p. 980).
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil (Ps. 23:4a).
Because you have made the Lord your refuge,
the Most High your dwelling-place,
no evil shall befall you,
no scourge come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the adder,
he young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot (Ps. 91:9-13).
The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life (Ps. 121:5-7).
Our dearest theological ideas have to come from somewhere, and the promise that God accompanies the faithful is rooted here in Torah.
Note:
1. Walter Brueggemann, "The Book of Exodus," in The New Interpreter's Bible, vol. 1 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994).
A few days later, my project took me into his commentary on Exodus (1), and I was intrigued by his thoughts about the tabernacle. As always on this blog, my thoughts here aren't "mine" at all but are notes about the Bible from books I like.
Here is the concluding paragraph (NRSV) of Exodus:
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of their journey; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.
Brueggemann contrasts the presence of the Lord in the tabernable, with the fact that the tabernable by its nature is portable for the Israelite’s journey. Sometimes it is the Ark of the Covenant that “contains” the presence (as in Numbers 10:33-36). In this Exodus text, the presence is contained in the cloud and the fire. “One can see that, in the collage of ark-cloud-fire-glory, Israel struggles to articulate presence that is powerfully known and confidentally trusted but that has not been made directly available for administration” (p. 979).
This articulation of presence has its dangers, as in priestly elitism, and overstatement concerning presence. Nevertheless, the presence of God in the tabernacle shows “God’s own resolve and commitment” to the community, to limit God’s freedom as it were to accompany the community journeying “in a world of emptied, one-dimensional profanation” (p. 979).
The dual themes of “abiding presence” and “traveling fidelity” continues in the New Tetament, with Jesus abiding with his people (e.g., John 14:23) and journeying “on the way” with the disciples---and authorizing them to journey and travel, too, as he is promises to be “with you always” (Matt. 28:19-20) (p. 980). It isn't just a matter of God's omnipresence, but also God's pledge to accompany us.
In this passage there is also the powerful theology of “traveling mercies.” Brueggemann points out that the promises of God’s presence has already been seen in Gen. 28;15 and 46:4), and see see it here, as well as the psalms. (p. 980).
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil (Ps. 23:4a).
Because you have made the Lord your refuge,
the Most High your dwelling-place,
no evil shall befall you,
no scourge come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the adder,
he young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot (Ps. 91:9-13).
The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life (Ps. 121:5-7).
Our dearest theological ideas have to come from somewhere, and the promise that God accompanies the faithful is rooted here in Torah.
Note:
1. Walter Brueggemann, "The Book of Exodus," in The New Interpreter's Bible, vol. 1 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994).
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Journeys Home to God: Hosea
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| from oca.org |
1. The book has three sections chapters 1-3, 4-11, and 12-14. Chapters 1-3 concern Hosea’s relationship with his adulterous wife, Gomer, and their three children. But the people of Israel worship false Gods, which is “adultery” to God. God wants to reconcile with his “wife,” as Hosea does so with Gomer (ch. 3) (p. 198). As Gomer loves many men, the Israelites love the Canaanite fertility gods, the baals (p. 200).
2. Chapters 4-11 change the metaphor of God and Israel to parent and child; here, the child is rebellious. As with an adulterous wife, a rebellious child could be punished (p. with death but God does not want that, as summarized in the well known chapter 11 (p. 198). In 12-14, the two metaphors are interwoven, again with a good ending as land is restored to beauty and bounty (p. 198).
3. Within each section are important structures, as illustrated by the way chapters 3, 11, and 14 conclude the sections. The sections tell part of a story: of Hosea and Gomer, of God the husband and Israel the wife, of God the parent and Israel the child. Each section also has a “journey motif”: of the wife/son making a journey back to the huband/parent, and of the people journeying from exile back to the land (p. 198). For instance, as the earlier israelites journeyed from Egyptian exile to the land, so will the “son” (the people of Hosea’s time) journey back to and enjoy the good land, if they repent (11:10-11) (p. 235).
4. With these journey’s of repentance to faith and of exile to home, there are also journeys from barrenness to bounty, with the fertility of the wife (a theme elsewhere in scripture) symbolizing the fertility of the land (p. 198). “Hope” passages (5:15-6:3, 10:12, 11:10-11) are included in order to help motivate readers, too, to repent (p. 234). In chapters 4-11, the journey from barrenness to fertility begins at 6:1-3 (p. 250). Needless to say, Hosea believes that fertility does not come from the baals who are gods of the rain, but from the true God who is creator and lord of all creation (p. 200).
5. Interestingly, too, the worship of baals was an intrinsic part of worship of the Lord, as reflected in Hosea (3:4, 4:11-19, 10:1-2, 5, 8, 9:1-3, 13:2, 14:8). The baal worship was itself a “journey” of barrenness and death toward newness of life, and although the exact nature of this combination of Israelite and Canaanite worship is now difficult to reconstruct, the Israelites would not have thought such practices inappropriate. Hosea, of course, strongly condemned Baal worship as adulterous and rebellious (pp. 202-203).
6. Also interesting is the relationship of the 8th century Hosea and 6th century deuteronomistic history. The condemnation of idolatry is a strong theme of both, and Yee discusses the possible influence of Hosea upon the later history as well as redaction and editing of the Hosea material (pp. 204-206).
7. Memory is a component of the journey. Hosea connects the people of his time back to the earlier Israelites who journeyed from Egypt to the land (9:10, 11:1, 11:3-4). Of course, the faithfulness and provision of the Lord is the key thing to remember and reclaim (p. 279).
8. Unfortunately, the people of Hosea’s time were, indeed, cast into exile when they were defeated by the Assyrians. As Yee writes, "the Hosean text challenges us to reckon seriously with the religious and political choices before us… Hosea warns us that we, too, can ‘return to Egypt,’ if we turn a blind eye to racial/ethnic tensions and hostilities in our midst” (p. 279).
Themes of marriage and parent/child continue in the New Testament. God's Son Jesus Christ is, of course, one of God's people the Jews. Seeking a non-supersessionist way to think about this, I would say that rabbinic Judaism continued to strive to be faithful to God's Torah as Christians look to Christ who redeems the church as the in-grafted branch. Paul uses the marriage imagery to speak of the relationship of Christ and the church as analogous to God toward Israel and to the husband-wife relationship.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Moving Over to "Journeys Home"
Because of increased upcoming work in college and seminary course preparation, and a grant proposal that I plan to write for an early fall deadline, I'm going to stop posting at this blog for the time being. But I still continue to post regularly at my "Journeys Home" blog, accessible here. Posts at that blog will include short Bible studies and meditations, as I've already been posting at both sites. Feel free to continue browsing my posts at this site and the essays at my "Love of Bible Study site, accessible here.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Staying Strong in Faith
Have you ever noticed the New Testament disciple Demas (Δημᾶς, pronounced day-MAS)? Possibly not, since he only appears three times, at the end of letters.
My mom used to own a collection of Harry Emerson Fosdick's sermons, and in one sermon he made a hypothetical case about the stages of Demas' loss of faith (or, at least, Demas' commitment to Paul's difficult ministry).
Fosdick noted that, in Philemon 23-24, Paul lists him ahead of Luke. Here is the NRSV:
Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow-workers.
Then in Colossians 4:14, among his greetings and acknowledgments, Paul (assuming Pauline authorship of this letter) mentions Luke first, and then Demas:
Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you.
In 2 Timothy 4:9-11, Paul writes:
Do your best to come to me soon, for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry.
Fosdick suggested a regression of Demas' devotion: first he is listed ahead of Luke (implying his importance to Paul), and then he is listed after Luke, implying a drop in importance. In the third verse, Paul regrets that Demas has abandoned him because he loved the world more than the Gospel. (I read that the name is used by John Bunyan for a deceiver in The Pilgrim's Progress.)
