15 Pentecost P.18 September 6, 2015
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 Ps. 146: 4-9
James 1:17-27 Mark 7:31-37
Lectionary Link
The Gospels like any writing were written with a purpose. Writers at different stages of the early churches in different places continually collated information and traditions about Jesus and tried to explain to their congregations why the churches had become what they had become. And what had the church become? The churches had become primarily gatherings of non-Jewish persons scattered throughout the cities of the Roman Empire. The churches still had leaders who were Jews but who had seen the success of the message in the non-Jewish populace and so they had to interpret and write about the Gentiles' place in salvation history and show that Gentile believers had a valid continuity with the Hebrew Scriptures.
The Jews had a comprehensive system of legal classification for the purposes of keeping them distinct, holy and separated from the rest of peoples of the world, the people who believed in many gods. People who believed in other gods, were classified as defiled or unclean. Contacts between Jews and non-Jews had to be highly regulated even though this became more difficult when Palestine was under the control of Roman authority. Many Jews had to compromise themselves and live in defiled conditions as those who worked on behalf of the Roman local authorities, particularly the tax collectors who often were Jews who had to collect taxes from the Jews on behalf of the Roman authorities.
So how do members of the Gentile populace go from being classified as defiled, unclean and unholy to being made into God's chosen sons and daughters through Jesus Christ? How do the Gentiles rise to be in the line of Abraham as the Father of faith who existed before the people of Israel?
The Gospels like any writing were written with a purpose. Writers at different stages of the early churches in different places continually collated information and traditions about Jesus and tried to explain to their congregations why the churches had become what they had become. And what had the church become? The churches had become primarily gatherings of non-Jewish persons scattered throughout the cities of the Roman Empire. The churches still had leaders who were Jews but who had seen the success of the message in the non-Jewish populace and so they had to interpret and write about the Gentiles' place in salvation history and show that Gentile believers had a valid continuity with the Hebrew Scriptures.
The Jews had a comprehensive system of legal classification for the purposes of keeping them distinct, holy and separated from the rest of peoples of the world, the people who believed in many gods. People who believed in other gods, were classified as defiled or unclean. Contacts between Jews and non-Jews had to be highly regulated even though this became more difficult when Palestine was under the control of Roman authority. Many Jews had to compromise themselves and live in defiled conditions as those who worked on behalf of the Roman local authorities, particularly the tax collectors who often were Jews who had to collect taxes from the Jews on behalf of the Roman authorities.
So how do members of the Gentile populace go from being classified as defiled, unclean and unholy to being made into God's chosen sons and daughters through Jesus Christ? How do the Gentiles rise to be in the line of Abraham as the Father of faith who existed before the people of Israel?
How can Jesus of Nazareth be seen as one who transitions the Hebrew and Jewish tradition into the full inclusion of Gentile persons in a new family of faith that is different from the Jewish family of faith? If we understand this transition, we can understand more clearly some of the writing purposes of the Gospel writers.
How could non-Jewish believers be regarded to be cleansed from their previous defiled state of being according to the purity laws in Judaism? If one was not born a Jew, how could one be regarded to be a chosen child of God? This involves a discussion about health and salvation.
The early Christian writers looked for the patterns of inclusion of the Gentiles which could be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Everyone before Jacob was pre-Israelite and therefore had a pre-Israelite status. Before Israel there were only the Patriarchs and their families who had a special relationship with God. Abraham was the chief Patriarch. He came from Ur of the Chaldees and he had a call and a promise from God. The grandson of Abraham was Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. And so the family of Israel inherited this call and promise of God. The Christian writers believed that the Jews were chosen as God's way of letting the nations know that the One God was God of all. In fact the Temple was supposed to be a house of prayer for all people. But in actual practice the interactions between the Jews and the other nations resulted in ethnic and religious segregation. The purity codes of the religious law were established to keep the people of Israel a separate and distinct people.
The ancient cry of the Psalmist was "create in me a clean heart O God and renew within me a right spirit." If we understand this ancient cry then we can understand the presentation of the exorcism of the daughter of Syrophoenician woman who came to Jesus asking for the health of her daughter.
In Jewish purity codes, dogs were unclean animals because they were scavenger animals which ran in packs and were often feared by the people, much as one fears a pack of wolves coyotes. If one understands this comparisons between dogs and Gentiles then one understands the puns of the exchange between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman. Jesus said, "Why are you asking me to renew a new spirit within your daughter? Didn't you get the memo from the rabbis about only Jews being the ones who are fed with the bread or manna of God?" And the woman said, "Yes but the defiled and pestering dogs still clean up the left over crumbs." And Jesus commended the woman for her persisting and clever response. The woman believed that even a little from God was good enough for her daughter who was not a member of the synagogue community. So we understand the theology of the early church. Jesus whispered people to have access to a deeper Spirit and this deeper Holy Spirit can make a clean heart and renew a right spirit within a person. And you know what? It has happened to the once defiled Gentiles who not only could have access to the bread of God's children but to the renewing grace of God in Christ. This is a brilliant parable of showing the inclusions of the Gentiles in salvation history while not being too blatantly anachronistic. These writers/preachers were effectively teaching their communities about their faith identity.
The message of the Gospel was about how God made Gentiles "kosher?" How did that happen? Jesus was the midwife who gave us a new birth. The birth involved the rising or baptism with the Holy Spirit who was water and fire making pure what was previously declared as impure and defiled. And this Holy Spirit could create a new and clean heart and whisper into each and every person a new spirit. We may like to be entertained by exorcisms and ghost busting, but the theology of Jesus as the people whisperer is much more profound and to the point.
And what are the other results of having a heart made clean and a spirit renewed? One could hear in a different way and one began to speak in a different way and one began to act in a different way. Instead of having a "legacy" Jewish faith, one actually performed the results of one's faith by doing good works. The writer of the letter of James was making the same point that John the Baptist and Jesus made: Legacy or inherited faith tradition means nothing if you don't perform the works that are recommended in one's faith tradition. The Lord cares for the widow and orphan. What does the Lord require: act justly, love mercy and walk humbly before your God. Do your faith in the practice of justice to show that God's Holy Spirit has cleaned the heart.
The healing of the deaf and dumb man encodes the results of the new birth. When one has a new birth, when God has delivered one from the state of impurity by declaring one to have a clean heart and when one's spirit is renewed one can hear and speak differently. The stories of Jesus also include the healing of people who could not walk and who were blind. When a person receives a new birth a person walks in the way of God unimpaired by one's past. When a person receives the new birth, one sees for the first time in a new way new insights for the purpose of one's life.
The Gospel narratives of Jesus were used to encode in story forms the practice of salvation as it was known in the experience of the early church. The work of God's Spirit was so wonderful that it changed the way in which people acted, saw, walked, heard and spoke. It was in short the miracle of the sublime presence of God's Spirit in their lives.
The Gospel narratives made into physical healing stories the reality of the spiritual miracle of the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the members of the early church. That work of the Holy Spirit is still a miracle in our lives today because we can still know the work of God in creating in us clean hearts, renewing our spirit and helping us to walk, work, act, hear, see and do things with a sense of the miraculous. And let us not deny the physical effects of this wonderful work of the Spirit. The purpose of the Gospel writers was to use physical healing stories to instruct us about the real physical effects of the saving work of God's Holy Spirit in our lives. And that is still the Gospel Good News for us today. Amen.
How could non-Jewish believers be regarded to be cleansed from their previous defiled state of being according to the purity laws in Judaism? If one was not born a Jew, how could one be regarded to be a chosen child of God? This involves a discussion about health and salvation.
The early Christian writers looked for the patterns of inclusion of the Gentiles which could be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Everyone before Jacob was pre-Israelite and therefore had a pre-Israelite status. Before Israel there were only the Patriarchs and their families who had a special relationship with God. Abraham was the chief Patriarch. He came from Ur of the Chaldees and he had a call and a promise from God. The grandson of Abraham was Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. And so the family of Israel inherited this call and promise of God. The Christian writers believed that the Jews were chosen as God's way of letting the nations know that the One God was God of all. In fact the Temple was supposed to be a house of prayer for all people. But in actual practice the interactions between the Jews and the other nations resulted in ethnic and religious segregation. The purity codes of the religious law were established to keep the people of Israel a separate and distinct people.
The ancient cry of the Psalmist was "create in me a clean heart O God and renew within me a right spirit." If we understand this ancient cry then we can understand the presentation of the exorcism of the daughter of Syrophoenician woman who came to Jesus asking for the health of her daughter.
In Jewish purity codes, dogs were unclean animals because they were scavenger animals which ran in packs and were often feared by the people, much as one fears a pack of wolves coyotes. If one understands this comparisons between dogs and Gentiles then one understands the puns of the exchange between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman. Jesus said, "Why are you asking me to renew a new spirit within your daughter? Didn't you get the memo from the rabbis about only Jews being the ones who are fed with the bread or manna of God?" And the woman said, "Yes but the defiled and pestering dogs still clean up the left over crumbs." And Jesus commended the woman for her persisting and clever response. The woman believed that even a little from God was good enough for her daughter who was not a member of the synagogue community. So we understand the theology of the early church. Jesus whispered people to have access to a deeper Spirit and this deeper Holy Spirit can make a clean heart and renew a right spirit within a person. And you know what? It has happened to the once defiled Gentiles who not only could have access to the bread of God's children but to the renewing grace of God in Christ. This is a brilliant parable of showing the inclusions of the Gentiles in salvation history while not being too blatantly anachronistic. These writers/preachers were effectively teaching their communities about their faith identity.
The message of the Gospel was about how God made Gentiles "kosher?" How did that happen? Jesus was the midwife who gave us a new birth. The birth involved the rising or baptism with the Holy Spirit who was water and fire making pure what was previously declared as impure and defiled. And this Holy Spirit could create a new and clean heart and whisper into each and every person a new spirit. We may like to be entertained by exorcisms and ghost busting, but the theology of Jesus as the people whisperer is much more profound and to the point.
And what are the other results of having a heart made clean and a spirit renewed? One could hear in a different way and one began to speak in a different way and one began to act in a different way. Instead of having a "legacy" Jewish faith, one actually performed the results of one's faith by doing good works. The writer of the letter of James was making the same point that John the Baptist and Jesus made: Legacy or inherited faith tradition means nothing if you don't perform the works that are recommended in one's faith tradition. The Lord cares for the widow and orphan. What does the Lord require: act justly, love mercy and walk humbly before your God. Do your faith in the practice of justice to show that God's Holy Spirit has cleaned the heart.
The healing of the deaf and dumb man encodes the results of the new birth. When one has a new birth, when God has delivered one from the state of impurity by declaring one to have a clean heart and when one's spirit is renewed one can hear and speak differently. The stories of Jesus also include the healing of people who could not walk and who were blind. When a person receives a new birth a person walks in the way of God unimpaired by one's past. When a person receives the new birth, one sees for the first time in a new way new insights for the purpose of one's life.
The Gospel narratives of Jesus were used to encode in story forms the practice of salvation as it was known in the experience of the early church. The work of God's Spirit was so wonderful that it changed the way in which people acted, saw, walked, heard and spoke. It was in short the miracle of the sublime presence of God's Spirit in their lives.
The Gospel narratives made into physical healing stories the reality of the spiritual miracle of the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the members of the early church. That work of the Holy Spirit is still a miracle in our lives today because we can still know the work of God in creating in us clean hearts, renewing our spirit and helping us to walk, work, act, hear, see and do things with a sense of the miraculous. And let us not deny the physical effects of this wonderful work of the Spirit. The purpose of the Gospel writers was to use physical healing stories to instruct us about the real physical effects of the saving work of God's Holy Spirit in our lives. And that is still the Gospel Good News for us today. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment