Proper 10 | Ordinary Time 15, Cycle B

Mark 6:14-29

According to the portion of Mark that precedes this text, a portion that we used last Sunday, the proclamation of Jesus that his fellow Jews should ask God for forgiveness whenever they had cooperated fully with the oppressive Romans who were occupying the land of the Jews had been extended to Jesus’ twelve disciples. That proclamation had been validated by the casting out of demons and the healing of many who were ill.

The text designated for our use next Sunday begins with the information that Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great, was told about the success that Jesus and his followers were having in proclaiming their message that soon the Lord God rather than the Romans and their supporters such as Herod would be ruling in Galilee and in Judea. Many of the Jews who had been cooperating with the Romans and with Herod Antipas were no longer doing this; the “demons” that had been in them when they submitted to the Romans and to Herod had been cast out. The “diseases” that they had when they had cooperated with the Romans and with Herod were being healed.

Herod Antipas is then portrayed as accepting the suggestion that some of his advisors made that the success that Jesus was having was an indication that Jesus was actually a reincarnation of John the Baptizer, whom Herod had ordered that he be beheaded while being held in a dungeon as ordered by Herod. There is a tremendous message in these verses. Herod, even with the support of the Roman Empire and its military power behind him, is portrayed here as weak and powerless to withstand God, who has the power to bring back to life John the Baptizer, whom Herod had killed. The oppressed, who most of the time have little or nothing to laugh about, are given the pleasure of laughing at powerful rulers such as Herod, who in the presence of God and of Jesus the Risen Son of God are powerless. What follows in our text, then, is a description of the despicable events that had occurred when the half-drunken Herod had foolishly made an almost unrestricted promise to the young daughter of Herod’s hateful wife Herodias. What are we called to proclaim when we use this text next Sunday? What guidelines for how we should live our lives are provided by this account? What from this text is applicable for us today? What is happening in our time and place that is somewhat similar to what is provided in this text? Where in this text are we and the people whom we serve? With whom in this text and in the text that precedes it are we identified? How is this text related to the other readings and to the psalms selected for our use next Sunday? The challenge to us is great. Yet it is to this that we have been called.

Ephesians 1:3-14

In the Greek New Testament these twelve verses are all presented in one single sentence, a magnificent Greek sentence in which the principal verb of the sentence is implied but not expressed. The verb implied is the indicative or the imperative form of the verb “to be.” Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, or May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be blessed! When we translate the rest of this Greek sentence into English, we must break it up into at least six English sentences for our readers.

In order to connect this text with the Mark 6:14-29 Gospel account, we may see that this text is a way, our way of responding with a blessing to God, who is to be blessed for being active in our history, confounding the powerful and providing a meaningful life now and eternally for us. Indeed, we want to bless God and bless God as God is revealed in Jesus the Risen Christ in our lives.

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19

The still youthful King David is presented here as celebrating in a sort of liturgical dance as he brings the sacred ark of the covenant into the city of Jerusalem, a city that his soldiers have conquered. While David celebrates and provides burnt offerings and peace offerings to the Lord, David’s wife Michal, the daughter of Saul, despises David. Since the power of God is thought to be concentrated in the ark, symbolically David is bringing the power and the presence of God into the new capital city of the developing nation. David is presented in a positive light in this text, Michal in a negative one. What a difference it might have made had David continued to bless and to celebrate the power and presence of God rather than to turn from God as David later does. Was Michal despising what David was doing, or what David would soon be doing? How do we celebrate and respond to the power and to the presence of God as we attempt to bring that power and that presence into our lives?

Psalm 24

I personally have precious memories of the use of this psalm when I was very young. Before we would go to our various Sunday school classes, the Sunday school superintendent would lead all of us in a brief opening worship. Psalm 24 was one of the psalms that were used on alternate Sunday mornings in this way in order to prepare us for our study of the Bible within our various age groups.

