Cut it out!
Commentary
We began Lent with our baptisms and proceeded to a discussion of the faith that both motivates and strengthens us for our journey. This group of lessons combines to say that the Christian life is a process of seeking out the injustices, the wrongs, and the weaknesses within ourselves and our society. Once we have identified them, empowered by the Holy Spirit, our Christian obligation is to rid ourselves or our culture of these impediments. Lenten disciplines have traditionally leaned heavily on the process of recognizing our sin, seeking forgiveness, and accepting renewal. However, we must be careful, lest this theme becomes a little moral lesson on being good people. We don't need those moralisms; we get quite enough from our culture. What we need is guidance in identifying what is ill and dysfunctional in our lives and the power to change that. So, the exploration of these lessons will need to keep in view the fact that we can never be pure of sin and that, left to our own strength, we can do nothing to change ourselves.
Yet we are committed to obedience in faith. We are called to seek help to "cut out" that which drives us away from God, ourselves, and others. "Cut it out!" is an admonition to change one's behavior, to stop one form of action. It is an interesting saying, since it is a tiny little metaphor. Cut it out means to stop doing something, but it also suggests that something be taken out, removed, or rooted out. We cut cancer out; we cut out a mole; we cut off the excess hair. When we apply this image of cutting to our behavior, it seems to imply more than ceasing a certain action. The words might even be a prayer: "O Lord, cut it out -- this jealousy of mine!" It sounds as if there is something deeper that needs to be removed.
In just this way "cut it out!" may be a productive way of dealing with the wrongs in our lives. How do our lessons look when we approach them from the point of view of wanting God to rid us of some unhealthy impulses?
Exodus 20:1-17
Ah, the beloved ten commandments! If people know absolutely nothing else about the Bible, they know there are ten commandments. They may not be able to recite them, but at least they know their number. Sunday school lessons and catechetical training invariably entail learning these ten and discussing their meaning. As beloved as they are, many of us have a terrible time trying to preach them. What can you say that isn't obvious or hasn't already been said quite enough? How can you preach them without becoming moralistic and forgetting that the source of our salvation is not our works but God's grace? Each of these ten suggest something that needs cutting out -- some malignancy that needs to be removed.
This is one of the two places the commandments are listed together (see Deuteronomy 5:6-21) and nine of the ten commandments are found elsewhere in the legal materials of the Hebrew Scriptures. The setting for the narrative of the giving of the ten commandments is important. Through Moses, Yahweh has invited the people into a covenant relationship with their Rescuer. The covenant is premised on God's gracious act of delivering the people from their slavery. The people's role in the covenant is to "obey my voice and keep my covenant" (19:4-5). The covenant relationship is the context in which these commands are issued and within which they are to be obeyed. God, therefore, has taken the initiative to rescue the people and now asks them to express their gratitude through obedience to these "ten words." So, the list begins with God's identification as the One who has liberated them (20:2).
What is it in human nature that is addressed in each of these commands? The first is the tendency for us to create gods and make idols of them. Moreover, there is in us a propensity to create gods to our liking, that is, gods who will serve us rather than asking that we serve them. The first commandment recognizes that there were a multitude of gods but only one true God for the Israelites. There are today still a multitude of gods, each of which humans have conjured up for reasons of self-interest. Whatever it may be -- money, success, popularity, power, and so on -- the gods tempt us away from the liberating Lord. We will worship a god -- that is certain. But who will that god be?
Yahweh does not want to compete with other gods but is "a jealous god" (v. 5). This self-portrayal of the divine has often disturbed Christians. We don't like to think of God as jealous, a negative emotion in our culture. The point is that God has so bound God's own self with the people that their unfaithfulness is painful. We would like it if the text said it differently, but jealousy here means divine commitment to the people.
In verses 5-6 God sounds like a strict judge. Behind the passage is the assumption that disobedience ("iniquity") results in misfortune, but obedience and love bring prosperity and success. That simplistic equation is not satisfying, although we can recognize that a true happiness and peace arises from confidence in God. The fact that the punishment and reward extend over generations is the Hebraic version of social conditioning. There is here an acknowledgment that sin and brokenness are inherited from previous generations (for instance, the ecological disorder of our nation) even as love is passed on through the family.
Another human feature that needs to be cut out is our careless way of speaking of the divine. This is not a commandment against cursing, although that surely falls within the realm of speaking of God without really meaning it. We tend to invoke God's name without the prerequisite attitude or commitment. "As God is my witness, I will lose weight." An oath before God is serious business. Cut out the ease with which we speak of the divine.
