Gospel for August 13, 2023

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 14:22-33 
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Jesus seeks a few hours of solitude, and even this sets the stage for a remarkable miracle. We are reminded that Jesus had been teaching on one shore of the Sea of Galilee, and he and his disciples had sailed across the lake to a deserted place.  But the crowds had followed the shoreline and met him on the other side of the lake.  There, Jesus fed more than five thousand by multiplying the five loaves and two fish (Matthew 14:14-21).

But now, there is a sense of insistence as he sends the disciples and the multitudes away.  Matthew uses the word Immediately, conveying this sense of insistence:

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat, and to go ahead of him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.

Jesus finally finds some moments of solitude.  But this is not the solitude of a hermit.  He seeks fellowship with the Father:

After he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain by himself to pray. When evening had come, he was there alone.

Meanwhile, though, his disciples are in trouble.  Note the contrast of Jesus’ calm with the turbulence the disciples are experiencing without his presence among them:

 But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, distressed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

Jesus comes to them in the fourth watch of the night, which is sometime between 3:00 a.m. and sunrise.  Astonishingly, Jesus is walking on the turbulent sea! Predictably, the disciples are terrified.  In this early predawn light, they can’t quite make out what this is:

they were troubled, saying, “It’s a ghost!” and they cried out for fear.

But Jesus hasn’t come to them in order to frighten them.  He has come in order to reassure and comfort them:

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying “Cheer up! It is I! Don’t be afraid.”

His words are pregnant with significance.

First, he says:

Cheer up!

To our modern ears, this sounds a little lighter than it really is, like someone speaking to a friend who failed a test at school.  The Greek word used in Matthew’s Gospel is tharseite from the root tharreow. Grammatically, the mood is an imperative.  He is commanding his disciples to be of good cheer.  The etymology of this word is interesting — according to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament edited by G. Kittel, the root meaning is to dare, be bold, be of good courage, be cheerful, be confident.  He isn’t simply saying “Be happy, don’t worry.”  As their Lord, he commands them to take courage.  The same word is used when he is preparing the disciples for his imminent arrest and death in John’s Gospel, during his long discourse at the Passover meal in the Upper Room:

In the world you have oppression; but cheer up! I have overcome the world (John 16:33, emphasis mine).

Second, Jesus tells them:

It is I!

The Greek text actually reads ego eimi, which literally means “I am.”  It doesn’t require a stretch of the imagination to connect this statement with the various I am statements Jesus makes of himself in the Gospel of John (I am the bread of life, John 6:35. I am the light of the world, John 8:12.  I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM, John 8:58, etc). And it is no long leap to draw the connection with the encounter of God with Moses at the burning bush, when Moses asks God’s name:

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14).

As we shall shortly see, this I am phrase in the mouth of Jesus demonstrates his self-awareness that he is identified with the Father.  He is God incarnate.

Third, Jesus tells them:

Don’t be afraid.

This phrase is a familiar refrain throughout the Biblical witness whenever a mortal encounters God or God’s emissaries.  God says this to Abram when he confirms his covenant, when Abram is losing confidence in the promises (Genesis 15:1). And the angel of God says this to Hagar when she and her son Ishmael have been abandoned in the wilderness by Abraham (Genesis 21:17).  Moses says it to the Israelites when they are trapped between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea (Exodus 14:13).  The angel of the Lord says the same to Mary when he announces she will be the mother of Jesus (Luke 1:30); to Joseph when he hesitates to take Mary as his wife (Matthew 1:20); and to the shepherds near Bethlehem when Jesus was born (Luke 2:10).

All of this, and other examples that might be included, are reminders that an encounter with the living God and his angels and prophets is a fearful and terrifying experience. Jesus is calming his frightened friends.

Peter characteristically reacts impulsively to this phenomenon:

 “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the waters.”

Jesus invites Peter to come — and of course when Peter finds himself walking on the waves, and is buffeted by the winds, he loses his nerve and begins to sink into the water.  As he sinks, he cries out:

 “Lord, save me!”

Jesus pulls him up from the depths, but also chides him:

You of little faith, why did you doubt?

Knowing Jesus’ affection for Peter, we might surmise that Jesus says this with a smile.

When the two of them climb into the boat the wind ceases — and perhaps for the first time, the disciples realize who they are with:

  Those who were in the boat came and worshiped him, saying, “You are truly the Son of God!”

Jesus’ identity as the Son of God had already been certified at his baptism, when God the Father had affirmed him:

This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17).

And Satan had insinuated the same when he taunted Jesus in the temptation account — If you are the Son of God… (Matthew 4:1-10).   And even the demons had recognized the divine nature of Jesus when he cast them out of the two men and into a herd of pigs in the region of Gergesenes (Matthew 8:28-31).

But this is the first time — though certainly not the last — when the disciples recognize and worship Jesus as the Son of God.

APPLY:  

In this passage we find applications that reach us on various levels.  There are spiritual examples that we may seek to follow, and there are doctrinal and theological truths that are revealed.

First, there is the example that we find in the ministry and spirituality of Jesus.  He has been attempting to find some time alone with the Father.  When he sails with his disciples to the far side of the lake to find a deserted place, thousands follow him along the shoreline.  Without resentment, he feeds them.

Then, however, he insists that the disciples cast off and sail back across the lake — without him.  And he sends the multitudes away:

After he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain by himself to pray. When evening had come, he was there alone.

The example to us here is the balance of active ministry and quiet retreat.  There must be an oscillation between the two.  We feed and minister to as many as possible, but we must also find time for solitude.  Action and contemplation are not in competition, they are complementary.

Second, we have the example of Peter when he sees Jesus walking on the waves.  This is a well-mined story for preachers.  We have tended to criticize Peter for taking his eyes off Jesus and focusing on the waves instead.  Peter moves from faith to fear.

Of course this is a very good point.  And I might point out, tongue in cheek, that perhaps Peter got his nickname Rocky not from his firm faith, but because when his faith failed, he sank like a rock.

However, there are two subpoints that are important to remember.

• Peter was the only disciple who had the courage to actually get out of the boat! Most of us would likely remain huddled in the safety of the bobbing hull.
• The other thing to remember is that Jesus did not let him sink. He pulled him up from the depths.  When our faith falters, and we look at our circumstances instead of Jesus, he will reach out to us.

Third, we have another excellent example of the uniqueness of Jesus.  Yes, Jesus is a Jewish man, a man of his time and culture.  But he is also the divine Son of God, God in the flesh.  He is the great I Am who has authority over all of the natural elements — and can walk on water.  And we, like the disciples, are to worship him as the Son of God. 

RESPOND: 

I always surprise people when I tell them that I am by nature an introvert.  They see me preaching with passion, and interacting easily with people, and they assume that all comes naturally.  To some extent my extroversion is a learned behavior, by necessity because of my role as a pastor.  I would like to believe that the Holy Spirit has also supplied what is naturally missing in my own nature.

But I also know from experience that this introvert needs people.  It is important to find a balance of solitude and community.  These are significant polarities in human nature.   Introverts, like me, who cherish solitude, probably need to seek out community for the sake of balance.  And extroverts who love to be in the midst of a crowd of people need to go apart from time to time to be alone with themselves and with God.

A friend of mine in the ministry was visiting the famous Abbey of Gethsemane, the Cistercian Monastery where Thomas Merton was once a Trappist monk.  My friend said that the abbot of the monastery made an interesting point — the monastery is no place for an introvert.

