Not Who I Thought It Was
Commentary
Appearances are deceiving. Goliath looks unconquerable, and the young shepherd boy who says thanks but no thanks to the king’s armor, is pretty confident that five smooth stones will be enough to change the world.
So it is that the Apostle Paul reminds us we don’t see anyone from a human view anymore. We see them through God’s eyes.
Of course, maybe we can’t always be blamed when we forget that we have, in the words of C.S. Lewis, never met a mere mortal, when the disciples of Jesus Christ were as close as they possibly be to the Lord of Life, Incarnate God, yet couldn’t quite get it through their heads just who it was they were with. Why else would they ask, ““Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”.
1 Samuel 17:(1a,4-11,19-23), 32-49; Psalm 9:9-20 or
1 Samuel 17:57--18:5, 18:10-16; Psalm 133
Those of us like me who were around at the beginning of the Bob Dylan saga remember reading the back of the album covers and discovering over time there was more than one “origin story” for the singer/songwriter. To be honest they couldn’t be reconciled, and they didn’t have to be, because they spoke to a deeper truth than simply knowing someone was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Hibbing, Minnesota.
King David had more than one origin story. The Shepherd King comes to the king’s attention because of his singing/songwriting ability, which calms a troubled King Saul. But this story of David and Goliath also seems to be an origin story, in which the two central figures of this story, David and Goliath, are not who we think they are. Goliath is not the indestructible, unconquerable behemoth that Saul’s army think he is. And David is not cannon fodder. David is not toast. They’re both trash talking, but only David is telling the truth. Goliath, your number is up. (Kind of like the last line of Bob Dylan’s song, “When the Ship Comes In,” which goes, “And Goliath, he’ll be conquered!”)
The war poem of war poems, Homer’s Iliad, is filled with pageantry, descriptions of armor, and a lot of talking between battle scenes. This story mirrors this pattern to some extent. The armies line up. Goliath steps forward and his armor and physique are described, and he trash talks. In the Iliad, Patrocles wore the armor of Achilles who refused to fight and accomplished great things before he was slain because people are afraid of the armor. But David tries on King Saul’s armor, but rejects the armor. He’s happy with a slingshot and five smooth stones.
But while Goliath talks and talks and talks, David acts. He is the subject of fifteen action verbs. Depending on your translation, you can see that David ran, put out his hand, tossed out, slung, struck, prevailed, struck down, killed, ran and stood over, grasped, dressed, killed, and cut off.
Earlier in the story, Eliab the commander accuses him of abdicating his responsibility on the home front by abandoning his agricultural work, but David is not who we think he is. He is truly the king.
Parched grain, loaves of bread and cheese. Favorite food for the commander.
David has five smooth stones — and contempt.
David is the subject of fifteen action verbs.
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
I’m intrigued by the list of afflictions Paul catalogs in this section of 2 Corinthians. The first third are things Paul has suffered: “afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger… (6:4-5).” The second third provides a contrast in the way Paul has responded: “by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, truthful speech, and the power of God…(6:6-7).” He concludes this middle group with a startling item: “…weapons of righteousness for the right and for the left —” which in the apostle’s world were opposites, because of a major cultural difference between our time and theirs. The right hand was for eating, the left hand was for the most basic bodily cleansing functions. Yet Paul is asserting that the weapons of righteousness can be used by both hands, that there is something essential about all portions of our nature. Therefore, he is saying, we can respond with these positive qualities in “honor and dishonor, …ill repute and good repute (6:7).”
The final third consists of a series of paradoxes. Paul contends that though we are treated as “imposter, unknown, dying, punished, sorrowful, poor, and having nothing” we are in fact “true, well known, alive, not killed, rejoicing, making many rich, and possessing everything.”
Paul is defying a culture in which wealth, position, and status meant everything — by redefining what those terms mean.
What I find intriguing is Paul’s assertion that “We are treated…as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” Corinth is the one place we know for sure that Paul worked at his trade of tent making and tent repair, for eighteen months, in the agora with Priscilla and Aquila. I have read some commentators who insist Priscilla and Aquila are rich, and others have said that as members of a craft guild, they were honored and may not have been wealthy.
Money that comes in goes into survival expenses as well as purchasing supplies for later sales. I think Paul is talking about literal poverty that enables him to minister to the Corinthian population, being a part of a local economy that strengthens other vendors through his purchases, through hard — and honorable — work. Priscilla and Aquila had been made refugees when people of Jewish background (which probably included Christians) were expelled from Rome (see Acts 18:1-2) because of civil unrest on the part of some Jews/Christians because of “Chrestus,” as one Roman historian puts it, suggesting that some Messianic sects were creating trouble. Uprooting oneself and starting over (something Paul did regularly) suggests the three were surviving, but that the hard physical labor their craft demanded may have made them appear poor and as having nothing, yet everything was theirs through their self-support, the support of their community of faith, and the richness of the life in Christ.
Mark 4:35-41
Just as David is accused of ignoring his duties on the home front by the commander Eliab, Jesus is accused by his family members of having gone mad and failed to do his duty as oldest brother and therefore the paterfamilias. In chapter 3 of this section of Mark, we learn a lot about who Jesus is. We learn that family bonds are not the ultimate and most sacred of bonds. We are called to become part of the family that recognizes God as parent. This was especially true for the first Christians who read the Gospel of Mark. Many of them had to leave behind their families because the family business honored a god who was part of the Greek or Roman pantheon, while Christians honored Jesus as Lord. And who Jesus is, we learn a lot through the stories, and the works of wonder Jesus performs, but its clearest here where Jesus stills the waves.
In the first chapter of Genesis, God separated land from water and subdued the primeval chaos, having the authority and the power to hold it in check. Put yourselves in the place of the disciples. What could be more frightening than a terrible storm on the sea, when lives are at stake and there is nothing that can be done to control the storms? Yet Jesus walks across the waters and controls the waters. What is more frightening? The storm itself, or the fact that in their midst is one who can control the storms? “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” the disciples ask. Who indeed? Jesus is not who we think he is. He’s not just a teacher. He’s not just a wonder worker. He’s not just a spinner of stories and parables. Jesus is I AM.
So it is that the Apostle Paul reminds us we don’t see anyone from a human view anymore. We see them through God’s eyes.
Of course, maybe we can’t always be blamed when we forget that we have, in the words of C.S. Lewis, never met a mere mortal, when the disciples of Jesus Christ were as close as they possibly be to the Lord of Life, Incarnate God, yet couldn’t quite get it through their heads just who it was they were with. Why else would they ask, ““Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”.
1 Samuel 17:(1a,4-11,19-23), 32-49; Psalm 9:9-20 or
1 Samuel 17:57--18:5, 18:10-16; Psalm 133
Those of us like me who were around at the beginning of the Bob Dylan saga remember reading the back of the album covers and discovering over time there was more than one “origin story” for the singer/songwriter. To be honest they couldn’t be reconciled, and they didn’t have to be, because they spoke to a deeper truth than simply knowing someone was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Hibbing, Minnesota.
King David had more than one origin story. The Shepherd King comes to the king’s attention because of his singing/songwriting ability, which calms a troubled King Saul. But this story of David and Goliath also seems to be an origin story, in which the two central figures of this story, David and Goliath, are not who we think they are. Goliath is not the indestructible, unconquerable behemoth that Saul’s army think he is. And David is not cannon fodder. David is not toast. They’re both trash talking, but only David is telling the truth. Goliath, your number is up. (Kind of like the last line of Bob Dylan’s song, “When the Ship Comes In,” which goes, “And Goliath, he’ll be conquered!”)
The war poem of war poems, Homer’s Iliad, is filled with pageantry, descriptions of armor, and a lot of talking between battle scenes. This story mirrors this pattern to some extent. The armies line up. Goliath steps forward and his armor and physique are described, and he trash talks. In the Iliad, Patrocles wore the armor of Achilles who refused to fight and accomplished great things before he was slain because people are afraid of the armor. But David tries on King Saul’s armor, but rejects the armor. He’s happy with a slingshot and five smooth stones.
