Patrick Comerford
Next Sunday [29 August 2021] is the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Proper 17B). The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland, are:
The Continuous Readings: Song of Solomon 2: 8-13; Psalm 45: 1-2, 6-9; James 1: 17-27; Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23.
The Paired Readings: Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15; James 1: 17-27; Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23.
There is a link to the continuous readings HERE.
Introduction:
The Season of Creation beings on 1 September and continues until 4 October. The first reading next Sunday in the continuous readings reading gives a unique opportunity, with a rare reading from the Song of Solomon, to prepare for reflections on the beauty of creation and to link this to the love of God.
On Sunday next, we also begin a series of readings from the Letter of Saint James, and, after a long set of readings from the ‘Bread of Life’ discourse in Saint John’s Gospel, the Gospel reading returns to Saint Mark’s Gospel, which is the thematic Gospel reading for Year B in the Lectionary.
The Epistle and Gospel readings challenge us to think about the meaning of true religion, and how we should act and respond to it.
Some years, I bought a T-shirt in Athens that I had long admired. It says:
To do is to be – Socrates
To be is to do – Plato
Do be do be do – Sinatra
Our reading from the Letter of Saint James next Sunday challenges us to reflect not on being ‘doers’ of religion. He reminds us that it is not just enough to think about religion, we must also put into practice.
Our reading from Saint Mark’s Gospel challenges us to think how it is not just what we do, but the real values behind what we do, that matters.
To say one thing but to be a very different person in life is at the very heart of the meaning of the word hypocrite, a word with its roots in Greek drama and a word that is used strongly by Christ in this Gospel reading. As Christians, we are challenged to bring together our needs ‘to be’ and ‘to do.’
Song of Solomon 2: 8-13:
The Song of Solomon is usually regarded in one of two ways: either it is an allegory about God’s love, or it is erotic poetry about human love. It is, of course, the only really sex-positive text in the Bible.
But to approach it with an either/or approach undervalues the complexity of the poetry in this book. Indeed, the Song of Solomon is not so much a book as a collection of love songs; dialogues between a man (identified as a shepherd in 1: 7, and as a king in 1: 4 and 12) and a woman.
Jewish tradition has seen these songs as having another level of meaning: the love between God and his people; the man and woman are then the Lord and Israel. Christians have also allegorised this as the mutual love between Christ and the Church. However, the basic meaning is literal: love, including sexual love based on human instincts, is blessed, a part of God’s creation, to be valued and enjoyed.
The Song of Songs is the Hebrew title, while the name ‘Song of Solomon’ derives from the superscription, ‘The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.’ The latter suggests that the Song was associated with Solomon, or perhaps part of a larger collection of materials gathered under Solomon’s name. It does not mean Solomon wrote it.
Perhaps calling the book ‘The Song of Solomon’ may help to perpetuate the problem of rendering women invisible in the biblical texts. Yet this book is a very woman-centred text, and women’s voices predominate.
The entire lectionary text next Sunday, for example, is cast in the voice of the woman. When the male lover speaks, it is reported to us in the woman’s words, ‘My beloved speaks and says to me…’ In this way, the woman’s voice is the centre of the poem’s action and meaning.
This point could be emphasised next Sunday, given the continuing debate about the place of women in the Church and the Churches, and the continuing struggle of women to have their voices heard in society.
In Sunday’s reading, the woman or the bride speaks first. She sees and hears her beloved approaching, coming powerfully, swiftly and gracefully, like a gazelle, until he reaches ‘our wall,’ the enclosure where we find the ‘daughters of Jerusalem’ – a title used by Jesus for the weeping women he meets while carrying his cross to Mount Calvary and his Crucifixion.
The ‘Daughters of Jerusalem’ are mentioned several times in the Song of Solomon (see 1: 5, 2: 7, 3: 10-11, 5: 8, 5: 16). For example: ‘O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him this: I am faint with love’ (Song of Solomon 5: 8). As the muse of the Beloved, the Daughters of Jerusalem help her choose rightly between the flashy wealth of the king and the ardent true love of the Shepherd.
When he arrives, the beloved peers into the enclosure and speaks to the woman (verses 10-13), addressing her as his love, or, as in some translations, his darling (NIV, NASB).
