One Book, Many Voices: Lectionary commentary from the Massachusetts Bible Society

August 24-- Greater Than the Chaos

2008-08-15T21:12:00.000-07:00

Passages: Exodus 1:8-2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20

If it had not been the LORD who was on our side--let Israel now say-- if it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters. Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth. –Psalm 124

I thought my husband and I were the last two people on earth who had not seen the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Well apparently I was wrong, because when we went to see it last weekend at the IMAX theater, we were joined by 498 other eager fans. I must admit that it is worth it to see the film on IMAX—when Batman takes a head dive off some tall building, your stomach feels like you’ve jumped off with him. And yes, the film was as good as rumor has it.

Nonetheless, I found the movie to be rather disturbing. The Dark Knight intensely probes the darkness of the human soul, in which the best of men are twisted to evil and doing the right thing means ostracism and loss. Its villains are not the cartoon stock characters of the Adam West Batman days, but dark men who understand and exploit how precariously all human endeavors teeter on the brink of chaos. This is Batman for the post-9/11 world.

And as one who came to maturity in that world, I intuitively understood the randomness and chaos that the Joker and Two-Face represented. I watched news of the Oklahoma City bombings from my middle school library when I was supposed to be doing math problems. I remember participating in intruder drills my senior year of high school after the Columbine High School shootings. And I watched the Twin Towers fall on a television screen in my college dorm lounge. The Dark Knight bothered me because, unlike Jack Nicholson’s clown-like Joker or Tommy Lee Jones’ garishly purple-suited Two-Face, these villains seemed all too close to the chaotic, random evil that inhabits the world I know.

Yet if I think we’re the first generation to be faced with evil we don’t understand and can’t predict, then I haven’t read my Bible very well. Our lectionary Psalm this week uses highly symbolic language to express the same sense of chaos and uncertainty that I saw in The Dark Knight. Here the enemy is a “flood,” “torrent” (v. 4), and “raging waters” (v. 5), who would have “swallowed us up alive” (v. 3) and “swept us away” (v. 4). These labels evoke for the imagination the cosmic waters described in the Genesis creation story (Gen. 1:2), the same waters to which God brings order and light.

Here, too, God brings light and deliverance to those threatened by the chaos. The Psalm, despite its evocative depiction of the larger forces which threaten Israel, ultimately does not sound a note of despair but sings of hope. For the God of the Psalm is greater than the flood, greater than the raging waters, greater than the chaos that pervades the situation. God has provided an escape from the snare, deliverance for the people.

I must confess that I don’t care for the escapist language of this Psalm—I don’t think that God works like the Caped Crusader, sweeping in to rescue us from danger at the last possible second. Nor do I think that God’s being “on our side” (v. 1) means that the Divine Presence will choose between the hot girlfriend or the noble district attorney. What I do think this Psalm attempts to evoke, however, is the final word God has over the forces that threaten to overwhelm us. Death cannot destroy us; the enemy will not engulf us. God, who ultimately sides with all humanity, promises to be present even in the most chaotic, terrifying places and times. And the light God brings cannot be extinguished, even when we fear that the floods have washed it out.

To be able to function in this world—where so often our fears snuff out our love, where our desire for security swallows our zeal for justice—we must be rooted in the knowledge that the God “who made heaven and earth” (v. 8) still works for the well-being of all humankind. And grounded in that good news, we, too, are called to work for the same purposes. For even as the floods seem poised to overwhelm us, God will not abandon us to the chaos.

August 17-- Two for One Fun

2008-08-09T12:16:00.000-07:00

Passages: Genesis 45:1-15; Psalm 133; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28

Last week, we looked at the early part of the Joseph story, in which the selfish and privileged boy, through a terrible reversal of his fortunes, begins his journey toward leadership. I told you that we would finish the story this week, and we will. But I also saw that this week is the Canaanite woman story in Matthew. You may not be familiar with it, but I think it is one of the most fascinating little stories in the gospels. So rather than chose between them, I’m going to do two shorter reflections on each. Sorry it is so long!

The Big Revelation

Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come closer to me." And they came closer. He said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. –Matthew 45: 4-9

If you’re familiar with the Joseph story, you’re aware that we’ve jumped over quite a bit of action since last week’s lectionary passage. After being sold into Egypt last week, the coat that symbolized all his power and privilege stripped from him, Joseph experiences a variety of ups and downs. He is put in charge of his master Potiphar’s house, only to be unjustly accused and sent to prison. Even after interpreting the dream of some officials in Pharaoh’s court, he remains forgotten. Yet his life changes again when Joseph is called upon to interpret a dream for Pharaoh. He becomes the de facto ruler of Egypt as a result, and through his grain rationing program the country has enough food to face seven years of famine… and profitably sell their excess to their less-prepared neighbors.

