Time for celebration
Commentary
As we join our fellow citizens to celebrate the 223rd birthday of our country, we also join our sisters and brothers in Christ around the world in celebrating the ongoing but always precious presence of the Lord in our midst. We can celebrate the presence of one so powerful only because that same Lord is the one we know as humble and gentle, hospitable and gracious, faithful and ultimately victorious.
Our world is filled with people who live in fear of God. Their view of God is that of a police officer out to catch them in some misdemeanor, or a judge who passes sentence on the basis of the arrest. Living with that kind of God would make God the last one a person would want to see or to have walking side by side or to have present at our meals. Undoubtedly they learned that view from someone else, perhaps from a strict or abusive parent or even from a certain kind of preacher.
Our lessons for this Sunday offer a view of God that is enough to make us throw a party simply because it is a humble and gentle Lord who shows up to be with us.
Zechariah 9:9-12
The first eight chapters of Zechariah's book differ considerably from Chapters 9 through 14, so much so that the latter section is assigned to someone other than the prophet of the sixth century B.C. These latter chapters are apocalyptic in tone, and so they look forward to the future universal reign of God.
The ninth chapter consists of three oracles: verses 1-8, 9-
10, and 11-17. The first describes the conquest of Syria, Phoenicia, and Philistia by the Greek armies of Alexander the Great (thus after 323 B.C.); the second depicts the victory over the Greeks by the Lord's Messiah; the third, the gathering of the dispersed exiles under the protection of the Lord. Our pericope, therefore, straddles two oracles.
The first verse of the lesson brings immediately to mind Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and is quoted in that context at Matthew 21:5. The call to Jerusalem to "rejoice greatly" sounds much like other celebrative passages that welcome, however, not the Messiah but the presence of the Lord. At the conclusion of the brief chapter of Isaiah 12, Zion is called to "shout aloud and sing for joy" at the Lord's presence. The eschatological event of Zephaniah 3:14-20 opens with the similar call to the "daughter of Zion" to "sing aloud" and "rejoice" (v. 14) because "the king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst" (v. 15). The prophet Zechariah calls on the "daughter of Zion" to "sing and rejoice" because the Lord promises to "come and dwell in your midst" (2:10). The message is clear: the Lord's presence is cause for celebration! The call to rejoice obviously derives from a view of God that is not only royal but exciting and positive for the entire community that welcomes him.
That in our pericope "your king" comes riding on a donkey probably indicates a transference of the celebration from the Lord's presence to that of the Lord's anointed. The entrance into the city on a donkey calls to mind the coronation ceremony of Solomon at 1 Kings 1:38, 44. His role will be to establish universal peace. The description of his dominion "from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth" is strikingly reminiscent of the reign of the Davidic king in the royal Psalm 72 (v. 8).
The third oracle in the chapter begins with direct speech from the Lord. His promise to "set your prisoners free" on the basis of "the blood of my covenant with you" calls to mind the only covenant made with blood in the Old Testament, that which took place at the foot of Mount Sinai through Moses (Exodus 24:3-
8). That covenant relationship provides the motive for the freeing of the prisoners from suppression by Greece (see v. 13). That the restoration of the people's fortunes will be "double" indicates the Lord's action will make up for the Lord's punishment of the people during the Babylonian exile two centuries earlier when Israel paid double for her sins (see Isaiah 40:2). The restoration here sounds much like the conclusion to the Book of Job where the "Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before" (Job 42:10).
Romans 7:15-25a
While we celebrate this day the independence of our country won in the Revolutionary War, this pericope calls to mind civil war. The civil war here is not the War Between the States but the battle that is waged within each of us, even though we have been justified and counted righteous by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the two paragraphs of our lesson Paul indicates as powerfully as possible that we are simultaneously righteous and sinner. First, he expresses candidly that he does not understand his own actions. Like the song "The Silver-Tongued Devil and I," written and performed some years ago by Kris Kristofferson, the good and the bad are all wrapped up in the same person. It is one thing to know and to will what is right; it is another thing to do it. The reason for the dilemma is simple: "sin that dwells within me" (v. 20).