In ancient Israel, this psalm was most likely one of several that were used as the people together came into the holy place of study, instruction, and worship. If we use this psalm next Sunday, how can we use it most effectively and creatively as we as a congregation enter into our study and worship of God? We do not always have to do the same things and we should not always do things in the same way each Sunday that we come together. What we do and how we worship should be guided by the texts and what is included in the texts selected for our use in our study and in our worship. If we use this psalm next Sunday, it should be used as in a way a “liturgical dance” as our choirs and other worship leaders enter the sanctuary.

Amos 7:7-15

There is a sharp contrast between the condemnation in this text of the economic, political, social, and religious practices of the people in Bethel in the Northern Kingdom, Israel, and the message of peace and blessing from God on the people to whom Psalm 85:8-13 is presented. The proclamation in Psalm 85 is good news to the people who turn back to God; the proclamation in Amos 7:7-15 is bad news to those who have turned their backs to God.

Psalm 85:8-13

Amos 7:7-15 is directed against people who are like Herod Antipas and those who were with him. Psalm 85:8-13 is provided for the people who are like John the Baptizer, the Jesus of history, and followers of Jesus who turn toward serving only the Lord God. We are called to be like the people in ancient Israel for whom Psalm 85 was prepared, to be like John the Baptizer, like Jesus and like those who were following him. We are not to be like those in Bethel in the Northern Kingdom, nor like Herod Antipas and those around him. This we must proclaim.

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

These verses have preserved in summary fashion typical events and occurrences during the time when the Jesus of history was serving so well in meeting the needs of large numbers of his own Jewish people. In many ways he was like a shepherd for them, and that shepherd was later killed by the enemy (the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and the Roman occupational forces in Jerusalem). For us as Christians, that shepherd Jesus perceived as the Risen Christ lives as our Lord and Savior, one with God forever. When we gladly share Jesus the Risen Christ with persons and groups of people who are not with us and when we offer the joys and gifts of Jesus as the “Good Shepherd” with them, many of them join with us in the Church, the “Body of Christ.”

Ephesians 2:11-22

In this text the writer was commenting on and celebrating the coming together during the previous decades of Jewish background followers of Jesus with the growing and by that time far larger number of non-Jewish background followers of Jesus. That trend and those demographics accelerated and continued after that time. After Jesus had been crucified by the Romans, when many followers of Jesus moved from their admiration of the Jesus of history to adulation, veneration, and deification of Jesus as the Risen Christ, very few Jews identified with the groups of followers of Jesus who proclaimed him as the Son of God, and even as God the Son.

Increasing numbers of people who were not of Jewish background, however, were attracted to and identified with various groups of followers of Jesus who perceived him as their Risen Christ and Lord, groups that offered a religion with an impressive Savior figure, hope for the physical resurrection and a glorious eternal life for each person, good ethical teachings, and no requirements of men having to be circumcised and of families having to follow Jewish dietary restrictions. New people continue to be added to the Church today when we offer these same benefits.

2 Samuel 7:1-14a

This text in which the promise of God to build a house, a dynasty of descendants of King David who will reign forever, was a source of reassurance for Israelites until the day when the city of Jerusalem and the temple in it were destroyed by the Babylonians. After that, this promise became problematic for Israelites and remained problematic for Jews for whom, obviously, there was no kingdom, no independent nation, and no throne with a descendant of David sitting on it.

Although there is no evidence that the Jesus of history had aspirations or ambitions or any desires of becoming a political ruler over a revived political nation Israel, some of the followers of Jesus, after they came to believe that Jesus who had been crucified by the Romans had become the Risen Christ their Lord, developed the idea that Jesus’ ancestry could be traced back to King David and that, as the Risen Christ, Jesus was now their king, the king over a “New Israel,” one of their favorite names for the Church. Even today, we as Christians, especially during our Advent and Christmas seasons, proclaim Jesus as the Son of David, our King, and we invite others to join with us in accepting and in proclaiming Jesus the Risen Christ as King.

