December 12 Sermon - Part Two

So I'm looking at Matthew 11:2-11. John the Baptist is in prison and sends some of his disciples to Jesus, wondering if Jesus really is the Messiah. At first, it seems like a silly question to come from John - after all, John is the one who baptized Jesus and heard a voice saying "This is my son." Shouldn't John, of all people, believe? But as David Garland pointed out in his commentary Reading Matthew, John had expected something different. In the Gospel text for December 5, we hear about John's expectations:

"The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

John was anticipating a radical, apocalyptic judgment. Instead, he hears reports that Jesus is healing the sick, raising the dead, and proclaiming good news to the poor - signs of power and significance, certainly. But are they signs of the Messiah?

It seems that this is the fundamental issue in this text. What is the Messiah supposed to look like? Does Jesus fit the bill? And Jesus himself highlights the importance of this question: "Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." Even John, who was "more than a prophet," had to face the possibility that Jesus was not the Messiah he wanted. Even John could take offense at Jesus. How much more so for all the crowds - and how much more so for us today?

Since we are in the season of Advent, perhaps we can frame the question this way: For whom are we waiting, after all? What are we expecting of this baby we call "Emmanuel" and "King of Kings" and "Wonderful Counselor" and all the rest? Are we expecting judgment, to find mercy? Are we expecting political power, to find none of it? Are we expecting moral righteousness, to find someone who eats with riffraff (v. 19)? Can we face the real tension between offense and faith?

(I think there is also an interesting nuance here if we take the theological position that faith is not up to us. In other words, rather than reading this as a choice between offense and faith, what happens if we accept the faith itself as a gift from God?)

Kierkegaard, in his fashion, wrote an entire book on the phrase "Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." I'm going to go home and look at his account as well.

September 5 Sermon - Part Three

In this post, I'll be checking out the commentaries on my text, Luke 14:25-33.

I'll start with the post over on Working Preacher. I really appreciated Dr. Brown's approach to the text. She begins, "We live in a market driven society, so it is not surprising that we feel the urge to 'sell' Christianity in the marketplace of competing ideas and ways of life. Yet, when Christian mission is shaped toward the 'sell' mentality, it more often than not becomes a 'low-cost' and 'low-risk' commodity. How else will we persuade others to receive the faith, if not by coming in with a lower or better offer? But is the Christian faith really a low-cost, low-risk endeavor? The lectionary text for this week, Luke 14:25-33, offers a challenge to a market driven approach to Christian mission." Wow - talk about economic and spiritual implications!

She goes on to address the troubling demand of "hating" one's family and one's own life, lifting up the hyperbolic and perhaps idiomatic language. Then she analyzes the parables of the tower and the king, concluding that "Jesus extols a commitment to finishing the discipleship journey once begun or not beginning it at all. Following Jesus is an all or nothing proposition." Rather than quote the entire commentary to you, I'll let you check it out yourself (click on the link above, then click the tab labeled "Gospel").

I also read Joseph Fitzmyer's Anchor Bible commentary. Fitzmyer compares Luke's version to Matthew's, as well as to similar sayings in the Gospel of Thomas. He makes an analysis of sources and form. He notes that "Verse 33 . . . is a conclusion to this passage, which has been composed by Luke, in order to add a further condition of discipleship, his favorite idea of disposing of material possessions." He also identifies two other specific conditions of discipleship: the willingness to leave family ties and the willingness to face radical self-denial. "In addition, [Luke] casts these conditions of discipleship in a demand for serious consideration . . . The engagement is not to be undertaken lightly." With regard to the giving up of possessions, Fitzmyer writes, "In these parables Jesus counsels the disciple to consider seriously what forces and resources the would-be disciple has. But the added condition in v. 33 counsels renunciation of all the material possessions that one has. Note the contrast: what one has in the former sense is infinitely more important than what one has in the latter."