It is Spring; he celebrates creation and nature. He invites her to come away with him (2: 13) with him, as can be deduced from the sexual symbols in the book, to enjoy sexual intercourse.
Later, the bridegroom beseeches her, as ‘my dove’ (verse 14), to let him see her and to hear her voice. She responds that she is not as inaccessible as he thinks (verse 15). In verses 16-17, she invites him to be with her ‘on the cleft mountains.’
When Christ meets the weeping women of Jerusalem along the Via Dolorosa, on his way to Mount Calvary, and calls them the Daughters of Jerusalem (Luke 23: 26), we should expect the scene to be filled with the love of God, we should expect these women to realise they have met their shepherd and their king.
Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-9:
The paired first reading is directly linked to Christ’s sayings in the Gospel reading, and his warnings against ‘teaching human precepts as doctrines’ (Mark 7: 7). People are warned not only to observe the law, but also not to add to it with their own rules and regulations as through they were God-given.
The reason they are asked to keep the commands of the Lord, and to hand them on to the generations that follow is so that they will show their ‘wisdom and understanding to the nations,’ so that other people understand who God is, and so that the people themselves remember the great things God has done for them.
Psalm 45: 1-2, 7-10:
The psalmist is a court scribe and a skilled writer – ‘a ready scribe’ – who feels inspired to write an ode for a royal wedding.
God has made the king greater than the kings of other nations. His robes are perfumed with fragrance – with myrrh, aloes and cassia. Stringed instruments play music in his palace, which is richly decorated with ivory.
The ladies of the court include the daughters of kings. The bride’s dress is ornamented with gold from Arabia or east Africa. She is a foreigner, but she is to forget her people, to please and honour the king, her master. The rich seek her favour with expensive gifts.
Psalm 15:
Psalm 15 was probably used in a liturgy of admission to the Temple. A pilgrim to Jerusalem asks God: who may come to Mount Zion, the holy hill, to worship in the Temple, ‘your tent’? Who is acceptable in God’s presence?
The answer is the then provided by a priest in the Temple in verses 2-5a. He answers that those who are acceptable in the presence of God are:
● those who ‘walk blamelessly’ or are ethical their words and deeds;
● those who do not wrong friends or neighbours by what they say and do (verse 3);
● those who despise evil-doers and honour those who hold God in awe (verse 4);
● those who charge no interest on loans to the needy and who accept no bribes (verse 5).
People such as these forever find themselves in the presence of God.
James 1: 17-27:
For the next five Sundays (until 26 September, the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, Trinity XVII), the Lectionary readings take us through the Letter of Saint James, one of the 21 epistles in the New Testament.
The author of this epistle identifies himself as ‘James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,’ who is writing to ‘the twelve tribes in the Dispersion’ (James 1: 1), or the 12 tribes in the Diaspora or ‘scattered abroad.’ This epistle is traditionally attributed to James the brother of Jesus. He is not numbered among the Twelve, unless he is identified as James the Less. James is, nonetheless, an important figure, and is described elsewhere as ‘the brother of the Lord’ (see Matthew 13: 55; Mark 6: 3; Acts 12: 17, 15: 13-21; Galatians 1: 19).
From the middle of the third century, patristic writers said this Epistle was written by James, the brother of Jesus and a leader of the Church in Jerusalem.
Within the New Testament canon, the Epistle of James is unusual in that it makes no reference to the death, resurrection, or divine sonship of Jesus. It refers to him twice, as ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’ and as ‘our glorious Lord Jesus Christ’ (1: 1, 2: 1). The intended readers are believed to be Jewish Christians who were dispersed beyond Palestine, perhaps still worshipping in synagogue communities in the Diaspora.
The epistle is written in excellent Greek, but is often compared to the style of the Wisdom literature in the Old Testament (which includes the Song of Solomon), and has been compared also with moral sermons in the Talmud and rabbinic literature. It is framed within an overall theme of patient perseverance during trials and temptations.
James writes to encourage believers to live consistently with what they have learned in Christ. He wants his readers to mature in their faith in Christ by living what they say they believe. He condemns various sins, including pride, hypocrisy, favouritism and slander. He encourages believers to humbly live by godly rather than worldly wisdom and to pray in all situations.
At the Reformation, many reformers, most notably Martin Luther, argued that this epistle should not be part of the canonical New Testament. Luther famously dismissed it, saying, ‘Saint James’ Epistle is really an epistle of straw, for it has nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it.’
In some places, Luther argues that it was not written by an apostle, while in others he describes James as the work of an apostle, and even cites it as authoritative teaching from God.
This passage, rather than dealing with one single argument, contains at least three arguments, one of which begins far earlier than 1:17. Each of these arguments in James 1 introduces later portions of the letter. James 1 serves both as a precursor to the rest of the letter, and as a succinct exposition of what James calls ‘pure and undefiled religion.’
Saint James begins by contrasting children of desire with children of God (James 1: 12-18) an argument that ends in 1: 17-18, the first two verses of Sunday’s reading. This theme will recur at the end of James 3, and through most of James 4. Following this, he contrasts human sharp-tongued hot-headedness with God’s justice (James 1:19-21, 26), the focus of most of James 3. Finally, he differentiates between those who hear and those who do God’s word (James 1: 22-25), the primary subject of James 2.
In this reading, Saint James argues that the very act of giving (verse 17) is what matters, not the size of the gift. God, ‘the Father of lights,’ gives the ‘perfect gift.’ But God’s love and goodness to us are never diminished. He created according to his own intent. He now gives us the new creation, Baptism or birth into the Gospel or word of truth, his saving revelation fully expressed in Christ.
This is so that we may be forerunners or the first fruits of all humans in offering ourselves to God. So, we must cast aside worldliness, and welcome the faith received at Baptism, a faith that can save you from the evil in the world.
The word is not just to be heard but also to be done: Baptism makes ethical demands on us. To be a hearer but not a doer is like looking in a mirror: it reveals blemishes; the hearer sees them, and then ignores or forgets them, doing nothing to correct the deficiencies. But those who look into and persevere with the Gospel, the perfect law, the law of liberty, are doers, and are blessed for following God’s ways.
The writer describes three characteristics of ‘doers’: they are quick to listen, so do not deceive themselves; they are slow to speak and they are slow to anger.
The final verses in this reading (James 1: 26-27) encapsulates the spirit of the entire chapter, by pointing out the primary characteristics of ‘true religion.’ When it comes to people whose religion is all talk and no action, ‘their religion is worthless.’ Pure religion guards its speech and acts out its faith by caring for the marginalised in society, represented here in the practical example of ‘widows and orphans.’
Religion must include caring actively for others, and he offers practical examples of how to live out the Christian life, such as caring for orphans and widows.
Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23:
After a series of readings from the Bread of Life discourse in Saint John’s Gospel, we now return to Saint mark’s Gospel, which provides the principal Gospel readings through Year B.
Saint Mark has told us that Christ has gained an audience among the common people, who have sought sustenance and have responded to his compassion in healing.
Now we hear of his opposition to the legalism and pickiness of the Pharisees. They are from Jerusalem, so represent official Judaism. Mark’s note (verses 3-4), written for Gentile readers, explains that the Pharisees consider the ‘tradition of the elders’ to be binding, as are the laws of Moses.
At first the laws of ritual purity applied only to priests. The Pharisees wished to extend these laws to all Jews at first not because they had hang-ups about how and when people could eat, but because they wanted to show that all people are priestly and holy. The original intention was broad and embracing, and not narrow and controlling in its intent. Which approach do you think Jesus would identify with?
But rather than answer the question or becoming entangled in the detail of the argument (verse 5), Jesus calls these particular Pharisees hypocrites.
In Greek, the word, ὑποκριτής (hypokrités) was used for an actor who masked or hid his face. The word ὑποκρίνομαι (hypokrínomai) means ‘to play a part on stage,’ and the word ῠ̔ποκρῐτής (hypokrités) meaning one who answers, an interpreter, an expounder or a stage actor, eventually came to mean figuratively a pretender, dissembler, or a hypocrite.
Christ quotes Isaiah 29: 13 when he says their religion is empty. They ‘hold to human tradition’ (verse 8) rather than the Law.
Then in verses 14-15, Christ says that what you eat, what is ‘going in,’ is immaterial, but what comes out does matter: it is from the very being of a person that ‘evil intentions’ (verse 21) and actions come. The heart was seen as the source of the will and not just of emotions.
