A light to the nations
Commentary
The second "Servant Song" continues the theme of the universal intent of the God of Israel and thus of Israel. To this day it is difficult for Israel and for the church to define what is meant by the universal. Only a few times in the Hebrew scriptures does the theme of salvation beyond Israel or of God's care for the outsider come up. Amos 9 has the Lord asking, "Are you not like the Ethiopians to me?" Who was taking care of the Philistines and the Aarameans? But these are rather dim unfoldings of divine purpose compared to the theme here: "I will give you as a light to the nations."
A modern Jew was asked: Do Jews believe all the world will be saved when it all turns to the faith of Israel? "No," he said, "Jews believe that the world will not be saved if we are not faithful to the covenant."
Christians carry the light-of-the-nations theme further, having become in various ways and times a missionary faith. Mission often went on with the backing of the sword; in the modern world, with European expansion; today, best, by almost spontaneous combustion in the tinder of peoples' experiences everywhere. Today we may be sensitive to the cultural differences and will not tromp on victim peoples to convert them. But the notion that the God whose glory shone in Israel and shines in Christ is "a light to the nations" remains a proclamation to the church, to be realized in its people and the peoples.
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
It is all well and good to talk about being a light to the nations, but a United Nations full of people quickly becomes an abstraction, a bewilderment. And it is well and good to talk about universal intentions, or the mission of the church. But such talk does not reach the cancer ward, the senior citizens home, the doubting heart, or the despairing soul with the force of what happens when in a letter to Corinth Paul brings it home.
The Corinthians are "called to be saints," but not alone, not pocketed in a closed-door and claustrophobic or selective country club "we only" concept. No, they are called "together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." But even to be called is a rather cold notion, realized in statistics and strategies but missing our lives.
So Paul, diagnosing the doubting heart and despairing soul, tells what the light, universalism, and mission mean and do: if we want this text to live we have to talk of the benefits. Philip Melanchthon once said of faith that it was "to know Christ and to know his benefits." I could italicize the final four words of that phrase, and should shout them along with this Pauline all but shouted announcement: that Corinthians, and we, "are not lacking in any spiritual gift." We are "strengthened," and will be seen as "blameless." For one reason: God keeps promises. "God is faithful."
John 1:29-42
How does the theme of Israel as "light to the nations" get realized in the nations? How does the word that God is faithful, who called Corinthians and all the rest of us, get promoted?
The Gospel for today brings it all together in a vivid and concrete picture: by the finding and telling of others what the earlier believers first heard and saw.
Suddenly we move from abstractions to narrative, as the focus falls on "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Some listeners will have heard that enough to make sense of it. I'd start from scratch. Sometimes I pretend that I wandered into a sanctuary with no knowledge of Christian faith and story. What is that lamb doing, sitting on a book with seven seals, carved on an altar? What is that lamb doing, carrying a banner, there in that window? What is this whole lamb idea?
This is not the place to tell the whole lamb of God story. Look it up in Exodus 12 and all the commentaries. As the Gospel of John puts it, this lamb's mission is to "take away the sin of the world." Exodus 12's lamb gets sacrificed and its blood is put on the doorposts of the houses of "the whole congregation of Israel" in Egypt, so that they would be spared and made free. When someone at the time of Jesus would talk about the Lamb of God, those who heard would know that it was a story about people being spared. It still is.
Christians attend worship and preaching not in order to have the rules set down for them, but to hear the Gospel. Maybe that is too strong. There is a human impulse, carried over among the converted and gathered, to look for the printed lists of rules to follow if one wants to be a good member, a good disciple, in the Christian club. Most of the time, however, hearts are hungry, people are depressed and in need of hope, or bursting with a joy to be shared, and they do not care that much about prescriptions.
The temptation to be precise about guidelines for Christian living remains strong to the pulpiteer. The base text today does not permit that. Fuss all we will about precision in prescriptions and preciseness on the path to obedience, Micah does not much care about it. This passage speaks in such broad terms about "doing justice" and "loving kindness" that the injunction could serve pagan and believer, skeptic and hoper, alike.
Then comes the key line: "walk humbly with your God." That is what comes up again in 1 Corinthians, where the humble one, who belongs to the world's "have nots" and "are nots," has an advantage over the philosophers. And the Sermon on the Mount singles out those who have no choice but to be humble. They lack everything on which others would depend. The only thing they bring is their need. They have been destitute, but because God, who is active, controls life in the kingdom we learn: "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
This is a good day to remind everyone how we use ancient stories, if they are biblical. This week's lessons start farthest away in Zebulun and Naphtali, and in the Gospel we revisit them while a noted guest is there. Between we are introduced to the congregation at Corinth, which will sound like home to many of us.
What marks these texts is the excitement they bring about God's new possibility. The people who walked in darkness no longer walk there. I've read that wartime potential victims of bombing had to keep the window shades down for blackouts. The moment the all clear sounded they opened them a slit just to see that there was an outside world, however dim it was. And then came the morning with its dawn, its bright sun. They blinked into awareness of their survival and the new day. Two of today's lessons suggest that kind of change.
