Change
Commentary
Change is seldom easy. Psychologists tell us that even changes for the better -- promotions, new homes, a birth of a child -- entail as much stress as do changes for the worse. Moreover, most of us don't do well with change. Change disorients us. It puts behind us something we have known and lived and introduces something new. We have to adjust our life, thought, and emotions. Often the comfort of the old is disturbed by the new, and the quiet of sustaining the familiar is broken by the new.
Change in our religious life is even more difficult, since, when you change something about our religious lives, you are tinkering with what we hold most valuable and important. Pastors are all too familiar with how painful change is for a congregation, even something as simple as a new hymnal or a new translation of the Bible. Martin Luther's life and his reformation of the church surely exemplify the difficulty of change for us. His own life took a radically new direction when he discovered God's grace -- a friendly side to One whom he had thought of only as angry and wrathful. He found that God's grace mattered far more than his own righteousness and that he did not have to be righteous before God since Christ was his righteousness. That change transformed his life, sent him off into hiding, and eventually entailed his excommunication.
Even more drastic was the change Luther's reformation instituted. While it was welcomed by many, it also thrust people into the unknown and the unfamiliar. Think of how hard it must have been for those of the reformed churches to rethink all they had taught and had treasured. This sort of change split the reformers and produced the radical left wing of the Reformation. The process of reconfiguring Christian thought and life was in no way easy.
The matter of change resides at the heart of all our readings for this Sunday, even though each speaks in a different way of a different kind of change. They help us explore change in our lives and faith.
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
This is the conclusion of the lengthy story of Job and his trials. The two parts of the reading, however, each take a different view of the change that occurred in Job's life. Verses 1-6 conclude Job's dialogue with God, which begins in 38:1. Elihu is introduced in 32:1-5 and makes a long speech that finally ends at 37:24. It is not accidental that Elihu condemns the self-righteousness to which Job is perilously close and declares God's majesty which the Lord will demonstrate in 38:1--41:34. Job's response in verses 1-6 expresses the change that his encounter with God has brought.
However, 42:7-17 is a different matter. It seems to pick up the prose introduction to the story in chapters 1 and 2 and brings it to a happy conclusion. Many have noted that the prose framework around the book differs from the long central section which is written in poetry. The difference is not only in literary style, however, but in theological perspective and narrative unity. For instance, in verses 7-9 God pronounces the words of Job's friends erroneous, while Job is said to have spoken "what is right." Compare that with Job's attacks on God throughout the dialogue and with what God says about Job's words in 38:2b. However one wishes to resolve the conflict between the prose and the poetic sections, we have to deal with 42:7-17 as one way of ending Job's long quest.
In verses 1-6 Job finally realizes that he has had no business questioning the way God runs things. First, he makes a confession of faith about God in verse 2. His confession is simply that God is powerful beyond calculation and that God can and does accomplish whatever the divine will wishes. Second, Job twice quotes God's words spoken in the course of their dialogue (vv. 3-4). Doing so, Job seems to acknowledge that he is now able to see himself as God has seen him. Following each quotation, Job confesses the offensive nature of his own words.
The first quotation (v. 3a) echos (but does not quote exactly) God's words in 38:2. God asks who Job thinks he is, and Job now admits that he didn't know what he was doing. He spoke without "knowledge" and spoke of things beyond his comprehension (v. 3b). Note the "therefore" that stands between what God says about Job and what Job says of himself. The second quotation (v. 4) again recalls 38:3 but also 40:7. God had challenged Job to "listen" and questions him. Job's response to these words admits that he did finally "listen," and listening has enabled him to see. Words create a visual experience. Verse 6 is the final conclusion to this honest admission of fault. However, these words are difficult to translate and seem intentionally ambiguous. How one translates and understands them depends entirely on how one understands the whole book. We propose along with some contemporary interpreters that we might read verse 6 as Job's recantation of his words and the change of his mind about the human condition (i.e., "dust and ashes"). The point is that Job finally accepts another view of reality and changes his way of conceiving his relationship with God.
The reading skips verses 7-9 in which the narrator tells us how God demanded that Job's friends recognize they have been wrong and that they should offer a sacrifice. More importantly, Job will pray for his friends, and God will hear his prayer and spare them punishment.
The final words of the book are a "and-they-lived-happily-ever-after" conclusion. The satan's prediction that Job would curse God (1:11 and 2:5) proves to be wrong, and God restores Job to his former life. Indeed, Job is rewarded for his faithfulness with "twice as much as he had before" (v.10). The troubles Job has experienced are called "all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him" (v. 11), and thereby makes clear that it was not the satan but God who struck Job. This verse reflects perhaps the oldest idea of evil and suffering in the Old Testament, which credited God with both all evil and all good. The gifts others give to Job are similar to those bestowed on the patriarchs (e.g., Genesis 33:19), suggesting that Job's story originally might have assumed a setting in the age of Israel's forerunners. Job is given an abundance of worldly possessions and riches, has lots of children (including beautiful daughters), and a long, long life.
