Epiphany 4 | Ordinary Time 4
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle B
Revised Common
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
Roman Catholic
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 7:32-35
Mark 1:21-28
Episcopal
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1b-13
Mark 1:21-28
Theme For The Day
What builds up the church is love, which is demonstrated concretely by mutual forbearance.
Old Testament Lesson
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Moses Promises That Prophecy Will Continue
"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people," says Moses (v. 15). He then goes on to suggest how the people may discern whether or not the words of a person claiming to be a prophet are true. At the time Deuteronomy was being compiled, prophecy was an important institution, a source of spiritual authority. Verses 9-22 describe some scenarios in which the question of a prophet's authority could prove problematic. Here the editors make certain to trace the authority of the prophetic office back to Moses, who provides some guidelines for discernment.
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
The Problem Of Food Offered To Idols
What sounds, at first hearing, like obscure advice for solving a purely first-century church problem is in fact the great test case in the New Testament for mutual forbearance and tolerance of diversity. Two factions in the Corinthian church disagree over whether it is proper for Christians to eat food that has first been to the altar of a pagan temple as part of a sacrificial ritual. It was common practice in the Roman world for most meat to be brought to a pagan altar, where one portion would be incinerated as an offering to the gods, another portion would be roasted and either given or sold to people nearby and the remaining portion would be taken to the market for sale. Some commentators have suggested that, through the sacrificial system, the pagan priests in fact owned a de facto monopoly on the sale of meat. This is a sensitive subject for the Corinthian Christians, many of whom are rather close to their own pagan origins. Some still fear that pagan gods exercise power of some sort through the sacrificial meat, or that eating the meat renders the person who eats it unclean. Paul's answer is a masterpiece of theological precision and pastoral sensitivity. He declares that, since the pagan gods are as nothing, the question of whether to eat or not to eat their sacrificial meat is matter of indifference for Christians. Yet, since this is a question that causes anguish in the hearts of some Christians, it is a better course for all to abstain from eating pagan-sacrificed meat, out of sensitivity to the faith of one's brothers and sisters.
The Gospel
Mark 1:21-28
Jesus Heals A Demon-Possessed Man
At the synagogue in Capernaum, a mentally ill man accosts Jesus. According to the first-century understanding, he is demon-possessed, so Luke portrays him speaking in the first-person plural, as though a whole group of demons are speaking through him. The demons recognize Jesus as a threat, not only calling him by name, but addressing him as "the Holy One of God" (v. 24). Jesus rebukes the demons, and they leave the man, returning him to his right mind. "What is this?" Jesus' disciples marvel. "A new teaching -- with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him" (v. 27). Authority is a key theme here: it is revealed not only by erudite words (as in the authority of the scribes), but more importantly by deeds of power. Also, Mark's use of the demon's speech to identify Jesus as "the Holy One of God" is a way of discreetly cluing the reader in to Jesus' true nature, even before his disciples are able to understand and articulate it.
Preaching Possibilities
A sermon on 1 Corinthians 8 could focus on what builds up the church. Paul gives the answer in verse 1: "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up."
On the subject of food offered to idols, he advises the liberal faction in First Church, Corinth, to rein in their freedom and abstain from meat, for the sake of their more conservative brothers and sisters (see above). This advice flies in the face of the way most of us are accustomed to thinking in our culture. Along with the rest of American society, we are inordinately fond of our individual rights. We pride ourselves on having freedom to choose. We aren't used to hearing somebody tell us that maybe we ought to relinquish some of our cherished rights for the benefit of others.
Paul's actually saying there are higher priorities than individual choice. (Just try walking into the nearest supermarket and start talking about that -- as you're standing in front of shelf upon shelf of cereal choices, soup choices, bread choices. They'll look at you like you've got three heads!) No one in our society seems to question the premise that freedom is all about having lots of choices.
Paul has a better idea. He's teaching the Corinthians that true freedom comes not from having lots of choices, but from the privilege of living together in community. God has called us Christians not only into responsibility for ourselves and our immediate families, but also for the neighbor down the street. "No man is an island, entire of itself," writes the Elizabethan poet, John Donne. "Each man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main...." We are, all of us, caretakers of each other -- bound to one another in a complex web of relationships. When one weeps, all weep. When one rejoices, all rejoice.
So what is it that builds up the church? Lots of books you can buy today will tell you it's one thing or another. Some declare that the recipe for success calls for the teaching of true doctrine, others clever marketing, still others astute administration and planning. There are those who claim that a truly successful church has got to offer certain programs to keep up with the needs of today's families -- or that there's got to be a certain ratio of parking places to worshipers.
