Successful or faithful?
Commentary
Many church folks feel the congregation and its pastor are not doing a good job if church membership has not grown at an expected rate over the past year. Certainly they have a point. On the basis of the way we evaluate effectiveness and success, the numbers ought to indicate how things are going.
Our lessons for today, especially the first lesson and the gospel account, raise another possibility. Popularity might simply mean that people attend this or that church because they like what they hear, or rather that the preaching and the teaching are fitted to what the audience wants. Giving an unpopular message, like the news that God accepts us not because we are lovable but precisely when we are not, can keep the numbers down. It's not the good old American way! Earn your own way! The Lord helps those who help themselves! That kind of preaching might just pull in the crowds.
Perhaps, however, the issue is not whether the preaching is successful but whether it is faithful.
Jeremiah 28:5-9
The incident recorded in the pericope took place during the reign of Zedekiah, King of Judah. Actually Zedekiah became king in 597 B.C. after the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had carried off King Jehoiachin, along with many other leading citizens, to exile. Nebuchadnezzar placed on the throne Jehoiachin's uncle Mattaniah, whom he renamed Zedekiah. In Judah, as well as in Babylon, there were prophets who told the people that exile was a passing phase and that the situation would be remedied shortly. Hananiah from Gibeon was one of those prophets in Jerusalem.
Chapter 27 reported the new dress code prescribed by the Lord for Jeremiah: sandals and a yoke of straps and bars. His visual demonstration was to support the message that the people of Judah and especially King Zedekiah should submit to the authority of Nebuchadnezzar lest they bring destruction upon themselves and the whole city.
Hananiah came to town announcing that the exile would be over within two years. At that time Nebuchadnezzar would bring back all the vessels he took from the temple in Jerusalem as well as Jehoiachin and the other exiles. Against Jeremiah's costume, Hananiah announced the Lord's word that "I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon" (28:4), and he did that very thing to the symbol around Jeremiah's neck.
Jeremiah's response was classic. First, he expressed his wish that the words of imminent return that Hananiah preached would indeed come true. Nothing could be sweeter. But, second, Jeremiah called for a reality check. His argument was simple: Their predecessors in prophetic office were well-known for their proclamations of judgment on the people for their sins. That's the expected prophetic word. Any other word, such as the promise of peace coming from the lips of Hananiah, would need to be tested by the action predicted.
The question here, of course, focuses on the distinction between true prophecy and false. It was a dilemma for ancient people as it is for us today. Responses to that dilemma were several. At Deuteronomy 13 the issue is not merely that a prophet's word come true but that, even if it does come true, the prophet does not lead the people to idolatry. Here Jeremiah's criterion is based on the notion, increasingly popular in his time and in the exilic period to follow, that what distinguishes the Lord from the idols is that the Lord speaks and causes events to occur while the idols are silent.
Obviously, at the moment of the incident, Hananiah was more popular than Jeremiah simply because he spoke what the people wanted to hear.
Romans 6:12-23
The apostle began the chapter by struggling with the question about sin and grace, questioning rhetorically whether we ought to allow sin to continue in our lives so that grace might have opportunity to abound. He then identified our baptism as participating in the death of Jesus so that we might participate likewise in Jesus' resurrection. All that was God's act, God's indicative, if you will. Now we come to God's imperative, introduced by that all important word "therefore."
The issue in the first section, verses 12-14, is defined in terms of kingdom talk. Paul urges those who have been baptized to recognize that they have entered into the new community of God's reign. Since God is now the king, let not sin reign in your bodies. In short, be who you are! It's a stewardship issue. Live out your identity; manage your entire life in terms of service to the God who brought you out of death to life. Perhaps the point is not simply to be who you are but to be whose you are.
As a transition to the next image, Paul returns to the question he asked in verse 1. "Should we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?" Vehemently denying that option, Paul moves to another image, that of slavery. He argues that previously, that is, before baptism into Christ's death, they were "slaves of sin." As slaves, they obeyed the one who gave them orders. They contributed their bodily members "to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity," and the payment for that loyalty was death.
