Gospel for July 2, 2023

Every guest you receive, it’s like you’re welcoming Christ.
[St. Norbert College]

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 10:40-42
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Jesus concludes his missionary instructions to his disciples, as he prepares to send them out to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 10:6).

His closing words to them are words of encouragement as they go out into a world that will often be hostile and resistant.  He tells them that they are to be his representatives — when they are received with generosity and hospitality, he is being received:

He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me.  He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. He who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward.  Whoever gives one of these little ones just a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple, most certainly I tell you he will in no way lose his reward.

There is to be a “vicarious” nature to the ministry of the disciples.  They are emissaries, ambassadors for Jesus.  And even the offer of cold water will bring reward on those who offer it.

This is reinforced later in Paul’s ministry when he writes:

We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20).

And Jesus reinforces this theme of “vicarious representation” when he tells a parable of the separation of the sheep and the goats:

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you; or thirsty, and give you a drink?  When did we see you as a stranger, and take you in; or naked, and clothe you?  When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?’  The King will answer them, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me’ (Matthew 25:37-40).

The disciples are the representatives of Jesus as Jesus is the representative of God the Father.  They are the prophets and the righteous sent in his name.  And those who receive these ambassadors and offer them hospitality will be rewarded as though they had ministered to Jesus himself.

APPLY:  

Following Christ — really following Christ — can be very difficult.  Jesus warns his disciples:

 See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles… Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name (Matthew 10:16-18, 21-22).

But following Christ — really following Christ — is also filled with superabundant rewards.  Jesus says:

Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven (Matthew 10:32).

Among the rewards Jesus offers is that those who represent him (who are the prophets and the righteous because of their relationship with him), will be a blessing to those who offer hospitality to them.  In fact, those who welcome Jesus’ disciples receive the same reward the disciples can expect!

We are not only to offer ministry in Jesus’ name; we are to welcome those who offer ministry in Jesus’ name as though they are Jesus himself — with the same generosity and hospitality with which we would welcome Jesus.

RESPOND: 

I have always been intrigued by the title “vicar.”   The vicar is usually a parish priest in the Anglican church, or a deputy or representative of a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church.  The Pope himself is known as the Vicar of Christ.

The etymology of the word vicar traces its roots back to the 14th century, as an Anglo-French word sharing the same root as vicarious.  Something vicarious is something that is done on behalf of someone else — as when we say that we are saved by the vicarious atonement of Christ.

But vicar also has to do with someone who acts as a deputy, or proxy, or representative of someone else.  In that sense a parish priest acts as a vicar on Christ’s behalf, offering Word, Sacrament and Service in his name.

And even more, all who claim the name of Jesus are to offer ministry as vicars on Jesus’ behalf.  And we are also to welcome those who seek to minister in his name as though they were Jesus himself.

What a culture of kindness and hospitality this would create in our local churches if this were consistently practiced!

Our Lord, you have offered your own life as a substitute for mine.  That is the first and most important vicarious substitution for which I am grateful. Thank you for the call to ministry, and the many ways in which your people have welcomed me as though they were welcoming you!  And may I also treat those who seek to preach your Word and share your sacraments and offer compassionate ministry in your name with the same honor and respect with which I would treat you.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
"A Wing and a Prayer: Radical Hospitality" by stnorbert is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for July 2, 2023

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Romans 6:12-23
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Paul continues the discussion he began in Romans 6:1-11 relating to the Christian’s death to sin and resurrection to new life.  He began this section with the question:

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?  (Romans 6:1).

His answer, of course, is unequivocal:

 May it never be! (Romans 6:2)

And now he continues to explain why sin and grace are incompatible.  The point of his argument is that the salvation and grace of Jesus Christ is not only for the sake of pardon from sin, but also power over sin.

For organizational purposes, I break our current passage into four parts:

• In verses 12-14, he appeals to his readers not to let sin reign in their lives, but to yield even their very bodies to the righteousness of God.
• In verse 15, he reiterates his rhetorical question, raised in verse 1 — Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be!
• In verses 16-20, he employs the metaphor of servant and master to demonstrate that everyone inevitably serves something — either sin or righteousness.
• And in verses 21-23, Paul compares the results of sin with the results of serving God. The fruit of sin is death, and the fruit of serving God is eternal life.

Paul frames his ongoing discussion of sin and righteousness as a matter of servitude.  A person is either a servant of sin, or a servant of God.

Jesus makes a similar observation:

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24).

