Proper 12B (OT 17)

Image: The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, mosaic (ca 504 AC). Sant' Aopllinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy.

  • Ephesians with Rev. Mason Parks

John 6:1-21

Initial Thoughts

  • Welcome to the Summer of John 6

    • “If the entire fourth gospel is devoted to disclosing who Jesus is so that people can believe in him, this long narrative does it be showing him to be nourishment for the soul better than the manna of Moses’ day. The lawgiver by his petitions kept alive a people fated nonetheless to die. Jesus is the person who, “devoured” in faith, will keep a people alive forever…There emerges from this chapter a strong declaration of what Johannine faith in Jesus consists of. Opposed to it is a mentality which cannot admit this faith because of its presuppositions. John is convinced that these must yield to the fact of seeing the Son.” (Gerald Sloyan, Interpretation: John, p. 62-63).

  • Karoline Lewis conv. on Bread of Life

  • PProper 12B - John 6:24-35 Jesus pursued for food. Calls himself “Bread of life.”

  • Proper 13B - John 6:35, 41-51 Opposition to Jesus festers. More “I am the bread of life.”

  • Proper 14B - John 6:51-58 Closest thing we have to the eucharist meal in John. Jesus compares bread to his flesh.

  • Proper 15B - John 6:56-69 Repeats “Whoever drinks my blood and eats my flesh.” Jesus predicts some will fall away.

  • Mark 7 - Back to where we left off in Mark (skipping feeding miracle), Jesus talks about what contaminates a life.

Bible Study

  • Setting

    • Presumably the Eastern side of the sea of Galilee

    • Explicitly Passover - he does not go to Jerusalem for this one (unlike other times) - the people are gathering to him at Passover, not at the Temple

    • “This scene fulfills his prophecy to the Samaritan woman in 4:21 and may reflect a post-70CE perspective in which worship in the Temple is no longer possible, and from John’s viewpoint, no longer necessary” Adele Reinhartz, “John”, The Jewish Annotated New Testament, p. 188

  • Miraculous Feeding

    • The only miracle that appears in all four gospels

    • V. 10 - “Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was a great deal of grass in the place” Calls ahead to chapter 10 and back to Psalm 23 - Jesus is the good shepherd who makes his people lie down in green pastures and provides plenty/abundance for them

    • Unlike the synoptics- Jesus is the one who distributes the food to the crowd

      • “Not only is Jesus the source of abundant life, it is being in relationship with his that is also the source. Abundance cannot be separated from its source.” Karoline Lewis, John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentary, p.83

      • Just as bread was necessary for survival - so a relationship with Jesus is essential to abundant life. Jesus is both what sustains us physically and spiritually through creation and relationship

        • Could be a very interesting eco-justice sermon about our physical and spiritual connection to the world. Abundant life calls us into deeper connection to the Bread of Life (Jesus) who calls us into deeper connection with creation (actual bread and that which makes physical life possible=)

    • Not the typical eucharistic verbs (although he does “give thanks”

      • No formulaic took, blessed, broke, gave

    • no mention of the woman and children

    • Addition of the fact that it started with the lunch of a youth.

      • Andrew at least had an idea. It was an absurdly small idea, but he was creative enough to put it out there.

      • Disciples ask, “What good is this to a crowd like this.”

    • No mention of Jesus’ compassion (a very human emotion). Instead it is shown as a set up that Jesus orchestrated to reveal his power (very John-ish thing to do)

    • Same message of abundance in the face of skepticism

    • Interesting tidbits:

      • Takes place nearly time for Passover. Next few stories include mentioning “bread of life,” and “bread of heaven.” 

      • 12 baskets of leftovers = 12 tribes of Israel.

      • 5 barley loaves = exactly what they started with.

      • The gathering of the leftovers is similar to the gathering of manna in the wilderness, enough for two days to honor the Sabbath

      • “5000

    • Bread was a way for kings to enforce their power. The distribution and withholding of bread is a way for those in power to keep their power.

      • See WIC, Food Stamps debates of today.

      • When some are kept in poverty, they are kept in control.

      • Jesus’ abundance disrupts the whole system. Not just economic system, but the natural order (see walking on water).