Have you noticed how the lectionary editing of the text delicately skips over Jesus’ graphic statement in verse 19 that what enters into the belly passes out into the sewer?
In the Gospels, it seems Christ saves his sharpest words, his most pointed criticism, for the most religious. It is not the tax collectors and notorious sinners who are reproached by him, but the Pharisees and scribes, the experts in God’s law, the high achievers in religious piety.
In Sunday’s Gospel reading, Christ calls them hypocrites and says they abandon the commandment of God for the sake of human tradition.
We have been taught to view the Pharisees and scribes as self-righteous hypocrites and to distance ourselves from them, and passages like this one tend to reinforce that perception. But it may be important on Sunday to debunk the popular misconception that the Pharisees and scribes thought they were earning salvation by their obedience to the law.
I have heard many irresponsible caricatures about the Pharisees from pulpits, and many more of them may be drheard from pulpits next Sunday.
In fact, the Pharisees understood that God’s choosing and calling of Israel as a gift. They also understood that God gave them the law as a gift, to order their lives as God’s people. Their observance of the law was meant to be a witness to the nations around them, to give glory to God.
The Pharisees took seriously the call to be a priestly kingdom and holy nation (see Exodus 19: 6), and so saw the laws concerning priests serving in the temple as applying to all God’s people in all aspects of life. As priests serving in the temple were required to wash their hands before entering the holy place or offering a sacrifice, the Pharisees believed that all people should wash their hands before meals as a way of making mealtime sacred, bringing every aspect of life under the canopy of God’s law.
These ‘traditions of the elders’ were seen as a way to ‘build a fence around the law,’ to preserve the Jewish faith and way of life, especially under Roman occupation. When the Pharisees and scribes when see the disciples eating without washing their hands, they see this as something more serious than proper hygiene. They suspect that the carelessness about the traditions threaten to undermine respect for God’s law.
These are legitimate concerns. Why, then, do they receive such a harsh response from Jesus? There is a clue in the verses Christ quotes from Isaiah: ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines’ (verses 6-7).
He sees the problem with the Pharisees and scribes is that they have become so focused on the externals of faithfulness that they neglect to examine their own hearts. Their efforts to live faithfully were putting up walls of alienation instead of drawing them closer to God and to their neighbours. The rituals they observed created a spiritual hierarchy between the clean and the unclean. Instead of expressing the holiness of God, ritual purity became a means of excluding people who are considered dirty or contaminated.
Some closing reflections:
An important question to ask after reading Sunday’s Gospel might be: who do we consider the dirty or unclean today? Who do we keep at a safe distance?
Perhaps we have more in common with the Scribes and Pharisees than we think.
Like the Pharisees, perhaps we think that being called by God is a gift. In response to God’s grace, we want to live in the ways God would want us to live, and we try to discern what that means in the concrete circumstances of our daily lives. But in attempting to live faithfully, there is always the temptation to judge those who do not live in the same way and to set ourselves above others.
Christ tells us to beware when piety gets in the way of fulfilling the heart of the law: loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbour as yourself. He warns us to beware when our piety separates us from others, for then it is also separating us from God.
Jewish chaplaincies on college campuses in the US are called ‘Hillel House’ after the most famous Pharisee – apart from Saint Paul, who constantly calls himself a Pharisee.
All branches of modern Judaism derive from the tradition of the Pharisees. The recipients of the Letter of James, who are worshipping in synagogues in the Diaspora, must have still been comfortable in identifying with the tradition of the Pharisees. So, when we use the word Pharisee as a synonym for hypocrite or speak of Pharisees practising a religion of empty ceremonies and heartless enforcement of rules, we are insulting today’s Jews and Judaism, and we know the consequences of continuing with threads like this. Such rhetoric is not only insulting, but also profoundly misleading.
In Jesus’ day, Pharisees did not hold to a religion that said that God was more distant or less loving or merciful than the God we proclaim. Indeed, the Pharisees taught that God is ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,’ and ‘forgiving iniquity and sin.’ Neither did the Pharisees teach that God is distant or that human beings cannot have an intimate relationship.
Indeed, the Pharisees, unlike the Sadducees, taught that God could be present in anyone’s kitchen, workplace, and bedroom as God is present in the Temple. Nor did they confine God’s love to Jews or suggest that one had to be born Jewish to know or follow God.