Now, however, thanks to God's grace given at their baptism, they are freed from their slavery to sin. That's the good news, and the further news is this: you are now, in your freedom, slaves of righteousness. It was God's righteousness that justified them, and it is through slavery to righteousness that the Christians present their bodily members for sanctification. The reasoning seems to run like this: you are whose you are, and now growing in that identity means a different use of your bodies. Becoming who and whose you are is sanctification.
The discussion about slavery is somewhat reminiscent of John 8:31-38. There Jesus addressed the Jews who had come to believe in him. He said there that "everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin," and that the Son of Man sets people free of that slavery.
The imagery is also reminiscent of ancient sacred manumission decrees. Those legal documents describe a process by which a slave, through regular deposits in a temple treasury, can purchase his own freedom in the name of the god who has been holding the money. The slave is for all intents and purposes free, but he now belongs to the god who purchased him. (See C. K. Barrett, The New Testament Background: Selected Documents [London: SPCK, 1958], pages 52-53.)
Finally, over against the slavery to sin that leads only to death, the slavery to righteousness and to God leads to "eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." It's a no-brainer!
Matthew 10:40-42
To come upon a three-verse Gospel lesson in the Revised Common Lectionary is enough to throw the lector and the hearing congregation into shock. Nevertheless, this brief pericope concludes the teaching and commissioning that began with the first verse of the chapter. Jesus had just finished a discourse on the uncompromising call to discipleship, so radical that even family members will be at odds with one another over faith in Jesus. He had earlier indicated that the risk of serving as his disciples was like the danger that lambs experienced among wolves. Now, after reiterating all those dangers of following him, Jesus speaks of the rewards that await them and those who welcome them.
Our few verses focus our sights on (1) the issue of hospitality, (2) the identification of Jesus with God on the one hand and with Christ's missionaries on the other, and (3) the continuing mission of those twelve apostles in the church ever since.
(1) Jesus begins this concluding paragraph of instructions by focusing attention on others welcoming the disciples. Hospitality was a highly regarded value in the Mediterranean world. Without Holiday Inns scattered around the landscape, travelers risked the natural dangers of cold nights and blistering days, as well as the intentional human dangers of robbery and even murder. Welcoming a stranger into your home was the only way to provide protection. We see that expression of hospitality in the story of Lot and the angels in Sodom (Genesis 19) and that of the man and his concubine in Gibeah (Judges 19) -- both stories demonstrating the extent to which a host will go in order to protect his guests.
Abraham and Sarah, of course, welcomed the three strangers to their home where they provided dinner (Genesis 18). One of the three on that occasion was the Lord, and the other two were the angels who later ended up in Lot's house. Likewise Manoah, Samson's father-to-be, welcomed the angel of the Lord (actually the Lord himself) and invited him to dinner (Judges 13). Both stories are sometimes described as befitting a motif called "entertaining a god unawares," that is, when in doubt be kind to a stranger because it might be a god in disguise. More likely, the social expectation suffices for the offering of hospitality.
In the New Testament Jesus welcomed the crowd who had completely interrupted plans Jesus had made with his disciples for some needed rest and relaxation (Luke 9:1), and on several occasions the crowds welcomed Jesus (Luke 8:40; John 4:45). Paul exults in the "welcome we had" among the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:9), and he himself welcomed all who came to him during his sojourn in Rome (Acts 28:30).
In his Epistle to the Romans, however, Paul raised the issue of hospitality to new heights when he made hospitality a theological issue. Paul urges the Roman Christians to "welcome those who are weak in faith" on the basis of the announcement that "God has welcomed him" (Romans 14:1-3). The theologizing of hospitality is, of course, another way of saying that God has reached out and invites into the divine presence all people, even those who waver and doubt and are loaded with questions. That the verb appears here in the aorist tense indicates a single past act, an act that can only be the sacrifice of God's Son on the cross. Likewise, only one chapter later Paul opens the hospitality issue even more broadly when he urges the congregation to "welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God" (15:7). Again the verb form for the welcome of Christ is in the aorist tense, indicating the single act of justification that occurred on the cross.