Paul is really laying the foundation for the experience of Christian sanctification.  His logic is that sin leads to bondage and death; submission to God — as represented in baptism (Romans 6:3-4) — leads to new life in Christ, freedom from sin, and eternal life.

This section concludes with a stark description of the contrast between the life of servitude to sin vs. the life of submission to God:

 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Note that death is the wages of sin — these are wages that people earn by giving themselves over to sin.  Eternal life is not earned — it is the free gift of God through Jesus Christ.

APPLY:  

Some modern Christians have a tendency to be Gnostic when it comes to sin and righteousness — that is, we  “spiritualize” our Christian lives.  Grace and righteousness and holiness and sanctification are, to them, all a matter of how one “feels” emotionally.  They seem to think that how one lives, what one says, and what one does with one’s body are irrelevant.

That’s why we note that Paul is no Gnostic — he warns the Romans:

Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

The New Testament view of human nature is holistic in the sense that body and soul are united — we don’t have a body as distinct from the soul, we are a body and soul.  Body, soul, spirit, mind are constituent parts of one whole.

We are reminded that we Christians speak of the resurrection of the body, not merely the immortality of the soul.  When Paul speaks of the resurrection of the dead, he says:

 The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable.  It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.  It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

But in the resurrection, there will still be a body — it will be a glorified body.

So when sin reigns in our bodies it affects our souls as well.  When we yield our members as instruments of sin there is a connection between soul and body.  C.S. Lewis once said that he knelt in prayer because where the body goes the spirit follows.  In his ingenious novel depicting the correspondence between a senior devil named Screwtape and his deputy, named Wormwood, Screwtape has this piece of advice for his “nephew” (Note that the Enemy to which Screwtape refers is God!):

One of their poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray ‘with moving lips and bended knees’ but merely ‘composed his spirit to love’ and indulged ‘a sense of supplication’. That is exactly the sort of prayer we want; and since it bears a superficial resemblance to the prayer of silence as practised by those who are very far advanced in the Enemy’s service, clever and lazy patients can be taken in by it for quite a long time. At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.
[Screwtape Letters]

This is why Paul later will re-emphasize this principle of complete and total surrender to God with these words:

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service (Romans 12:1).

Faith manifests itself in the fruits of the Spirit, and fruits form our character.

RESPOND: 

Bob Dylan’s reputation as an American folk musician, protest singer, and poet is well-established, and confirmed by his recent Nobel Prize for literature in 2016.  In the late 1970’s, he experienced a conversion to Christianity, and shortly thereafter cut an album with Christian lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979).

One of his songs explores the same theme explored by the Apostle Paul — that we all serve somebody:

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes
Indeed you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Dylan grasped a fundamental truth — whatever controls you is your master.   And the Christian message is that slavery to sin leads to death; submission to God leads to life.

Lord, my earnest desire is to serve you, but I know that I cannot do so in my own strength.  The bondage to sin is strong in human nature.  Where I still have chains, break them.  I pray that being made free from sin, and having become your servant, I may experience the fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal life.  Amen.

PHOTOS:

"NOT I, BUT CHRIST Corrie ten Boom" by Corrie ten Boom Museum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Psalm Reading for July 2, 2023

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 13
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This Psalm is clearly an individual Psalm of Lament.  David’s context is unclear, but he seems to be at the bottom of the abyss, emotionally.

He feels forgotten by Yahweh — his previously intimate relationship with God has been disrupted:

    How long will you hide your face from me?

There is a possible hint as to the source of his despair, as he counsels in his own soul about his deep sorrow, and then says: 

How long shall my enemy triumph over me?

David is certainly a man who knew what it was to have enemies, and to need the friendship of God when he felt alone!  His enemies included Goliath and the Philistines, his own king Saul, the Ammonites, the Moabites, Geshurites, Gezrites, Amalekites, Jebusites, and even some of his own people in a civil war led by his own son Absalom!

Each of these outcries to God is punctuated four times with the phrase, “How long…”:

How long, Yahweh?
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
having sorrow in my heart every day?
How long shall my enemy triumph over me?

He asks for an answer, for light to his eyes:

 lest I sleep in death.

He is clearly facing an existential threat.  But a part of his motivation is that he doesn’t want his enemies to be vindicated: 

Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him”;
Lest my adversaries rejoice when I fall.

That would involve a loss of face, which for a warrior and a man of his time and culture would be almost worse  than death!

However, at the end of the Psalm, as so often occurs in these prayers of lament, there is a twist that reveals that he still has faith:

But I trust in your loving kindness.
My heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to Yahweh,
because he has been good to me.