Second, the civil war occurs between and among various laws, at least, as Paul uses the term "law" in this paragraph. On the one side are "the law of God" and "the law of my mind." These laws might refer to the law of Moses in which Paul grew up, or they might be the natural law that is written on the human heart. In either case, they are the principle of right and wrong, the knowledge that as human beings we love God and protect the life and property of our neighbors. On the other side of the war is the "law" or principle that evil is never far away, even when the believer wants to do good (v. 21). An ally in that struggle is the law of the members of the body that captivate the believer to "the law of sin" (v. 23).
Paul was not unusual in his time in seeing this dynamic battle raging within him. The rabbis of the time also spoke of a good inclination and an evil one that fight it out on the battlefield of our personalities. For the rabbis the battle could be won by submerging oneself in total obedience to the law or torah of God. For Paul, however, the law (of God and Moses) only served to reveal the sin that captivated him and drove him to this maddening existence.
The apostle ends the argument (at least as far as our pericope is concerned) by exposing his wretchedness and by pleading for an answer to the question: "Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
The answer is one of thanksgiving and celebration. Paul knows the answer as he asks the question: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" That conclusion forces us to acknowledge that there is no way out of the dilemma apart from Christ, but with Christ, not the law, even the law of God, is the hope and trust that the victory has already been won, and ultimately and triumphantly we will march into the kingdom where will and behavior are one and the same.
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Jesus had just finished talking to the crowds about John the Baptist. The conversation began with the appearance of John's disciples, who were sent by their master to ask if Jesus were "the one to come or do we look for another?" (vv. 2-3). Jesus responded by pointing them to the miracles of the kingdom he had been performing (vv. 4-5) and promising blessing to anyone who took no offense at Jesus (v. 6). When he had finished addressing those disciples, they left, leaving Jesus to explain to the remaining crowds that John was "Elijah who is to come" (v. 14).
Now that Jesus was on the subject of John, he continued by speaking of the people's lack of response to either one of them. Jesus used the playful analogy of children calling out to others to play -- either to pretend they were involved in a dance or to play funeral. That Jesus goes on immediately to describe the rejection of John as a demon when he neither ate nor drank (the funeral image) and the accusation of himself as a glutton and drunkard because he eats and drinks (the dance image) indicates the people have responded to neither one of them. The reader will recall that in Matthew's Gospel they both shared the same sermon: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near" (John at 3:2; Jesus at 4:17). In the following verses, omitted from our pericope, Jesus upbraided the cities where most of his miracles had been performed because they did not heed his sermon of repentance (vv. 20-24).
Leaping over those verses, the pericope nevertheless makes a transition from the rejection of John and Jesus in verses 16-19 to the speech in verses 25-30 by including the otherwise puzzling comment, "Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." (The parallel at Luke 7:35 reads here, "Nevertheless wisdom is vindicated by all her children.") After discussing verses 25-30 we will return to this saying.
Jesus offers thanksgiving to God for having hidden "these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants." The expression "wise and intelligent" appears only once in the Old Testament, and there it is used positively for the people of Israel because they have obeyed the law (Deuteronomy 4:6; see, however, Jeremiah 8:8-9). In the New Testament it appears also at Luke 10:21 and James 3:13 as a caricature of those who think they are wise and intelligent but are not. That "these things" are given to infants indicates it is not by worldly wisdom and reason that God reveals the identity of the Son.
The relationship between the Father and Jesus is indeed the issue, as the following verses indicate. Only the Father knows Jesus the Son, and only Jesus the Son knows the Father. The "knowing" here is not intellectual but relational, thus the expression "know in the biblical sense." Yet as much as this saying appears to "keep it in the family," Jesus indicates the expansion of the family by adding "and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Thus Jesus becomes the source of knowledge for people to know God. As John's Jesus will put it in another setting: "No one comes to the Father but by me."
Now Jesus invites the weary to come to him so that he might give them rest. Surprisingly, while elsewhere he talked about taking up the cross to follow him, here Jesus indicates that, gentle and humble that he is, "my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." The words are more a description of Jesus' identity than a call to discipleship. The words, in fact, identify Jesus as Wisdom.
At the end of the apocryphal book The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, the author writes of Wisdom words that are virtually identical to those of Jesus in verses 28-30. He calls on his readers to "draw near to me" and to "put your neck under her yoke," admitting that "I have labored but little and found for myself much serenity" (Sirach 51:23-27). In Sirach Wisdom is, like the Word, that which comes from the mouth of the Lord (24:1-3). In Proverbs 8:22-31 Wisdom is the little child who plays alongside the Creator while the universe is constructed. There are so many parallels to Wisdom and Word that some scholars explain the origin of the Prologue to John's Gospel in wisdom traditions. The apostle Paul, of course, thirty years prior to Matthew's Gospel, wrote of Christ crucified as the "power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30).
When Jesus spoke the words of verses 28-30 he spoke not simply wisdom but as Wisdom. Like Wisdom in the tradition, Jesus was the means by which people came to know God, and so "no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
That speech of verses 7 through 30 ends with the identification of Jesus as Wisdom; we can perhaps make some sense out of the obscure statement at the end of verse 19: "Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." Jesus had in the previous verse spoken of his eating and drinking and of the accusation that he was a glutton and a drunkard. Not surprisingly, in the traditions Wisdom too was a party animal. Wisdom invited the simple, the uninstructed, to "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed" (Proverbs 9:5). Perhaps that reputation helps us understand Jesus' comment, "Yet wisdom is vindicated ...," as the summary of his speech about his eating and drinking.
The pericope affirms the age-old saying: "It is not what you know that counts; it's whom you know." The one that we know is, first of all, Jesus the Son, who like the Anointed One in Zechariah 9:9 is "humble" (v. 29). He is also, like Wisdom, hospitable, as is evident by his invitation to "come to me," so that he can feed us what we need in order to know the Father.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
God has promised Abraham that he will be the forbear of many descendants. To begin to fulfill that promise, God has granted the aged Abraham and Sarah a son, Isaac. That is the context of this story that must never be forgotten.
But now Isaac is grown to marriageable age and Abraham must find a suitable wife for him, as was the custom. Abraham is probably at Hebron in this story, but Isaac must not be wed to a Canaanite woman who worships the foreign fertility gods of the region. Abraham therefore binds his servant (a steward here) by an oath (24:1-9) to seek out a woman from Abraham's own clan in Haran in upper Mesopotamia, from which Abraham had migrated.
The emphasis of the story is on the hidden guidance of God. The verses of our passage repeat the account of the events that take place in verses 10-33, and at every point, God's influence determines what happens. Abraham's wealth has been a gift from God (v. 35). God's angel accompanies the servant and "prospers" his way (v. 40). God gives heed to the prayer of the servant (vv. 42-44) and prompts Rebekah's actions to be the sign that identifies her as God's appointed wife for Isaac (vv. 42-46).
Once Rebekah is identified as the chosen wife, every character in the story acknowledges that God's has been the guiding hand -- the servant (v. 48); Laban, Rebekah's brother, and her father Bethuel (v. 50); by implication, Rebekah in her willingness to depart immediately for Canaan rather than to wait the accustomed ten days (vv. 56-59); and finally Isaac who, upon hearing the servant's account of the journey, immediately takes Rebekah as his wife (vv. 66-67). This is not merely a charming human story, but a testimony to the specific acts of God as he works to fulfill his promise. Thus does the God of the Bible work his hidden will in the lives of his chosen people.
