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Lectionary Commentaries, Preaching Resources, Worship

Sunday July 10 – 16 in Year C (Ormseth)

If we abide in the domain of divine love, care of all God’s creation is indeed within our reach.

Care for Creation Commentary on the Common Lectionary—Year C by Dennis Ormseth

Readings for Series C (2013, 2016, 2019, 2022)

Deuteronomy 30:9-14
Psalm 25:1-10 (4)
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37

The Gospel lesson for this Sunday carries forward several themes from the previous two Sundays.  Once more, Jesus and his followers are in the hostile territory of Samaria. Once again, Jesus confronts the cultural and religious competition between Jews and Samaritans. Once more, he is challenged to clarify how the presence of God is brought near in the relationships between people who live in hostile relationships with each other. Once more, actually with climactic emphasis this time, we are called to “love the neighbor,” indeed, on this occasion, with central emphasis on the command “to love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). Given this continuity, we might well expect that the readings should firmly underscore the learnings regarding care of creation we have developed those two previous Sundays.

There is one difficulty, however: the concept of the Kingdom of God is not specifically referenced here, rendering unavailable the eco-friendly translation of it as Great Economy that was crucial for our reading of those texts. Indeed, the topic introduced by the lawyer’s question seems to lead us in quite a different direction: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25). Accustomed as we are to hearing in this question an individual’s spiritual quest for salvation, we might expect to be disappointed with respect to our concern for creation.

That expectation is unfounded, of course. When the lawyer asks about “inheriting eternal life,” we notice, Jesus immediately redirects the question to the Torah and its greatest commandment. As Luke Timothy Johnson observes, however, the Torah does not actually provide an answer to that precise question (The Gospel of Luke. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1991; p. 173). Its main concern, as our first reading amply reminds us, is rather with the inheritance of the land and the life of the people there—“the Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil” (Deuteronomy 30:9)—and with the very presence of God as mediated through the Torah—the “word” that “is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart and for you to observe” (30:14). As Walter Breuggemann comments with reference to this passage in his discussion of Torah as  mediator of God’s presence, “Moses, the giver of Torah from Mount Sinai, provides both the commands of Yahweh that Israel is capable of obeying (Deut. 30;11-14) and the provisions of Yahweh wherein Israel may host the holy and enjoy God’s presence (Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997; pp. 583).

While those provisions normally have to do explicitly with Israel’s worship practices, there is also a profound sense in which Torah itself becomes the means of that communion. The completed Torah, Breuggemann argues, is “not simply a set of commands that determined the conditions of Israel’s existence,” as Christians are often inclined to see it. “[I]t is also a rich, dense field of imagination in which Israel is free to receive its life, playfully, as the people of God” (Theology, p. 590). As  the people turned to Torah as a source of guidance and instruction (note that the Psalm appointed for this Sunday is “a Prayer for Guidance and for Deliverance”; NRSV, The Green Bible, p. 529) it was . . .no longer simply the revelation of Sinai; Torah is now drawn more centrally into the large, wondrous realm of all of creation. The Torah is, for that, no less Israelite, but now it comprehends all the gifts and offers of life from Yahweh, which are everywhere signaled in the life of the world and in the experience of Judaism in a gentile world. Torah becomes, in this later venturesome development, a Yahweh-oriented pondering of and engagement with the life that is everywhere available in Yahweh’s world. Thus, in Sirach 24, wisdom is food that nourishes (vv. 19-22) and water that sustains (vv. 25-31). That is, Torah is the very gift of life from Yahweh that permeates the world.  And Israel, in its Mosaic stance, are the people who are first of all invited to “choose life” (Theology, pp. 592-93).

Put differently, “practice of Torah is not only study; it is also worship. It is being in the presence of the One who lives in, with, and under this authoritative text, and who is present in the ongoing work of imagination from this text.” As such, Breuggemann insists, this practice is “a way of thinking not only about Torah; for Christians it is a way of understanding Christ, who is both the one who commands and the one who offers self in intimacy” (Theology, p. 599).

