All in the family
Commentary
Myrna and Robert Kysar are the co-authors of "Charting The Course." Myrna is pastor of Christ Lutheran Church (ELCA), Oakwood, Georgia. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School and a Doctor of Ministry from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. She is the co-author with her husband of three books.
Robert, also an ELCA pastor, is Bandy Professor of Preaching and New Testament Emeritus at Candler School of Theology and the Graduate Division of Religion of Emory University. He earned his Bachelor of Divinity from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in New Testament Interpretation from Northwestern University. He has written fifteen books and over fifty articles.)
We hear a lot about families these days. Candidates are billed as "family men" or "family women," and they often have much to say about "family values." There are "family restaurants," "family movies," and "family programs." Of course, all of this arises because today our culture threatens the traditional family, and we are properly concerned about those threats. The extended family has nearly disintegrated, and the number of complete nuclear families is dwindling. A variety of different kinds of "families" are emerging, some promising and some worrisome.
What we seem to be trying to do is redefine exactly what constitutes a family. What's behind the traditional mother-father-children pattern? Some have proposed that caring relationships are the essential ingredient in family, regardless of the precise role of the adults in that relationship. So, single people create a kind of family for themselves. Married adults without children are a family too. Adopted or foster children with adults to care for them are regarded as a family. Blood is less important than love.
Our goal is not to advocate reform in the way we think about family but to chart a course through the three readings for Proper 8 that takes its path from family-like relationships. How do such relationships function in these texts or how are they implied in the texts? How are they "all in the family"? If such a course proves helpful, however, we may as a matter of fact discover some resources for thinking about family life.
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
This reading is part of a pivotal transition in David's career. First Samuel 21:1--30:31 tells the story of David's fugitive period, after he has been anointed king (1 Samuel 15:34--16:13) and forced to flee from Saul's court (19:8-17) but before he begins the process of consolidating the nation under his leadership (told in 2 Samuel 2:1--8:18). During the years when Saul regarded him as an enemy, David served as a mercenary for the Philistines but actually devoted his time to raids on the Amalekites. We are told that on two separate occasions he had opportunity to kill Saul but refused to do so because of his respect for the Lord's anointed (24:1-22 and 26:1-25).
Second Samuel begins by referring to the deaths of Saul and his sons, told as the conclusion of 1 Samuel (the first verse of our reading and also see 1 Samuel 31:1-13). "A man ... from Saul's camp" reported the king's death and that of his son Jonathan to David (vv. 2-18), and the reading includes David's lament over these deaths. The title "Song of the Bow" (v. 17) is mysterious in its meaning, and Book of Jashar (or Book of the Upright) is lost, although some think it contained a number of poems.
David's lament is powerful and touching. The poem moves through two parts. The first is a lament for Israel (vv. 19-25) and the second expresses David's own personal grief (vv. 16-27). The deaths of Saul and Jonathan, each of whom opposed David, are no cause for rejoicing but just the opposite. Those deaths bring joy to Israel's enemies, and Gilboa -- the site of the deaths -- will forever bear the scars of the tragedy. Saul and Jonathan were mighty warriors whose deaths together completed their joined lives. From the bodies of the dead came the ingredient for the dye "crimson," which will adorn the "daughters of Israel." Finally, David expresses his own loss by claiming Jonathan as his own brother, whom he dearly loved. He claims Jonathan's love "was wonderful, passing the love of women." (See 1 Samuel 18:1 and 20:17.)
Throughout these nine verses, the refrain, "How the mighty have fallen," welds the whole lament together. It is stated first in verse 19, then expanded in verse 25 with the words "in the midst of the battle." Finally, it concludes the lament (v. 27), this time with an addition that claims, with the fall of "the mighty" Saul and Jonathan, "the weapons of war perished." The refrain expresses both David's admiration for the two slain warriors and a sobering observation that those who claim might are as vulnerable as all humans. "The bigger they are, the harder they fall" might be a modern and frivolous synonym for this provocative refrain.
The lament revolves around the death of a father and his son, a family tragedy. Oddly enough, David claims Jonathan as his brother and by implication Saul as his father. Love knit Jonathan and David together in the way siblings are often joined in affection. Furthermore, David's profound respect for Saul, in spite of Saul's determination to slay him, suggests an indebtedness like that of a son for a father. The lament is really, then, a family matter -- the family's grief over loved ones lost to death. It's all in the family. Family doesn't always have to do with blood relationships. Love and respect bring humans together often in even more intimate ways. What is a family, after all, but a group tied together with the bonds of love and respect?