  • Jesus leaves because he knows they will “force” him to be their king

    • They want Jesus to be the problem solver- but that isn’t Jesus’ role

    • In the next passage (next week) they pursue him to give food. He is suddenly seen as the divine vending machine.

    • They ask that question that is so timeless “What’s in it for me?” This gets pushed even harder next week.

  • Storm at sea

    • Important distinctions between this story and the synoptics

      • Compare to other Jesus walking on water stories, and there is no Peter involvement (in this Gospel it probably would have been ‘the beloved disciple’). 

      • See also Elisha’s story in 2 Kings 6:4-7

      • Jesus does not calls the waves or rebuke the wind

      • “This Gospel does not demand proof of [Jesus’] divinity; it assumes it. More miraculous is the revelation of “I AM” and not the capability of manipulating Mother Nature.” Lewis, p. 84

    • “I AM” (see also Ps 89:9)

      • Second “I AM” saying- the first was the Woman at the Well (John 4:26)

      • Both frightening theophany and comforter

      • Jesus disrupts now only food system and economic system, but the natural order. He is not swayed or even affected by storms, or something as simple as gravity and drowning.

      • Are the disciples scared of the storm or of Jesus?

    • Disrupts the Johnnine pattern of sign - dialogue - discourse

      • “The discourse of the feeding of the five thousand [in the coming weeks] is absolutely premised on 6:20.” Lewis, p. 85

    • “The disclosure of who Jesus is turns out to be more than an intellectual matter for the philosophically curious; it is a saving matter that makes the difference between darkness and light, terror and peace, death and life.” (Charles Cousar, Texts for Preaching, year B, p. 447)

Thoughts and Questions

  • We often look at our own gifts and resources and scoff. Sometimes ideas that seem destined to fail are worth pursuing. Brainstorming, collecting voices and opinions, and ideas that might seem foolish at first can lead to miracles. Still, we may ask, what good is this with problems such as these? The world’s needs seem so big, and our efforts feel so small. When they saw what the young person had, they scoffed. Yet with Jesus it was enough.

  • Feeding of the multitude and Emmaus as a original stories of the Eucharist

    • How does that shape our understanding of Eucharist (“Thanksgiving”) if we remove it from the death, betrayal and sacrificial atonement?

    • What if Communion was a celebration of this miracle - a remembrance of the abundance of Jesus, not just the sacrifice. How could we reframe our own liturgy and understanding of Communion? 

  • Do we follow Jesus for the signs and wonders, for what he can do for us, for whom he can conquer, or do we follow Jesus for something more? What bread are we pursuing? The bread of life, which is forgiveness, mercy, grace, compassion; or the bread of the world, which is scarcity, power, manipulation, and coercion. These are the themes for this week, the next few weeks, and indeed all of Jesus ministry.

2 Samuel 11:1-15

Initial Thoughts

  • Difficult passage to read in a mixed-audience. If this were a TV show, I wouldn’t let my daughter watch it.

  • No good news here. Just sex (rape), deceit, and murder - perhaps the good news is acknowledging it, not ignoring or disregarding but addressing that this terrible thing happened. Next week we get to the consequences.

  • “We are now at a the pivotal turning point in the narrative plot of the books of Samuel. We are also invited into the presence of delicate, subtle art. We are the threshold of deeping, aching psychology, and at the same time we are about to witness a most ruthless political performance… Innocence is never to be retrieved. From now on the life of David is marked, and all Israel must live with that mark.” (Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: First and Second Samuel, p. 271-2)

  • breakthesilencesunday.org/: For resources on breaking the silence on sexual assault and rape

  • From Rev. Jeff Nelson (2024):

I’m looking ahead to some lectionary texts for some preaching gigs, and I see that David and Bathsheba is coming up.

A brief recap: David sees Bathsheba bathing on her roof, and orders her brought to him so he can sleep with her. (This is not a consensual matter, he’s the king so she can’t say no.) Then she ends up pregnant, but his attempt to cover it up goes bad, so he orders her soldier husband to be put on the front lines so he will most assuredly be killed, which he is. Then he takes Bathsheba as his wife (again, she can’t say no).