(2) With all that in mind, we return to Jesus' promise to the commissioned apostles that "whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me." The identification of Jesus with the disciples on the one hand and with God on the other sounds as though we are reading a discourse in the Gospel according to John. Yet here in Matthew the identification issues are by no means unusual.
The identification of Jesus with God becomes particularly clear in the following chapter when Jesus says that "no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him" (11:27). Jesus had earlier in Matthew's Gospel taught the disciples to pray "Our Father" (6:9), as he himself called God Father.
As for the identification of Jesus with the disciples, those who are here described as "one of these little ones" to whom one might give a cup of water, we cannot help but recall the teaching of Jesus about the eschatological judgment at chapter 25:31-46. There Jesus, the Son of Man, clearly identifying himself with the hungry and the thirsty, says, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me." Here the welcoming of "one of the least of these" is nothing less than the welcoming of the Son of Man, quite like the welcoming of "one of these little ones" in our pericope.
(3) The mention of prophets, righteous persons, and disciples provides a picture of the community in which Matthew lived and wrote. Bands of people, wandering missionaries, carried the message of Jesus from congregation to congregation, always depending on the hospitality of people in those communities. Those various groups of evangelists represent the extension of the mission from the original twelve to the whole church, not only in the days of Matthew but in our own day as well. The call to participate in God's mission did not end with the deaths of the twelve men listed at the beginning of the chapter. Rather that call extends to the whole church, the call to announce the kingdom of God and to demonstrate its nearness through acts of healing and preaching.
If that ministry does not prove successful, it will certainly be faithful!
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
lizabeth Achtemeier
Genesis 22:1-14
We must not water down this text. It has often been said that, coming from a pagan Mesopotamia background, Abraham mistakenly believed that God wanted him to sacrifice Isaac. And once even the wife of Martin Luther objected, "Martin, I don't believe God would ask anyone to sacrifice his only son." But the text is to be taken quite seriously. "God tested Abraham." And that test comes after "these things." Well, what things? Certainly Abraham's initial doubt that God could give him a son in his old age, and Abraham's admonition to the Lord to do right, in chapter 19, and his need to be corrected by God in the story of Hagar and Ishmael. Abraham's faith is on the line in this story in Genesis 22, and the question is: Will he pass the test?
The emotional depth of this story can only be sensed by reading it slowly and aloud, with emphasis on the repetitions. Repeatedly we find "your son," "his son," "my father," "they went both of them together." The language is sparse and unsentimental, but the repetitions leave no doubt of the love between the innocent son and his anguished father. Not a word is said about Sarah or about how Abraham and Isaac feel, but we cannot read the story carefully and not know how they feel.
Yet, Abraham, in obedience to God's command, rises early and saddles his ass, and taking two of his servants and a bundle of wood for the burnt offering, sets out with his son, his only son Isaac, to go to the land of Moriah where there is a mountain of sacrifice. In tenderness up to the end, Abraham himself carries the fire and the knife, lest the young boy hurt himself with them. And his faith, in answer to Isaac's wondering question, is: "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son."
The sacrifice is not carried out, because God provides a word of halt and a substituting ram, and Abraham is shown to have passed the test of his faith. The question was: Whom does Abraham trust? He has been granted the gift of Isaac in fulfillment of God's promise. But now does he trust the gift and cling to Isaac, in defiance of God, or does he trust the Giver? Does he trust that God knows what he is doing and is keeping his promise of descendants? Because Abraham finally trusts God, the promise of the Lord to him is renewed (cf. Genesis 12:1-3), and Abraham becomes the progenitor of all of the covenant people, including you and me.
That same test of trust was what our Lord faced too in the Garden of Gethsemane. As the cross lay before him, did he trust that his Father knew what he was doing in asking his sacrifice? When Martin Luther's wife objected to God's demand that Abraham sacrifice his only son, Luther replied, "But, Katie, God did." And the story of the sacrifice of Jesus is very similar to this one in Genesis. Legend has it that Moriah became the site of Jerusalem. And like Isaac, Jesus journeyed to Moriah in the company of his Father. But there is little there too that the Father and Son say to one another on the journey -- only that prayer in the garden, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." The answer Jesus receives is the same as Isaac's: "The sacrifice must be carried out, my Son." Like Isaac, Jesus carries the wood up the hill, until he is relieved of the burden by Simon of Cyrene. Like Isaac, Jesus is laid out upon the wood. And as the knife was raised above Isaac, so the hammer is raised above Jesus. But there is no substituting ram to save our Lord from the awful death, no rescuing Elijah, no miraculous descent from the torture of the cross.
