Preacher's Study - Year C, Proper 6 (11) 2013

Monday Morning in the Preacher’s Study

First thoughts about next Sunday’s sermon

(4^thSunday after Pentecost, June 16, 2013)

John W.B. Hill

The second reading for this Sunday takes us to the very heart of the Gospel according to Paul, the good news revealed to him on the road to Damascus.  “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”

What provoked this passionate self-disclosure was the memory of his dispute with Simon Peter over table-fellowship with Gentiles (the preceding four verses).  For Paul, this was an issue of ‘justification.’

Some of the most critical questions about Paul’s gospel hang on the translation of passages like this.  “We know that a person is justified not by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.”  Or is it ‘through the faith of Jesus Christ’ (NRSV footnote)?  And J. Louis Martyn argues that ‘rectified’ would be a better translation than ‘justified’, and ‘Torah observance’ would be better than ‘works of the law.’

Yet beneath all these questions lies one reality we all know well: our ‘old self’ (the “I” that Paul refers to) which is self-serving and self-justifying through our appeal to accepted social conventions.  In Paul’s case, Torah observance was the accepted social convention he used to ‘justify’ his old way of being, including his violence against disciples of a crucified messiah (who was therefore a ‘cursed’ pretender – Gal. 3:13).  In the king’s case (the first reading), ‘royal privilege’ was the accepted social convention he used to justify theft and murder. 

Ahab’s case (the semicontinuous reading) is particularly interesting: he ‘justified’ his generous proposal to Naboth on the grounds of a clever new value system that converted everything into monetary terms (does that sound familiar?), and he ‘justified’ the elimination of his enemy by resort to the blasphemy law (after all, had not Naboth virtually cursed the king by defying him, and hence implicitly cursed the god whom the king represented?)  That’s the nature of our ‘old self’ with its self-justifying instincts.  Elijah’s role as a prophet is to recognize and name the abuses of power which society simply takes for granted.

But the crucified and risen Prophet not only exposes the deceitfulness of this kind of selfhood; he obviates my need for this kind of ‘justification’, offering me forgiveness instead, and he summons me to accept his way of being as my own new selfhood.

The gospel reading mirrors Paul’s contrast between the old selfhood and the new.  In the eyes of religious people like Simon and his guests, that woman of the city is a sinner beyond forgiveness (condemning her is another form of self-justification).  In the eyes of Jesus, she is a person who loves greatly because she has been greatly forgiven (Jesus refuses to define himself over against us sinners).  And Jesus is more than a prophet, for he also offers himself as mediator between these two visions.  He does not criticize Simon for judging the woman; he simply tells a parable, gently opening Simon’s eyes to a possibility Simon has never imagined.  Then he points Simon to this spectacle of love born of forgiveness, who stands weeping beside the table.

Our natural instinct for self-justification only serves to sharpen our conflicts: privileged versus poor, Jew versus Gentile, religious versus sinner.  The Gospel of the crucified and risen One opens our eyes to such self-delusion and empowers us to become what Torah always intended to preserve but could never create: a new way of being, without envy or resentment, a being-in-love.

John Hill is a member of the Council of APLM. He will be featured as a workshop presenter at APLM’s conference in Chicago, June 27-29, “Stirring the Waters: Reclaiming the Missional, Subversive Character of Baptism.”

To register online: http://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?456526

For more information or mail-in registration: http://www.associatedparishes.org

The picture “The Woman Who Anointed Jesus’ Feet” is by Glenda Skinner-Noble. For more information about the artist or to purchase prints:

http://www.glendaskinner-noble.blogspot.ca

Preacher’s Study – Year C, Proper 5 (10) 2013

Monday Morning in the Preacher’s Study

First thoughts about next Sunday’s sermon

(3^rd Sunday after Pentecost, June 9, 2013)

John W.B. Hill

The first reading, from the cycle of stories about the prophet Elijah, resonates with the gospel reading (provided the semicontinuous selection includes the optional verses).  But the resonance goes deeper than the miracle of bringing a young man back to life.  For centuries the church has been preoccupied with a Christology grounded in proof texts rather than in the paschal mystery; and miracle stories have been at the centre of this power-play (raising the dead as the revelation of Jesus divine identity).  But “God’s weakness is stronger than human strength,” as the crucifixion of Jesus reveals (1 Cor. 1:25).

In both stories, the context is critical to the meaning of the miracle.  The context of 1 Kings 17 is the national idolatry sanctioned by King Ahab, and the drought predicted by Elijah (who is keeping out of harm’s way by holing up with the widow of Zarephath).  Is there a connection?  Drought as divine punishment for idolatry?  Perhaps even the death of the widow’s son as divine punishment, as she seems to think?