The prose conclusion of the book once again teaches the retribution ethic, and with a vengeance. Frankly, your writers think that such a teaching is theologically faulty and pastorally dangerous. Certainly the Christ model represents an entirely different understanding of righteousness and earthly condition.
Therefore, we will focus instead on the poetic conclusion, which we believe is truer to the larger part of the book. As a result of his duel with God (depending on how one understands the meaning of the phrase the NRSV translates, "I repent"), Job has to change his way of thinking and living. Encountering God always results in change, no matter how righteous we may be. God always upsets the status quo and brings something new into being. Sometimes God may challenge even our personal integrity! Our sense of being true to ourselves can, as it did for Job, constrict our openness to God, especially when it becomes a personal idol. Job has the grace at least finally to acknowledge that he had no idea what he was doing when he challenged God and to reorient his whole life -- thinking, believing, and living. That's the change God causes.
Hebrews 7:23-28
In this reading, the author of Hebrews speaks of another change God has caused. It is the change of understanding about how we approach God and what function religious leaders have in our coming before God. As we have observed earlier, this author seems intent on describing who Christ is and what he does by showing his superiority to other figures, e.g., angels (1:5--2:18), Moses (3:1-6), and the high priest (4:14--7:28). The claim that Jesus is superior to the high priest's office leads to a discussion of Melchizedek and hence into our reading for this Sunday. After this passage, the discussion turns to a related matter, namely, one who brings a new covenant (8:1-12).
Our passage takes us through several dimensions of the theme of Christ's priesthood. Christ is superior to former priests, first, in that he is high priest forever, as opposed to former priests (vv. 23-25), and, second, because his offering is "once for all" rather than necessitating a daily offering (vv. 26-27). Finally, Christ's priesthood arises from a source superior to the Law (v. 28).
The first argument contrasts the number of priests required in the older system as a result of their deaths with Christ's permanent role as priest. There are then advantages to Christ's priesthood, since he is forever making intercession to God on our behalf and by doing so is able to save us. The whole purpose of Christ's advent was to bring humans to God, and, because he is eternal, he can continue his efforts in his heavenly role as our Advocate (vv. 23-25).
The second argument contrasts the offerings of the former priesthood and Christ's offering (vv. 26-27). The first stage of this argument is again to state Christ's nature. He is a perfect fit for human need and fills those needs perfectly, as we or other priests are unable to do. Each of the adjectives -- "holy," "blameless," " undefiled," "separated from sinners," and "exalted" -- names a characteristic required of the Levitical priesthood but which Christ fulfills completely. Former priests were "separated from sinners" by the fact that they had to follow more strict commandments than ordinary people, but Christ is separated from sinners by virtue of the fact that he is sinless (see 4:15). More important is the difference between the sacrifices of Christ and former priests. Actually, the high priest offered himself as a sacrifice only once a year on the Day of Atonement; however, the Septuagint suggests that Leviticus 6:13 was understood to mean that the priest's offering was continuous. Unlike priests who offer up gifts given to them by the people, Jesus offered himself. Since he himself is sinless, according to our author, his sacrifice had to be for other people. The "once for all" character of the offering uses one of the author's key terms found eleven times in Hebrews (ephapax and hapax).
Finally, the author claims that Christ's priesthood arises from a source superior to the Law (v. 28). The contrast is between the Law and "the word of the oath," which refers to Psalm 110:4. The author argues that, since the Psalms are later than the Law and are the work of David, they supersede the Torah. (See also 4:7 and Galatians 3:17 for examples of the same claim.) Earlier in chapter 7 the writer uses Psalm 110:4 to argue that Christ is a priest in the order of Melchizedek (vv. 1-22), and now asserts that God swears that Christ is "a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek," because the writer understands that in the Psalm God speaks of Christ. (See our column for last Sunday, Proper 24.)
The author of Hebrews is trying to make readers aware of a significant change that influences the way we think about worship and sacrifice. Whatever we may think of the argument and the categories the author uses, the effort is to show that Christ makes the past obsolete. Note, however, that Hebrews never diminishes the importance of the Hebraic and Jewish traditions, quite the opposite. Nonetheless, the book claims that a dramatic change has occurred. We may not have a commitment to the older priesthood and may not feel that it is necessary to convince our congregations that Christ represents the Jewish priesthood. However, we know how Christ changes the way we think of God and how we approach God. The old inclination to make ourselves acceptable to God through our good deeds is a thing of the past just as the sacrifices in the temple are a thing of the past. God made Christ our priest so that we do not have to be pure, holy, and perfect in order to enter a relationship with God. That change may be difficult for us to make. The old dies hard, and so there may remain fragments of a "works righteousness" in many of us, even though Luther tried to change our perspective.
