Psalm 124 (Year A August 21-27) is a communal thanksgiving. The presence of the Lord gives Israel reason to hope, even when enemies attacked. Israel would have been devastatingly overwhelmed had not the Lord been with them to bring victory. The military help they receive is in the name of the Lord and comes from the one who made everything. Many of us do not like to think of our lives as having to face enemies, but we live in a world that is not always friendly to us. Society has certain enticing ways that are not in our best interests to pursue. Some of our enemies arise from within. We have desires and goals that, if fulfilled, would mean our self-destruction. In either case, we can feel like we are in prison. Yes, we face the reality of evil, injustice, and hatred. They may come from outside forces. They may arise from within. We know we need help, a safe place, and hope for the future. Hope is essential for a just and humane world. If hope dies, the killing begins. Hopelessness and brutality are two sides of the same coin.[1] Again, we may inflict our hopelessness on those around us. We may inflict it upon self. The mystery is not so much why so much suffering and evil exists, but rather, why we have so much freedom to determine what we will do with it. We will bring more suffering and evil, or we will bring healing, wisdom, and liberation. Human beings can bring more truth, goodness, and beauty into the world. We can also bring more deception, ugliness, and evil into the world. Yes, we can become something like Mother Teresa or something like Hitler. We can live faithfully for God or crucify Jesus of Nazareth.[2] The step any religion asks us to make is that we do not have the capacity to choose rightly or to know what to choose. If we are to have safety or hope, we cannot think in a purely earthly direction. Our “help” from prison will have to come from outside, from the eternal. The hope of which I write is not the same as the optimistic attitude that everything will eventually work out. Hope can see the dangers and challenges, and yet see the possibility contained in them. Such hope requires courage and faith. In that sense, our “faith” becomes a source of safety and hope. The dangers remain, but by faith, we know the one who is the foundation of our safety and hope. Truly, “Our help is in the name of the Lord (not a country in which we live, not a business for which we work, not a denomination in which we have found some sustenance), who made heaven and earth.”
Exodus 1:8-2:10 (Year A August 21-27) is an account of the birth of Moses.
Exodus 1:8-12, 2:1-10 is from J. We learn that the clan has become a large people. Little of consequence occurs between 1700 and 1300 BC. Scholars know from other sources that Egypt had to deal with “resident aliens” in their midst, due to migration and prisoners of war. In this new historical moment, Egyptian leaders drew upon them for slave labor. In addition, “Sea peoples” settled along the coast and creates some problems for Egypt. Even though the new king oppressed the Israelites, the number of Israelites expanded. In the context of the story J is telling, here is a consequence of the previous act of Joseph, where he utilized the crisis of famine to make slaves out of the Egyptian population (Genesis 47:13-26). For J, actions have consequences. This oppression will cause a movement on the part of the Lord that will bring dramatic change for the people and become a story that has inspired generations of people longing for freedom. If we remember the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord promised their descendants would be numerous. In this historical moment, we find the fulfillment of that promise. In Genesis 51:2-7, after giving the names and the small number of the family of Joseph, we find the Israelites grow fruitful and strong to the point where the land of Egypt was full of them. In Psalm 105:23-25, the Lord made the Israelites fruitful and stronger than were their enemies. In Deuteronomy 26:5-7, their ancestor Jacob went to Egypt, lived as a resident alien as few, but grew to become a great, mighty, and populous nation. Oppression by Egypt is also a theme of these two texts, referring to the hatred Pharaoh would have for the Israelites and the harsh treatment and affliction he imposed on them through forced labor. The tradition of Egyptian oppression is comparable to that of the enslavement of non-Israelites by Solomon. Further, in I Kings 11:14-22, David committed genocide against Edom, resulting in the escape of Hadad. Although the formulation for the oppression arises out of the abuse of power by Solomon, this does not mean that oppression did not occur. The Pharaoh needed to suppress the population and thus perform hard labor to construct the store-cities. Out of this context, two Levites marry who become the parents of Moses. While the powerful Pharaoh is at work in oppression, God is at work quietly and silently in the preparing of one who, many years later, will be the agent of deliverance. The Lord is at work in the birth of a child. The Lord is at work through the wisdom and creativity of a young woman.Divine activity is implied rather than stated directly. Moses is “a brand plucked from the burning,” as John Wesley would refer to himself. What this infant becomes as an adult is what will matter. Moses will be like Joseph in that he rises to heights within the house of Pharaoh. Its portrait of the Egyptian princess is positive.
Exodus 1:15-20, 22 provides a description of the second stage of the oppression of the Hebrews. The fear of the “king of Egypt” in the growing power of the Hebrews leads him to urge them to kill the male babies. This act would eliminate potential Israelite military power. In such a time of terror, we can see the biblical story dealing again with the perceived absence of God to the faithful. Yet, part of the faith of the faithful involves confidence that God is active, even when we have difficulty perceiving it. Thus, we learn that God was at work at work among these women. God was working quietly and silently in the lives of the Hebrews and in the lives of these gentile midwives to prepare the ground for the preservation of the deliverer of the Hebrew people. God gives them courage to disobey their king. Later Jewish practice would refer to them as “righteous gentiles.” When Pharaoh asks why, they lie to him. Luther would refer to this example to say that this is how Christians should act in persecution. Yes, in certain situations, God is at work in a lie. God blesses these righteous gentiles. Here is an irony in the story. Pharaoh's target was male children. He assumed the females were no threat. He completely fails to see those two Hebrew women, the midwives, have defied him and saved many children. He does not realize that it will be a Hebrew woman, the mother of Moses, who will foil his plans with a simple woven basket. He does not know that it will be a Hebrew girl, Moses' sister, who will have the savvy to propose to Pharaoh's daughter, who finds the baby, that Moses' actual mother be employed as a wet nurse for him -- and she will get paid for doing it! Pharaoh does not even realize that his own daughter, an Egyptian woman, has saved a Hebrew baby -- and that it is this baby who will grow up to undo Pharaoh's designs on the Hebrews.
The setting provides yet another opportunity in our reflections upon the Bible to consider the silence of the Lord. In Isaiah 45:15, we read that the God of Israel is one who hides himself. We find it difficult to perceive God amid troubled situations. In II Samuel 22:12, darkness gathers around the Lord. In Job 9:11, the Lord passes by Job, but he cannot see or perceive the Lord. In Psalm 10:1, the Lord seems to stand far away during a time of trouble. In Acts 17:27, Paul observes that people grope after God as in the dark, even though God is near to each of us. We have a passage before us that will refer to a time of trouble that involves political oppression through slavery and the death of male infants. Pharaoh terrorizes the people of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We have a holocaust, and God provides no comfort or help. Yet maybe another way to think of this is that in a time of trouble, God is at work quietly, in a way you will not expect. In the time of terror, the Lord is preserving the life of an infant who will become the deliverer of the Hebrew people. To use a computer analogy, the computer has many programs, especially anti-virus programs, working in the background. They work in ways most of us do not understand nor care to understand. They help the computer function better by doing so. This passage suggests that sometimes, the activity of the Lord is like that, working quietly and silently in the background. In the story of the liberation of the Hebrew people from Egypt, moments come when the Lord is obviously present and active. However, that period follows a long number of years when the Lord is working silently and quietly. Part of having faith is to live in the confidence that the Lord is active in ordinary and troubling times, even when we have difficulty perceiving it, just as much as when divine activity seems obvious.
Thus, the actions of the Egyptian princess show that the Lord is at work in her, preparing her to receive this Hebrew infant. We even see the child returns to the mother who sought to save her child by putting the child into the Nile. The Lord is silently and quietly at work in these circumstances. The Lord is at work behind the scenes, preparing the stage for the primary activity in the deliverance of the Hebrew people. The Lord is making sure that Moses and the Hebrew people will have the best light and the best props available. The Lord is providing everyone with what they need to “perform” on stage, when deliverance will come. However, at this moment, a time of terror and incredible suffering, faith says that the Lord is still working, even if quietly and behind the scenes. This story will provide the biblical and theological context for Matthew 2 and the story of the birth of Jesus. We learn that the plan of the Lord has a fragile beginning, even while the powers of this world seem impressive. We see an unexpected rescue. When redemption comes, the price is the senseless murder of children. The deliverance that will come is not one the powerful will welcome. In Matthew, of course, the antagonist shifts from the Egyptian king to the Jewish king. If you want to continue this line of thinking, Revelation 12 will have this story in the background as well.[3]
Psalm 149 (Year A September 4-10) celebrates the kingship of the Lord at a religious assembly prior to a battle against a Canaanite people during worship and praise with musical instruments. It invites the assembly, also referred to as the children of Zion, to dance and to sing its praise to God as Maker and King in a new song, a reference to this song. In a beautiful phrase, it reminds the assembly, who are a humble people, that the Lord takes pleasure in and gives victory to the people of the Lord, a favorite phrase of II Isaiah. The psalm ends that the people of this assembly have two-edged swords in their hands with which to execute vengeance on the nations/peoples, bind their kings and nobility, and execute this judgment as a religious duty. Such a victory is glory for the faithful ones. The psalm becomes a victory dance of a nation that has defeated it enemies in battle.