The character of Rebekah is revealed. She is not only beautiful (v. 16), but unselfish. To water the servant's camels, she repeatedly must climb down stairs to the hole from which the spring flows, and then carry the heavy water jar back up and empty it into the watering trough beside the well. She also is pious, trusting that the servant is in fact following God's leading, and placing her future in his hands. And Rebekah is loving (v. 67), a wife who merits Jacob's love and gives him comfort after the death of his mother (v. 67).
Note that there is no thought here that a wife is simply property to be bought by a man -- a common misconception about marriage in the Old Testament. Isaac pays the accustomed bride price with the jewels that the servant gives to Rebekah (v. 22) and to her mother and brother (v. 53), but this is a marriage of love, not of convenience or commerce. Many passages in the Old Testament hold marriage in high regard (cf. Genesis 2:23-25; 29:20; Malachi 2:14).
The blessing that Rebekah's family gives her as she departs forms an ironic touch to the story. They wish her multiple descendants (v. 60), but she is initially barren (Genesis 25:21). an obstacle to the fulfillment of the promise that God himself must overcome, in answer to Isaac's prayer. Throughout these patriarchal narratives God is the principal subject, as indeed, he is the principle actor throughout the scriptures and in our lives. God is continually at work to keep his word. We can count on it.
Lutheran Option -- Zechariah 9:9-12
This passage which is often used in connection with Palm Sunday, but which also finds its place in this Pentecost season in connection with the latter part of the gospel lesson of Matthew 11:25-29, is sometimes misinterpreted. The passage forms an announcement of the coming of the davidic messianic king to Jerusalem, and that which sermons often emphasize is the humility of that king. Thus, the reading is made to fit nicely with Matthew 11:29-30. But the error that is made is to say that the Messiah comes humbly because he is riding on a lowly beast of burden, on an ass. (One can even find choral songs and imaginative stories celebrating that fact.)
That which is not realized is that riding on an ass was not a sign of the Messiah's humility, but of his identity. Princes rode on asses, according to Judges (5:10; 10:4; 12:14), as did King David (2 Samuel 16:2). But most telling, it is promised in Genesis 49:10-11 that the Messiah would ride on that beast. Thus the Messiah can be recognized!
The promised messianic ruler is humble, however, because he is completely dependent on God. In verse 10 of our passage, it is not the Messiah who speaks, but God. And God is the one who will banish all weapons of war and enable the Messiah to establish a reunited Israel that will enjoy peace from the Reed Sea to the Mediterranean, and from the wilderness of Sinai to the Euphrates. In short, the Messiah will have his universal reign from the hand of God, as for example in Isaiah 11:1-9.
Similarly, verse 9 of our passage is translated in the RSV, for example, as "triumphant and victorious is he." But a better translation is "righteous and saved is he." Throughout the scriptures "righteousness" is the fulfillment of a relationship, and the Messiah will be righteous because he trusts God and rules as a king should rule (cf. Isaiah 11:3b-4a). He will protect the helpless and prosper the good and be like "the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land" (Isaiah 32:2), but he will do such things because God will enable him to do them (cf. Psalm 72:1). Similarly, he will be "saved" from his enemies, because God will save him.
The Messiah is indeed "humble" therefore, because his life and reign and abilities lie solely in God's hands, upon whom he is totally dependent for the success of his kingship and for the peace of his kingdom. He has no authority except that given him by God (cf. Psalm 110:1-5; 2:6-9). The picture is consonant with everything said about the Messiah in the Royal Psalms and in the prophetic writings.
That our Lord fulfilled this prophecy and was God's promised Messiah cannot be doubted. The New Testament affirms that fact throughout its pages. But it also affirms this portrayal of the Messiah in Zechariah. Christ relies on his Father for everything. He does nothing on his own authority, speaks only the words given him by his Father, follows not his own will but that of his Father, and points always to the goodness and glory of God and not to his own. That is true humility, and our Lord is, indeed, as Matthew writes, "gentle and lowly in heart," who can give us "rest for (our) souls" when we "labor and are heavy laden."
