2 Lent
B February 25, 2018
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25 Mark 8:31-38
Lectionary Link
Part of our identity might be called our "biblical" identity. I grew up in the home of a Baptist preacher and from day one, I was force fed the words of the Bible. I received a grounding in a biblical identity.
I am not so certain that our postmodern culture has the same connection with biblical identity as was the culture in which I grew up in. For many years, the Bible dominated our world as the preferred and only authority for moral authority. The King James English translation of the Bible was a standard for English language and literature. Since the Enlightenment, the Guttenberg press, the expansion of general literacy, the rapid increase in the amount of world knowledge, and now in our postmodern world of the internet, there has been an increasing availability of so many words that can form our identities, the Bible has lost its once dominate role in the formation of identity. The Bible used to be like a sugar cube placed in a cup of tea. Now the Bible is like a sugar cube placed in the ocean. The effect of the sugar cube is more noticeable in a tea cup than it is in the ocean. This means that we have to be more deliberate in including the Bible in our lives as providing words for our identity.
The biblical identity of the early Christians was an important issue and we can highlight this in our Bible readings for today.
The early church communities included Jews who were familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures; but the early church communities included Gentile members who did not know the Hebrew Scripture traditions. They came from the cultures steeped in Roman Hellenistic traditions of philosophies, rhetoric and Mystery religions which included a pantheon of many gods and goddesses as well as the cult the divine Caesar.
St. Paul experienced an incredible social phenomenon. Many Gentiles were hearing the message of Jesus Christ and embracing it. The Gentiles did not have the tradition of Hebrew Scriptures but they had obvious Holy Spirit life-changing experiences. They had never read the law of Moses but they had begun to change their lives morally and spiritually. What was St. Paul to do? And how could he explain this to the people who had grown up with a Bible identity, the Hebrew Scriptures of the Law, Prophets and the Wisdom and history writings and the corporate prayer tradition of the Psalms? Could a person have valid faith who followed Jesus, a Jew, and yet be one who had never heard about the Hebrew Scriptures?
St. Paul had some explaining to do. How could the Gentile Christians be included in the tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures? St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans wrote the theology of Gentile Christianity. He showed how the Hebrew Scriptures anticipated the faith of the Gentiles. He showed how his Judaism had failed in evangelism to the entire world by remaining within a cloistered separatist community. How did St. Paul explain the faith of the Gentiles? He went to the pre-Jewish Patriarch of the Hebrew Scripture. Abraham was not a Jew; he existed before Jacob and his son Judah, from whom the word "Jew" derives. Abraham existed before Moses received the Torah, the Laws of God. Abraham did not know the Ten Commandments but he had a faith in God and this faith in God was regarded to be as valid and as good as the faith of Moses, David, Elijah and all the prophets.
The Gentiles Christians were like Abraham; they did not have the benefit of knowing the law of Moses, but by faith they had received the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Risen Christ in their lives. And they were living faithful lives in the manner of Abraham, but they were not keeping all of the minor laws, like the dietary laws regarding pork or the circumcision law.
St. Paul was saying to Gentile Christians, your faith is valid because your faith is like the faith of Abraham. St. Paul was saying to his fellow Jews: The faith of the Gentiles is valid like the faith of Abraham and because they have the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives, we should not require of them to observe the less important rules of ritual purity. St. Paul argued for the valid biblical identity for new Gentiles Christians.
An early Christian leader and teacher wrote the Gospel of Mark. The writer was also interested in the biblical identity of the readers. The writer of Mark's Gospel was concerned about the biblical identity of the Messiah. Why was this an issue? Was Christianity to be a "land-based" religion pertaining only to the people who lived in Palestine in a Promised Land? In one Messianic tradition, the Messiah was to be a king like David who would arise and save the nation of Israel from her enemies and establish the Jews within their traditional borders. Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah, but he wanted Jesus to be the kingly Davidic version of the Messiah. The historical facts of the time indicate that the Romans were well in control even to demolish totally Jerusalem and Temple in the year 70. These wars further exiled the Jews away from Jerusalem and environs. Jesus was not such a kingly, military Messiah but as the Risen Christ, he was converting hearts and lives of Jews and Gentiles in the villages and cities of the Roman Empire, even far away from Jerusalem. Did the Hebrew Scriptures provide the words for the kind of Messiah that the Risen Christ had become in the lives of Christians? The word of Jesus in our Gospel indicate that Jesus would be the suffering servant Messiah. The suffering servant Messiah was written about in the prophet Isaiah and he would be a Messiah for all people. He would not be one limited to retaining the borders of Israel for the national autonomy of the Jewish people. The suffering servant Messiah would be the Risen Christ who would be available to the entire world and belief in him would allow Christians to fulfill the world evangelism that the Jewish people were unwilling to do.
Today, you and I are invited to both explore our biblical identity but also invite others to do so as well. We can become like the Jews in the time of Jesus and Paul and use the Bible in very narrow ways to keep people away from faith. Or we can highlight the portions of the Bible which indicate that God is love, God is inviting and inclusive, God has a large heart and God and Christ are not limited to the Episcopal Church or our liturgy. We come to church on Sunday, not to lock God in the box of our faith tradition, but to be mobilized to go forth and invite everyone to find faith in God through knowing the presence of the Christ-nature within themselves.
The biblical tradition is wide and broad; let us not make it narrow and petty. Paul found room for the Gentiles in the witness of Abraham. There are many people today who have not had a religious upbringing but who live lives like Abraham of old. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness or "rightness with God."
Let us learn our biblical identity, not as a strait jacket, but as encouragement to show people in our lives how God reckons them righteous, because of their practice of faith in love, justice and kindness. People can realize the nature of Christ within themselves even without knowing it. And we need to be there to support and encourage the expressions of the Risen Christ wherever we can find them. St. Paul found the biblical identity for Gentiles who did not know the Bible; we too can find the biblical tradition for people who do not know it today. If Christ, is truly universal, Christ knows how to be manifest in people who never read the Bible. We need to be like St. Paul and affirm the effects of the Risen Christ in all of the peoples of this world today. And some of them might become Episcopalian and join us to proclaim Christ and the Bible as available to all. Amen.
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25 Mark 8:31-38
Lectionary Link
Part of our identity might be called our "biblical" identity. I grew up in the home of a Baptist preacher and from day one, I was force fed the words of the Bible. I received a grounding in a biblical identity.
I am not so certain that our postmodern culture has the same connection with biblical identity as was the culture in which I grew up in. For many years, the Bible dominated our world as the preferred and only authority for moral authority. The King James English translation of the Bible was a standard for English language and literature. Since the Enlightenment, the Guttenberg press, the expansion of general literacy, the rapid increase in the amount of world knowledge, and now in our postmodern world of the internet, there has been an increasing availability of so many words that can form our identities, the Bible has lost its once dominate role in the formation of identity. The Bible used to be like a sugar cube placed in a cup of tea. Now the Bible is like a sugar cube placed in the ocean. The effect of the sugar cube is more noticeable in a tea cup than it is in the ocean. This means that we have to be more deliberate in including the Bible in our lives as providing words for our identity.
The biblical identity of the early Christians was an important issue and we can highlight this in our Bible readings for today.
The early church communities included Jews who were familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures; but the early church communities included Gentile members who did not know the Hebrew Scripture traditions. They came from the cultures steeped in Roman Hellenistic traditions of philosophies, rhetoric and Mystery religions which included a pantheon of many gods and goddesses as well as the cult the divine Caesar.
St. Paul experienced an incredible social phenomenon. Many Gentiles were hearing the message of Jesus Christ and embracing it. The Gentiles did not have the tradition of Hebrew Scriptures but they had obvious Holy Spirit life-changing experiences. They had never read the law of Moses but they had begun to change their lives morally and spiritually. What was St. Paul to do? And how could he explain this to the people who had grown up with a Bible identity, the Hebrew Scriptures of the Law, Prophets and the Wisdom and history writings and the corporate prayer tradition of the Psalms? Could a person have valid faith who followed Jesus, a Jew, and yet be one who had never heard about the Hebrew Scriptures?
St. Paul had some explaining to do. How could the Gentile Christians be included in the tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures? St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans wrote the theology of Gentile Christianity. He showed how the Hebrew Scriptures anticipated the faith of the Gentiles. He showed how his Judaism had failed in evangelism to the entire world by remaining within a cloistered separatist community. How did St. Paul explain the faith of the Gentiles? He went to the pre-Jewish Patriarch of the Hebrew Scripture. Abraham was not a Jew; he existed before Jacob and his son Judah, from whom the word "Jew" derives. Abraham existed before Moses received the Torah, the Laws of God. Abraham did not know the Ten Commandments but he had a faith in God and this faith in God was regarded to be as valid and as good as the faith of Moses, David, Elijah and all the prophets.
The Gentiles Christians were like Abraham; they did not have the benefit of knowing the law of Moses, but by faith they had received the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Risen Christ in their lives. And they were living faithful lives in the manner of Abraham, but they were not keeping all of the minor laws, like the dietary laws regarding pork or the circumcision law.
St. Paul was saying to Gentile Christians, your faith is valid because your faith is like the faith of Abraham. St. Paul was saying to his fellow Jews: The faith of the Gentiles is valid like the faith of Abraham and because they have the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives, we should not require of them to observe the less important rules of ritual purity. St. Paul argued for the valid biblical identity for new Gentiles Christians.
An early Christian leader and teacher wrote the Gospel of Mark. The writer was also interested in the biblical identity of the readers. The writer of Mark's Gospel was concerned about the biblical identity of the Messiah. Why was this an issue? Was Christianity to be a "land-based" religion pertaining only to the people who lived in Palestine in a Promised Land? In one Messianic tradition, the Messiah was to be a king like David who would arise and save the nation of Israel from her enemies and establish the Jews within their traditional borders. Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah, but he wanted Jesus to be the kingly Davidic version of the Messiah. The historical facts of the time indicate that the Romans were well in control even to demolish totally Jerusalem and Temple in the year 70. These wars further exiled the Jews away from Jerusalem and environs. Jesus was not such a kingly, military Messiah but as the Risen Christ, he was converting hearts and lives of Jews and Gentiles in the villages and cities of the Roman Empire, even far away from Jerusalem. Did the Hebrew Scriptures provide the words for the kind of Messiah that the Risen Christ had become in the lives of Christians? The word of Jesus in our Gospel indicate that Jesus would be the suffering servant Messiah. The suffering servant Messiah was written about in the prophet Isaiah and he would be a Messiah for all people. He would not be one limited to retaining the borders of Israel for the national autonomy of the Jewish people. The suffering servant Messiah would be the Risen Christ who would be available to the entire world and belief in him would allow Christians to fulfill the world evangelism that the Jewish people were unwilling to do.
Today, you and I are invited to both explore our biblical identity but also invite others to do so as well. We can become like the Jews in the time of Jesus and Paul and use the Bible in very narrow ways to keep people away from faith. Or we can highlight the portions of the Bible which indicate that God is love, God is inviting and inclusive, God has a large heart and God and Christ are not limited to the Episcopal Church or our liturgy. We come to church on Sunday, not to lock God in the box of our faith tradition, but to be mobilized to go forth and invite everyone to find faith in God through knowing the presence of the Christ-nature within themselves.
The biblical tradition is wide and broad; let us not make it narrow and petty. Paul found room for the Gentiles in the witness of Abraham. There are many people today who have not had a religious upbringing but who live lives like Abraham of old. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness or "rightness with God."
Let us learn our biblical identity, not as a strait jacket, but as encouragement to show people in our lives how God reckons them righteous, because of their practice of faith in love, justice and kindness. People can realize the nature of Christ within themselves even without knowing it. And we need to be there to support and encourage the expressions of the Risen Christ wherever we can find them. St. Paul found the biblical identity for Gentiles who did not know the Bible; we too can find the biblical tradition for people who do not know it today. If Christ, is truly universal, Christ knows how to be manifest in people who never read the Bible. We need to be like St. Paul and affirm the effects of the Risen Christ in all of the peoples of this world today. And some of them might become Episcopalian and join us to proclaim Christ and the Bible as available to all. Amen.
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