This is surprising.  Trappists take a vow of nearly complete silence.  They spend hours in prayer and contemplation.  But these hours are also balanced by their work, their ministry and their chores.  And they also spend a lot of time with one another — albeit quite a lot of it in silence — at meals, at work, and at corporate worship.

As a Bishop once said, “Why does it have to be either/or in the Christian life? Why not both/and?”  We are called to active, and sometimes vigorous ministry.  But we are also called to quiet, even contemplative, prayer and solitude.

Lord, help me to find the balance between active ministry and quiet contemplation. Perhaps if I spend more time with you, I will have the courage and faith to get out of the boat even when the waves are high.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"Matthew 14:25-31" by Alina Meza is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for August 13, 2023

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Romans 10:5-15
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Paul continues to explore the dichotomy between the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of faith.  Our lectionary text is a part of a larger discussion of Paul’s compassion for Israel and the validity of the law of Moses.

He prefaces our passage by once again expressing his concern for his own people:

Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved.  For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God (Romans 10:1-3).

His point is that his brothers in Judaism are devoted to seeking God, but they are misguided.

There are two really important points that Paul makes about the righteousness of the law in these verses that we must emphasize before we continue.

First, that no one can be saved by attempting to establish their own righteousness.  Paul has established this as a first principle at the very beginning of his letter to the Romans:

by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight (Romans 3:20).

Our own efforts to achieve righteousness by our works — legalism, asceticism, ritualism — cannot achieve that righteousness.  Paul follows up on Romans 3:20 with this clear statement:

For there is no distinction, for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:22-23).

He is saying that no human beings are capable of saving themselves — and this includes not only the Gentiles who were without the benefit of the law and the covenants, but also the Jews who were blessed with them.

The second important point is this:

For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God.   For Christ is the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:3-4).

There is a righteousness revealed by God and imputed to all who believe in Christ, because Christ fulfills the law perfectly as the sinless Son of God, both in his perfect life and his atoning sacrificial death.  Jesus has done all of this on our behalf because we are unable to do so on our own behalf.

This leads into the lectionary text for this week.  Paul points out the tension between the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of faith:

For Moses writes about the righteousness of the law, “The one who does them will live by them.”

Note that he quotes Leviticus 18:5, a verse from the Torah, the law of Moses. He is making the point that he makes elsewhere in Galatians, that the attempt to establish one’s own righteousness by works of the law requires perfect obedience — which is impossible:

For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them” (Galatians 3:10. Emphasis mine).

And so Paul, who is no slouch when it comes to the Hebrew Scriptures, begins to support his thesis that the true righteousness is established by faith. In rapid succession he quotes the very book invoked by his Jewish brethren to prove his point about Christ as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.  He quotes Deuteronomy 30:12,13, and 14 to describe the process of a person awakening to the fact that he or she cannot reach heaven by their own strength, but through inward faith in what Christ has done:

 But the righteousness which is of faith says this, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down); or, ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’  (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.)” But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart”; that is, the word of faith, which we preach…

In other words, we can’t climb the stairway to heaven to reach Christ, and we can’t raise Christ from the dead. God has taken the initiative for us in Christ.

Paul’s use of the Hebrew Scriptures is a reminder that he believes the Gospel is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, not a disconnect from them.

He then clearly outlines what is required for salvation.  This is the word of faith that he preaches:

if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

This is the fundamental profession of faith required of all who become Christians. To confess Jesus as Lord, is to affirm that we have submitted to his authority.  And to believe in our hearts that he has been raised from the dead is the sine qua non (without which there is nothing) of the historical Christian faith and Christ’s saving act.  This is the singular beginning of the Christian experience — an outward witness to one’s faith, and an inward conviction of the fundamental truth of the Gospel.

Paul resumes his use of the Hebrew Scriptures to provide evidence for these claims:

For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”

This quote is a reference to Isaiah 28:16. We note that the reader who checks out this quote may be surprised.  The Hebrew translation into English in the WEB (World English Bible) is:

He who believes shall not act hastily.

It is instructive to remember that Paul was likely quoting from the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible, which had been translated into Greek around the third century B.C.

Paul then returns to his premise, that our humanity and our source of salvation is the same:

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him.

In other words, God’s grace revealed in Christ is received in the same way by everyone, regardless of ethnicity or genetics — through faith.  Paul makes the same argument in a letter that parallels Romans in many ways:

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise (Galatians 3:27-29).

Paul asserts that whoever calls on Christ by faith is saved — no matter their race, their ethnicity, their nationality, their religious background.  He again quotes the Hebrew Scriptures, from Joel 2:32:

For, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

In other words, Paul believes that salvation is universally offered to whomever will call upon the Lord, profess faith in Christ and believe in their hearts. The Apostle Peter quotes the same passage from Joel when he preaches the first Christian sermon in the book of Acts, on the day of Pentecost:

It will be that whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21).

Finally, Paul asks a series of rhetorical questions that imply their own answer:  

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent?

The answers, in order, are clear.

• First, unless we believe in the Lord, we will not call upon him.
• Second, unless we have heard the message of the Gospel, we cannot believe.
• Third, we hear the Gospel because someone has told us — a preacher, yes, but also a Sunday School teacher, a youth director, a friend.
• And fourth, Paul suggests that those who bear witness to the Gospel of Christ are sent by God.

And once again, he quotes the Hebrew Bible to prove his point, from Isaiah 52:7:

 As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Good News of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!”

There is a simple logic here.  When we call upon the name of the Lord and place our trust in him, we shall be saved.  But it is necessary for us to have heard the Gospel in order to call upon his name.  And we hear because of those who have been sent by God to proclaim the Gospel.  As Jesus tells the disciples in the Gospel of Matthew:

Go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20).

APPLY:  

What is essential to the Christian identity?  How, then, are we to be saved?

First, salvation is something that God does.  We don’t.  Attempts to establish our own righteousness only end in frustration.  Salvation is a gift of God that we access only through faith.

Second, salvation is only possible through faith in the risen Christ, and the willingness to openly profess that Jesus is Lord.  This means that Jesus becomes the ruler and authority in our lives, with no other competition.

Third, salvation is universally offered to all who will call upon the name of the Lord — regardless of nationality or ethnicity or any other division.  Salvation is not restricted to any exclusive group or club or even a particular church.

Fourth, salvation is a gift that is shared from person to person to person.  Someone told us about this gift of salvation in Christ because someone told them, and someone told them, going all the way back to the day of Pentecost, or even the Great Commission!  We believe because someone has shared the story throughout the millennia.  And we are to share the story with others as well.  Good news is contagious.

RESPOND: 

When I was nineteen, I was in a dark night of the soul.  I was a freshman in college, and I had lost whatever childhood certainties I had.  I was an agnostic at best, and a Hedonistic “practical” atheist at worst.

But when I was on an airplane returning back to college from Thanksgiving break, a guy named Doug sat next to me, and we talked about God, and reality, and hope, and meaning.  It didn’t happen all at once.  In fact, it was probably a month later that I came to the moment when I called upon the name of the Lord.

And I thank God for the beautiful feet that brought the Good News of peace to me.

We can never underestimate the importance of a witness in helping us turn toward Christ.

The salvation message — what I was taught to call the Roman Road of Salvation ­— is a useful method of sharing the “plan of salvation”:

• Everyone needs salvation because all have sinned — Romans 3:10-12, 23.
• The consequence of sin is death and separation from God — Romans 6:23.
• Because God loves us, Christ died for our sins and paid the price for our sins — Romans 5:8.
• Through our profession of faith in Christ we receive salvation and eternal life — Romans 10:9-10, 13.
• Salvation brings peace with God and deliverance from condemnation — Romans 5:1; 8:1.