We also need help to rid ourselves of addiction to our work. We need someone who will cut out our refusal to rest, to take care of ourselves, and to take time for refreshment. "Sabbath" is not a day of the week but a state of mind and condition of the spirit. We doubt that the Israelites tended, as we do, to become obsessed with work or tasks. However, today the command speaks to our stress-filled lives.
Moreover, there is a tendency to lose our sense of indebtedness to our family of origin, to forget the nurture and love that made us who we are. So, cut out that forgetfulness and help us understand that being a child is as much a ministry as being a parent.
The next four commandments each have to do with our wrongly treating others beyond our family. The four move from the most obvious to the less obvious. Murder is clearly an offense against another, even as is anger (see Matthew 5:21-22). Adultery is murder of another sort. It is the violation of a relationship and promise that hurts another. Taking what is not your own possession is thoughtlessly depriving others of what is theirs. Finally, "false witness" destroys the reputation of another and in a sense kills him or her. This commandment, of course, doesn't have to do only with legal witness but condemns false statements about another of every kind. Cut out of us that which makes us numb to others and their welfare.
The final commandment invites us to cut out wanting what others have. It extends the commandment against stealing to cover desire. The idea is probably to prohibit the emotion of desiring what is another's but also the act of claiming another's possession as our own. Cut out of us the desire to possess what others have.
None of us is going to succeed in ridding ourselves of all of these acts and tendencies. That seems to be Jesus' point in the antithesis in Matthew 5. To hate another while not trying to kill her or him is hardly enough. The process of ridding ourselves of these tendencies is a life-time task and one that recurs. We may, for instance, seem to have succeeded in cutting the cancer of covetousness out of ourselves only to have it recur. Above all, we must finally resort to pleading with God as well as our Christian colleagues to "cut it out of us."
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Paul gives us an entirely different issue with which to deal, even if the commandments present us with quite enough to handle for now. Paul begins the first of his letters to the Corinthian church with an appeal to mend the divisions that have developed among the members of that community. In 1:10-17 he itemizes some of the divisions and tries to show how really silly they are. "Was Paul crucified for you?" (v. 13). He sounds as if he is trying to shame the readers into putting aside their differences. He concludes this initial appeal with a comment on his message: He makes no pretense of preaching with "eloquent wisdom," for that undercuts the meaning of the cross.
Verse 17 leads Paul into a discussion of the cross and its proclamation. He sounds like he may be defending himself here against some charges, such as the accusation that he lacks wisdom. The whole passage, verses 18-25, plays with the contrast between wisdom and foolishness. Paul begins with an assertion that the cross is foolishness to some but power to the believers (vv. 18-19). He then addresses the topic of the wisdom of the world (vv. 20-21). Verses 22-24 widen the scope to speak of the foolishness of the cross for both Jews and Gentiles. Finally, the contrast is brought together in a paradoxical summary in verse 25.
Notice the contrasts Paul employs in this section: Foolishness and power (v. 18); foolishness and the wisdom of the world (v. 20); wisdom of God and the foolishness of our proclamation (v. 21); God's power and God's wisdom (v. 24); God's foolishness and the wisdom of the world (v. 25a); and God's weakness and human strength (v. 25b). The contrast of foolishness and power or strength provides closures on the passage, standing as they do in both the first and last verses. The result of this interplay among these contrasts is to undermine the usual understanding of wisdom and power in the world. In effect, what Paul accomplishes here is to question the assumption that we really know what wisdom and power are.
Paul uses the same contrast of the "perishing" and those "who are being saved" in 2 Corinthians 2:15 (see also 4:3-4). The meaning of the cross depends on one's experience and one's perspective. Paul paraphrases Isaiah 29:14 to show that God has been undermining human wisdom for a long time. A series of four rhetorical questions carry the argument in the next verse. Together they raise the question of where there might be wisdom in the world.
The logic of verse 21 is not entirely clear. God has made it impossible for wisdom alone to discern the divine. Instead, God is revealed in the foolishness of the gospel message. Yet the cross is a misfit in the entire world. It satisfies the basic desires of neither the Greek nor the Jew and instead is a "stumbling block" and "foolishness." The first expression is literary "scandal" in the Greek. Only those who are "called" discern the cross in a different way. For them Christ's crucifixion is a revelation of both God's power and wisdom.
The question then becomes: Who are those who are called? Paul has addressed the Corinthians as those who are "called to be saints" (1:2) and says of them "you who were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord." (See also chapter 7.) Paul believes that we do not, cannot, simply blink and see the cross in a new way. Rather, God takes the initiative to open our eyes and, by making the cross effective in our lives, changes our view of it.