Mark 10:46-52
This lesson depicts one whose encounter with Christ made a drastic change in his life. The story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus is a touching tale that tugs at our emotions while it stimulates our minds. First, we need to note the strategic location of this story in Mark's narrative. This is the last of Jesus' deeds before his entry into Jerusalem, so it stands on the narrow ledge over the passion story. It concludes the central section of Mark's story which began with the healing of another blind man (8:22-26). Having stressed so strongly and persistently the disciples' own blindness and misunderstanding, it seems likely that Mark uses the healing of Bartimaeus symbolically to indicate how, in his suffering, death, and resurrection, Jesus heals his followers afflictions. This possibility is all the more likely as a result of where Mark places the story. It follows immediately after Jesus' third passion prediction and the disciples' petty disagreement about James' and John's blind request that they sit on either side of Christ in his glory (10:32-45).
After setting up the story in verse 46a, the narrator introduces Bartimaeus and describes his search for Jesus' healing (vv. 46b-48). Verses 49-51 depict Bartimaeus' encounter with Jesus and the conversation between the two of them. The healing is told briefly in verse 52a and its results noted in verse 52b.
"Jericho" is about twenty miles northeast of Jerusalem and stands within the Jordan valley. "Bartimaeus" means "son of Timaeus," the Greek of which is related to the word meaning value or worth (timios). Like all those who suffered disabling affliction, Bartimaeus is forced to a life of begging which was the only recourse for such persons. His cry is both an affirmation and a plea. He affirms that Jesus is son of David -- a title used by some Jews for the Messiah, although it occurs only here in Mark, and the evangelist seems to think it is an inappropriate title for Jesus (Mark 12:35-37). Bartimaeus requests "mercy" which is all he has left to seek, for only another's mercy could help him. Others try to silence him, but he will not be discouraged or restrained. The fact that some try to restrain the blind man from seeking Christ's help reminds us of the disciples wanting to send the children away (10:13), and Bartimaeus' persistence is like that of the Syrophoencian woman (7:24-30).
Bartimaeus pleads to Jesus for help, and Jesus hears his plea. Those who had tried to quiet him seem now to encourage him and lead him to Jesus. This is another healing story in which the afflicted one is aided by other people to get to Jesus (e.g., 2:1-12). Bartimaeus' energetic response to the good news that Jesus wants to see him is a nice touch in the narrative. Jesus' question to him, however seems strange: "What do you want me to do for you?" It would seem obvious what Bartimaeus wishes and needs, but perhaps it is important that he himself state his need. Jesus' healing might have been different had Bartimaeus told Jesus he needed forgiveness of the sin that had caused his blindness. Either way, we need to know our need when we stand in the presence of Christ.
Bartimaeus states his need simply and directly, addressing Jesus this time as "teacher" (actually, "Rabboni"-- see John 20:16). Bartimaeus is a model of true faith, and it is faith that saves him (sozo, translated in the NRSV "made you well"). Using his favorite word, "immediately," Mark tells us that Bartimaeus followed Jesus "on the way" to the cross. Bartimaeus is able to see, not only physically, but spiritually, and he knows that Christ's gift to him means that he must become Jesus' disciple. The meaning of Christ's crucifixion is subtly presented in the features of this story. Humans cry for help, and Jesus turns toward them. Humans then come to Jesus, and their faith in Christ and his death saves them.
What a radical change! A blind beggar made a model of faith, given sight, and made a disciple. Change may be difficult sometimes, and indeed even change for the better brings difficulties. However, radical change is what God's act in Christ is all about. It brings us to a new understanding of God and ourselves, just as Job was changed by God's encounter with him. It opens our way to a relationship with God by virtue of Christ's suffering for us and his priesthood on our behalf. Most of all, meeting Christ can change our limited vision, open our eyes, and start us off on a new "way." Change is difficult. Yet in Christ God invites us to change, not just once but again and again as we journey with him on the way.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
After the Lord's long interrogation of Job in chapters 38-41, in which Job learns humility before the Creator and is called to renewed trust in the care for him of his God, Job replies, in verses 1-6.
First, Job acknowledges the sovereignty of God. God's power is beyond anything on earth, and he is able to accomplish anything that he desires. Principally, however, God's purpose is supreme. It cannot be hindered or turned aside by anything that human beings do. God can fulfill his purpose, and he will do so. It has been the purpose of the Lord to test Job's faithfulness, and he has done so. Job never learns why, but he accepts the fact that his suffering has been part of the purpose of God (v. 2).
We, in our situation, should not assume that all of our suffering is laid upon us by God. Much of it is due to our own folly and errant ways. We foolishly bring many evil consequences of our thoughts and actions upon ourselves. But we can know, with Job, that God will nevertheless use everything that happens to us to further his good purpose. As Paul writes, "We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). God can use even our evil to work his good.
Second, Job looks back on his dealings with the Lord and realizes how foolish he has been. In verses 3a and 4b, he quotes God's words (cf. 38:2, 3) and admits that yes, he has not known the ways of God or spoken wisely. He therefore repents of his previous attitude and words, adopting the practice of sprinkling himself with dust and ashes that was common to Israel's fasts of repentance (v. 5).