David engages in this series of despicable, selfish, and destructive actions.

But you know what else they are? Official acts of a king, for which he can’t be held accountable by anyone around him.

Except God can and does hold him accountable. He can’t escape that. Oops.

No matter how revered he is on Earth and no matter how many different ways his loyal subjects will excuse and ignore and minimize any and all wrongdoing, hypocrisy, destructiveness, idolatry, lying, and blatantly anti-God behavior, God still shows up to say “you claim to be my representative, and now I’m going to treat you accordingly. So here we go.”

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.

Bible Study

  • David

    • King fully entrenched in power.

    • Not in the field as he had promised, or as the Israelites had asked (1 Samuel 8:20)

    • Sitting on couch he sees her.

    • Finds out that she is the daughter of an important advisor, and the wife of a Hittite soldier.

    • Summons her. Has sex with her. ‘He takes her,’ is exactly what Samuel had warned the people what Kings would do: “[a King] will take your daughters”.” (1 Samuel 8:13)

    • She becomes pregnant. 

    • David tries to cover it up by sending for Uriah, then sending him home to “wash his feet.”

    • Uriah refuses to lie in his own bed when his comrades are in the midst of war. His honor - which is in stark contrast to David, who is sitting on his couch during the war - does him in.

    • David then sends Uriah with a note that is basically his death sentence.

  • Bathsheba

    • One of the most famous examples of victim-blaming in history.

    • She is introduced and often referred to only in relation to the men in her life - as a daughter, wife and mother

      • David’s crime is seen (in the text) as against Uriah, not Bathsheba

        • “According to Torah any man other than her husband who has sexual contact with her is guilty of a crime against her husband.” Wilda Gafney, Womanist Midrash, p. 212

    • Bathing on the Roof

      • While there is nothing about her bathing to cleanse herself in v.2, “She purifies herself from her impurity -”defilement”-in verse 4 after David rapes her; that is a second cleansing.” Wilda Gafney, A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church Year W p. 293

    • She is raped by the King

      • Gafney, Womanist Midrash

        • She cannot say no, neither can the officers who come to bring her to David

        • She came to him indicating “she walks along with the messengers rather than that she is stuffed in a sack or carried aloft to be brought to him. To come when beckoned by the king does not imply consent.” p. 214

        • “Rape is an abuse of power that can include relational and positional power, in addition to physical power. The power dynamic is clear: David uses the power and authority of his office to wield lethal violence to keep her. He sees her, sends for her, and has sex with her without her consent. He rapes her.” p. 215

        • Next week - we will see God and Nathan holding David responsible as a rapist, not condemning Bathsheba as consenting to adultery.

      • Robert Alter suggests that Bathsheba might be complicit because the text says (in v. 4) she came to him “intimating an element of active participation by Bathsheba in David’s sexual summons…her later behavior in the matter of her son’s succession (1 Kings 1-2) suggests a woman who has her eye on the main chance, and it is possible that opportunism, not merely passive submission, explains her behavior here as well.” Robert Alter, Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, p. 347

        • However, the text does not seem to hold her responsible for adultery or any sinful action on her part. 

        • The text does not condemn her her bathing on the roof, the sexual encounter, or anything that follows - this is all laid at David’s feet. (Jo Ann Hackett, “1 and 2 Samuel”, Women’s Bible Commentary. 3rd ed. P. 159 and Gafney, p. 293)

    • Her husband is murdered.

    • For this, she is treated in history as a temptress, and named in a popular Christian book as a “Really Bad Girls of the Bible.” Liz Curtis Higgs, author of the book Really Bad Girls of the Bible at least partially implicates her because there’s no evidence that she “put up a fight.”

    • Author Susan McGeowan offers a great study guide about Bathsheba (original link is no longer available. This is her quote, but a link to her general website), one that outlines the different interpretations of her character, but comes to the conclusion that “She must have been an amazing woman. Despite their inauspicious beginning, despite her being the focal point for a time in David’s life of his most horrible sin, she remained a powerful and favored influence over him through the remainder of his life - as evidence by their final recorded time together when she secures Solomon’s future as the next king of Israel.”

    • Blogger Kate Schell writes, “She was powerless, but we cast her as seductress.  Today, I grieve for Bathsheba. I grieve for this woman coerced and bereaved. I grieve for this woman who mourned, her clothing torn and her life upended. I grieve for this woman who has been reduced to adulteress, to a naked body in the wrong spot at the wrong time.”

  • Aftermath-next week

    • David has Uriah killed. Bathsheba mourns, then becomes David’s wife.

    • The baby of the rape doesn’t survive.

    • She is the mother of several, including Solomon, who becomes David’s heir.

Thoughts and Questions

  • The way that Bathsheba is treated is telling. She is treated - in the text itself and in much interpretation of the text - as voiceless. Objectified and known only as a body and an object of a powerful man’s desire. The story implies that her nakedness is to blame for the death of her husband, her child, and the division of the Kingdom itself. History has gone on to tell of David’s greatness, but often leaves out the part about cowardly avoiding war, then raping a woman and killing her husband, who was, by the way, fighting honorably in the war David should have been at in the first place. How do we continue to victim blame? How many victims of domestic abuse or sexual assault have been charged with “asking for it”? How many time must a girl be told that modesty is her best defense against rape? How many pastors will try to redeem this unredeemable text?

Ephesians 3:14-21

Bible Study

  • Hinge text- linking the theological/doctrinal section: Ephesians 1-3 (what God has done by uniting all things in Christ and breaking down divisions) and the application section: chapters 4-6 (how we respond to God’s love and unity-”lead a life worthy of the calling which [they] have been called” 4:1)

  • “For this reason”

    • Might look back to 3:1-13 and The mystery that all people are included in the love and grace of God

    • Or it looks ahead to “in order that” (Gk: hiva) which is how verse 16 begins looking ahead to the hope of strength, indwelling, comprehension and ultimately love.

  • According to the New Interpreter's Study Bible - Kneeling is a part of Gentile worship, not Jewish worship (Isaiah 45:23; Phil. 2:10-11)

  • vv. 14-19

    • One sentence!

    • 4 Petitions

      • Strengthened in inmost being

      • Christ dwell in their hearts

        • Heart was considered the seat of intellectual thought- NOT emotion (the bowels were the seat of emotions- think  “butterflies in your stomach”)

      • Power to comprehend the extent of God’s work

      • Know the love of Christ

    • Paul Achtemeier - Divine love is the basis for living (v. 17 - “rooted and grounded in love”), Christ’s indwelling will allow the Ephesians to realize the extent of that life-controlling love which is superior and unknowable via intellectual knowledge (see the use of the word “mystery” in Eph. 3:1-13). In other words - you cannot think your way into understanding God’s love, it is only revealed by allowing Christ to dwell within you- to surrender to Christ.

  • Invitation to let Christ in

    • Allowing the love of Christ to transform us and dwell within us

    • The difference between Christ as a visitor and Christ as roommate

    • Going to church is not the same as letting Christ abide in us

      • K. Chakoian - don’t be the Dursley’s and let Jesus live in a cupboard under the stairs - change your life and make room for Christ

Thoughts and Questions

  • Is Christ a visitor in our life? Do we put on show of hospitality and good manners; temporarily pushing our “junk” into the closets of our lives? OR do we invite Christ to live with us? To be challenged by Christ’s constant presence in time that are good and times that are bad? Will we allow ourselves to be transformed by Christ?

  • Accepting the love of God is not an intellectual venture but will require us to surrender the mystery of God’s love. This doesn’t mean checking our brains at the door, but rather realizing, humbly, that there are things we can and will never understand. God love and grace are beyond our comprehension. We can choose to accept God’s love as it is freely given to us and to others or to reject it. We can hope to know that love, but we can never understand it.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING AND GET IN TOUCH:

Thanks to our Psalms correspondent, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan (psalmimmersion.com,@pomopsalmist). Thank you to Scott Fletcher for our voice bumpers, Dick Dale and the Del Tones for our Theme music (“Misirlou”), Nicolai Heidlas (“Sunday Morning”,"Real Ride"and“Summertime”) and Bryan Odeen for our closing music.

Pentecost BEric Fistler2 Samuel, Ephesians, Psalm 1-74, JohnComment