His past relationship with Yahweh provides him with the assurance that Yahweh is trustworthy, loving and benevolent.  David begins in despair, and ends with praise!

APPLY:  

The blessing of the Psalms is their honesty.  There is no “stained glass piety” in the Psalms.  They are the honest cry of the heart in relationship to God — sometimes filled with joy and thanksgiving, but sometimes also filled with despair and hopelessness.

What David may be experiencing is a kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder — understandable for a warrior who had seen so many battles, and had also been betrayed by those he trusted — King Saul early in his adulthood, and his own son Absalom when he was old.

The truth is, PTSD is not restricted to soldiers.  Policemen, firemen, medical personnel, victims of crime, victims of illness, even caregivers may exhibit the symptoms of PTSD.

The Psalms may provide a kind of “therapy” for those astute enough to use them.  When dealing with stress, or a sense of abandonment, or existential fear, reading through the Psalms may be the best antidote for the believer.  The Psalms enable the reader to identify with all of the despair and the hopelessness, and then work through that to find a sense of peace and encouragement in a living faith.

David cries out to God how long? as a complaint about his sense of dereliction — but then finds himself returning to faith:

But I trust in your loving kindness.
My heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to Yahweh,
because he has been good to me.

RESPOND: 

Years ago my wife wrote a musical for her youth choir, entitled “Pah-salms.”  As the title suggests, it had its share of levity and whimsy.  She was playing with the improper pronunciation of the word “Psalm.”  We all know that the “P” is silent.  But someone new to written English might think it should be pronounced “Pah– salms.”

But the most significant breakthrough from her musical was the realization that the Psalms have a prayer or hymn for virtually every human mood — worship, joy, love, fear, despair, even hate.

What this reminds us is that our relationship with God is a real relationship.  We can bring everything that is inside of us to God as we pour out our hearts in prayer to him.  That doesn’t mean God will sanction everything we feel or say, but it does mean that we begin our prayers with honesty.  Only when we are honest with God, and ourselves, can God really begin to change us.  It is only then that we are really open to God.

We see the change in tone and mood in David in this brief Psalm.  And when we pray honestly, we can see the change in ourselves as well, if we give it time.

Lord, there are many times in my life that I feel abandoned and alone.  But I find that if I stay in dialogue with you, you help me work through all of those negative emotions to find hope, joy and peace.  Help me keep my relationship with you real! Amen.

PHOTOS:

"Despair" by Wokandapix is in the public domain.

Old Testament for July 2, 2023

“The Ram of Sacrifice”
Detail of a mosaic from the Rosary Basilica in Lourdes.
[photo & description by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.]

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 22:1-14
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This is a difficult passage.  Abraham and Sarah’s long-awaited hope for a son has been fulfilled.  Isaac has been born to this aged couple, bringing great joy (Genesis 21:1-8).  They have weathered the potentially explosive tensions between Sarah and Hagar, the mother of Abraham’s first son (Genesis 21:9-12).  Abraham has experienced deep grief because he has sent away his son Ishmael, in order to keep peace in the family (Genesis 21:11-14).  Now life has seemingly stabilized for Abraham, Sarah and Isaac — Abraham has negotiated for possession of a well, which is an important source of life and prosperity in a dry land (Genesis 21:22-34).

All is well.  And then this:

After these things, God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!
He said, “Here I am.”
He said, “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of.”

Needless to say, this is unexpected and shocking!  Abraham has been in a trusting, vital relationship with God since he was living in Haran many years earlier.  He has been led to Canaan, and through all of the vicissitudes of life, he has remained faithful to God.  The most significant promise to Abraham — that he would receive this land of promise, and that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him — was that he would be the father of many nations, particularly through the son born of Sarah.

The request from God, in verse 2 of this week’s lectionary reading, seems a direct contradiction to God’s original plan and will.  God is asking Abraham to sacrifice that which is most precious to him:

your only son, whom you love, even Isaac.

The place of the sacrifice was to be Moriah — also known as the Mountain of Yahweh.  Moriah is significant in Biblical history.  One thousand years after Abraham, David bought the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, which was at the summit of this mountain (2 Chronicles 24:18); this would also become the site of Solomon’s Temple.

What we know of Canaanite religion is that there is strong evidence of the requirement of human sacrifice.  Molech was one of the gods of the Canaanites — and one of his greatest demands was child sacrifice.  We know that later in the history of Israel, human sacrifice, and particularly child sacrifice, would be strictly prohibited (Leviticus 18:21; 20:2, etc.).  This may explain why Abraham was willing to even entertain this request, although it seemed out of character for Yahweh.  Perhaps he believed that Yahweh was asking for the same sacrifice as Molech.