"I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear," Job says, "but now my eye sees thee" (v. 5). That is, all of Job's previous piety, his good deeds, his practices before the Lord were done on the basis of secondhand knowledge. Like us, Job probably had his faith from his childhood. He had been raised in the teachings and commandments of the Lord, and in everything, he tried his best to walk in the ways of the Lord. He was what we would call "a pillar of the church," a "godly man," an upright believer. But now, breaking into Job's situation of suffering, God himself has come to Job and spoken to him. And Job now knows God firsthand, person to person, deep crying out to deep. No longer are God's words matters of rote, learned by Job (cf. Isaiah 29:13). Now they are God's voice, mercifully speaking directly to him. Job now knows his God personally.
Is it not when that happens also to us that all of the teaching of the church, the words of the Bible, the actions of the sacraments come home to us as the direct speaking of God in our lives? We may have spent all of our lives in the fellowship of the church. We may know and quote portions of the Scriptures by heart. We may even have engaged in long theological discussions about various aspects of our faith, stoutly defending the truth of the miracles or of the resurrection of Jesus or of the doctrines of our denomination. We have known it all by rote or by habit. But it is when the words of the Bible and the practices and doctrines of the church become vehicles for us of a personal and living relationship with our God that we know -- know beyond all doubt, all suffering, all circumstance -- that God is with us and that he is pure and undivided love, and that our lives are held in his almighty hands and directed according to his good purpose.
How do we achieve that knowledge? We do not. It is a gift of God's grace, as it was solely a gift to Job. But we can pray for it and open our hearts to receive it. And our Lord promises us that if we ask, in surrender and humility and faith, we will receive.
The final portion of our text, verses 10-17, is widely held by scholars to be a later addition to the book of Job and, many would say, an anticlimactic addition at that. Everything that Job has lost is restored to him, although there is no further mention of his wife. Some have said that these verses are there to show that God is for humankind in this life as well as in the next. However that may be, when Job was given his personal relation with God, he became a rich man, full of abundant life. In good Hebrew fashion, perhaps these added verses are intended to spell out the content of that life. The Scriptures are always interested in the conditions of actual life on this earth (cf. e.g. James 2:15-16).
Lutheran Option -- Jeremiah 31:31-34
This is Reformation Sunday in the church, that day when the church remembers the founding principle of the Protestant Reformation -- namely, that we are justified by grace alone through faith. That is, no one of us can work our way into the saving favor of God. The only means by which we are forgiven for all of our sins and counted righteous in the eyes of God is by the justifying and redeeming work of the Father in his Son Jesus Christ. Only by participating by faith in God's gracious work in his Son do we receive the benefits of Christ's death and resurrection on our behalf. And even then, our faith is not our work, but a gift of God's Spirit working in us. Everything depends on God.
That is also the message of our text for the morning. This passage about God's gift of a new covenant was proclaimed by the prophet Jeremiah probably about 588 B.C., shortly before Judah fell and was sent into Babylonian exile.
For almost forty years, Jeremiah preached to his people, condemning them for their idolatry and injustice and for breaking the covenant commands of their God (cf. Jeremiah 7:1-15). Repeatedly he warned them that God was coming upon them in judgment, and repeatedly he called his people to repent and to return to the Lord. But Jeremiah's preaching was in vain. None of the people listened or stopped to question what they were doing (cf. 8:6). Their reply to the prophet was to scorn him and persecute him. "That is in vain!" they said. "We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart" (Jeremiah 18:12).
Toward the end of his ministry, Jeremiah realized that his people could not repent and that they were enslaved to their sins. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" Jeremiah asked. "Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil" (13:23). Reformation of their lives by the people themselves was impossible. Only God could transform them to obey and to do the good.
The promise that the Lord gives in this new covenant, therefore, is the promise that he himself will transform his people from the inside out. God's covenant people have broken the commandments of the covenant made at Mount Sinai through Moses, despite God's loving care of them through the centuries. Therefore, God announces through Jeremiah that he will make a new covenant with his people. But this time God will write the covenant commands on the people's hearts, so that they will want to obey him. God will transform their hearts so that they are no longer slaves to sin, but rather free to be faithful and good. And by that act of God, all will be forgiven and come to know their Lord.
Was this promise by God ever fulfilled? On the night that he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took the cup, and when he had blessed it, he gave it to his disciples, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. All of you, drink of it." God sealed his promised new covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ, sacrificed for our sakes on the cross. And now, by his Holy Spirit poured out, God has written that new covenant on our hearts and forgiven us all our iniquities. As Paul writes, we are no longer slaves of sin but slaves of righteousness, able to be faithful and to walk in the ways of Lord (Romans 6:17-18).