The conclusion of all of this is a statement about God (v. 25). In a sense this verse asserts the absolute otherness of God. God's foolishness is wisdom that surpasses anything of which humans are capable, and the divine weakness is stronger than any human power. God surpasses all these puny categories we have fabricated for ourselves.
Paul's theological perspective forces us to take a new viewpoint on our efforts to rid our lives of all that ails us during this Lenten season. The basic problem in all of us is that we see through worldly eyes. We look from perspectives shaped by cultural influences and sustained by the powers-that-be in our world. Hence, the cross does seem foolishness and challenges all that we think we know. Yet we cannot simply "cut it out." We cannot excise from ourselves this perspective that is so much a part of us. It's like asking the corporation to review itself and eliminate all its corruption. Or, the police to police themselves. God must intervene in our lives and put us on the cross. Then we see its power, and the foolishness of this crazy God of love becomes power for our lives. So, our theme,"cut it out!" can be nothing but a prayer.
John 2:13-22
Imagine Jesus entering the Temple's court of the Gentiles and crying out, "Cut it out!" It is a ridiculous oversimplification, but one that helps us get a perspective on this Gospel narrative. Jesus addresses a malignancy in the corporate life of the Temple. This story is often called "the Cleansing of the Temple," and for good reason. There is a sense in which Jesus is trying to purge it of a dirty practice.
The fourth Gospel is notorious for telling this story so early in the narrative. The Synoptics all locate it in the last days of Jesus' ministry just before his crucifixion (see Matthew 21:12-13; Luke 19:45-46; and Mark 11:15-17). What do you suppose the fourth evangelist thought about this story? Of course, we can't guess who moved the story from where. Did the Synoptic evangelists shift it to later or did the fourth evangelist move it earlier? Nor can we dismiss the possibility that it was found in two different places in the early Christian traditions about Jesus. What seems likely, however, is that its premier position in John suggests a symbolic meaning. Jesus cleanses the Temple here as he seeks to cleanse the whole of the religious establishment of his day. Yet the fourth evangelist speaks of another symbolic meaning to this episode. It occasions Jesus' speaking of his resurrection (vv. 19-22).
This decisive and prophetic act takes place during Passover, which in the fourth Gospel has special significance. According to John, some think, Jesus' death is a new Passover. The business operations in the outer courts of the Temple made sense. Pilgrims from around the world converged on Jerusalem for Passover, and they needed an offering for temple sacrifice. This accommodation of the worshipers may have become corrupt with the salespeople demanding exorbitant prices. This would account for Jesus' accusation that the Temple had become a "marketplace." (The Synoptics speak of a "den of robbers," quoting Jeremiah 7:11.) The fourth Gospel alone reports that Jesus used a quickly-fashioned whip to drive out the animals and reports that Jesus did not quote the Isaiah 56:7 passage about God's "house of prayer." The narrator, however, informs us that Jesus' actions stirred the disciples to think of Psalm 69:9.
The religious leaders confront Jesus, and this conversation is probably most important about John's account (vv. 18-22). They ask him to present credentials that qualify him to make this judgment about the temple worship. If he is a prophet of some sort, then do a sign that proves it. Jesus responds with elusive words about destroying and rebuilding the temple. He is speaking of his body and his resurrection, the narrator tells us later in verses 21-22. The authorities, however, assume that he is speaking of the physical building of the Temple. They exhibit a classical feature of the Gospel of John whereby Jesus speaks about a transcendent matter, and his listeners misunderstand him to be speaking of a worldly, physical matter. Here, as is often the case, the misunderstanding makes the person(s) look absolutely silly. How is he going to raise up a new temple when we haven't managed to get the thing completed in 46 years of hard labor and sweat? Like the religious leaders, the disciples don't catch on either. But they finally understand his words after he is raised from the dead. (Interestingly, John here reports as an authentic saying of Jesus which Matthew 26:61 and Mark 14:58 report was a false charge against Jesus at his religious trial.)
What we seek to cut out of our lives often has to do with our community life as Christians. Jesus attacks the religious establishment of his day, but it could as well be the contemporary church. How would he respond to some of our church bazaars and fund raisers? We hope to make our corporate life free of the unfaithful and unhealthy practices and assumptions. Certainly an enchantment with commercialism is one of those matters, but there are others as well. What is it in your congregation that you would like God to cut out this Lent? Where are there growths that should be removed before they become more serious. Together let us pray that the exclusivity and bigotry are uprooted. Let us ask God to cut out the hypocrisy and self-righteousness that keep coming back to threaten our lives.
Lord, cut it out this Lent -- out of our individual and corporate lives!
