Today in the Spirit: Proper 25A
We continue in the liturgical year with Matthew’s account of the last week of our Lord’s life, leading up to the crucifixion. It is still early in the week when Jesus is tested by the religious leaders of Jerusalem who are looking for a legal motivation to kill him. In Year A, we skip the narrative of the Sadducees’ question about marriage at the resurrection (which comes in Year C with Luke’ version) and meditate in our worship on the Pharisees’ question to Jesus about which is the greatest commandment.
The assigned Gospel reading from Matthew 22:34-46 brings together this question from the Pharisees and one that follows from Jesus: “‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?’” (42). In Matthew’s narrative, Jesus appears eager to address this question, particularly to the Pharisees (41), so that, using a verse from Psalm 110, he might respond to them, “‘If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” (45).
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The appointed Old Testament reading from Exodus 22:21-27 is part of a list of commandments from YHWH to the people of Israel about how to treat aliens, orphans, widows, and the poor. The obvious connection to the Gospel reading is Jesus’ quotation from Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” in his reply to the Pharisees’ question about the greatest commandment.
This week’s selection of Psalm 1 brings us closer to understanding, from a biblical perspective, the collision of wills between the religious leaders and the Son of God at the time of his death. The Pharisees feign “delight…in the law of the LORD” (2) through their interrogations, but Jesus will show them to be imposters and hypocrites. In their stubborn unbelief, he shows they stand rather with “the ungodly” who cannot be counted among “the congregation of the righteous” (6).
The second New Testament reading in our series from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians this year is 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8. Here Paul wants to convince the saints in Thessalonica not to be put off by what appears to have been a failure in his team’s mission because of the intense uprising against them and their sudden departure (see Acts 17:5ff). Instead, he commends their behavior, saying “we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (7).
The assigned collect is a prayer to God for his peace among his people, believing him to be sovereign over “all things both in heaven and on earth.” Thomas Cranmer translated this prayer from Latin into English from medieval Catholic sources and assigned it to the Epiphany season. Only more recently has the Roman Catholic Church moved this collect to Ordinary Time, and the BCP 2019 followed suit.
The Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
You Shall Not Wrong a Sojourner (Exodus 22:21-27)
21 “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 22 You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. 23 If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, 24 and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. 25 “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. 26 If ever you take your neighbor’s cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, 27 for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.”
Exodus 22:21-27
Our OT reading this week is a portion of a larger section of Exodus (21:1-23:9) containing miscellaneous laws from Sinai on how his people shall live together in holiness, maintaining responsibility for one another. The main verbs “wrong” and “mistreat” shed light on a heinous reality of the human condition under the bondage of sin, our tendency, whether from pure prejudice or paranoid self-protection, to abuse the disadvantaged in society. Whether to survive or thrive, we take from those we can. The passage makes it clear that it is in the character of the One God both to stand up for the alien, widows and orphans, and the poor, and against those who would oppress them.
For personal application, we have to open our hearts to hear God speaking to us through filters that distance us from the force of this message. We say, “We live in a society more advanced,” or “we have laws protecting the disadvantaged,” or “we have been brought up to be nice.” Having convinced ourselves these things are true, we still separate ourselves into advantaged and disadvantaged communities. Through these filters, God’s word pronounces higher standards, and in the NT it goes far beyond avoiding mistreatment of the poor to welcoming all and counting others as better.
Consider one passage of Jesus’ teaching in Luke, whose Gospel champions the coming of Jesus as a new day for the oppressed in any society: “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:12-14). See how our OT passage declares YHWH hears the cries of the poor from heaven, and in the NT passage he rewards those who obey his commands to comfort them.
Today, Holy Spirit, as a church, we invite you, disadvantaged ourselves in sin, with repentant hearts, to extinguish all false comfort we have regarding obedience to your commands to care for the alien and stranger; increase in us the compulsion to reach out to the disadvantaged where we live with actions that communicate the love of Jesus.
On His Law He Meditates Day and Night (Psalm 1)
1 Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, *
Psalm 1, New Coverdale Psalter (BCP 2019)
nor stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the seat of the scornful;
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, *
and on his law will he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the waterside, *
that will bring forth his fruit in due season.
4 His leaf also shall not wither; *
and look, whatever he does, it shall prosper.
5 As for the ungodly, it is not so with them; *
but they are like the chaff, which the wind scatters away from the face of the earth.
6 Therefore the ungodly shall not be able to stand in the judgment, *
neither the sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
7 For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, *
but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
Consider the phrase “on [YHWH’s] law will he meditate day and night” (2). We might here picture a person sitting with his eyes squinting over an open book at all hours. Well, taking into account there were really no books (and few scrolls) to speak of, we may need to adjust our thinking. The Hebrew word (hāgâ) translated “meditate” here is often used in the OT for “mutter” or “speak” or “moan,” and not always in a positive sense (see Isaiah 8:19, 59:3). So we may do better imagining our “blessed” person in the psalm pondering the similarities and contrasts he sees between the world and God’s laws and speaking out about it. “The law of the LORD” here and elsewhere in the OT is not simply the written word, but the special revelation of the One God to his people Israel, communicating not only what humans are to do in the world but, more importantly, who God is.
For us, “the law of the LORD” is Jesus Christ. In his person, his words, actions, and character, we see as much of the Father God as our limited minds can handle. So Paul writes expansively in Colossians: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (1:15,19). And in 2 Corinthians: For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (4:6). Do you find the Holy Spirit is working in you in such a way that, increasingly, you are contemplating Jesus in the world around you, reflecting on how his teachings apply in every circumstance, muttering to yourself for his intervention in the wars overseas and troubles at home? If so, hear this psalm whispering in your ear: blessed are you.
Today, in the Spirit, hearing Psalm 1, we give thanks for the sanctifying work of the Son of God, causing us to meditate on him more and more, and convincing us that we are, by his grace, “blessed” and no longer “wicked” in the sight of the Father.
As You Know (1 Thessalonians 2:1-8)
1 For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. 2 But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. 3 For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5 For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Paul uses the phrase “[as] you know” or “(as) we know” multiple times in his NT letters. (Perhaps the most famous is in Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose”). In most cases the tone of this language is not mean-spirited or condescending, but friendly, intended for edification and inclusion. It is a rhetorical device designed most often to clarify ideas that may have been hazy in the saints’ minds when he taught them in person, and to remind them of the content of sound doctrine.
Paul uses “you know” three times in this Sunday’s Epistle reading (1,2,5). Against the accusations of Jewish opponents haranguing the saints in Thessalonica, Paul urges them gently to remember what they learned from their experience of him. Devotionally, beloved, we often find the Holy Spirit giving us a kind of “as you know” push forward in our walk with Jesus. We may have an experience of hearing clearly from God. In that moment, we are clear on the next steps, but as the days pass and life circumstances press in, we forget and lose the impulse to act. Enter the Holy Spirit with friendly reminders “as you know”—maybe in prayer or through Scripture or in fellowship with others.
Here, Christ’s friendship nudges us ahead. The Puritan Richard Sibbes puts the matter of Christ’s interaction with us this way: “There is liberty which is the life of friendship; there is a free intercourse between friends, a free opening of secrets. So here Christ opens his secrets to us, and we to him.”
Today, Holy Spirit of Jesus, we receive the congenial “as you know” of St. Paul to the Thessalonians as a reminder of truth and your “intercourse between friends” with us.
What Do You Think about the Christ? (Matthew 22:34-46)
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,
Matthew 22:34-46
44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet”’?
45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
In this passage about the identity of the Christ, only Matthew gives us this opening dialogue between Jesus and his audience before he transitions to the question of logic in Psalm 110. Matthew has Jesus speaking specifically to a group of Pharisees (that’s important) and asking two questions: “‘What do you think about the Christ?” and “‘Whose son is he?’” Then he waits for their answer, “‘The son of David.’”
“What do you think about the Christ” (42). To the non-believing Pharisees, questions such as these preliminary questions are demanding more than just an answer to a Bible quiz, but reflection on their understanding of the coming Messiah. The overall challenge is over the divinity of this coming One, with a stream of thought that goes like this, What do you think about the Christ… He is not the son of David… How is it then that the Christ cannot be God?
And, devotionally, what about us as believers? Does not Jesus provoke in us similar reflection? You who confess faith in Jesus as the Messiah–What do you think? Is he to you merely the sum of his words and deeds on the pages of a book? Is he a healer? Is he a teacher? Is he the Son of God? While Jesus in Matthew presses the Pharisees to put aside stubborn unbelief, his invitation to us is to cast aside weak, reduced belief.
Jesus brings out a hint of Jesus’ divinity in Psalm 110. The author of Hebrew finds in Psalm 45 something even more explicit: “But of the Son [the Father God] says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom’ Heb. 1:8). Astounding!
Today, in the Spirit, who is in us to building us up in a life of devotion to Christ as God, we read Jesus’ question to the Pharisees as for us, “What do you think about the Christ?”
Today in the Spirit
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