The second is the one that gives listeners something to do: repent, turn 180 degrees, be open to a new call, a new life. Fine. But the letter of Paul to Corinth introduces a disturbing note: people do not hear the good news announcement because they are busy defending themselves and attacking others. A little repentance in their circle will make possible the realization of God's presence among them, along with the good news that comes with empowerment.
The instrument now is not a new light shining on a people in darkness but an enabling instrument of Christ's love, God's love, effected among the people who hear the story.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
Isaiah 49:1-7
Dependent by the very nature of the arrangement on the person served, a servant's sense of the relationship can vacillate. Sometimes there can be a sense that everything is right, just as it was always meant to be. Other times, the terror of futility can take over so that it appears that everything has been for nothing. Oscillating between faith and fear, there is only one source of renewed certainty: a word from the one who arranged such a relationship in the first place.
The second of Isaiah's great servant songs begins with a confident confession, alive with the certainty of the promise. The basis is in God's call, the servant boldly declaring that he was shaped for ministry in the womb itself so that he can speak God's own word from the perspective of the closest possible relationship, as one of God's chosen servant people.
The words are barely off the servant's lips before the other side registers, an overwhelming sense of emptiness. Maybe it is the almightiness of God's choosing that does this. Sometimes the sheer abounding goodness of God can show us up in this way, making a person feel paltry and beside the point. Or perhaps, given the experience of exile and the nation's unbelief, the servant feels that the ministry has come to nothing, that there is no purpose or value to it after all.
Luther used to say that faith has a magnet's head in that it attracts its opposite. The confidence of God's promise and serious question about it don't necessarily cancel each other out, they co-exist in the same hearer, even mocking one another with such derisive cries.
In the midst of such a dread conflict, there is no more comforting phrase than this: "And now the Lord says ...." When the oscillation starts, driving a person back and forth between faith and fear, not even the strong medicine of predestination -- "The Lord called me before I was born" -- is sufficient to fear's attack. Questions like, "How do you know? Were you there? Can anyone know what happens before time? Who do you think you are, Noah?" can sink a person's ship like so many kamikazes. But a word, the clear and present speech of the one who chooses, can put all such fears to flight.
So the servant, driven from faith to fear, hears a word that restores his confidence, one in which God reiterates the origin and purpose of his mission: the restoration of Israel, more than that, a light to the nations.
Jesus, whom the church has seen as the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy, heard just such a word. Tested by his own doubts, bounced from the voice of his baptism to the voices in the wilderness, he relied on the word declared by John the Baptist, "Behold, the Lamb of God ...."
A modern Jew was asked: Do Jews believe all the world will be saved when it all turns to the faith of Israel? "No," he said, "Jews believe that the world will not be saved if we are not faithful to the covenant."
Christians carry the light-of-the-nations theme further, having become in various ways and times a missionary faith. Mission often went on with the backing of the sword; in the modern world, with European expansion; today, best, by almost spontaneous combustion in the tinder of peoples' experiences everywhere. Today we may be sensitive to the cultural differences and will not tromp on victim peoples to convert them. But the notion that the God whose glory shone in Israel and shines in Christ is "a light to the nations" remains a proclamation to the church, to be realized in its people and the peoples.
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
It is all well and good to talk about being a light to the nations, but a United Nations full of people quickly becomes an abstraction, a bewilderment. And it is well and good to talk about universal intentions, or the mission of the church. But such talk does not reach the cancer ward, the senior citizens home, the doubting heart, or the despairing soul with the force of what happens when in a letter to Corinth Paul brings it home.
The Corinthians are "called to be saints," but not alone, not pocketed in a closed-door and claustrophobic or selective country club "we only" concept. No, they are called "together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." But even to be called is a rather cold notion, realized in statistics and strategies but missing our lives.
So Paul, diagnosing the doubting heart and despairing soul, tells what the light, universalism, and mission mean and do: if we want this text to live we have to talk of the benefits. Philip Melanchthon once said of faith that it was "to know Christ and to know his benefits." I could italicize the final four words of that phrase, and should shout them along with this Pauline all but shouted announcement: that Corinthians, and we, "are not lacking in any spiritual gift." We are "strengthened," and will be seen as "blameless." For one reason: God keeps promises. "God is faithful."
John 1:29-42
How does the theme of Israel as "light to the nations" get realized in the nations? How does the word that God is faithful, who called Corinthians and all the rest of us, get promoted?
The Gospel for today brings it all together in a vivid and concrete picture: by the finding and telling of others what the earlier believers first heard and saw.
Suddenly we move from abstractions to narrative, as the focus falls on "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Some listeners will have heard that enough to make sense of it. I'd start from scratch. Sometimes I pretend that I wandered into a sanctuary with no knowledge of Christian faith and story. What is that lamb doing, sitting on a book with seven seals, carved on an altar? What is that lamb doing, carrying a banner, there in that window? What is this whole lamb idea?