The exchange between the lawyer and Jesus about “eternal life,” it seems to us, is an instance of such “Yahweh-oriented pondering of and engagement with the life that is everywhere available in Yahweh’s world.” In the company of the new Moses, the lawyer is prompted to explore whether Jesus knows not only about living according to the commandments, but also about living in the presence of God. Luke’s use of the term “eternal life,” which is relatively frequent in comparison with the other gospels, serves here to widen the circle of “inheritance” to the cosmic expanse of God’s own presence within the creation. What was a local conflict in the previous two Sunday’s gospels, albeit a conflict transcended in Jesus’ preaching of the Kingdom, leads here to a question of universal applicability, namely, the lawyer’s question, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:15). And appropriate to the scope of that question, Jesus’ answer to him is presented in, as Johnson aptly describes it, “one of the most beautiful of all the Gospel parables, the moral tale (unique to Luke’s composition) of the compassionate Samaritan” (Johnson, p. 175). The exchange is about the full domain of God, after all!

We will return to this expansive concern for life below, to consider its implications for care of creation. The details of the parable itself merit our attention, however, on the way to that discussion. The tale is highly provocative, Johnson notes; we are shocked on three levels. First, [t]he violence done to the traveling Judean is overt: he is stripped, beaten, left half dead. This is not a sentimental tale. Second, a deeper level of shock, however, is the recognition that Jews esteemed for their place in the people and dedicated to holiness before the Lord would allow considerations of personal safety or even concern for ritual purity (a corpse defiled) to justify their not even crossing the road to look. They “pass by on the other side.” If love for neighbor meant anything, it meant to care for the “sons of your own people.” But they cannot be bothered. A third shock is the discovery that a despised Samaritan, himself most at risk in this dangerous no man’s land of deserted territory, takes the chance of stopping, looking, and—increasing his own vulnerability—leading the man on his beast to an inn. It is the hated enemy who is the hero with a human heart (Johnson, p. 175).

We underscore: the graphic violence of the parable mirrors the possible consequences of the hostility between Jews and Samaritans, or for that matter, any other peoples in cultural and religious conflict. Furthermore, whether for reasons of ritual purity (symbolizing love of God through holiness) or “love of self” (manifest in self-concern for personal safety) persons expected to represent the presence of God in the land fail to keep the commandment. The Samaritan, on the other hand, risks much: not at home in the wilderness between Jerusalem and Jericho, he nevertheless spares no expense—oil, wine, shelter, time (two days! and more later) and remuneration for the innkeeper’s care. Why? Because he “felt compassion” for him, “the emotion attributed to Jesus in 7:13,” Johnson notes. This sets up Jesus’ stunning reversal of the lawyer’s question: as Johnson puts it, “Jesus reverses the question from one of legal obligation (who deserves my love) to one of gift-giving (to whom can I show myself neighbor); and of this the despised Samaritan is the moral exemplar!” (Johnson, p. 173). The point, Johnson concludes is not who deserves to be cared for, but rather the demand to become a person who treats everyone encountered—however frightening, alien, naked or defenseless—with compassion: “you go and do the same.” Jesus does not clarify a point of law, but transmutes law to gospel. One must take the same risks with one’s life and possessions that the Samaritan did. One must, that is, if one wants to participate in the presence of God within the creation, and to share in God’s love for that creation.

If, as we suggested above, the exchange between the lawyer and Jesus, taken as a whole under the rubric of the quest for “eternal life,” is a demonstration of the  extension of the practice of Torah into all of creation, then the parable is an illustration of how that extension is to take place: not by holy people safeguarding holy things, not by the self-interested concern that seeks safety and well-being only for one’s own, an orientation to life which results in an incessant competition between peoples for the blessings of life, but by the risking of self and all that one holds holy, for the sake of another, action inspired and driven by compassion to care for the other, that is a mark of living in the eternal presence of God.