To be sure, the new covenant has not been totally fulfilled. We sometimes still err in our ways and disobey our God. We are not perfect Christians. And all people do not know the Lord, from the least of them to the greatest. So it is still necessary for us to teach the good news. But, promises our text, the day of perfect fulfillment will come too. And in the meantime, God in Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit sets us free from our sin and enables us to be his people, as he is now and ever will be our God.
Change in our religious life is even more difficult, since, when you change something about our religious lives, you are tinkering with what we hold most valuable and important. Pastors are all too familiar with how painful change is for a congregation, even something as simple as a new hymnal or a new translation of the Bible. Martin Luther's life and his reformation of the church surely exemplify the difficulty of change for us. His own life took a radically new direction when he discovered God's grace -- a friendly side to One whom he had thought of only as angry and wrathful. He found that God's grace mattered far more than his own righteousness and that he did not have to be righteous before God since Christ was his righteousness. That change transformed his life, sent him off into hiding, and eventually entailed his excommunication.
Even more drastic was the change Luther's reformation instituted. While it was welcomed by many, it also thrust people into the unknown and the unfamiliar. Think of how hard it must have been for those of the reformed churches to rethink all they had taught and had treasured. This sort of change split the reformers and produced the radical left wing of the Reformation. The process of reconfiguring Christian thought and life was in no way easy.
The matter of change resides at the heart of all our readings for this Sunday, even though each speaks in a different way of a different kind of change. They help us explore change in our lives and faith.
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
This is the conclusion of the lengthy story of Job and his trials. The two parts of the reading, however, each take a different view of the change that occurred in Job's life. Verses 1-6 conclude Job's dialogue with God, which begins in 38:1. Elihu is introduced in 32:1-5 and makes a long speech that finally ends at 37:24. It is not accidental that Elihu condemns the self-righteousness to which Job is perilously close and declares God's majesty which the Lord will demonstrate in 38:1--41:34. Job's response in verses 1-6 expresses the change that his encounter with God has brought.
However, 42:7-17 is a different matter. It seems to pick up the prose introduction to the story in chapters 1 and 2 and brings it to a happy conclusion. Many have noted that the prose framework around the book differs from the long central section which is written in poetry. The difference is not only in literary style, however, but in theological perspective and narrative unity. For instance, in verses 7-9 God pronounces the words of Job's friends erroneous, while Job is said to have spoken "what is right." Compare that with Job's attacks on God throughout the dialogue and with what God says about Job's words in 38:2b. However one wishes to resolve the conflict between the prose and the poetic sections, we have to deal with 42:7-17 as one way of ending Job's long quest.
In verses 1-6 Job finally realizes that he has had no business questioning the way God runs things. First, he makes a confession of faith about God in verse 2. His confession is simply that God is powerful beyond calculation and that God can and does accomplish whatever the divine will wishes. Second, Job twice quotes God's words spoken in the course of their dialogue (vv. 3-4). Doing so, Job seems to acknowledge that he is now able to see himself as God has seen him. Following each quotation, Job confesses the offensive nature of his own words.
The first quotation (v. 3a) echos (but does not quote exactly) God's words in 38:2. God asks who Job thinks he is, and Job now admits that he didn't know what he was doing. He spoke without "knowledge" and spoke of things beyond his comprehension (v. 3b). Note the "therefore" that stands between what God says about Job and what Job says of himself. The second quotation (v. 4) again recalls 38:3 but also 40:7. God had challenged Job to "listen" and questions him. Job's response to these words admits that he did finally "listen," and listening has enabled him to see. Words create a visual experience. Verse 6 is the final conclusion to this honest admission of fault. However, these words are difficult to translate and seem intentionally ambiguous. How one translates and understands them depends entirely on how one understands the whole book. We propose along with some contemporary interpreters that we might read verse 6 as Job's recantation of his words and the change of his mind about the human condition (i.e., "dust and ashes"). The point is that Job finally accepts another view of reality and changes his way of conceiving his relationship with God.
The reading skips verses 7-9 in which the narrator tells us how God demanded that Job's friends recognize they have been wrong and that they should offer a sacrifice. More importantly, Job will pray for his friends, and God will hear his prayer and spare them punishment.
The final words of the book are a "and-they-lived-happily-ever-after" conclusion. The satan's prediction that Job would curse God (1:11 and 2:5) proves to be wrong, and God restores Job to his former life. Indeed, Job is rewarded for his faithfulness with "twice as much as he had before" (v.10). The troubles Job has experienced are called "all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him" (v. 11), and thereby makes clear that it was not the satan but God who struck Job. This verse reflects perhaps the oldest idea of evil and suffering in the Old Testament, which credited God with both all evil and all good. The gifts others give to Job are similar to those bestowed on the patriarchs (e.g., Genesis 33:19), suggesting that Job's story originally might have assumed a setting in the age of Israel's forerunners. Job is given an abundance of worldly possessions and riches, has lots of children (including beautiful daughters), and a long, long life.
The prose conclusion of the book once again teaches the retribution ethic, and with a vengeance. Frankly, your writers think that such a teaching is theologically faulty and pastorally dangerous. Certainly the Christ model represents an entirely different understanding of righteousness and earthly condition.
