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Bible Tuesday

Bible Tuesday for Sunday, July 13, 2014

Isaiah 55:10-13

10 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 55th chapter of Isaiah is a famous one, filled with verses we recognize, “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near!” “Ho, all who are thirsty, come for water, even if you have no money; come, buy food and eat!”

Even the above verses are famous, often quoted among Christians discussing evangelism strategies, but we tend to bend them to fit our own purposes. In this section of Isaiah, God is addressing the doubting Israelites. God has prophesied to them through Isaiah that they will be released from captivity in Babylon and will return to their native land unmolested. But the Israelites doubt and grumble. God replies, “But as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways high above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” Immediately after this sentence, the above passage occurs.

I read this very much like a parent/child exchange. A child asks very concrete questions about a very abstract concept which the parent tries to answer and after several salvos and amidst escalating tempers, the parent ends the conversation with a “Because I said so!”

God says to the Israelites that freedom and joy are coming. The Israelites respond with complaining doubt. God answers, “You don’t know enough to doubt. You can’t see enough to even for a moment think you have the whole picture. Trust that when I make a promise, no one can say that my words are empty.

Psalm 65

1 Praise awaits[b] you, our God, in Zion;
to you our vows will be fulfilled.
2 You who answer prayer,
to you all people will come.
3 When we were overwhelmed by sins,
you forgave[c] our transgressions.
4 Blessed are those you choose
and bring near to live in your courts!
We are filled with the good things of your house,
of your holy temple.

5 You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds,
God our Savior,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas,
6 who formed the mountains by your power,
having armed yourself with strength,
7 who stilled the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
and the turmoil of the nations.
8 The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;
where morning dawns, where evening fades,
you call forth songs of joy.

9 You care for the land and water it;
you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
to provide the people with grain,
for so you have ordained it.[d] 10 You drench its furrows and level its ridges;
you soften it with showers and bless its crops.
11 You crown the year with your bounty,
and your carts overflow with abundance.
12 The grasslands of the wilderness overflow;
the hills are clothed with gladness.
13 The meadows are covered with flocks
and the valleys are mantled with grain;
they shout for joy and sing.

“The beginning of the psalm celebrates God and the Temple, the place where vows are paid. The psalmist is thankful for the privilege of entering the Temple—coming into God’s presence—in order to pay his vow (present an offering). The payment is made possible by the bounteous harvest that God has provided. The vow may have been to bring a special offering for a good harvest. The body of the psalm praises God for His power over the sources of water and his beneficence in providing water for irrigation. It is possible that the psalm was sung during Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, which marks the end of the summer harvest and the beginning of the rainy season.” The Jewish Study Bible

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 four gospels we are given Jesus’ words and his teachings. It is Paul, especially in his letter to the church in Rome, that applies those teachings and develops them into doctrines. Heretofore in this book of Romans, Paul has been laying out why humanity is in the self absorbed, self serving, navel gazing that that it is in. Paul talks of natural law, those laws of physics and the sciences, which gives evidence to a supreme creator. However, people ignored the evidence of the supreme creator, and worshipped various aspects of the creation. Paul also discusses the Torah, the Hebrew law as summarized in the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, which was to be a tutor, until the real teacher arrived. The Torah is also that which points out the level of depravity and self absorption to which humanity has sunk.

In chapter 8 of his letter to the church in Rome, Paul introduces the Law of the Spirit. The nature of the Spirit or breath of God is one of complete selflessness, the absolutely opposite of human nature. By the power of the Holy Spirit and by the nature and work of Jesus, life free of condemnation and self centeredness is now available and it does not require adopting a new set of laws. When we live in Christ, it is Jesus and the Holy Spirit who make their home in us and live in and through us, granting us life and purpose beyond creature comforts.

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 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.”

In the chapters immediately preceding this one, Jesus has several encounters with the Jewish authorities over God’s law. The authorities have taken following God’s law to its anal retentive extreme, found themselves to be blameless in adherence to it, and condemn all those who do not do the same. After Jesus has found fault in their heartless interpretation of what God intended to be a framework in which to live lovingly and peacefully, the Jewish authorities “sought to destroy him.” It is in reaction to those very unfruitful encounters with the Jewish authorities that Jesus sits down and teaches the crowd, beginning with the parable of the sewer and the seeds.

Because of the way the Greek is structured in this parable, the gospel writers make it pretty clear that the Sewer in the parable is meant to be Jesus. So, Jesus walks along sewing seeds. They fall on various surfaces and sprout and grow or not accordingly. What does this seemingly careless seed distribution say about God? With today’s GPS guided tractors, it is possible to plant without waste! No seed will get flung onto the road or into the weeds or onto the piles of gravel where the road has washed onto the shoulder of the field. Efficiency and effectiveness are the names of the game. Every seed is given every opportunity to sprout and grow to its maximum potential. The fact that in the parable Jesus adopts an entirely different strategy to planting says something about God…but what?

If this parable is an example of God’s outreach plan, then how does he get a maximum bang for his buck? God is doing outreach all over the place, on hard pack dirt, among the obstinately fallen away and the nebulously apathetic. What kind of impact does God’s grace and forgiveness have in such unfertile terrain? Any at all?

“When we start thinking that we’ve earned God’s grace in some way; that it has become our personal possession; then we tend to become more stingy with it; guarding it; protecting it from abuse and waste; becoming overly concerned with spreading it in only efficient and effective ways. A pastor friend often quoted, "Some things are worthy doing poorly." At first I reacted negatively to that idea. I want to give my best for the sake of God; but perhaps we could rephrase it, "Some things are worth doing ineffectively or inefficiently or wastefully in spreading God’s Word." That’s certainly better than doing nothing. If the sower had sowed no seed, there would have been no chance for growth and fruit bearing.” Brian Stoffregen

Perhaps there is a law which Paul does not discuss, the law of the economy of congregational finances and resources. Our hearts and our practical sides are at odds when it comes to helping those in need and evangelizing.