Perhaps that isn’t fair. It's not hard to imagine that Paul wasn’t easy to get along with! Paul, like many preachers following him, was singleminded in his efforts. I remember a pastor whom I met casually years ago. He made the comment to someone that Satan had been sending him the wrong persons to assist in his ministry. I thought that was a rather arrogant thing to say. He should have been more humble and said that his assistants had so far been incompatible with his own personality, style, and goals, which does happen in workplaces.
But one’s religious faith and devotion can certainly flag. That's not hard to imagine, either. Many times my faith has become tired and discouraged, especially in the face of difficulties outside my control and times of distress. Tired of feeling worried about certain things, I'm currently seeking God's help to grow in my trust in the Lord.
Thus, in Paul's letters as well as Hebrews and also the Gospels, that we should seek to stay strong in our faith and not to lose heart. Just two passages that come to mind: 2 Cor. 4:16-18 and Gal. 6:9. Can you think of others?
One hopes that Demas found other chances to be a disciple, just as we all hope that God continues to work in our lives when we are weary, or when we drift or stumble.
My mom used to own a collection of Harry Emerson Fosdick's sermons, and in one sermon he made a hypothetical case about the stages of Demas' loss of faith (or, at least, Demas' commitment to Paul's difficult ministry).
Fosdick noted that, in Philemon 23-24, Paul lists him ahead of Luke. Here is the NRSV:
Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow-workers.
Then in Colossians 4:14, among his greetings and acknowledgments, Paul (assuming Pauline authorship of this letter) mentions Luke first, and then Demas:
Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you.
In 2 Timothy 4:9-11, Paul writes:
Do your best to come to me soon, for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry.
Fosdick suggested a regression of Demas' devotion: first he is listed ahead of Luke (implying his importance to Paul), and then he is listed after Luke, implying a drop in importance. In the third verse, Paul regrets that Demas has abandoned him because he loved the world more than the Gospel. (I read that the name is used by John Bunyan for a deceiver in The Pilgrim's Progress.)
Perhaps that isn’t fair. It's not hard to imagine that Paul wasn’t easy to get along with! Paul, like many preachers following him, was singleminded in his efforts. I remember a pastor whom I met casually years ago. He made the comment to someone that Satan had been sending him the wrong persons to assist in his ministry. I thought that was a rather arrogant thing to say. He should have been more humble and said that his assistants had so far been incompatible with his own personality, style, and goals, which does happen in workplaces.
But one’s religious faith and devotion can certainly flag. That's not hard to imagine, either. Many times my faith has become tired and discouraged, especially in the face of difficulties outside my control and times of distress. Tired of feeling worried about certain things, I'm currently seeking God's help to grow in my trust in the Lord.
Thus, in Paul's letters as well as Hebrews and also the Gospels, that we should seek to stay strong in our faith and not to lose heart. Just two passages that come to mind: 2 Cor. 4:16-18 and Gal. 6:9. Can you think of others?
One hopes that Demas found other chances to be a disciple, just as we all hope that God continues to work in our lives when we are weary, or when we drift or stumble.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Jesus Has Compassion
Sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Pentecost.... My parents are both gone now. My mother died this past September and my father died back in 1999. Like everyone else, I struggle to have a growing faith and to have a peaceful, trusting heart in the face of life’s difficulties, which definitely isn’t always easy. Grief from a family loss is a very major thing to face. I have to say, though, that all the biblical promises of eternal life and heaven helped me tremendously as I contemplated the fulfillment of those promises for my mother, who was 93 and had been ill and infirm for many years.
I like to think of Christ's death and resurrection as bringing about a kind of reality, which is forceful and real for us today. Our sins and wrongdoings and failures (and our smallness in the universe) have no more force to separate us from God, because we’re protected in that resurrection reality.
Eternal life is like being kept in a protective and secure place, out of reach of danger. Obviously, we still face difficult and dangerous, painful situations. But if we have a relationship with Christ, then Christ keeps us out of reach of the full powers of death and evil. Our very lives are tucked away and protected, because we’re already sharing in the divine life of Christ. We have a new identity for the remainder of our physical existence, characterized and empowered by God’s tremendous and infinite love.
Nothing we do in this life can separate us from God’s great love, because we have already died and been buried, so to speak, because the physical death we will eventually----awful as death is---has been rendered impotent as far as our eternal life is concern. Now, we continue to live our physical lives, which are temporary and ephemeral, but our true, new life, which is in God, is “hidden with Christ.” Baptism is a sign of this safekeeping, our “burial” with Christ, so that as Christ is buried we are buried with him, and as he has risen from death so too will we be raised to eternal life.
These two stories, from 1 Kings and Luke’s gospel, are traditionally paired together. If you study them side by side, they parallel one another. Scholars think that Luke must have written the story in order for it to parallel the Elijah story, since structurally and thematically they’re very similar.
Elijah and Jesus both approached the gate of the town, they both immediately met a widow whose son had died. Both Elijah and Jesus had compassion, with Elijah’s expressed as a cry to the Lord and Jesus’ by the time he took to address the situation. Also, Elijah’s compassion was expressed in the way he reached out to a Gentile woman, while Jesus reached out to someone who was simply passing by while he was doing something else. In both stories, the son is given back to the mother, and also in both stories, Elijah and Jesus are both recognized as persons from God.
When I took an introduction to religion course during my freshman year of college, I learned my first “cool” biblical word, and it happens to be used in Luke’s story. The Greek work is splagchnizomai, which is translated “to have compassion,” but it is euphemism because the literal meaning is “to feel yearning in the bowels”---or, as we might say, “to feel it in the gut,” a gut feeling. In other words, Jesus felt compassion in his deepest inner being.
This is an important thing to remember in this story, as Jesus was moving along with a large crowd following him and the disciples. He noticed another large crowd---dueling crowds, so to speak, but this second crowd was following the widow and her dead son. One of my commentaries quotes the epistle from James, that true religion is “to care for orphans and widows in their distress” (1:27). Obviously Jesus had power to help the widow and raise up the Son, but hypothetically he could have going on his way without discovering what the other crowd was about.
Jesus’ reaction, though, was compassion.
I’d like for us to think about that for a minute. One day my mother made an offhand comment that she wondered if she was good enough to go to Heaven. I kind of hit the ceiling---because she was a lifelong churchgoer and I wished she had a more confident understanding of the gospel. But as we chatted, I did wonder if we do a good enough job communicating to people that salvation is a free gift.
Being with God in our life and after our death is completely a gift from God. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms, I go to prepare a place for you.” Jesus didn’t say, “I go to prepare a place for you but only if provide good drywall and do the wiring.” It is completely Christ’s work that gets us a room in Heaven.
But I think, how sad it would be if you were a person in a hard situation, many very scared and the thing you needed most was a message of God’s great love and God’s free gift of salvation. But you feel like you should've volunteered more at church, you should have done this or that, you didn't resolve this or that conflict. Sunday, the pastor might be preaching sermon about how you need to step up and volunteer more. You end up climbing to the notion that you have to earn God’s grace and work hard to get to Heaven.
But our scriprtures this morning teach us that Jesus responds with compassion to our weaknesses and our struggles. When we’re at the end of our lives, he isn’t checking his notes to see if we’ve passed muster with him, like a fussy boss----he has already surrounded us with more love than we can realize.
That might be just a good all-around phrase to memorize and recite to ourselves when we’re in a bad way, and in particularly if we’re facing our own mortality: “Jesus has compassion....”
I like to think of Christ's death and resurrection as bringing about a kind of reality, which is forceful and real for us today. Our sins and wrongdoings and failures (and our smallness in the universe) have no more force to separate us from God, because we’re protected in that resurrection reality.
