Bible Tuesday for Lent III, 2015
Exodus 20:1-17
And God spoke all these words:
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before[a] me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
While we always refer to the above as the Ten Commandments in English, a more literal translation of the Hebrew “aseret hadevarim” would be the “ten words” or “ten statements”. Note the difference in Commandment vs. Word or Statement. The Jewish Study Bible states, “They are addressed directly to the people. No punishments are stated; obedience is motivated not by fear of punishment but by God’s absolute authority and the people’s desire to live in accordance with God’s will.”
While other ancient Near East laws are products of humans, the Decalogue [aka: Ten Commandments] is believed to be authored by God and given to Moses on Mt. Horeb/Sinai. These words are divided into two groups, those which deal with relationship to God and those which deal with relationship to neighbor.
God announces His credentials for giving these commands (here in Exodus) as “I am the Lord, you God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods but Me.” While God has done innumerable wonders beyond human fathoming, the one given as authority for these ten words is merely the most recent wonder, “I saved all you’ll asses from Pharaoh and brought you to this here dray land, feeding you bread from the dew every morning, and quail every night, bringing you water out of rocks. That alone makes me your God.”
I have always been amused by “Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the earth.” I seems to me a very early heads up to Bill Cosby’s quote of his mother, “I brought you into this world and I can take you right back out of it!!!”
FYI: Luther numbered these commandments differently than any other Christians or Jews before or since. Luther saw the prohibition against graven images as part and parcel of “you shall have no other gods” and lumped those two commandments into one. However, that leaving only nine, he divided the covets into two instead of one. So, when you are discussing commandments with Jews and Christians, be sure to not merely talk by numbers, but actually speak out the commandments to assure that you are on the same one.
Psalm 19
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.
7 The law of the Lord is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the Lord are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever.
The decrees of the Lord are firm,
and all of them are righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the honeycomb.
11 By them your servant is warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.
14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
This psalm celebrates not only the giving of the Law but the God, in all of God’s marvelous splendor, who gave the law.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”[a]
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Here is the crux of the constant “reforming” which the church must undergo. The Law, summarized in the Ten Words, was given by God as a pasture fence in which to Live and Move and Have Our Being. But, then tendency of the human animal is to codify, regulate, and enforce guidelines, making them more rule than guide. Then, those who embody and enforce the rules see themselves as made righteous by the very rules they enforce, and those who are not of their profession are the riff raff who need to be enforced upon. Of course, a healthy society must have laws and those who enforce them, but when there is no bend, no flexibility, no room for common sense in those laws, then you have what the Temple had become at the time of Jesus. This is not to say that there were no faithful Jews in leadership at the time of Jesus. But rather, the Law of God was turned into a whole series of little laws which, whether by design or not, drew very clean distinctions between the “favored by God” and the “cursed by God”.
In this writing Paul is challenging those assumptions. The wisdom of God is, in fact, unfathomable to humans, as the psalmist stated so eloquently above. So to try to live in God’s wisdom, a very narrow knife’s edge, is a life long endeavor filled with error and sin. That doesn’t sit well with the human species, so instead of accepting the gift of grace God washes over us each time we fall off the edge, we try to make that edge wider and build ramps up to it, hierarchy of good deeds and “states of grace.” But then Jesus comes along and refuses to climb those ramps or stand on the platforms we have constructed on that knife’s edge. Instead, he slices himself in two on the damned thing. In so doing, the knife turns into a blazed trail on which Jesus, himself is the guide.
Our wisdom is not only useless, but actually a hindrance, a stumbling block, when we face this kind of upside down Wisdom of God.
John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
23When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people25and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.
While all four gospels tell of the “cleansing of the Temple”, in the gospel of John, this is the third time Jesus has gone to Jerusalem, in Luke it is the second, the first being when he was 12 years old, and in Matthew and Mark, it is the first time.
So how do we deal with this seeming temper tantrum of Jesus, Jesus who is sinless? What is going on here?
1.) Pilgrimage up to Jerusalem for Passover was huge religious tourism. Faithful Jews brought with them currency from all over the Roman Empire, most of it with the images of the various Caesars on it. This was not lawful currency for the Jews so it had to be exchanged for Jewish currency before it could be offered as tithe at the Temple. The problem was that the exchange rate was not even and money changers were making profit on their service.
2.) Part of the religious rites of Passover was that every family was to slaughter a lamb at the Temple and then adorn their lintels and doorposts with its blood. Thousands and thousands of lambs without spot or blemish had to be offered at the Temple they day before the evening when Passover started, aka: The Day of Preparation. Those religious pilgrims coming mostly by food could not easily bring a perfectly healthy lamb (sheep or goat) with them all the way to Jerusalem so they bought the lamb in town. However, the prices were greatly elevated to take advantage of the high demand. Same for other offering animals prescribed by the Law for other rituals.
3.) The Temple is the very place where all peoples, nations, and languages are supposed to be able to come and bask in the glory, majesty, and grace of God. Instead they are accosted with price gouging.
4.) And finally, the Temple, itself, is turned into a place not of rest and peace, not of confession and absolution, nor awe and wonder, but of racism, classism, rejection, and power mongering.
It is to this that Jesus is reacting when he drives the money changers and the animal vendors out of the Temple precincts. The Temple was no longer the seat of God, Jesus was/is/will always be.
ˆˆuto Bill Cosby’s quote of his mother, “I brought you into this world and I can take you right back out of it!!!”
FYI: Luther numbered these commandments differently than any other Christians or Jews before or since. Luther saw the prohibition against graven images as part and parcel of “you shall have no other gods” and lumped those two commandments into one. However, that leaving only nine, he divided the covets into two instead of one. So, when you are discussing commandments with Jews and Christians, be sure to not merely talk by numbers, but actually speak out the commandments to assure that you are on the same one.
Psalm 19
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.
7 The law of the Lord is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the Lord are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever.
The decrees of the Lord are firm,
and all of them are righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the honeycomb.
11 By them your servant is warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.
14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
This psalm celebrates not only the giving of the Law but the God, in all of God’s marvelous splendor, who gave the law.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”[a]
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Here is the crux of the constant “reforming” which the church must undergo. The Law, summarized in the Ten Words, was given by God as a pasture fence in which to Live and Move and Have Our Being. But, then tendency of the human animal is to codify, regulate, and enforce guidelines, making them more rule than guide. Then, those who embody and enforce the rules see themselves as made righteous by the very rules they enforce, and those who are not of their profession are the riff raff who need to be enforced upon. Of course, a healthy society must have laws and those who enforce them, but when there is no bend, no flexibility, no room for common sense in those laws, then you have what the Temple had become at the time of Jesus. This is not to say that there were no faithful Jews in leadership at the time of Jesus. But rather, the Law of God was turned into a whole series of little laws which, whether by design or not, drew very clean distinctions between the “favored by God” and the “cursed by God”.
In this writing Paul is challenging those assumptions. The wisdom of God is, in fact, unfathomable to humans, as the psalmist stated so eloquently above. So to try to live in God’s wisdom, a very narrow knife’s edge, is a life long endeavor filled with error and sin. That doesn’t sit well with the human species, so instead of accepting the gift of grace God washes over us each time we fall off the edge, we try to make that edge wider and build ramps up to it, hierarchy of good deeds and “states of grace.” But then Jesus comes along and refuses to climb those ramps or stand on the platforms we have constructed on that knife’s edge. Instead, he slices himself in two on the damned thing. In so doing, the knife turns into a blazed trail on which Jesus, himself is the guide.
Our wisdom is not only useless, but actually a hindrance, a stumbling block, when we face this kind of upside down Wisdom of God.
John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
23When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people25and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.
While all four gospels tell of the “cleansing of the Temple”, in the gospel of John, this is the third time Jesus has gone to Jerusalem, in Luke it is the second, the first being when he was 12 years old, and in Matthew and Mark, it is the first time.
So how do we deal with this seeming temper tantrum of Jesus, Jesus who is sinless? What is going on here?
5.) Pilgrimage up to Jerusalem for Passover was huge religious tourism. Faithful Jews brought with them currency from all over the Roman Empire, most of it with the images of the various Caesars on it. This was not lawful currency for the Jews so it had to be exchanged for Jewish currency before it could be offered as tithe at the Temple. The problem was that the exchange rate was not even and money changers were making profit on their service.
6.) Part of the religious rites of Passover was that every family was to slaughter a lamb at the Temple and then adorn their lintels and doorposts with its blood. Thousands and thousands of lambs without spot or blemish had to be offered at the Temple they day before the evening when Passover started, aka: The Day of Preparation. Those religious pilgrims coming mostly by food could not easily bring a perfectly healthy lamb (sheep or goat) with them all the way to Jerusalem so they bought the lamb in town. However, the prices were greatly elevated to take advantage of the high demand. Same for other offering animals prescribed by the Law for other rituals.
7.) The Temple is the very place where all peoples, nations, and languages are supposed to be able to come and bask in the glory, majesty, and grace of God. Instead they are accosted with price gouging.
8.) And finally, the Temple, itself, is turned into a place not of rest and peace, not of confession and absolution, nor awe and wonder, but of racism, classism, rejection, and power mongering.
It is to this that Jesus is reacting when he drives the money changers and the animal vendors out of the Temple precincts. The Temple was no longer the seat of God, Jesus was/is/will always be.