Bible Tuesday for Thanksgiving Day, 2014

Deuteronomy 8:7-18

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, 8a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.

11 Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. 12When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, 13and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, 14then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous* snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, 16and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good.17Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ 18But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.

The scene of the book of Deuteronomy is that, after 40 years of wilderness wandering, the Israelites were camped outside Canaan where Moses gave a final sermon which summarized all that God had commanded thus far. After this sermon and Moses’ death, the Israelites were to conquer all of the peoples of Canaan and move right into their homes and gardens (what was left of them after the battles to take them!).

The longer the Israelites wandered the wilderness, the easier it became to look to God for all things. The Israelites had truly nothing without manna, quail, and water which God miraculously provided. But Moses admonishes that it will be very easy to forget God when homes are warm and dry and gardens and mines are flourishing.

Psalm 65

Thanksgiving for Earth’s Bounty

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[a] 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 lovely psalm recites many of the ways that God takes care of Israel, all humanity, and creation. The offerings the psalmist brings to the temple are merely a sample of the bounty God brings about through plenty of water and abundance in the fields and wilds.

II Corinthians 9:6-15

6The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. 9As it is written, “He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 10He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; 12for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. 13Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others, 14while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you. 15Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

St. Paul writes this passage about giving and sharing to a congregation where the wealthy wanted to stay wealthy and the poor were in dire straights. But note that Paul does not say, “I am only talking to the rich in the congregation now.” Rather, Paul speaks about sowing and reaping all the blessings of God, not just monetary. As a matter of fact, I really think Paul is focused more on spiritual blessings and good works more than on monetary wealth in this passage.

However, passages like “He is sews bountifully will also reap bountifully” and “You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity” have been used by many Christian preachers as foundational for “the gospel of prosperity.” This is a dogma that encourages the faithful to give generously so that God will give them back even more. Also in this teaching is that God wants all the faithful to bask in every creature comfort so if you are not basking, then it is because you are not doing everything in God’s plan so God is testing or punishing you for your lack of faith.

While some of Paul’s writings and some of Jesus’ teachings (“To him who has, more will be given and to he who has not, even the little he has will be taken away.”) can be twisted to support the gospel of prosperity, this is absolutely not what Jesus teaches when one reads the four biblical gospels in their entirety.

Rather, “cheerful giving” is giving out of gratitude for what ones does have, not manipulation for more.

Luke 17:11-17

11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus[a] was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten lepers[b] approached him. Keeping their distance,13 they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’[c] feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?

While Israelite priests did not have the power to heal, they did have the authority to declare one clean or not. “Clean” meant in a physical and mental state that was beneficial to society. If you were clean, you were a part of society, from the topmost to the bottom most rungs. If you were unclean, you were unfit for society and cast out.

Leprosy as our contemporary world knows it (aka Hansen’s Disease) was likely not the disease referred to in the Bible. Leviticus describes a disease which is labeled “leprosy” but it does not fit Hansen’s Disease. I say this only to point out that in Biblical times, it didn’t take losing a finger to a horrific disease to be thrown out of Jewish society. Impetigo or eczema could do the trick. The priests would give you the accursed title “unclean” and you were banished until such time as you could prove to the priests that you were clean again.

This miracle does not follow the pattern of the other of Jesus’ miracles in scriptures. Usually Jesus is present when the sufferers are healed, but unique to this story is the healing on the way to priests. Jesus sends the ten lepers and off they go, appearing to display some kind of trust that today things were going to be different. The healing is not just physical, but restoration of the sufferers’ whole lives. They are now physically well, can reenter society, and resume relationships with family, friends, and faith community.