Eternal life is like being kept in a protective and secure place, out of reach of danger. Obviously, we still face difficult and dangerous, painful situations. But if we have a relationship with Christ, then Christ keeps us out of reach of the full powers of death and evil. Our very lives are tucked away and protected, because we’re already sharing in the divine life of Christ. We have a new identity for the remainder of our physical existence, characterized and empowered by God’s tremendous and infinite love.
Nothing we do in this life can separate us from God’s great love, because we have already died and been buried, so to speak, because the physical death we will eventually----awful as death is---has been rendered impotent as far as our eternal life is concern. Now, we continue to live our physical lives, which are temporary and ephemeral, but our true, new life, which is in God, is “hidden with Christ.” Baptism is a sign of this safekeeping, our “burial” with Christ, so that as Christ is buried we are buried with him, and as he has risen from death so too will we be raised to eternal life.
These two stories, from 1 Kings and Luke’s gospel, are traditionally paired together. If you study them side by side, they parallel one another. Scholars think that Luke must have written the story in order for it to parallel the Elijah story, since structurally and thematically they’re very similar.
Elijah and Jesus both approached the gate of the town, they both immediately met a widow whose son had died. Both Elijah and Jesus had compassion, with Elijah’s expressed as a cry to the Lord and Jesus’ by the time he took to address the situation. Also, Elijah’s compassion was expressed in the way he reached out to a Gentile woman, while Jesus reached out to someone who was simply passing by while he was doing something else. In both stories, the son is given back to the mother, and also in both stories, Elijah and Jesus are both recognized as persons from God.
When I took an introduction to religion course during my freshman year of college, I learned my first “cool” biblical word, and it happens to be used in Luke’s story. The Greek work is splagchnizomai, which is translated “to have compassion,” but it is euphemism because the literal meaning is “to feel yearning in the bowels”---or, as we might say, “to feel it in the gut,” a gut feeling. In other words, Jesus felt compassion in his deepest inner being.
This is an important thing to remember in this story, as Jesus was moving along with a large crowd following him and the disciples. He noticed another large crowd---dueling crowds, so to speak, but this second crowd was following the widow and her dead son. One of my commentaries quotes the epistle from James, that true religion is “to care for orphans and widows in their distress” (1:27). Obviously Jesus had power to help the widow and raise up the Son, but hypothetically he could have going on his way without discovering what the other crowd was about.
Jesus’ reaction, though, was compassion.
I’d like for us to think about that for a minute. One day my mother made an offhand comment that she wondered if she was good enough to go to Heaven. I kind of hit the ceiling---because she was a lifelong churchgoer and I wished she had a more confident understanding of the gospel. But as we chatted, I did wonder if we do a good enough job communicating to people that salvation is a free gift.
Being with God in our life and after our death is completely a gift from God. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms, I go to prepare a place for you.” Jesus didn’t say, “I go to prepare a place for you but only if provide good drywall and do the wiring.” It is completely Christ’s work that gets us a room in Heaven.
But I think, how sad it would be if you were a person in a hard situation, many very scared and the thing you needed most was a message of God’s great love and God’s free gift of salvation. But you feel like you should've volunteered more at church, you should have done this or that, you didn't resolve this or that conflict. Sunday, the pastor might be preaching sermon about how you need to step up and volunteer more. You end up climbing to the notion that you have to earn God’s grace and work hard to get to Heaven.
But our scriprtures this morning teach us that Jesus responds with compassion to our weaknesses and our struggles. When we’re at the end of our lives, he isn’t checking his notes to see if we’ve passed muster with him, like a fussy boss----he has already surrounded us with more love than we can realize.
That might be just a good all-around phrase to memorize and recite to ourselves when we’re in a bad way, and in particularly if we’re facing our own mortality: “Jesus has compassion....”
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