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Paul suggests something of the same understanding of family in this reading which never uses any of the terms we usually associate with familial life. These verses from 1 Corinthians 8 are Paul's appeal to the Corinthian church to contribute to the offering for the church in Jerusalem. It is clear that this gesture of love to the Jerusalem Christians was very important to Paul. Surely he was interested in addressing the need his sisters and brothers of Jerusalem were experiencing (see Romans15:26). However, of equal importance to Paul was the unity of Christians expressed in the offering. The generosity of the Gentile Christians would couple them with the Jewish Christians and demonstrate the genuine depth of Gentile Christian faith to any Jewish Christian who might still be suspicious of the "uncircumcised." In other words, Paul's whole missionary effort among the Gentiles was at stake in this offering, and the truth of his conviction that "there is no longer Jew or Greek ... for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).
Paul's effort to solicit a contribution from the Corinthian church is masterfully constructed. He first expresses his confidence in the Corinthians in 7:4-16 and in 8:1 eases into his appeal with reference to the example set by the churches of Macedonia (8:1-5). In 8:6 he tells his readers that Titus will provide them opportunity for generosity equal to that of Macedonians.
In the reading proper, we can find a number of segments tightly joined together. Verse 7 suggests what Paul sees as the consequences of this offering for the Corinthians, and in verses 8-10 he clarifies the nature of his appeal (not a command but a "testing"of their faith). That the Corinthians should do what they have promised to do comprises the substance of verses 11-12. Finally, in verse 13-15 he develops the idea of balance or equality.
It is this last section that interests us. Paul carefully argues that he does not expect the Corinthians to do more than they are able to do but to "balance" their "abundance" with the need of the Jerusalem Christians. The word translated "balance" (isotas) is used only here and in Colossians 4:1 and can also be rendered "equality" or "fairness." Paul is appealing to a basic Christian sense of fellowship (or koinonia) with one another. Within that sense of unity, those who have in abundance will gladly give to those who are in need, even as the first church is credited with sharing material possessions (see Acts 2:44-45). Paul pins his argument, then, to this essential unity in Christ. To convince his readers, he quotes Exodus 16:18, which refers to the gathering of manna by the Israelites in the wilderness and how each one was assured a day's supply of food. If one should gather more than another, that person's plenty went to others who were not fortunate enough to find a full day's supply.
In terms of our quest, Paul appeals to the Corinthians' place in the larger Christian family. The equality he requests and expects is founded on the principle of siblings in Christ, on the unity of believers in one family. As members of a family share what each one has with other family members, so too will Christians share their "abundance" with those who have too little. This support of the Jerusalem Christians is a family matter. The traditional family may be bound together by blood and circumstances. The Christian family, however, is knit together by virtue of faith. The unity is in their conviction that Christ is the revelation of God for their salvation. Out of that common conviction arises a mutual concern for one another -- an equality. Family is implicit in this passage insofar as we understand the essence of familial relationships to be common faith and common sharing. Not a bad concept of family for our day.
Mark 5:21-43
This is one of the most remarkable passages in the Synoptic Gospels. Here the evangelist has inserted one story into the middle of another, so that the reader is treated to a two-for-the-price-of-one pleasure. The inner story -- the healing of the woman with the flow of blood (vv. 25-34) -- is sandwiched between Jesus' departure to Jairus' home (vv. 21-24) and the remainder of that episode (vv. 35-43). The literary setting of a story within a story compels us to interpret each of them in the light of the other and that will be the focus of our attention.
First, however, we ought to make some preliminary observations about each of the two stories. Jairus is said to be "one of the leaders of the synagogue." Presumably he was responsible for the care of the building as well as arrangements for the services, and may have led services as well. The point is that he is a prominent man in his community, probably on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. He demonstrates a profound confidence that Jesus can make his ailing daughter well (v. 23), and without comment Jesus goes with him to his home.
Abruptly at verse 25 we are introduced to the woman who had suffered hemorrhages for twelve years. Her condition made her "unclean" by Jewish law (see Leviticus 12:1-8 and 15:19-30), hence she was ostracized and excluded from society. Physicians had only exhausted her funds and brought her more suffering than help, so she looks to Jesus as a source of healing. In the entire story she does not speak, and we hear only what she thinks within herself. When she touches Jesus' garment, she is instantaneously healed, and Jesus immediately senses the power that has gone out of him. He wants to know who touched him, and the woman shyly comes out of the crowd, falls at his feet "in fear and trembling," and tells him all.
Jesus' words to her in verse 34 are of three parts. First, he addresses the woman as "daughter," a naming to which we must return. Second, he says, "Your faith has made you well." Finally, he instructs her, "Go, in peace, and be healed of your disease." If she has already been made well, what does Jesus mean by saying she will be healed? How much should we make of these two statements? The word translated "healed" (hugias) is different from "made well" (sozo). The first (an adjective) means "healthy"or "sound," and the second (a verb) "saved." However, the word "save" may refer to several situations (that is, not just spiritual salvation). Mark may expect us to understand that the woman has been "saved" by virtue of her faith and now, because of Jesus' words to her, she will be fully healthy or whole. Or, are we to suppose that she will be made well (healthy) as she reenters and is included in society?
