Polarities
Commentary
Your writers were not good students of physics, and consequently we both marvel at the power of electricity. One of the most intriguing things about electricity is its positive and negative polarity, which is essential to its power. When reversed, these two poles collide, as it were, and there's trouble.
This makes one wonder about polarities in life. Theoretical physics suggests reality is composed of protons, electrons, and neutrons -- the first having a positive charge, the second a negative charge, and the third no charge. If such polarity lies at the heart of reality, perhaps we should reflect on how such polar opposites function in human life in general. How is it that our Christian faith contains such polarities?
Such a venture into physics suggests an interesting path through these three lessons, for there's a sense in which the three of them construct an interesting polarity. The polarity we have in mind is between stature in our world, between the high and low positions in which we find ourselves, and how those opposites work together in human life. Our proposal is that the First Lesson entails the pole of honor and distinction, while the Second Lesson teaches an opposite attitude. The Gospel Lesson, we think, involves holding these two opposite poles of the high and the low together to create a new reality. Let's see if this course takes us anywhere.
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
With the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, David assumes his rightful role as successor to the throne. The Deuteronomic historians (responsible for the history in Deuteronomy through 2 Kings) have led us to believe that David has been systematically building support since his introduction in 1 Samuel. Now that support is consolidated, and two events follow: first, David is anointed king of the whole of Israel (2 Samuel 5:1-5), and he conquers Jerusalem in order to make it the base of his reign (5:6-10). Our lesson includes the full story of David's anointing and a summary of the second event.
The prophet-king-maker-and-breaker, Samuel, had anointed David as king, and he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord (1 Samuel 16:1-13), so this is his second anointing. Such a double anointing probably suggests that David was recognized as king among some of the people (perhaps Judah) but only now, after Saul's death, can ascend to the throne of the whole of Israel.
In verses 1-2, the people give several reasons for their selection of David as their king. First, the tribes of Israel have no one else to whom they can turn; their leaders have all been slain. In 2 Samuel 19:13 David will use the expression "your bone and flesh" to express his solidarity with the people of Judah, but here the people of the northern kingdom (Israel) claim him (a Judahite) as their own. Their acclamation indicates their sense of David's commitment to them and their willingness for David to rule over the whole of both Judah and Israel. However, they also credit David with protecting them while Saul was still their king; that must be what is meant by "you who led out Israel and brought it in." "Shepherd" is sometimes a metaphor for the king (e.g., Genesis 49:24; 1 Kings 22:17; Isaiah 44:28) but more often a way of speaking of God (e.g., Psalm: 23:1; 80:1) and sometimes both (Ezekiel 34:1-23). David has journeyed from his role as a shepherd of his father's herds (1 Samuel 16:11) to shepherd of God's people Israel -- a remarkable story in itself, suggesting the polarity of a beginning and a climax. This journey is summarized in Nathan's oracle in 7:7-8.
The king stood in a covenant relationship with the people -- a kind of contract between the royalty and the people. The Israelite monarchy was not simply a position of power, even though God chooses the king and the covenant with the people entails mutual responsibilities and expectations. Anointing, of course, becomes the means of installing one as king (see Samuel's anointing, first, of Saul in 1 Samuel 9:27--10:4 and then of David in 1 Samuel 16:1-13). Generally, anointing with oil dedicated a person or an object for sacred use, and the kingly title, messiah, (masiach) means simply "the anointed one." Verses 4-5 provide us chronological notes. David is remarkably young to be made king, and his rule is extraordinarily long for an ancient king.
Verses 9-10 summarize the whole story of David's establishing his capital in Jerusalem, told in verses 6-15. David may have chosen Jerusalem because it was "neutral ground," claimed by neither Judah nor Israel. "The Jebusites" were a tribe indigenous to the land who were not forced out by the invading Israelites. The city's name, Jerusalem, probably originally referred to a god, Shalem, but it is also associated with the Hebrew word shalom, meaning wholeness and peace. David captures the city with his own private army ("the king and his men," v. 6), so that neither army could be credited with conquering it. Now a city is elevated along with David. It is to become a "holy city." With his anointing and his establishment of his rule in Jerusalem, David becomes "greater and greater," because -- and only because -- God, the leader of all the people's forces, is "with him," even as the same God was with David when he faced Goliath (1 Samuel 17:45).
A shepherd boy made shepherd of Israel and Judah! David's story from his introduction to this enthronement is a tale of remarkable reversal of roles. This the youngest of Jesse's sons who outshines all his brothers (1 Samuel 16:1-13) is now God's anointed. Here is the model of the "yuppie," young and upwardly mobile, and it is a polarity we know all too well: the unexpected rise to success. It's a Horiato Alger story, an Hebraic Abe Lincoln account. David's story (at least to this point) represents the polarities of past and potential, of reality and promise, of obscurity and prominence. Such polarities seem always present in our lives, even if the potential is never fulfilled. We are always haunted by the "might be" of the future of our lives. However, is this the kind of polarity God has in mind for us? Is it always the case that, when "the Lord of hosts" is with us, we rise to success and eminence?