Our world is filled with people who live in fear of God. Their view of God is that of a police officer out to catch them in some misdemeanor, or a judge who passes sentence on the basis of the arrest. Living with that kind of God would make God the last one a person would want to see or to have walking side by side or to have present at our meals. Undoubtedly they learned that view from someone else, perhaps from a strict or abusive parent or even from a certain kind of preacher.
Our lessons for this Sunday offer a view of God that is enough to make us throw a party simply because it is a humble and gentle Lord who shows up to be with us.
Zechariah 9:9-12
The first eight chapters of Zechariah's book differ considerably from Chapters 9 through 14, so much so that the latter section is assigned to someone other than the prophet of the sixth century B.C. These latter chapters are apocalyptic in tone, and so they look forward to the future universal reign of God.
The ninth chapter consists of three oracles: verses 1-8, 9-
10, and 11-17. The first describes the conquest of Syria, Phoenicia, and Philistia by the Greek armies of Alexander the Great (thus after 323 B.C.); the second depicts the victory over the Greeks by the Lord's Messiah; the third, the gathering of the dispersed exiles under the protection of the Lord. Our pericope, therefore, straddles two oracles.
The first verse of the lesson brings immediately to mind Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and is quoted in that context at Matthew 21:5. The call to Jerusalem to "rejoice greatly" sounds much like other celebrative passages that welcome, however, not the Messiah but the presence of the Lord. At the conclusion of the brief chapter of Isaiah 12, Zion is called to "shout aloud and sing for joy" at the Lord's presence. The eschatological event of Zephaniah 3:14-20 opens with the similar call to the "daughter of Zion" to "sing aloud" and "rejoice" (v. 14) because "the king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst" (v. 15). The prophet Zechariah calls on the "daughter of Zion" to "sing and rejoice" because the Lord promises to "come and dwell in your midst" (2:10). The message is clear: the Lord's presence is cause for celebration! The call to rejoice obviously derives from a view of God that is not only royal but exciting and positive for the entire community that welcomes him.
That in our pericope "your king" comes riding on a donkey probably indicates a transference of the celebration from the Lord's presence to that of the Lord's anointed. The entrance into the city on a donkey calls to mind the coronation ceremony of Solomon at 1 Kings 1:38, 44. His role will be to establish universal peace. The description of his dominion "from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth" is strikingly reminiscent of the reign of the Davidic king in the royal Psalm 72 (v. 8).
The third oracle in the chapter begins with direct speech from the Lord. His promise to "set your prisoners free" on the basis of "the blood of my covenant with you" calls to mind the only covenant made with blood in the Old Testament, that which took place at the foot of Mount Sinai through Moses (Exodus 24:3-
8). That covenant relationship provides the motive for the freeing of the prisoners from suppression by Greece (see v. 13). That the restoration of the people's fortunes will be "double" indicates the Lord's action will make up for the Lord's punishment of the people during the Babylonian exile two centuries earlier when Israel paid double for her sins (see Isaiah 40:2). The restoration here sounds much like the conclusion to the Book of Job where the "Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before" (Job 42:10).
Romans 7:15-25a
While we celebrate this day the independence of our country won in the Revolutionary War, this pericope calls to mind civil war. The civil war here is not the War Between the States but the battle that is waged within each of us, even though we have been justified and counted righteous by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the two paragraphs of our lesson Paul indicates as powerfully as possible that we are simultaneously righteous and sinner. First, he expresses candidly that he does not understand his own actions. Like the song "The Silver-Tongued Devil and I," written and performed some years ago by Kris Kristofferson, the good and the bad are all wrapped up in the same person. It is one thing to know and to will what is right; it is another thing to do it. The reason for the dilemma is simple: "sin that dwells within me" (v. 20).
Second, the civil war occurs between and among various laws, at least, as Paul uses the term "law" in this paragraph. On the one side are "the law of God" and "the law of my mind." These laws might refer to the law of Moses in which Paul grew up, or they might be the natural law that is written on the human heart. In either case, they are the principle of right and wrong, the knowledge that as human beings we love God and protect the life and property of our neighbors. On the other side of the war is the "law" or principle that evil is never far away, even when the believer wants to do good (v. 21). An ally in that struggle is the law of the members of the body that captivate the believer to "the law of sin" (v. 23).
Paul was not unusual in his time in seeing this dynamic battle raging within him. The rabbis of the time also spoke of a good inclination and an evil one that fight it out on the battlefield of our personalities. For the rabbis the battle could be won by submerging oneself in total obedience to the law or torah of God. For Paul, however, the law (of God and Moses) only served to reveal the sin that captivated him and drove him to this maddening existence.
The apostle ends the argument (at least as far as our pericope is concerned) by exposing his wretchedness and by pleading for an answer to the question: "Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
The answer is one of thanksgiving and celebration. Paul knows the answer as he asks the question: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" That conclusion forces us to acknowledge that there is no way out of the dilemma apart from Christ, but with Christ, not the law, even the law of God, is the hope and trust that the victory has already been won, and ultimately and triumphantly we will march into the kingdom where will and behavior are one and the same.
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Jesus had just finished talking to the crowds about John the Baptist. The conversation began with the appearance of John's disciples, who were sent by their master to ask if Jesus were "the one to come or do we look for another?" (vv. 2-3). Jesus responded by pointing them to the miracles of the kingdom he had been performing (vv. 4-5) and promising blessing to anyone who took no offense at Jesus (v. 6). When he had finished addressing those disciples, they left, leaving Jesus to explain to the remaining crowds that John was "Elijah who is to come" (v. 14).
Now that Jesus was on the subject of John, he continued by speaking of the people's lack of response to either one of them. Jesus used the playful analogy of children calling out to others to play -- either to pretend they were involved in a dance or to play funeral. That Jesus goes on immediately to describe the rejection of John as a demon when he neither ate nor drank (the funeral image) and the accusation of himself as a glutton and drunkard because he eats and drinks (the dance image) indicates the people have responded to neither one of them. The reader will recall that in Matthew's Gospel they both shared the same sermon: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near" (John at 3:2; Jesus at 4:17). In the following verses, omitted from our pericope, Jesus upbraided the cities where most of his miracles had been performed because they did not heed his sermon of repentance (vv. 20-24).
Leaping over those verses, the pericope nevertheless makes a transition from the rejection of John and Jesus in verses 16-19 to the speech in verses 25-30 by including the otherwise puzzling comment, "Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." (The parallel at Luke 7:35 reads here, "Nevertheless wisdom is vindicated by all her children.") After discussing verses 25-30 we will return to this saying.
Jesus offers thanksgiving to God for having hidden "these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants." The expression "wise and intelligent" appears only once in the Old Testament, and there it is used positively for the people of Israel because they have obeyed the law (Deuteronomy 4:6; see, however, Jeremiah 8:8-9). In the New Testament it appears also at Luke 10:21 and James 3:13 as a caricature of those who think they are wise and intelligent but are not. That "these things" are given to infants indicates it is not by worldly wisdom and reason that God reveals the identity of the Son.
The relationship between the Father and Jesus is indeed the issue, as the following verses indicate. Only the Father knows Jesus the Son, and only Jesus the Son knows the Father. The "knowing" here is not intellectual but relational, thus the expression "know in the biblical sense." Yet as much as this saying appears to "keep it in the family," Jesus indicates the expansion of the family by adding "and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Thus Jesus becomes the source of knowledge for people to know God. As John's Jesus will put it in another setting: "No one comes to the Father but by me."
Now Jesus invites the weary to come to him so that he might give them rest. Surprisingly, while elsewhere he talked about taking up the cross to follow him, here Jesus indicates that, gentle and humble that he is, "my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." The words are more a description of Jesus' identity than a call to discipleship. The words, in fact, identify Jesus as Wisdom.
At the end of the apocryphal book The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, the author writes of Wisdom words that are virtually identical to those of Jesus in verses 28-30. He calls on his readers to "draw near to me" and to "put your neck under her yoke," admitting that "I have labored but little and found for myself much serenity" (Sirach 51:23-27). In Sirach Wisdom is, like the Word, that which comes from the mouth of the Lord (24:1-3). In Proverbs 8:22-31 Wisdom is the little child who plays alongside the Creator while the universe is constructed. There are so many parallels to Wisdom and Word that some scholars explain the origin of the Prologue to John's Gospel in wisdom traditions. The apostle Paul, of course, thirty years prior to Matthew's Gospel, wrote of Christ crucified as the "power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30).
When Jesus spoke the words of verses 28-30 he spoke not simply wisdom but as Wisdom. Like Wisdom in the tradition, Jesus was the means by which people came to know God, and so "no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
That speech of verses 7 through 30 ends with the identification of Jesus as Wisdom; we can perhaps make some sense out of the obscure statement at the end of verse 19: "Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." Jesus had in the previous verse spoken of his eating and drinking and of the accusation that he was a glutton and a drunkard. Not surprisingly, in the traditions Wisdom too was a party animal. Wisdom invited the simple, the uninstructed, to "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed" (Proverbs 9:5). Perhaps that reputation helps us understand Jesus' comment, "Yet wisdom is vindicated ...," as the summary of his speech about his eating and drinking.
The pericope affirms the age-old saying: "It is not what you know that counts; it's whom you know." The one that we know is, first of all, Jesus the Son, who like the Anointed One in Zechariah 9:9 is "humble" (v. 29). He is also, like Wisdom, hospitable, as is evident by his invitation to "come to me," so that he can feed us what we need in order to know the Father.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
God has promised Abraham that he will be the forbear of many descendants. To begin to fulfill that promise, God has granted the aged Abraham and Sarah a son, Isaac. That is the context of this story that must never be forgotten.
But now Isaac is grown to marriageable age and Abraham must find a suitable wife for him, as was the custom. Abraham is probably at Hebron in this story, but Isaac must not be wed to a Canaanite woman who worships the foreign fertility gods of the region. Abraham therefore binds his servant (a steward here) by an oath (24:1-9) to seek out a woman from Abraham's own clan in Haran in upper Mesopotamia, from which Abraham had migrated.
The emphasis of the story is on the hidden guidance of God. The verses of our passage repeat the account of the events that take place in verses 10-33, and at every point, God's influence determines what happens. Abraham's wealth has been a gift from God (v. 35). God's angel accompanies the servant and "prospers" his way (v. 40). God gives heed to the prayer of the servant (vv. 42-44) and prompts Rebekah's actions to be the sign that identifies her as God's appointed wife for Isaac (vv. 42-46).
Once Rebekah is identified as the chosen wife, every character in the story acknowledges that God's has been the guiding hand -- the servant (v. 48); Laban, Rebekah's brother, and her father Bethuel (v. 50); by implication, Rebekah in her willingness to depart immediately for Canaan rather than to wait the accustomed ten days (vv. 56-59); and finally Isaac who, upon hearing the servant's account of the journey, immediately takes Rebekah as his wife (vv. 66-67). This is not merely a charming human story, but a testimony to the specific acts of God as he works to fulfill his promise. Thus does the God of the Bible work his hidden will in the lives of his chosen people.
The character of Rebekah is revealed. She is not only beautiful (v. 16), but unselfish. To water the servant's camels, she repeatedly must climb down stairs to the hole from which the spring flows, and then carry the heavy water jar back up and empty it into the watering trough beside the well. She also is pious, trusting that the servant is in fact following God's leading, and placing her future in his hands. And Rebekah is loving (v. 67), a wife who merits Jacob's love and gives him comfort after the death of his mother (v. 67).
Note that there is no thought here that a wife is simply property to be bought by a man -- a common misconception about marriage in the Old Testament. Isaac pays the accustomed bride price with the jewels that the servant gives to Rebekah (v. 22) and to her mother and brother (v. 53), but this is a marriage of love, not of convenience or commerce. Many passages in the Old Testament hold marriage in high regard (cf. Genesis 2:23-25; 29:20; Malachi 2:14).
The blessing that Rebekah's family gives her as she departs forms an ironic touch to the story. They wish her multiple descendants (v. 60), but she is initially barren (Genesis 25:21). an obstacle to the fulfillment of the promise that God himself must overcome, in answer to Isaac's prayer. Throughout these patriarchal narratives God is the principal subject, as indeed, he is the principle actor throughout the scriptures and in our lives. God is continually at work to keep his word. We can count on it.
Lutheran Option -- Zechariah 9:9-12
This passage which is often used in connection with Palm Sunday, but which also finds its place in this Pentecost season in connection with the latter part of the gospel lesson of Matthew 11:25-29, is sometimes misinterpreted. The passage forms an announcement of the coming of the davidic messianic king to Jerusalem, and that which sermons often emphasize is the humility of that king. Thus, the reading is made to fit nicely with Matthew 11:29-30. But the error that is made is to say that the Messiah comes humbly because he is riding on a lowly beast of burden, on an ass. (One can even find choral songs and imaginative stories celebrating that fact.)
That which is not realized is that riding on an ass was not a sign of the Messiah's humility, but of his identity. Princes rode on asses, according to Judges (5:10; 10:4; 12:14), as did King David (2 Samuel 16:2). But most telling, it is promised in Genesis 49:10-11 that the Messiah would ride on that beast. Thus the Messiah can be recognized!
The promised messianic ruler is humble, however, because he is completely dependent on God. In verse 10 of our passage, it is not the Messiah who speaks, but God. And God is the one who will banish all weapons of war and enable the Messiah to establish a reunited Israel that will enjoy peace from the Reed Sea to the Mediterranean, and from the wilderness of Sinai to the Euphrates. In short, the Messiah will have his universal reign from the hand of God, as for example in Isaiah 11:1-9.
Similarly, verse 9 of our passage is translated in the RSV, for example, as "triumphant and victorious is he." But a better translation is "righteous and saved is he." Throughout the scriptures "righteousness" is the fulfillment of a relationship, and the Messiah will be righteous because he trusts God and rules as a king should rule (cf. Isaiah 11:3b-4a). He will protect the helpless and prosper the good and be like "the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land" (Isaiah 32:2), but he will do such things because God will enable him to do them (cf. Psalm 72:1). Similarly, he will be "saved" from his enemies, because God will save him.
The Messiah is indeed "humble" therefore, because his life and reign and abilities lie solely in God's hands, upon whom he is totally dependent for the success of his kingship and for the peace of his kingdom. He has no authority except that given him by God (cf. Psalm 110:1-5; 2:6-9). The picture is consonant with everything said about the Messiah in the Royal Psalms and in the prophetic writings.
That our Lord fulfilled this prophecy and was God's promised Messiah cannot be doubted. The New Testament affirms that fact throughout its pages. But it also affirms this portrayal of the Messiah in Zechariah. Christ relies on his Father for everything. He does nothing on his own authority, speaks only the words given him by his Father, follows not his own will but that of his Father, and points always to the goodness and glory of God and not to his own. That is true humility, and our Lord is, indeed, as Matthew writes, "gentle and lowly in heart," who can give us "rest for (our) souls" when we "labor and are heavy laden."