Exodus 12:1-14 (Year A September 4-10) is a part of the account of the Passover in the P document. The Passover is both the apotropaic (evil-averting) and commemorative ritual of that grim event. Passover recalls the way the Lord saved a particular people. too much emphasis upon Passover would lead to an overemphasis upon liberation as only political. Human beings also need liberation from evil and sin, and thus need a transformed human life. In the New Testament, both John and Paul connect the crucifixion with Passover themes. The logic of sacrifice to deity demands one offers the best of what one has. The firstborn of the year from the flock was the healthiest, fittest, and strongest. A healthy year-old lamb, sheep, goat, or even calf in Deuteronomy 16:2 was a considerable investment of labor and resources on the part of the shepherd. The logic of sacrifice to deity would not settle for “sacrifice” of surplus or leftovers, but only a sacrifice that represented its cost to the one who sacrifices. Splattering blood on the two doorposts and the lintel in which they eat the Passover makes this an apotropaic ritual. Blood was the life force of living creatures in Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11, and 14. One was to return the blood to the deity from whence it came. The Lord will strike down the first-born in Egypt, a disturbing image that stresses the value of the first-born in ancient cultures. This judgment the Lord brings will also be a judgment upon the gods of Egypt. Focusing on the divine battle that is taking place, the exodus is a matter of theology, the defeat of the deities of Egypt by the newly revealed Yahweh of the Hebrew people. Tractate Pesachim in the Mishnah, ca. 200, reminded Israelites of the enormous suffering that they commemorated alongside Israel’s deliverance, and instructed Passover participants departing at the conclusion of the meal not to join in revelry.[4] The festival or remembrance itself is a powerful way for the Jewish people to cultivate its relationship with the Lord. We are not to think of simply recalling the fact of a past event, but to actualize its liberating power in the present.[5]
It is significant that God chooses to save Israel. Israel does not earn this salvation. The whole miracle is that such a tiny, insignificant people became the beneficiaries of a great miracle: liberation from slavery to the most powerful empire then on earth. For the rest of Israelite history, this special covenant between Israel and God was invoked to bind the 12 tribes together into a nation; and in these invocations of the covenant, God's saving act in the exodus is always mentioned as the primary action through which God demonstrated faithfulness to the Israelites and worthiness to be worshiped (Joshua 24:5-7; 1 Samuel 12:6-8; 1 Kings 8:44-54).
Psalm 114 (Year A September 11-17), which has a close link to the Old Testament reading for this day, is a hymn used during the covenant festival. The exodus and the birth of the nation, the saving history and the birth of a nation synchronize. The saving history begins with Exodus. The psalm celebrates the exodus and its aftermath as the liberation of Israel, but also as an event through which all nature came to see the power of the Lord. The poem is structured on events involving water: the splitting of the sea, the crossing of the Jordan, and the supplying of water in the wilderness. The hymn shows an intimate connection between the exodus and the birth of Israel. In a beautiful image, Judah/Israel become the sanctuary/dominion of God. The poet personifies the response of nature to this exodus, which is caused by the presence of the Lord.
Exodus 14:19-31 (Year A September 11-17) is an account of the passage of Israel through the Sea of Reeds. This event in the religious memory and imagination of Israel became the paradigmatic act of the Lord on behalf of Israel. Numbers 33:1-49 is a summary of the events of the exodus. It mentions that The Lord executed judgments even against their gods. It then gives this summary of the actual surrounding of the Red Sea. 9 … at Elim there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there. 10 They set out from Elim and camped by the Red Sea. 11 They set out from the Red Sea and camped in the wilderness of Sin. The flight of the people - numbered at more than 600,000 foot soldiers (Exodus 12:37; Numbers 1:46), not counting the noncombatants, which could have brought the total to three or more times that number - was well under way by the time the Israelites found themselves, in this passage, trapped between Pharaoh's pursuing army and the sea (14:1-18). The Lord is bringing a people into being. The pattern here is like what we find in other pre-Israelite accounts. For example, Joshua 10:6-11 has the Gibeonites fearful of the Amorites, but the Lord telling Joshua not to fear them. When Joshua leads an army against them, their opponents panic. This allows Joshua and his army to slaughter their opponents. The Lord even throws down huge stones (hail), so much so that more of their enemies died in that way than by the sword. Another example is I Samuel 7:7-10, where Israel is afraid of the Philistines. They ask Samuel to cry out to the Lord for them. While Samuel is offering his animal sacrifice, the Lord thunders with a mighty voice to the point where they panic, and Israel routs them.
In the E document portion of this reading (verses 19a, 25a), the angel of God, associated with the “pillar of cloud), is leading the Israelite army. This angel turned the strength of the army of Egypt, its chariots, into a weakness by clogging the wheels so that they turned with difficulty.
The J portion (verses 19b-21a, 24, 25b, 27b, 30-31 focuses on the Lord bringing a people into being. The pillar of cloud came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel, beclouding the path of the Egyptians and illuminating the way for the Israelites. Moses stretched out his hand and the Lord through the army of Egypt into a panic. The Egyptians flee because the Lord is fighting for Israel and against Egypt, but as they did so, the Lord tossed them into the sea. In a theological interpretation of what J has described, the Lord has become the divine patron of Israel through the mighty act of deliverance from slavery in Egypt by defeating the army of the Egyptians and by causing an awe of the Lord among this newly formed people. In this moment, the people trust the Lord and the servant of the Lord, Moses. faith is an important aspect of our notion of truth. The future discloses the reality of the truth in which one has faith.[6] One such event will not be enough to establish faith, for those who believe expect such moments to continue because deity has the power to do so.[7] The event of liberation becomes an aspect of the revelation, Israel believing in the Lord who has delivered them. The observation that Israel believed is a report of what will prove to be short-lived faithfulness by this people that emerges from the dramatic divine intervention on behalf of Israel.[8] We see the direct intervention of the Lord by natural events. We might even say that elements of myth interact with history in this event. The Lord rebuked the sea of chaos in creation. Such myth stands at the beginning of the creation of a people. Israel is passive. The Lord receives glory without human cooperation. We do see the faith of Israel, reminding us of the extensive theological reflection contained in the event. II Isaiah in 43:16-17, a prophet of the exile, reminds his listeners that they have come to believe in the Lord who makes a way in the sea and mighty waters and destroys chariot, horse, army and warrior. In 51:9-11, where the Lord tears Rahab the dragon into pieces, dries up the sea, and allows the redeemed to cross. He then holds forth the promise that the Lord shall allow the ransomed to return to Zion with praise and joy. In 44:26-28, he stresses that the Lord confirms the word of the servant and messenger of the Lord. The Lord will resurrect the dead cities of Judah. The Lord has sent Cyrus to be the shepherd to fulfill this promise. In Psalm 74:12-17, God works salvation by dividing the sea and breaking the dragons and the heads of Leviathan. In Psalm 89:9-12, the Lord rules the raging of the sea, crushes Rahab, and scatters the enemies. In Isaiah 55:12, the Lord will go in front of them and will guard them from behind.
The P portion (14: 21b, 22-23, 24, 26, 27a, 28-29) expands upon the miraculous nature of this deliverance. The pillar of fire and the cloud become one and throw the army of Egypt into panic. The gesture of stretching out a staff over water, land, or heaven occurs in several of the plagues, as in 8:5-7, 16-17; 9:23; 10:12-13, 21-22. Here, the gesture is a salvific means of escape for the Israel and death to the Egyptians. Behind this miracle could be an historical event of something like the rising and falling of the tide, which would give an advantage to the movement of the Israelites but as the chariot-centered army of the Egyptians start crossing the waters deepened, turning their strength into a weakness. It destroyed the army of Egypt. At the narrative level, the emphasis placed on Pharaoh's powerful and sophisticated military machinery, in contrast to the defenseless Hebrews fleeing on foot, is meant to demonstrate that, despite overwhelming odds, the Israelites were able to escape through the miraculous intervention of the LORD. Historically, the Egyptian chariots mentioned here probably had a devastating psychological effect not only on the Israelites, but also on all Egypt's enemies who lacked the light, swift firing platforms that constituted the ancient two-wheeled chariot. Israel, of course, was never able to develop a significant chariot force, mainly because of its unsuitable hilly terrain and because of the expensive array of specialized designers, craftsmen, and builders necessary for chariot production. The great advantage of the chariot - its wheeled speed - becomes in the exodus narrative its fatal liability.[9]
Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45 (Year A but for the introduction and verses 1-6 see July 24-30, verses 37-45, September 18-24) begins with relating the escape of the servants of the lord through plagues against Egypt. Israel left Egypt with silver and gold. Egypt released them joyfully, not mourning their departure. They plundered the Egyptians (Exodus 12:33-36). Israel then experienced miracles in the wilderness. The poet refers to the cloud that accompanied them as a covering, a theophany in worship, giving light by night. The poet modifies Exodus 16:2-15 by saying the Israelites asked, and the Lord brought quail and food from heaven, and water from a rock, the poet affirming the care of the Lord for the people in the wilderness period. The conclusion returns to the theme of the psalm, the fulfillment of covenant promise. The reason for the mighty acts of deliverance is simple. In remembering the promise to the servant of the Lord, Abraham, we can see that the election tradition of Israel could speak of the Patriarchs as the elected or chosen ones.[10]Therefore, the Lord brought the people of the Lord, the chosen ones, with joy and singing out of Egypt and to a land already inhabited. The text does not deal directly with the wars and suffering that would occur to possess the land and wealth of these people. The purpose of this move is that these people would live in accord with the laws the Lord graciously gave them. For this history of the Lord dealing with this people, they are to offer obedience and praise to the Lord.