Therefore, we will focus instead on the poetic conclusion, which we believe is truer to the larger part of the book. As a result of his duel with God (depending on how one understands the meaning of the phrase the NRSV translates, "I repent"), Job has to change his way of thinking and living. Encountering God always results in change, no matter how righteous we may be. God always upsets the status quo and brings something new into being. Sometimes God may challenge even our personal integrity! Our sense of being true to ourselves can, as it did for Job, constrict our openness to God, especially when it becomes a personal idol. Job has the grace at least finally to acknowledge that he had no idea what he was doing when he challenged God and to reorient his whole life -- thinking, believing, and living. That's the change God causes.
Hebrews 7:23-28
In this reading, the author of Hebrews speaks of another change God has caused. It is the change of understanding about how we approach God and what function religious leaders have in our coming before God. As we have observed earlier, this author seems intent on describing who Christ is and what he does by showing his superiority to other figures, e.g., angels (1:5--2:18), Moses (3:1-6), and the high priest (4:14--7:28). The claim that Jesus is superior to the high priest's office leads to a discussion of Melchizedek and hence into our reading for this Sunday. After this passage, the discussion turns to a related matter, namely, one who brings a new covenant (8:1-12).
Our passage takes us through several dimensions of the theme of Christ's priesthood. Christ is superior to former priests, first, in that he is high priest forever, as opposed to former priests (vv. 23-25), and, second, because his offering is "once for all" rather than necessitating a daily offering (vv. 26-27). Finally, Christ's priesthood arises from a source superior to the Law (v. 28).
The first argument contrasts the number of priests required in the older system as a result of their deaths with Christ's permanent role as priest. There are then advantages to Christ's priesthood, since he is forever making intercession to God on our behalf and by doing so is able to save us. The whole purpose of Christ's advent was to bring humans to God, and, because he is eternal, he can continue his efforts in his heavenly role as our Advocate (vv. 23-25).
The second argument contrasts the offerings of the former priesthood and Christ's offering (vv. 26-27). The first stage of this argument is again to state Christ's nature. He is a perfect fit for human need and fills those needs perfectly, as we or other priests are unable to do. Each of the adjectives -- "holy," "blameless," " undefiled," "separated from sinners," and "exalted" -- names a characteristic required of the Levitical priesthood but which Christ fulfills completely. Former priests were "separated from sinners" by the fact that they had to follow more strict commandments than ordinary people, but Christ is separated from sinners by virtue of the fact that he is sinless (see 4:15). More important is the difference between the sacrifices of Christ and former priests. Actually, the high priest offered himself as a sacrifice only once a year on the Day of Atonement; however, the Septuagint suggests that Leviticus 6:13 was understood to mean that the priest's offering was continuous. Unlike priests who offer up gifts given to them by the people, Jesus offered himself. Since he himself is sinless, according to our author, his sacrifice had to be for other people. The "once for all" character of the offering uses one of the author's key terms found eleven times in Hebrews (ephapax and hapax).
Finally, the author claims that Christ's priesthood arises from a source superior to the Law (v. 28). The contrast is between the Law and "the word of the oath," which refers to Psalm 110:4. The author argues that, since the Psalms are later than the Law and are the work of David, they supersede the Torah. (See also 4:7 and Galatians 3:17 for examples of the same claim.) Earlier in chapter 7 the writer uses Psalm 110:4 to argue that Christ is a priest in the order of Melchizedek (vv. 1-22), and now asserts that God swears that Christ is "a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek," because the writer understands that in the Psalm God speaks of Christ. (See our column for last Sunday, Proper 24.)
The author of Hebrews is trying to make readers aware of a significant change that influences the way we think about worship and sacrifice. Whatever we may think of the argument and the categories the author uses, the effort is to show that Christ makes the past obsolete. Note, however, that Hebrews never diminishes the importance of the Hebraic and Jewish traditions, quite the opposite. Nonetheless, the book claims that a dramatic change has occurred. We may not have a commitment to the older priesthood and may not feel that it is necessary to convince our congregations that Christ represents the Jewish priesthood. However, we know how Christ changes the way we think of God and how we approach God. The old inclination to make ourselves acceptable to God through our good deeds is a thing of the past just as the sacrifices in the temple are a thing of the past. God made Christ our priest so that we do not have to be pure, holy, and perfect in order to enter a relationship with God. That change may be difficult for us to make. The old dies hard, and so there may remain fragments of a "works righteousness" in many of us, even though Luther tried to change our perspective.