Our question to both Genesis 22 and to the story of the crucifixion is: Why? And the answer is the same in both instances. God is carrying out his purpose of saving his world. Through Abraham's faith, God can continue his work of salvation with Israel. And with Christ's death and resurrection, God can bring the story to its climax, overcoming by the cross and empty tomb our sin and our death.
Lutheran Option -- Jeremiah 28:5-9
The setting of this text is in Jerusalem, shortly after 597 B.C., when the armies of Babylonia have conquered Jerusalem and carried off most of its leaders, artisans, warriors, and upper class to exile in Babylonia, along with an enormous booty and the temple treasures. The davidic king Jehoichin has been replaced on the throne by the puppet Zedekiah, Judah's territory has been greatly reduced, and she is left with virtually no political leaders or economic resources. Intrigue and insurrection against the Babylonian yoke are rife in the capital city, however, fed by a pro-Egyptian party, and by popular prophets.
One of those prophets is Hananiah, who is telling the people that within two years, Babylonia will be defeated and all of the exiles and treasures will be returned to Judah (Jeremiah 28:1-4). The prophet Jeremiah, on the other hand, knows that the exile is God's judgment on Judah's sinful ways and that the exile will be long. Therefore Jeremiah writes a letter to the exiles in Babylonia, urging them to settle down there, to build houses and plant gardens, to intermarry with the foreigners, and even to pray for Babylonia, for God can be found in Babylonia as well as in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 29:1-14). To symbolize the fact that the Judeans should submit to Babylonia and not revolt, Jeremiah is commanded to wear a wooden yoke on his neck (Jeremiah 27:1-12). Hananiah, however, breaks the yoke, whereupon Jeremiah replaces it with a yoke of iron (28:10-17).
Two emphases run through our text. First is the refusal of the prophet Hananiah and of the Judeans to admit their sin and thus to understand their defeat by Babylonia as the judgment of God. That is a familiar view among us, is it not, to refuse to see any calamity as God's judgment on our sin? Indeed, it is very hard for us even to admit that we have done wrong. Right and wrong are relative terms these days, and when we or others commit wrong, we often rationalize it as a mistake or a "goof," or as the result of circumstances at the time. Maybe we or the perpetrator were tired, or had been drinking or were on drugs. Maybe someone else was a bad influence, or our parents did not raise us right. Maybe the poor environment was the cause, and there should be a massive government spending program to correct that. We are not to blame. It's someone else's responsibility, and, of course, God won't judge us for that. But we daily experience the judgment of God in our wrecked marriages, our crime-ridden cities, our children gone awry, our sex-saturated society. We are responsible to God for what we do, as Judah was responsible. And we cannot escape the effects of that.
The second emphasis of our text rises from the first and concerns the validity of the Word of God. Hananiah has been prophesying peace, harmony, good to the people, and Jeremiah is willing to say that perhaps Hananiah is correct. But there is a test of that word of prophecy: Does it come to pass? Is that what the Judeans are going to receive? The implication of course is that the true Word of God is always fulfilled, and so the Judeans can tell the difference between the true and the false prophet by their fruits (cf. Matthew 7:16).
Jeremiah knows that the false prophets through the years have been preaching, "peace, peace," when there is no peace with God (Jeremiah 6:14; 8:11). And he also knows that the people are responsible to God for their sins. Thus the text stands as a warning to all of us to "beware of false prophets, who come to (us) in sheep's clothing" (Matthew 7:15). Beware of those who tell you that you can have the good life, success, happiness from God without the necessity of confessing or even acknowledging your sins and your responsibility to God for them. A lot of the religious messages we hear these days from the false prophets of our time are designed just to make us feel good about ourselves. But does God feel good about you and what you do? That is the question to ask.
Our lessons for today, especially the first lesson and the gospel account, raise another possibility. Popularity might simply mean that people attend this or that church because they like what they hear, or rather that the preaching and the teaching are fitted to what the audience wants. Giving an unpopular message, like the news that God accepts us not because we are lovable but precisely when we are not, can keep the numbers down. It's not the good old American way! Earn your own way! The Lord helps those who help themselves! That kind of preaching might just pull in the crowds.
Perhaps, however, the issue is not whether the preaching is successful but whether it is faithful.
Jeremiah 28:5-9
The incident recorded in the pericope took place during the reign of Zedekiah, King of Judah. Actually Zedekiah became king in 597 B.C. after the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had carried off King Jehoiachin, along with many other leading citizens, to exile. Nebuchadnezzar placed on the throne Jehoiachin's uncle Mattaniah, whom he renamed Zedekiah. In Judah, as well as in Babylon, there were prophets who told the people that exile was a passing phase and that the situation would be remedied shortly. Hananiah from Gibeon was one of those prophets in Jerusalem.
Chapter 27 reported the new dress code prescribed by the Lord for Jeremiah: sandals and a yoke of straps and bars. His visual demonstration was to support the message that the people of Judah and especially King Zedekiah should submit to the authority of Nebuchadnezzar lest they bring destruction upon themselves and the whole city.
Hananiah came to town announcing that the exile would be over within two years. At that time Nebuchadnezzar would bring back all the vessels he took from the temple in Jerusalem as well as Jehoiachin and the other exiles. Against Jeremiah's costume, Hananiah announced the Lord's word that "I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon" (28:4), and he did that very thing to the symbol around Jeremiah's neck.
Jeremiah's response was classic. First, he expressed his wish that the words of imminent return that Hananiah preached would indeed come true. Nothing could be sweeter. But, second, Jeremiah called for a reality check. His argument was simple: Their predecessors in prophetic office were well-known for their proclamations of judgment on the people for their sins. That's the expected prophetic word. Any other word, such as the promise of peace coming from the lips of Hananiah, would need to be tested by the action predicted.
The question here, of course, focuses on the distinction between true prophecy and false. It was a dilemma for ancient people as it is for us today. Responses to that dilemma were several. At Deuteronomy 13 the issue is not merely that a prophet's word come true but that, even if it does come true, the prophet does not lead the people to idolatry. Here Jeremiah's criterion is based on the notion, increasingly popular in his time and in the exilic period to follow, that what distinguishes the Lord from the idols is that the Lord speaks and causes events to occur while the idols are silent.
Obviously, at the moment of the incident, Hananiah was more popular than Jeremiah simply because he spoke what the people wanted to hear.
Romans 6:12-23
The apostle began the chapter by struggling with the question about sin and grace, questioning rhetorically whether we ought to allow sin to continue in our lives so that grace might have opportunity to abound. He then identified our baptism as participating in the death of Jesus so that we might participate likewise in Jesus' resurrection. All that was God's act, God's indicative, if you will. Now we come to God's imperative, introduced by that all important word "therefore."
The issue in the first section, verses 12-14, is defined in terms of kingdom talk. Paul urges those who have been baptized to recognize that they have entered into the new community of God's reign. Since God is now the king, let not sin reign in your bodies. In short, be who you are! It's a stewardship issue. Live out your identity; manage your entire life in terms of service to the God who brought you out of death to life. Perhaps the point is not simply to be who you are but to be whose you are.
As a transition to the next image, Paul returns to the question he asked in verse 1. "Should we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?" Vehemently denying that option, Paul moves to another image, that of slavery. He argues that previously, that is, before baptism into Christ's death, they were "slaves of sin." As slaves, they obeyed the one who gave them orders. They contributed their bodily members "to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity," and the payment for that loyalty was death.