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Exodus 20:1-17
In this season of Lent, we are Sunday by Sunday approaching the foot of that executioner's cross on Golgotha. And I think that sometimes we wonder why it is necessary for us to make that journey. After all, it does not have a pleasant destination. To be sure, human beings often have a morbid curiosity about disasters. We flock to the site of an auto wreck, thereby holding up the traffic with our rubbernecking. Winston Churchill told of the time when some woman remarked on the crowd that had gathered to hear him speak. He replied, "Be assured, madam, that if I were being hung, the crowd would be twice this size." We are thrill-seekers, eager to watch someone else in risk or trouble. But to watch Jesus die on a cross? No. That does not seem very beckoning. And we sometimes wonder why it is necessary that the death take place at all. But perhaps our text for the morning can illumine why it is incumbent on our Lord to undergo his crucifixion.
We are confronted from the Word of God this morning with the Ten Commandments. In the biblical story thus far, Israel has been redeemed from her slavery in Egypt, she has escaped across the desert to the foot of Mount Sinai in the Arabian peninsula, and she has heard that God has elected her to be his special people -- his holy nation and his kingdom of priests. In response to all of that favor of God, Israel has glibly promised, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do" (Exodus 19:7). Apparently, she is ready to enter into a binding covenant with this God who has delivered her, and so she eagerly declares that she will do whatever he commands her to do.
As seems always true of Israel in the Old Testament, the way she relates to her Lord seems very much like the way we relate to him, doesn't it? You and I have made the same sort of glib promises to God. "Yes," we promised when we joined this church, "we take Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, and we will follow him. We will be his faithful disciples, walking in his ways and obeying his word. All that the Lord has spoken, we will do." But then we come to the Ten Commandments, and like Israel, we learn just exactly what it is that the Lord requires of us as his followers.
To be sure, the commandments of this Decalogue are not laid upon us as some sort of legalistic rules, so that we must obey them in order to have a relationship with our God. We already have that relation, as Israel already had it. We already know that God loves us and chooses us, as Israel already knew those things. But the Ten Commandments are not just suggestions either. No. The Decalogue lays out for us what God expects now of us who have been the recipients of his redeeming mercy. God has loved us and delivered us in overwhelming love. Now the Ten Commandments show us how gratefully to love him in return -- by obeying his words, by doing what he wants us to do and by being what he wants us to be, namely his own special people. In short, we are expected to obey the commandments as our grateful response to all that the Lord has done for us.
Well, have we? Have we been obedient to these words that our Lord speaks to us here on this third Sunday in Lent? These words were not intended just for Israel. Jesus also directed them to us, according to the New Testament (cf. Mark 10:17-21). So let's go briefly through this summary of the Lord's will for us.
"You shall have no other gods besides me." Is that true of us? Is there anything or anyone to whom we give our ultimate devotion besides the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Do we count material success or our families or our status or appearance or reputation more important than God?
"You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them." Now surely we are innocent there! We do not carve idols. But where do we find our God these days? In the beauty of the natural world, in some pyramid or crystal, in the stars or in some movie idol on earth, or perhaps in some guru who has attracted us? Do many of us follow the word of astrologers? Is it in the word of your horoscope that you put your trust?
"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." Have we ever made the Lord God less than he is by some word we have spoken or some act we have done? That's what this commandment is talking about -- whittling God down to our size, instead of letting him be the Lord and Ruler that he is.
"Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." We don't have sabbaths any more, because that's Saturday. But we do have Sunday, and this commandment mercifully asks us to take a rest from work one day a week. God says, "Take a break." But associates in law firms are expected to work seven days a week these days, twelve hours a day. And we're always a little upset when the supermarket or pharmacy isn't open 24 hours every day of the week.
"Honor your father and your mother." Far too many elderly are abandoned in our society, left to wait out their lives alone, busying themselves with just the memories of the families and friends they once had, consigned to non-importance because they can no longer produce.
"You shall not kill." What shall we mention? Assisted suicide, 37 million children aborted since 1973, drunks wreaking their slaughter on our highways, young men dying in the wars of self-serving leaders, or two-thirds of the world's children malnourished or starving? These commandments are getting more serious all the time.
"You shall not commit adultery." And most of us do not. But Hollywood and television think it's a game. And our society is saturated with sex and whoring.
"You shall not steal." Every employer has to figure into his costs the expense of merchandise stolen by employees. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor," but oh, how we love the gossip! "You shall not covet." But that's what advertising is all about, isn't it -- wanting more and going into credit card debt to get it?