While all of that is true, and I internalized this message as a new-born Christian, I also came to understand that this experience of justification by faith was just the beginning in my relationship with God.  I have continued to grow in my relationship with God — with progressions as well as the occasional declines.  I would add to the traditional Roman Road a few other “intersections” (although these are not exhaustive.  There may be many more):

• Through the Holy Spirit, I can have an assurance of faith through his witness in my spirit, and know that I am a co-heir with Christ — Romans 8:14-17.
• That through faith in Christ and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, I am to be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ — Romans 8:29; 12:1-2.

This is the best news in all the world — and I have been happy to devote my entire adult life to sharing this news with others.

How will they hear without a preacher?  And how will they preach unless they are sent?

Lord, your mighty acts of salvation begin and end with you. Thank you for condescending to share your grace with me and with the world.  I call upon your name, and seek to share your truths with the world.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:

"Romans 10:9‭-‬10" by Church Iglesia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Psalm Reading for August 13, 2023

“Joseph receiving Pharaoh’s Ring” by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

We may be a bit surprised to find that this is the Psalm for this week.  Didn’t we just read and study Psalm 105 on July 30?  Well, yes we did.  However, this week, we are directed to some new verses in the Psalm that change the focus just a bit.

The first part of the Psalm holds true to our original reflections. This Psalm is known in Hebrew as a Todah Psalm — a Psalm of Thanksgiving.  The Psalmist begins with a series of imperatives, which are giving directions to the worshipers — from give thanks to remember.  I have underlined the commands in these verses:

Give thanks to Yahweh! Call on his name!
Make his doings known among the peoples.
Sing to him, sing praises to him!
Tell of all his marvelous works.
Glory in his holy name.
Let the heart of those who seek Yahweh rejoice.
Seek Yahweh and his strength.
Seek his face forever more.
Remember his marvelous works that he has done;
his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth…

These directives are given in the language of a worship leader, calling upon the worshipers to increase their exuberance through prayer, praise and song.  Ultimately, this worship builds to a crescendo when they are seeking Yahweh’s face — which represents the abiding presence of Yahweh.

And what are they called upon to remember?  They are to remember his marvelous works, wonders and judgments — but more specifically, the people are to reconnect to their covenant relationship with Abraham and Jacob:

you offspring of Abraham, his servant,
you children of Jacob, his chosen ones.

In our lectionary reading for this week, though, we jump from the end of verse 6 to verses 16-22, which weren’t included in the lectionary reading for July 30. The focus of these verses is another key descendant of Abraham — Joseph.  Joseph was the twelfth child of Jacob, and the oldest of Jacob and Rachel’s two sons. Our Psalm picks up with a key part of the salvation history of the tribes of Israel — when famine afflicted all the known lands, most significantly from Egypt up to and including Canaan.  The Psalmist suggests that God called for famine and destroyed the food supplies — but he also raised up a man to be a “savior” — Joseph.

Of course, we know Joseph’s story from Genesis 37, and his betrayal by his brothers.  The Psalmist succinctly gives us the details:

Joseph was sold for a slave.
They bruised his feet with shackles.
His neck was locked in irons,
 until the time that his word happened,
and Yahweh’s word proved him true.

Reading between the lines, we remember the details of the story (from Genesis chapters 37 to 50) — that the seventeen-year-old Joseph was enslaved, and then imprisoned on false charges of attempted assault, until he was thirty years old.  It was then that he was given the opportunity to correctly interpret the dream of the Egyptian Pharaoh, predicting seven years of abundant harvest followed by seven years of famine.  And this interpretation and prediction brought liberty and authority: 

The king sent and freed him;
even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free.
He made him lord of his house,
and ruler of all of his possessions;
to discipline his princes at his pleasure,
and to teach his elders wisdom.

Not only was the slave raised to become viceroy and second in command only to Pharaoh, he also was to teach his brothers — his elders — and even his father, a thing or two!  Joseph was able to save his entire family from starvation, and restore his relationship with them. In doing so, he fulfilled the dreams that he had as a young man.

Our lectionary reading concludes with verse 45b, which seems an appropriate acclamation: 

 Praise Yah!

This salvation history of Joseph’s enslavement, his meteoric rise to power, his wisdom in saving Egypt from famine, (including delivering his own family), is the work of God through him.

APPLY:  

The work of God certainly doesn’t end with the three great Patriarchs of the Hebrew faith — Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  The story goes on, through such men as Joseph.

We are reminded that the salvation history of Judaism — and Christianity — is not merely codified in doctrinal propositions.  Salvation history is lived out in the lives of God’s people, and fulfilled by their lives, their actions, and their words.

And Psalm 105 gives us a hint of God’s providence. God works through a seventeen-year-old boy who grows into a man. He is tempered by his harsh experiences with slavery and injustices, and yet he becomes a kind of savior for a whole nation — and his own family.

We too — perhaps in less dramatic ways — may become a part of salvation history with our own families, churches, communities and even our nation.  Even the most negative circumstances we experience may be used for good.  That is, if we allow God to work through us and in us to accomplish his mission.

RESPOND: 

I can’t resist the urge to view Joseph’s story from a typological perspective.  Typology is the ancient method of Biblical interpretation that sees many Old Testament figures and stories as a foreshadowing of events that are fulfilled in Jesus.

Joseph, though the “favored son” of Jacob, is betrayed by those closest to him — as Jesus was by Judas (and even denied by Peter!).  Joseph, though enslaved and imprisoned, responds to his dire circumstances positively — and saves a whole nation and his family by his foresight, when he instructs the Egyptians to store grain for the lean years to come.

Jesus, of course, saves by offering himself as a sacrifice for sin.  But in his resurrection, he reaches out to his disciples who had abandoned and denied and doubted him, and like Joseph, he offers reconciliation.  In a sense, Jesus creates a new family through the birth of the church.  A community of people once prone to self-interest and envy and jealousy and self-preservation now become a family intended to live for others.

Lord, the ‘salvation history’ of your word reminds us that you continue to work in our lives, and that you continue to work through us.  Whatever negative circumstances we may experience, we pray that you will use those experiences so that we can make a positive difference in your name for others. Amen. 

PHOTOS:

"Joseph receiving Pharaoh's Ring" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo is in the public domain.

Old Testament for August 13, 2023

Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. took this photograph of Butterfield’s mosaic depicting Joseph being sold into slavery. The mosaic is in the chapel of Keble College chapel in Oxford.

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The tales of the ancestors of the Israelites continues with the story of Joseph.  He is the fourth generation removed from Abraham, the family patriarch, and he is one of eleven sons and one daughter of Jacob as our story begins.

Just a word of backstory.  Jacob has returned to Canaan after a twenty-year sojourn at Haran in Mesopotamia (Genesis 31-32).  He has managed to avoid reprisals from his embittered brother Esau, and even managed to find reconciliation with him.  And his identity has been changed — Jacob’s name is now Israel, after his night-long struggle with the Angel of Yahweh. 

However, Israel’s family situation is still… complicated.  He has two wives — the sisters Leah and Rachel. And he also has two additional “servant” wives — Bilhah and Zilpah, who are the servants of Rachel and Leah respectively.  Each of his four “wives” has borne children to Israel, in a kind of competition between these “sister wives.”

For the sake of simplicity, here are the twelve, with a number assigned to indicate birth order:

Leah was the mother of the oldest, Reuben (1). Leah also gave birth to Simeon (2), Levi (3), Judah (4), Issachar (9), Zebulun (10), and Dinah, the only daughter (11). 

Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, gave birth to two sons in Rachel’s effort to compete with her sister Leah — Dan (5) and Naphtali (6). 

Zilpah was pressed into service as “breed stock” by Leah when she thought she couldn’t bear any more children. Zilpah bore Gad (7) and Asher (8). 

When Rachel finally was able to bear a child, Israel was now an old man.  Her son Joseph (12) was the twelfth child sired by Israel up to this point.  Rachel bore another son for Israel — Benjamin (13) — and she died in childbirth.

If this all sounds a bit competitive and even dehumanizing, it is.  The servants of Leah and Rachel were treated as mere breeders for their mistresses’ strange rivalry.

Our story picks up when Joseph is seventeen years old, working as a shepherd with his ten older brothers. And we again see strong evidence of family dysfunction.  Joseph is a tattletale, bringing an evil report on his brothers back to their father.  And Israel plays favorites, with predictable results:

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many colors. His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him, and couldn’t speak peaceably to him.

We speculate that Joseph was also Israel’s favorite son because he was Rachel’s first child.  Rachel was the true love of Israel’s life. Joseph and his younger brother Benjamin must have been physical reminders of his beloved Rachel.

Joseph’s brothers highly resented him. And his coat of many colors certainly didn’t help. To make matters worse, Joseph has two extraordinary dreams that suggest he will one day be preeminent over all of his brothers and even his own father — and Joseph has the nerve to blurt out the details of his dreams of superiority to his whole family!  Even Israel is taken aback by Joseph’s apparent audacity:

“What is this dream that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves down to you to the earth?”  His brothers envied him, but his father kept this saying in mind (Genesis 37:10-11).

Now, the plot thickens, as the cliche says.  Israel’s sons are feeding the flocks in Shechem.  Israel is now encamped in Hebron, which is in a valley nestled in the mountains, where Sarah, Abraham, Isaac and Rebekah were buried. Hebron was about sixty-seven miles south of Shechem, which was in the central highlands of Canaan.  Presumably it was good pastureland for sheep.  (It should be remembered that traveling sixty-seven miles while driving a massive flock would take much longer than driving it on the interstate.)

Israel sends his son Joseph on an errand to find his brothers.  Presumably, Joseph has been kept home close to “dad” up to this point.  Is Israel sending his son to spy on his brothers, or to supervise them, or simply to check on their welfare? He seems to be simply asking Joseph to determine the well-being of his brothers, and the flock:

He said to him, “Go now, see whether it is well with your brothers, and well with the flock; and bring me word again.”

But when Joseph makes this long trip, he can’t find his brothers. They have moved on.  A stranger directs him to seek them at Dothan, which is about eighteen miles to the northwest of Shechem.

We get a pretty clear picture of what happens next.  The brothers see Joseph coming from a distance.  Perhaps they are high on a hill and see him climbing toward them.  And they have plenty of time to talk as they see him coming from afar.   They conspire against their hated brother:

They said to one another, “Behold, this dreamer comes.  Come now therefore, and let’s kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, ‘An evil animal has devoured him.’ We will see what will become of his dreams.”

We are witnessing a premeditated crime of murder in the making!  Fortunately for Joseph, a cooler head prevails.  Reuben, the oldest brother of them all (and the son of Leah), intervenes.  He finds an alternative that can spare his much younger brother:

Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father.

Reuben is seeking to appease the envy of his brothers, while still saving Joseph’s life.  To be thrown into a dark, damp well would be a chastening experience, to be sure — but at least he would be alive!

They act quickly when Joseph arrives — they strip him of his coat of many colors. Joseph is lucky.  The well has no water.  He won’t drown!

While Joseph languishes at the bottom of a dark well, the brothers sit down to their meal — perhaps feeling a little festive now that their nemesis has been “brought down a peg.” They can eat, happily knowing their brother is in the pit.

But the plot thickens even more.  Apparently Reuben has gone away to tend the flock, or some other task.  He is not present when the boys hatch their next conspiracy.  A caravan of Ishmaelites riding camels from Gilead with spices and balms and myrrh comes near.  We are reminded that the Ishmaelites are related to the sons of Israel — they are distant cousins descended from their mutual grandfather Abraham.  Gilead was the mountainous region to the east of the Jordan River.

These Ishmaelites were merchants who were trading and selling their spices in Egypt, the center of political and military power and the cultural center of civilization at that time.  These Ishmaelites could be expected to bargain for anything worth selling. Or anyone.

It is Judah who suggests that the brothers shouldn’t kill Joseph.  Why not make a profit from this good looking, smart-alecky teenager?

Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?  Come, and let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not let our hand be on him; for he is our brother, our flesh.”

The narrative is just a little confusing.  Judah’s brothers heed his advice, but the text tells us:  

Midianites who were merchants passed by, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. They brought Joseph into Egypt.

The Midianites were also descendants of Abraham, like the Ishmaelites and the sons of Israel.  The Midianites were descendants of Keturah, the woman Abraham married after Sarah died (Genesis 25:1-2).

Did the brothers negotiate with some Midianites to pull their brother out of the well, and then sell him to the Ishmaelites on their behalf? If so, perhaps this gave them some “deniability” so they could say to their father — we had nothing to do with it!

We note the price of the sale of Joseph into slavery — twenty pieces of silver.  This was notoriously the price of a slave.  And we note that many centuries later, the life of a distant relative of Joseph’s (Jesus) would be sold out for thirty pieces of silver.

APPLY:  

Once again, we see the honesty of the Scriptures when it comes to describing even the Biblical patriarchs.  The brothers of Joseph, who will become the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel, are deeply resentful of their brother.

From a family perspective, there is a serious lack of emotional health in Israel’s attitudes.  He not only is partial to Joseph, he advertises this favoritism by giving him a splendid coat.  And Joseph compounds the problem by boasting to his family of his dreams of superiority.

This reminds us that God works through very fallible people in order to accomplish his purposes.  We will find, if we follow the tale of the slave Joseph into Egypt, that God uses even these horrible circumstances to bring good out of evil.  And perhaps these circumstances will even smooth off some of the rough edges of Joseph’s narcissistic character.

RESPOND: 

One needn’t be a student of Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory to conclude that Israel’s family is dysfunctional.

• Thirteen different kids by four different women, who also lived under the same roof (or tent canopy).
• A father who enmeshes one of his sons so deeply that his other sons come to hate their brother!
• A son who is so narcissistic that he brags about his superiority in front of these very brothers!
• And brothers whose moral compass permits them to seriously consider killing their brother, and have no qualms about selling him into slavery!

On the one hand, all this actually reassures me that even as weird and dysfunctional as my family sometimes may be, we’re not as bad as Israel’s family!  And Israel was the father of a great nation and a founder of a great dynasty which would be the focus of the entire Hebrew Bible, from Genesis to Malachi!  And even more comforting, despite all of these rivalries, enmeshments, and conspiracies, God kept his covenant with Israel.

So, when I read about the tale of Joseph and his brothers, I am reminded that this is only a snapshot, a frame, in the greater story. My Dad used to have a sign on his desk — Please be patient. God isn’t finished with me yet.  God wasn’t finished with Joseph or his brothers yet.

