Bible Tuesday for Sunday, February 8, 2015

Isaiah 40:21-31

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Have you not been told from the very first? Have you not discerned how the earth was founded? It is He who is enthroned above the vault of the earth, so that its inhabitants seem as grasshoppers; Who spread out the skies like gauze, stretch them out like a tent to dwell in. He brings potentates to naught, makes rulers of the earth as nothing. Hardly are they planted, hardly are they sown, hardly has their stem taken root in earth, when He blows upon them and they dry up, and the storm bears them off like straw.

To whom, then, can you liken Me, to whom can I be compared? asks the Lord.

Lift high your eyes and see: who created these? He who sends out their host by count, Who calls them each by name. Because of His great might and vast power, not one fails to appear. Why do you say, O Jacob, why declare, O Israel, “My way is hid from the Lord, my cause is ignored by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is God from of old, creator of the earth from end to end. He never grows faint or weary. His wisdom cannot be fathomed. He gives strength to the weary, fresh vigor to the spent. Youths may grow faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but they who trust in the Lord shall renew their strength just as eagles grow new plumes. They shall run and not grow weary, they shall march and not grow faint.

Just two months ago we heard, in worship, the beginning of this chapter of Isaiah. “Comfort, O Comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem…” This is the chapter of Isaiah where the prophecy turns from chiding and warning to good news. The punishment for idolatry and unfaithfulness is over. God is bringing the Israelites home from Babylon. But the Israelites have been struggling with trust in God’s authority. Many Israelites saw their captivity to a foreign land as evidence that God is not as strong as they thought. To them, it looked like God was defeated by the gods of Babylon. In the above section of Isaiah, the prophet responds. As in the book of Job, all of nature is viewed as testimony of God’s might.

Usually, the last verse of this chapter is translated in English, “but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles…” A word for word translation of the Hebrew does not mention “mounting with wings” but rather “growing new plumage.” In this time period, it was thought that when birds were worn out, exhausted, they would molt. Their strength was restored to them as they grew new plumage. This makes clearer the authors intent when using this metaphor. The Israelites were worn out from losing a war to and being oppressed by Babylon for two generations. They want restoration and explanation from God immediately! But the prophet tells them to “wait in the Lord. Be patient a while longer while God regrows your wings.”

Psalm 147:1-11, 20

Hallelujah! It is good to chant hymns to our God; it is pleasant to sing glorious praise. The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem; He gathers in the exiles of Israel. He heals their broken hearts, and binds up their wounds. He reckoned the number of the stars; to each He gave its name. Great is our Lord and full of power; Hi wisdom is beyond reckoning. The Lord gives courage to the lowly and brings the wicked down to the dust. Sing to the Lord a song of praise, chant a hymn with a lyre to our God, who covers the heavens with clouds, provides rain for the earth, makes mountains put forth grass; who gives the beasts their food, to the raven’s brood what they cry for. He does not prize the strength of horses, nor value the fleetness of men; but the Lord values those who fear Him, those who depend on His faithful care. Hallelujah!

In this psalm, God’s glory/reputation/credibility is again found in creation, but also in compassion. Healing emotional, physical, and psychological wounds is here recounted as God’s credentials just as much as creating and naming the stars.

In this psalm, granting attention to the lowly and punishing the wicked are reference to Israel and her enemies. In exile, Israel was lowly and her oppressors were wicked. The Israelite enemies has strong horses and fleet footed armies, but God has defeated them. When Israel goes to war with those same assets, they are understood as gifts from God.

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe betide me if I do not proclaim the gospel! 17For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. 18What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

19 For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. 20To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. 21To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. 22To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means save some. 23I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

Paul is addressing a few things in this 9th chapter of 1st Corinthians. First, Paul and Apollos should have been given a place to stay, food and drink, and water and soap for cleaning self and clothes, when they stayed in Corinth. If people in the congregation were not willing or able to provide accommodations for the several month stay, then Paul would use money given to them for the church in Jerusalem for this purpose. Apparently the church in Corinth gave him grief about this in a letter to which Paul is here responding. When Paul was in Rome, Paul worked as a tentmaker to support himself, but that, too, was greeted with scorn by some in the congregation. It seems that Paul, like most church leaders, can’t win.