Psalm 89:20-37

The psalmist poetically depicts in Psalm 89 the everlasting covenant that is presented in 2 Samuel 7:1-14a as having been made by God with David. The intention in this psalm is to remind God of that covenant and to urge God to deliver the king from his powerful enemies in accordance with that covenant.

How do we perceive the “New Covenant” that we believe that God through Jesus the Risen Christ has made with us? Do we think that because we have entered into the “New Covenant” with God as Christians we will always be successful in everything that we do? What promises with regard to this “New Covenant” to we make to potential new members of this “New Covenant”?

Jeremiah 23:1-6

The Jeremiah tradition in Jeremiah 23:1-6 expresses total dissatisfaction with the leadership of the Israelite kingdoms during the final years of Israel’s existence as a nation (just prior to 721 BCE) and the last few years of Judah’s national life (just prior to 586 BCE). The political and religious leaders of Israel and of Judah are blamed for the destruction of Samaria and of Jerusalem and for the scattering of the Israelite people.

The historical Jeremiah, whose life influenced the Jeremiah traditions, functioned as a “peripheral” prophet outside the royal court circles, but still within Jerusalem. Jeremiah was highly critical of the political and religious leadership in Jerusalem. Aware of the virtually complete annihilation of the people of the Northern Kingdom Israel who had fought against the mighty armies of the great world power Assyria, Jeremiah used every means at his disposal to try to prevent the Southern Kingdom Judah from forming an alliance with Egypt and rebelling against the military power of the Mesopotamian Babylonian Empire, the great world power of the time of Jeremiah. Apparently Jeremiah thought that if the Southern Kingdom would rely upon Egypt for military support and revolt against Babylonia, the Southern Kingdom would suffer the same fate that the Northern Kingdom had experienced a century and a half earlier, and the remaining inhabitants of Jerusalem would perish from the earth.

When the political leaders in Jerusalem did rebel against Babylonia, and when the city was destroyed and much of its population had been deported to Babylonia, and only a small remnant remained with an Israelite consciousness, partly in Babylonia, partly in decimated Judah, and partly in Egypt, Jeremiah and his disciples in Egypt and in Judah longed for the time to come when the Lord God would gather remnants of the people from these various places and bring them back to Jerusalem. They longed for the time when the Lord God would again cause them to be fruitful and to multiply under new political and religious leadership that would care for them so well that none of them would be missing. In Jeremiah 23:5-6 the tradition becomes even more specific, looking forward to the time when a descendant within the lineage of David would be raised up by the Lord God as a new shoot from the Davidic stump, a new branch on the Davidic family tree, one who would rule wisely and cause justice and righteousness to flourish within the land. This new king who was anticipated is even given a symbolic name, “The Lord is our righteousness,” in order to do everything that a prophetic tradition could do to cause this to occur.

What we see in this text is, of course, one of the many Messianic expectations through which the Israelites would express their hopes that the Lord God would act decisively to restore their nation to independence, peace, and prosperity. These texts do not refer specifically to Jesus, the Jewish religious and political figure of the 1st century of the common era who had no intention of encouraging military means to remove the Roman occupation forces from Galilee and Judea, even though he was crucified by order of the Roman governor in Jerusalem as a person who was giving hope for freedom from Roman rule to his fellow oppressed Jews.

Our Christian tradition as it developed claimed that Jesus was and is the Christ (Messiah) through whom God acted and acts to bring peace, justice, and righteousness not to the Jews as such but to the world. Our Christian tradition has every right to make this claim. With all due respect, however, we must observe that for us as Christian people, just as for the Jews who have survived with us to our time, the establishment of peace, justice, and righteousness is still a future hope. It is a future hope for which Jews, Christians, Muslims, in fact, for which all people of the world still wait. There are moments when we realize that we should work together and wait together, rising above our selfish interests and our cherished differences. For more on this subject, with special reference to the Middle East, see my book, Blessed to Be a Blessing to Each Other: Jews, Muslims, and Christians as Children of Abraham in the Middle East (Lima, Ohio: Fairway Press, 2008).

