Proper 5A (OT10)
image: Wesley, Frank, 1923-2002. Woman with the Flow of Blood, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59159 [retrieved June 1, 2023]. Original source: Estate of Frank Wesley, http://www.frankwesleyart.com/main_page.htm.
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Initial Thoughts
Parallel story in Mark 5:21-41, covered in an episode 436, more notes here:
Beginning a long sweep through Matthew, there is a chance to pick up on some Matthean themes.
Jesus as the new Moses
Five great discourses. The Sermon on the Mount being the first. Each one ends, “And when Jesus finished these sayings.”
“It has been proposed that his intention was to compose a ‘new Pentateuch’ modeled on the Five Books of Moses, in which narrative and legal material alternate.” (Douglas Hare, Interpretation: Matthew, p. 2) However Hare himself isn’t convinced of this intentional structure.
The Empire of God over the Empire of Rome
It is not a “spiritualized” version of Luke
Concerned with Jewish history and tradition, fitting the Jesus story into a wider Jewish tradition.
Jesus’ authority comes directly from God.
Other teacher’s authority comes from learning Torah and studying other teachers
Rome’s authority comes from the Emperor.
Matthew’s audience (according to Warren Carter)
Probably Antioch, the Roman capital of the province of Syria, and a strong social structure. “Perhaps the third largest city of the Roman empire behind Rome and Alexandria.
Highly structured and stratified urban population where a small number of people were powerful and wealthy. High population density within the city.
“In addition to being a cross-section of their society, Matthew’s audience was probably small in number, a minority community within a larger dominant society. This social experience impacts their hearing of the gospel.” (Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading, p. 27)
This is particularly important when reading the more polemic parts of Matthew. Many parables of judgment need to be read through the lens of a minority group struggling for survival.
Bible Study
Literary Context
Chapters 8-9 come after the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus puts into practice the Kingdom which he preached about. As Hare puts it, “The Messiah Manifests Diving Power”
Warren Carter calls 4:17-11:1 “The Second Narrative Block, Jesus Manifests God’s Empire and Commission in Words and Actions.”
Specifically, Carter calls chapter 9 “Jesus’ Actions and God’s Empire”
Ch 8: Jesus heals a leper, Centurion's Servant, Peter’s Mother-in-law, then talks about the cost of discipleship, calms the storm, and casts out demons
Ch 9: Jesus returns to Galilee, a man is brought to him. Jesus forgives him, he walks, and his authority is questioned.
The calling of Matthew and eating with sinners
Matthew is called out of doing his every-day work
Like the fishermen before him, Matthew gets up and follows without much prelude.
Fishing and tax collecting are two main cogs of the Galilean economy.
“Jesus disrupts their commitments. Following him means encountering God’s empire. The story legitimates discipleship as an alternative way of life which originates in Jesus’ ministry.” (Carter, p. 217)
“The question, ‘why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ is a challenge to Jesus’ honor… These people are in need of a physician. As social outcasts, they are seen as collaborators with an evil and oppressive government and are in need of social acceptance. Furthermore, Jesus' citation from Hosea 6:6 - only in Matthew - supports Jesus’ behavior as a practice of mercy, not sacrifice… Mercy is to have precedence over sacrifice.” (Michael Joseph Brown, True to Our Native Land, p. 98)
Skipped: Jesus questioned about fasting, and Jesus’ response about pouring new wine into old wineskins
Raising up the ruler’s daughter
“The ritually impure, such as the man with leprosy, the hemorrhaging woman, and the dead daughter, are also not “cast out”; their problem is not sin but illness or death. By touching them, or allowing them to touch him, Jesus violates no purity law or cultural taboo; to the contrary, he heals bodies. Moreover, his command to the man cured of leprosy indicates the preservation of Mosaic Law.” (Amy-Jill Levine, commentary on Matthew in The Women’s Bible Commentary, WJK, p. 471)
Healing the bleeding woman
“”Despite her lack of social standing both as a woman and as one who was ritually impure, she found a creative way to approach Jesus. She was reluctant to come to him face-to-face. But Jesus turned his face to her in response to her touch. This is an example of his love and acceptance to all.” (Danielle Shroyer, The CEB Women’s Bible)
Matthew removes the part of about Jesus feeling that power had left him.
Thoughts and Questions
A Swahili proverb says Kibaya chajitembeza; kizuri chajiujza, which means, “A bad thing advertises itself and does not sell, but a good thing sells itself even when it does not get advertised.” Jesus did not advertise his actions, yet the people heard the news anyway. In contrast to people’s amazement, the Pharisee’s negative reactions only pointed out their jealousy and lack of faith. The good work we do for christ does not need to be blasted from loudspeakers… News of authentic good works will get to the people all by itself.” (Africa Study Bible, Oasis International, 1393),
Genesis 12:1-9
Initial Thoughts
Who was Abram’s brother?
Read 11:27-32 and you see that Abram came from somewhere, too.
The narrative of him moving makes less sense if you don’t get an idea of where he starts.
“Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran was the father of Lot.” (Gen. 11:27, NRSV)
“Terah took his Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were two hundred five years, and Terah died in Haran.” (Gen. 11:31, NRSV)
This begs the question - were they already on their way to Canaan when God spoke to Abram?
Bible Study
Hard division between chapters 1-11 and chapters 12-50?
God’s salvation is rooted in Creation - not only Abraham’s family. “God’s work of blessing in the world does not begin with Abraham; it is integral to chaps 1-11 and so God’s blessing work through Abraham must involve intensification and pervasiveness, not a new reality. Since God saves Noah, his family… Issues of creation and redemption are integrated throughout Genesis. God’s promises and salvific acts must finally be seen as serving all of creation. God acts to free people, indeed the entire world, to be what they were created to be.” (Terrence Fretheim, New Interpreter’s Bible Old Testament Survey, p. 21, emphasis added)
Brueggemann: “There is no doubt that in the construction of Genesis, a major break in the narrative is intended between 11:32 and 12:1. Indeed, it is perhaps the most important structural break in the Old Testament and certainly in Genesis…” And yet, in his Interpretation: Genesis, Brueggemann creates a reading block of 11:30-12:9. “The reason for this arrangement is that God does not begin the history of Israel ex nihilo. The history of promise does not emerge in a vacuum.” (Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: Genesis, p. 116)
Why Abram? No reason is given. He is not the first man - like Adam, not righteous - like Noah, he is simply chosen.
Go forth
Abram says nothing- only responds - Robert Alter, “Genesis”, Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, p. 40
Connections to the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22
“Go immediately” - same Hebrew command as in Gen. 22:2
Canaan is not named - Abram is told to go to an undisclosed place similar to the call to sacrifice Isaac on the Mountain God will show him.
“Your land, your family, and your father’s household” - “your son, your only son, whom you love.”
“Father’s House - “This term means way more than simply "dad's house." It was the fundamental social unit and reality of a person's life. Here is a website with pictures: http://www.penn.museum/sites/Canaan/Home%26Family.html I think for us in the West today, it is impossible to understand the impact of traditional and family on a person's psyche and worldview, and thus the significance of God's command.” Rob Myallis, Lectionary Greek Blog
Blessing - for the first time humanity becomes a source of blessing (not curses)
Geography
Haran - where Abram was when God called him means “highway” or “crossroads”
“The Canaanite was then in the land” - indication this was written much later when there were no longer Canaanites in the land (due to the dispossession, occupation, and eradication by the Hebrews in the conquest narratives).
The nature of the promise
All about God’s work
I will make of you
I will bless you
I will magnify your name
I will bless those who bless you
I will curse those who curse you.
All of this is a gift of God. Abraham’s place of promise is a pure gift from God.
Provides stark contrast from the situation presented in 11:30. Abram and Sarai are not going to make this happen - only through God.
God is in partnership with Abram and Sarai in the same way in which God will work with humanity in the tilling and caring for creation.
“The promise is concluded by what seems to be a commissioning. The well-being of Israel carried potential for the well-being of other nations. Israel is never permitted to live in a vacuum. It must always live with, for, and among the others. The barren ones are now mandated for the needs of others.” (Brueggemann, p. 119)
This passage notes a remarkable shift in understanding how God will interact with the world. Taking the world as a whole clearly did not work: Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit and hide, Cain kills Abel, Noah and his sons are still seen as being evil, humanity disobeys and builds the tower of Babel.
Furthermore, punishment, curses, and mass genocide have not worked to keep humanity faithful
Now God chooses to work through one family to be the agent or ambassador of blessing to the world. It is through this family that God’s creative, reconciling work will be done.
“Ultimately, however, the larger story of Israel seems to suggest that through this chosen people God gives the world torah, and in that gift God reveals the way to choose life over death, blessing rather than curse. For Christians, the larger story includes the saving work of Jesus Christ, particularly the reconciliation between creature and Creator accomplished in the crucifixion.” Frederick Niedner, “Theological Perspective on Genesis 12:1–4a,” in Feasting on the Word: Year A, vol. 2. p. 52.
Thoughts and Questions
God’s call is one “to abandonment, renunciation, and relinquishment. It is a call for a dangerous departure from the presumed world of norms and security… The narrative knows that such departure from securities is the only way out of barrenness. The whole of the Abrahamic narrative is premised on this seeming contradiction: to stay in safety is to remain barren; to leave in risk is to have hope.” (Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: Genesis, p. 118)
When you put this story in the greater context of a bridge between chapter 11 and 12 - when you consider that Abram’s father Terah was taking his family “went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there.” This begs the question - “Was God simply nudging Abram to get up and finish the job he had already started?” Abram’s family moving to Canaan was actually a part of the Creation narrative, the calling of Abram was actually the impetus to move toward the completion of Creation.
God wanted Abram to finish what he started.
How many times do we start a project, a good work, a ministry, but leave it uncompleted when it get difficult, or we burn out? Abram was on his way to Canaan, but settled for five years.
Settling - while generally seen as a positive in our culture - is not a Biblical value. In modernity, “to settle down,” means to behave or mature. In the Bible to “settled down” is to stagnate, become barren, and die.