Abraham carefully follows the prescribed ritual — he splits the wood for the burnt offering, he travels with Isaac and two other servants, and then bids the servants to stay behind when they arrive at Moriah.  All of the ingredients for this ancient ritual of sacrifice are there — the wood, the knife, the fire — all but the lamb!

Isaac cannot help but notice this, as he himself carries the wood for the burnt offering.  When he asks about it, did his voice quaver a bit nervously?  Abraham’s answer reveals that he is still a man of faith:

 Abraham said, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”

Either Abraham is deceiving Isaac, or he is still hopeful that God will intervene.

When they arrive at the summit of Moriah, Abraham follows through on all the rubrics of ancient worship — he builds the altar of stones available on site, lays the wood in order — and then binds his son and lays him on the altar!  What a perilous moment, as he takes up the knife to cut his son’s throat!

And, in good Hollywood fashion, at the last moment, there is an intervention:

 Yahweh’s angel called to him out of the sky, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!
He said, “Here I am.
He said, “Don’t lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

Was it a test of Abraham’s faith and obedience to God?  Or was it a means by which God uses Abraham as an example that God repudiated human sacrifice as a form of worship?

In any event, Abraham learns, or re-learns, a lesson about God’s character — God provides what he requires.  If he requires a sacrifice, he himself will provide it:

Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and saw that behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. Abraham called the name of that place Yahweh Will Provide.  As it is said to this day, “On Yahweh’s mountain, it will be provided.”

A key aspect of Yahweh’s character is revealed — he is Yahweh-Jireh, the Lord who provides!

APPLY:  

A sick and troubled interpretation of this passage would draw the conclusion that God may require human sacrifice.

A healthier and more accurate interpretation would argue that while God tested Abraham’s obedience, he uses this opportunity to repudiate the pagan practice of human sacrifice.  It is true that Abraham proves his faith in God.  James, in the New Testament, praises Abraham’s obedience:

Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?  You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected (James 2:21-22).

But it is also true that God never requires a father to sacrifice his son — and in fact repudiates this practice officially in the Mosaic Law.

A typological interpretation of this passage draws this conclusion — that a substitute was found that made Isaac’s sacrifice unnecessary.  Christ is described in various places in the New Testament as a substitutionary sacrifice for us:

For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place (1 Corinthians 5:7).

In any event, Abraham had faith that Isaac would not be lost to him, because God had promised that he would fulfill his covenant through Isaac:

By faith, Abraham, being tested, offered up Isaac. Yes, he who had gladly received the promises was offering up his one and only son; even he to whom it was said, “your offspring will be accounted as from Isaac”;   concluding that God is able to raise up even from the dead. Figuratively speaking, he also did receive him back from the dead (Hebrews 11:17-19).

The application for our faith is that God does ask for our complete surrender of everything.  Everything we have will one day be taken away from us, and the only way to receive it back from God is to give it up to God.  And furthermore, God provides whatever he requires from us — whether it be the substitutionary atonement of his Son, or granting us a strength and grace beyond what we have in ourselves to do what he calls us to do.

RESPOND: 

As the father of two sons, I cannot imagine being placed in the position that Abraham was in. He had already “sacrificed” one son, Ishmael, to the jealousy and dysfunctions of a complicated family situation.  Now, the son who was to fulfill God’s covenant was literally on the chopping block!

The truth is, though, every parent must sacrifice their children, figuratively speaking.  When our children grow up and begin to make their own decisions, we must understand that in a unique sense those children belong to God in a deeper way than they belong to us.

I’m reminded of a story told of Andrew Young.  Andrew Young had been an aide to Martin Luther King, Jr., a pastor, and eventually the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia.  But on one occasion he was saying farewell to his daughter in the airport.  She was leaving to participate in a Christian mission in Africa.  After watching her board her flight, he was heard to say, “I wanted her to be a Christian, but I didn’t mean a real Christian!”

Any honest parent can understand his sentiment.  We want our children to live exciting, adventurous lives — so long as they are protected in bubbles.  Life just doesn’t work that way.

But when it comes to the sacrifices that are required in our lives, we can do no better than to pray as St. Augustine of Hippo prayed:

Command what you will, and then give what you command.