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
No! The pole of success and importance is not what God has in mind for us, or so says Paul. This passage is one of the most famous but problematic of Paul's personal statements. The lesson combines Paul's description of his (or most likely his) experience of being taken into paradise (vv. 1-4) and his insistence that he will not boast except in weakness (vv. 5-10). The reading is nestled within the apostle's closing statements to the Corinthian Christians. He speaks of his suffering as an apostle which entails his right to boast (11:16-30) but claims that he wishes only to boast of his weakness (11:31-33). In verse 33 he recounts his experience of escaping arrest by being lowered out a window in a basket (see Acts 9:23-25 for a slightly different telling of this incident).
That experience of escape leads him to describe an extraordinary religious vision. The "person" Paul claims to know is most likely Paul himself, who wants to refer to his experience modestly. However, he may tell the story in the third person in order to suggest an experience of self-transcendence; he was out beyond his own self. Verses 2-4 are structured in a parallelism. On the one hand, he claims that he is taken into the highest heaven (v. 2) and that he was "caught up into paradise" (v. 40); but on the other hand he does not know the state of his being at the time ("whether in the body or out of the body," vv. 2b and 3a). The experience climaxes with his hearing mysterious things too holy to be told (v. 4).
What Paul describes is like the heavenly journeys writers of apocalyptic literature often claim. (See Revelation 1:9-20 and 12:5 where John uses the verb "caught up.") Such apocalyptic journeys, however, usually provided the seer with a special message to be shared with others. Unlike these journeys, Paul's experience yields knowledge of which he dares not speak. He may be attempting to show his Corinthian readers his credentials for being a preacher and teacher and perhaps countering a charismatic faction in the Corinthian church that claims such extraordinary visions (e.g., 1 Corinthians 12). Later Paul says that his readers have sought just such legitimation that "Christ is speaking in me" (13:3). Still, all we know is simply that Paul claims to have had such a heavenly vision-journey and that he cannot speak what he heard in the other realm.
Having described this exceptional vision, Paul returns to restate his argument in 11:30-33. Even though it is obvious that he has reason to boast, he will not boast "except of my weakness." He wants his readers to know that there are no credentials for apostleship so important as suffering and weakness. To make his point, he refers to another experience -- that of his "thorn in the flesh." Probably there is no other Pauline personal reference that has stirred more discussion and tickled more curiosity than this. Attempts to identify this affliction are without number! Prominent among them is the suggestion that the thorn was some spiritual torment, some sort of physical or mental illness, and the persecution he experienced in the course of his ministry. We cannot identify this "affliction," but we can know how Paul understood it. He believed it continuously prevented him from thinking too highly of himself, and he claims it comes from Satan. ("Too elated" can also be translated "highly exalted" or excessively "uplifted.")
Paul's prayers to be relieved of this burden are met with the message that God's grace is all that he needs and that "power is made perfect in weakness," or finds its completion and maturation in suffering. These words remind us of Paul's earlier argument in response to the divisions in the Corinthian church: "the power of God" in Christ is God's own weakness (1 Corinthian 1:10-25). Paul believes that the polarity of power and weakness is blurred by God and that Christian ministry is found in Christ's own power in weakness. The apostle summarizes this point with another list of the hardships he has suffered and the declaration, "Whenever I am weak, then I am strong" (v. 10).
Paul makes clear that God's act in Christ devastates one of the dominant polarities with which we live. It is the polarity of the 99-pound weakling and the muscular weight lifter, or of the disenfranchised homeless street people and the wheeler-dealers of Wall Street and Washington, D.C. Moreover, the polarity is that of celebrated faith healer and those of us who can hardly muster enough faith to make it through another day. Is the polarity annihilated or is it simply inverted? The poles are reversed, and -- like reversing the poles in an electrical circuit -- sparks fly. To succeed with the Lord of hosts is not necessarily to ascend to power, as did David, but to descend to the depths of death's hell, as Christ did. How there is power in weakness is beyond most of us. We cannot comprehend it. But Mark will show us another image of such a polarity.
Mark 6:1-13
Unlike the Gospel of Luke (see Luke 4:14-30 where this story follows Jesus' temptation in the wilderness), Mark places the story of Jesus' rejection at the synagogue in Nazareth well into the account of his ministry. In doing so, this Gospel suggests that rejection is intermingled with Jesus' acts of power and healing (see chapter 7). The reading includes the account of Jesus' rejection (vv. 1-6b) and his commissioning the twelve disciples (vv. 7b-13).
Returning to his hometown, and since it was customary to invite a visiting rabbi to speak at services, Jesus is asked to teach in the synagogue. Mark tells us nothing about what Jesus taught, only that the crowd was "astounded," wondering how the hometown boy became so learned. They ask a series of questions concerning his source of knowledge, what sort of knowledge it is, what deeds Jesus has done to legitimize his teaching, and whether this is the same Jesus whose family lives in Nazareth. To call Jesus "the son of Mary" is unusual, since lineage was usually traced through the father. The word translated "carpenter" can also mean an artisan of other kinds. If we take the story seriously and as representative of historical fact, Jesus had a number of brothers and sisters.
More importantly, the questions the crowd asks are the same as those others will raise in a variety of forms throughout Jesus' ministry and during his trial. So, too, is the "offense" ("scandalize," skandalizo) typical of what others experience because of Jesus. Jesus explains their rejection of him with a proverb that is represented in a number of places, including some that are outside of the Bible. It captures the simple fact that familiarity breeds contempt or at least freezes one's perception of another. The word "prophet" should not be taken as an indication of the evangelist's view of Jesus but only that Jesus shares the fate of a prophet.
Verse 5 shocks us a bit, apparently as it may have shocked both Matthew and Luke, since both of them have modified it considerably (see Matthew 13:58 and Luke 4:29-30). It sounds as if Jesus' power requires the faith of others, which is not consistently sustained in the Gospel of Mark. Yet the point seems to be that Jesus finds their "unbelief" amazing, and he now experiences for the first time the kind of hostile rejection which is his destiny.
Maybe Mark wants us to see a connection between the story of rejection at Nazareth and the mission of the twelve. Is it the case that Jesus now realizes what he is up against and enlists the ministries of his followers? We can only speculate. What is not speculation is that here for the first time Jesus shares his own ministry with those who follow him. The disciples are not simply learners, soaking it all in for their own benefit; they are apprentice missionaries on Jesus' behalf.
A number of things about the mission are important. The disciples are part of a community with Jesus, and that community goes with them in mission, represented by the fact that they are paired up. Their authority (or "power," exousia) comes from Jesus. He shares his unique power over the demons with his followers, so that they also can minister to others. They are to travel light and not be burdened with anything more than the barest necessities. Jesus then orders them not to move about but to go to one village and work there.
If, however, they are rejected by that village, they are to "shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." Clearly, shaking off the dust of a village as one leaves it is symbolic, but what does it symbolize? We cannot answer that question with any confidence, but among its possible meanings are these three: judgment on those who have rejected them, cleansing oneself of the defilement of Gentiles, and the acknowledgment that they have done all they can and are relieved of responsibility for the fate of the village.
Jesus' own rejection at Nazareth leads him to warn the disciples to be ready for their own experiences of rejection. The summary of the disciples' mission is indeed brief, but it suggests that the twelve not only use their borrowed authority to command demons but also to heal the sick. What is striking about this brief comment is that it shows the disciples' ministry was like their master's. As Jesus had exorcized demons and healed the sick, so too do the disciples. In a similar way, Jesus shares his ministry with the church today, and our ministries are both empowered by Jesus and replicate his.
The esteem of the prophetic office and ministry stand over against rejection and unbelief. The polarity is clear but again there is a radical modification. This wonder-working Galilean teacher is treated with contempt. The disciples, too, must be ready for rejection even though they cast out demons and heal the sick as Jesus did. Christian ministry always entails both privilege and peril. The two are meshed so that we can never boast that we have been chosen to be Christ's agents in this world but are always reminded that our power is in weakness. Christ commissions us with authority, but the power that comes with that authority is always vulnerable because it is at risk of rejection.
Polarities are important in our lives, yet God has a way of eradicating the distance between the poles and even reversing them. There are some polarities offered to us by popular culture that are phoney and misleading. Power is not found in status and station but in service and weakness. The body of Christ in this world today needs the wisdom to identify the false polarities and affirm God's reversal of what we are taught to think of as opposites. That wisdom comes when we are swept up in God's grace by virtue of one who became weak so that we might become strong.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
We have here the account of how David was made king over the tribes of Israel, as well as being king over the tribe of Judah in the South. After the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, of which we heard last Sunday, the men of Judah anointed David as their king, in the city of Hebron (2 Samuel 2:4). But Abner, the commander of Saul's army, declared the son of Saul, Ishbosheth, to be king over Israel in the North (2 Samuel 2:8-9). Israel therefore was made up of a southern and a northern kingdom, with a Saul party and a David party -- a division that accentuated the normal and age-old division between the southern and northern regions of the country. Thus we read in 2 Samuel 3:1, "There was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David; and David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul became weaker and weaker."
Chapters 3 and 4 of 2 Samuel tell us, then, of the cleverness of David in winning the forces and party of Saul to his side. First, when Joab, David's army commander, mistakenly slays Abner, David enters into prolonged mourning for the slain warrior, and we are told that "all the people took notice of it, and it pleased them; as everything that the king did pleased all the people" (2 Samuel 3:36). David is a very clever politician. Second, when two raiders kill Ishbosheth and bring his head to David, thinking that David will be pleased, they themselves are slain. The result is that the elders of the northern tribes come to David, according to our text, and anoint him king over a united Israel.
Our text gives three reasons for the anointing. One, the elders point out that they are of David's race, "bone and flesh" (5:1). Two, they acknowledge rightly that it has always been David who has led Israel in battle and triumphed (5:2; cf. 1 Samuel 18:5, 13, 16). Three, they posit that the Lord has commanded that David become the "shepherd" of his people. There is no such previous word from the Lord in the Samuel books, with the exception of the words of Abigail, the wife of the foolish Nabal, who unconsciously fulfills the role of a prophet by stating that the Lord will appoint David as prince over Israel (1 Samuel 25:30). Sometimes the most unlikely character carries forth the purpose of God.
The terms of David's kingship are notable. Technically, he is not anointed "king" over Israel, but "prince." Why? Because God is the one true king of Israel, and David is but his servant. Similarly, David's reign is established in the context of a covenant with the people. David is thereby subject to the terms of the covenant, as stated in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, and his kingship is conditional upon his obedience to those terms.