Exodus 16:2-15 (Year A September 18-24) relates the story of the complaint of hunger by the Hebrew people in the wilderness and the response of the Lord to provide food.
In 16: 4-5, 13b-15 is the J story of manna. The story relates the continuous care the Lord provides the people of God in their time of trouble. We can also see the devotion of the Lord to this people that arises out of love for them. Yet, with the gift is a test as to whether they will follow the instruction of the Lord. Adam prefigures the answer, for human beings do not follow the instruction of the Lord. The test is whether they can resist collecting the bread on the Sabbath. This command would require discipline, for our naturally tendency is to get more than enough. Given the critical nature of this journey, they are to leave bread for others. Further, the Lord will allow them to gather more on the sixth day so that they will not need to work on the Sabbath. Such commands are part of the test of whether these people can obey the Lord. The nature of the test is like that of Deuteronomy 8:2-3, where the test of their hearts was to humble them through their hunger, and then the Lord fed them manna to teach them their reliance upon the Lord. They were to learn that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. If the presence of manna has a natural explanation, it is the sweet, edible honeydew found in parts of the Sinai in June and July. Scale insects and plant lice ingest the sap of tamarisk trees and excrete it onto the branches, from which it crystallizes and falls to the ground as sticky solids. Bedouin use it as a sweetener. The miracle was that it arrived just when the Israelites needed it and that enough was produced to feed the people. Even today, locals harvest sap from the tamarisk tree.
In the New Testament, manna is a sign of divine reality. Negatively, it could not satisfy. Positively, it is a gift of redeeming quality, understood to be Christ. See I Corinthians 10:3 and John 6. See the Temptation of Jesus as well, referring to Deuteronomy 8:3. Jesus discerns the reality to which the manna points. In the feeding of the 5000, there is an implicit reference to the manna. Paul in I Corinthians 10:1-13 compares Israel and the church. The most extensive use is John 6:31-58. Such connections with the Lord’s Supper are important. The Christian life is all about trusting God for our needs. "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him," said Jesus (Matthew 6:8). "And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus," said Paul (Philippians 4:19).
In 16:1-3, 6-13a is the P version of the quail and manna in the wilderness provided by the Lord. The story stresses the continuous care God has for the people of God in their time of trouble. It stresses the relation of love that exists between God and Israel. It also illustrates the tendency of the people of God is toward disobedience and their need for divine instruction provided in Torah. This document will stress the itinerary through the wilderness, in this case along the coast of the Gulf of Suez on the western side of the Sinai Peninsula, with the modes theological intent of stressing that God led Israel. Their complaint focuses on the lack of food after their rushed departure from Egypt. They long for the large communal cooking pots they had as slaves in Egypt. This points to the reality of freedom. As slaves, many of their decisions were made for them. Freedom will mean making decisions and taking risks. The new responsibilities can be unnerving. Many people become so comfortable with the prison they have built for themselves that the risk of freedom is a difficult step to take. Abusive relationships are like that. This is also an example of another quirk of human beings in romanticizing the past because of some dissatisfaction with the challenges of the present. They claim it was Moses and Aaron who brought them out of Egypt, while the narrative it clear that it was the Lord, they divine patron warrior, who has accomplished this. Moses reminds them it was the Lord who brought them out and it will be the Lord who shows them the glory of the Lord in the form of manna in the morning, while the qual arrives in the evening. They are recipients of the deliberate care of their divine patron.
Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16 (Year A September 25-October 1) has a direct connection to the Old Testament reading for this day. It is a wisdom-didactic psalm. It has a connection with Deuteronomy 32, but it approaches history differently. The intent of the poem is not to give a chronological history. The community already knows this history. The poet addresses the public. The lessons of life, faith, and history can be hard. We are difficult people for whom the lessons of life and history may have some difficulty penetrating us. The psalm recounts, in a didactic and pointed way, pivotal events from the sacred history of Israel to provide instruction for its contemporary hearers. It recounts the history of Israel to expound upon the providential care of God for Israel, on the one hand, and the persistent recalcitrance of Israel in responding to and living in the light of that care, on the other. The events narrated stretch from the time of the liberation of Israel from Egyptian bondage, the pivotal event in the sacred story of Israel, down to the time of David (a period of 250 years), when a new era began in the social and religious life of Israel. It offers justification for the destruction of the Northern Kingdom and praise for Davidic kingship centered in the chosen city of Zion. It extols the contributions of the Davidic dynasty to Israel’s history and serves as an apologia for the reforms undertaken (and imposed) by David. The tribe of Joseph, witness to great miracles, has rebelled against God, so that God has now rejected them in favor of the Temple at Jerusalem, the Davidic covenant, and Judah. The selective use of events, as well as the abrupt transition from wilderness wandering to security in Zion, leaves the strong impression that one of the functions of the psalm was to justify the revolutionary and controversial reforms of the monarchic era of David and Solomon. The narrative as recounted in the psalm differs from that found in the Torah. Its basis is the non-Priestly narrative traditions, especially the J source, as well as traditions where were not canonized in the Jewish tradition. It begins by stressing the importance of handing down the traditions of how God is dealing with the people. Israel is uniquely the people of the Lord who are to listen to his teaching, connecting the psalm with the wisdom teachers in Jerusalem. Teachers in Israel want to clarify the works of the Lord for now and for future generations. Although the precise relationship between the Temple and the wisdom schools (or even circles) in ancient Israel is not known, it is certain that there was extensive interplay between the two ways of looking at the world. The religious tradition of Israel, centered on the recitation of sacred events of the history of Israel, over time incorporated practical teachings from the wisdom circles that focused on timeless and general truths. The poet speaks in the form of an oracle, aphorism, or even dark obscure riddles from the past. Such a description is incongruous with the straightforward way the psalm draws from the sacred history of Israel. The poet will emphasize tradition that express praise for the deeds, the power, and the wonders of the Lord. Such a rationale for the preservation and transmission of the sacred history of Israel is as we find it in Deuteronomy 32:45-6. Skipping to verses 12-16, the starting point for the wisdom one can glean from the sacred history of Israel is the saving deeds of Moses, Reed Sea, and guidance and preservation in the wilderness. God treated the Israelites with love and kindness. It is a good thing to remind ourselves of the goodness of the Lord to us. In the stages of the formation of a people, the Lord provided what the people needed to face their difficulties. It might be the sea, the need for guidance through the wilderness, or thirst (Exodus 17:1-7), but the Lord was there with them and providing a way to face the difficulty.