How do our lives stack up against God's words in these Ten Commandments? Have you obeyed them out of gratitude to your God? Have I? No, we must confess that we have not. And on this third Sunday in Lent, the only plea we have left is "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." God in his mercy has answered that prayer for all of us. On that cross on Golgotha, Jesus Christ has suffered all of our sins -- our sins of yesterday and today and tomorrow -- and he has taken the death that our sin deserves upon his own body. And because he has died in our place and risen again, defeating all our evil, you and I are now free to approach our God in confidence and to live once more in his merciful love. Yes, we need that cross that crucified our Lord -- every day we need it. So let's journey on in this Lenten season until we get to that place of forgiveness.
Yet we are committed to obedience in faith. We are called to seek help to "cut out" that which drives us away from God, ourselves, and others. "Cut it out!" is an admonition to change one's behavior, to stop one form of action. It is an interesting saying, since it is a tiny little metaphor. Cut it out means to stop doing something, but it also suggests that something be taken out, removed, or rooted out. We cut cancer out; we cut out a mole; we cut off the excess hair. When we apply this image of cutting to our behavior, it seems to imply more than ceasing a certain action. The words might even be a prayer: "O Lord, cut it out -- this jealousy of mine!" It sounds as if there is something deeper that needs to be removed.
In just this way "cut it out!" may be a productive way of dealing with the wrongs in our lives. How do our lessons look when we approach them from the point of view of wanting God to rid us of some unhealthy impulses?
Exodus 20:1-17
Ah, the beloved ten commandments! If people know absolutely nothing else about the Bible, they know there are ten commandments. They may not be able to recite them, but at least they know their number. Sunday school lessons and catechetical training invariably entail learning these ten and discussing their meaning. As beloved as they are, many of us have a terrible time trying to preach them. What can you say that isn't obvious or hasn't already been said quite enough? How can you preach them without becoming moralistic and forgetting that the source of our salvation is not our works but God's grace? Each of these ten suggest something that needs cutting out -- some malignancy that needs to be removed.
This is one of the two places the commandments are listed together (see Deuteronomy 5:6-21) and nine of the ten commandments are found elsewhere in the legal materials of the Hebrew Scriptures. The setting for the narrative of the giving of the ten commandments is important. Through Moses, Yahweh has invited the people into a covenant relationship with their Rescuer. The covenant is premised on God's gracious act of delivering the people from their slavery. The people's role in the covenant is to "obey my voice and keep my covenant" (19:4-5). The covenant relationship is the context in which these commands are issued and within which they are to be obeyed. God, therefore, has taken the initiative to rescue the people and now asks them to express their gratitude through obedience to these "ten words." So, the list begins with God's identification as the One who has liberated them (20:2).
What is it in human nature that is addressed in each of these commands? The first is the tendency for us to create gods and make idols of them. Moreover, there is in us a propensity to create gods to our liking, that is, gods who will serve us rather than asking that we serve them. The first commandment recognizes that there were a multitude of gods but only one true God for the Israelites. There are today still a multitude of gods, each of which humans have conjured up for reasons of self-interest. Whatever it may be -- money, success, popularity, power, and so on -- the gods tempt us away from the liberating Lord. We will worship a god -- that is certain. But who will that god be?
Yahweh does not want to compete with other gods but is "a jealous god" (v. 5). This self-portrayal of the divine has often disturbed Christians. We don't like to think of God as jealous, a negative emotion in our culture. The point is that God has so bound God's own self with the people that their unfaithfulness is painful. We would like it if the text said it differently, but jealousy here means divine commitment to the people.
In verses 5-6 God sounds like a strict judge. Behind the passage is the assumption that disobedience ("iniquity") results in misfortune, but obedience and love bring prosperity and success. That simplistic equation is not satisfying, although we can recognize that a true happiness and peace arises from confidence in God. The fact that the punishment and reward extend over generations is the Hebraic version of social conditioning. There is here an acknowledgment that sin and brokenness are inherited from previous generations (for instance, the ecological disorder of our nation) even as love is passed on through the family.
Another human feature that needs to be cut out is our careless way of speaking of the divine. This is not a commandment against cursing, although that surely falls within the realm of speaking of God without really meaning it. We tend to invoke God's name without the prerequisite attitude or commitment. "As God is my witness, I will lose weight." An oath before God is serious business. Cut out the ease with which we speak of the divine.
We also need help to rid ourselves of addiction to our work. We need someone who will cut out our refusal to rest, to take care of ourselves, and to take time for refreshment. "Sabbath" is not a day of the week but a state of mind and condition of the spirit. We doubt that the Israelites tended, as we do, to become obsessed with work or tasks. However, today the command speaks to our stress-filled lives.
Moreover, there is a tendency to lose our sense of indebtedness to our family of origin, to forget the nurture and love that made us who we are. So, cut out that forgetfulness and help us understand that being a child is as much a ministry as being a parent.
The next four commandments each have to do with our wrongly treating others beyond our family. The four move from the most obvious to the less obvious. Murder is clearly an offense against another, even as is anger (see Matthew 5:21-22). Adultery is murder of another sort. It is the violation of a relationship and promise that hurts another. Taking what is not your own possession is thoughtlessly depriving others of what is theirs. Finally, "false witness" destroys the reputation of another and in a sense kills him or her. This commandment, of course, doesn't have to do only with legal witness but condemns false statements about another of every kind. Cut out of us that which makes us numb to others and their welfare.
The final commandment invites us to cut out wanting what others have. It extends the commandment against stealing to cover desire. The idea is probably to prohibit the emotion of desiring what is another's but also the act of claiming another's possession as our own. Cut out of us the desire to possess what others have.
None of us is going to succeed in ridding ourselves of all of these acts and tendencies. That seems to be Jesus' point in the antithesis in Matthew 5. To hate another while not trying to kill her or him is hardly enough. The process of ridding ourselves of these tendencies is a life-time task and one that recurs. We may, for instance, seem to have succeeded in cutting the cancer of covetousness out of ourselves only to have it recur. Above all, we must finally resort to pleading with God as well as our Christian colleagues to "cut it out of us."
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Paul gives us an entirely different issue with which to deal, even if the commandments present us with quite enough to handle for now. Paul begins the first of his letters to the Corinthian church with an appeal to mend the divisions that have developed among the members of that community. In 1:10-17 he itemizes some of the divisions and tries to show how really silly they are. "Was Paul crucified for you?" (v. 13). He sounds as if he is trying to shame the readers into putting aside their differences. He concludes this initial appeal with a comment on his message: He makes no pretense of preaching with "eloquent wisdom," for that undercuts the meaning of the cross.
Verse 17 leads Paul into a discussion of the cross and its proclamation. He sounds like he may be defending himself here against some charges, such as the accusation that he lacks wisdom. The whole passage, verses 18-25, plays with the contrast between wisdom and foolishness. Paul begins with an assertion that the cross is foolishness to some but power to the believers (vv. 18-19). He then addresses the topic of the wisdom of the world (vv. 20-21). Verses 22-24 widen the scope to speak of the foolishness of the cross for both Jews and Gentiles. Finally, the contrast is brought together in a paradoxical summary in verse 25.
Notice the contrasts Paul employs in this section: Foolishness and power (v. 18); foolishness and the wisdom of the world (v. 20); wisdom of God and the foolishness of our proclamation (v. 21); God's power and God's wisdom (v. 24); God's foolishness and the wisdom of the world (v. 25a); and God's weakness and human strength (v. 25b). The contrast of foolishness and power or strength provides closures on the passage, standing as they do in both the first and last verses. The result of this interplay among these contrasts is to undermine the usual understanding of wisdom and power in the world. In effect, what Paul accomplishes here is to question the assumption that we really know what wisdom and power are.
Paul uses the same contrast of the "perishing" and those "who are being saved" in 2 Corinthians 2:15 (see also 4:3-4). The meaning of the cross depends on one's experience and one's perspective. Paul paraphrases Isaiah 29:14 to show that God has been undermining human wisdom for a long time. A series of four rhetorical questions carry the argument in the next verse. Together they raise the question of where there might be wisdom in the world.
The logic of verse 21 is not entirely clear. God has made it impossible for wisdom alone to discern the divine. Instead, God is revealed in the foolishness of the gospel message. Yet the cross is a misfit in the entire world. It satisfies the basic desires of neither the Greek nor the Jew and instead is a "stumbling block" and "foolishness." The first expression is literary "scandal" in the Greek. Only those who are "called" discern the cross in a different way. For them Christ's crucifixion is a revelation of both God's power and wisdom.
The question then becomes: Who are those who are called? Paul has addressed the Corinthians as those who are "called to be saints" (1:2) and says of them "you who were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord." (See also chapter 7.) Paul believes that we do not, cannot, simply blink and see the cross in a new way. Rather, God takes the initiative to open our eyes and, by making the cross effective in our lives, changes our view of it.
The conclusion of all of this is a statement about God (v. 25). In a sense this verse asserts the absolute otherness of God. God's foolishness is wisdom that surpasses anything of which humans are capable, and the divine weakness is stronger than any human power. God surpasses all these puny categories we have fabricated for ourselves.