Such a conditional covenant stands in contradiction to what we read elsewhere in 2 Samuel. According to 2 Samuel 23:4, God's granting of kingship to David is unconditional -- "an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure." From this time on in Israel's history, there is always therefore a tension connected with Israel's anointing of a king, a tension reflected already in 1 Samuel 8:4-22 and 1 Samuel 9-10 and evident later in the prophetic writings. Israel must have a king to lead her in battle and to defend her against her enemies. But the Lord is the king of Israel, and to demand a human king is to exhibit a lack of trust in the Lord's defense and leading.
That is a quandry that every one of us Christians must deal with every day. How do we meet the necessities of a sinful world and prosper and protect ourselves by our own means, and yet rely totally on the leading and protection of God? In short, how can we live in the world and yet not of it? To give a simple example, we believe that God is sufficient for all our needs, and yet we all buy major medical and life insurance to provide for ourselves and our families, in case of necessity. Or another example: How do we defend ourselves against a Hitler and yet follow the command, "You shall not kill"? The proper and truly Christian courses of action in a world such as ours are not easy to come by.
As David's forty-year reign proceeds, it becomes clear in the stories of 2 Samuel that he does not fully obey the covenant to which his kingship is obligated. He becomes an adulterer, a murderer, and an absolutely terrible father who cannot control his sons. The stories found in 2 Samuel are as hair-raising as any found in modern novels. David is a very, very human monarch in the biblical account, in which, for the first time in history, there is told the truth about a king. And that truth is told to us in 2 Samuel 6 to 1 Kings 2 probably by an eyewitness in David's court. But above all, David's reign is fascinating and of earth-shaking importance because it has to do with the purpose for his world of a loving God, who is truly King. On the Sundays that follow, we shall trace some of the important events concerned with David and that divine purpose.
Lutheran Option -- Ezekiel 2:1-5
This passage forms a small part of the call of the prophet Ezekiel, as he dwelt among the Judean exiles of 597 B.C.in Babylonia, beside a canal called "the river Chebar" (Ezekiel 1:1). The passage follows Ezekiel's overwhelming vision of the glory of the Lord, seated upon his heavenly throne and having something of the appearance of the likeness of a human form (Ezekiel 1:26).
When Ezekiel is given that fantastic vision, he falls prostrate on the ground in fear. But the Lord of glory addresses him. "Son of man, stand upon your feet and I will speak with you" (v. 1). The address emphasizes Ezekiel's mortal weak nature as a human being, over against the divine majesty of God, and the weakness of that nature is demonstrated by the fact that Ezekiel cannot himself regain his feet. If any of us think that we could rise ourselves, unafraid, before the Lord God Almighty, we're just kidding ourselves. Our text is not dealing with our manufactured, friendly little godlets, good Christians. It's dealing with the Lord of the universe, who flung the stars across the heavens and raised the Rocky Mountains, who gives life to all creatures, and holds the destinies of all nations -- and of you and me -- in his hands. So the Spirit of God must raise Ezekiel upright, or he cannot stand. Similarly, by that same powerful Spirit, Ezekiel is enabled to hear God speaking to him.
It is a fearful command that the prophet is given, however. He is sent to a nation of "rebels." That is the most frequent prophetic term for our sin; we are "rebels," subversives in the Kingdom of God, or should we say terrorists run amuck and following our own devices. We're very little different than Israel was in the sixth century B.C. Moreover, claims our text, Israel and we are "impudent and stubborn." And that's a pretty good description of us, is it not? Do we not know of the will of God? Of course we do! We've read it in our Bibles and heard it preached and sung, most of us for most of our lives. Love the Lord with everything in you. Love your neighbor as yourself. Forgive 70 times 7. Deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. Repent and believe in the gospel. Trust and pray at all times. And do we do it? No, much of the time we do not. And so we, like Israel in Ezekiel's time, are a nation of rebels. We have only to read the morning headlines and to examine the depths of our own hearts and wills to realize the truth of that.
But what does God say to Ezekiel? "Say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God,' whether they hear or refuse to hear." Certainly God has no illusions about our hearing and our obedience to his word. He knows what is in us. He knows our actions. So why does he tell Ezekiel to preach to a people who are going to refuse to hear? What good does that do if they don't or won't receive the message?
Ezekiel is going to preach the Word of God, you see, and that's not just the conveying of information or teaching new ideas about the Lord. The Word of God throughout the scriptures is powerful, effective, and active. It brings about that of which it speaks (cf. Isaiah 55:10-11). And so even if the people will not listen to it, God's word will be fulfilled.
What are the words from God that Ezekiel spoke to Israel? He told them that Jerusalem would fall. And it did. But he also told them that God would raise up a new davidic king for them, a good shepherd (Ezekiel 34:23-24), who would feed his sheep, and through that shepherd, God said he would seek the lost and bring back the strayed and bind up the crippled and stengthen the weak (34:16). And that too came to pass, didn't it? For our Lord Jesus Christ told us that he is the Good Shepherd sent by the Father, and through him every one of us rebels can be fed, every one of us lost and strayed can be found and brought back, every one of us crippled by something can be ministered to, and every one of us weak souls can be strengthened. God kept his promises that he spoke through his prophet Ezekiel. He always keeps his promises. For his Word accomplishes that of which it has spoken.