Exodus 17:1-7 (Year A September 25-October 1) tells of the need for water in the wilderness of Sin, at Massah and Meribah. The point is the surprising and gracious provision of God. Yet, it also shows the discontent of the people in the desert. Moses is under attack, because of the lack of water. In the long narrative of the journey through the wilderness, the people show continual restiveness. At issue is whether they will believe in the abiding presence of a protecting and caring God. The journey by stages occurs under the providential care of the Lord for these escaped slaves and their livestock. Journey by stages suggests moving toward the destination punctuated by periods of needed rest by both people and animals. Such a journey is a sign of trust, especially since they journeyed only as the Lord commanded. However, at one camp the people quarreled with Moses over the lack of water. This is a reasonable concern, but Moses asks them why they test the Lord. The point is that while the Lord can test people, people have no right to test the Lord. Such testing can lead to lack of trust, obedience, and rebellion. For example, some people sought to test Jesus by wanting him to give them a sign from heaven, as if such a sign would provide proof (Luke 11:16). The fact that the people will test the Lord ten times in the wilderness is the reason none of the people enter the Promised Land (Numbers 14:22). The theological problem underlying the complaint is their anxiety about the intent of Moses and, by implication, of the Lord, in bringing these slaves into the wilderness. As is typical of complaint, they put the one they complain against in the worst possible light. They speculate that Moses and by implication the Lord want to kill them in the wilderness. In the process, they doubt the providential care and power of the Lord. Their desperate need is leading them to threaten violence. Stoning was usually an official act to purify the people from contamination brought by transgression. Moses fears this angry mob. Yet, the Lord seems sympathetic to the complaint. The Lord has Moses take the elders with him, a group that serve as witnesses and has an active role to play in local and national administration. This image of Moses sharing power with others in the nation is a clear message from the Northern author responsible for E, if that is the proper source, that God never intended the religion of Israel to be “owned” in any way by any one individual or faction. Moses is to take his staff and the Lord will stand in front of him, on the rock at Horeb/Sinai. The water would flow from Horeb back to Rephidim via a wadi. The people will have their water. Even today, certain types of rock formations indicate that the sandstone has trapped rainwater beneath a thin layer of stone. Paul will spiritualize this moment, noting that the people drank from the same spiritual drink and rock, and the rock was Christ (I Corinthians 10:4). This moment of provision in the wilderness becomes a typology for the future spiritual enrichment Christ will bring.[11] Yet, the unusual way Jesus approached such matters is striking to me. He refused to validate his divine sending with a sign in Matthew 12:38-39 and 16:1-4.[12] We now learn that an important part of the reason for this story is that it provides an explanation for the names of two springs in the Sinai. It concludes with the powerful question contained in the complaint of the people: Is the Lord among the people or not? Moses equates quarreling with him to testing the Lord. It suggests lack of trust in the Lord. It suggests Israel questioned the presence and providence of the Lord. Such an accusation against their covenant-making/keeping Lord was serious. The Lord promised to be with them and guide them safely to their destination.
Our experiences give us plenty of reason for anxiety and worry. Unexpected tests and trials occur on a regular basis. If we have some acquaintance with the biblical stories, we might call them “wilderness” experiences. We are not sure of our destination. We feel uncoordinated with God and with others. Sometimes, I suppose God might want us to go through such a time, as a time of preparation and discipline. God may want to show us how trustworthy God is when we face some challenging times. Yet, too often when we go through times of testing, we become testy. We start blaming other people for our situation. We offer complaints to God instead of praise and worship. We lengthen our time in our personal wilderness when we have such responses. Our ingratitude, our lack of faith, reveals far deeper problems with our spiritual life than we may have acknowledged. We think the problem is with God, in that we somehow want proof that God is there. Yet, in more ways than we can count, God has been faithful. When we go through the tests of life, we may also reveal who we are – faithless, anxious, fearful, and rebellious. Thankfully, God does not give up. God is faithful.
We tend to want the Lord to show us first, and then we will believe. Rarely will such an approach work in our desire for a meaningful faith and life. Rather, if we believe, the Lord will show us.[13] Very simply, some of the most important things in our lives will not reveal themselves to us until we believe. Relationships are like that. We need to believe in someone and increasingly trust to discover whether this relationship can have deepening love and friendship. We will go through times when the way seems dark and difficult. In such moments, we will learn the level of our trust.
If it were not for tough times, we would not know the depth of love and friendship that exists between two persons, within groups, or even in a nation. Our relationship with God is like that. If it were not for challenging times, we would never experience the reality of the “God who is enough.” We seem to think we need so many things to be happy. The reality is, we do, although it may not be as many things as we think. The Lord knows we have need of such things. Yet, the difficult and struggling times bring us to the truth that God is enough. Of course, when we are going through a crisis, we often find it difficult to take a long view and trust the long, steady purpose of God. We focus on the potential shortness of our lives. We hear the clock ticking down our lives with increasing urgency. We may find it difficult to sing, “Great is thy faithfulness.” We may not see new mercies morning by morning. Yet, our testimony may also be that all we have needed, the hand of the Lord has provided. We may testify to the faithfulness to the Lord. When such tests come our way as we travel the journey of our lives by stages, the urgent question is our readiness to trust in the surprising and gracious ways the Lord will show us as individuals and communities the providential care of the Lord.
Psalm 19 (Year A October 2-8) connects a meditation on nature in verses 1-6 to a reflection on the law in verses 7-14, the latter connected closely to the Old Testament Lesson. the combination of creation and law is not unique to this Psalm. Psalm 119:73 ties together God’s creation and God’s law, where the writer affirms the Lord has fashioned him and given him understanding so that he can learn the commandments of the Lord. The ordered universe and the order provided by Torah receive praise. The poet begins by emphasizing the beauty and order of nature as wordless testimony to the excellence of God. It declares the majesty of the Lord from among all the earth. The Lord has set the divine glory about the heavens. This leads to reflection on the dignity of humanity. Here, the focus is on the peculiar character of the revelation of God in nature. These verses join other passages of the Bible that speak of the creative work of God.[14] The contemplation of nature leads the author to see that it serves God. The works of the master reveal the master. The destiny of creatures is to praise and honor God and extol divine glory.[15] For the psalmist, while nature is an inanimate object, human beings still approach it with wonder. This capacity for wonderment the arises out of experience is the heart of religion and philosophy, as well as the sciences. Nature has a language that human beings find difficult to hear, so what it is saying is not a plain or obvious witness that leads to the praise of God. The claim that nature is the work of God is always debatable.[16] Its language is not a call to worship it, but to praise the God who made it. Thus, when we join the psalmist in such praise of God, we anticipate the eschatological praising of God. The wonders of the universe can reveal the excellence and beauty of God for those who have eyes to see.[17]
Science is our attempt to decipher the mystery that God has placed in nature. The pursuit of truth is what ought to animate us. If one believes that God is the author of all truth, then the pursuit of scientific truth is not something to fear, but rather pursued with joy and delight in the discoveries that will render the manifold splendor of God’s truth. Truth is truth; therefore, we do not need to hold scientific truth in opposition to revealed, or religious, truth. They are distinct aspects of the truth that leads us to knowledge of God. The praise offering we find here is not a scientific assertion. Rather, it arises from wonderment that leads to an affirmation of faith. As Aquinas noted, we can observe a certain type of logic here. The movement of the objects we see in space can make us puzzle about how such movement began. Such reflections can lead us from the contingency of all finite things to the notion of a necessary Being, which we might call God, who is behind all that we see and study in nature. While many things have being, this would suggest the Greatest Being of all, which we would call God. Each part of creation seems uniquely fitted for its purpose. Each part of our bodies has their purpose that could not exist apart from its participation in the body. This fact may make it appear that an intelligent being designed it this way, which we would call God. The wonderfully complex diversity of creation seems to demand one who designed it. Yet, looking at nature does not demand this conclusion. The beauty we see may provide a hint of the divine, but the hint is ambiguous, given the resistance we see in suffering and evil. Nature inflicts plenty of suffering upon us all, including the children. What kind of designer would design something that included so much evil and suffering? The deeper point is that neither the scientist nor the Christian has anything to fear from the other. We have a common drive toward truth. We are trying to put it together, even if we do so in distinctly separate ways. The psalmist who surveyed the heavens, praised God for its wonders, and gave thanks for the place of humanity in it, was hardly thinking of the details of how such wonders occurred. Something within him knew he needed to express gratitude. Pursuit of ultimate questions will have a dimension of faith, hope, and love that are beyond what science will yield. For science to demand scientific proof of our ultimate questions is for it to step beyond its purpose. For religion to demand scientific evidence for its belief in God is to make a demand science cannot give. Yet, behind the intellectual pursuit of both is our desire for genuine beauty, goodness, and truth.
The real question is not so much whether you believe God exists, but does it make a difference in your life. Does our behavior change depending upon our answer to that question? If it would not, then we can forget the question. If it would change, then we enter into a wonderful and beautiful home of the traditions of the church that will offer plenty of guidance as to why believing in God needs to make a difference. The believer will need to learn to live with the truth that scientific data brings while offering praise and gratitude to God. To live otherwise would be to set to truths against each other. Such opposition is unnecessary. Let us join the psalmist in singing, “Alleluia.”
