Patrick Comerford
Next Sunday, 21 July 2019, is the Fifth Sunday after Trinity.
The appointed readings in the Revised Common Lectionary for Proper 9 (Year C), as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland are in two groups.
The readings are:
The Continuous Readings: Amos 8: 1-12; Psalm 52; Colossians 1: 15-28; Luke 10: 38-42. There is a link to the readings HERE.
The Paired Readings: Genesis 18: 1-10a; Psalm 15; Colossians 1: 15-28; Luke 10: 38-42. There is a link to the readings HERE.
Introducing the readings:
The Prophet Amos is concerned for the oppressed. He realises that true religion is not only about what we believe but how we show it in action, particularly in how we deal with the poor and treat the oppressed.
In the Psalm, lying and deceitful people pretend to worship God, but they will be removed.
As we continue to read from the Letter to the Colossians, we hear how Saint Paul’s image of God’s salvation is not reserved in some mysterious way for the insiders and those who would limit access to the worship of God.
In the Gospel story, Christ is served both in the meal and in listening to his word. Word and sacrament are essential to true worship, they are complementary rather than competitive.
In all these readings, we are reminded that true worship and liturgy must be translated into service and action.
Amos 8: 1-12:
God has shown the Prophet Amos three visions of the looking devastation facing the people of Israel because of their injustice and their exploitation of the poor. This includes the destruction of all their sanctuaries, both to God and to pagan idols.
Now God shows Amos another vision. There is a pun or a play on words in verse 2: in Hebrew, the word for ‘summer fruit’ and for ‘end’ sound alike. God will no longer ignore the Israelites’ erring ways, the end has come.
On that that day, the Day of the Lord, the merchants will realise the consequences of trampling. With the dawning of a new week and a new month in business, they will realise that cannot resume their sharp and fraudulent commercial practices, in which they sold short measures and sold the sweepings of the floor as quality wheat. In the ways they have treated and belittle the people, they may as well have bought and sold them as though they were worth little.
What they have done cannot be forgotten. They have so polluted the land that their practices are equivalent to the devastation caused by earthquakes and floods.
A new week and a new month ought to have been a time for rejoicing and celebration. Instead, a new time is arriving to redress their oppression. It will be like a time of mourning for the earth, as in times of mourning when people wear sackcloth and shave their heads.
They have failed to pay attention to God’s words, spoken through his prophets. Now God will cease to speak or provide them with advice through his prophets. Without God’s guidance, they will not know how to choose their leaders, to go to war, to counter their enemies.
Without God’s prophetic word and guidance, they will find their life is chaotic, religiously and politically, and they will wander around from north to south, from east to west, from sea to sea, and not find what they are looking for.
Psalm 52:
The psalmist asks a powerful enemy why he boasts of his evil deeds. Despite the enduring goodness of God, this enemy is destructive and deceptive. He is verbally abusive, plots evil, tells lies, and speaks in hurtful or spiteful ways.
But God will punish the evildoer, who is possibly abusing his place in the Temple: ‘he shall take you and pluck you out of your tent’ (verse 5). When the godly see this, they shall tremble, and ridicule the evil person, who has found his comforts in material riches and relied on his own scheming.
On the other hand, the psalmist who has been tormented, flourishes like an olive tree in the presence of God, whose goodness is everlasting.
Colossians 1: 15-28:
Colossae was a small town but on a major trading route in Anatolia, between Tarsus, Saint Paul’s hometown, and Ephesus, a major centre of his ministry. There is strong evidence of mystery religions in Colossae that gave an important place to angels, and Colossae may have been a meeting place for Eastern and Western ideas, including the Wisdom tradition in Judaism, mystery religions and Gnosticism.
There were several mysteries or cults into which people initiated, and they reached their height of popularity during the early Christian period. These mystery religions had many features in common. Admission was through a rite of initiation or solemn consecration. The initiation was held in secret, which explains why they were called mysteries. The initiation was preceded by numerous rites of purification such as fasting, baptism, and confession.
The mystery followers were bound by an oath or pledge to keep the mysteries secret. There is a distinct difference between the concepts of ‘secret’ and ‘mystery’: a secret is usually knowledge that is hidden; a mystery is a truth that can be understood only by revelation from God.
The Colossians were apparently adopting proto-gnostic and syncretistic views and practices that were incompatible with ‘the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ (Colossians 2: 2-3).
In this letter, Saint Paul is worried about the influence of mystery religion on the Jewish and Christian communities in Colossae. He fears that the Colossian Christians may have been attracted by some of these teachings and that this threatens to compromise their Christian faith.
Although, many of the mystery religions in Colossae may have appeared attractive and impressive, they are not Christian. At best, they are weak imitations, mere shadows of Christ and Christianity. Saint Paul warns the Colossians not to listen to people who tell you there is something wrong with you unless you do things their way. Do not believe teachers who say anything is more important than Christ. Learn who Christ is. Only then will you know true wisdom.
The false preachers at Colossae are apparently saying that Christ’s death and resurrection are not enough for salvation, and that the Christians there need to add other practices from other religious sources. In response, Saint Paul quotes a hymn about Christ (1: 15-20; see also Philippians 2: 6-11), which was probably used by the Christians in Colossae in their liturgy.
It is difficult to see this is a hymn with poetic structures because of the narrative, linear way in which it is presented in most English translations of the New Testament.
In the hymn, the Church members profess and celebrate the authority and primacy of Christ in whom all ‘fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him’ (1: 19-20). Saint Paul stresses the redemption and peace won for us through Christ.
Quoting this hymn has more than one purpose for the letter writer. By starting with something the Colossians already know and share in common, Saint Paul affirms their faith and builds on the unity of their belief. He does not scold them for their errors, but rather stresses Christ’s role of reconciling the world to God as the basis of their common faith.
In this hymn, Christ is the image or icon of God, the firstborn of all creation, and all things throughout existence are created through him in, in him and for him.
While other religions honoured angels in themselves, this hymn reminds Christians that angelic beings, named as ‘thrones’ and ‘powers’ (verse 16), were created through Christ and for Christ, they are subordinate to Christ. But in liturgical Greek, the word throne (θρόνος) is also used for the altar at the liturgy.
Christ holds the whole of creation together, and he is the cohesive power of the universe (verse 17). He exists before and after all things. In his death, resurrection and ascension, he reconciles all things, ‘on earth or in heaven,’ with God the Father, bring peace to all.
After quoting this hymn, the writer reminds the Christians in Colossae that they were ‘once estranged’ (verse 21). Now they are with God, holy and blameless, thanks to Christ.
This gospel or good news is available ‘to every creature under heaven’ (verse 23). The mystery cults and religions limited the knowledge of their mysteries to initiates. God’s mysteries had been ‘hidden’ in past generations, in Old Testament times (verse 26). But Christ came to make God’s ‘mystery’ known to all people (translated as ‘Gentiles’ in verse 27) and available to all, and not just those invited to become initiates in inner circles.
To emphasise all this, the phrase ‘everyone’ (πάντα ἄνθρωπον) is used three times in the one sentence in verse 28.
Like so many pieces of poetry, this is a tightly-packed section, where there are many other Greek phrases that are packed full with meaning and significance. An appendix at the very end of this posting looks at four of these phrases: image or icon; fullness or plermoa, mystery or sacrament, and Sophia or wisdom.
Luke 10: 38-42:
Saint Luke emphasises that Christ came for all: all sectors of society, all peoples, regardless of gender. In recent weeks, we have read how:
● Samaritans are welcome in the Kingdom of God.
● Christ tells the Seventy that proclaiming his message demands unswerving commitment.
● The lawyer has learnt that his love should be for everyone; if it is, he has eternal life.
Now, in this reading (Luke 10: 38-42), Christ crosses more cultural boundaries:
● He is alone with women who are not his relatives.
● A woman serves him.
● He teaches a woman in her own house.
In that culture and in those days, to sit at someone’s feet is to be his disciple. Mary is Christ’s disciple, while Martha, who is devoted to her home, is distracted and busy. The only thing that is really needed is to listen to Christ’s message and to proclaim it. This is the task that Mary has chosen, and her role is exemplary. Of course, Christ affirms Martha’s role, but Mary’s is better.