But while Goliath talks and talks and talks, David acts. He is the subject of fifteen action verbs. Depending on your translation, you can see that David ran, put out his hand, tossed out, slung, struck, prevailed, struck down, killed, ran and stood over, grasped, dressed, killed, and cut off.
Earlier in the story, Eliab the commander accuses him of abdicating his responsibility on the home front by abandoning his agricultural work, but David is not who we think he is. He is truly the king.
Parched grain, loaves of bread and cheese. Favorite food for the commander.
David has five smooth stones — and contempt.
David is the subject of fifteen action verbs.
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
I’m intrigued by the list of afflictions Paul catalogs in this section of 2 Corinthians. The first third are things Paul has suffered: “afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger… (6:4-5).” The second third provides a contrast in the way Paul has responded: “by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, truthful speech, and the power of God…(6:6-7).” He concludes this middle group with a startling item: “…weapons of righteousness for the right and for the left —” which in the apostle’s world were opposites, because of a major cultural difference between our time and theirs. The right hand was for eating, the left hand was for the most basic bodily cleansing functions. Yet Paul is asserting that the weapons of righteousness can be used by both hands, that there is something essential about all portions of our nature. Therefore, he is saying, we can respond with these positive qualities in “honor and dishonor, …ill repute and good repute (6:7).”
The final third consists of a series of paradoxes. Paul contends that though we are treated as “imposter, unknown, dying, punished, sorrowful, poor, and having nothing” we are in fact “true, well known, alive, not killed, rejoicing, making many rich, and possessing everything.”
Paul is defying a culture in which wealth, position, and status meant everything — by redefining what those terms mean.
What I find intriguing is Paul’s assertion that “We are treated…as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” Corinth is the one place we know for sure that Paul worked at his trade of tent making and tent repair, for eighteen months, in the agora with Priscilla and Aquila. I have read some commentators who insist Priscilla and Aquila are rich, and others have said that as members of a craft guild, they were honored and may not have been wealthy.
Money that comes in goes into survival expenses as well as purchasing supplies for later sales. I think Paul is talking about literal poverty that enables him to minister to the Corinthian population, being a part of a local economy that strengthens other vendors through his purchases, through hard — and honorable — work. Priscilla and Aquila had been made refugees when people of Jewish background (which probably included Christians) were expelled from Rome (see Acts 18:1-2) because of civil unrest on the part of some Jews/Christians because of “Chrestus,” as one Roman historian puts it, suggesting that some Messianic sects were creating trouble. Uprooting oneself and starting over (something Paul did regularly) suggests the three were surviving, but that the hard physical labor their craft demanded may have made them appear poor and as having nothing, yet everything was theirs through their self-support, the support of their community of faith, and the richness of the life in Christ.
Mark 4:35-41
Just as David is accused of ignoring his duties on the home front by the commander Eliab, Jesus is accused by his family members of having gone mad and failed to do his duty as oldest brother and therefore the paterfamilias. In chapter 3 of this section of Mark, we learn a lot about who Jesus is. We learn that family bonds are not the ultimate and most sacred of bonds. We are called to become part of the family that recognizes God as parent. This was especially true for the first Christians who read the Gospel of Mark. Many of them had to leave behind their families because the family business honored a god who was part of the Greek or Roman pantheon, while Christians honored Jesus as Lord. And who Jesus is, we learn a lot through the stories, and the works of wonder Jesus performs, but its clearest here where Jesus stills the waves.
In the first chapter of Genesis, God separated land from water and subdued the primeval chaos, having the authority and the power to hold it in check. Put yourselves in the place of the disciples. What could be more frightening than a terrible storm on the sea, when lives are at stake and there is nothing that can be done to control the storms? Yet Jesus walks across the waters and controls the waters. What is more frightening? The storm itself, or the fact that in their midst is one who can control the storms? “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” the disciples ask. Who indeed? Jesus is not who we think he is. He’s not just a teacher. He’s not just a wonder worker. He’s not just a spinner of stories and parables. Jesus is I AM.
