Today in the Spirit: Proper 5A
At Proper 5A, the church moves us, in our worship, to contemplate, from the Gospel of Matthew, the events and teachings of Jesus’ early ministry in Galilee after the Sermon on the Mount. (Much of the Sermon on the Mount itself is covered on Sundays during Epiphany Year A and then later in the numbered propers for Sundays prior to this one in Pentecost Year A).
The appointed Gospel reading in Matthew 9:9-13 is the story of the conversion of the apostle Matthew and its aftermath, in which Jesus confronts the Pharisees for prioritizing religious observances over compassion in their relationship with God. Quoting from the Hosea passage read earlier on this Sunday, Jesus says to the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (13).
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In the appointed OT reading from Hosea 5:15-6:6, YHWH addresses all of Judah and Israel for their hypocrisy in seeking alliances with other nations instead of repenting and returning to faith in him: “‘What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away’” (6:4).
The assigned Psalm 50 is a song of rebuke and exhortation, echoing themes similar to the Hosea reading, especially regarding empty religious sacrifices. The lyrics paint an image of the people of Israel being summoned to testify at a heavenly trial: “Do you think that I will eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows unto the Most High, and call upon me in the time of trouble; so will I hear you, and you shall praise me” (13-15).
At Proper 5A, we step into a series of NT readings in the early chapters of Romans, which we started the previous week. In the assigned reading for this week, Romans 4:13-18, Paul continues to build his case for the revelation of the righteousness of God apart from the law and justification by faith in Jesus Christ: “For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring (15-16).
The Collect for Proper 5 is one of a few that does not begin with a declaration of God’s unfailing goodness or almighty power as a foundation for the petition to follow. The petition that the church may serve in joy and peace in an environment of peace may cause us to remember the plight of Christians in areas of high risk for persecution, that they may be especially covered by the Lord’s consolation.
The Collect
Grant, O Lord, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by your providence, that your Church may joyfully serve you in quiet confidence and godly peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
That We May Live Before Him (Hosea 5:15–6:6)
5:15 I will return again to my place,
Hosea 5:15–6:6
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
and in their distress earnestly seek me.
6:1 “Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
3 Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
4 What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes early away.
5 Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.
6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
In the context of the book of Hosea, YHWH is rebuking both Israel in the north and Judah in the south for making alliances with surrounding nations and for worshiping foreign gods as idols rather than him (see 5:8-14). The statement beginning with “Come, let us return to the LORD…” (6:1-3) could be a quotation by the prophet of a liturgy of the people developed to approach God in times of trouble. Or, it could be (as I believe) YHWH giving a searingly sarcastic rendition of a hypocritical response he expects to receive from the people of Israel once they hear his declaration of judgment.
And see how it ends: “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him” (2). That is Hebrew figurative language for “the LORD surely will be swift to answer our prayer for healing.” But as Christian worshipers, we cannot miss the pointer to Christ’s resurrection!
Devotionally, this passage from Hosea causes us to stand in awe of a God whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts and whose ways are greater than our ways. Everything we say and do, even our words of bitter rebellion, in the economy of God ends in the establishment of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Let it be known: God will not be mocked. He will have his judgment, but he will make a way for mercy for his people–thankfully for mercy and not the utter destruction we deserve.
Today, Holy Spirit, as Jesus promised, you would take from what is his and make it known to us, take also from what is ours, even the worst of it, and make it known in the world as Jesus.
He Does Not Keep Silence (Psalm 50)
1 The Lord, even the most mighty God, has spoken *
Psalm 50, New Coverdale Psalter (BCP 2019)
and called the world, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.
2 Out of Zion, perfect in her beauty, *
has God shone forth in glory.
3 Our God shall come and shall not keep silence; *
there shall go before him a consuming fire, and a mighty tempest shall be stirred up round about him.
4 He shall call to the heavens above, *
and to the earth beneath, that he may judge his people:
5 “Gather my faithful together unto me, *
those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”
6 And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, *
for God himself is Judge.
7 “Hear, O my people, and I will speak; *
I myself will testify against you, O Israel, for I am God, even your God.
8 I will not rebuke you because of your sacrifices, or for your burnt offerings, *
because they are always before me.
9 I will take no bull calf out of your house, *
nor he-goat out of your folds.
10 For all the beasts of the forest are mine, *
and so are the cattle upon a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the air, *
and the wild beasts of the field are in my sight.
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, *
for the whole world is mine, and all that is therein.
13 Do you think that I will eat the flesh of bulls *
and drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer unto God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, *
and pay your vows unto the Most High,
15 And call upon me in the time of trouble; *
so will I hear you, and you shall praise me.”
16 But to the ungodly God says: *
“Why do you recite my laws, and take my covenant in your mouth,
17 Though you hate to be disciplined, *
and have cast my words behind you?
18 When you saw a thief, you agreed with him, *
and you have taken part with adulterers.
19 You have let your mouth speak wickedness, *
and with your tongue you have set forth deceit.
20 You sat and spoke against your brother; *
yes, and have slandered your own mother’s son.
21 These things you have done, and I held my tongue, *
and you thought wickedly that I am such a one as yourself.
22 But I will reprove you, *
and set before you the things that you have done.
23 O consider this, you who forget God, *
lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you.
24 Whoever offers me a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me, *
and to him who orders his way aright will I show the salvation of God.”
Or, “May our God come and not be silent” (3, NET). The only other assignment of Psalm 50 in the three-year Sunday lectionary is at Advent 1C. At that time, what is likely to catch our attention in that verse is the first half: “Our God comes.” Now in Pentecost, the season of life in the Spirit, it is more the second half: [God] “shall not keep silence.” In the context of the psalm, which sounds every bit as much a call to judgment as the Hosea passage, this phrase has to do with the Lord’s summoning his people to trial. As both judge and witness, God shall not keep silent.
Paul reminds us, of course, of a future judgment in which “all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10). But there is another way God “shall not keep silence,” through his Holy Spirit dwelling in his people: God has spoken, and continues to speak, puzzling, difficult, winsome and life-giving words into the world, that all chosen by him might turn to Christ and the Father for reconciliation and eternal life.
God has broken the silence for good with Jesus. Not everything that he has to say is condemnation, for first he speaks “salvation”: For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give” (Isa. 62:1-3).
So, in the pleading tone of that alternative translation, through the Spirit, we cry out, “May our God come and not be silent.”
That the Promise May Rest on Grace (Romans 4:13-18)
13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. 16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”
Romans 4:13-18
The apostle Paul is pulling out all stops to convince the Jewish Christians in Rome that, while it is true they were given the law and the prophets, their standing before God is no greater than that of any Gentile without faith in Jesus Christ. As was true with the beloved patriarch Abraham, so it is true with them: The promise of new life rests entirely “on grace” (16) received through “faith” (Gk: pistis, “belief” or “trust”) so that everyone is on an equal footing, giving allegiance to God through Jesus Christ.
Gratitude, then, is the primary sign of a healthy Christian community. You have preaching, music and outreach in your church, good–but is there above all that unmistakable air of thanksgiving in the sanctuary? Paul seems to be asking Timothy much the same question about the church in Ephesus when he writes: “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:4-5).
Today, in the Spirit, pray for your local church, and for yourself as part of it, that the whole body may grow in gratitude to the Lord, that “the promise [of eternal life] may rest on grace.”
Go and Learn What This Means (Matthew 9:9-13)
9 As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. 10 And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mathew 9:9-13
It is important to note the disciples’ presence in this narrative. Matthew mentions that the “tax collectors and sinners” come to Jesus and his disciples at the table, and that the Pharisees address their complaints to his disciples so that they too would hear our Lord’s response to them. To all listening, our Lord says: “‘Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (13).
Just because it appears to be a word to the Pharisees, let us be careful, beloved, not to distance ourselves from the force of Jesus’ words here. We, too, as disciples, must overhear the command “go and learn” for ourselves. The “go” appears just as it does in the Great Commission passage we heard last week.
As we go, we make disciples; and as we go, we learn. “Learn” here is from the Greek manthanō, which is the verbal root of the noun mathētēs, meaning “disciple”. We are all learners when it comes to making our religious “sacrifices” subordinate to the “mercy” of God: it is God’s mercy which is the lifebreath of the Son of God in us looking for a way out. We must allow the Holy Spirit to overcome that pharisaical side of us that would separate us from “sinners” and prevent us from embracing all comers as fellow travelers undeserving of mercy through Christ.
Psalm 25 contains the question and answer: “Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose” (12). It is God who relentlessly softens hearts and coaxes mercy from hardened human beings. Oswald Chambers describes this never-yielding divine pursuit for mercy in us as the act of being “haunted by God,” concluding: “The whole of our life inside and out is to be absolutely haunted by the presence of God. A child’s consciousness is so mother-haunted that, although the child is not yet consciously thinking of its mother, when calamity arises, the relationship that abides is that of the mother. So we are to live and move and have our being in God, to look at everything in relation to God, because the abiding consciousness of God pushes itself to the front all the time” (my emphasis).
“Go and learn” is not a threat from Jesus but an invitation to give in to the enticements of a Teacher who never gives up the chase to make us in his image. Today, Holy Spirit of Jesus, we thank you that by grace you are enabling us to learn of your desire for mercy over sacrifice.
Today in the Spirit
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