Psalm 23

Within the context of this particular series of texts, we should probably understand Psalm 23 corporately rather than individually and read it together in our congregation next Sunday changing the singular pronouns “I,” “my,” and “me” to “we,” “our,” and “us.” Psalm 23 is a beautiful expression of our hope that someday the Lord God will provide for all of us (especially for all Jews, Christians, and Muslims, but not in any way limited to these three groups) perfect peace and security, that the Lord God will protect and feed all of us forever. The shepherd analogy continues to be unsurpassed even during this age of high technology.

John 6:1-21

This text in which Jesus is portrayed as feeding 5,000 men with five barley loaves and two fish and as walking on the water of the Sea of Galilee begins a section in which the Fourth Gospel follows the pattern established in Mark (compare John 6:1-25 to Mark 6:32-56) more closely and for a more lengthy time than anywhere else prior to the extended passion of Jesus account that begins with Mark 11:1 and John 12:12. Various possible reasons for the similarities that we see between the First and the Fourth Gospels include the following:

1) The persons who wrote both Gospels were inspired by God in a more similar way at some points in their writings than in others.

2) The writers of both Gospels utilized a similar strand of written and oral materials in some places more than in others.

3) The writers of the Fourth Gospel had access to a brief early edition of Mark that contained the series of texts that begin with Mark 6:32 and Mark 11:1, and from this brief early edition of Mark the more fully developed Markan Gospel and the more fully developed Johannine Gospel were formed.

4) The writers of the Fourth Gospel had access to a rather fully developed Markan Gospel (and perhaps to early editions of Matthew and of Luke as well) but chose to use only a few portions of the Synoptic material because they preferred to present their message in their own way.

Regardless of which of the reasons outlined above appears to explain the similarities here most satisfactorily, in most places the Fourth Gospel was developed quite differently from the development of the Synoptics, and the Fourth Gospel was not substantially modified to make it conform closely to the Gospels According to Mark, Matthew, and Luke at a later date when people within the Fourth Gospel tradition obviously had access to fully developed copies of the Synoptics. There is much evidence from a careful comparison of the texts of the Four Gospels to indicate that the writers of the Fourth Gospel chose to develop their account quite differently from the way that those within the Synoptic Gospels tradition had done. This makes it even more noteworthy that here in John 6 the Johannine tradition did not depart extensively from the Synoptic pattern.

Where there are differences between Markan and the Johannine accounts of the feeding of the 5,000, the Fourth Gospel tradition adds that the Passover feast of the Jews was near (John 6:4), that Jesus went up on the mountain (John 6:3), that Jesus knew what he would do to provide food for the multitude (John 6:6), specific names of the disciples (Philip in John 6:5, 7 and Andrew and Simon Peter in John 6:8), that Jesus, having given thanks, distributed the loaves to the multitude (John 6:11), and that, since Jesus knew that the people were planning to come to seize him in order to make him their king, he withdrew to the mountain by himself alone (John 6:15). Many of these additions bring the Johannine account much closer to the covenant ratification ceremonies depicted in Exodus 24:1-18 than is the Markan account.

Ephesians 3:14-21

This Pauline prayer intended for some early Christian audience during the second half of the 1st century is appropriate also for us today. We are in need of “the love of Christ that surpasses all human knowledge” just as much as the people were for whom this document was first written.

The prayer is concluded with a model doxology that deserves more widespread use: “And to God who is able to do infinitely more than all that we ask or think through the power that God has activated within us, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations forever and ever. So let it be!”

2 Kings 4:42-44

This text is a brief story about a man bringing twenty barley loaves and other grain in a sack to Elisha. Although the man considered the food that he had brought to be very inadequate to feed the one hundred men who were there and were hungry, Elisha commanded that the loaves be used to feed the men, saying that the Lord has said that they shall eat and there will be some left. They ate and, as has been said by the Lord, they were filled and had some bread left. Since this account is not well-known by most Christians, it is good that it is designated at this place in our lectionary to be read as the First Reading together with the Johannine account of Jesus feeding the 5,000. Although this 2 Kings 4:42-44 account is not well-known in the Church during our time, it was almost certainly known to the Markan writer and community when the account about Jesus feeding the 5,000 was recorded in what is for us Mark 6:30-44 and was used also in the later Gospels According to Matthew, Luke, and John.