This is not the place to tell the whole lamb of God story. Look it up in Exodus 12 and all the commentaries. As the Gospel of John puts it, this lamb's mission is to "take away the sin of the world." Exodus 12's lamb gets sacrificed and its blood is put on the doorposts of the houses of "the whole congregation of Israel" in Egypt, so that they would be spared and made free. When someone at the time of Jesus would talk about the Lamb of God, those who heard would know that it was a story about people being spared. It still is.
Christians attend worship and preaching not in order to have the rules set down for them, but to hear the Gospel. Maybe that is too strong. There is a human impulse, carried over among the converted and gathered, to look for the printed lists of rules to follow if one wants to be a good member, a good disciple, in the Christian club. Most of the time, however, hearts are hungry, people are depressed and in need of hope, or bursting with a joy to be shared, and they do not care that much about prescriptions.
The temptation to be precise about guidelines for Christian living remains strong to the pulpiteer. The base text today does not permit that. Fuss all we will about precision in prescriptions and preciseness on the path to obedience, Micah does not much care about it. This passage speaks in such broad terms about "doing justice" and "loving kindness" that the injunction could serve pagan and believer, skeptic and hoper, alike.
Then comes the key line: "walk humbly with your God." That is what comes up again in 1 Corinthians, where the humble one, who belongs to the world's "have nots" and "are nots," has an advantage over the philosophers. And the Sermon on the Mount singles out those who have no choice but to be humble. They lack everything on which others would depend. The only thing they bring is their need. They have been destitute, but because God, who is active, controls life in the kingdom we learn: "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
This is a good day to remind everyone how we use ancient stories, if they are biblical. This week's lessons start farthest away in Zebulun and Naphtali, and in the Gospel we revisit them while a noted guest is there. Between we are introduced to the congregation at Corinth, which will sound like home to many of us.
What marks these texts is the excitement they bring about God's new possibility. The people who walked in darkness no longer walk there. I've read that wartime potential victims of bombing had to keep the window shades down for blackouts. The moment the all clear sounded they opened them a slit just to see that there was an outside world, however dim it was. And then came the morning with its dawn, its bright sun. They blinked into awareness of their survival and the new day. Two of today's lessons suggest that kind of change.
The second is the one that gives listeners something to do: repent, turn 180 degrees, be open to a new call, a new life. Fine. But the letter of Paul to Corinth introduces a disturbing note: people do not hear the good news announcement because they are busy defending themselves and attacking others. A little repentance in their circle will make possible the realization of God's presence among them, along with the good news that comes with empowerment.
The instrument now is not a new light shining on a people in darkness but an enabling instrument of Christ's love, God's love, effected among the people who hear the story.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
Isaiah 49:1-7
Dependent by the very nature of the arrangement on the person served, a servant's sense of the relationship can vacillate. Sometimes there can be a sense that everything is right, just as it was always meant to be. Other times, the terror of futility can take over so that it appears that everything has been for nothing. Oscillating between faith and fear, there is only one source of renewed certainty: a word from the one who arranged such a relationship in the first place.
The second of Isaiah's great servant songs begins with a confident confession, alive with the certainty of the promise. The basis is in God's call, the servant boldly declaring that he was shaped for ministry in the womb itself so that he can speak God's own word from the perspective of the closest possible relationship, as one of God's chosen servant people.
The words are barely off the servant's lips before the other side registers, an overwhelming sense of emptiness. Maybe it is the almightiness of God's choosing that does this. Sometimes the sheer abounding goodness of God can show us up in this way, making a person feel paltry and beside the point. Or perhaps, given the experience of exile and the nation's unbelief, the servant feels that the ministry has come to nothing, that there is no purpose or value to it after all.
Luther used to say that faith has a magnet's head in that it attracts its opposite. The confidence of God's promise and serious question about it don't necessarily cancel each other out, they co-exist in the same hearer, even mocking one another with such derisive cries.
In the midst of such a dread conflict, there is no more comforting phrase than this: "And now the Lord says ...." When the oscillation starts, driving a person back and forth between faith and fear, not even the strong medicine of predestination -- "The Lord called me before I was born" -- is sufficient to fear's attack. Questions like, "How do you know? Were you there? Can anyone know what happens before time? Who do you think you are, Noah?" can sink a person's ship like so many kamikazes. But a word, the clear and present speech of the one who chooses, can put all such fears to flight.
So the servant, driven from faith to fear, hears a word that restores his confidence, one in which God reiterates the origin and purpose of his mission: the restoration of Israel, more than that, a light to the nations.
Jesus, whom the church has seen as the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy, heard just such a word. Tested by his own doubts, bounced from the voice of his baptism to the voices in the wilderness, he relied on the word declared by John the Baptist, "Behold, the Lamb of God ...."
