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Bible Tuesday for September 21, 2014

Bible Tuesday for September 21, 2014

Jonah 3:10-4:11

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it. But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’ 4And the Lord said, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?’ 5Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

6 The Lord God appointed a bush,* and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. 7But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’

9 But God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?’ And he said, ‘Yes, angry enough to die.’ 10Then the Lord said, ‘You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?’

The prophecy of Jonah is unique in all of the Old Testament in that it is to goyim in Hebrew or ethnos in Greek; it is to non-Jews. God calls Jonah and sends him to the metropolis of his enemies, for the Ninevites had made war against the Israelites and the Israelites lost. The reasons then, that Jonah tries to run away from this prophetic assignment are numerous: fear of the people of Nineveh, hatred for the people of Nineveh, doubt in God that God will actually punish the Ninevites, and wanting to do his own thing instead of God’s.

After some quiet time for reflection, (three days in the belly of a whale to be precise) Jonah decides to follow God’s command and proclaim destruction to the people of Nineveh. But the people of Nineveh are not like the typical Israelites. The Ninevites take the prophet seriously and with fear and sorrow. The whole of Nineveh proclaims a fast, wearing sack cloth and ashes. This is for all people and domestic animals! This severe act of contrition and repentance gains God’s favor and God relents from destroying this powerful enemy of Israel.

Jonah is fit to be tied. How could God disgrace and humiliate Jonah by sending him, a Jew, into the city of this great enemy of Israel to proclaim God’s disfavor and then relent?! It is bad enough that God allowed Nineveh to defeat Israel, but now God is going to be merciful to them instead of punishing them?! Jonah wants to die.

The whole of chapter 4 is meant to teach Jonah some compassion for God’s position with Nineveh by giving, and taking away, a sheltering vine to Jonah. Despite the fact that the Ninevites are Israel’s enemy, God sees them as “sheep without a shepherd”, a people who “do not know their right hand from their left”, in other words, infants and toddlers, not knowing good from evil.

Psalm 145[a]

A psalm of praise. Of David.

1 I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
2 Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.

3 Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
4 One generation commends your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
5 They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.[b] 6 They tell of the power of your awesome works—
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
7 They celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

8 The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.

This is an acrostic psalm, with one stanza for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. We only have the first eight letters represented in our pericope.

The Hebrew people never supposed to have a king over them. God intended to always be their king, with prophets representing Him among the people and speaking His word to the people. However, after existing for several hundred years from Abraham (c1800-1600BC) through to Saul (c1050BC), the people demanded they have a king like the other peoples around them so God has Samuel, the prophet, anoint the first king, Saul.

This psalm hearkens to the idea of God as king of the Israelites.

Philippians 1:21-30

For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. 22If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer.23I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; 24but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. 25Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith,26so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.

27 Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, 28and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing. 29For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well— 30since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

Is it just me or does the apostle, Paul, sound like a egotist some times? The phrase “but to remain in the flesh is necessary for you,” just really rubs me the wrong way. But, perhaps this image will help us understand where Paul is coming from.

I have attended the bedsides of dying people who absolutely want to die because they are physically completely worn out and fatigued, but they look at their kids or their grandkids who really do need them for direction and those dying people keep trying to hold on for another day, another hour.

Now this analogy has its shortcomings because Paul is not dying, so far as we know, but he is trying to explain to the Philippians that there is nothing to fear in death because God’s salvation is immediate and fabulous beyond our imagining. So, to live is to continue serving Jesus and to die is to be with Jesus. Both are wonderful.

The next challenge with this text is Paul’s use of the term “boast”. In English “boasting” never has a positive connotation so it is hard to understand why Paul would use it. However, we have a Greek/English translational issue as well as a cultural issue here. In this context, I think “boasting” could be equated with “giving testimony”. When folks give their Christian “witness” or “testimony”, they tell what God has done for them. I think that is what Paul is talking about in this context.

I also struggle with the concept Paul describes in vs. 29, that God grants us the “privilege” of suffering for Christ. I don’t know if Martin Luther would call it a privilege to suffer as Christ suffered or not. I don’t see how that would figure into Luther’s Theology of the Cross, which is that in suffering we meet Jesus most easily because we are most vulnerable and Jesus is most available, empathetic, and the only one who can suffer with us and save us. I don’t believe that Theology of the Cross teaches that suffering is a privilege but rather an opportunity not only for misery, but also for growth in relation with God.

Matthew 20:1-17

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.3When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ 7They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ 9When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

As Matthew writes this parable of Jesus, he begins with “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” While we read these parables in all the gospels, the gospel of Matthew stresses these parables as descriptions of “the Kingdom of Heaven”. As Jesus teaches it, the Kingdom of Heaven is a nebulous concept and requires lots of parables. Whether mustard seed or lost coin now found, children whining in the market place or workers in a vineyard, each of these parables is meant to help believers come to terms with something that is completely beyond them yet still encompasses them, the Kingdom of God.

The hiring practices of Israelites would be that day laborers would hang around the city square/market place first thing in the morning, hoping to be hired for the day. This practice was most common at planting and harvesting time. It would have been odd for laborers to be hired throughout the day and not just first thing in the morning for a full day of labor.

Such a difficult parable and one that is such a stumbling block for many life long Christians. My uncle, who is a former Wisconsin Synod pastor, and has maintained his Greek and Hebrew skills, teaches that an alternative translation to the last line of this pericope is “So the last will be next and the first will be next.” In other words, God’s generosity is not a punishment for the first and a bonus for the last but rather that all will be taken care of at the same time, since whether first, or last, all are next in line.