It is ironic that the ‘fertile crescent’ (as we sometimes call it) has become, over the centuries, one of the more arid regions on earth.  Once covered in lush forests (remember the cedars of Lebanon?), the forests have disappeared, burned as fuel: not just to cook with, but to fuel kilns for brick and smelters for copper and iron.  Today we would call this a problem of resource management; but that would simply be exposing our anthropocentrism.  ‘The earth is ours to plunder’? or ‘The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it’?  Forests are much more than a ‘resource;’ yet we still haven’t learned!  Even worse consequences await us and our children as a result.  Blaming it on God is nothing other than fatalism.

So drought is not God’s punishment but the result of our idolatry – of money, of human prowess – both then and now.  God is the source of life in all its vast richness; and God is the compassionate Saviour who hears the cry of the widow, that perennial victim of our idolatry.

The context of Luke 7 is a social order in which widows without family are doomed to a life of poverty and prostitution.  Patriarchal order is yet another form of idolatry, with cruel consequences.  But the God revealed by Jesus calls us out of such fatalism, raising the dead and making all things new.  The crowd’s response is fear, and the recognition that “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has looked favourably on his people!”  Indeed!

In light of this encounter with ‘prophets’ who awaken us from our idolatry, we should note that it was the memory of Elijah that shaped Paul’s account of his conversion in Galatians 1.  If we had read one verse more last Sunday in the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, we would have heard how Elijah massacred those humiliated prophets; and Paul reminds us of his own record, “violently persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy it,” because he was so “zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.”  That was exactly Elijah’s excuse: “I have been very zealous for the Lord” (1 Kings 19:10,14).  James Alison observes that Paul’s conversion was “the recognition that in his zeal to serve God, it had been God whom he had been persecuting.  For him, the still small voice was the voice of the crucified and risen victim...” Any god we serve with violence is an idol.

NOTE: In last week’s post, I suggested waiting to comment at length on the Elijah narrative until the second half of the story is told on June 16. However, I should have said “June 23,” when 1 Kings 19 is read.

John Hill is a member of the Council of APLM. He will be featured as a workshop presenter at APLM’s conference in Chicago, June 27-29, “Stirring the Waters: Reclaiming the Missional, Subversive Character of Baptism.”

To register online: http://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?456526

For more information or mail-in registration: http://www.associatedparishes.org

Preacher's Study - Year C, Proper 4 (9) 2013

Monday Morning in the Preacher's Study

First thoughts about next Sunday's sermon 

(2nd after Pentecost, June 2, 2013) 

John W.B. Hill

This Sunday we enter ‘ordinary time,’ and the Revised Common Lectionary offers a unique opportunity, from now until late November, to attend to three different voices of scripture, each in sustained discourse (that is, if we are using the semicontinuous readings for the Old Testament).

This is the moment, therefore, to take stock of such opportunities and choose homiletic strategies that can make the most of them.

This being the ‘Year of Luke’ (the version of the Gospel known especially for its compassion for those who are in trouble, and its attention to what God is doing in history), the Old Testament readings chosen to accompany this gospel are from the prophets, from Elijah to Haggai, with Jeremiah as the dominant voice.  Prophets are people who see what the rest of us miss, who speak truth to power, who summon us to return to the ways of God.

How then shall we honour the unique character of the lectionary during this stretch of the year?  How shall we help God’s people to weigh the cumulative force of three persistent voices, from Sunday to Sunday? 

First, we can stay alert to the recurring resonances, and draw attention to them.  This Sunday, for example, we encounter contrasts between a true prophet and false prophets, between a genuine apostle and self-serving apostles, between a teacher who speaks with authority and the scribes and teachers of the law.

Second, we can look ahead to discover how to seize the best moment for gathering up the elements (extended over a number of Sunday’s) of one particular scriptural voice, inviting people to integrate what they are hearing from week to week.  It is not necessary to preach on the Gospel text every Sunday — so long as we make clear that it is a gospel lens through which we look to discover the deepest meaning of a text.     

This Sunday’s readings call us to courageous faith.  Elijah’s challenge to the prophets of Baal is a high-risk public drama designed to puncture the undiscriminating assumption that all forms of piety are equally valid.  But the preacher may wish to wait before commenting at any length until the second half of this story is told (on June 16).

Paul’s challenge to the disciples in Galatia is no less heated than Elijah’s challenge to his fellow Israelites.  His appeal to them will be spelled out in readings from this letter over six Sundays, so this may be the moment to introduce the letter and help people to hear the extreme tone of Paul’s concern.  Does it really make a difference what you believe about the ways of God?

Sometimes it takes a stranger in our midst to awaken us to the unique revelation with which we have been entrusted, to break through our dazed familiarity with the gospel.  So it was in the episode recounted in today’s Gospel reading: a Gentile, a hard-bitten centurion no less, has recognized something in Jesus to which his fellow Israelites are still blind.

John Hill is a presbyter in the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC). A member of APLM Council, John also serves as chair for the Primate’s Task Force on Hospitality, Christian Initiation and Discipleship Formation in the ACC.