Meanwhile, over in Joel Green's commentary (part of the New International Commentary on the New Testament), Green links this pericope to what has come before. He writes, "Particularly in Jesus' story of the great banquet (vv 15-24), he had introduced the possibility that one's ties to possessions and family might disqualify one from enjoying the feast. As Jesus turns to address the crowds traveling with him, he lists allegiance to one's family network and the shackles that constitute one's possessions as impediments to authentic discipleship." I appreciate his emphasis on transformation: "The conversion that characterizes genuine discipleship is itself generative, giving rise to new forms of behavior."

On the subject of "hating" one's family and one's life/soul, Green has this to say: "[Followers of Jesus] are characterized, first, by their distancing themselves from the high cultural value placed on their family network, otherwise paramount in the world of Luke. That is, in this context, 'hate' is not primarily an affective quality but a disavowal of primary allegiance to one's kin. . . Again, 'hating' one's self should not be taken as a reference to affective self-abhorrence, but as a call to set aside the relationships, the extended family of origin and inner circle of friends, by which one has previously made up one's identity."

Green also has a slightly different take on the second part of the pericope, the parables. He sees the point of the parables not to be the need for preparation but the unavoidable inadequacy of resources: "The interpretive crux does not lie in 'counting the cost.' The point is that, no matter what calculus one uses, no matter what resources one believes one can bring to bear, those assets will be insufficient to secure one's status before God." The landowner does not have the resources to build a tower, and so is mocked; the king does not have the resources to win the war, and so is forced to surrender. "By extrapolation, then, Jesus insists that such assets as one's network of kin, so important in Greco-Roman antiquity, are an insufficient foundation for assuring one's status before God." Green sees verse 33 not as a third condition added to the conditions in vv 25-27 (as per Fitzmyer), but as the summary of all the conditions.

August 15 Sermon - Part Three

Now it's time to check out some commentaries. I have two to consult: the Anchor Bible commentary on Luke, by Joseph Fitzmyer, and the Eerdmans New International Commentary on the New Testament — the volume on Luke is written by Joel Green.

Fitzmyer lifts up the same apocalyptic tone I had noticed in my own study of the text. Referring to the second part of the lection, he writes, "There is no hint in this passage about a delay; rather 'the season that is here' is precisely the time for repentance and conversion." This passage indicates that now is the moment of crisis, the apocalyptic turning point, and there is no time to lose. Jesus speaks to the crowds: "As weatherwise Palestinian farmers, they have learned to read the face of nature, with its clouds and winds. They should, then, be able to assess the critical moment in which they exist. [Jesus] thus contrasts the people's 'meteorological sensitiveness' with their 'religious sensitiveness'."

Regarding the first part of the lection, Fitzmyer draws out the tension and contrast in Luke regarding the purpose of Jesus' ministry. The same Jesus who was hailed at the beginning of the gospel as bringing "peace on earth" (Luke 2:14) now says that his ministry brings discord. "Though peace is an important effect of the Christ-event in the Lucan view, the evangelist has here retained from 'Q' an interpretation of Jesus' ministry in terms of its opposite. Yet even that effect of his ministry has been foreshadowed in the infancy narrative: Jesus was a child set 'for the fall and rise of many in Israel' (2:34). . . Even in his own family the Lucan Jesus' career brought a 'sword' to pierce his mother's 'own soul' (2:35)."

Green similarly lifts up the apocalyptic character of the text, showing that it is part of the "overarching theme of vigilance in the face of eschatological crisis." Prior to this section of Luke, Jesus has made numerous references to making ready - "Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes" (12:37); "You also must be ready, for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour" (12:40); "Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives" (12:43). Green writes, "From those images of future judgment, Jesus now turns to the reality of judgment already at work in his ministry. The division accompanying his mission is itself both integral to his purpose for coming (vv 49-53) and a portent of eschatological judgment (vv 54-59)."

Regarding the prediction of division within households, Green stresses the importance of family groups in 1st century culture. For Jesus to predict the breaking down of family ties, as an integral part of his ministry, would have been quite shocking. However, "the dissolution of family bonds (which, in the Lukan narrative, has as its consequence the formation of a new kinship group around Jesus) should be taken as confirmation that he is God's agent and that he is bringing to fruition the purpose of God."

Green comments on Jesus' use of the term "hypocrites" in reference to the crowd. For Luke, "hypocrite" does not mean someone who says one thing and does another. Rather, Jesus "regards the crowds not as deceivers or phonies but as people who 'do not know.' His question, then, is not why they say one thing and do another, but why they have joined the Pharisees in living lives that are not determined by God."



I'm trying to decide on what focus I want to take for this sermon. I find apocalyptic themes difficult to preach on. The issues are so complex, and the thinking among Christians so diverse, that it seems quite daunting. However, I don't think I can ignore or gloss over the apocalyptic aspects of this text. It would not be fair to the text or to the congregation to whom I'll be preaching. On the other hand, it would appear that the plain sense of the text - that the final judgment was imminent - is simply incorrect. On top of that, I personally think it very dangerous to encourage apocalyptic thinking - every generation has believed it was the last. An unexamined belief in the imminent destruction of the world works against faithful stewardship, ecology, and efforts at peace and mutual understanding (all of which I happen to favor). So how does one preach on an apocalyptic text without preaching apocalypticism?

Time to find out, I suppose.

Another Post About Text Criticism

Okay, actually, this post is about source criticism. What's the difference? I'm so glad you asked! When it comes to Biblical scholarship, there are a lot of critical fields, each of which focuses on a different aspect of the Scriptures. Textual criticism investigates the physical text, the words on the paper (or papyrus, or vellum), and tries to figure out which manuscript or reading is the most accurate. Literary criticism examines the Scriptures from the point of view of literature; for example, considering the poetic elements used in a passage. There are many more. Today, I thought I'd talk about source criticism, which examines the possible sources of a text. Who wrote a particular book of the Bible? Where did the author live? When was he or she writing?

One example of source criticism would be, who wrote the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible? They are traditionally attributed to Moses, but anyone who reads the end of Deuteronomy quickly realizes that Moses could not have written an account of his own death. Through this and many other more complex considerations, scholars try to determine the authorship of the Scriptures.

In the case of the Gospels, one of the major questions posed by source criticism is, "Which Gospel was written first?" Traditionally, Matthew was thought to be first, which is why it was placed first in the New Testament. Scholars today generally agree that Mark is the oldest Gospel, followed by Luke and Matthew (though there is disagreement about which of these two was written first), with John being the latest Gospel. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the "synoptic Gospels", which means that—as can be seen easily from reading them—they are roughly parallel. John is the oddball; it includes stories none of the other Gospels include, and leaves other, sometimes very significant, stories out. One of the most striking examples of this is the Last Supper; John has no account of this meal with Jesus and his disciples.

The question came to be raised, "Why are the synoptic Gospels so similar, with John being so different from all three?" It would seem reasonable to assume that the Synoptic Gospels were drawing on similar material, such as stories passed down by word of mouth, or even that the authors were aware of one another's work in some way. The most popular (though certainly not the only) theory regarding the Synoptic Gospels is called the "Two-Source Hypothesis", along with its closely related cousin, the "Four-Source Hypothesis". These theories assume that Mark was the earliest Gospel, and that Matthew and Luke both knew Mark's Gospel when they wrote their own accounts. This would explain why most of the stories in Mark are repeated in Matthew and Luke. However, there is also material found in both Matthew and Luke which is not in Mark, suggesting another common source used by Matthew and Luke, but not Mark. This source, which has never actually been found, is theoretically known as Q (from German Quelle, meaning "source"). Mark and Q, thus, are the two sources of the Two-Source Hypothesis. Since Matthew and Luke also have material unique to their Gospel accounts, some scholars imagine that they had other sources, possibly oral, possibly written, which were not shared by the other Gospels writers. These sources are referred to as M, for Matthew's source, and L, for Luke's. (source criticism does not require creativity in coming up with these names). Adding M and L to Mark and Q gives you the Four-Source Hypothesis.

Again, this is a very simplified explanation, but I think it gives a pretty good overview of source criticism and the understanding of how the Gospel sources relate to one another. I promise, I won't keep doing Biblical criticism posts all semester.