Now, however, thanks to God's grace given at their baptism, they are freed from their slavery to sin. That's the good news, and the further news is this: you are now, in your freedom, slaves of righteousness. It was God's righteousness that justified them, and it is through slavery to righteousness that the Christians present their bodily members for sanctification. The reasoning seems to run like this: you are whose you are, and now growing in that identity means a different use of your bodies. Becoming who and whose you are is sanctification.
The discussion about slavery is somewhat reminiscent of John 8:31-38. There Jesus addressed the Jews who had come to believe in him. He said there that "everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin," and that the Son of Man sets people free of that slavery.
The imagery is also reminiscent of ancient sacred manumission decrees. Those legal documents describe a process by which a slave, through regular deposits in a temple treasury, can purchase his own freedom in the name of the god who has been holding the money. The slave is for all intents and purposes free, but he now belongs to the god who purchased him. (See C. K. Barrett, The New Testament Background: Selected Documents [London: SPCK, 1958], pages 52-53.)
Finally, over against the slavery to sin that leads only to death, the slavery to righteousness and to God leads to "eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." It's a no-brainer!
Matthew 10:40-42
To come upon a three-verse Gospel lesson in the Revised Common Lectionary is enough to throw the lector and the hearing congregation into shock. Nevertheless, this brief pericope concludes the teaching and commissioning that began with the first verse of the chapter. Jesus had just finished a discourse on the uncompromising call to discipleship, so radical that even family members will be at odds with one another over faith in Jesus. He had earlier indicated that the risk of serving as his disciples was like the danger that lambs experienced among wolves. Now, after reiterating all those dangers of following him, Jesus speaks of the rewards that await them and those who welcome them.
Our few verses focus our sights on (1) the issue of hospitality, (2) the identification of Jesus with God on the one hand and with Christ's missionaries on the other, and (3) the continuing mission of those twelve apostles in the church ever since.
(1) Jesus begins this concluding paragraph of instructions by focusing attention on others welcoming the disciples. Hospitality was a highly regarded value in the Mediterranean world. Without Holiday Inns scattered around the landscape, travelers risked the natural dangers of cold nights and blistering days, as well as the intentional human dangers of robbery and even murder. Welcoming a stranger into your home was the only way to provide protection. We see that expression of hospitality in the story of Lot and the angels in Sodom (Genesis 19) and that of the man and his concubine in Gibeah (Judges 19) -- both stories demonstrating the extent to which a host will go in order to protect his guests.
Abraham and Sarah, of course, welcomed the three strangers to their home where they provided dinner (Genesis 18). One of the three on that occasion was the Lord, and the other two were the angels who later ended up in Lot's house. Likewise Manoah, Samson's father-to-be, welcomed the angel of the Lord (actually the Lord himself) and invited him to dinner (Judges 13). Both stories are sometimes described as befitting a motif called "entertaining a god unawares," that is, when in doubt be kind to a stranger because it might be a god in disguise. More likely, the social expectation suffices for the offering of hospitality.
In the New Testament Jesus welcomed the crowd who had completely interrupted plans Jesus had made with his disciples for some needed rest and relaxation (Luke 9:1), and on several occasions the crowds welcomed Jesus (Luke 8:40; John 4:45). Paul exults in the "welcome we had" among the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:9), and he himself welcomed all who came to him during his sojourn in Rome (Acts 28:30).
In his Epistle to the Romans, however, Paul raised the issue of hospitality to new heights when he made hospitality a theological issue. Paul urges the Roman Christians to "welcome those who are weak in faith" on the basis of the announcement that "God has welcomed him" (Romans 14:1-3). The theologizing of hospitality is, of course, another way of saying that God has reached out and invites into the divine presence all people, even those who waver and doubt and are loaded with questions. That the verb appears here in the aorist tense indicates a single past act, an act that can only be the sacrifice of God's Son on the cross. Likewise, only one chapter later Paul opens the hospitality issue even more broadly when he urges the congregation to "welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God" (15:7). Again the verb form for the welcome of Christ is in the aorist tense, indicating the single act of justification that occurred on the cross.
(2) With all that in mind, we return to Jesus' promise to the commissioned apostles that "whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me." The identification of Jesus with the disciples on the one hand and with God on the other sounds as though we are reading a discourse in the Gospel according to John. Yet here in Matthew the identification issues are by no means unusual.
The identification of Jesus with God becomes particularly clear in the following chapter when Jesus says that "no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him" (11:27). Jesus had earlier in Matthew's Gospel taught the disciples to pray "Our Father" (6:9), as he himself called God Father.
As for the identification of Jesus with the disciples, those who are here described as "one of these little ones" to whom one might give a cup of water, we cannot help but recall the teaching of Jesus about the eschatological judgment at chapter 25:31-46. There Jesus, the Son of Man, clearly identifying himself with the hungry and the thirsty, says, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me." Here the welcoming of "one of the least of these" is nothing less than the welcoming of the Son of Man, quite like the welcoming of "one of these little ones" in our pericope.
(3) The mention of prophets, righteous persons, and disciples provides a picture of the community in which Matthew lived and wrote. Bands of people, wandering missionaries, carried the message of Jesus from congregation to congregation, always depending on the hospitality of people in those communities. Those various groups of evangelists represent the extension of the mission from the original twelve to the whole church, not only in the days of Matthew but in our own day as well. The call to participate in God's mission did not end with the deaths of the twelve men listed at the beginning of the chapter. Rather that call extends to the whole church, the call to announce the kingdom of God and to demonstrate its nearness through acts of healing and preaching.
If that ministry does not prove successful, it will certainly be faithful!
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
lizabeth Achtemeier
Genesis 22:1-14
We must not water down this text. It has often been said that, coming from a pagan Mesopotamia background, Abraham mistakenly believed that God wanted him to sacrifice Isaac. And once even the wife of Martin Luther objected, "Martin, I don't believe God would ask anyone to sacrifice his only son." But the text is to be taken quite seriously. "God tested Abraham." And that test comes after "these things." Well, what things? Certainly Abraham's initial doubt that God could give him a son in his old age, and Abraham's admonition to the Lord to do right, in chapter 19, and his need to be corrected by God in the story of Hagar and Ishmael. Abraham's faith is on the line in this story in Genesis 22, and the question is: Will he pass the test?
The emotional depth of this story can only be sensed by reading it slowly and aloud, with emphasis on the repetitions. Repeatedly we find "your son," "his son," "my father," "they went both of them together." The language is sparse and unsentimental, but the repetitions leave no doubt of the love between the innocent son and his anguished father. Not a word is said about Sarah or about how Abraham and Isaac feel, but we cannot read the story carefully and not know how they feel.
Yet, Abraham, in obedience to God's command, rises early and saddles his ass, and taking two of his servants and a bundle of wood for the burnt offering, sets out with his son, his only son Isaac, to go to the land of Moriah where there is a mountain of sacrifice. In tenderness up to the end, Abraham himself carries the fire and the knife, lest the young boy hurt himself with them. And his faith, in answer to Isaac's wondering question, is: "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son."
The sacrifice is not carried out, because God provides a word of halt and a substituting ram, and Abraham is shown to have passed the test of his faith. The question was: Whom does Abraham trust? He has been granted the gift of Isaac in fulfillment of God's promise. But now does he trust the gift and cling to Isaac, in defiance of God, or does he trust the Giver? Does he trust that God knows what he is doing and is keeping his promise of descendants? Because Abraham finally trusts God, the promise of the Lord to him is renewed (cf. Genesis 12:1-3), and Abraham becomes the progenitor of all of the covenant people, including you and me.
That same test of trust was what our Lord faced too in the Garden of Gethsemane. As the cross lay before him, did he trust that his Father knew what he was doing in asking his sacrifice? When Martin Luther's wife objected to God's demand that Abraham sacrifice his only son, Luther replied, "But, Katie, God did." And the story of the sacrifice of Jesus is very similar to this one in Genesis. Legend has it that Moriah became the site of Jerusalem. And like Isaac, Jesus journeyed to Moriah in the company of his Father. But there is little there too that the Father and Son say to one another on the journey -- only that prayer in the garden, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." The answer Jesus receives is the same as Isaac's: "The sacrifice must be carried out, my Son." Like Isaac, Jesus carries the wood up the hill, until he is relieved of the burden by Simon of Cyrene. Like Isaac, Jesus is laid out upon the wood. And as the knife was raised above Isaac, so the hammer is raised above Jesus. But there is no substituting ram to save our Lord from the awful death, no rescuing Elijah, no miraculous descent from the torture of the cross.
Our question to both Genesis 22 and to the story of the crucifixion is: Why? And the answer is the same in both instances. God is carrying out his purpose of saving his world. Through Abraham's faith, God can continue his work of salvation with Israel. And with Christ's death and resurrection, God can bring the story to its climax, overcoming by the cross and empty tomb our sin and our death.
Lutheran Option -- Jeremiah 28:5-9
The setting of this text is in Jerusalem, shortly after 597 B.C., when the armies of Babylonia have conquered Jerusalem and carried off most of its leaders, artisans, warriors, and upper class to exile in Babylonia, along with an enormous booty and the temple treasures. The davidic king Jehoichin has been replaced on the throne by the puppet Zedekiah, Judah's territory has been greatly reduced, and she is left with virtually no political leaders or economic resources. Intrigue and insurrection against the Babylonian yoke are rife in the capital city, however, fed by a pro-Egyptian party, and by popular prophets.
One of those prophets is Hananiah, who is telling the people that within two years, Babylonia will be defeated and all of the exiles and treasures will be returned to Judah (Jeremiah 28:1-4). The prophet Jeremiah, on the other hand, knows that the exile is God's judgment on Judah's sinful ways and that the exile will be long. Therefore Jeremiah writes a letter to the exiles in Babylonia, urging them to settle down there, to build houses and plant gardens, to intermarry with the foreigners, and even to pray for Babylonia, for God can be found in Babylonia as well as in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 29:1-14). To symbolize the fact that the Judeans should submit to Babylonia and not revolt, Jeremiah is commanded to wear a wooden yoke on his neck (Jeremiah 27:1-12). Hananiah, however, breaks the yoke, whereupon Jeremiah replaces it with a yoke of iron (28:10-17).
Two emphases run through our text. First is the refusal of the prophet Hananiah and of the Judeans to admit their sin and thus to understand their defeat by Babylonia as the judgment of God. That is a familiar view among us, is it not, to refuse to see any calamity as God's judgment on our sin? Indeed, it is very hard for us even to admit that we have done wrong. Right and wrong are relative terms these days, and when we or others commit wrong, we often rationalize it as a mistake or a "goof," or as the result of circumstances at the time. Maybe we or the perpetrator were tired, or had been drinking or were on drugs. Maybe someone else was a bad influence, or our parents did not raise us right. Maybe the poor environment was the cause, and there should be a massive government spending program to correct that. We are not to blame. It's someone else's responsibility, and, of course, God won't judge us for that. But we daily experience the judgment of God in our wrecked marriages, our crime-ridden cities, our children gone awry, our sex-saturated society. We are responsible to God for what we do, as Judah was responsible. And we cannot escape the effects of that.
The second emphasis of our text rises from the first and concerns the validity of the Word of God. Hananiah has been prophesying peace, harmony, good to the people, and Jeremiah is willing to say that perhaps Hananiah is correct. But there is a test of that word of prophecy: Does it come to pass? Is that what the Judeans are going to receive? The implication of course is that the true Word of God is always fulfilled, and so the Judeans can tell the difference between the true and the false prophet by their fruits (cf. Matthew 7:16).
Jeremiah knows that the false prophets through the years have been preaching, "peace, peace," when there is no peace with God (Jeremiah 6:14; 8:11). And he also knows that the people are responsible to God for their sins. Thus the text stands as a warning to all of us to "beware of false prophets, who come to (us) in sheep's clothing" (Matthew 7:15). Beware of those who tell you that you can have the good life, success, happiness from God without the necessity of confessing or even acknowledging your sins and your responsibility to God for them. A lot of the religious messages we hear these days from the false prophets of our time are designed just to make us feel good about ourselves. But does God feel good about you and what you do? That is the question to ask.