This Gospel reading is well-known and often puzzles readers, but it also reminds me that if Mary and Martha are models for ministry and discipleship, then being is as important as is doing.
Saint Luke’s story of the meal that Christ has with his friends Mary and Martha is not found in the other synoptic gospels, and the only other parallel is in the Fourth Gospel, where Christ visits Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus. So, the meals Christ has with Mary and Martha may also be read in the light of the Resurrection, which is prefigured by the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
For many women – and for many men too – this story of the meal with Martha and Mary raises many problems, often created by the agenda with which we now approach this story, but an agenda that may not have been possible to imagine when Saint Luke’s Gospel was written.
Our approach to understanding and explaining this meal very often depends on the way in which we understand Martha and her busy round of activities which have her distracted, and which cause her to complain to Christ her guest about her sister’s apparent lack of zeal and activity.
These activities in the Greek are described as Martha’s service – she is the deacon at the table: where the NRSV says ‘But Martha was distracted by her many tasks,’ the Greek says: ἡ δὲ Μάρθα περιεσπᾶτο περὶ πολλὴν διακονίαν (But Martha was being distracted by much diaconal work, service at the table). We might say, she was getting on with things.
Earlier, in the Epistle reading, Saint Paul also uses the same word (διάκονος, diakonos, deacon) twice to describe his work as a servant or minister of the Gospel (see Colossians 1: 23, 25). Martha too is a Paul-like figure in her ministry and service.
Quite often, when this story is told, over and over, again and again, it is told as if Martha is getting stroppy about having to empty the dishwasher while Mary is lazing, sitting around, chattering with Jesus.
Does Martha see that Mary should only engage in kitchen work too?
Does she think, perhaps, that only Lazarus should be out at the front of the house, keeping Jesus engaged in lads’ banter about the latest match between Bethany United and Jerusalem City?
Is Jesus being too dismissive of Martha’s complaints?
Or is he defending Mary’s right to engage in a full discussion of the Word, to engage in an alive ministry of the Word?
Martha is presented in this story as the dominant, leading figure. It is she who takes the initiative and who welcomes Christ into her home (verse 38). It is she who offers the hospitality, who is the host at the meal, who is the head of the household – in fact, Lazarus is not even on the stage for this scene, and Mary is merely ‘her sister’ – very much the junior partner in the household.
Yet it is Mary, the figure on the margins, who offers the sort of hospitality that Jesus commends and praises.
Mary simply listens to Jesus, sitting at his feet, like a student would sit at the feet of a great rabbi or teacher, waiting and willing to learn what is being taught.
Martha is upset about this, and she comes out from the back and asks Jesus to pack off Mary to the kitchen where she can help Martha.
But perhaps Martha was being too busy with her household tasks.
I was once invited to dinner by people I knew as good friends. And for a long time I was left on my own with the other guest as the couple busied themselves with things in the kitchen – they had decided to do the washing up before bringing out the coffee … the wife knew that if she left the washing up until later, the husband would shirk his share of the task.
But being left on our own was a little embarrassing. Part of the joy of being invited to someone’s home for dinner is the conversation around the table.
When I have been on retreats, at times, in both Greek Orthodox and Benedictine monasteries, conversation at the table has been discouraged by a monk reading, usually from the writings of the Early Fathers, from the Patristic writings.
But a good meal, good table fellowship, good hospitality, is not just about the food that is served, but about the conversation around the table too.
One commentator suggests that Martha has gone overboard in her duties of hospitality. She has spent too much time preparing the food, and has failed to pay real attention to her guest.
On the other hand, Mary has chosen her activity (verse 42). It does not just happen by accident. Mary has chosen to offer Jesus the real hospitality that a guest should be offered. She talks to Jesus, and real conversation is about both talking and listening.
If she is sent back into the kitchen, then – in the absence of Lazarus, indeed, in the notable absence of the disciples – Jesus would be left without hospitality, without words of welcome, without conversation.
Perhaps Martha might have been better off if she had a more simple lifestyle, if she had prepared just one dish for her guest and for her family – might I venture to say, if she had been content for them to sup on bread and wine alone.
She could have joined Mary in her hospitality, in welcoming Jesus to their home and to their table.
In this way, Martha will experience what her sister is experiencing, but which she is too busy to notice – their visitor’s invitation into the hospitality of God.