This makes one wonder about polarities in life. Theoretical physics suggests reality is composed of protons, electrons, and neutrons -- the first having a positive charge, the second a negative charge, and the third no charge. If such polarity lies at the heart of reality, perhaps we should reflect on how such polar opposites function in human life in general. How is it that our Christian faith contains such polarities?
Such a venture into physics suggests an interesting path through these three lessons, for there's a sense in which the three of them construct an interesting polarity. The polarity we have in mind is between stature in our world, between the high and low positions in which we find ourselves, and how those opposites work together in human life. Our proposal is that the First Lesson entails the pole of honor and distinction, while the Second Lesson teaches an opposite attitude. The Gospel Lesson, we think, involves holding these two opposite poles of the high and the low together to create a new reality. Let's see if this course takes us anywhere.
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
With the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, David assumes his rightful role as successor to the throne. The Deuteronomic historians (responsible for the history in Deuteronomy through 2 Kings) have led us to believe that David has been systematically building support since his introduction in 1 Samuel. Now that support is consolidated, and two events follow: first, David is anointed king of the whole of Israel (2 Samuel 5:1-5), and he conquers Jerusalem in order to make it the base of his reign (5:6-10). Our lesson includes the full story of David's anointing and a summary of the second event.
The prophet-king-maker-and-breaker, Samuel, had anointed David as king, and he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord (1 Samuel 16:1-13), so this is his second anointing. Such a double anointing probably suggests that David was recognized as king among some of the people (perhaps Judah) but only now, after Saul's death, can ascend to the throne of the whole of Israel.
In verses 1-2, the people give several reasons for their selection of David as their king. First, the tribes of Israel have no one else to whom they can turn; their leaders have all been slain. In 2 Samuel 19:13 David will use the expression "your bone and flesh" to express his solidarity with the people of Judah, but here the people of the northern kingdom (Israel) claim him (a Judahite) as their own. Their acclamation indicates their sense of David's commitment to them and their willingness for David to rule over the whole of both Judah and Israel. However, they also credit David with protecting them while Saul was still their king; that must be what is meant by "you who led out Israel and brought it in." "Shepherd" is sometimes a metaphor for the king (e.g., Genesis 49:24; 1 Kings 22:17; Isaiah 44:28) but more often a way of speaking of God (e.g., Psalm: 23:1; 80:1) and sometimes both (Ezekiel 34:1-23). David has journeyed from his role as a shepherd of his father's herds (1 Samuel 16:11) to shepherd of God's people Israel -- a remarkable story in itself, suggesting the polarity of a beginning and a climax. This journey is summarized in Nathan's oracle in 7:7-8.
The king stood in a covenant relationship with the people -- a kind of contract between the royalty and the people. The Israelite monarchy was not simply a position of power, even though God chooses the king and the covenant with the people entails mutual responsibilities and expectations. Anointing, of course, becomes the means of installing one as king (see Samuel's anointing, first, of Saul in 1 Samuel 9:27--10:4 and then of David in 1 Samuel 16:1-13). Generally, anointing with oil dedicated a person or an object for sacred use, and the kingly title, messiah, (masiach) means simply "the anointed one." Verses 4-5 provide us chronological notes. David is remarkably young to be made king, and his rule is extraordinarily long for an ancient king.
Verses 9-10 summarize the whole story of David's establishing his capital in Jerusalem, told in verses 6-15. David may have chosen Jerusalem because it was "neutral ground," claimed by neither Judah nor Israel. "The Jebusites" were a tribe indigenous to the land who were not forced out by the invading Israelites. The city's name, Jerusalem, probably originally referred to a god, Shalem, but it is also associated with the Hebrew word shalom, meaning wholeness and peace. David captures the city with his own private army ("the king and his men," v. 6), so that neither army could be credited with conquering it. Now a city is elevated along with David. It is to become a "holy city." With his anointing and his establishment of his rule in Jerusalem, David becomes "greater and greater," because -- and only because -- God, the leader of all the people's forces, is "with him," even as the same God was with David when he faced Goliath (1 Samuel 17:45).
A shepherd boy made shepherd of Israel and Judah! David's story from his introduction to this enthronement is a tale of remarkable reversal of roles. This the youngest of Jesse's sons who outshines all his brothers (1 Samuel 16:1-13) is now God's anointed. Here is the model of the "yuppie," young and upwardly mobile, and it is a polarity we know all too well: the unexpected rise to success. It's a Horiato Alger story, an Hebraic Abe Lincoln account. David's story (at least to this point) represents the polarities of past and potential, of reality and promise, of obscurity and prominence. Such polarities seem always present in our lives, even if the potential is never fulfilled. We are always haunted by the "might be" of the future of our lives. However, is this the kind of polarity God has in mind for us? Is it always the case that, when "the Lord of hosts" is with us, we rise to success and eminence?
