The following material was written by the Rev. John Shearman (jlss@sympatico.ca) of the United Church of Canada. John normally structures his offerings so that the first portion can be used as a bulletin insert, while the second portion provides a more in depth 'introduction to the scripture'.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Ordinary 27 - Proper 22 - Year A
[NOTE: Throughout the Season after Pentecost the RCL
provides a set of alternate lessons which some
denominations prefer. A summary of these readings is
also included below.]
EXODUS 20:1-4,7-9,12-20 Of all passages in the Bible, this may be the
most familiar. Perhaps more surprising to us now is the scholarly opinion
that these Ten Commandments were by no means original to the Israelites.
Similar codes existed long before the Jewish tradition developed that this
code was delivered by God to Moses and the Israelites on the sacred
mountain of Sinai. This Decalogue set forth the eternal covenant
relationships between God and Israel, and between human beings in a
relatively small community. Yet the constitutions and laws of many modern
nations are based on this ancient code, particularly the last six
commandments.
PSALM 19 The creative power of God in nature and God's
sacred covenant with humanity expressed in the Torah became the
centrepiece of Israel's religious heritage as set forth in this psalm.
The two distinct parts of the psalm cause some to wonder if they were
originally two separate compositions. Even if so, the Hebrew sense of the
majestic beauty of creation and the divinely ordered Torah make it easy to
understand why they were united as one.
ISAIAH 5:1-7 (Alternate) These poetic lines express a moving
sense of God’s disappointment with God’s chosen people. The striking
metaphor of Israel as God’s unfruitful vineyard is a profound message of
judgment against them.
PSALM 80:7-15 (Alternate) In another reference to Israel as
God’s vine the psalmist laments that God has allowed it to languish and
pleads that God restore it to favour once more.
PHILIPPIANS 3:4b-14 Although as a Pharisee Paul was familiar with the
Torah as were few other New Testament authors, he rested his spiritual
authority on his experience of and obedience to Jesus Christ, not on his
achievements in keeping the moral code of Israel. Knowing and following
Christ above all was his only goal, a purpose for which he had made great
sacrifice.
MATTHEW 21:33-46 Jesus tells a devastatingly obvious parable
against the religious authorities who so obstinately opposed him. They
fully realized what he was saying and made plans to destroy him as the
ultimate threat to their authority. The parable and the pointed
accusation which followed would resonate with the members of Matthew's own
community when Jewish Christians were being driven from the synagogues in
the 80s. The quotation about a cornerstone being rejected (vs. 42) comes
from Psalm 118:22- 23. As used there, it did not refer to the Messiah
being rejected. That was a new interpretation imposed on the reference by
the early church. Its appearance in three other New Testament books (Mark
12:10-11, Acts 4:11 and 1 Peter 2:7) shows that it was an important part
of early Christian preaching as the church struggled to understand why
Jesus was crucified.
A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS:
EXODUS 20:1-4,7-9,12-20 Of all passages in the Bible, this may be the
most familiar. Perhaps more surprising to us now is the scholarly opinion
that these Ten Commandments were by no means original to the Israelites.
Similar codes existed long before the Jewish tradition developed that this
code was delivered by God to Moses and the Israelites on the sacred
mountain of Sinai. It may also come as a surprise to many that there are
variations in the way different religious communities enumerate them. Nor
do all Christians follow the same enumeration. Jews, Roman Catholics and
Lutherans treat worshiping other gods and making graven images as the
first commandment, while Reformed and Orthodox Christians separate them
into two. Roman Catholics and Lutherans separate coveting into two
prohibitions, as nine and ten: nine - the household; and ten - the
remainder of the list.
This Decalogue set forth the eternal covenant relationships between God
and humanity and between human beings in a relatively small community.
Yet the constitutions and laws of many modern nations are based on this
ancient code, particularly the last six commandments. Some interpreters
would prefer to divide the Decalogue into four parts, as does Professor
Emeritus Walter Harrelson, of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, in
*The Oxford Companion to the Bible*:
The first three demand the worship of God alone, prohibiting image-making
and the use of God's name to do harm to others. These not only stress
God's exclusive claim over the lives of people, but also demand total
commitment, thus preserving people from divided loyalties and protecting
the community from misusing God's power.
The next two call for the observing of the seventh day as a day of rest
and for honoring parents when they may no longer be of significant
economic value within the community. These institutions provide
protection for some of the basic elements of society, in their emphasis on
labor, rest from labor, and human dignity.
The following three commandments focus on the life of the individual or
the family within the larger community. They insist on the sanctity of
human life, marriage and sexuality, and the necessity to maintain a
community in which the extension of self one's into property is recognized
and respected. Women were then regarded as property too. The last two
deal more with social relationships, assuring that truth is the basis of
justice and that community life is not corrupted by lust for another's
goods or lives.
A recent cartoon depicted the giving of the Ten Commandments with a modern
public relations twist. A bewildered Moses stands looking up at a cloud
through which the hand of God thrusts the tablets of stone toward him. A
voice sounds out of the cloud saying, “These are your talking points.”
That is very much the way it has been throughout history.
As the remaining parts of the Pentateuch demonstrate, these were by no
means the only commandments which the Israelites sought to obey. Nor have
Jewish communities through the centuries looked to the Torah (our
Pentateuch) as the only source of law governing community and personal
ethical behavior. The long developing oral tradition written down in the
Misnah and the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds during the first five
centuries of the first millennium CE is also regarded as having equal
authority.
It is likely that the Ten Commandments were used extensively for the
instruction of the young in the dominant values of the community as well
as in public worship. It has been suggested that their number was limited
to ten because they could be easily memorized and enumerated on the
fingers of two hands. Note too that they are all negative; “Thou shalt
not ….” Jesus chose to summarize them in two very positive commandments:
love for Go and for neighbor.
PSALM 19 The creative power of God in nature and God's sacred covenant
with humanity expressed in Torah became the centrepiece of Israel's
religious heritage as set forth in this psalm. The two distinct parts of
the psalm cause some to wonder if they were originally two separate
compositions. Even if so, the Hebrew sense of the majestic beauty of
creation and the divinely ordered Torah make it easy to understand why
they were united as one. Vvs. 7-11 use the dominant euphemisms and
phrases for Torah found in Wisdom literature. From this one draws the
conclusion that the present composition is of late post-exilic date.
In his unique paraphrasing of the Psalms, Jim Taylor, author of many books
on religious topics and formerly a partner in Wood Lake Books, (*Everyday
Psalms: The Power of the Psalms in Language and Images for Today*, Wood
Lake Books, 1994) has given a different picture of what this poem now says
to us. He concentrates on "scientific study" of the universe and "the
universal law of interdependence" as the main emphases of the psalm.
Taylor also gives an interesting rendition of the final prayer (vs. 14):
"Keep us always open to wonder, to beauty, and to mystery, oh greatest of
mysteries."
With a similar objective of putting "the psalmists bold, free prayers ...
in the words and phrases and looks of today," Leslie Brandt has lifted up
the two dominant subjects of the psalm. (*Psalms/Now*. Concordia, 1973)
Brandt identified these as the power and presence of God in the grandeur
of nature and the ultimate value for humanity in the ordered purpose of
Torah. He sees Torah as "a path ... to walk in." Brandt prays with the
psalmist that through our acceptance of and response to these, we may
"realize anew the security and serenity of (God's) loving presence."
It is unfortunate that for many centuries, the Hebrew word *Torah* has
been given the English connotation of "law". The late Wilfred Cantwell
Smith, Professor of Comparative History of Religion at Harvard University,
wrote in his *What Is Scripture: A Comparative Approach* (Fortress Press,
1993): "An argument can be mounted that for the Jewish case the term
betrays a double misreading: from Hebrew *torah* into Greek *nomos* and
later from Greek *nomos* into English "law" - as the two most
consequential mistranslations in human history." Smith further noted that
"the word *Torah* is from a verb signifying to instruct, to teach, to
guide, and is so used in the Bible.... The verbal noun, *torah*, could be
rendered either "instructing: or, less dynamically, "instruction".... As
a category in Jewish religious thought, the word *Torah*, meaning the
divine Torah, may denote either the fact of God's mercifully guiding His
people, or the guidance with which He has done so; or, eventually, the
words in which the guidance is formulated; or again, the books in which
those words are written....It would not be too far-fetched to say that
*Torah* for Jews means revelation - whether this be taken as the term for
a theological category, or for the content of the revelation: the fact or
the act of revealing, or what is revealed, or both."
PHILIPPIANS 3:4b-14 Although as a Pharisee Paul was familiar with the
Torah as were few other NT authors, he rested his spiritual authority on
his experience of and obedience to Jesus Christ, not on his achievements
in keeping the moral code of Israel. Knowing and following Christ above
all was his only goal, a purpose for which he had made great sacrifice.
We can never know exactly what Paul meant by wanting "to know Christ and
the power of his resurrection" (vs. 10). This undoubtedly had a close
relationship to his conversion experience on the road to Damascus, when he
had a vision of the risen Christ and heard Christ's call (Acts 9:1-19).