Many composers and hymn writers have written settings to biblical and other words of praise for and by God’s creation. One thinks of Haydn’s “The Heavens Are Telling,” from The Creation. One also thinks of such hymns as “All Creatures of our God and King” (which tracks the words of a prayer by St. Francis of Assisi). Its refrain of “Praise Him” and “Alleluia” summarizes well the spirit of these verses. It invites nature to lift its voice with us as believers as we offer this praise to God. It begins with inviting sun and moon to do so. It invites them to “find a voice” and “Make music for the Lord to hear.” Mother earth also unfolds blessings toward humanity, including flowers and fruits. It then invites human beings “of tender heart, forgiving others,” to take its part in offering such praise in song. Even those who bear “pain and sorrow” are to offer their praise to God on whom they case their care. Even Death is “kind and gentle” as it leads us home in the way Christ has led. All things worship the Creator with humbleness. I think of “How Great Thou Art,” which invites us to consider the worlds and stars the hand of God has made. They display the power of God. His soul sings of the greatness of God. “This Is My Father’s World” that to his “listening ears, All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.” Rocks, trees, skies, and seas are wonders from the hand of God. Birds raise carols and lilies declare the praise of their Maker. He hears the Father pass “in the rustling grass” and “speaks to me everywhere.” “Morning Has Broken” offers praise for the singing and morning, “God’s recreation of the new day.” “Cantemos al Señor” (“Let’s Sing unto the Lord”) invites us to sing praise “at the new day’s fresh beginning.” God made sky, stars, sun, and oceans filled with beauty. The hymn of adoration is to show the love, faith, and hope of all creation. Through all the Lord has made, we praise the greatness of the Lord. Finally, the last verse of “Love Divine, all Loves Excelling” reminds us that creation is imperfect enough that we have the hope of a new creation, as we pray that God would finish the new creation so that we might see salvation and find our restoration in God.
God created human beings as the culmination of creation, as Psalm 8:5 makes clear in the light of Genesis 1:26-31. Such a standing in creation gives humanity the special purpose of reflecting and expressing divine glory. Question 1 of the Westminster Larger Catechism reads, “What is the chief and highest end of man?” The answer: “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.” We follow Jesus Christ, the one who fully reflects the imago dei. Do we glorify God by our own words, lives, and ministries?
The poet then reminds of the power of Torah to bring joy and purpose to a human life. We can see the delight in the Torah and the benefits of following it. It brings joy and blessing to those who obey it. Those who turn away from the way the Lord will receive the reverse, as we find in Psalm 1, 111-112, and Deuteronomy 30. Torah is a revelation of the will of the Lord. He has such a joyful confidence in the Torah that it has become higher than all earthly values. Do we have a similar view to the psalmist who declares that knowing and following instructions from the Lord and the ways of the Lord is more valuable even than having a lot of money or indulging in tasty goodies? Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work” (John 4:34).
The poet ends with supplication. We do not have such wisdom on our own to detect our errors. Torah points them out. Yet is the statement true? I would suggest that only from a certain perspective. Human beings naturally detect error in self and others. We naturally develop a conscience through our interactions with others. The conscience detects right and wrong in our behavior and in the behavior of others. One brand of psychology calls this the “superego.” The point is, each culture detects varying behaviors as right and wrong, but human beings are naturally aware of the need to discern the difference between right and wrong. Thus, without Torah, yes, we would still detect error. Yet, we are also naturally aware of our capacity for self-deception. In this sense, revelation provides a reference point outside us by which we can detect right and wrong. To put the matter bluntly, we may wonder if God exists and whether we are to live lives accountable to God, but Torah does not wonder. Torah commands honor of God in our worship, speech, and use of our time. We may wonder if respecting parents, the property of others, telling the truth, faithfulness to a spouse or other matters, are right, good, and moral. Torah does not wonder. Torah says Yes, such behavior deserves respect and fulfillment in our lives. Torah will not tell us everything we are to do with our lives, and Torah will not tell unambiguously what to do in every situation. However, Torah will provide broad knowledge of the type of person we are to become and discern what that type of person would do in this situation. Thus, only the Lord can free us from the faults that are hidden even to us. The chief reward of Torah is spiritual and focuses on forgiveness. Humility moves the poet when he seeks freedom from sin. The focus is not on an act, but a heart poured out before the Lord. The writer now shifts to offering a supplication to keep himself from joining those who think of themselves too pridefully and to lead a life pleasing to God. His heart meditation is that the Lord will find in the words of his mouth and the meditations of his heart an acceptable offering. Obedience to Torah is not simply an outward or external matter. The Lord is the one who protects and delivers him.
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 (Year A October 2-8) form the Ten Commandments.
The passage begins with God speaking “all these words.” The passage begins with the Lord (Yahweh) self-identifying as their God (Elohim), the one who brought them out of Egypt and their houses of slavery. The authority of the Lord derives from delivering the people from bondage. It also provides a motive for the people to give their sole allegiance to the Lord, for the Lord alone delivered the people from bondage. This suggests that grace precedes the law. Israel does not establish its relationship with the Lord by keeping the Ten Commandments. Rather, the keeping of the commandments is an expression of gratitude for the things that the Lord has already done in bringing freedom and a means for maintaining a healthy relationship with the Lord and with others.
We often pray for guidance. We want the Lord to lead us. Yet, some passages in the Bible quite direct guidance and leadership. If we approach them prayerfully, they become opportunities for confession. Too often, we do not even want to follow direction we receive from the word God has given us. The Ten Commandments are one of the places of clear direction. Properly understood, many of the problems in the world would dissolve if it followed this 3000-year-old prescription. They are all humanity needs to make this a beautiful world. As modern men and women, we think we have produced innovative ideas to make a good world. The truth is, in this area of human life, there is nothing new to say. If people and countries lived by the Ten Commandments, the great moral problems would disappear. To put it another way, the great evils of the world involve the violation of one or more of these commandments. They provide the principles, the parameters, within which we live our lives and play this game of life in many ways: the parameters within which we make sure we do not in the process defeat ourselves.
The first four commandments give further content to the love of God. As we read in Mark 1229-30, referring to Deuteronomy 6:4-5, what would it mean to love God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength? They also give content to what it means to “hallow” the name of God in the Lord’s Prayer.
The first and second commandments are simple and direct in their statements to have no other gods before the Lord and to fashion no idols. Yet, Genesis 3 makes it equally clear that we are too ready to listen to other voices. Already in the wilderness (Exodus 31:18-32:35), the Israelites disobeyed the first and second commandments by constructing the image of a calf and proclaiming this as the god who brought their liberation. Images are inappropriate vehicles for the Lord because the revelation of God is through the word the Lord gives rather than a form discovered in nature. Such an image would limit the freedom of God to reveal new things through a word from the Lord that responds to new moments in history. That in which we place our trust is our god. When we trust the temporary things of this world, we have constructed an idol.[18] The people of God are to exalt, worship, and adore the Lord alone. They are to rest in God and consider themselves as partners of God. Our lives are to be an offering of worship to God.[19] If we view the commandments as the loving guidance of a word from God, we may be able to respond with opens minds and hearts. God created us to love God, but we become slaves to wrong choices. We desire wrongly. Freedom is not so much choice but desire. God created us as passionate beings. We rightly desire. The problem is where our desires become disordered by desiring what results in slavery. We become like what we worship. We also allow this god to determine what kind of world we will have, what kind of government we will choose, what sorts of persons we will want to rule over us. I think of Augustine’s trenchant words: “thou hast created us for thyself, and our heart cannot be quieted till it may find repose in thee.” He knew that it is our nature to have a grand passion; but unless that passion finds itself in God, it will not be satisfied. I am suggesting that this commandment is a matter for our hearts. It invites us to strip away any false notions and illusions we might have regarding who we are. Are we finding our identity and security in the Infinite and Eternal God, or are we finding these things in a finite and temporal thing?
The third commandment refers to the wrongful use of the name of the Lord. Of interest here is that the fourth commandment acts a bridge from the focus upon giving due honor to the Lord that we have in the first three commandments and responsibilities to our neighbors in commandments 5-10. It encourages us to have a part of the time we have received from the Lord as a gift and dedicate or offer a portion of our time to the Lord. It belongs to the Lord in a way other times do not. We turn our attention from the work of daily life and to remembering who the Lord is what the Lord has done. Thus, it is as much about the nature of human work as it is about devoting time to the Lord. Further, while the focus of the biblical text is upon observance of a specific day, the Jewish Sabbath being from Friday night until Saturday night, our modern focus needs to be on maintaining the rhythm of work and rest, with rest encompassing reflection upon who the Lord is what the Lord has done. It protects the name of the Lord from harm. The people of God are to hold the name of the Lord sacred. The point was to prohibit the attempt to control God through the magical use of the name. Still in the wilderness (Leviticus 24:10-16) a fight between two men leads to one of them blaspheming the Name in a curse, after which the Lord tells Moses to have the man stoned to death. The Lord entrusted the knowledge of this Name to this people (Exodus 3:13-15, 6:3), and therefore the Name is to receive honor. Careless talk of God is a strategy for skirting dealing with matters of meaning and purpose. The more we use the name of God in this common language way, the emptier of meaning God becomes. Seriously using the name of God to slit the throat of another human being is one who uses the Name in vain, doing more harm the atheist who murders.