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
No! The pole of success and importance is not what God has in mind for us, or so says Paul. This passage is one of the most famous but problematic of Paul's personal statements. The lesson combines Paul's description of his (or most likely his) experience of being taken into paradise (vv. 1-4) and his insistence that he will not boast except in weakness (vv. 5-10). The reading is nestled within the apostle's closing statements to the Corinthian Christians. He speaks of his suffering as an apostle which entails his right to boast (11:16-30) but claims that he wishes only to boast of his weakness (11:31-33). In verse 33 he recounts his experience of escaping arrest by being lowered out a window in a basket (see Acts 9:23-25 for a slightly different telling of this incident).
That experience of escape leads him to describe an extraordinary religious vision. The "person" Paul claims to know is most likely Paul himself, who wants to refer to his experience modestly. However, he may tell the story in the third person in order to suggest an experience of self-transcendence; he was out beyond his own self. Verses 2-4 are structured in a parallelism. On the one hand, he claims that he is taken into the highest heaven (v. 2) and that he was "caught up into paradise" (v. 40); but on the other hand he does not know the state of his being at the time ("whether in the body or out of the body," vv. 2b and 3a). The experience climaxes with his hearing mysterious things too holy to be told (v. 4).
What Paul describes is like the heavenly journeys writers of apocalyptic literature often claim. (See Revelation 1:9-20 and 12:5 where John uses the verb "caught up.") Such apocalyptic journeys, however, usually provided the seer with a special message to be shared with others. Unlike these journeys, Paul's experience yields knowledge of which he dares not speak. He may be attempting to show his Corinthian readers his credentials for being a preacher and teacher and perhaps countering a charismatic faction in the Corinthian church that claims such extraordinary visions (e.g., 1 Corinthians 12). Later Paul says that his readers have sought just such legitimation that "Christ is speaking in me" (13:3). Still, all we know is simply that Paul claims to have had such a heavenly vision-journey and that he cannot speak what he heard in the other realm.
Having described this exceptional vision, Paul returns to restate his argument in 11:30-33. Even though it is obvious that he has reason to boast, he will not boast "except of my weakness." He wants his readers to know that there are no credentials for apostleship so important as suffering and weakness. To make his point, he refers to another experience -- that of his "thorn in the flesh." Probably there is no other Pauline personal reference that has stirred more discussion and tickled more curiosity than this. Attempts to identify this affliction are without number! Prominent among them is the suggestion that the thorn was some spiritual torment, some sort of physical or mental illness, and the persecution he experienced in the course of his ministry. We cannot identify this "affliction," but we can know how Paul understood it. He believed it continuously prevented him from thinking too highly of himself, and he claims it comes from Satan. ("Too elated" can also be translated "highly exalted" or excessively "uplifted.")
Paul's prayers to be relieved of this burden are met with the message that God's grace is all that he needs and that "power is made perfect in weakness," or finds its completion and maturation in suffering. These words remind us of Paul's earlier argument in response to the divisions in the Corinthian church: "the power of God" in Christ is God's own weakness (1 Corinthian 1:10-25). Paul believes that the polarity of power and weakness is blurred by God and that Christian ministry is found in Christ's own power in weakness. The apostle summarizes this point with another list of the hardships he has suffered and the declaration, "Whenever I am weak, then I am strong" (v. 10).
Paul makes clear that God's act in Christ devastates one of the dominant polarities with which we live. It is the polarity of the 99-pound weakling and the muscular weight lifter, or of the disenfranchised homeless street people and the wheeler-dealers of Wall Street and Washington, D.C. Moreover, the polarity is that of celebrated faith healer and those of us who can hardly muster enough faith to make it through another day. Is the polarity annihilated or is it simply inverted? The poles are reversed, and -- like reversing the poles in an electrical circuit -- sparks fly. To succeed with the Lord of hosts is not necessarily to ascend to power, as did David, but to descend to the depths of death's hell, as Christ did. How there is power in weakness is beyond most of us. We cannot comprehend it. But Mark will show us another image of such a polarity.
Mark 6:1-13
Unlike the Gospel of Luke (see Luke 4:14-30 where this story follows Jesus' temptation in the wilderness), Mark places the story of Jesus' rejection at the synagogue in Nazareth well into the account of his ministry. In doing so, this Gospel suggests that rejection is intermingled with Jesus' acts of power and healing (see chapter 7). The reading includes the account of Jesus' rejection (vv. 1-6b) and his commissioning the twelve disciples (vv. 7b-13).
Returning to his hometown, and since it was customary to invite a visiting rabbi to speak at services, Jesus is asked to teach in the synagogue. Mark tells us nothing about what Jesus taught, only that the crowd was "astounded," wondering how the hometown boy became so learned. They ask a series of questions concerning his source of knowledge, what sort of knowledge it is, what deeds Jesus has done to legitimize his teaching, and whether this is the same Jesus whose family lives in Nazareth. To call Jesus "the son of Mary" is unusual, since lineage was usually traced through the father. The word translated "carpenter" can also mean an artisan of other kinds. If we take the story seriously and as representative of historical fact, Jesus had a number of brothers and sisters.
More importantly, the questions the crowd asks are the same as those others will raise in a variety of forms throughout Jesus' ministry and during his trial. So, too, is the "offense" ("scandalize," skandalizo) typical of what others experience because of Jesus. Jesus explains their rejection of him with a proverb that is represented in a number of places, including some that are outside of the Bible. It captures the simple fact that familiarity breeds contempt or at least freezes one's perception of another. The word "prophet" should not be taken as an indication of the evangelist's view of Jesus but only that Jesus shares the fate of a prophet.