Paul's theological perspective forces us to take a new viewpoint on our efforts to rid our lives of all that ails us during this Lenten season. The basic problem in all of us is that we see through worldly eyes. We look from perspectives shaped by cultural influences and sustained by the powers-that-be in our world. Hence, the cross does seem foolishness and challenges all that we think we know. Yet we cannot simply "cut it out." We cannot excise from ourselves this perspective that is so much a part of us. It's like asking the corporation to review itself and eliminate all its corruption. Or, the police to police themselves. God must intervene in our lives and put us on the cross. Then we see its power, and the foolishness of this crazy God of love becomes power for our lives. So, our theme,"cut it out!" can be nothing but a prayer.
John 2:13-22
Imagine Jesus entering the Temple's court of the Gentiles and crying out, "Cut it out!" It is a ridiculous oversimplification, but one that helps us get a perspective on this Gospel narrative. Jesus addresses a malignancy in the corporate life of the Temple. This story is often called "the Cleansing of the Temple," and for good reason. There is a sense in which Jesus is trying to purge it of a dirty practice.
The fourth Gospel is notorious for telling this story so early in the narrative. The Synoptics all locate it in the last days of Jesus' ministry just before his crucifixion (see Matthew 21:12-13; Luke 19:45-46; and Mark 11:15-17). What do you suppose the fourth evangelist thought about this story? Of course, we can't guess who moved the story from where. Did the Synoptic evangelists shift it to later or did the fourth evangelist move it earlier? Nor can we dismiss the possibility that it was found in two different places in the early Christian traditions about Jesus. What seems likely, however, is that its premier position in John suggests a symbolic meaning. Jesus cleanses the Temple here as he seeks to cleanse the whole of the religious establishment of his day. Yet the fourth evangelist speaks of another symbolic meaning to this episode. It occasions Jesus' speaking of his resurrection (vv. 19-22).
This decisive and prophetic act takes place during Passover, which in the fourth Gospel has special significance. According to John, some think, Jesus' death is a new Passover. The business operations in the outer courts of the Temple made sense. Pilgrims from around the world converged on Jerusalem for Passover, and they needed an offering for temple sacrifice. This accommodation of the worshipers may have become corrupt with the salespeople demanding exorbitant prices. This would account for Jesus' accusation that the Temple had become a "marketplace." (The Synoptics speak of a "den of robbers," quoting Jeremiah 7:11.) The fourth Gospel alone reports that Jesus used a quickly-fashioned whip to drive out the animals and reports that Jesus did not quote the Isaiah 56:7 passage about God's "house of prayer." The narrator, however, informs us that Jesus' actions stirred the disciples to think of Psalm 69:9.
The religious leaders confront Jesus, and this conversation is probably most important about John's account (vv. 18-22). They ask him to present credentials that qualify him to make this judgment about the temple worship. If he is a prophet of some sort, then do a sign that proves it. Jesus responds with elusive words about destroying and rebuilding the temple. He is speaking of his body and his resurrection, the narrator tells us later in verses 21-22. The authorities, however, assume that he is speaking of the physical building of the Temple. They exhibit a classical feature of the Gospel of John whereby Jesus speaks about a transcendent matter, and his listeners misunderstand him to be speaking of a worldly, physical matter. Here, as is often the case, the misunderstanding makes the person(s) look absolutely silly. How is he going to raise up a new temple when we haven't managed to get the thing completed in 46 years of hard labor and sweat? Like the religious leaders, the disciples don't catch on either. But they finally understand his words after he is raised from the dead. (Interestingly, John here reports as an authentic saying of Jesus which Matthew 26:61 and Mark 14:58 report was a false charge against Jesus at his religious trial.)
What we seek to cut out of our lives often has to do with our community life as Christians. Jesus attacks the religious establishment of his day, but it could as well be the contemporary church. How would he respond to some of our church bazaars and fund raisers? We hope to make our corporate life free of the unfaithful and unhealthy practices and assumptions. Certainly an enchantment with commercialism is one of those matters, but there are others as well. What is it in your congregation that you would like God to cut out this Lent? Where are there growths that should be removed before they become more serious. Together let us pray that the exclusivity and bigotry are uprooted. Let us ask God to cut out the hypocrisy and self-righteousness that keep coming back to threaten our lives.
Lord, cut it out this Lent -- out of our individual and corporate lives!
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Exodus 20:1-17
In this season of Lent, we are Sunday by Sunday approaching the foot of that executioner's cross on Golgotha. And I think that sometimes we wonder why it is necessary for us to make that journey. After all, it does not have a pleasant destination. To be sure, human beings often have a morbid curiosity about disasters. We flock to the site of an auto wreck, thereby holding up the traffic with our rubbernecking. Winston Churchill told of the time when some woman remarked on the crowd that had gathered to hear him speak. He replied, "Be assured, madam, that if I were being hung, the crowd would be twice this size." We are thrill-seekers, eager to watch someone else in risk or trouble. But to watch Jesus die on a cross? No. That does not seem very beckoning. And we sometimes wonder why it is necessary that the death take place at all. But perhaps our text for the morning can illumine why it is incumbent on our Lord to undergo his crucifixion.