It was an extension unthinkable for the times, from Jewish neighbor (“sons of your own people”) to anyone in need of mercy whom the Jewish lawyer might encounter; and then surely as the  Christian community spreads out throughout the Roman Empire more fully—always on Luke’s agenda, from Jews and Samaritans to gentile pagans, caught up in their own quest for dominance. The need for this extension never ceases; and the impulse of compassion is also never exhausted. But in our time of ecological disaster, the challenge of extension clearly concerns our relationship not only with our human neighbors, those present now and those to inhabit the earth in the future, but our other-kind neighbors as well. They, too, lie brutalized in the ditch; and, without immediate aid, they will perish from the earth. Will the religious communities of the world also “pass by on the other side”? Or will we be inspired by the compassion of our God and Lord Jesus Christ to have compassion and do what it takes to restore them?

In his provocative essay on “Kenosis and Nature,” Holms Rolston argues that humans have the capacity beyond actualizing of self “to see others, to oversee a world.” This is “an exciting difference between humans and nonhumans,” in that. . . while animals and plants can defend only their own lives, with their offspring and kind, humans can defend life with vision of greater scope. They can sacrifice themselves for the good of humans yet unborn or, on the other side of the globe, the entire human community. Humans can also care for the biotic communities with which they share this planet; they can care for their biosphere. Here we recognize a difference crucial for understanding the human possibilities in the world. Humans can be genuine altruists; this begins when they recognize the claims of other humans, whether or not such claims are compatible with their own self-interest. The evolution of altruism and the possibility of kenosis is complete only when humans can recognize the claims of nonhumans (In The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis, edited by John Polkinghorne. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001; p. 64).

The hazard of modern human culture is that our habit of managing nature tends mainly to escalate our “inherited desires for self-actualizing, tempted now into self-aggrandizement on scales never before possible,” now that we “are no longer checked by the long-standing ecological and evolutionary forces in which [we] have so long resided” (Rolston, p. 64-65). Our texts offer a clear alternative beyond this conundrum: love of neighbor as of self, which immerses us in the compassionate love of God which empowers love of the other. As our first reading assures us, that love is as close to us as the word of Torah and the word of the Christian gospel, which, is ‘”very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” Wherever we are, whomever we are, we abide in the domain of divine love, the Kingdom of God; in Christ, we inherit eternal life. If so, care of all God’s creation is indeed within our reach.

For additional care for creation reflections on the overall themes of the lectionary lessons for the month by Trisha K Tull, Professor Emerita of Old Testament, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and columnist for The Working Preacher, visit: http://www.workingpreacher.org/columnist_home.aspx?author_id=288

Lectionary Commentaries, Preaching Resources, Worship

Sunday of the Passion (Palm Sunday) in Year A (Mundahl)

Offering Life for the World – Tom Mundahl reflects on Christ’s suffering and death.

Care for Creation Commentary on the Common Lectionary (originally written by Tom Mundahl in 2017)

Readings for the Sunday of Passion, Year A (2017, 2020, 2023)

Matthew 21:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:14-27: 66 or Matthew 27:11-54

The Sunday of the Passion begins the eight-day holy week, which culminates in the central celebration of the Christian faith: the passage of Jesus from death to life marked by the Three Days. Not only do the readings contain rich support for serving creation, but the gospel readings show the cosmic significance of the events—ranging from the donkey and tree branches of the entry into the city to the cosmic elements of darkness and earthquake in the passion story.

Norman Wirzba summarizes the connection between our readings and ecojustice concerns: “We discover that sacrificial offering is a condition for the possibility of the membership of life we call creation. Creation, understood as God’s offering of creatures to each other as food and nurture, reflects a sacrificial power in which life continually moves through death to new life” (Food and Faith, Cambridge, 2011, p. 126). While the very notion of sacrifice is uncomfortable to death-denying North Americans, it still is the way of the cross that leads to new life.

To grasp Isaiah’s Third Servant Song (Isaiah 50:4-9a), it is important to uncover the world of self-deception many exiles still embraced. In fact, one of the purposes of Second Isaiah is to convince the people that they were responsible for their condition; they had lost their freedom and land because they had convinced themselves that any wealth and status they enjoyed resulted from their own efforts, not as a gift of God. They had clearly forgotten the warning of the Deuteronomist: “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth’” (Deuteronomy 8:17).

Yahweh responds to this arrogance with an indictment and trial immediately preceding our First Reading. Here the very notion that the LORD is responsible for breaking the covenant and selling the people off to the highest bidder is shown to be pathetic and self-serving (Isaiah 50:1-3). Since living in self-deception only leads to greater self-destruction, the verdict is a stiff dose of the truth. As Paul Hanson suggests, “the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is not dedicated to avoiding offense at all costs, but to dispelling the delusions that imprison human beings” (Isaiah 40-66, Louisville: John Knox, 1995, p. 137). As the prophetic word delivered by Isaiah has it, “I the LORD speak the truth, I declare what is right” (Isaiah 45:19).

This reminds us of nothing so much as the delusion of “American exceptionalism” that credits national wealth totally to a genius that forgets what once were seen as limitless natural “resources,” centuries of slave labor, and the genocide of native people. Like the exiles, advocates of eco-justice are called to be prophetic truth-tellers, awakening us to the fact that we, too, because of water depletion, resource waste, and climate change are also living in an illusion of prosperity containing the seeds of destruction.

This Servant Song reminds us that, in spite of human delusion, God does not give up on sending prophets as messengers to help the recovery of our senses. Whereas in Isaiah 42 it is the Spirit that emboldens the servant, in this Sunday’s text it is the power of the word itself: “The LORD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word” (Isaiah 50:4). In fact, this Servant Song comes close to presenting a job description for prophets. The power of calling provides the endurance to confront those who meet the truth with “insults and spitting” (Isaiah 50: 6). The simple fact of persistence—“setting the face like flint” (Isaiah 50:7)—in the face of constant ridicule is the key to prophetic effectiveness (Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40-66, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969, p. 229).

It is through the suffering of the servant that power to transform the whole community grows. One of the great mysteries of faith is that those with the greatest ability to encourage the distraught are often those who, far from being exempt from suffering , discover special gifts of empathy and empowerment precisely in their own valleys of personal suffering (Hanson, p. 141). Again. we see life emerging from death.

As we began these comments on Lenten season texts, climate activist and Methodist layperson Bill McKibben’s 2016 lecture to inaugurate the Jonathan Schell Memorial Lectures was referred to. We saw that McKibben took as his task applying the lessons of the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970’s and 80’s to the climate struggle. The first lesson McKibben mentioned was the power of “unearned suffering” (This lecture is available online at www.fateoftheearth.org). Increasingly, it appears that McKibben’s prescience was uncanny. The courage to endure in seeking eco-justice in the face of opposition from the current presidential regime can only come from a source as strong as that described by Isaiah: in our case, the power of baptismal calling to give us strength “to set our face like flint” in the quest for eco-justice, a quest that seems more likely with each passing day to require civil disobedience. This may be how we offer ourselves to one another “to till (serve) and keep” the creation.

Few texts sing the melody of self-offering for the life of the world as clearly as our Second Lesson, Philippians 2:5-11. “For at the heart of the story of creation, from its origins through problem to resolution is the story of Christ, who enters the world to redeem it, and is raised to glory as the firstborn of the new creation. Paul summarizes this story most famously and tellingly in the Philippian hymn” (Horrell, Hunt, and Southgate, Greening Paul, Waco: Baylor, 2010, p. 172).

Named after the father of Alexander the Great, by the middle of the first century CE Philippi had become a retirement center for the Roman military, a city where loyalty to the emperor was highly valued. In the face of the dominant culture, this Christ hymn makes the subversive claim that believers are “citizens of an empire where Christ is Lord” (Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017, p. 499). Of course, the appellation, “Lord,” was a commonplace when referring to the emperor. As Ovid wrote, the emperor is “Lord of the empire, no less mighty than the world he governs” (John Dominic Crossan, God and Empire, San Francisco: Harper, 2007, p. 108). To send a letter featuring this Christ-hymn naming Jesus as Lord (Philippians 2:11) was surely crossing the line.

But the “career trajectory” of this lordship is unlike any sanctioned by Roman culture. Instead of a climb to the top, this lordship participates in the depths of life by obedient self-emptying (kenosis). Influenced by elements of the Fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 52:13-53: 12), the Genesis narrative of disobedience (Genesis 3), and the Roman cult of the emperor, this Christ-hymn concisely summarizes the story as one of incarnation (he emptied himself), death (he humbled himself), and glorification (Gorman, p. 506).

Although we are mindful of the final verses of the Christ-hymn, it is crucial to recognize on this day, formerly referred to almost exclusively as Palm Sunday, that it was not “hosannas” all the way. To remind his audience (and all hearers) of this, Paul makes it clear that Jesus’ self-emptying is the pattern of faithful life: “Let this same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus….” (Philippians 2: 5).

Some years ago, Wayne Meeks suggested that the basic purpose of Philippians “is the shaping of a Christian phronesis (way of thinking) that is ‘conformed to Christ’s death in hope of resurrection’” (“The Man from Heaven in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians,” in Birger Pearson, ed., The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991, p. 333). As we recently celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, perhaps we could see this “way of thinking” as shaping Luther’s theology, in particular his notion of the “priesthood of all believers.”

Early in his career as a reformer, Luther made it clear that “everyone who knows he is a Christian should be fully assured that all of us alike are priests” (“The Pagan Servitude of the Church” (1520), in Dillenberger, ed., Martin Luther—Selections from His Writings, New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1961, p. 349). That same year, in his “Appeal to the German Nobility,” Luther defines this priesthood, drawing from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (12:12f.): “We are all one body, yet each member has his own work serving others” (Ibid., p. 407). Surely this priesthood—offering life for the world in the name of the Christ—includes serving creation and securing eco-justice.

Even on the Sunday of the Passion, we “lean” toward the culmination of this holy week at the Vigil. Therefore, we cannot ignore the glorification in the final part of the Christ-hymn. This, too, reflects the baptismal priesthood we share. We learn that “what a priest does today is ‘lift our hearts’ to the place of heaven so that heavenly life can transform life on earth here and now . . . . When we ‘lift our hearts’ to God, what we are really doing is giving ourselves and the whole world to the new creation, ‘the new heaven and new earth’ (Rev. 21:1). As priests we begin to see the whole creation as an altar of God’s offering. This altar becomes the inspiration for our offering of the world and ourselves” (Wirzba, p. 207).

We cannot neglect our gospel reading(s). The processional reading requires good participation from the congregation—energy is important (as are eco-palms that are widely available). Because it is important to begin this week being immersed in the passion story, my recommendation is reading the longer version. If it is a single reader, it should be done at an appropriate pace, unhurried. If there is a talented storyteller in the congregation willing to take this on, what a gift! Even better is a choral reading using resources that are widely available. However, the key to a good choral reading is recruiting good readers, all standing near the lectern, who have practiced together at least twice. If sound reinforcement is necessary, that should also be “practiced.”

Is a traditional sermon necessary? That is a local decision. While serving as a pastor, when I did preach I usually focused briefly on the Philippians Christ-hymn. In the last fifteen years of ministry, simply hearing the passion gospel read was more than enough. If this is done, it is particularly important to allow silence (more than a minute before and two minutes or more after the Passion Gospel) for reflection and prayer.  While this may seem unusual and even uncomfortable for some, silence is a gift of life for this unique week and always in congregational worship.

Hymn Suggestions:

Processional: “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” ELW, 344
Hymn of the Day: “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth,” ELW, 340
Sending: “What Wondrous Love Is This,” ELW, 666

Tom Mundahl, Saint Paul, MN
tmundahl@gmail.com