The fourth commandment is the first positive command: to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. It leaves one day undisturbed by any use for the benefit of people, for it belongs to God and sets a standard undefiled by any kind of human business. Sabbath allows identification with the Lord in worship and identification with those in society most in need of rest. Keeping the Sabbath upheld the original order of creation. Still in the wilderness (Numbers 15:32-36), a man was caught picking up sticks on the Sabbath, and the Lord had Moses stone him. Israel considered Sabbath a day of joy and pleasure, not a day of abstinence and asceticism, for which see Hosea 2:13, Isaiah 58:13. Sabbath is a time to identify with the creator and to identify with the slave and servant in need of rest. The commandment recognizes the need of the common people, who have worked hard during the week and now receive refreshment. We offer praise to God and receive instruction.[20] This commandment invites a reappraisal of work and leisure that is both theological and practical. To heed it is to be set free from the twin slavery of worshipping our own deeds and abusing the work of others, and set free for the joy of collective effort and shared success. It is to link arms with the creative impulse of the cosmos. The people of God should look upon it as a gift rather than a matter for controversy. Time is a gift of God, with the Sabbath demonstrating the holiness of time. Christians need to exercise some care in the application of this commandment. Mark tells us several stories that suggest Jesus had an issue with the leaders of his day regarding the Sabbath. Jesus heals the mother-in-law of Peter on the Sabbath (Mark 1:29-31), his disciples “work” on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28), he heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath (3:1-6). In Mark 2:27, Jesus offers a radical interpretation of the creation story, making it provocative for first century Judaism. The saying is an aphorism and memorable. Jesus extends the dominion given to human beings at creation over the Sabbath. It may even extend Sabbath to humanity, rather than just for the Jewish people. Jesus offers a radical departure from accepted Jewish theology. Jesus disregards the unique divine foundation undergirding the rite and rituals that define the Jewish Sabbath. The application to humanity hints at the need of humanity to express gratitude and exhibit trust. It hints that as important as are work, achievement, and ambition, they have relative value in the sense that we also need to express our gratitude for what we have and entrust our future into the hand of God. Further, Paul in Romans 14:1-12 discusses people who honor one day better than others do, while others honor all days the same. The point is a discussion of Jewish holy days and Sabbath days. It seems both Jesus and Paul were willing to treat this commandment in an unusual way than the commonly accepted practice in their day among their fellow Jews. Since God kept the Sabbath in creation, we are to keep the Sabbath in our experience of time. Sabbath law asserts the intrinsic worth of all creation. “And God saw that it was good.” The implication is powerful. It is in God’s deepest nature to rest, to bask in the loveliness of what is. This commandment invites a reappraisal of work and leisure that is both theological and practical. To heed it is to be set free from the twin slavery of worshipping our own deeds and abusing the work of others and set free for the joy of collective effort and shared success. It is to link arms with the creative impulse of the cosmos. Love of God, love of neighbor, love of music and beauty, love of life itself, these things touch the core of the meaning of Sabbath. They are what make us human. The Sabbath does not mean that all is complete and novelty ends. The word rest implies that work is normative in our lives.
The final six commandments help us give content to the love of neighbor (Mark 12:31, drawing from Leviticus 19:18). They also help us reflect upon the request that we do the will of God as we honor parents, life, truth, our word, and the property of others. Genesis 4 already shows the disruption in the relationship with the neighbor as Cain killed his brother Abel. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” was the first question addressed to God by a human being. The answer is yes. The next commandments help us to see specific ways in which we are to care for our neighbors.
The fifth commandment is a positive command to honor our parents, with the blessing of a long life. To honor, kabed means to give weight to. It has less to do with obeying than with taking seriously. Still in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 21:18-20), a stubborn and rebellious child was brought to the elders and was stoned to death. If the Decalogue arose from life in the clan, here is the biggest evidence for the theory. Parents represent divine authority. The extended family was the basic social unit in antiquity. They lived in settled community with their wives and children. In that setting, one could slight the authority of parents, especially of the aged ones. Antiquity considered filial responsibilities important for maintaining social order. The powerful story of Absalom in II Samuel 13-19 relates his disobedience to his father, David. It also shows the inability of David to parent Absalom. It has terrible ramifications for the kingdom of David. By extension, it suggests honor and respect toward all human authority. Jesus invites us to re-think this commandment. He honored his parents. Yet, he also talked of hating parents, leaving them, to follow him in Luke 14:26. He says his family is those who do the will of God in Luke 8:19-21. Luke 9:57-62, the kingdom of God is to have priority over family relationships. However, in saying this, Jesus was only saying what his Scripture taught him, that God is the final arbiter of life. Yet, Paul extends this notion of honoring parents into the Hellenistic social network of the household. We see this in Colossians 3:18-4:1 and Ephesians 5:21-6:9. In Romans 1:30, as part of his list of vices to avoid, Paul refers to those who are rebellious toward parents as living a life of dishonor. Every parent is flawed, and children often expose them. Yet, they are the reason we as their children are here. Theologically, God gave us the gift of life through them. We lead an honorable life when we honor them. We listen to them, we learn from them, and we forgive them. We need to remember that in the missionary situation of these first Christians, they often had to urge people to place priority on the kingdom of God rather than their obedience to their family. Sadly, people in our time often must do so as well. This commandment finds itself relativized, we would say today, when we give the kingdom of God priority. By all these measures, a good family is one that encourages the full flowering of parents; that cherishes grandparents as carriers of wisdom; that nourishes children in body and mind and soul and prepares them to enter the world as responsible and competent adults.[21] The structure of society is a challenge to this commandment. Woodrow Wilson said, "The use of the university is to make young men as unlike their fathers as possible." Especially with the rise of Marxism as an intellectual path toward alienation from the founding of America, capitalism, and the values of family, much of academic life at major universities has sought to fulfill the vision of President Wilson. One path toward destroying a nation is to undermine respect for parents, respect for family values, and respect for the founding of the nation. An alienating critique of culture will lead to the struggle over the only thing that will matter – power.
The sixth commandment in its negative form establishes a limit: the people of God are not to murder, while in the positive form, they are to honor life, giving life its proper weight and seriousness. The commandment sets aside intentional killing, an illegal and impermissible violence toward another. Such an absolute includes suicide. With Jesus, it was not enough not to murder, for one must deal the hatred in the heart that leads to murder (Matthew 5:21-26). Paul, in his list of vices, includes anger, hatred, strife, malice, quarrels, disorder, and insolence. Ephesians 4:26-27 has a different approach to anger, acknowledging that we will be angry, but we are not to sin in our anger by hanging onto it obsessively. To move against anger, we will need to focus upon virtues like peace, patience, kindness, and compassion. As already noted, the Old Testament had legal forms of killing, such as stoning, and the context of the commandments included the reality of warfare. Old Testament law made wide provision for the death penalty. Capital punishment covered such offenses as kidnapping, blasphemy, idolatry, witchcraft, adultery, rape, incest, bearing false witness in death penalty cases, and cursing or striking a parent. Capital trials allowed no circumstantial evidence. They required at least two witnesses who had observed the premeditation of the crime and that the person carried it out in hate and that it involved a deadly weapon. If, after all this, the criminal received the punishment of death by stoning, these same witnesses were to cast the first stones. Moving to the Tribal Federation period of Israelite history (Judges 19-20), we have the startling story of the Levite and the murder of his concubine. In the period of sacral kingship II Samuel 11-12), David had Uriah murdered. Absalom would murder his half-brothers (II Samuel 13). The commandment suggests that we are responsible for the safety of each other. God forbids all violence to the other. God calls us to defend the life of the other.[22] God grants us freedom for life. The living God has respect for and values life. We must not tire of life. We must battle sickness as a messenger of death. We must have joy and gratitude in life.
The question of the unborn arises here. A fetus is a person because there is a mother to love it like a baby, to delight in its growth, to grieve its loss. And should there be no single person to cherish such a life, its value, actual or potential, would continue to reside in the heart of God. The question of the sanctity of a young life seems endlessly complex. The myriad ways to honor life, from its first stirrings to its finished shape, in its quality and its quantity, its proper freedoms and obligations, might converge at one point. God is both creative and redemptive. Passions continue to divide, but God continues both to bring life into being and graciously to receive it home again.
A society in which an unborn child can legally be killed on the sole decision of the pregnant person cannot be “a people,” but only a horde. One could make a compelling case that Roe v. Wade undid American public morality. There is no plausible way to draw a line across the development of the unborn child before which it is not a human person and after which it is. Unless interfered with, the child will at some time be a human person, and if at any given point in its development we cannot know that she or he is not yet that, what we do not at that point possess is any justification for treating the child as other than a member of the community that places a legal protection from the private decision to kill.[23] Terminating life out of individualist sentimentality yield the same results as the ethnic or class prejudices of those who terminate life. Examples are abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide. These terminations serve the individual purposes of the terminators. The sentimental justification of such terminations will consist in a judgment about the inferior life for the terminated or the superior right of the terminator. As we kill injured horses or aging pets, so we justify the termination of a pregnancy based upon the opinion of the mother as to whether she should raise the child, or elders who have become a burden to their families or to the system, or individuals in pain they no longer wish to endure.[24]
Another issue relates to pacifism. This is not the place to engage in a lengthy discussion. I will offer that the principle nonviolence Jesus taught was a strategy for the Jewis and has followers to deal with the military force projected by Rome. It was not absolute principle for every period or culture. Under normal circumstances, nonviolence is also the right public policy. At the same time, circumstances may dictate another response. Soldiers liberated the prisoners in Nazi death camps.
Each of the commandments has a deeper meaning than that of prohibiting an external action. They invite us to meditate upon the human condition. The same is true here. Jesus understood that the dehumanizing act of murder has its roots in the dehumanizing of another person through our anger. Moreover, not only does anger dehumanize the other, it dehumanizes us, too. Every time we decide to allow anger to smolder inside of us, we become less than fully human, less than the people God created us to be. Instead of merely avoiding murder, we need to embrace reconciliation, which leads to community. Most of us do not murder. We think we are safe. We may have difficulty with the other ten, but we got this. I want to say this gently. It may well be that, like Moses and David, we would not think of ourselves as murderers, but we have not confronted the persons or circumstances that might cause even us to be that person. Thus, have we allowed our anger, disgust, and hate to build within us? It would be difficult not to do so. The anger in our culture seems pervasive. Many people nourish anger regarding the wounds of the past. On a personal level, this often leads to anger toward the parents who gave us the gift of life because of a deficiency in their parenting. Movements within the culture have created subcultures that nourish anger toward those who disagree with them. They nourish anger toward the American past or toward people with a different skin color than their own. They nourish anger toward people of a differing religious faith, especially if it adheres to orthodox forms of belief. They nourish anger toward an economic status that have everything. It has led to dangerous rhetoric, such as labeling masses of people as fascist or a danger to democracy, designed to draw parallels with the universally hated Hitler, drawing out anger toward the group so labeled. Such hostility has led to destruction of property and loss of life. None of these subcultures wants to remain a subculture, for they want their ideology and viewpoints to dominate the scene. That is why subcultures clash. They seek dominion.
The seventh commandment in its negative form is that the people of God are not to commit adultery, while in its positive form, the people of God are to honor their marriage commitments. Jesus will broaden this command to point to the lust in the heart that leads to the commission of the act (Matthew 5:27-30). Desire and acting on desire go hand in hand. Jesus is applying the tenth commandment prohibiting coveting, which is a matter of the heart, to the command on adultery. Even the ancient world in general would have agreed. Lust dehumanizes people into objects that we use for our own pleasure. We might be able to avoid the physical act of adultery and thus obey the law, but we forget that the emotional or psychological attachment of lust is just as destructive. Jesus here calls us not to merely avoid breaking the law but to avoid breaking the fidelity of marriage that supports community, trust, and love. The commandment occurs in the context of a culture that allowed the male head of household to have multiple wives and concubines as sexual partners. The stories of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 20:1-18) and Joseph (Genesis 39) show the concern for adultery, but the prime example is that of David and Bathsheba (II Samuel 11-12). We can so easily become judgmental when it comes to all forms of sexual expression that occur outside this standard. Jesus does not share this attitude. Paul will expand the sexual discussion by referring to fornication, licentiousness, and other such terms that imply any sexual expression outside the bonds of marriage. John 4 and the story of the woman at the well offer another story of Jesus with one who was clearly not sexually pure. Luke 7:36-50 tells the story of a woman with a bad reputation disturbing a dinner, at which Jesus offers her forgiveness. This commandment awakens us to the possibility of binding covenantal love. If we ignore this wisdom, we risk wandering through life as lonely relational vagabonds. The chief purpo0se of sexuality, like all else in Hebrew faith, is to glorify God. To take the purpose of sexuality lightly is to forfeit its blessing.
Another story of Jesus invites us to reconsider the penalty involved for breaking the commandments already discussed, that of stoning to death. John 8:1-11 contains the response of Jesus to one caught in the act of adultery. Interestingly, he rejects the notion that the woman caught in adultery should receive the biblical penalty of stoning. My point here is that we can legitimately understand this as an abrogation of the death penalty for the other Ten Commandments as well.
The sayings of Jesus concerning adultery are intricately connected to his sayings on divorce, in which he advises his followers not to divorce. An exception is admitted in the case of adultery by the partner. As Christianity grew, the issue would arise among the Pauline churches of what a Christian should do if an unbelieving partner departs, with Paul allowing remarriage (I Corinthians 7:15). He reminds them in the process that it is to peace that God has called them. In our setting, when the household consists of a small number, rather than the ancient household of 15-30, including slaves and their families, the reminder of the calling to peace is significant. Since the New Testament already contains such a conversation, it is the responsibility of the church in every generation and culture to continue it, seeking wisdom for a new circumstance. A Christian takes the vow of marriage seriously. When the Christian does not, it is a sin, for which there is forgiveness, as with every other sin. If the guiding principle is that God has called people to peace, couples can admit that their relationship brings out the worst in each other, that they become someone other than their best self. Christians do not have a sacrament of failure, but if it did, such a sacrament would acknowledge the grace that comes through admitting failure and moving on to the possibility of peace.
The eighth commandment in its negative form sets a limit for the people of God not to steal, but in its positive form, it involves respect for the property of others. The story of Achan (Joshua 7:1, 10-26) and the story of Ahab and the vineyard of Naboth (I Kings 21) describe the breaking of this commandment. The commandments have protected the person and spouse in the previous two commands, and they protect property. To steal is to acquire wrongfully the property of the neighbor. One can steal from one’s employer by not working properly. One can steal from customers by not providing the good or service that one indicated.[25] James 5:1-6 may well offer a Christian commentary upon this commandment. The fallacy behind every act of robbery is the assumption of scarcity, the mind-set that there can never be enough stuff to go around. For us to have, we must take from others. Also false is the idea that to keep, we are not free to share. Both ways, generosity loses out. Only a faith in the plenitude of existence can teach us not to steal. Only a belief in the abundance of creation can convince us not to withhold what others need. Adherence to this commandment would have made the evil form of slavery that took place in America impossible. Riots have the character of disrespect for the property of others. Smashing the property of others inevitably leads to the smashing of heads of persons.
As with other commandments, this command has a deeper issue than that of taking what does not rightfully belong to you. The tenth commandment already directs us to the inner life as it commands us not to covet (תַחְמֹ֖ד ἐπιθυμήσεις) or desire anything that belongs to the neighbor. Here is the clue to the way Jesus approaches all the commandments. Do not do the act, but the command not to do implies a disposition of the heart to do it. It is countered by the development of the virtues, especially goodness, kindness, and generosity. Stealing reveals a stinginess of heart. The fallacy behind every act of robbery is the assumption of scarcity, the mind-set that there can never be enough stuff to go around. For us to have, we must take from others. Also false is the idea that to keep, we are not free to share. Both ways, generosity loses out. Only a faith in the plenitude of existence can teach us not to steal. Only a belief in the abundance of creation can convince us not to withhold what others need. Thus, God loves a cheerful giver (δότην), with God enriching those who practice generosity (ἁπλότητα) whenever they can (II Corinthians 9:6-15). One who gives is to do so with generosity (Romans 12:8). Slaves are to obey masters with simplicity or generosity of heart (Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22).
The ninth commandment in its negative form is that the people of God are not to bear false witness against the neighbor and in its positive form they are to tell the truth. Such truth telling in court can be a matter of life or death. Psalms often has complaints about false witness. The original setting of this commandment is the courtroom, where the stakes for truth telling are high and the penalties for crime are stiff. Ancient Israel attached immense value to the testimony of the witness. Note the disastrous effect of false testimony in the story concerning Naboth’s vineyard in I Kings 21. We have moved from protection of body, to spouse, to property, and now to protection of our name or honor. Rather than spreading idle talk, follow what Jesus said in Matthew 18:15 and go to the person first. If you do, you have done a “precious and excellent” thing.[26] God hates falsehood, so we must cultivate truthfulness toward each other. Human beings tend to delight in sharing the faults of others. This commandment forbids listening to gossip and slander.[27] Jesus offered a distinct perspective on this theme of false witness. Matthew 5:33-37 are sayings around oaths. The source is Matthew but with a relationship with James 5:12 as well. The point is that they are to let their word be yes or no. They are to be honest and truthful in all they do. Anything more than this comes from the evil one. The first creature human beings encounter is a serpent, who introduces itself with a lie. “It will be okay to eat the forbidden fruit,” it tells us. So, she and Adam do. When later God seeks out the couple in the garden, they hide themselves, where we find deception number two. By the time God finds the underlying cause of it, Adam and Eve are prevaricating like there is no tomorrow. Human beings have been lying ever since. Yet, something in us does not like to lie. A better approach is to tell the truth in situations where others often lie. We may think we are sparing people discomfort, seducing us into thinking that we are being good people when we tell them. Many of our sins are connected with the willingness to lie. Lying is the intentional misleading of others when they expect honest communication.