We are confronted from the Word of God this morning with the Ten Commandments. In the biblical story thus far, Israel has been redeemed from her slavery in Egypt, she has escaped across the desert to the foot of Mount Sinai in the Arabian peninsula, and she has heard that God has elected her to be his special people -- his holy nation and his kingdom of priests. In response to all of that favor of God, Israel has glibly promised, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do" (Exodus 19:7). Apparently, she is ready to enter into a binding covenant with this God who has delivered her, and so she eagerly declares that she will do whatever he commands her to do.
As seems always true of Israel in the Old Testament, the way she relates to her Lord seems very much like the way we relate to him, doesn't it? You and I have made the same sort of glib promises to God. "Yes," we promised when we joined this church, "we take Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, and we will follow him. We will be his faithful disciples, walking in his ways and obeying his word. All that the Lord has spoken, we will do." But then we come to the Ten Commandments, and like Israel, we learn just exactly what it is that the Lord requires of us as his followers.
To be sure, the commandments of this Decalogue are not laid upon us as some sort of legalistic rules, so that we must obey them in order to have a relationship with our God. We already have that relation, as Israel already had it. We already know that God loves us and chooses us, as Israel already knew those things. But the Ten Commandments are not just suggestions either. No. The Decalogue lays out for us what God expects now of us who have been the recipients of his redeeming mercy. God has loved us and delivered us in overwhelming love. Now the Ten Commandments show us how gratefully to love him in return -- by obeying his words, by doing what he wants us to do and by being what he wants us to be, namely his own special people. In short, we are expected to obey the commandments as our grateful response to all that the Lord has done for us.
Well, have we? Have we been obedient to these words that our Lord speaks to us here on this third Sunday in Lent? These words were not intended just for Israel. Jesus also directed them to us, according to the New Testament (cf. Mark 10:17-21). So let's go briefly through this summary of the Lord's will for us.
"You shall have no other gods besides me." Is that true of us? Is there anything or anyone to whom we give our ultimate devotion besides the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Do we count material success or our families or our status or appearance or reputation more important than God?
"You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them." Now surely we are innocent there! We do not carve idols. But where do we find our God these days? In the beauty of the natural world, in some pyramid or crystal, in the stars or in some movie idol on earth, or perhaps in some guru who has attracted us? Do many of us follow the word of astrologers? Is it in the word of your horoscope that you put your trust?
"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." Have we ever made the Lord God less than he is by some word we have spoken or some act we have done? That's what this commandment is talking about -- whittling God down to our size, instead of letting him be the Lord and Ruler that he is.
"Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." We don't have sabbaths any more, because that's Saturday. But we do have Sunday, and this commandment mercifully asks us to take a rest from work one day a week. God says, "Take a break." But associates in law firms are expected to work seven days a week these days, twelve hours a day. And we're always a little upset when the supermarket or pharmacy isn't open 24 hours every day of the week.
"Honor your father and your mother." Far too many elderly are abandoned in our society, left to wait out their lives alone, busying themselves with just the memories of the families and friends they once had, consigned to non-importance because they can no longer produce.
"You shall not kill." What shall we mention? Assisted suicide, 37 million children aborted since 1973, drunks wreaking their slaughter on our highways, young men dying in the wars of self-serving leaders, or two-thirds of the world's children malnourished or starving? These commandments are getting more serious all the time.
"You shall not commit adultery." And most of us do not. But Hollywood and television think it's a game. And our society is saturated with sex and whoring.
"You shall not steal." Every employer has to figure into his costs the expense of merchandise stolen by employees. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor," but oh, how we love the gossip! "You shall not covet." But that's what advertising is all about, isn't it -- wanting more and going into credit card debt to get it?
How do our lives stack up against God's words in these Ten Commandments? Have you obeyed them out of gratitude to your God? Have I? No, we must confess that we have not. And on this third Sunday in Lent, the only plea we have left is "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." God in his mercy has answered that prayer for all of us. On that cross on Golgotha, Jesus Christ has suffered all of our sins -- our sins of yesterday and today and tomorrow -- and he has taken the death that our sin deserves upon his own body. And because he has died in our place and risen again, defeating all our evil, you and I are now free to approach our God in confidence and to live once more in his merciful love. Yes, we need that cross that crucified our Lord -- every day we need it. So let's journey on in this Lenten season until we get to that place of forgiveness.
