Bible Tuesday for Sunday, June 14, 2015

Ezekiel 17:22-24

Thus says the Lord God:

I myself will take a sprig
from the lofty top of a cedar;
I will set it out.
I will break off a tender one
from the topmost of its young twigs;
I myself will plant it
on a high and lofty mountain.
23 On the mountain height of Israel
I will plant it,
in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit,
and become a noble cedar.
Under it every kind of bird will live;
in the shade of its branches will nest
winged creatures of every kind.
24 All the trees of the field shall know
that I am the Lord.
I bring low the high tree,
I make high the low tree;
I dry up the green tree
and make the dry tree flourish.
I the Lord have spoken;
I will accomplish it.

Ezekiel is a prophecy written while Israel is in captivity to Babylon. Because the Israelites abandoned God and worshiped other gods: Baal and his concubine, Ashera/Astartes, Degon, and others, God allowed Judah to fall to Babylon. Isaiah and Jeremiah both write that God hopes that the people will return to him while they suffer, and God will restore them.

The beginning of this chapter of Ezekiel has an allegory which describes two great eagles. The first eagle is the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, who plucks from the top of a cedar tree, Lebanon, a tender sprig, the King of Judah, carries it to a new land and drops it in soil with good water where it grew into a vine pointed to the great eagle. God used the Babylonian king to protect Judah from itself. The king of Judah, Zedekiah, vowed fealty to Nebuchadnezzar in the name of Yahweh. Then another eagle, the Egyptian Pharaoh, came and the vine changed its direction and grew toward the second eagle. Behind Nebuchadnezzar’s back, Zedekiah sent a request to Egypt’s Pharaoh for chariots and armor with which to throw off Babylon.

Then comes the above passage. Forget the eagles, God will plant the king of Israel where God wants him, in Jerusalem, on Mt. Moriah, in order that all Israel may bloom and grow, creating food and shelter for the inhabitants of the land. God alone will deal with the great and strong, drying up and bringing low those who abuse their power.

Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15

1 It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
2 to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
3 to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
4 For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree,
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13 They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
14 In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and full of sap,
15 showing that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

This psalm is sung to the fellow faithful and God on the sabboth. Again we see the metaphor of the cedar of Lebanon, a symbol of strength and uprightness.

2 Corinthians 5:6-17

So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences.

We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

In this passage St. Paul continues his dialectic between the body we have now and the body we have in eternity, life on earth here and now and life in heaven with God face to face.

“For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.” At first reading, this sounds like the classic Hollywood movie scene or comic strip where a person freshly dead appears before the throne of God and his/her life flashes before her eyes as he/she tries to make excuses for bad deeds and avoid the express ride down, down, down, down…. Try to set those images aside and merely read what Paul writes. What does the Apostle mean by “recompense”? Paul immediately follows this sentence with words of hope that “we are already well known to God.” Somehow that creates hope instead of fear of Christ’s judgment. This is not the first time Paul mentions Christ’s judgment. In other places Paul mentions how he is the chief of sinners because of his earlier persecution of the church but that Christ has forgiven him and called him to be an evangelist instead of a condemned man.

Mark 4:26-34

26 He also said, “The Kingdom of God is as if someone scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

30 Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. 32 Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”

33 With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. 34 He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

Last week Jesus went home. The home town crowd didn’t know what to make of Jesus’ teaching and healing. Mother Mary and siblings tried to nab Jesus and haul him home, as they thought he had lost his mind and needed to be silenced. So Jesus moved out to the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and the crowd followed him out there. After a good sermon, including the parable of the sower, Jesus and the disciples and the 12 moved on. Jesus explained the parable of the sower to them and then gave them several metaphors for the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God should not be understood as synonymous with heaven. The Kingdom of God, or Kingdom of Heaven in the gospel of Matthew, seems to be that which is of God and is alive and working in the world.

The first parable tells the hearer that the Kingdom of God is something that is scattered/planted and yields fruit which can be harvest, but it bears fruit almost mysteriously and without the help of the one who planted/scattered. The second parable tells us that the Kingdom of God is like something very small that grows, bears fruit, and grants shelter to those around it.

Why all the parables? Why didn’t Jesus just come out and say what he meant?! First, this is the teaching style of the day. Second, Jesus is trying to describe God’s relationship with humanity and humanity’s relationship with God, a thing so indescribable that parables are necessary.