Lord, you don’t require human sacrifice; but you do require that we take everything that we love, cherish, and value and place it in your hands.  At our best, we are like Abraham who trusts that you give it all back.  Increase our faith, even as we pray as Augustine did — command what you will and then give what you command. Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“The Ram of Sacrifice” by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for July 10, 2022

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Luke 10:25-37
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Asking questions of a rabbinical teacher was not at all uncommon.  Question-and-answer dialectical method was a common style of teaching.  And one of the classic questions asked of a rabbi was “what is the essence of the law, rabbi?”

However, in this case, the lawyer is also motivated by hostility to Jesus. He hoped to test Jesus’ mettle, and even to trip him up.  The lawyer wasn’t a lawyer in the modern sense of an attorney — the lawyers of Jesus’ time were transcribers and interpreters of the Torah, the ancient law of Moses. They were also known as scribes.

From his question we can deduce that this lawyer is of the school of the Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection from the dead — unlike the Sadducees.  He says he wants to know what he must do to inherit eternal life.

Jesus responds in a kind of Socratic manner, answering a question with a question. In this era, there was a classic question that a person might ask a rabbi — “What is the summary of the law?”

So Jesus asks the lawyer:

“What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

This suggests Jesus’ confidence in the Hebrew Scriptures of his people, that they are in fact the revealed Word of God.

The lawyer answers with appropriate Scriptures from the Law of Moses that sum up the law:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.

This commandment to love God with all one’s being comes from Deuteronomy 6:5. In a sense this commandment summarizes all of the vertical commandments of a person’s relationship with God, especially as suggested in the first four commandments of the Decalogue (The Ten Commandments).

The second commandment relates to the horizontal relationships between human beings, as suggested by the last six of the Ten Commandments, and also by the ethical and social justice demands of the prophets.  This commandment is also culled from the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18b):

[love]  your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus confirms that this is the way to eternal life — unreserved love for God, and unselfish love for other people:

 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But remember, this lawyer has been attempting to trip up Jesus.  He wasn’t sincerely seeking answers — he was seeking leverage over Jesus.  So he can’t leave it alone:

wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Again with questions?  Jesus continues his pedagogical method of indirection.  This is a form of “discovery learning.”  Jesus uses parables to draw in his listeners, and then hooks them with the wisdom of his teaching.

Jesus tells the famous parable of the Good Samaritan (verses 30-37).

The story is full of dramatic anticipation.  The man who is journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho travels some of the most dangerous, mountainous terrain from the highlands of Judea toward the Jordan River Valley.  There are plenty of hollows and gorges and caves in these mountains where a gang of thieves might hide.

The tension builds as the traveler is robbed, beaten and stripped and left for dead by just such a gang.

With keen irony, Jesus describes two men passing at different intervals on the road where the victim lies bleeding — one is a priest and the other a Levite.  If anyone knew the laws of Moses, surely these men did!  They should know what compassion is required for a victim, and what it means to love your neighbor!  And yet they pass by on the other side.  This simple phrase captures their indifference and/or revulsion for the condition of the victim.

Now comes the real twist in the story.  It isn’t the priest or the Levite who fulfills the law of love — it is a Samaritan.  Hostility between Jews and Samaritans goes back more than 700 years.  Antipathy of the Jews for Samaritans is based on ethnic, cultural and religious differences. Pharisees regarded the Samaritans as fuel for the fires of hell simply because of their ethnicity.

And yet, it is this Samaritan, regarded as a non-person by many Jews, who has compassion for the victim.  The Samaritan doesn’t ask what the ethnicity, religion or origin of the victim may be:

a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

His pity is supported by action. He anoints and bandages the man’s wounds, carries him to an inn on his own animal, and pays for his care with two denarii. This would have been the equivalent of two day’s hard-earned wages for a laborer.  Moreover, the Samaritan promises the innkeeper that he will pay any further bills for expenses this victim incurs.

So Jesus comes to the punchline of the story.  The hook is set and the fish is caught:

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?

The lawyer can’t even bring himself to name the ethnicity of the Samaritan. We can imagine him answering sullenly:  

“The one who showed him mercy.”

The point is clear:

Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Eternal life begins when love for God is complete, and love for neighbor is impartial and without prejudice.

APPLY:  

The lawyer asks the question that every human being who is honest with themselves will ask at some point:

what must I do to inherit eternal life?

The answer to this question in Paul’s epistles is that salvation comes through grace, received by faith in Christ’s vicarious death and resurrection on our behalf.  Is this answer incompatible with the answer offered here in Luke? In the Gospels, eternal life is indeed a gift, but it is received by loving God with one’s whole self and living out that love in compassion for others.