Paul proclaims none of these things as the mark of success in the church. The most important feature of a successful church, he says, is love. A few chapters later, he tackles the subject with gusto. Many people think 1 Corinthians 13 is about marriage, because it's often read at weddings; but Paul's continuing on, in that chapter, with this very same subject: love-that-builds-up-the-church. Faced with a difference of opinion on food offered to idols, Paul affirms that love "is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth." Before the overwhelming reality of Christlike love, the dog-eat-dog rules of debate are suddenly suspended. The negative campaign ads are no more. The mudslinging is over. The good of the community has become the highest value.
Prayer For The Day
When we are certain, Lord ... when we are convinced we are right ... when we feel our hackles rising as we consider that other person who has spoken to us in anger ... have mercy upon us. Open our minds, so the fresh air of your grace and forgiveness may blow through. Teach us that your church is bigger than anything we could imagine. Amen.
To Illustrate
When Ernest Gordon, formerly chaplain of Princeton University, was a young British officer in the Second World War, he was captured by the Japanese and held as a POW in a brutal prison camp in Southeast Asia. It's the same slave-labor camp that was dramatized in the classic Alec Guinness film, Bridge Over the River Kwai. In his wartime memoir, Through the Valley of the Kwai (New York: Harper, 1962), Gordon tells a remarkable story about the triumph of love.
Conditions in the POW camp have degenerated into a barbarous brutality. The guards beat the prisoners, and the prisoners try to beat each other out of food, water, a pair of shoes -- any necessity that's in short supply.
It happens one day that a shovel goes missing. The Japanese officer in charge becomes enraged. He demands that the missing shovel be produced, or else. When nobody in the unit budges, the officer pulls out his gun and threatens to kill them all on the spot. It is obvious that the officer means what he's said.
Finally, one man steps forward. The officer puts away his gun, picks up a shovel, and beats the man to death. When it is over, the survivors pick up his bloody corpse and carry it with them to the second tool check. This time, no shovel turns up missing. It seems there was a miscount at the first checkpoint.
The word spreads like wildfire throughout the camp. An innocent man was willing to die to save the others! The incident has a profound effect. From that day forward, the men began to treat each other like brothers.
When the victorious Allies finally sweep in, the survivors, human skeletons, line up in front of their former captors. Yet instead of attacking them, they insist: "No more hatred. No more killing. Now what we need is forgiveness."
***
What, according to Fred Craddock, is "the most extraordinary piece of Christian furniture?" Why, it's "the pew, which invites former strangers to sit together as family."
-- Fred Craddock, First and Second Peter and Jude, Westminster Bible Companion series (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 33
***
Queen Victoria was once at a diplomatic reception in London. The guest of honor was an African chieftain. All went well during the meal until, at the end, finger bowls were brought out. The guest of honor had never seen a British finger bowl, and no one had thought to brief him beforehand about its purpose. He took the finger bowl in his two hands, lifted it to his mouth, and drank its contents.
For an instant there was breathless silence among the British upper crust, who then began to whisper to one another. All that stopped in the next instant as the Queen silently took her own finger bowl in her two hands, lifted it, and drank its contents. A moment later, 500 surprised British ladies and gentlemen simultaneously drank the contents of their fingerbowls.
It was "against the rules" to drink from a fingerbowl, but on that particular evening Victoria changed the rules -- because she was, after all, the Queen.
-- Adapted from a story told by Brett Blair, August 2003
***
We must love them both -- those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it.
-- Thomas Aquinas
***
Did you ever stop to think that the place that most exudes doing it decently and in order is the local cemetery? The people who manage it have their procedures down pat. New members are received in solemn ceremonies. An organizational chart on the office wall explains in detail where all the members stand (okay, lie) in relation to all the other members. There are no conflicts. Nobody ever encroaches on (or under) anyone else's turf. People don't quit and join another cemetery. They are all in their proper places every Sunday. Everyone knows his or her place and stays in it. It is the most decent and orderly place in town. There just isn't a whole lot of life there.
-- John Galloway, Jr., Ministry Loves Company: a Survival Guide for Pastors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003)
***
At its best, the local church functions as an arena in which conflict and hurts among participants who choose to stay can open up possibilities for spiritual progress. Where else will people still accept me after I stand up in a church meeting and harshly criticize something? "Ah, that's just Dave," they say. They know me. I learn about the Christian virtues of acceptance and graciousness even as I am not accepting and gracious. By not taking my toys and playing elsewhere -- that is, finding a church that connects with my spiritual journey -- I move forward in my spiritual journey. I give up control. I forfeit my options, in an environment of choices.