“This text could be used to explore your own crossroads; the needs, callings, and challenges of your congregation as well as the faithful response of its individual members to God’s call. Such exploration may lead to naming some of the unique crossroads faced by your congregation and perhaps the demarcation of new starting points in the ministry of your church. Sunday school teachers, ushers, deacons, liturgists, lay preachers, and individuals sensing a call to ordained ministry are at a crossroad. Do I have the time? Do I have the gifts and talents, the skill set for this task? Am I a “good enough” person to fill this role?” Donald P. Olsen, “Pastoral Perspective on Genesis 12:1–4a,” in Feasting on the Word: Year A, vol. 2. p. 52.
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
Initial Thoughts
Last week we had Paul commenting on Adam, and the Hebrew Bible text was the fall in Genesis.
This we’re backtracking in the letter, but moving forward in the Hebrew Bible. The Roman’s text is about Abram, as is Genesis 12.
Next week we jump ahead to Romans 5:1-11, the part of chapter 5 we skipped last week. The Hebrew Bible reading is from Exodus, getting water from the rock, and there is no direct connection.
Bible Study
V 1-5: Abraham began his relationship with God because of Faith. We are connected to that relationship through Faith. This does not eliminate the Law, but it precedes it.
Wrapping up a section about the Law and faith, wrestling with the seemingly eternal struggle between faith and works.
Ends chapter 3 with “Do we then cancel the Law through faith? Absolutely not! Instead, we confirm the Law.” Which seems odd, because the short-course in Paul seems to argue that he is working against the Law.
“The translation of Romans 4:1 has been much debated. As Richard B. Hays persuasively argues 4:1 is best rendered in two questions: "What then shall we say? Have we found Abraham to be our forefather according to the flesh?" Paul voices the second question in order to argue against it, a not unusual process for him. Paul believes that the text and order of events in Genesis 15 is crucial to a proper understanding of who is in Abraham's family.” (Sarah Henrich, Working Preacher)
“Abraham had faith in God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Abraham trusted God - had faith - before
Workers get paid for doing work
Faithful get grace that they do not earn.
Grace comes before doing anything to those who have faith.
If you trust God will give you grace, it’s already done.
Transactional language might feel off-putting, but he is actually deconstructing the notion of faith as transaction. God works in ways that do not make sense to transactional economics or culture.
Verses 4-5 According to Eugene’s Peterson’s The Message: “If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it - you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked - well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.”
Skipped part, v. 6-12 is important background stuff, but gets technical.
Brings in arguments surrounding circumcision
Main point: Abraham and God’s relationship precedes circumcision.
God called Abraham before he was circumcised, not because he was circumcised.
Abraham is the father of both the circumcised and the uncircumcised, because his relationship with God started before circumcision and continued afterwards.
V. 13-17: Abraham is the father of all who have faith. We inherit what was promised to Abraham through faith, not by following the Law.
The emblem of the Law was circumcision, which was passed down from generation to generation.
Grace is not inherited like circumcision. It is inherited like faith.
“The Law brings wrath” -- the law simply convicts those for doing the wrong thing. It is not a positive force
Even though people have faith, they still break the Law.
So if it is only about Law, we are all in trouble.
All the Law can do is point out who broke it.
The inheritance of Abraham does not come from following the Law.
The promise of Abraham is through faith - which is how he got started in his relationship with God in the first place.
Faith is the basis of inheritance.
Verse 17 according to Eugene Patterson: “We call Abraham "father" not because he got God's attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn't that what we've always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, "I set you up as father of many peoples"? Abraham was first named "father" and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing.”
Thoughts and Questions
This can feel like a very heady exercise is theological minutia, but for Paul, this is personal: “Paul had experienced God's amazing, unbelievable, overflowing love and forgiveness. How could God, in Jesus Christ, have forgiven him for all the evil that he had done? How could God accept the one who had sought to murder the disciples of Jesus? Because that is who our God is. For Paul, justification by grace was a theological concept only after it had been a life changing, throw-you-to-the-ground, awe-filled experience. God had offered him new life, and he had believed.” (Lucy Lind Hogan, Working Preacher) How can we make the grace and love of God personal? How do we move this from a Biblical lesson to a sermon that moves?
“Finally, a most important point is that this faithful God justifies the ungodly, not waiting for them to shape up first. In verses 5 and 17, God is identified as the one who justifies the ungodly, the one who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. "Once," says the writer of 1 Peter 2:10, you were not a people, but now you are God's people." The meaning of this change is indicated by the next line, "Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." A people has been brought into being that had not existed. Paul identifies the God who has created a new people, a new part of the family through the faithfulness of and faith in Jesus the Messiah. This people participate in the life of God's covenant family, those who receive mercy.” (Sarah Henrich, Working Preacher)
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Thanks to our Psalms correspondent, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan (psalmimmersion.com, @pomopsalmist, patreon.com/RichardBC). Thank you to Scott Fletcher for our voice bumpers, Dick Dale and the Del Tones for our Theme music (“Miserlou”), Nicolai Heidlas for our transition music (“Sunday Morning”, "Real Ride" and “Summertime”) and Bryan Odeen for our closing music.