It would appear that the initial vision came to him in a manner similar to
a hallucination, a common psycho-spiritual reality in numerous conversions
before and since. This in no way denies the actual event of meeting the
risen Christ as Paul frequently testified. The intensity of the
experience and the historically impressive mission resulting from it need
no other explanation. In other words, Paul gave himself to Christ and for
the remainder of his life endured great suffering for his Lord. His goal,
however, was not merely to serve as long as his strength lasted, but to
"attain the resurrection from the dead" (vs. 11). That was his great hope
and he urged all the congregations to which he ministered that this was
the *sine quae non* of faith in Christ as Lord and Savior 9 (1 Cor.
15:17-19).
As he wrote or, more likely, dictated this letter, he was facing imminent
martyrdom. Yet he did not feel that he had already obtained his goal.
Was there still an element of doubt in his mind as he waited the verdict?
Who on pondering the same circumstances - death by crucifixion, beheading,
burned at the stake or the victim of wild animals in the arena, all of
which known to be Nero's methods of execution - would not have wondered
what lay beyond the veil no human vision has ever pierced? Who could fail
to be agnostic about what really lies 'over there' unless one has faith?
Such faith rings true in the closing sentences of this passage. Had Paul
not heard over and over again the other apostles telling of the death of
Christ as they had seen it, and then meeting him face to face, talking and
eating with him before he vanished from their sight? However, it may have
happened, he too had met Jesus Christ, and that long after the
resurrection and ascension to which the apostles testified. So, behind
this ringing declaration of his very human desire to live lies Paul's own
simple conviction that "as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be
made alive." (1 Cor. 15:22)
MATTHEW 21:33-46 Jesus tells a devastatingly obvious parable against the
religious authorities who so obstinately opposed him. They fully realized
what he was saying and made plans to destroy him as the ultimate threat to
their authority. One may well ask, however, whether this comes from the
lips of Jesus himself or from Matthew writing to the apostolic community
in the 80s CE. At that time, Jewish Christians especially were undergoing
rejection and banishment from their synagogues by their fellow Jews.
Whatever its origins, the parable and the pointed accusation which
followed in Matthew's narrative would resonate with the members of that
community.
The quotation about a cornerstone being rejected (vs. 42) comes from Psalm
118:22-23. As used there, it did not refer to the Messiah being rejected.
That was a new interpretation imposed on the reference by the early
church. It also appears in Mark 12:10-11, Acts 4:11 and 1 Peter 2:7.
This shows that it was an important part of early Christian preaching as
the church struggled to understand why Jesus was crucified.
The practice of reading the Hebrew scriptures from a messianic perspective
did not occur to the Jewish rabbis then or since. This was a new creation
by the apostolic church, perhaps initiated by Paul. As a highly trained
Pharisee, he had all the necessary intellectual skill to undertake such a
task after his conversion. One wonders if this could have been Paul's
undertaking between the time of his conversion and early meeting with the
apostles in Jerusalem and his return to Antioch from Tarsus at the biding
of Barnabas. (Acts 9:26-30; 11:19-26; cf. Gal. 1:18-2:1)
The didactic narrative of the resurrection appearance on the road to
Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) and Luke's comment in Acts 2:42 that the earliest
Christian community "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching" also
points in the direction that such revisionist views of the Hebrew texts
came from the early church. Many scholars would attribute this to Jesus
himself. Yet even such a conservative scholar as Alan Richardson
confessed that such didactic narratives "are doubtless founded upon fact,
but the stories as we have them have been made into such superb parables,
charged with profound theological teaching, that we cannot tell what could
have been their original form." (*An Introduction to the Theology of The
New Testament*, SCM Press, 1958, p. 194.)
In his *The New Testament As Canon: An Introduction*, Brevard S. Childs
comments on Matthew's use of OT quotations. (Fortress Press, 1984, pp. 69-
71) He deems it an error to simply deconstruct such references in the
debate to discover their specific origins. He allows that they are very
different from the use made of the Hebrew Scriptures by other Jewish
interpreters of the time such as the Essene community of Qumran. He sees
them instead as providing "the theological context with in the divine
economy of God with Israel by which to understand and interpret the
significance of Jesus' life and ministry....(and) a form of Christian
proclamation....(They) serve as a means of actualizing the presence of the
promised Christ who is now experienced as the resurrected and exalted
Lord.... The hope for which the Jews wait is already being experienced by
Christ's church."
Thus the parable, the quotation from Psalm 118, and the setting in the
narrative for these had a significant place in Matthew's Gospel as a
prelude to the Passion story.
copyright - Comments by Rev. John Shearman and page by Richard J. Fairchild, 2006
please acknowledge the appropriate author if citing these resources.
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