Bible Tuesday for Pentecost 6, 2017

Isaiah 55:10-13

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

12 For you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

The later one reads into Third Isaiah, the more vague the language, switching from specific references to Babylonian captivity to any time when peoples are oppressed and seeking relief from God. Certainly this is true of the above passage of Isaiah.

Third Isaiah is filled with promises of hope and restoration. But they were delivered to a people who returned from captivity to a decimated country and a Temple that was totally destroyed. These did not look like God was keeping his promises. In addition, the Israelites feared that their unfaithfulness to God would result in God ending the covenant God made with them, and cut them off. The above passage is meant to assuage fear and remind the Israelites exactly who their God is; the maker of heaven and earth, snow and rain, the God of nature who can bring forth joy even in trees! The continuance of bountiful nature was itself a sign of God’s faithfulness to Israel.

Psalm 65:1-13

To the leader. A Psalm of David. A Song.
1 Praise is due to you,
O God, in Zion;
and to you shall vows be performed,
2 O you who answer prayer!
To you all flesh shall come.
3 When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us,
you forgive our transgressions.
4 Happy are those whom you choose and bring near
to live in your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
your holy temple.

5 By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance,
O God of our salvation;
you are the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas.
6 By your* strength you established the mountains;
you are girded with might.
7 You silence the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples.
8 Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs;
you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.

9 You visit the earth and water it,
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide the people with grain,
for so you have prepared it.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
11 You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with richness.
12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.

This psalm starts out with a major tenet of the Jewish faith; if you Jews live faithfully with me, all the peoples of the world will learn of me through you. A sign of your faithfulness will be that the peoples of the world will come to the Temple and live in covenant with me. That same tenet is in Christianity: “Go, make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything that I have commanded.”

Why should all people come to God/Yahweh? The psalmist answers that God/Yahweh listens to prayers and then in verse 4 testifies to God answering his/her personal prayer.

Paying Vows – literally means offering sacrifices, whether grain, incense, sin offering, thank offering, etc.

Verse 6 on praises God for God’s atmospheric powers which tame the chaos of the seas and instead brings about weather conducive to raising crops to feed God’s people.

Romans 8:1-11

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit* of life in Christ Jesus has set you*free from the law of sin and of death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin,* he condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.* 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit* set their minds on the things of the Spirit.* 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit* is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,* since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit* is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ* from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through* his Spirit that dwells in you.

In the above verses contain the culmination of Paul’s teaching on Law and Gospel. I hope the definitions below will be helpful in comprehending Paul’s throughts.

Law: That which is commanded by God, ie: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.

In earlier chapters of Romans, Paul reminds his readers/hearers that one would not know what wrong one was doing if the law did not prohibit it. Using the above command, you would not know you were being selfish and self centered if the law did not command you to be otherwise.

Condemnation: The punishment prescribed in the law for breaking the law. Because human nature is selfish and self centered, we are, by our nature, breaking the law and cutting ourselves off from God.

Flesh: That part of humans which is three/four dimensional and visible.

spirit: That part of humans which is not confined to the three/four dimensions and visibility: personality, ideas, dreams, thoughts, hopes, yearnings, grievings, feelings, etc.

Spirit: The breath of God which is breathed into humans through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is the imago Dei, the image of God granted to humans at creation which is all but hidden by sin, yet made visible and glorious by Jesus.

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the lake.2Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3And he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow.4And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil.6But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9Let anyone with ears* listen!’

18 ‘Hear then the parable of the sower. 19When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away.* 22As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.’

As always, when a passage begins with a reference to what came before, we had better look at what came before to understand the passage. What precedes this passage is several events where Jesus is rejected, and ends in Jesus’ mother and siblings coming to where he was teaching (likely Capernaum) and wanting to speak with him. (In Mark, this same event is described as Jesus’ mother and siblings, thinking Jesus was out of his mind, came to drag him back home to silence him.) Jesus ignores his mother and siblings and instead identifies those who hear and believe his words as his family.

This parable then is about the juxtaposition of those who hear the word and should be joyfully receiving it but don’t, (ie: Jesus’ family, the Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem and in the local synagogues, Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes) with those who are seen as worthless but are receiving the word to one extent or another (ie: the crowds, lepers, tax collectors, sinners, blind, deaf, lame, poor, etc.).

Good Soil – Jesus gives three different yields on the good soil. 100 fold, that is, one seed yields one hundred more. 60 fold, and 30 fold. All of these diminishing yields are still listed under “Good Soil.” How often do we view bumper crop yields as the only viable yield, and set it as a goal we must obtain in order for our congregations to be “viable” and “faithful”? Is that God’s expectation of us or our own measure of “success”?