-- David Goetz, "Suburban Spirituality," Christianity Today, July 2003, pp. 34-35
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
Roman Catholic
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 7:32-35
Mark 1:21-28
Episcopal
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1b-13
Mark 1:21-28
Theme For The Day
What builds up the church is love, which is demonstrated concretely by mutual forbearance.
Old Testament Lesson
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Moses Promises That Prophecy Will Continue
"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people," says Moses (v. 15). He then goes on to suggest how the people may discern whether or not the words of a person claiming to be a prophet are true. At the time Deuteronomy was being compiled, prophecy was an important institution, a source of spiritual authority. Verses 9-22 describe some scenarios in which the question of a prophet's authority could prove problematic. Here the editors make certain to trace the authority of the prophetic office back to Moses, who provides some guidelines for discernment.
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
The Problem Of Food Offered To Idols
What sounds, at first hearing, like obscure advice for solving a purely first-century church problem is in fact the great test case in the New Testament for mutual forbearance and tolerance of diversity. Two factions in the Corinthian church disagree over whether it is proper for Christians to eat food that has first been to the altar of a pagan temple as part of a sacrificial ritual. It was common practice in the Roman world for most meat to be brought to a pagan altar, where one portion would be incinerated as an offering to the gods, another portion would be roasted and either given or sold to people nearby and the remaining portion would be taken to the market for sale. Some commentators have suggested that, through the sacrificial system, the pagan priests in fact owned a de facto monopoly on the sale of meat. This is a sensitive subject for the Corinthian Christians, many of whom are rather close to their own pagan origins. Some still fear that pagan gods exercise power of some sort through the sacrificial meat, or that eating the meat renders the person who eats it unclean. Paul's answer is a masterpiece of theological precision and pastoral sensitivity. He declares that, since the pagan gods are as nothing, the question of whether to eat or not to eat their sacrificial meat is matter of indifference for Christians. Yet, since this is a question that causes anguish in the hearts of some Christians, it is a better course for all to abstain from eating pagan-sacrificed meat, out of sensitivity to the faith of one's brothers and sisters.
The Gospel
Mark 1:21-28
Jesus Heals A Demon-Possessed Man
At the synagogue in Capernaum, a mentally ill man accosts Jesus. According to the first-century understanding, he is demon-possessed, so Luke portrays him speaking in the first-person plural, as though a whole group of demons are speaking through him. The demons recognize Jesus as a threat, not only calling him by name, but addressing him as "the Holy One of God" (v. 24). Jesus rebukes the demons, and they leave the man, returning him to his right mind. "What is this?" Jesus' disciples marvel. "A new teaching -- with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him" (v. 27). Authority is a key theme here: it is revealed not only by erudite words (as in the authority of the scribes), but more importantly by deeds of power. Also, Mark's use of the demon's speech to identify Jesus as "the Holy One of God" is a way of discreetly cluing the reader in to Jesus' true nature, even before his disciples are able to understand and articulate it.
Preaching Possibilities
A sermon on 1 Corinthians 8 could focus on what builds up the church. Paul gives the answer in verse 1: "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up."
On the subject of food offered to idols, he advises the liberal faction in First Church, Corinth, to rein in their freedom and abstain from meat, for the sake of their more conservative brothers and sisters (see above). This advice flies in the face of the way most of us are accustomed to thinking in our culture. Along with the rest of American society, we are inordinately fond of our individual rights. We pride ourselves on having freedom to choose. We aren't used to hearing somebody tell us that maybe we ought to relinquish some of our cherished rights for the benefit of others.
Paul's actually saying there are higher priorities than individual choice. (Just try walking into the nearest supermarket and start talking about that -- as you're standing in front of shelf upon shelf of cereal choices, soup choices, bread choices. They'll look at you like you've got three heads!) No one in our society seems to question the premise that freedom is all about having lots of choices.
Paul has a better idea. He's teaching the Corinthians that true freedom comes not from having lots of choices, but from the privilege of living together in community. God has called us Christians not only into responsibility for ourselves and our immediate families, but also for the neighbor down the street. "No man is an island, entire of itself," writes the Elizabethan poet, John Donne. "Each man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main...." We are, all of us, caretakers of each other -- bound to one another in a complex web of relationships. When one weeps, all weep. When one rejoices, all rejoice.
So what is it that builds up the church? Lots of books you can buy today will tell you it's one thing or another. Some declare that the recipe for success calls for the teaching of true doctrine, others clever marketing, still others astute administration and planning. There are those who claim that a truly successful church has got to offer certain programs to keep up with the needs of today's families -- or that there's got to be a certain ratio of parking places to worshipers.
Paul proclaims none of these things as the mark of success in the church. The most important feature of a successful church, he says, is love. A few chapters later, he tackles the subject with gusto. Many people think 1 Corinthians 13 is about marriage, because it's often read at weddings; but Paul's continuing on, in that chapter, with this very same subject: love-that-builds-up-the-church. Faced with a difference of opinion on food offered to idols, Paul affirms that love "is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth." Before the overwhelming reality of Christlike love, the dog-eat-dog rules of debate are suddenly suspended. The negative campaign ads are no more. The mudslinging is over. The good of the community has become the highest value.
Prayer For The Day
When we are certain, Lord ... when we are convinced we are right ... when we feel our hackles rising as we consider that other person who has spoken to us in anger ... have mercy upon us. Open our minds, so the fresh air of your grace and forgiveness may blow through. Teach us that your church is bigger than anything we could imagine. Amen.
To Illustrate
When Ernest Gordon, formerly chaplain of Princeton University, was a young British officer in the Second World War, he was captured by the Japanese and held as a POW in a brutal prison camp in Southeast Asia. It's the same slave-labor camp that was dramatized in the classic Alec Guinness film, Bridge Over the River Kwai. In his wartime memoir, Through the Valley of the Kwai (New York: Harper, 1962), Gordon tells a remarkable story about the triumph of love.
Conditions in the POW camp have degenerated into a barbarous brutality. The guards beat the prisoners, and the prisoners try to beat each other out of food, water, a pair of shoes -- any necessity that's in short supply.
It happens one day that a shovel goes missing. The Japanese officer in charge becomes enraged. He demands that the missing shovel be produced, or else. When nobody in the unit budges, the officer pulls out his gun and threatens to kill them all on the spot. It is obvious that the officer means what he's said.
Finally, one man steps forward. The officer puts away his gun, picks up a shovel, and beats the man to death. When it is over, the survivors pick up his bloody corpse and carry it with them to the second tool check. This time, no shovel turns up missing. It seems there was a miscount at the first checkpoint.
The word spreads like wildfire throughout the camp. An innocent man was willing to die to save the others! The incident has a profound effect. From that day forward, the men began to treat each other like brothers.
When the victorious Allies finally sweep in, the survivors, human skeletons, line up in front of their former captors. Yet instead of attacking them, they insist: "No more hatred. No more killing. Now what we need is forgiveness."
***
What, according to Fred Craddock, is "the most extraordinary piece of Christian furniture?" Why, it's "the pew, which invites former strangers to sit together as family."
-- Fred Craddock, First and Second Peter and Jude, Westminster Bible Companion series (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 33
***
Queen Victoria was once at a diplomatic reception in London. The guest of honor was an African chieftain. All went well during the meal until, at the end, finger bowls were brought out. The guest of honor had never seen a British finger bowl, and no one had thought to brief him beforehand about its purpose. He took the finger bowl in his two hands, lifted it to his mouth, and drank its contents.
For an instant there was breathless silence among the British upper crust, who then began to whisper to one another. All that stopped in the next instant as the Queen silently took her own finger bowl in her two hands, lifted it, and drank its contents. A moment later, 500 surprised British ladies and gentlemen simultaneously drank the contents of their fingerbowls.
It was "against the rules" to drink from a fingerbowl, but on that particular evening Victoria changed the rules -- because she was, after all, the Queen.
-- Adapted from a story told by Brett Blair
***
We must love them both -- those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it.
-- Thomas Aquinas
***
Did you ever stop to think that the place that most exudes doing it decently and in order is the local cemetery? The people who manage it have their procedures down pat. New members are received in solemn ceremonies. An organizational chart on the office wall explains in detail where all the members stand (okay, lie) in relation to all the other members. There are no conflicts. Nobody ever encroaches on (or under) anyone else's turf. People don't quit and join another cemetery. They are all in their proper places every Sunday. Everyone knows his or her place and stays in it. It is the most decent and orderly place in town. There just isn't a whole lot of life there.
-- John Galloway, Jr., Ministry Loves Company: a Survival Guide for Pastors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003)
***
At its best, the local church functions as an arena in which conflict and hurts among participants who choose to stay can open up possibilities for spiritual progress. Where else will people still accept me after I stand up in a church meeting and harshly criticize something? "Ah, that's just Dave," they say. They know me. I learn about the Christian virtues of acceptance and graciousness even as I am not accepting and gracious. By not taking my toys and playing elsewhere -- that is, finding a church that connects with my spiritual journey -- I move forward in my spiritual journey. I give up control. I forfeit my options, in an environment of choices.
-- David Goetz, "Suburban Spirituality," Christianity Today, July 2003, pp. 34-35