The two views of the means of procuring eternal life aren’t incompatible at all.  Faith isn’t merely intellectual assent to certain propositions.  As James 2:19 reminds us:

Even the demons believe—and shudder.

It can be reasonably argued that the demons, as fallen angels, know far more about true doctrine than any human being can possibly know.  But their belief is not faith.

Faith in the New Testament implies trust. And trust implies love.  And if we are to truly love God — who loves all the world — then we must love all of those whom God loves. This includes even his enemies, and ours!

RESPOND: 

As an ordained clergyman, this passage, though beautiful, makes me a little uncomfortable.

After all, I’m more like the priest and the Levite than I am the Samaritan in terms of my profession.  The Samaritan, though unschooled in “proper” doctrine and practice, is closer to God because he loves. He expresses his love in action.

The neighbor may be defined as any person who is in need. And as Jesus tells us in Matthew 25:40, when we minister to the hungry, the sick, the stranger, the prisoner, we are actually ministering to Jesus!

Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

True faith is love in action:

the only thing that counts is faith working through love (Galatians 5:6).

Lord, forgive me when my ‘faith’ is mere words and intellectual belief.  Spur me on to love as you love— as the Samaritan loves — impartially and wholeheartedly. Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"The-Good-Smaritan" by Ray MacLean is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for July 10, 2022

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Colossians 1:1-14
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Paul’s letter to the Colossians is regarded as one of his four “prison letters” (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. There is also good evidence to include Paul’s “pastoral letters” — 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus — as letters written from prison).  These were probably written when he is incarcerated in Rome near the end of his recorded ministry, and possibly his life.

Surprisingly, Paul had not visited Colossae when this letter was written, despite his extensive travels throughout the Roman province of Asia where Colossae is located.  The church was planted by Epaphras, who happens to be with Paul as he is writing.  No doubt Epaphras is advising Paul about some of the issues that are arising in Colossae:

we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus…and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

Paul begins this letter much as he does others that he has written.  He greets the Colossians using his title as an apostle of Christ Jesus, and mentions his protege Timothy.  He says to the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ that he is praying for them and is thankful for their faith in Christ and their love for all the saints.

By saints, of course, he has in mind all Christians who have come to faith in Christ.  He is in no way thinking of an elite group of “super-Christians.”  All Christians, by virtue of the redemptive work of Christ, are set apart as holy, which is the meaning of saints. As he explains near the end of today’s passage (verses 13-14), they have been entitled to share in the inheritance of the saints because of the work of God the Father through his Son:

He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Paul praises the faithful ministry of Epaphras who has carefully instructed the Colossians about the gospel:

You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you.

Moreover, Paul notes that this ministry has continued to flourish in Colossae just as it has everywhere:

Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.

So, inspired by Epaphras’ accounts of the faith of the Colossians, Paul continues to pray for them:  

For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.

Paul’s emphasis is clear. As the Colossians deepen their relationship with God, they deepen their understanding of sound Christian doctrine — and consequently their lives are transformed ethically and they bear fruit in good works to others.  A healthy spiritual life is grounded in a faith-filled relationship with God, enlightened by sound doctrine, and lived out in godly living.

APPLY:  

How can Paul possibly write a letter to people he’s never met?  How can he possibly understand how their minds work, what their concerns are, what is going on in their lives?

Of course he hears the reports that Epaphras has brought to him.  But even more than that, Paul understands two things — the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the human heart.  He knows what human beings yearn for, and what they are seeking above all else — reconciliation with God.  And he knows that this is the purpose for which Christ has come to earth.

We might well ask ourselves the same question — how can a letter written to an obscure church in a city that was later destroyed by an earthquake possibly be relevant to us?

The answer is simple. The hopes of the human heart are the same now as they were nearly 2000 years ago. And the truths of the gospel remain the ultimate fulfillment of those hopes.

RESPOND: 

Some of the finest theology in the Christian faith is embedded in our hymns.  Charles Wesley wrote a hymn titled simply A Prayer for Children.   In this hymn, he offers a timeless prayer:

Unite the pair so long disjoined,
Knowledge and vital piety:
Learning and holiness combined,
And truth and love.

I make this my own prayer in my own spiritual life — that I may deepen my relationship with God through the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible study, worship, fasting, and the sacrament.  I also pray that as I study the Scriptures I will deepen my understanding of sound Christian doctrine — and that the fruit of these spiritual practices and doctrinal understanding will be a transformed life that makes a difference in the lives of others.

Our Lord, may Paul’s prayer for the Colossians be my prayer — that I may lead a life worthy of you, fully pleasing to you, as I bear fruit in every good work and as I grow in the knowledge of God. Amen.

 PHOTOS:
"'Thank the Father, who has made you able to share the light, which is what God’s people inherit. God has rescued us from the power of darkness' Colossians ‭1:12-13‬ ‭GW‬" by Colin Campbell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Psalm Reading for July 10, 2022

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 82
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This Psalm gives a very small glimpse into the heavenly realms that are beyond human comprehension.  The Most High God takes his place in the divine council in the midst of the gods. 

What can that possibly mean for a strictly monotheistic people such as the Jews?  Is there a hint of polytheism here?  Who are these gods over whom God holds judgment? 

The answer that Christian theology has given is that this divine council of gods refers to those beings that we know as angels. These are supernatural and super-intelligent beings.  Angelology is much more developed in New Testament theology.  Peter speaks of a kind of hierarchy of angelic beings who are subject to the resurrected Christ:

Jesus Christ,  who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him (1 Peter 3:21-22).

In the Old Testament, we also see the divine council that gathers in God’s presence in Job 1:6.

One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord…

Curiously, in our Psalm for today, God is scolding the heavenly court:

“How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.
 Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

It becomes clear that God is not only speaking to angelic and heavenly beings — he is also speaking to kings and princes.  If God is speaking to heavenly gods he is also speaking to those who are gods on earth — that is, those who have godlike political and military power in the world — kings and leaders.

God is acting as an advocate for the poor and the dispossessed and the oppressed.  And he is calling those who are in positions of power to be just and deliver the needy.

God also warns that though these members of the divine council are gods, they are mortal:

nevertheless, you shall die like mortals,
and fall like any prince.”

Ultimately, the Psalmist makes it clear that the one God, the only God, is sovereign over all the earth, the nations, as well as the heavenly council:

Rise up, O God, judge the earth;
for all the nations belong to you!

APPLY:  

What do we make of this Psalm, given its metaphysical tone? It doesn’t fit neatly into typical categories about angels and angelology.

God presides over a divine council of gods — all of the gods, those who are supernatural and those who are human rulers, so it seems.

Some of the early church fathers, such as Tertullian and Justin Martyr, believed that the gods of paganism weren’t gods at all, but actually demons who manipulated people through their impersonations.  This interpretation might explain why God’s tone toward these gods in divine council is so reproachful.

These gods judge unjustly and they show partiality to the wicked.  These sound like beings who are not in submission to God, but in rebellion.  So he is warning them that there will be consequences for them if they continue to oppress the weak, the orphan, the destitute.  They will fall.

God has the last word.  That is the real message of this Psalm.  Those who think they have power, and who abuse it, will learn that God will triumph:

Rise up, O God, judge the earth;
for all the nations belong to you!

RESPOND: 

The word from the Psalm is ultimately a word of comfort.  We live in an uneasy and anxious time — radical Islamic terror in the Middle East has created waves of thousands of refugees, who flee to an overwhelmed Europe.  The European Union is reeling as member nations consider exiting this fragile economic cooperative effort.  Leaders in various nations posture and rattle sabers.

Even the church experiences the anxiety of a society that is growing more and more secular in morals and values.  As I sat at a recent church conference, hearing about the growth of secularism and its encroachment on the church, a pastor’s wife turned to me and said, “All I know is, God has the last word.”

That’s what Psalm 82 reminds us.

Lord, thank you that when nations tremble and the ‘gods’ of our time lose their way, you are steady and you have the last word.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
“God Will Have the Last Word” uses this background:
“cloud” by boris drenec is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for July 10, 2022

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Amos 7:7-17
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The prophetic ministry of Amos reminds us a little of Elijah and Elisha.  Amos is a bit of an eccentric, like those two prophets who predate him by about 100 years.

First of all, Amos is a “southern boy” who comes north to Israel from his hometown in Tekoa in Judah, ten miles from Jerusalem.  We remember that Israel (the northern kingdom) had seceded from Judah (the southern kingdom) about 931 B.C.  Amos has come into Israel in the north around 750 B.C. to scold King Jeroboam II of Israel.

To gain perspective on how strange this may have seemed, imagine a pastor from Dearborn, Michigan during the American Civil War leaving the north and coming south to Richmond, Virginia to scold President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy for his policies!  Like Amos, he probably wouldn’t be received warmly!

Amos himself admits that he has no genealogical foundation as a prophet:

I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs.

One of the things we see elsewhere in the Old Testament is that there are “court prophets” who are employed in the palaces of the kings of Israel and Judah.  And because they were employed by the kings, sometimes they found it difficult to tell the king what he really needed to hear.

Amos makes it very clear that his is an independent voice, without compromise.  He is neither a court prophet nor has he been taught in the “schools of the prophets” that were current in those days. Amos’ only accountability is to God.

In this passage, Amos uses a dramatic metaphor to illustrate the objective and absolute moral standards of God:

Thus he showed me and behold, the Lord stood beside a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.  Yahweh said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I will set a plumb line in the middle of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.

The plumb line is a rope with a weight at the end, used by builders to determine the vertical precision of a wall.  The plumb line is an absolute standard of measurement.

In this case, the Lord is declaring that Israel and their King Jeroboam will be judged by divine standards — and be found wanting:

The high places of Isaac will be desolate, the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

Amos’ ministry will not go unopposed.  Ironically, it is a priest who is most alarmed about Amos’ prophesies. Amaziah the priest of Bethel advises King Jeroboam that Amos is conspiring against him.  Amos does prophesy Jeroboam’s death and the exile of Israel.

We are reminded that the priesthood in Israel are by definition like the “court prophets” described above.  The center of worship for the Israelites had been Jerusalem since the time of King David.  The ark of the covenant had been taken there by David probably around 1000 B.C.  Solomon, the son of David, built a glorious temple to house the ark around 966 B.C. It was in Jerusalem that the Aaronic priests and the Levites carried out the sacrificial ritual and musical worship from that time on.

However, because of King Rehoboam’s poor leadership following the death of his father Solomon, Israel seceded from Judah in 931 B.C., thereby dividing the kingdom into the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah).   The new kings of the northern kingdom wanted to consolidate their power in this new independent kingdom and this meant fostering the worship of the Lord in places like Dan and Bethel.

This explains why Amaziah the priest of Bethel is so suspicious of Amos. Amos is from Judah, not Israel. But Amos was of the belief that Israel and Judah worship the same Lord.  Furthermore, Amos knows he has been commissioned by the Lord to warn his northern cousins that they must repent.

Amaziah wants Amos to go home:

You seer, go, flee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: but don’t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!

This prompts Amos to respond that he doesn’t belong to any guild of prophets — and he certainly is no “court prophet.”  His only responsibility is to the Lord:

I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs; and Yahweh took me from following the flock, and Yahweh said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”

Amos’ answer to Amaziah is unequivocal and uncompromising.  He is a faithful witness from the Lord, and says:

Now therefore listen to Yahweh’s word: “You say, Don’t prophesy against Israel, and don’t preach against the house of Isaac.” Therefore Yahweh says: “Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.”

Amos is prophesying around 750 B.C.  while Israel is still intact and prosperous.  Within 29 years, in the year 721 B.C., Amos’ warnings would come to pass.  Israel would be conquered by the ruthless Assyrian empire and scattered to the four winds.

APPLY:  

God’s standards for right and wrong, good and evil, are absolute.  Like the plumb line, God’s standards measure our ethics and morality — and we are found wanting.

However, the role of the prophet is to warn us that we can still repent and turn and receive mercy.  The role of the prophet can be thankless.

Pastors tend to try to comfort people.  The prophet must be the bad guy, who tells us what we don’t want to hear.  Just as nations need an independent judiciary, so the prophet needs to be independent — accountable only to God.

RESPOND: 

I’ve given a lot of thought to the role of the prophet, and the difficulty of telling people the truth about the consequences of sin and injustice.

We have a tendency in modern culture to be “nice” to people.  Young people, I’m told, want “safe spaces” where their opinions or choices won’t be challenged or contradicted.

But what if our opinions and choices are extremely dangerous to us? What if those beliefs and practices carry us away from God?

In that case, the work of a prophet in telling the truth is a little like that of a doctor.  When a patient goes to the doctor, he doesn’t expect the doctor to tell him what he wants to hear.  That would be very unloving and unhelpful.  No, the doctor’s duty is to tell the truth, and then give the patient choices about his treatment.

In my mind, it is the doctor who tells me the truth that really cares about me, not the doctor who tells me what I want to hear.

Lord, give me the courage to hear the truth, as well as the courage to tell the truth.  And remind me to always speak the truth in love.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
“plumb line on sandstone wall” by P.W. Hatcher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.