Jesus criticises Pharisees, but even when he is doing so harshly, he acknowledges their zeal in evangelism, in letting Gentiles everywhere know that the God of Israel would receive them gladly (see Matthew 23: 15). They too were the people who lobbied longest and hardest for prophetic books such Isaiah to be counted as scripture.
Christ criticises particular Pharisees because in so many ways their thinking is so close to his thinking. His quarrel with the Pharisees is like a quarrel between brothers.
The disagreement is about what it is that makes a place holy, and what it is that constitutes purity. It is not that purity does not matter, for we all have our own private and family views about domestic ritual and purity. For example, we all grew up being taught not to eat or leave the bathroom without washing our hands, and we know it is unacceptable to prepare food outside the kitchen.
It is said, half-jokingly but whole in earnest, that one of the greatest causes of domestic arguments in the kitchen is the way we stack the dishwasher … should knives be put in the basket blade up or handle up? Which is more important … how easy it is to take them out afterwards, or which way do they get the best rinse?
We have an another illustration of ritual purity at the table and the needs of people in the Gospel reading the following Sunday (Mark 7: 24-37, Sunday 5 September 2021, Trinity XIV), when the Syrophoenician woman begs Jesus to heal her daughter and reminds him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs’ (Mark 7: 28).
In Sunday’s Gospel reading, Christ does not say that purity does not matter. But he redefines purity in terms of ‘what comes out of a person,’ the qualities we demonstrate in relationships.
Father Tikhon (Murtazov), who died some years ago [9 June 2018], was a much-loved Russian spiritual guide. Sister Olga Schemanun, a nun of Snetogorsk Monastery, recalled how Father Tikhon welcomed everyone who came to visit him and who asked for his guidance and prayers.
Amazed at his kindness, she asked him one day: ‘Why don’t you refuse anyone? You bless whatever they ask of you.’
‘We’re in difficult times now,’ he said. ‘It’s better to sin by love than by strictness.’
We should worry as much about making careless wounding remarks as much as we would worry about preparing food unhygienically.
Can you imagine how much more positively people at large would view the churches if every parish and church put as much care into seeing that our children are not abused or infected with racism or discrimination or hate as much as we put care into seeing that the cups are clean for the tea and coffee after church on Sunday morning, or even as much as we attend to the cleanliness of the sacred vessels used for the Eucharist or Holy Communion?
Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (NRSVA):
1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6 He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’
14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’
21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’
Liturgical Resources:
Liturgical Colour: Green (Ordinary Time, Year B).
The Collect:
Almighty God, who called your Church to bear witness
that you were in Christ reconciling the world to yourself:
Help us to proclaim the good news of your love,
that all who hear it may be drawn to you;
through him who was lifted up on the cross,
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Collect of the Word:
Cleanse our consciences, O Lord,
and enlighten our hearts
through the daily presence of your Son Jesus Christ,
that when he comes in glory to be our judge
we may be found undefiled and acceptable in his sight;
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post-Communion Prayer:
God our creator,
you feed your children with the true manna,
the living bread from heaven.
Let this holy food sustain us through our earthly pilgrimage
until we come to that place
where hunger and thirst are no more;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Suggested Hymns:
Song of Solomon 2: 8-13:
262, Come, ye faithful, raise the strain
Psalm 45: 1-2, 6-9:
88, Fairest Lord Jesus
125, Hail to the Lord’s anointed
597, Take my life, and let it be
73, The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended
Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-9:
8, The Lord is King! Lift up your voice
Psalm 15:
631, God, be in my head
James 1: 17-27:
62, Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
63, All praise to thee, my God, this night
25, All things bright and beautiful
494, Beauty for brokenness
566, Fight the good fight with all thy might
350, For the beauty of the earth
512, From you all skill and science flow
80, Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father
382, Help us, O Lord, to learn
6, Immortal, invisible, God only wise
362, O God, beyond all praising
363, O Lord of heaven and earth and sea
601, Teach me my God and King
47, We plough the fields and scatter
374, When all thy mercies, O my God
499, When I needed a neighbour, were you there?
Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23:
630, Blessed are the pure in heart
131, Lift up your heads, you mighty gates
75, Lord, dismiss us with your blessing
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
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)
Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.
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