The first story resumes with verse 35. It's too late. Jairus' daughter is dead. Jesus, however, encourages Jairus to believe, and they continue their trek to the synagogue leader's house. Amid the crowd of mourners outside the house he announces that the little girl "is not dead but only sleeping," which solicits the crowd's laughter. With only the girl's parents and three disciples, he enters her room and raises her to life. "Talitha cum" is one of the Aramaic expressions preserved in Mark and may have been commonly used in stories of healing. Mark again says the healing was "immediate" (see vv. 29 and 30). She demonstrates the effectiveness of her healing by walking, a common feature of the healing stories in the Synoptics. Finally the narrator tells us she was twelve years old.
A comparison of the two stories yields some interesting insights. Both of the beneficiaries of Jesus' healing are females; one is young, and the other older. The girl is twelve years old, and the woman had suffered hemorrhages for twelve years. The first is healed entirely by Jesus' taking her hand, while the woman takes the initiative to approach Jesus and touches his garment with her hand. In that way, she is comparable not only to the twelve year old girl but to Jairus, since he too had taken the initiative to come to Jesus for help. However, Jairus is a respected leader of his community, and she is a social outcast and barred from entering the synagogue. Finally, Jairus seeks aid for his "daughter" (v. 23), and Jesus names the woman "daughter" (v. 34).
The familial language is one of the keys to this story, and it centers in Jesus' addressing this social outcast as his daughter. She has been "saved" in the sense that she has, by virtue of her faith and Jesus' grace, been made a child of God and is no longer a nobody in her society. While the healing of the hemorrhages is clearly significant, Jesus' claiming the woman as a daughter is surely the highlight of the story.
In that way, we have here two stories of daughters, one unclaimed and unwanted, the other a child of loving parents snared by death. As Jesus claims the woman as a daughter, he joins the little girl's parents in willing the restoration of her life. There are two families represented in these two stories. The first is Jairus' family, which is a blood relationship that nonetheless is a community of caring. The second family is God's. By virtue of Christ's gracious adoption, the lowly and castaway woman is made part of this divine family.
However, Mark weaves the stories of these two families into a single cloth, suggesting that the two are interrelated. Divine and human parentage are reflections one of the other. We understand our relationship with God in Christ by thinking of it as a relationship of children to their parents; and the human family is a reflection of the care and nurture God provides us. With this sense of divine parentage, we can cross the boundaries of blood relationships to claim others as sisters and brothers, even as David claimed Jonathan his brother. With this sense of divine parentage, we will have nothing to do with inequality but will nurture an equality among those who claim God as Parent.
It's all in the family, this matter of our relationships with others. Within the context of what we know as family, we can understand our relationships with others, both those within the community of faith and outside it. It matters little what form the human family may take, as long as it reflects the care and love of the divine Parent. Perhaps "family values" are found, not so much in the preservation of a traditional understanding of the family, but in the appropriation of God's own values for human welfare. [Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier, an ordained Presbyterian minister and the Retired Adjunct Professor of Bible and Homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, is known throughout the United States and Canada as a preacher, lecturer, and writer. She is the author of 25 books and frequently contributes to church publications.]
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
During the reign of Saul (ca.1020--1000 B.C.), Israel's principal enemies were the Philistines, those seagoing peoples from the island of Crete who had settled into five city states along the coast of Palestine. While Saul and his son Jonathan were sometimes successful in battle against them (cf. 1 Samuel 14:13-46), the Philistines literally threatened Israel with extinction, and one of the reasons David, Saul's successor, was considered to be so great was because he subdued the Philistine threat in battle. It is no surprise, therefore, that the deaths of Saul and Jonathan occurred in a battle on Mount Gilboa with the Philistine armies (1 Samuel 31; 2 Samuel 1:1-10). Our text for the morning consists of David's lament over those two fallen heroes.
We are not used to great expressions of grief in our society. Indeed, we try to hide the fact of death. The dying are often left alone down hospital sterile corridors. When they die, we use cosmetics to make the corpse look as alive as possible. And grieving is confined to private tears in a small company of friends, with the survivors choking back their emotions at the funeral. Not so in the Scriptures! David rends his clothing in grief (1:11), has the Amalekite slain who rendered the last blow to Saul (11-16), and then cries out in the poetry of verses 19-27. "How the mighty are fallen!" he cries three times in an anguished refrain (vv. 19, 25, 27). Israel's "glory," the Lord's anointed king and his successor, Jonathan, lie slain on the slope of Mount Gilboa. David is overcome with grief, and his expression of that grief is public and heartfelt and therapeutic. The biblical faith never tries to escape from the reality of death, but confronts it head-on and deals with it and finally overcomes it.
How strange it is that David should grieve over Saul, however! Saul has been jealous of David and repeatedly tried to kill him, so that David has been forced to flee for his life, with 600 of his men, and to live as an outlaw in Philistine territory (1 Samuel 27). But now David laments the tragic death of Saul. Despite David's selfish concern to grasp power for himself that finally leads to his kingship over all of Israel, David recognizes that Israel has lost the one figure that unites it, that it now stands helpless before the powers of this world, and that it is like sheep without a shepherd. For that reason, he wants no news of Saul's death published among the Philistines (v. 20), he curses the mountain where Saul was slain (v. 21), and he calls the professional grievers and even the wealthy women in Israel to join him in his grief (v. 24).
But was Saul the "glory" of Israel? Was he the "mighty" one whom David mourns? Certainly he was a failure as a king. Subject to fits of depression, and led astray from the will of God by expediency in battle (1 Samuel 13 and 15), Saul even broke the law to consult the banned witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28). Yet Saul was a mighty warrior (2 Samuel 1:22). He was courageous beyond all reckoning, entering into the battle in which it had been foretold that he would die (1 Samuel 28:15-25). Above all, Saul was the Lord's anointed, the one whom God had chosen to be king, and David, in recognition of the will of God, laments Saul's loss to Israel.
David states in his lament that "in life and death," Saul and Jonathan "were not divided" (v. 23). That overlooks what actually happened, of course. When Saul turned against David and sought to kill him, Jonathan joined league with David against his father, and 1 Samuel 18:1-2 tells us that Saul banned Jonathan from his house. But it seems always to be the case that when death occurs, the enmities, the faults, and the shadows that marred a relationship recede into the background, and only the good is remembered. And so David portrays father and son, fighting together, in the unmarred unity of kinship. We rarely hear anything bad about a person at his funeral. Only the good is recalled.
When David mourns Jonathan's death, a personal note enters in, and it is significant that the note occurs at the climax of this lament (vv. 25-26). David loved Jonathan, in the deepest bond of friendship. 1 Samuel 18:1 tells us that "the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." And so David mourns the loss of Jonathan as his "brother," whose love for him "was wonderful, passing the love of women." It is a travesty when some interpreters turn that into a perverted, homosexual relationship. In our sex-saturated society, we think that every intimate relation must involve sex, and we have thereby sullied the nature of intimate friendship. We no longer know how two men or two women can share their lives and thoughts and activities with one another, purely and unselfishly, and we have thereby impoverished ourselves. Intimate friendships can be an expression of unconditional love, mirroring the love of God, and David, in his grief, mourns the loss of that marvelous love.
The final line of David's lament mourns the loss of Israel's defense. She now stands naked before her enemies. But by the grace of God, David will ascend the throne of Israel and defeat the Philistines. Israel is the chosen people of God, his "holy nation," set apart to serve his purpose for all humankind, and no earthly power will ever defeat that purpose.
Lutheran Option -- Lamentations 3:22-33
The Book of Lamentations is made up of a series of individual laments that mourn the defeat and destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonian Empire in 587 B.C. It was perhaps recited at the site of the ruin of the temple on fast days, and its laments were probably gathered together to form the present book sometime after 538 B.C. It is not a prophetic book, but prompted by 2 Chronicles 35:25, it was included after Jeremiah in the canon, because its laments were thought to mirror that prophet's sufferings.
The siege, fall, and destruction of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, and the subsequent exile of all but the poorest inhabitants was nothing short of an ancient holocaust for Israel. We have only to read Lamentations to have an intimation of her plight. Reviled and looted by her enemies, Israel lost her nationhood, her davidic king, her land, her temple, and much of her populace. The covenant was broken (cf. Jeremiah 31:32), and Israel considered herself "dead," her plight forgotten by her God (cf. Is. 40:27; Ezekiel 37:11) -- all because of her rebellion against her covenant Lord (Lamentations 1:8-9, 18, 22; 3:1, 42; 4:11, 13, 22).
In the midst of Lamentations' descriptions of her awful suffering, however, we find this hymn of praise that makes up our text, and its words reveal the source of Israel's perennial hope for the future. God has judged his people for their faithlessness toward him, yes. They have been subjected to the conqueror's yoke and oppression (vv. 27-30), yes. But "the steadfast love (i.e. the covenant love) of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end" (v. 22). Beyond his judgment there is always the love and undeserved grace of God. The Lord pours out that grace in common forms every morning, causing his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, sending his rain upon the just and on the unjust, granting to all his creatures his breath of life by which they are sustained. And even beyond that, God will not give up the people he has created for himself, or cast them off forever. God never throws us away. Rather, in overwhelming and undeserved mercy, he comes to us and delivers us from the death we deserve for our sin, and takes us back into his good fellowship. Israel learned that when she was delivered from her Babylonian exile and returned to her land. We learned it most finally in the forgiveness and new life granted us by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
"This I call to mind," says our text, "and therefore I have hope." In faith in Christ, we always have hope. Therefore, says our text, "wait" for the Lord. Cast yourself upon his mercy. For that mercy is everlasting and his steadfast love never ceases.