One commentator, Brendan Byrne, points out the subtle point being made in this story:
‘Frenetic service, even service of the Lord, can be a deceptive distraction from what the Lord really wants. Luke has already warned that the grasp of the word can be choked by the cares and worries of life … Here the cares and worries seem well justified – are they not in the service of the Lord? But precisely therein lies the power of the temptation, the great deceit. True hospitality – even that given directly to the Lord – attends to what the guest really wants.’
Luke 10: 38-42 (NRSVA):
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ 41 But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’
Liturgical resources:
Liturgical colour: Green
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified:
Hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may serve you in holiness and truth
to the glory of your name;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The Collect of the Word:
Grant us, O Lord,
the spirit to hear your word,
and know the one thing needful
that by your word and Spirit
we may live according to your will;
through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Holy and blessed God,
as you give us the body and blood of your Son,
guide us with your Holy Spirit,
that we may honour you not only with our lips
but also with our lives;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Suggested Hymns:
Amos 8: 1-12:
486, People of God, arise
Psalm 52:
365, Praise to the Lord, the almighty, the King of creation
Genesis 18: 1-10a:
545, Sing of Eve and sing of Adam
323, The God of Abraham praise
Psalm 15:
631, God be in my head
Colossians 1: 15-28:
643, Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
611, Christ be beside me
220, Glory be to Jesus
268, Hail, thou once-despisèd Jesus
160, Hark! the herald-angels sing
421, I come with joy, a child of God
616, In my life, Lord, be glorified
94, In the name of Jesus
431, Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour
29, Lord of beauty, thine the splendour
303, Lord of the Church, we pray for our renewing
7, My God, how wonderful thou art
232, Nature with open volume stands
103, O Christ the same, through all our story’s pages
33, O Lord of every shining constellation
306, O Spirit of the living God
675, Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?
Luke 10: 38-42:
268, Hail, thou once-despisèd Jesus
596, Seek ye first the kingdom of God
603, When we walk with the Lord
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.
The hymn suggestions are provided in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling. The hymn numbers refer to the Church of Ireland’s Church Hymnal (5th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2000)
Four words in the Epistle reading:
Like so many pieces of poetry, the New Testament reading (Colossians 1: 15-28) is a tightly-packed section, where there are many other Greek phrases that are packed full with meaning and significance: image or icon; fullness or plermoa, mystery or sacrament, and Sophia or wisdom.
Icon (εἰκών) (verse 15): Looking at icons in churches, monasteries and on sale in shops throughout Greece, I am reminded that in this Epistle reading, despite its awkward translation in most English-language versions, Christ is referred to as the first icon.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. (Colossians 1: 15-16).
Pleroma (πλήρωμα) or fullness (verse 19): This word refers to the totality of God’s powers. The word is used 17 times in the New Testament. The heavenly pleroma is the centre of divine life, a region of light above from which Christ is sent and with whose aid humanity can recover the lost knowledge of the divine origins of humanity.
Mystery (μυστήριον, mysterion) (verses 26, 27): this word is used 27 times in the New Testament, 22 times in the singular and five times in the plural. In Biblical Greek, the term refers to ‘that which awaits disclosure or interpretation.’ The term is used in Orthodoxy to refer to what the Western Church calls sacraments.
The Orthodox Liturgy refers to the Eucharist as the Mysteries, and the sacred mysteries can be defined as ‘those holy acts through which the Holy Spirit mysteriously and invisibly confers Grace (the saving power of God) upon man.’
The English word ‘sacrament’ is derived from the word sacramentum used in Latin to represent the New Testament word mysterion. The Latin phrase was originally used for a soldier’s pledge of allegiance and initiation, and just as a soldier’s oath was a sign of the beginning of a new life, so the initiation into the Christian community comes through Baptism and the Eucharist.
Traditionally, Anglicanism describes a sacrament as ‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace’ (see the Book of Common Prayer (2004), p 769).
Sophia (Σοφία) (verse 28): The Letter to the Colossians is also written to people living in the context of Jewish and Greek wisdom traditions. But the word Sophia also refers to the supreme intelligence that belongs to God alone, to Christ, and to the wisdom of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment