Bible Tuesday for Pentecost 3, 2017

Jeremiah 20:7-13

O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. For I hear many whispering: “Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. “Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him, and take our revenge on him.” But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.

Jeremiah had a very difficult task of being in love with and faithful to God in a time when the southern kingdom of Judah didn’t give a rip about God. In the verses immediately preceding this passage, Jeremiah proclaimed the word of the Lord, but the high priest didn’t like what Jeremiah said so he had Jeremiah flogged and jailed for “speaking falsely about God.”

The come the above words. Jeremiah speaks about God like a lover, which is both somewhat alarming and completely reasonable. By this time in Jeremiah’s life, God is truly his only supporter. Jeremiah preaches the destruction of Judah due to its complete abandonment of God, and obviously the people of Judah don’t want to hear it. The passage plays with the word translated “entice” in that both the evil does and God entice Jeremiah but only God prevails. Note Jeremiah’s prayer for vengeance against his persecutors at the end of the above passage.

Psalm 69:7-18

It is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that shame has covered my face.

I have become a stranger to my kindred, an alien to my mother’s children.

It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

When I humbled my soul with fasting, they insulted me for doing so.

When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them.

I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me.

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me. With your faithful help

rescue me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.

Do not let the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the Pit close its mouth over me.

Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.

Do not hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.

Draw near to me, redeem me, set me free because of my enemies.

This psalm is a deep, intense lament which uses the metaphor of drowning to best describe his experience. The psalmist speaks of being mocked and derided for acts of repentance—fasting and donning sack cloth. What a horrible position in which to find one’s self, obeying God, or saving face with family and friends.

“those who sit in the gate” – The gates of ancient walled cities were much wider than the walls of the city, with rooms in them. During battle, soldiers would fill these rooms and defend the city from the windows facing out. Every day operations would find government officials occupying these rooms so business could be conducted between cities without traveling through the city to some municipal building. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, “sat in the gate” which means he held a governmental post.

I am struck by how perfectly the psalmist describes depression in the second half of the above passage. Thanks be to God that God hears the prayers of the persecuted and depressed.

Romans 6:1-11

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The book of Romans is a lovely and unique letter in the New Testament Canon. In all of Paul’s other letters, he writes to address problems in congregations which have been brought to his attention by messenger or by letter from those congregations. Romans is written to the congregation in Rome completely unsolicited. Paul is not answering any questions posed to him. Some scholars call the book of Romans St. Paul’s calling card. Paul wants to visit Rome, indeed, he may well have written this letter while under house arrest while awaiting a trail to Rome for his trail. Paul will need that congregation to help him should he arrive in Rome and be held in detention awaiting trail there. Also, Paul seems to want to “set the record straight” on who Jesus is/was and spell out the correct teaching about God, Jesus, and the Spirit of the Lord.

Paul was a master rhetorician, and had a very sharp command of Greek, his second language. Paul’s letters are filled with well executed arguments and teachings, but those are usually in response to letters which were not preserved in the Canon. The book of Romans is Paul’s linear argument for why a messiah was needed and proof that Jesus is that messiah. Once that point is made, Paul argues how Jews and non-Jews/Gentiles alike come to know God through Jesus and have access to the grace and salvation that Jesus makes possible. In other words, the book of Romans is the best fully formed systematic on Christianity in the Bible.

The above passage comes from a point in Paul’s argument where he has stated that “just as one man’s sin led to the condemnation of all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” 5:18 Paul asks the question that begins the above passage in a couple places in his canonical writing. Here he answers with the teaching that is directly quoted in the Lutheran Rite of Funeral and Burial. Those who would be called Christians struggle against sin, not because we are afraid God won’t forgive us, but rather to live new, baptized life, leaving behind self centered, self serving unbaptized life.

Matthew 10:24-39

“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! “So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

This passage immediately follows last week’s gospel lesson. Last week the disciples were chosen and sent out without any luggage to proclaim, “The kingdom of Heaven has drawn near.” Jesus bestowed on them a measure of his spirit so that they could, “cure the sick, raise the dead, cure lepers, cast out demons.” Jesus also prepared them for rejection and gave them permission to “shake the dust off your sandals” and “if they persecute you in one town, flee to the next.”

It seems that Jesus is answering the disciples’ unspoken question with the first paragraph of the above pericope. “Why would they persecute us and reject our peace if we are doing your will and healing their sick?!” “Because that is what they have been and will be doing to me,” replies Jesus. Just a chapter earlier in Matthew, the Pharisees write off Jesus’ power over demons saying, “By the ruler of demons does he cast out demons.” 9:34

Jesus goes on to paradoxically explain his actions to the disciples. Jesus declares he is all about apocalypse, that is “to pull back the curtains and reveal,” and came to shed light on all of the evil doings in darkness.

“not peace but a sword,” – Jesus does not come to make nicie nice among family members (“Who made me arbiter over you?!” Luke 12:14) but rather to cut misplaced priorities and family ties to make way for the kingdom of God. As tough as Jesus’ words of family division are to hear, no one should be more important to us that God, not even our beloved children and grandchildren. But that does not mean that we are sinning by loving our children. Of course not! But serving and loving family is done in the name of Christ and in keeping Christ first in our lives. No relationships keep us from church on Sundays, prevent us from acts of love and service to the needy. When we build our own lives on the foundations of our kids or our friends or our careers, that foundation will crack and we will lose ourselves because none of those things are meant to hold us up from womb to grave. Rather, when we build ourselves on Christ and add to our lives those whom we love and serve, we look to Christ for our lives. Not our careers or our kids.