Mark 10:46-52
This lesson depicts one whose encounter with Christ made a drastic change in his life. The story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus is a touching tale that tugs at our emotions while it stimulates our minds. First, we need to note the strategic location of this story in Mark's narrative. This is the last of Jesus' deeds before his entry into Jerusalem, so it stands on the narrow ledge over the passion story. It concludes the central section of Mark's story which began with the healing of another blind man (8:22-26). Having stressed so strongly and persistently the disciples' own blindness and misunderstanding, it seems likely that Mark uses the healing of Bartimaeus symbolically to indicate how, in his suffering, death, and resurrection, Jesus heals his followers afflictions. This possibility is all the more likely as a result of where Mark places the story. It follows immediately after Jesus' third passion prediction and the disciples' petty disagreement about James' and John's blind request that they sit on either side of Christ in his glory (10:32-45).
After setting up the story in verse 46a, the narrator introduces Bartimaeus and describes his search for Jesus' healing (vv. 46b-48). Verses 49-51 depict Bartimaeus' encounter with Jesus and the conversation between the two of them. The healing is told briefly in verse 52a and its results noted in verse 52b.
"Jericho" is about twenty miles northeast of Jerusalem and stands within the Jordan valley. "Bartimaeus" means "son of Timaeus," the Greek of which is related to the word meaning value or worth (timios). Like all those who suffered disabling affliction, Bartimaeus is forced to a life of begging which was the only recourse for such persons. His cry is both an affirmation and a plea. He affirms that Jesus is son of David -- a title used by some Jews for the Messiah, although it occurs only here in Mark, and the evangelist seems to think it is an inappropriate title for Jesus (Mark 12:35-37). Bartimaeus requests "mercy" which is all he has left to seek, for only another's mercy could help him. Others try to silence him, but he will not be discouraged or restrained. The fact that some try to restrain the blind man from seeking Christ's help reminds us of the disciples wanting to send the children away (10:13), and Bartimaeus' persistence is like that of the Syrophoencian woman (7:24-30).
Bartimaeus pleads to Jesus for help, and Jesus hears his plea. Those who had tried to quiet him seem now to encourage him and lead him to Jesus. This is another healing story in which the afflicted one is aided by other people to get to Jesus (e.g., 2:1-12). Bartimaeus' energetic response to the good news that Jesus wants to see him is a nice touch in the narrative. Jesus' question to him, however seems strange: "What do you want me to do for you?" It would seem obvious what Bartimaeus wishes and needs, but perhaps it is important that he himself state his need. Jesus' healing might have been different had Bartimaeus told Jesus he needed forgiveness of the sin that had caused his blindness. Either way, we need to know our need when we stand in the presence of Christ.
Bartimaeus states his need simply and directly, addressing Jesus this time as "teacher" (actually, "Rabboni"-- see John 20:16). Bartimaeus is a model of true faith, and it is faith that saves him (sozo, translated in the NRSV "made you well"). Using his favorite word, "immediately," Mark tells us that Bartimaeus followed Jesus "on the way" to the cross. Bartimaeus is able to see, not only physically, but spiritually, and he knows that Christ's gift to him means that he must become Jesus' disciple. The meaning of Christ's crucifixion is subtly presented in the features of this story. Humans cry for help, and Jesus turns toward them. Humans then come to Jesus, and their faith in Christ and his death saves them.
What a radical change! A blind beggar made a model of faith, given sight, and made a disciple. Change may be difficult sometimes, and indeed even change for the better brings difficulties. However, radical change is what God's act in Christ is all about. It brings us to a new understanding of God and ourselves, just as Job was changed by God's encounter with him. It opens our way to a relationship with God by virtue of Christ's suffering for us and his priesthood on our behalf. Most of all, meeting Christ can change our limited vision, open our eyes, and start us off on a new "way." Change is difficult. Yet in Christ God invites us to change, not just once but again and again as we journey with him on the way.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
After the Lord's long interrogation of Job in chapters 38-41, in which Job learns humility before the Creator and is called to renewed trust in the care for him of his God, Job replies, in verses 1-6.
First, Job acknowledges the sovereignty of God. God's power is beyond anything on earth, and he is able to accomplish anything that he desires. Principally, however, God's purpose is supreme. It cannot be hindered or turned aside by anything that human beings do. God can fulfill his purpose, and he will do so. It has been the purpose of the Lord to test Job's faithfulness, and he has done so. Job never learns why, but he accepts the fact that his suffering has been part of the purpose of God (v. 2).
We, in our situation, should not assume that all of our suffering is laid upon us by God. Much of it is due to our own folly and errant ways. We foolishly bring many evil consequences of our thoughts and actions upon ourselves. But we can know, with Job, that God will nevertheless use everything that happens to us to further his good purpose. As Paul writes, "We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). God can use even our evil to work his good.
Second, Job looks back on his dealings with the Lord and realizes how foolish he has been. In verses 3a and 4b, he quotes God's words (cf. 38:2, 3) and admits that yes, he has not known the ways of God or spoken wisely. He therefore repents of his previous attitude and words, adopting the practice of sprinkling himself with dust and ashes that was common to Israel's fasts of repentance (v. 5).