Verse 5 shocks us a bit, apparently as it may have shocked both Matthew and Luke, since both of them have modified it considerably (see Matthew 13:58 and Luke 4:29-30). It sounds as if Jesus' power requires the faith of others, which is not consistently sustained in the Gospel of Mark. Yet the point seems to be that Jesus finds their "unbelief" amazing, and he now experiences for the first time the kind of hostile rejection which is his destiny.
Maybe Mark wants us to see a connection between the story of rejection at Nazareth and the mission of the twelve. Is it the case that Jesus now realizes what he is up against and enlists the ministries of his followers? We can only speculate. What is not speculation is that here for the first time Jesus shares his own ministry with those who follow him. The disciples are not simply learners, soaking it all in for their own benefit; they are apprentice missionaries on Jesus' behalf.
A number of things about the mission are important. The disciples are part of a community with Jesus, and that community goes with them in mission, represented by the fact that they are paired up. Their authority (or "power," exousia) comes from Jesus. He shares his unique power over the demons with his followers, so that they also can minister to others. They are to travel light and not be burdened with anything more than the barest necessities. Jesus then orders them not to move about but to go to one village and work there.
If, however, they are rejected by that village, they are to "shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." Clearly, shaking off the dust of a village as one leaves it is symbolic, but what does it symbolize? We cannot answer that question with any confidence, but among its possible meanings are these three: judgment on those who have rejected them, cleansing oneself of the defilement of Gentiles, and the acknowledgment that they have done all they can and are relieved of responsibility for the fate of the village.
Jesus' own rejection at Nazareth leads him to warn the disciples to be ready for their own experiences of rejection. The summary of the disciples' mission is indeed brief, but it suggests that the twelve not only use their borrowed authority to command demons but also to heal the sick. What is striking about this brief comment is that it shows the disciples' ministry was like their master's. As Jesus had exorcized demons and healed the sick, so too do the disciples. In a similar way, Jesus shares his ministry with the church today, and our ministries are both empowered by Jesus and replicate his.
The esteem of the prophetic office and ministry stand over against rejection and unbelief. The polarity is clear but again there is a radical modification. This wonder-working Galilean teacher is treated with contempt. The disciples, too, must be ready for rejection even though they cast out demons and heal the sick as Jesus did. Christian ministry always entails both privilege and peril. The two are meshed so that we can never boast that we have been chosen to be Christ's agents in this world but are always reminded that our power is in weakness. Christ commissions us with authority, but the power that comes with that authority is always vulnerable because it is at risk of rejection.
Polarities are important in our lives, yet God has a way of eradicating the distance between the poles and even reversing them. There are some polarities offered to us by popular culture that are phoney and misleading. Power is not found in status and station but in service and weakness. The body of Christ in this world today needs the wisdom to identify the false polarities and affirm God's reversal of what we are taught to think of as opposites. That wisdom comes when we are swept up in God's grace by virtue of one who became weak so that we might become strong.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
We have here the account of how David was made king over the tribes of Israel, as well as being king over the tribe of Judah in the South. After the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, of which we heard last Sunday, the men of Judah anointed David as their king, in the city of Hebron (2 Samuel 2:4). But Abner, the commander of Saul's army, declared the son of Saul, Ishbosheth, to be king over Israel in the North (2 Samuel 2:8-9). Israel therefore was made up of a southern and a northern kingdom, with a Saul party and a David party -- a division that accentuated the normal and age-old division between the southern and northern regions of the country. Thus we read in 2 Samuel 3:1, "There was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David; and David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul became weaker and weaker."
Chapters 3 and 4 of 2 Samuel tell us, then, of the cleverness of David in winning the forces and party of Saul to his side. First, when Joab, David's army commander, mistakenly slays Abner, David enters into prolonged mourning for the slain warrior, and we are told that "all the people took notice of it, and it pleased them; as everything that the king did pleased all the people" (2 Samuel 3:36). David is a very clever politician. Second, when two raiders kill Ishbosheth and bring his head to David, thinking that David will be pleased, they themselves are slain. The result is that the elders of the northern tribes come to David, according to our text, and anoint him king over a united Israel.
Our text gives three reasons for the anointing. One, the elders point out that they are of David's race, "bone and flesh" (5:1). Two, they acknowledge rightly that it has always been David who has led Israel in battle and triumphed (5:2; cf. 1 Samuel 18:5, 13, 16). Three, they posit that the Lord has commanded that David become the "shepherd" of his people. There is no such previous word from the Lord in the Samuel books, with the exception of the words of Abigail, the wife of the foolish Nabal, who unconsciously fulfills the role of a prophet by stating that the Lord will appoint David as prince over Israel (1 Samuel 25:30). Sometimes the most unlikely character carries forth the purpose of God.
The terms of David's kingship are notable. Technically, he is not anointed "king" over Israel, but "prince." Why? Because God is the one true king of Israel, and David is but his servant. Similarly, David's reign is established in the context of a covenant with the people. David is thereby subject to the terms of the covenant, as stated in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, and his kingship is conditional upon his obedience to those terms.