Now this is how Joseph’s brothers reenter the picture. After several dramatic scenes, today’s lectionary passage recounts the climactic moment in which Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. As one commentary I read points out, this is a story in which sorrow unexpectedly, impossibly turns to joy—even Joseph’s invitation for his father to “come down to me” and share in the bounty of Egypt (v. 9) echoes Jacob’s lament from last week that “I shall go down to Sheol [the underworld] to my son, mourning” (37:25). In the Joseph story, the impossible becomes possible.

Moreover, our characters have been transformed from selfish jerks into servant leaders. Judah, who sold Joseph for a tidy little profit in 37:26-27, offers himself in the place of Benjamin in 44:18-34. And Joseph, who openly bragged about his power over his brothers in the beginning of the story, now sees his power in a quite different light. Through his identification with the lowest rungs of society, he finally understands that God has given him power not for his own glorification, but “to preserve for you a remnant on earth” (v. 7). Much of Genesis, you may remember, has been about chosen people. Here, in Joseph’s final statement, it becomes clear why Joseph is chosen—so that God might feed the people of Egypt, and Canaan, and the whole world.

Could Joseph have been this kind of leader without the struggles of the past? I don’t think so. Joseph needed not only to see powerlessness, but to lose his own pretentious power in order to become the kind of leader who could give and forgive. For the experience of gaining and losing power freed him from its seductive grip—after being stripped of everything, after losing his life to his brothers and to his master, he could later act for justice without fear of loss.

As people of faith, we are a called people. That doesn’t always mean a life of prosperity and plentitude—if we listen to the biblical witness, being called by God usually means being stripped of all worldly pretensions and power. But as the Joseph story points out, it is this process of letting go that allows us to truly hear God’s call in the midst of our cluttered , self-important lives. If you take this seriously, it is kind of frightening. Yet in the kindom of God, only this path frees us to truly make a difference.

The Long-Lost, Never-Preached Story of the Canaanite Woman

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly. –Matthew 15:21-28

A couple of years ago, our Massachusetts Bible Society Lenten Bible study class studied the Markan version of this passage (Mark 7:24-31). I remember Don Wells telling me that no one in class would be familiar with it. Much to my surprise, he was right. It’s one of the Bible’s troubling texts, and Jesus is the key player in it.

Why do we avoid this passage? Mainly because the Jesus we like to preach about, the Jesus that loves the child and the outcast, the Jesus of abundance, is not the Jesus we see here. Rather, we see a Jesus who calls a woman and her sick child “dogs,” a Jesus who comes off as narrowly ethnocentric. Those of us who have heard this story generally take it one of two ways—either Jesus is simply testing the woman’s faith (the preferred interpretation, in my experience), or Jesus is wrong and the woman changes his mind about the matter.

At the heart of these two interpretations is the larger issue of Jesus and perfection. Was Jesus perfect? For those who embrace the “testing theory” of this story, the answer to that question is really at stake in their reading. For if Jesus wasn’t testing this woman, that means he really did change his mind—he didn’t already know the full scope of his mission. It means, in the words of theologian Sabine Van Den Eynde, that Jesus “shows in his ensuing deeds a change in his own attitude.” And the notion of Jesus changing or evolving over his human life seems unpalatable to most of us. It means he is not perfect.

But what is perfection, anyway? Why would we have a problem with a Jesus who learns and grows through his ministry from the people to whom he ministers? What are the consequences if we believe that being perfect means never changing our minds when we receive new insight or information? Can we ever grow into servant leadership (see Joseph above) if we believe that perfection and change are mutually exclusive, that we can't learn from outcast, female foreigners like the Canaanite woman?

If we say that Jesus did learn from the Canaanite woman, the only person in Matthew’s gospel to whom he attributes great faith (v. 28), then we suggest that perfection is not a pre-packaged little instruction manual that we must follow precisely in order to be saved. That, as we know, is the kind of legalism Jesus critiqued in his ministry. Rather, perhaps Jesus’ ‘perfection’ is an openness to growth, to learning, and to honest encounter with the other. Perhaps by learning from the Canaanite woman, Jesus redefines what it means to be perfect. Rather than being supra-human, Jesus’ path of perfection leads us to fuller, richer humanity—the humanity which God truly intends for creation.