Psalm 145:10-18

In this beautiful psalm that is so important in Jewish daily devotional piety even today we read that the Lord gives food to all who look to the Lord. The psalmist wrote here that the Lord satisfies the desire of every living thing, that the Lord has compassion over everything that the Lord has made, and that the Lord keeps the covenant. This psalm has many points of contact with the John 6:1-15 and the 2 Kings 4:42-44 texts selected for our use next Sunday. Psalm 145 is also especially precious to me personally, because my father used a paraphrase of portions of it as one of his table prayers in our family when I was a child. Much later, when I was an overnight guest in the apartment of Conservative Jewish Rabbi/Dr. Sol Bernards and his wife Ruth, Sol Bernards used Psalm 145 within his table prayers before we ate our evening meal together.

2 Samuel 11:1-15

It seems to me that for next Sunday the semi-continuous selections of 2 Samuel 11:1-15 and with that text Psalm 14 are much less edifying than are the 2 Kings 4:42-44 and Psalm 145:10-18 selections considered above. Nevertheless, the story about King David’s adultery and his order to his field general Joab that are in this 2 Samuel 11:1-15 account and in the semi-continuous reading of the continuation of the story of 2 Samuel 11:26–12:13a on the following Sunday are texts that we should have to consider. These texts are realistic portrayals that people, including people who have very important and powerful positions, often attempt to cover up one sin by committing another. When that happens, many people, including the sinner, are hurt terribly.

Psalm 14

The “fool” depicted in this psalm is not merely ignorant and “brainless.” The fool here is morally corrupt and despicable. It is easy to see the reason that Psalm 14 is paired here with the account in 2 Samuel 11:1-15 about King David’s sin with Bathsheba and David’s unsuccessful attempt to cover up his sin of adultery with the sin of ordering events that will result in the death of Bathsheba’s husband, the valiant Uriah the Hittite, a gallant hero in David’s army.

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

In story form this account is a testimony that the Lord provides and has provided “bread from heaven” for the people in response to their call for food. Moses and Aaron are depicted as silent in the face of the murmuring of the people against them. The Lord does not seem to object to the complaints of the people. Instead, the impression is given that the Lord was actually waiting with the bread from heaven and with the quail so that they could be provided whenever the people would need them. It is said that the Lord would provide the bread and the quail so that the people would survive in the desolate wilderness and realize that it was the Lord who had brought them out of the land of Egypt (Exodus 16:6, 12), that they might see the glory of the Lord (Exodus 16:7), and so that the Lord would test them to see whether they would conduct themselves in accordance with the Torah, whether they would be capable of following the commandments of the Lord (Exodus 16:4). There was to be no doubt that the bread had been provided by the Lord; it was not something that the people themselves had earned. The people had merely been in need and had expressed their need, even though it had been done in a childish manner. The bread and the quail had been a gift of the unmerited grace of the Lord God.

Psalm 78:23-29

Here within an extended psalm in which many mighty deeds of the Lord God in behalf of the people are recited, the rather prosaic story form of Exodus 16 is expressed poetically. Here in this psalm it is said that the Lord “commanded the skies,” and “opened the doors of heaven.” The Lord “rained upon them manna to eat,” and “provided the grain of heaven,” “the bread of the angels.” The Lord “rained flesh upon them like dust,” sent “winged birds as numerous as the sands of the seashores.” The people “ate and were filled,” for the Lord “gave them what they craved.” Within this segment of Psalm 78 there is no hint of complaint or disgust on the part of either the Lord or of the people.

John 6:24-35

This text is a short commentary on the Exodus 16 and Psalm 78 texts that was developed in John 6 into an extended dialogue of reflection over the same feeding of the multitude story that had been incorporated into the Mark 6 account. Johannine studies during the past century have helped us to see that the extended dialogue in John 6 is also in many ways a recapitulation of the story of the development and experiences of the Johannine community, of its increasingly high Christology, its struggles with Jewish groups, and its determination of its own destiny. The John 6:24-35 text, therefore, is best understood as much more autobiographical of the Johannine community than it is biographical about Jesus.

In retrospect, we may wish that the extended commentary on Exodus 16, the story of the development of the Johannine community and of its increasingly high Christology would have been done without the anti-Jewish polemic that is included in our gospel text for next Sunday. The anti-Jewish polemic in John 6:24-35 becomes more intense and bitter later in the John 6 dialogue where the Jews are represented as murmuring against the Johannine Jesus because he claims to be “the bread of life” and they do not believe in him. The anti-Jewish polemic becomes even more intense and bitter in chapters 7-9 in the Gospel According to John, especially within John 8.

We are called to proclaim next Sunday that Jesus is indeed “the true bread from heaven,” the “bread of life,” and to declare that whoever comes to Jesus will never hunger and whoever believes in Jesus will never thirst. At the same time, we realize, however, that in spite of the activities of Jesus during the 1st century of the common era and in spite of our faith in God and in Jesus as the Risen Christ, we and others still become hungry, and we still become thirsty. Millions of people each year die after suffering from hunger and thirst. The life that is provided is eternal life, at least within the context of this Fourth Gospel. We see also that Christian hymns such as “O Bread of Life from Heaven” are to John 6:24-35 what Psalm 78:23-29 is to Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15. At the same time, we who are relatively well fed have a responsibility that is much greater than the responsibility of those who developed our biblical traditions, a responsibility to work to develop food sources and to oppose those whose greed and oppression cause so many people in our time to suffer and to die because of lack of food and of good water to drink.

Ephesians 4:1-16

The two groups of people, that is, the followers of Jesus who were of Jewish background and followers of Jesus who were of non-Jewish background, whose coming together with one Lord, one faith, and one baptism into the one “body of Christ” is celebrated and encouraged in Ephesians 4:1-16, are not the two predominant groups in the current composition of the Church. In our life situation, however, there are other groups that should be brought together more closely within the Church. It is our calling to identify the groups within our life setting and to apply this text to our situation. Unity of the Spirit of God and much greater cooperation and fellowship within the Church are essential without, however, demanding uniformity and conformity where respect for diversity is needed.

2 Samuel 11:26–12:13a

The semi-continuous reading of the accounts of the David and Bathsheba relationship continues in this text with the “mourning” of Bathsheba for her valiant husband Uriah, David “graciously” taking Bathsheba as one of his wives, and Nathan the prophet adroitly confronting David with the parable of the one little ewe lamb. The powerful king is maneuvered into confessing the magnitude of his sins.

Psalm 51:1-12

This widely used call upon God for mercy and forgiveness is traditionally associated with what David may have said after the events portrayed in the 2 Samuel 11-12 David and Bathsheba relationship became public knowledge. We should note that although David is presented in 2 Samuel 12:13 as having said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord,” and although in Psalm 51:4 the sinner (David or every one of us) as saying to God “against you and you only have I sinned,” David in the 2 Samuel 11-12 account sinned first against the valiant warrior Uriah, and David and/or each of us sin against other people and at the same time ultimately against God. In our didactic and in our homiletical use of this David and Bathsheba account this should be discussed and reflected upon.

Advent, as the season of anticipation for the coming of the Lord, is unique within our Church Year in that during Advent each year we are encouraged to look forward to new and future acts of God, not only with all other Christian people, but with all who are theists throughout the world. Approximately 67% of all people alive at this time, i.e., virtually all Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus, as well as most people whose religions are spin-offs of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hindu Religions, look forward in some way to new actions of God within their future. All of the other seasons of the Church Year are more specifically Christian, limited for the most part to God’s actions as perceived to have occurred in Jesus of Nazareth, whom we believe is raised from the dead by the power of God and is one with God within what we call the Trinity perception of God.

It would be appropriate for us, as least on this First Sunday in Advent, to recognize this broad perspective that the season of Advent provides as we study the texts appointed for this day and as we proclaim God’s Word for our time and place this coming weekend. It is within this broader perspective that the season of Advent provides that our Advent hope for peace and justice for all of the people of the world emerges.

Finally, it should be noted that the “Lord” in the texts appointed for this day does not refer solely to Jesus or to Jesus Christ. It refers to Adonai as Lord, as well as to Jesus as Lord. Therefore, if we have Jewish, Islamic, and Hindu friends whom we wish to invite to join with us in a Christian worship service, the service on Advent 1 will be the best time during the year to do this.

Psalm 25:1-10

This psalm is primarily an individual lament. It is an acrostic psalm, with each successive verse in Hebrew beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Because of this rather artificial form, the sequence of thought is somewhat irregular, as it would be if we attempted to write sentences beginning sequentially with each letter of the English alphabet.

Many of us may remember the use of this psalm in opening Sunday school worship services during our childhood. We may still cringe somewhat over its “Remember not the sins of my youth,” wondering whether for the sake of our young people should we not translate it more adequately as “Remember not my past sins,” at least when it is to be used by young people who can easily see that generally speaking young people are no more sinful than are the older people around them.

The psalm is a prayer to the Lord that with loving kindness the Lord would remember the psalmist. As such, it is a prayer for the present and for the future, that a person’s present and the person’s future may be lived according to the way of the Lord.

The portions of the psalm that are included in this lectionary selection can be used by any theists, especially when the Hebrew divine tetragrammaton is translated as “Lord.” It is the context and the community within which the psalm is used that make it specifically Jewish, Christian, Islamic, or Hindu.

Jeremiah 33:14-16

The selection is a promise of fulfillment for Israel and for Judah, one of many Israelite expressions of hope for a political ruler in David’s line, one who will rule in a way that will give to Jerusalem a good name.

The larger section, Jeremiah 33:1-26, appears to be a redactional addition to the chapter 30-31 “Book of Consolation,” following in the Hebrew text the story about Jeremiah’s purchase of a field in Anathoth, his hometown. The section Jeremiah 33:14-26 repeats, redacts, and comments upon Jeremiah 23:5-6. The absence of Jeremiah 33:14-26 from the Septuagint text suggests that Jeremiah 33:14-26 may have been a relatively late addition to the Hebrew text of Jeremiah.

As Christians, we can use upper case letters for the branch, for the political messiah, if we wish, and we can see in Jesus the fulfillment of this expression of prophetic hope. There are some insurmountable problems with this interpretation, however, since we can hardly say with Jeremiah 33:16 that “in those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely.” The birth, life, and death of the Jesus of history and his resurrection as the Christ of faith have not made Jerusalem and Judah safe and secure. At no time since the time of Jeremiah has Judah been “saved” and at no time has Jerusalem “dwelled securely.” Certainly this is still a future hope, not one that has been realized, in spite of important new efforts to make this possible.

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

The key portions of this text for use on Advent 1 appear to be 3:11-13 (a doxology that concludes with a reference to the “Advent” or “Parousia” of Jesus as Lord). In this portion the future emphasis predominates. The extension of the reading into 4:1-2 adds a segment of parenesis, sound advice in view of the coming Advent of the Lord.

Luke 21:25-36

As we read and ponder over the significance of these words for our own time and place, with the apocalyptic expectations in this text regarding the coming of the Son of Man, cosmic distress, the end of heaven and earth, and the continuance of the words of Jesus into the future, our emphasis in the use of this text should be on futuristic eschatology rather than on realized eschatology. Particularly this should be the case on Advent 1 when we stand with the Israelite people, with the writers of the Newer Testament epistles and gospels, with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and other theists and look ahead with joyful anticipation toward God’s new acts in the time that is still to come. We are now in a new Church Year, looking forward to Christmas once again, to new acts of God in the future in which we may participate, not looking backward to the past.