Such a conditional covenant stands in contradiction to what we read elsewhere in 2 Samuel. According to 2 Samuel 23:4, God's granting of kingship to David is unconditional -- "an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure." From this time on in Israel's history, there is always therefore a tension connected with Israel's anointing of a king, a tension reflected already in 1 Samuel 8:4-22 and 1 Samuel 9-10 and evident later in the prophetic writings. Israel must have a king to lead her in battle and to defend her against her enemies. But the Lord is the king of Israel, and to demand a human king is to exhibit a lack of trust in the Lord's defense and leading.
That is a quandry that every one of us Christians must deal with every day. How do we meet the necessities of a sinful world and prosper and protect ourselves by our own means, and yet rely totally on the leading and protection of God? In short, how can we live in the world and yet not of it? To give a simple example, we believe that God is sufficient for all our needs, and yet we all buy major medical and life insurance to provide for ourselves and our families, in case of necessity. Or another example: How do we defend ourselves against a Hitler and yet follow the command, "You shall not kill"? The proper and truly Christian courses of action in a world such as ours are not easy to come by.
As David's forty-year reign proceeds, it becomes clear in the stories of 2 Samuel that he does not fully obey the covenant to which his kingship is obligated. He becomes an adulterer, a murderer, and an absolutely terrible father who cannot control his sons. The stories found in 2 Samuel are as hair-raising as any found in modern novels. David is a very, very human monarch in the biblical account, in which, for the first time in history, there is told the truth about a king. And that truth is told to us in 2 Samuel 6 to 1 Kings 2 probably by an eyewitness in David's court. But above all, David's reign is fascinating and of earth-shaking importance because it has to do with the purpose for his world of a loving God, who is truly King. On the Sundays that follow, we shall trace some of the important events concerned with David and that divine purpose.
Lutheran Option -- Ezekiel 2:1-5
This passage forms a small part of the call of the prophet Ezekiel, as he dwelt among the Judean exiles of 597 B.C.in Babylonia, beside a canal called "the river Chebar" (Ezekiel 1:1). The passage follows Ezekiel's overwhelming vision of the glory of the Lord, seated upon his heavenly throne and having something of the appearance of the likeness of a human form (Ezekiel 1:26).
When Ezekiel is given that fantastic vision, he falls prostrate on the ground in fear. But the Lord of glory addresses him. "Son of man, stand upon your feet and I will speak with you" (v. 1). The address emphasizes Ezekiel's mortal weak nature as a human being, over against the divine majesty of God, and the weakness of that nature is demonstrated by the fact that Ezekiel cannot himself regain his feet. If any of us think that we could rise ourselves, unafraid, before the Lord God Almighty, we're just kidding ourselves. Our text is not dealing with our manufactured, friendly little godlets, good Christians. It's dealing with the Lord of the universe, who flung the stars across the heavens and raised the Rocky Mountains, who gives life to all creatures, and holds the destinies of all nations -- and of you and me -- in his hands. So the Spirit of God must raise Ezekiel upright, or he cannot stand. Similarly, by that same powerful Spirit, Ezekiel is enabled to hear God speaking to him.
It is a fearful command that the prophet is given, however. He is sent to a nation of "rebels." That is the most frequent prophetic term for our sin; we are "rebels," subversives in the Kingdom of God, or should we say terrorists run amuck and following our own devices. We're very little different than Israel was in the sixth century B.C. Moreover, claims our text, Israel and we are "impudent and stubborn." And that's a pretty good description of us, is it not? Do we not know of the will of God? Of course we do! We've read it in our Bibles and heard it preached and sung, most of us for most of our lives. Love the Lord with everything in you. Love your neighbor as yourself. Forgive 70 times 7. Deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. Repent and believe in the gospel. Trust and pray at all times. And do we do it? No, much of the time we do not. And so we, like Israel in Ezekiel's time, are a nation of rebels. We have only to read the morning headlines and to examine the depths of our own hearts and wills to realize the truth of that.
But what does God say to Ezekiel? "Say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God,' whether they hear or refuse to hear." Certainly God has no illusions about our hearing and our obedience to his word. He knows what is in us. He knows our actions. So why does he tell Ezekiel to preach to a people who are going to refuse to hear? What good does that do if they don't or won't receive the message?
Ezekiel is going to preach the Word of God, you see, and that's not just the conveying of information or teaching new ideas about the Lord. The Word of God throughout the scriptures is powerful, effective, and active. It brings about that of which it speaks (cf. Isaiah 55:10-11). And so even if the people will not listen to it, God's word will be fulfilled.
What are the words from God that Ezekiel spoke to Israel? He told them that Jerusalem would fall. And it did. But he also told them that God would raise up a new davidic king for them, a good shepherd (Ezekiel 34:23-24), who would feed his sheep, and through that shepherd, God said he would seek the lost and bring back the strayed and bind up the crippled and stengthen the weak (34:16). And that too came to pass, didn't it? For our Lord Jesus Christ told us that he is the Good Shepherd sent by the Father, and through him every one of us rebels can be fed, every one of us lost and strayed can be found and brought back, every one of us crippled by something can be ministered to, and every one of us weak souls can be strengthened. God kept his promises that he spoke through his prophet Ezekiel. He always keeps his promises. For his Word accomplishes that of which it has spoken.