Lord, families are so meaningful to us, and yet they can be so dysfunctional, and even hurtful! But no matter how painful our childhoods may have been, you aren’t finished with us yet. Help us to trust you even when we feel that we have been betrayed and enslaved by our family systems.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
“Joseph sold as a slave” by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for August 13, 2017

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Matthew 14:22-33 

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Jesus seeks a few hours of solitude, and even this sets the stage for a remarkable miracle. We are reminded that Jesus had been teaching on one shore of the Sea of Galilee, and he and his disciples had sailed across the lake to a deserted place.  But the crowds had followed the shoreline and met him on the other side of the lake.  There, Jesus fed more than five thousand by multiplying the five loaves and two fish (Matthew 14:14-21).

But now, there is a sense of insistence as he sends disciples and the multitudes away.  Matthew uses the word Immediately, conveying this sense of insistence:

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat, and to go ahead of him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.

Jesus finally finds some moments of solitude.  But this is not the solitude of a hermit.  He seeks fellowship with the Father:

After he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain by himself to pray. When evening had come, he was there alone.

Meanwhile, though, his disciples are in trouble.  Note the contrast of Jesus’ calm with the turbulence the disciples are experiencing without his presence among them:

 But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, distressed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

Jesus comes to them in the fourth watch of the night, which is sometime between 3:00 a.m. and sunrise.  Astonishingly, Jesus is walking on the turbulent sea! Predictably, the disciples are terrified.  In this early predawn light, they can’t quite make out what this is:

they were troubled, saying, “It’s a ghost!” and they cried out for fear.

But Jesus hasn’t come to them in order to frighten them.  He has come in order to reassure and comfort them:

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying “Cheer up! It is I! Don’t be afraid.”

His words are pregnant with significance.

First, he says Cheer up!  To our modern ears, this sounds a little lighter than it really is, like someone speaking to a friend who failed a test at school.  The Greek word used in Matthew’s Gospel is tharseite from the root tharreow.  Grammatically, the mood is an imperative.  He is commanding his disciples to be of good cheer.  The etymology of this word is interesting — according to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament edited by G. Kittel, the root meaning is to dare, be bold, be of good courage, be cheerful, be confident.  He isn’t simply saying “Be happy, don’t worry.”  As their Lord, he commands them to take courage.  The same word is used when he is preparing the disciples for his imminent arrest and death in John’s Gospel, during his long discourse at the Passover meal in the Upper Room:

In the world you have oppression; but cheer up! I have overcome the world (John 16:33, emphasis mine).

Second, Jesus tells them: It is I! The Greek text actually reads ego eimi, which literally means “I am.”  It doesn’t require a stretch of the imagination to connect this statement with the various I am statements Jesus makes of himself in the Gospel of John (I am the bread of life, John 6:35. I am the light of the world, John 8:12.  I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM, John 8:58, etc). And it is no long leap to draw the connection with the encounter of God with Moses at the burning bush, when Moses asks God’s name:

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14).

As we shall shortly see, this I am phrase in the mouth of Jesus demonstrates his self-awareness that he is identified with the Father.  He is God incarnate.

Third, Jesus tells them, Don’t be afraid.  This phrase is a familiar refrain throughout the Biblical witness whenever a mortal encounters God or God’s emissaries.  God says this to Abram when he confirms his covenant, when Abram is losing confidence in the promises (Genesis 15:1). And the angel of  God says this to Hagar when she and her son Ishmael have been abandoned in the wilderness by Abraham (Genesis 21:17).  Moses says it to the Israelites when they are trapped between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea (Exodus 14:13).  The angel of the Lord says the same to Mary when he announces she will be the mother of Jesus (Luke 1:30); to Joseph when he hesitates to take Mary as his wife (Matthew 1:20); and to the shepherds near Bethlehem when Jesus was born (Luke 2:10).

All of this, and other examples that might be included, are reminders that an encounter with the living God and his angels and prophets is a fearful and terrifying experience. Jesus is calming his frightened friends.

Peter characteristically reacts impulsively to this phenomenon:

 “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the waters.”

Jesus invites Peter to come — and of course when Peter finds himself walking on the waves, and is buffeted by the winds, he loses his nerve and begins to sink into the water.  As he sinks, he cries out:

 “Lord, save me!”

Jesus pulls him up from the depths, but also chides him:

You of little faith, why did you doubt?

Knowing Jesus’ affection for Peter, we might surmise that Jesus says this with a smile.

When the two of them climb into the boat the wind ceases — and perhaps for the first time, the disciples realize who they are with:

  Those who were in the boat came and worshiped him, saying, “You are truly the Son of God!”

Jesus’ identity as the Son of God had already been certified at his baptism, when God the Father had affirmed him:

This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17).

And Satan had insinuated the same when he taunted Jesus in the temptation account  — If you are the Son of God….(Matthew 4:1-10).   And even the demons had recognized the divine nature of Jesus when he cast them out of the two men and into a herd of pigs in the region of Gergesenes (Matthew 8:28-31).

But this is the first time — though certainly not the last — when the disciples recognize and worship Jesus as the Son of God.

APPLY:  

In this passage we find applications that reach us on various levels.  There are spiritual examples that we may seek to follow, and there are doctrinal and theological truths that are revealed.

First, there is the example that we find in the ministry and spirituality of Jesus.  He has been attempting to find some time alone with the Father.  When he sails with his disciples to the far side of the lake to find a deserted place, thousands follow him along the shoreline.  Without resentment, he feeds them.

Then, however, he insists that the disciples cast off and sail back across the lake — without him.  And he sends the multitudes away:

After he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain by himself to pray. When evening had come, he was there alone.

The example to us here is the balance of active ministry and quiet retreat.  There must be an oscillation between the two.  We feed and minister to as many as possible, but we must also find time for solitude.  Action and contemplation are not in competition, they are complementary.

Second, we have the example of Peter when he sees Jesus walking on the waves.  This is a well-mined story for preachers.  We have tended to criticize Peter for taking his eyes off Jesus and focusing on the waves instead.  Peter moves from faith to fear.

Of course this is a very good point.  And I might point out, tongue in cheek, that perhaps Peter got his nickname  Rocky not from his firm faith, but because when his faith failed, he sank like a rock.

However, there are two subpoints that it is important to remember.

• Peter was the only disciple who had the courage to actually get out of the boat! Most of us would likely remain huddled in the safety of the bobbing hull.
• The other thing to remember is that Jesus did not let him sink. He pulled him up from the depths.  When our faith falters, and we look at our circumstances instead of Jesus, he will reach out to us.

Third, we have another excellent example of the uniqueness of Jesus.  Yes, Jesus is a Jewish man, a man of his time and culture.  But he is also the divine Son of God, God in the flesh.  He is the great I Am who has authority over all of the natural elements — and can walk on water.  And we, like the disciples, are to worship him as the Son of God. 

RESPOND: 

I always surprise people when I tell them that I am by nature an introvert.  They see me preaching with passion, and interacting easily with people, and they assume that all comes naturally.  To some extent my extroversion is a learned behavior, by necessity because of my role as a pastor.  I would like to believe that the Holy Spirit has also supplied what is naturally missing in my own nature.

But I also know from experience that this introvert needs people.  It is important to find a balance of solitude and community.  These are significant polarities in human nature.   Introverts, like me, who cherish solitude, probably need to seek out community for the sake of balance.  And extroverts who love to be in the midst of a crowd of people need to go apart from time to time to be alone with themselves and with God.

A friend of mine in the ministry was visiting the famous Abbey of Gethsemane, the Cistercian Monastery where Thomas Merton was once a Trappist monk.  My friend said that the abbot of the monastery made an interesting point — the monastery is no place for an introvert.

This is surprising.  Trappists take a vow of nearly complete silence.  They spend hours in prayer and contemplation.  But these hours are also balanced by their work, their ministry and their chores.  And they also spend a lot of time with one another — albeit quite a lot of it in silence — at meals, at work, and at corporate worship.

As a Bishop once said, “Why does it have to be either/or in the Christian life? Why not both/and?”  We are called to active, and sometimes vigorous ministry.  But we are also called to quiet, even contemplative, prayer and solitude.

Lord, help me to find the balance between active ministry and quiet contemplation. Perhaps if I spend more time with you, I will have the courage and faith to get out of the boat even when the waves are high.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"Matthew 14:25-31" by Alina Meza is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for August 13, 2017

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Romans 10:5-15

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Paul continues to explore the dichotomy between the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of faith.  Our lectionary text is a part of a larger discussion of Paul’s compassion for Israel and the validity of the law of Moses.

He prefaces our passage by once again expressing his concern for his own people:

Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved.  For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God (Romans 10:1-3).

His point is that his brothers in Judaism are devoted to seeking God, but they are misguided.

There are two really important points that Paul makes about the righteousness of the law in these verses that we must emphasize before we continue.

First, that no one can be saved by attempting to establish their own righteousness.  Paul has established this as a first principle at the very beginning of his letter to the Romans:

by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight (Romans 3:20).

Our own efforts to achieve righteousness by our works— legalism, asceticism, ritualism — cannot achieve that righteousness.  Paul follows up on Romans 3:20 with this clear statement:

For there is no distinction, for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:22-23).

He is saying that no human beings are capable of saving themselves — and this includes not only the Gentiles who were without the benefit of the law and the covenants, but also the Jews who were blessed with them.

The second important point is this:

For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God.   For Christ is the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:3-4).

There  is a righteousness revealed by God and imputed to all who believe in Christ, because Christ fulfills the law perfectly as the sinless Son of God, both in his perfect life and his atoning sacrificial death.  Jesus has done all of this on our behalf because we are unable to do so on our own behalf.

This leads into the lectionary text for this week.  Paul points out the tension between the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of faith:

For Moses writes about the righteousness of the law, “The one who does them will live by them.”

Note that he quotes Leviticus 18:5,  a verse from the Torah, the law of Moses. He is making the point that he makes elsewhere in Galatians, that the attempt to establish one’s own righteousness by works of the law requires perfect obedience — which is impossible:

For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them” (Galatians 3:10. Emphasis mine).

And so Paul, who is no slouch when it comes to the Hebrew Scriptures, begins to support his thesis that the true righteousness is established by faith. In rapid succession he quotes the very book invoked by his Jewish brethren to prove his point about Christ as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.  He quotes Deuteronomy 30:12, 13, and 14 to describe the process of a person awakening to the fact that he or she cannot reach heaven by their own strength, but through inward faith in what Christ has done:

 But the righteousness which is of faith says this, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down);  or, ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’  (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.)” But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart”; that is, the word of faith, which we preach….

In other words, we can’t climb the stairway to heaven to reach Christ, and we  can’t raise Christ from the dead. God has taken the initiative for us in Christ.

Paul’s use of the Hebrew Scriptures is a reminder that he believes the Gospel is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, not a disconnect from them.

He then clearly outlines what is required for salvation.  This is the word of faith that he preaches:

if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

This is the fundamental profession of faith required of all who become Christians. To confess Jesus as Lord, is to affirm that we have submitted to his authority.  And to believe in our hearts that he has been raised from the dead is the sine qua non (without which there is nothing) of the historical Christian faith and Christ’s saving act.  This is the singular beginning of the Christian experience — an outward witness to one’s faith, and an inward conviction of the fundamental truth of the Gospel.

Paul resumes his use of the Hebrew Scriptures to provide evidence for these claims:

For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”

This quote is a reference to Isaiah 28:16.  We note that the reader who checks out this quote may be surprised.  The Hebrew translation into English in the WEB (World English Bible) is:

He who believes shall not act hastily.

It is instructive to remember that Paul was likely quoting from the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible, which had been translated into Greek around the third century B.C.

Paul then returns to his premise, that our humanity and our source of salvation is the same:

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him.

In other words, God’s grace revealed in Christ is received in the same way by everyone, regardless of ethnicity or genetics — through faith.  Paul makes the same argument in a letter that parallels Romans in many ways:

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise (Galatians 3:27-29).

Paul asserts that whoever calls on Christ by faith is saved — no matter their race, their ethnicity, their nationality, their religious background.  He again quotes the Hebrew Scriptures, from Joel 2:32:

For, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

In other words, Paul believes that salvation is universally offered to whomever will call upon the Lord, profess faith in Christ and believe in their hearts. The Apostle Peter quotes the same passage from Joel when he preaches the first Christian sermon in the book of Acts, on the day of Pentecost:

It will be that whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21).

Finally,  Paul asks a series of rhetorical questions that imply their own answer:  

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent?

The answers, in order, are clear.

• First, unless we believe in the Lord, we will not call upon him.
• Second, unless we have heard the message of the Gospel, we cannot believe.
• Third, we hear the Gospel because someone has told us — a preacher, yes, but also a Sunday School teacher, a youth director, a friend.
• And fourth, Paul suggests that those who bear witness to the Gospel of Christ are sent by God.

And once again, he quotes the Hebrew Bible to prove his point, from Isaiah 52:7:

 As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Good News of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!”

There is a simple logic here.  When we call upon the name of the Lord and place our trust in him, we shall be saved.  But it is necessary for us to have heard the Gospel in order to call upon his name.  And we hear because of those who have been sent by God to proclaim the Gospel.  As Jesus tells the disciples in the Gospel of Matthew:

 Go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20).

APPLY:  

What is essential to the Christian identity?  How, then, are we to be saved ?

First, salvation is something that God does.  We don’t.  Attempts to establish our own righteousness only end in frustration.  Salvation is a gift of God that we access only through faith.

Second, salvation is only possible through faith in the risen Christ, and the willingness to openly  profess that Jesus is Lord.  This means that Jesus becomes the ruler and authority in our lives, with no other competition.

Third,  salvation is universally offered to all who will call upon the name of the Lord — regardless of nationality or ethnicity or any other division.  Salvation is not restricted to any exclusive group or club or even a particular church.

Fourth, salvation is a gift that is shared from person to person to person.  Someone told us about this gift of salvation in Christ because someone told them, and someone told them, going all the way back to the day of Pentecost, or even the Great Commission!  We believe because someone has shared the story throughout the millennia.  And we are to share the story with others as well.  Good news is contagious.

RESPOND: 

When I was nineteen, I was in a dark night of the soul.  I was a Freshman in college, and I had lost whatever childhood certainties I had.  I was an agnostic at best, and a Hedonistic “practical” atheist at worst.

But when I was on an airplane returning back to college from Thanksgiving break, a guy named Doug sat next to me, and we talked about God, and reality, and hope, and meaning.  It didn’t happen all at once.  In fact, it was probably a month later that I came to the moment when I called upon the name of the Lord.

And I thank God for the beautiful feet that brought the Good News of peace  to me.

We can never underestimate the importance of a witness in helping us turn toward Christ.

The salvation message — what I was taught to call the Roman Road of Salvation ­— is a useful method of sharing the “plan of salvation”:

• Everyone needs salvation because all have sinned — Romans 3:10-12, 23.
• The consequence of sin is death and separation from God — Romans 6:23.
• Because God loves us, Christ died for our sins and paid the price for our sins — Romans 5:8.
• Through our profession of faith in Christ we receive salvation and eternal life — Romans 10:9-10, 13.
• Salvation brings peace with God and deliverance from condemnation — Romans 5:1; 8:1.

While all of that is true, and I internalized this message as a new-born Christian, I also came to understand that this experience of justification by faith was just the beginning in my relationship with God.  I have continued to grow in my relationship with God — with progressions as well as the occasional declines.  I would add to the traditional Roman Road a few other “intersections” (although these are not exhaustive.  There may be many more):

• Through the Holy Spirit, I can have an assurance of faith through his witness in my spirit, and know that I am a co-heir with Christ — Romans 8:14-17.
• That through faith in Christ and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, I am to be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ — Romans 8:29; 12:1-2.

This is the best news in all the world — and I have been happy to devote my entire adult life to sharing this news with others.

How will they hear without a preacher?  And how will they preach unless they are sent?

Lord, your mighty acts of salvation begin and end with you. Thank you for condescending to share your grace with me and with the world.  I call upon your name, and seek to share your truths with the world.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:

"Romans 10:9‭-‬10" by Church Iglesia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Psalm Reading for August 13, 2017

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

We may be a bit surprised to find that this is the Psalm for this week.  Didn’t we just read and study Psalm 105 on July 30?  Well, yes we did.  However, this week, we are directed to some new verses in the Psalm that change the focus just a bit.

The first part of the Psalm holds true to our original reflections. This Psalm is known in Hebrew as a Todah Psalm — a Psalm of Thanksgiving.  The Psalmist begins with a series of imperatives, which are giving directions to the worshipers — from give thanks to remember.  I have underlined the commands in these verses:

Give thanks to Yahweh! Call on his name!
Make his doings known among the peoples.
Sing to him, sing praises to him!
Tell of all his marvelous works.
Glory in his holy name.
Let the heart of those who seek Yahweh rejoice.
Seek Yahweh and his strength.
Seek his face forever more.
Remember his marvelous works that he has done;
his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth….

These directives are given in the language of a worship leader, calling upon the worshipers to increase their exuberance through prayer, praise and song.  Ultimately, this worship builds to a crescendo when they are seeking Yahweh’s face — which represents the abiding presence of Yahweh.

And what are they called upon to remember?  They are to remember his marvelous works, wonders and judgments — but more specifically, the people  are to reconnect to their covenant relationship with Abraham and Jacob:

you offspring of Abraham, his servant,
you children of Jacob, his chosen ones.

In our lectionary reading for this week, though, we jump from the end of verse 6 to verses 16-22, which weren’t included in the lectionary reading for July 30. The focus of these verses is another key descendant of Abraham — Joseph.  Joseph was the twelfth child of Jacob, and the oldest of Jacob and Rachel’s two sons. Our Psalm picks up with a key part of the salvation history of the tribes of Israel — when famine afflicted all the known lands, most significantly from Egypt up to and including Canaan.  The Psalmist suggests that God called for famine and destroyed the food supplies — but he also raised up a man to be a “savior” — Joseph.

Of course, we know Joseph’s story from Genesis 37, and his betrayal by his brothers.  The Psalmist succinctly gives us the details:

 Joseph was sold for a slave.
They bruised his feet with shackles.
His neck was locked in irons,
 until the time that his word happened,
and Yahweh’s word proved him true.

Reading between the lines, we remember the details of the story (from Genesis chapters 37 to 50) — that the seventeen year old Joseph was enslaved, and then imprisoned on false charges of attempted assault, until he was thirty years old.  It was then that he was given the opportunity to correctly interpret the dream of the Egyptian Pharaoh, predicting seven years of abundant harvest followed by seven years of famine.  And this interpretation and prediction brought liberty and authority: 

The king sent and freed him;
even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free.
He made him lord of his house,
and ruler of all of his possessions;
to discipline his princes at his pleasure,
and to teach his elders wisdom.

Not only was the slave raised to become viceroy and second in command only to Pharaoh, he also was to teach his brothers — his elders — and even his father, a thing or two!  Joseph was able to save his entire family from starvation, and restore his relationship with them. In doing so, he fulfilled the dreams that he had as a young man.

Our lectionary reading concludes with verse 45b, which seems an appropriate acclamation: 

 Praise Yah!

This salvation history of Joseph’s enslavement, his meteoric rise to power, his wisdom in saving Egypt from famine, (including delivering his own family), is the work of God through him.

APPLY:  

The work of God certainly doesn’t end with the three great Patriarchs of the Hebrew faith — Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  The story goes on, through such men as Joseph.

We are reminded that the salvation history of Judaism — and Christianity — is not merely codified in doctrinal propositions.  Salvation history is lived out in the lives of God’s people, and fulfilled by their lives, their actions, and their words.

And Psalm 105 gives us a hint of God’s providence. God works through a seventeen-year-old boy who grows into a man. He is tempered by his harsh experiences with slavery and injustices, and yet he becomes a kind of savior for a whole nation — and his own family.

We too — perhaps in less dramatic ways — may become a part of salvation history with our own families, churches, communities and even our nation.  Even the most negative circumstances we experience may be used for good.  That is, if we allow God to work through us and in us to accomplish his mission.

RESPOND: 

I can’t resist the urge to view Joseph’s story from a typological perspective.  Typology is the ancient method of Biblical interpretation that sees many Old Testament figures and stories as a foreshadowing of events that are fulfilled in Jesus.

Joseph, though the “favored son” of Jacob, is betrayed by those closest to him — as Jesus was by Judas (and even denied by Peter!).  Joseph, though enslaved and imprisoned, responds to his dire circumstances positively — and saves a whole nation and his family by his foresight, when he instructs the Egyptians to store grain for the lean years to come.

Jesus, of course, saves by offering himself as a sacrifice for sin.  But in his resurrection, he reaches out to his disciples who had abandoned and denied and doubted him, and like Joseph, he offers reconciliation.  In a sense, Jesus creates a new family through the birth of the church.  A community of people once prone to self-interest and envy and jealousy and self-preservation now become a family intended to live for others.

Lord, the ‘salvation history’ of your word reminds us that you continue to work in our lives, and that you continue to work through us.  Whatever negative circumstances we may experience, we pray that you will use those experiences so that we can make a positive difference in your name for others. Amen. 

PHOTOS:

"Open Bible - Resurrection Chapel - National Cathedral - DC" by Tim Evanson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license 

Old Testament for August 13, 2017

Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. took this photograph of Butterfield’s mosaic depicting Joseph being sold into slavery. The mosaic  is in the chapel of Keble College chapel in Oxford.

Start with Scripture:

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The tales of the ancestors of the Israelites continues with the story of Joseph.  He is the fourth generation removed from Abraham, the family patriarch, and he is one of eleven sons and one daughter of Jacob as our story begins.

Just a word of backstory.  Jacob has returned to Canaan after a twenty year sojourn at Haran in Mesopotamia  (Genesis 31-32).  He has managed to avoid reprisals from his embittered brother Esau, and even managed to find reconciliation with him.  And his identity has been changed — Jacob’s name is now Israel, after his night-long struggle with the Angel of Yahweh. 

However, Israel’s family situation is still….complicated.  He has two wives — the sisters Leah and Rachel. And he also has two additional “servant” wives —  Bilhah and Zilpah, who are the servants of Rachel and Leah respectively.  Each of his four “wives” has borne children to Israel, in a kind of competition between these “sister wives.”

For the sake of simplicity, here are the twelve, with a number assigned to indicate birth order:  Leah was the mother of  the oldest, Reuben (1), Simeon (2), Levi (3), Judah (4), Issachar (9), Zebulun (10), and Dinah, the only daughter (11).  Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, gave birth to two sons in Rachel’s effort to compete with her sister Leah — Dan (5) and Naphtali (6).  Zilpah was pressed into service as “breed stock”  by Leah when she thought she couldn’t bear any more children. Zilpah bore Gad (7) and Asher (8).  When Rachel finally was able to bear a child, Israel was now an old man.  Her son Joseph (12) was the twelfth child sired by Israel up to this point.  Rachel bore another son for Israel — Benjamin (13) — and she died in childbirth  (If this all sounds a bit competitive and even dehumanizing, it is.  The servants of Leah and Rachel were treated as mere breeders for their mistresses’ strange rivalry).

Our story picks up when Joseph is seventeen years old, working as a shepherd with his ten older brothers. And we again see strong evidence of family dysfunction.  Joseph is a tattle-tale, bringing an evil report on his brothers back to their father.  And Israel plays favorites, with predictable results:

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many colors. His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him, and couldn’t speak peaceably to him.

We speculate that Joseph was also Israel’s favorite son because he was Rachel’s first child.  Rachel was the true love of Israel’s life. Joseph and his younger brother Benjamin must have been physical reminders of his beloved Rachel.

Joseph’s brothers highly resented him. And his coat of many colors certainly didn’t help. To make matters worse, Joseph has two extraordinary dreams that suggest he will one day be preeminent over all of his brothers and even his own father — and Joseph has the nerve to blurt out the details of his dreams of superiority to his whole family!  Even Israel is taken aback by Joseph’s apparent audacity:

“What is this dream that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves down to you to the earth?”  His brothers envied him, but his father kept this saying in mind (Genesis 37:10-11).

Now, the plot thickens, as the cliche says.  Israel’s sons are feeding the flocks in Shechem.  Israel is now encamped in Hebron, which is in a valley nestled in the mountains,  where Sarah, Abraham, Isaac and Rebekah were buried. Hebron was about sixty-seven miles south of Shechem, which was in the central highlands of Canaan.  Presumably it was good pasture land for sheep.  (It should be remembered that traveling sixty-seven miles while driving a massive flock would take much longer than driving it on the interstate.)

Israel sends his son Joseph on an errand to find his brothers.  Presumably, Joseph has been kept home close to “dad” up to this point.  Is Israel sending his son to spy on his brothers, or to supervise them, or simply to check on their welfare? He seems to be simply asking Joseph to determine the well-being of his brothers, and the flock:

He said to him, “Go now, see whether it is well with your brothers, and well with the flock; and bring me word again.”

But when Joseph makes this long trip, he can’t find his brothers. They have moved on.  A stranger directs him to seek them at Dothan, which is about eighteen miles to the northwest of Shechem.

We get a pretty clear picture of what happens next.  The brothers see Joseph coming from a distance.  Perhaps they are high on a hill and see him climbing toward them.  And they have plenty of time to talk as they see him coming from afar.   They conspire against their hated brother:

They said to one another, “Behold, this dreamer comes.  Come now therefore, and let’s kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, ‘An evil animal has devoured him.’ We will see what will become of his dreams.”

We are witnessing a premeditated crime of murder in the making!  Fortunately for Joseph, a cooler head prevails.  Reuben, the oldest brother of them all (and the son of Leah), intervenes.  He finds an alternative that can spare his much younger brother:

 Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father.

Reuben is seeking to appease the envy of his brothers, while still saving Joseph’s life.  To be thrown into a dark, damp well would be a chastening experience, to be sure — but at least he would be alive!

They act quickly when Joseph arrives — they strip him of his coat of many colors. Joseph is lucky.  The well has no water.  He won’t drown!

While Joseph languishes at the bottom of a dark well, the brothers sit down to their meal — perhaps feeling a little festive now that their nemesis has been “brought down a peg.” They can eat, happily knowing their brother is in the pit.

But the plot thickens even more.  Apparently Reuben has gone away to tend the flock, or some other task.  He is not present when the boys hatch their next conspiracy.  A caravan of riding camels loIshmaelites aded with spices and balms and myrrh come near.  We are reminded that the Ishmaelites are related to the sons of Israel — they are distant cousins descended from their mutual grandfather Abraham.  Gilead was the mountainous region to the east of the Jordan River.

These Ishmaelites were merchants who were trading and selling their spices in Egypt, the center of political and military power and the cultural center of civilization at that time.  These Ishmaelites could be expected to bargain for anything worth selling. Or anyone.

It is Judah who suggests that the brothers shouldn’t kill Joseph.  Why not make a profit from this good looking, smart-alecky teenager?

Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?  Come, and let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not let our hand be on him; for he is our brother, our flesh.”

The narrative is just a little confusing.  Judah’s brothers heed his advice, but the text tells us:  

Midianites who were merchants passed by, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. They brought Joseph into Egypt.

The Midianites were also descendants of Abraham, like the Ishmaelites and the sons of Israel.  The Midianites were descendants of Keturah, the woman Abraham married after Sarah died (Genesis 25:1-2).

Did the brothers negotiate with some Midianites to pull their brother out of the well, and then sell him to the Ishmaelites on their behalf? If so, perhaps this gave them some “deniability” so they could say to their father — we had nothing to do with it!

We note the price of the sale of Joseph into slavery — twenty pieces of silver.  This was notoriously the price of a slave.  And we note that many centuries later, the life of a distant relative of Joseph’s (Jesus) would be sold out for thirty pieces of silver.

APPLY:  

Once again, we see the honesty of the Scriptures when it comes to describing even the Biblical patriarchs.  The brothers of Joseph, who will become the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel, are deeply resentful of their brother.

From a family perspective, there is a serious lack of emotional health in Israel’s attitudes.  He not only is partial to Joseph, he advertises this favoritism by giving him a splendid coat.  And Joseph compounds the problem by boasting to his family of his dreams of superiority.

This reminds us that God works through very fallible people in order to accomplish his purposes.  We will find, if we follow the tale of the slave Joseph into Egypt, that God uses even these horrible circumstances to bring good out of evil.  And perhaps these circumstances will even smooth off some of the rough edges of Joseph’s narcissistic character.

RESPOND: 

One needn’t be a student of Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory to conclude that Israel’s family is dysfunctional.

• Thirteen different kids by four different women, who also lived under the same roof (or tent canopy).
• A father who enmeshes one of his sons so deeply that his other sons come to hate their brother!
• A son who is so narcissistic that he brags about his superiority in front of these very brothers!
• And brothers whose moral compass permits them to seriously consider killing their brother, and have no qualms about selling him into slavery!

On the one hand, all this actually reassures me that even as weird and dysfunctional as my family sometimes may be, we’re not as bad as Israel’s family!  And Israel was the father of a great nation and a founder of a great dynasty which would be the focus of the entire Hebrew Bible, from Genesis to Malachi!  And even more comforting, despite all of these rivalries, enmeshments, and conspiracies, God kept his covenant with Israel.

So, when I read about the tale of Joseph and his brothers, I am reminded that this is only a snapshot, a frame, in the greater story. My Dad used to have a sign on his desk — Please be patient. God isn’t finished with me yet.  God wasn’t finished with Joseph or his brothers yet.

Lord, families are so meaningful to us, and yet they can be so dysfunctional, and even hurtful! But no matter how painful our childhoods may have been, you aren’t finished with us yet. Help us to trust you even when we feel that we have been betrayed and enslaved by our family systems.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
“Joseph sold as a slave” by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.