Covenant and
Exile: 5th Sunday in Epiphany
Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-11, 20c; 1
Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39
According to the New Revised Common
Lectionary regarding the relationship of gospel and first
reading, “From the First Sunday of Advent to Trinity Sunday of each
year, the Old Testament reading is closely related to the gospel
reading for the day. From the first Sunday after Trinity Sunday
to Christ the King, provision has been made for two patterns of
reading. . . (a) a pattern . . . in which the Old Testament and gospel
readings are closely related . . . (b) a pattern of semi-continuous Old
Testament readings . . . . For all these Sundays . . . churches and
denominations may determine which of these patterns better serves their
needs . . . the use of the two patterns should not be mixed.”
These commentaries have routinely disagreed with both the description
of the patterns and the caveat about not mixing the two (see highlights for Propers in both
years C and A). The readings for the seasons, of course, offer no
“alternative” pattern readings. In addition, with the exception
of the first Sunday after Epiphany,
Year B seems to offer no particular relationship among the selections
for the season from the Old Testament and the New Testament. The
lament that the readings seem to have been cobbled together by drunken Elves may find some
justification. The United Church of Christ’s
“Electronic Library” suggests the theme for the 5th Sunday
is “source of strength.” That may indeed be broad enough to do
the job. Unfortunately that “source of strength” theme also can
be applied to the entire Bible.
Why this portion of Paul’s at times scathing letter to the Corinthians
was paired with the story of Mark’s Jesus’s first healing is not clear
– especially if Paul’s emphasis is on participation with the
post-Easter Jesus as Christ in restoring God’s distributive
justice-compassion. But that is a 21st Century interpretation,
based on a more accurate understanding of 1st Century life under the
Roman Empire along with extensive (and controversial) scholarship about
the historical, pre-Easter Jesus. Such an association might make
sense given the much later (2nd - 4th Century) appropriation of Jesus’s
message to an emphasis on salvation in the next life, based perhaps on
the stories of supernatural miracles – like those in the reading
from Mark’s Gospel. If the people were encouraged to believe (or
better, suspend disbelief) in supernatural miracles, then Paul’s
impassioned rhetoric about being willing to die for such a gospel could
be used to keep imperial systems of injustice firmly in place.
The portion selected from Isaiah 40 certainly does lift up the God of
Israel as a source of strength: “He gives power to the faint and
strengthens the powerless . . . but those who wait for the Lord . . .
shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.” These are some of the phrases
from Isaiah most beloved by Christians because they have been used as a
reminder of Covenant as promise, and that Jesus is the fulfillment of
that promise. But who was the prophet that wrote those words, and
why did he (presumably “he”) write them? What was the nature of the promise?
Salvation from hell in the next life, or deliverance from injustice in
this life?
Likewise the portions selected from Psalm 147: Praise for God’s care
for Jerusalem. Is this Psalm to be taken as a further pious
reference to the Messiah, who “gathers the outcasts of Israel . . heals
the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds”? The note in the Harper Collins Study Bible points
out that “[m]otifs and themes from other psalms, Job, and Isaiah 40-66
appear throughout the psalm” (p. 934). Perhaps this is why the
Elves selected this particular Psalm for today.
The question is, what is really going on? As usual in these
commentaries, the first answer is “Covenant.” The second answer
is “Exile.”
The writer of Mark’s Gospel likely witnessed the sacking of Jerusalem
and the destruction of the Temple. With the Temple gone, Judaism
– exiled again – changed profoundly, and the Jesus movement that got
its start within Judaism developed its own spiritual identity.
John Shelby Spong suggests the Gospel may have been written to replace
the traditional Jewish readings that marked the Jewish liturgical
year. Liberating the Gospels
(HarperCollins, 1996). That seasonal rhythm has been long lost to
Christian practice. The creator of the gospel of Mark, writing
for a traumatized community cut off at the roots, would rather take us
on a faith journey that reveals and confirms the identity of the
Messiah at the end. But with the fore-shortened Christian
liturgical year, Mark’s Gospel has to be broken up. The Christian
year begins with Advent and birth stories that Mark did not
include. There is not enough time between the Christmas season
and the beginning of Lent to get the full metaphor of Mark’s Jesus on
the road from Nazareth to Jerusalem.