"I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear," Job says, "but now my eye sees thee" (v. 5). That is, all of Job's previous piety, his good deeds, his practices before the Lord were done on the basis of secondhand knowledge. Like us, Job probably had his faith from his childhood. He had been raised in the teachings and commandments of the Lord, and in everything, he tried his best to walk in the ways of the Lord. He was what we would call "a pillar of the church," a "godly man," an upright believer. But now, breaking into Job's situation of suffering, God himself has come to Job and spoken to him. And Job now knows God firsthand, person to person, deep crying out to deep. No longer are God's words matters of rote, learned by Job (cf. Isaiah 29:13). Now they are God's voice, mercifully speaking directly to him. Job now knows his God personally.
Is it not when that happens also to us that all of the teaching of the church, the words of the Bible, the actions of the sacraments come home to us as the direct speaking of God in our lives? We may have spent all of our lives in the fellowship of the church. We may know and quote portions of the Scriptures by heart. We may even have engaged in long theological discussions about various aspects of our faith, stoutly defending the truth of the miracles or of the resurrection of Jesus or of the doctrines of our denomination. We have known it all by rote or by habit. But it is when the words of the Bible and the practices and doctrines of the church become vehicles for us of a personal and living relationship with our God that we know -- know beyond all doubt, all suffering, all circumstance -- that God is with us and that he is pure and undivided love, and that our lives are held in his almighty hands and directed according to his good purpose.
How do we achieve that knowledge? We do not. It is a gift of God's grace, as it was solely a gift to Job. But we can pray for it and open our hearts to receive it. And our Lord promises us that if we ask, in surrender and humility and faith, we will receive.
The final portion of our text, verses 10-17, is widely held by scholars to be a later addition to the book of Job and, many would say, an anticlimactic addition at that. Everything that Job has lost is restored to him, although there is no further mention of his wife. Some have said that these verses are there to show that God is for humankind in this life as well as in the next. However that may be, when Job was given his personal relation with God, he became a rich man, full of abundant life. In good Hebrew fashion, perhaps these added verses are intended to spell out the content of that life. The Scriptures are always interested in the conditions of actual life on this earth (cf. e.g. James 2:15-16).
Lutheran Option -- Jeremiah 31:31-34
This is Reformation Sunday in the church, that day when the church remembers the founding principle of the Protestant Reformation -- namely, that we are justified by grace alone through faith. That is, no one of us can work our way into the saving favor of God. The only means by which we are forgiven for all of our sins and counted righteous in the eyes of God is by the justifying and redeeming work of the Father in his Son Jesus Christ. Only by participating by faith in God's gracious work in his Son do we receive the benefits of Christ's death and resurrection on our behalf. And even then, our faith is not our work, but a gift of God's Spirit working in us. Everything depends on God.
That is also the message of our text for the morning. This passage about God's gift of a new covenant was proclaimed by the prophet Jeremiah probably about 588 B.C., shortly before Judah fell and was sent into Babylonian exile.
For almost forty years, Jeremiah preached to his people, condemning them for their idolatry and injustice and for breaking the covenant commands of their God (cf. Jeremiah 7:1-15). Repeatedly he warned them that God was coming upon them in judgment, and repeatedly he called his people to repent and to return to the Lord. But Jeremiah's preaching was in vain. None of the people listened or stopped to question what they were doing (cf. 8:6). Their reply to the prophet was to scorn him and persecute him. "That is in vain!" they said. "We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart" (Jeremiah 18:12).
Toward the end of his ministry, Jeremiah realized that his people could not repent and that they were enslaved to their sins. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" Jeremiah asked. "Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil" (13:23). Reformation of their lives by the people themselves was impossible. Only God could transform them to obey and to do the good.
The promise that the Lord gives in this new covenant, therefore, is the promise that he himself will transform his people from the inside out. God's covenant people have broken the commandments of the covenant made at Mount Sinai through Moses, despite God's loving care of them through the centuries. Therefore, God announces through Jeremiah that he will make a new covenant with his people. But this time God will write the covenant commands on the people's hearts, so that they will want to obey him. God will transform their hearts so that they are no longer slaves to sin, but rather free to be faithful and good. And by that act of God, all will be forgiven and come to know their Lord.
Was this promise by God ever fulfilled? On the night that he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took the cup, and when he had blessed it, he gave it to his disciples, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. All of you, drink of it." God sealed his promised new covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ, sacrificed for our sakes on the cross. And now, by his Holy Spirit poured out, God has written that new covenant on our hearts and forgiven us all our iniquities. As Paul writes, we are no longer slaves of sin but slaves of righteousness, able to be faithful and to walk in the ways of Lord (Romans 6:17-18).
To be sure, the new covenant has not been totally fulfilled. We sometimes still err in our ways and disobey our God. We are not perfect Christians. And all people do not know the Lord, from the least of them to the greatest. So it is still necessary for us to teach the good news. But, promises our text, the day of perfect fulfillment will come too. And in the meantime, God in Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit sets us free from our sin and enables us to be his people, as he is now and ever will be our God.