Robert, also an ELCA pastor, is Bandy Professor of Preaching and New Testament Emeritus at Candler School of Theology and the Graduate Division of Religion of Emory University. He earned his Bachelor of Divinity from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in New Testament Interpretation from Northwestern University. He has written fifteen books and over fifty articles.)
We hear a lot about families these days. Candidates are billed as "family men" or "family women," and they often have much to say about "family values." There are "family restaurants," "family movies," and "family programs." Of course, all of this arises because today our culture threatens the traditional family, and we are properly concerned about those threats. The extended family has nearly disintegrated, and the number of complete nuclear families is dwindling. A variety of different kinds of "families" are emerging, some promising and some worrisome.
What we seem to be trying to do is redefine exactly what constitutes a family. What's behind the traditional mother-father-children pattern? Some have proposed that caring relationships are the essential ingredient in family, regardless of the precise role of the adults in that relationship. So, single people create a kind of family for themselves. Married adults without children are a family too. Adopted or foster children with adults to care for them are regarded as a family. Blood is less important than love.
Our goal is not to advocate reform in the way we think about family but to chart a course through the three readings for Proper 8 that takes its path from family-like relationships. How do such relationships function in these texts or how are they implied in the texts? How are they "all in the family"? If such a course proves helpful, however, we may as a matter of fact discover some resources for thinking about family life.
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
This reading is part of a pivotal transition in David's career. First Samuel 21:1--30:31 tells the story of David's fugitive period, after he has been anointed king (1 Samuel 15:34--16:13) and forced to flee from Saul's court (19:8-17) but before he begins the process of consolidating the nation under his leadership (told in 2 Samuel 2:1--8:18). During the years when Saul regarded him as an enemy, David served as a mercenary for the Philistines but actually devoted his time to raids on the Amalekites. We are told that on two separate occasions he had opportunity to kill Saul but refused to do so because of his respect for the Lord's anointed (24:1-22 and 26:1-25).
Second Samuel begins by referring to the deaths of Saul and his sons, told as the conclusion of 1 Samuel (the first verse of our reading and also see 1 Samuel 31:1-13). "A man ... from Saul's camp" reported the king's death and that of his son Jonathan to David (vv. 2-18), and the reading includes David's lament over these deaths. The title "Song of the Bow" (v. 17) is mysterious in its meaning, and Book of Jashar (or Book of the Upright) is lost, although some think it contained a number of poems.
David's lament is powerful and touching. The poem moves through two parts. The first is a lament for Israel (vv. 19-25) and the second expresses David's own personal grief (vv. 16-27). The deaths of Saul and Jonathan, each of whom opposed David, are no cause for rejoicing but just the opposite. Those deaths bring joy to Israel's enemies, and Gilboa -- the site of the deaths -- will forever bear the scars of the tragedy. Saul and Jonathan were mighty warriors whose deaths together completed their joined lives. From the bodies of the dead came the ingredient for the dye "crimson," which will adorn the "daughters of Israel." Finally, David expresses his own loss by claiming Jonathan as his own brother, whom he dearly loved. He claims Jonathan's love "was wonderful, passing the love of women." (See 1 Samuel 18:1 and 20:17.)
Throughout these nine verses, the refrain, "How the mighty have fallen," welds the whole lament together. It is stated first in verse 19, then expanded in verse 25 with the words "in the midst of the battle." Finally, it concludes the lament (v. 27), this time with an addition that claims, with the fall of "the mighty" Saul and Jonathan, "the weapons of war perished." The refrain expresses both David's admiration for the two slain warriors and a sobering observation that those who claim might are as vulnerable as all humans. "The bigger they are, the harder they fall" might be a modern and frivolous synonym for this provocative refrain.
The lament revolves around the death of a father and his son, a family tragedy. Oddly enough, David claims Jonathan as his brother and by implication Saul as his father. Love knit Jonathan and David together in the way siblings are often joined in affection. Furthermore, David's profound respect for Saul, in spite of Saul's determination to slay him, suggests an indebtedness like that of a son for a father. The lament is really, then, a family matter -- the family's grief over loved ones lost to death. It's all in the family. Family doesn't always have to do with blood relationships. Love and respect bring humans together often in even more intimate ways. What is a family, after all, but a group tied together with the bonds of love and respect?
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Paul suggests something of the same understanding of family in this reading which never uses any of the terms we usually associate with familial life. These verses from 1 Corinthians 8 are Paul's appeal to the Corinthian church to contribute to the offering for the church in Jerusalem. It is clear that this gesture of love to the Jerusalem Christians was very important to Paul. Surely he was interested in addressing the need his sisters and brothers of Jerusalem were experiencing (see Romans15:26). However, of equal importance to Paul was the unity of Christians expressed in the offering. The generosity of the Gentile Christians would couple them with the Jewish Christians and demonstrate the genuine depth of Gentile Christian faith to any Jewish Christian who might still be suspicious of the "uncircumcised." In other words, Paul's whole missionary effort among the Gentiles was at stake in this offering, and the truth of his conviction that "there is no longer Jew or Greek ... for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).
Paul's effort to solicit a contribution from the Corinthian church is masterfully constructed. He first expresses his confidence in the Corinthians in 7:4-16 and in 8:1 eases into his appeal with reference to the example set by the churches of Macedonia (8:1-5). In 8:6 he tells his readers that Titus will provide them opportunity for generosity equal to that of Macedonians.
In the reading proper, we can find a number of segments tightly joined together. Verse 7 suggests what Paul sees as the consequences of this offering for the Corinthians, and in verses 8-10 he clarifies the nature of his appeal (not a command but a "testing"of their faith). That the Corinthians should do what they have promised to do comprises the substance of verses 11-12. Finally, in verse 13-15 he develops the idea of balance or equality.
It is this last section that interests us. Paul carefully argues that he does not expect the Corinthians to do more than they are able to do but to "balance" their "abundance" with the need of the Jerusalem Christians. The word translated "balance" (isotas) is used only here and in Colossians 4:1 and can also be rendered "equality" or "fairness." Paul is appealing to a basic Christian sense of fellowship (or koinonia) with one another. Within that sense of unity, those who have in abundance will gladly give to those who are in need, even as the first church is credited with sharing material possessions (see Acts 2:44-45). Paul pins his argument, then, to this essential unity in Christ. To convince his readers, he quotes Exodus 16:18, which refers to the gathering of manna by the Israelites in the wilderness and how each one was assured a day's supply of food. If one should gather more than another, that person's plenty went to others who were not fortunate enough to find a full day's supply.
In terms of our quest, Paul appeals to the Corinthians' place in the larger Christian family. The equality he requests and expects is founded on the principle of siblings in Christ, on the unity of believers in one family. As members of a family share what each one has with other family members, so too will Christians share their "abundance" with those who have too little. This support of the Jerusalem Christians is a family matter. The traditional family may be bound together by blood and circumstances. The Christian family, however, is knit together by virtue of faith. The unity is in their conviction that Christ is the revelation of God for their salvation. Out of that common conviction arises a mutual concern for one another -- an equality. Family is implicit in this passage insofar as we understand the essence of familial relationships to be common faith and common sharing. Not a bad concept of family for our day.
Mark 5:21-43
This is one of the most remarkable passages in the Synoptic Gospels. Here the evangelist has inserted one story into the middle of another, so that the reader is treated to a two-for-the-price-of-one pleasure. The inner story -- the healing of the woman with the flow of blood (vv. 25-34) -- is sandwiched between Jesus' departure to Jairus' home (vv. 21-24) and the remainder of that episode (vv. 35-43). The literary setting of a story within a story compels us to interpret each of them in the light of the other and that will be the focus of our attention.
First, however, we ought to make some preliminary observations about each of the two stories. Jairus is said to be "one of the leaders of the synagogue." Presumably he was responsible for the care of the building as well as arrangements for the services, and may have led services as well. The point is that he is a prominent man in his community, probably on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. He demonstrates a profound confidence that Jesus can make his ailing daughter well (v. 23), and without comment Jesus goes with him to his home.
Abruptly at verse 25 we are introduced to the woman who had suffered hemorrhages for twelve years. Her condition made her "unclean" by Jewish law (see Leviticus 12:1-8 and 15:19-30), hence she was ostracized and excluded from society. Physicians had only exhausted her funds and brought her more suffering than help, so she looks to Jesus as a source of healing. In the entire story she does not speak, and we hear only what she thinks within herself. When she touches Jesus' garment, she is instantaneously healed, and Jesus immediately senses the power that has gone out of him. He wants to know who touched him, and the woman shyly comes out of the crowd, falls at his feet "in fear and trembling," and tells him all.
Jesus' words to her in verse 34 are of three parts. First, he addresses the woman as "daughter," a naming to which we must return. Second, he says, "Your faith has made you well." Finally, he instructs her, "Go, in peace, and be healed of your disease." If she has already been made well, what does Jesus mean by saying she will be healed? How much should we make of these two statements? The word translated "healed" (hugias) is different from "made well" (sozo). The first (an adjective) means "healthy"or "sound," and the second (a verb) "saved." However, the word "save" may refer to several situations (that is, not just spiritual salvation). Mark may expect us to understand that the woman has been "saved" by virtue of her faith and now, because of Jesus' words to her, she will be fully healthy or whole. Or, are we to suppose that she will be made well (healthy) as she reenters and is included in society?
The first story resumes with verse 35. It's too late. Jairus' daughter is dead. Jesus, however, encourages Jairus to believe, and they continue their trek to the synagogue leader's house. Amid the crowd of mourners outside the house he announces that the little girl "is not dead but only sleeping," which solicits the crowd's laughter. With only the girl's parents and three disciples, he enters her room and raises her to life. "Talitha cum" is one of the Aramaic expressions preserved in Mark and may have been commonly used in stories of healing. Mark again says the healing was "immediate" (see vv. 29 and 30). She demonstrates the effectiveness of her healing by walking, a common feature of the healing stories in the Synoptics. Finally the narrator tells us she was twelve years old.
A comparison of the two stories yields some interesting insights. Both of the beneficiaries of Jesus' healing are females; one is young, and the other older. The girl is twelve years old, and the woman had suffered hemorrhages for twelve years. The first is healed entirely by Jesus' taking her hand, while the woman takes the initiative to approach Jesus and touches his garment with her hand. In that way, she is comparable not only to the twelve year old girl but to Jairus, since he too had taken the initiative to come to Jesus for help. However, Jairus is a respected leader of his community, and she is a social outcast and barred from entering the synagogue. Finally, Jairus seeks aid for his "daughter" (v. 23), and Jesus names the woman "daughter" (v. 34).
The familial language is one of the keys to this story, and it centers in Jesus' addressing this social outcast as his daughter. She has been "saved" in the sense that she has, by virtue of her faith and Jesus' grace, been made a child of God and is no longer a nobody in her society. While the healing of the hemorrhages is clearly significant, Jesus' claiming the woman as a daughter is surely the highlight of the story.
In that way, we have here two stories of daughters, one unclaimed and unwanted, the other a child of loving parents snared by death. As Jesus claims the woman as a daughter, he joins the little girl's parents in willing the restoration of her life. There are two families represented in these two stories. The first is Jairus' family, which is a blood relationship that nonetheless is a community of caring. The second family is God's. By virtue of Christ's gracious adoption, the lowly and castaway woman is made part of this divine family.
However, Mark weaves the stories of these two families into a single cloth, suggesting that the two are interrelated. Divine and human parentage are reflections one of the other. We understand our relationship with God in Christ by thinking of it as a relationship of children to their parents; and the human family is a reflection of the care and nurture God provides us. With this sense of divine parentage, we can cross the boundaries of blood relationships to claim others as sisters and brothers, even as David claimed Jonathan his brother. With this sense of divine parentage, we will have nothing to do with inequality but will nurture an equality among those who claim God as Parent.
It's all in the family, this matter of our relationships with others. Within the context of what we know as family, we can understand our relationships with others, both those within the community of faith and outside it. It matters little what form the human family may take, as long as it reflects the care and love of the divine Parent. Perhaps "family values" are found, not so much in the preservation of a traditional understanding of the family, but in the appropriation of God's own values for human welfare. [Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier, an ordained Presbyterian minister and the Retired Adjunct Professor of Bible and Homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, is known throughout the United States and Canada as a preacher, lecturer, and writer. She is the author of 25 books and frequently contributes to church publications.]
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
During the reign of Saul (ca.1020--1000 B.C.), Israel's principal enemies were the Philistines, those seagoing peoples from the island of Crete who had settled into five city states along the coast of Palestine. While Saul and his son Jonathan were sometimes successful in battle against them (cf. 1 Samuel 14:13-46), the Philistines literally threatened Israel with extinction, and one of the reasons David, Saul's successor, was considered to be so great was because he subdued the Philistine threat in battle. It is no surprise, therefore, that the deaths of Saul and Jonathan occurred in a battle on Mount Gilboa with the Philistine armies (1 Samuel 31; 2 Samuel 1:1-10). Our text for the morning consists of David's lament over those two fallen heroes.
We are not used to great expressions of grief in our society. Indeed, we try to hide the fact of death. The dying are often left alone down hospital sterile corridors. When they die, we use cosmetics to make the corpse look as alive as possible. And grieving is confined to private tears in a small company of friends, with the survivors choking back their emotions at the funeral. Not so in the Scriptures! David rends his clothing in grief (1:11), has the Amalekite slain who rendered the last blow to Saul (11-16), and then cries out in the poetry of verses 19-27. "How the mighty are fallen!" he cries three times in an anguished refrain (vv. 19, 25, 27). Israel's "glory," the Lord's anointed king and his successor, Jonathan, lie slain on the slope of Mount Gilboa. David is overcome with grief, and his expression of that grief is public and heartfelt and therapeutic. The biblical faith never tries to escape from the reality of death, but confronts it head-on and deals with it and finally overcomes it.
How strange it is that David should grieve over Saul, however! Saul has been jealous of David and repeatedly tried to kill him, so that David has been forced to flee for his life, with 600 of his men, and to live as an outlaw in Philistine territory (1 Samuel 27). But now David laments the tragic death of Saul. Despite David's selfish concern to grasp power for himself that finally leads to his kingship over all of Israel, David recognizes that Israel has lost the one figure that unites it, that it now stands helpless before the powers of this world, and that it is like sheep without a shepherd. For that reason, he wants no news of Saul's death published among the Philistines (v. 20), he curses the mountain where Saul was slain (v. 21), and he calls the professional grievers and even the wealthy women in Israel to join him in his grief (v. 24).
But was Saul the "glory" of Israel? Was he the "mighty" one whom David mourns? Certainly he was a failure as a king. Subject to fits of depression, and led astray from the will of God by expediency in battle (1 Samuel 13 and 15), Saul even broke the law to consult the banned witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28). Yet Saul was a mighty warrior (2 Samuel 1:22). He was courageous beyond all reckoning, entering into the battle in which it had been foretold that he would die (1 Samuel 28:15-25). Above all, Saul was the Lord's anointed, the one whom God had chosen to be king, and David, in recognition of the will of God, laments Saul's loss to Israel.
David states in his lament that "in life and death," Saul and Jonathan "were not divided" (v. 23). That overlooks what actually happened, of course. When Saul turned against David and sought to kill him, Jonathan joined league with David against his father, and 1 Samuel 18:1-2 tells us that Saul banned Jonathan from his house. But it seems always to be the case that when death occurs, the enmities, the faults, and the shadows that marred a relationship recede into the background, and only the good is remembered. And so David portrays father and son, fighting together, in the unmarred unity of kinship. We rarely hear anything bad about a person at his funeral. Only the good is recalled.
When David mourns Jonathan's death, a personal note enters in, and it is significant that the note occurs at the climax of this lament (vv. 25-26). David loved Jonathan, in the deepest bond of friendship. 1 Samuel 18:1 tells us that "the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." And so David mourns the loss of Jonathan as his "brother," whose love for him "was wonderful, passing the love of women." It is a travesty when some interpreters turn that into a perverted, homosexual relationship. In our sex-saturated society, we think that every intimate relation must involve sex, and we have thereby sullied the nature of intimate friendship. We no longer know how two men or two women can share their lives and thoughts and activities with one another, purely and unselfishly, and we have thereby impoverished ourselves. Intimate friendships can be an expression of unconditional love, mirroring the love of God, and David, in his grief, mourns the loss of that marvelous love.
The final line of David's lament mourns the loss of Israel's defense. She now stands naked before her enemies. But by the grace of God, David will ascend the throne of Israel and defeat the Philistines. Israel is the chosen people of God, his "holy nation," set apart to serve his purpose for all humankind, and no earthly power will ever defeat that purpose.
Lutheran Option -- Lamentations 3:22-33
The Book of Lamentations is made up of a series of individual laments that mourn the defeat and destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonian Empire in 587 B.C. It was perhaps recited at the site of the ruin of the temple on fast days, and its laments were probably gathered together to form the present book sometime after 538 B.C. It is not a prophetic book, but prompted by 2 Chronicles 35:25, it was included after Jeremiah in the canon, because its laments were thought to mirror that prophet's sufferings.
The siege, fall, and destruction of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, and the subsequent exile of all but the poorest inhabitants was nothing short of an ancient holocaust for Israel. We have only to read Lamentations to have an intimation of her plight. Reviled and looted by her enemies, Israel lost her nationhood, her davidic king, her land, her temple, and much of her populace. The covenant was broken (cf. Jeremiah 31:32), and Israel considered herself "dead," her plight forgotten by her God (cf. Is. 40:27; Ezekiel 37:11) -- all because of her rebellion against her covenant Lord (Lamentations 1:8-9, 18, 22; 3:1, 42; 4:11, 13, 22).
In the midst of Lamentations' descriptions of her awful suffering, however, we find this hymn of praise that makes up our text, and its words reveal the source of Israel's perennial hope for the future. God has judged his people for their faithlessness toward him, yes. They have been subjected to the conqueror's yoke and oppression (vv. 27-30), yes. But "the steadfast love (i.e. the covenant love) of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end" (v. 22). Beyond his judgment there is always the love and undeserved grace of God. The Lord pours out that grace in common forms every morning, causing his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, sending his rain upon the just and on the unjust, granting to all his creatures his breath of life by which they are sustained. And even beyond that, God will not give up the people he has created for himself, or cast them off forever. God never throws us away. Rather, in overwhelming and undeserved mercy, he comes to us and delivers us from the death we deserve for our sin, and takes us back into his good fellowship. Israel learned that when she was delivered from her Babylonian exile and returned to her land. We learned it most finally in the forgiveness and new life granted us by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
"This I call to mind," says our text, "and therefore I have hope." In faith in Christ, we always have hope. Therefore, says our text, "wait" for the Lord. Cast yourself upon his mercy. For that mercy is everlasting and his steadfast love never ceases.