To give the Elves their due, the prophet who wrote the second part of
Isaiah – which includes Isaiah 40 – was writing from exile in
Babylon. Much like the leader of the Markan community, his job
was to hold the exile community together in its faithfulness to God’s
Covenant. But Christians need to be careful. When the
Prophet asks, “Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is
hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God?” he is not
talking about Mark’s Jesus who counsels those demons he casts out not
to say who he is. The writer of Isaiah’s poetry is not talking
about the apostle Paul “disregarding” his right to monetary support
from the Christian community in Corinth.
The Old Testament and New Testament readings must not be considered as
“cause and effect,” or “prophecy and fulfillment.” Doing so robs
both the Psalm and the prophecy of their relevance and power.
As devout Jews, it is highly likely that Paul (and probably the Markan
liturgist) knew very well the meaning of the poetry in Isaiah and the
psalms. Indeed where else could they have found the strength and
courage to live and organize communities in the belly of the Roman
beast and in the face of apocalyptic destruction? Paul
deliberately declined to participate in those systems that he readily
saw merely entrenched the injustice inherent in Roman imperial
society. As a result, he got into huge trouble with the
Corinthians. But to Paul, saving one soul was more
important. “I have become all things to all people, that I might
by all means save some.” Save from what? Hell in the next
life? Or Injustice in this life? Conventional Christian piety
since the 4th Century has answered “next life.” But Paul in the
First Century was talking about this life – so immediately, so
immanently, that marriage, money, position, favor, food, clothing,
shelter meant nothing to him. Instead, what mattered above all
was participation with the Christ in ushering in the Kingdom of God –
i.e., restoring God’s rule of distributive justice-compassion.
Twenty years after the death of Paul, the writer of Mark’s Gospel was
perhaps desperate to keep the community focused on living in the
interim exile until Jesus would come again – as promised – at any
moment – to meet them in Galilee. Jesus’s power was manifest,
according to Mark – who (fortunately for the Elves a millennium or two
later) wasted no time in cutting to the chase. But Mark is into
secrets. His answer to the question, “why did people not
recognize Jesus as God’s anointed one” is “because Jesus told people
not to tell.” It is a Messianic secret, invented by Mark for his
own story-telling reasons; “it has no basis in Jesus’s life or thought”(The Five Gospels,
p. 43). Mark’s insistence on “secrecy,” and on the failure of
Jesus’s followers to realize who he was until after his death,
underscores the importance of “faith” – or better -- “trust” in the
power of God’s imperial rule over Roman imperial rule.
Mark’s Jesus was not satisfied to stay in one place, whether Nazareth
or Capernaum. “Let’s go somewhere else, to the neighboring
villages, so I can speak there too, since that’s what I came for,”
Mark’s Jesus says, “So he went all around Galilee speaking in
their synagogues and driving out demons.” In Mark’s world, the
demons all knew who Jesus was. Jesus did not claim to be the
Messiah – he told the demons not to speak.
Likewise Paul refuses to accept credit from the Corinthians, and does
not “boast” for his own sake or to get a reward/payback/kickback from
his “patron.” Justice is not about payback. Justice is
about radical sharing among radically inclusive equals. In the
portion conveniently left out by the Elves in all three years of
readings (1 Cor. 9:8-10), Paul writes: “Do
I say this on human authority? Does not the law also say the
same? For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘You shall not
muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.’ Is it for oxen
that God is concerned? Or does he not speak entirely for our
sake? It was indeed written for our sake, for whoever plows
should plow in hope and whoever threshes should thresh in hope of a
share in the crop.”
Mark portrayed Jesus as an itinerant exorcist and faith healer: a
“spirit person” and “mediator of the sacred,” in Marcus Borg’s
words. Meeting Jesus Again for
the First Time (HarperSan Francisco, 1994) pp. 31 ff.
The point that Borg makes throughout his studies on the historical
Jesus is, whether you believe the stories are literally, factually true
or not, what do they mean? Twenty-first century, post-modern,
post-Christian, jaded skeptics are not about to believe that Mark’s
miracle stories are literally, factually, true.
The story about the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law has been
discussed, reimagined, midrashed, metaphorised, and generally worked
over for hundreds of years. I submit it is a story of
Covenant. The story illustrates how the realm of God –
distributive justice-compassion – broke through into ordinary lives
because of what Jesus did.
Paul’s point is that the realm of God breaks through whenever anyone
joins the program.
BLOG ARCHIVE