Paul’s response to this charge of money misappropriation is “Look, I am an apostle sent by Jesus, himself, to proclaim his gospel to the Gentiles. I try very hard to be as inoffensive and unobtrusive as possible for these folks so that what they receive from me is only Jesus’ good news. If you have a problem with how I am, please understand that I am what I am for the sake to those who do not Jesus. So please, cut me some slack and drop this.”

Mark 1:29-39

As soon as they* left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

32 That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ 38He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ 39And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Why is it that a nice guy, a wise teacher, a compassionate healer, as Jesus was, raised the dander of the Jewish authorities so much that they would put a price on his head? Because he was cheeky? Well, if that was the only criterion, then a price would have been on better than half the male Jewish population! Herod was an extremely unpopular king and his administration received very little respect but an awful lot of fear. Jesus had to be a pretty serious threat to a lot more than the snake oils salesmen of the day to get the negative attention he did.

Ben Witherington III (The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary) notes some of the offensiveness of Jesus’ actions:

Though there are later stories of rabbis taking the hand of another man and healing him, there are no such stories of rabbis doing so for a woman, and especially not for a woman who was not a member of the healer’s family (b.Ber. 5b). In addition, there is the fact that Jesus performed this act on the Sabbath. Thus, while touching a nonrelated woman was in itself an offense, and touching one that was sick and therefore unclean was doubly so, performing this act on the Sabbath only compounds the social offense. But this is not all. The service of Peter’s mother-in-law to Jesus (and the others) itself could have constituted work on the Sabbath, depending on what was done (.e.g., preparing food). In any case, later Jewish traditions suggest that women should not serve meals to male strangers. The important point about Jesus, however, is that he does not see the touch of a woman, even a sick woman, as any more defiling than the touch of the man with the skin disease. Jesus’ attitudes about ritual purity differed from those of many of his fellow Jews. [p. 98]

So Jesus, while acting compassionately, was functioning outside of social mores. That always feels like a threat to those who enforce such mores. Sure, we know Jesus taught and healed any and all comers, Pharisees, peasants, widows and orphans, children, non-Jews, etc. We love that about Jesus because it means Jesus heals and teaches us. However, it overturns and undermines the laws and cultural norms that keep the Jews Jewish and elevate them, at least in their own eyes, above the Romans and all the other conquered peoples. Also, when Jesus taught, healed, and touched women, children, lepers, etc., he was violating the class system of that day; not only violating it, but negating it, treating each person with the same respect. In a culture where you don’t look at, greet, sit near, eat with, or acknowledge, much less touch any non-Jew, woman other than close relatives, or child who is not your immediate family, going around touching women and dining with sick people is obscene, and abhorrent.

An example of this is in both this story of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law and the story immediately preceding this, which we heard this past Sunday, where Jesus healed a man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue on the sabboth.

Brian Stoffregen, in his notes on these texts points, out that in the first story, the sufferer is a man, in the second, a woman. In the first story, the healing happens in the sacred space of the synagogue, in the second it happens in the common place of a house. In the first story the illness is supernatural (unclean spirit), and in the second the illness is a fever. Jesus weaves himself through all these levels and locations of society extending equal love and grace for sufferer and those around him/her.

As I have written in the past, the word translated “heal” in English is the Greek “sozo”. “Sozo” means to restore, to be made whole, and oh so much more than just “to get better.” Peter’s mother-in-law lives with her daughter and her family, which includes Peter’s brother, Andrew, and his family which may well include wife, children, and members of the wife’s family. This mother-in-law may well be the senior woman in the family which affords her some dignity, especially when guests come see her well kept home and taste the fruits of her kitchen. To be sick means to be suffering the punishment and shame of some sin. To be sick when there are guests to host is complete humiliation. When Jesus touches her hand and raises her from her sick bed, Jesus is living the fact that there is no punishment or shame in illness, nor in being female. For Jesus to do this on the sabboth, right after leaving worship, is to act as God created us to act, in compassion and service, no matter what the day.

Peter’s mother-in-law, now freed from her fever, is helped up by Jesus and goes straight to work hosting these guests. Jesus did not raise her to wait on him, as some feminist theologians have decried, but rather he has restored her to the vary station and activities in which she can serve God and through which she receives status, safety, and dignity. When her fever left her and she went to the kitchen, Peter’s mother-in-law was “restored”.