The tenth commandment in its negative form tells the people of God not to covet anything that belongs to the neighbor, while in its positive form it commands desiring the best for the neighbor. To covet involves an emotional element that often leads to commensurate action. It suggests seizing objects for oneself. It suggests a wish for the appropriation of the property of another person for personal use. It suggests lust and inner desire for wealth of another. Today, the cultivation of coveting what richer citizens legitimately own inevitably leads to violating not only this commandment, but other commandments as well. Genesis 3 is the story of the entry of sin and death into the world that disrupts the intimacy humanity had with God and with each other. We find coveting in the story of Achan (Joshua 7:1, 10-26), David coveted Bathsheba (II Samuel 11:1-12:15), King Ahab (I Kings 21: 1-20, 23-24) coveted the property of his neighbor. Where there is beauty, there is majesty, or charm, and where neither of those, then at least interest. To covet is to want what is pleasant. Desire for what is pleasing is not itself bad; it is as natural as breathing. The world is a veritable smorgasbord of pleasantness. At issue in this commandment is whether and how we nurture and act upon our desires. Do not covet means do not crave that which is inappropriate to one’s relations with God and neighbor. Unchecked desire is the seedbed from which other violations of the law arise. Evil deeds plunder the world; covetousness plunders the heart. there are things we can see that we must not seize. To keep at arm’s length from the tree is really to embrace our own limits, to accept the parameters proper to being human. It is also to leave some room for blessing, to believe that, with due patience, goodness will come as a grace, without grasping. We can move against coveting through gratitude and compassion.
The Ten Commandments inspire us to go well beyond their original statements, in that we use them as guiding principles (preferably principled) to use in deciding about wider behaviors in response to our covenant-making-and-keeping God, all in the light of Jesus Christ. I pointed to the breaking of these commandments in the Torah and in the Deuteronomic History (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings) because the writers of these texts saw that Israel’s problems derived from their breaking of these commandments. The prophets themselves continually called the people and its kings back to this covenant. The result was the judgment of God in the form of exile, which included the removal of the Davidic king, the destruction of the Temple, and removal of the people from the land promised to the patriarchs. A healthy society will encourage respect for these commandments. A society that undermines these commandments will break itself.
The discussion of each commandment supports the above paragraph. Broadly speaking, a social and political order that respects what religions are trying to do in directing people to consider that which ultimately concerns them is moving toward health. Such an ordering of society can be secular, in that it does not support any religious institution, but it recognizes and respects the need to have institutions that do such things. Providing an environment in which people can make their decisions in this regard, including the decision of atheism, is a step toward health. Broadly speaking, a society that respects the foundational role of family in honoring parents and honoring the marriage bond, as well as respecting property, life, and truth-telling, and discourages envy and coveting what others have gained in life, is a society moving toward health, wholeness, and goodness. Such a society is not perfect. It will still have crime. Some people will always feel alienated from the basic institutions of society. Others will develop an intellectual alienation that will be difficult to overcome, no matter how much goodness is available through participation in society. Yet, it will provide the basics necessary for healthy participation in the institutions of society.
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23 (Year A October 9-15) has a close relationship with the Old Testament lesson for today. Its theology connects with Deuteronomy. It would be read at a covenant festival involving the recital of saving history. The focus is on the disobedience of Israel. The Psalm shows God as acting on behalf of Israel while Israel responds with disobedience. It presents a history of the sins of Israel that culminates in idolatrous practices that polluted the land of Israel and led to the destruction and exile. The catalogue of sins shows how forbearing and forgiving the Lord has been throughout the past, and by implication, how forgiving the Lord will continue to be, since the Lord maintains the covenant and is merciful. The confession of the failure of Israel to trust the Lord leads to an affirmation of the compassion of the Lord. The history of the Lord and Israel is the model for the future. The exile of 586 BC, says the poet, is no different from earlier punishments, after which the Lord took Israel back into divine favor. The psalm is both a praise to the Lord and a request to be gathered from the nations and thus returned from exile. It begins with a to the community to testify to the everlasting goodness of the Lord. A ritual exclamation common the Persian era is to give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good and the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. The summons to offer praise and thanksgiving in prayer has its underlying thought and motivation in the goodness of God.[28] In distinction from Greek worship of the cosmos, which is perishable, the goodness of the Lord will remain. We have a reminder of the eternity of God in Christian theology.[29] Speech itself is not worthy of offering this praise of the multiplicity of the divine acts of the Lord.[30] Happiness is for those who observe the divine command of justice and righteousness. The prayer of the poet is that the Lord would include him in the national favor the Lord shows Israel, the chosen ones, the heritage of the Lord, in the saving deeds of the Lord. Yet, the poet unites with his ancestors in the confession of failure to abide by the covenant. Skipping to verses 19-23, the poet is numbering the sins of the nation. In the process, he refers to exodus 32:1-14, the Old Testament lesson for today, where the Israelites in the wilderness are already breaking the first and second commandments. The poet prefers the term typical Deuteronomic term Horeb as the site for the giving of the Law. The poet belittles the molten calf as exchanging the glory of the Lord with an animal that eats grass. They forgot the God who saved them and who acted mightily on their behalf in the land of Ham and through the Red Sea. Yet, the Lord desired to them, the ones whom the Lord chose, and would have done so had Moses not interceded for them, standing in the breach before the lord, to turn away the wrath of the Lord, referring to Exodus 32:11-14.
Exodus 32:1-14 (Year A October 9-15) is the incident of the golden calf. It will raise obvious questions related to the first and second commandments.
In I Kings 12:26-32, we find Jeroboam (d. 910 BC) making two calves of gold and telling the people of the northern kingdom that their gods are here. These gods brought them out of Egypt. He then put one calf in Dan and one in Bethel. He had a festival in which he appointed priests that did not come from the tribe of Levi. He made sacrifices to the calves he had made. The relationship with Exodus 32 is obvious, but scholars will debate which way the influence goes. Hosea (750-730) says in 8:5, that the Lord rejects the calf while the anger of the Lord burns against them. In 10:5, he says the people of Samaria long for the calf of Beth-aven, its people mourn for it, its idolatrous priests wail over it, for the glory has departed from it. Clearly, the northern kingdom had worship that included the golden calf. In Nehemiah 9 (from post-exilic period), an account of the history of Israel, their ancestors even made a calf out of molten metal and said this was the God who brought them out of Egypt. They committed monstrous impieties. Yet, in compassion, the Lord did not abandon them in the desert. In the incident in Exodus, we find the first two commandments already broken. In the context of the J story, the first human beings fall away, humanity before the flood falls away, and now Israel falls away.
In the context of the Exodus account, Exodus 32:1-14 show us that the delay of Moses becomes a hint that Lord has gone as well, so they ask Aaron to construct an image of a god for them. Aaron has the people take off their god and bring it to them. He does not argue with them or hesitate. He may welcome the power he people have given him. He is eager to comply with popular demand. The danger in our politically divided age for the Christian is that it will be tempting to comply with the entire political project, turning it into the god we have made. The people comply to the command of Aaron, and worship the image formed by Aaron as Aaron then told them that these are the gods who brought them out of the land of Egypt, hinting that they are the source of their deliverance. Given that he wants to make the next day a festival to the Lord, he may have thought of the activities of this day harmless. As was typical of days in which they offered burnt offerings and sacrifices of well-being, they pate and drank together, activities engaged in by Israel in I Kings 12:32 as well. Replacing the true God with another god, forming an image of your making, is idolatry, supplanting the true object of worship with something false.
When we fashion gods that are comfortable to us, we fashion gods to our liking. We can make an idol out of our worldview, political philosophy, or ideology. We may make an idol out of some good things, such as the Bible or tolerance. Such gods are little more than our desires and hopes, with an exclamation mark. The question before humanity is whether we worship truly. We will need to receive a revelation from God. True worship relates us to the God who engages us in the journey of life. God wants us to be part of a faithful community of people, bound in covenant to God and to each other. Some scholars say that Jesus looks to us like we are "at the moment of our looking at him." I need to tread lightly here. God meets us at the point of our need, and so this is natural at one point. Yet, part of discipleship is to keep expanding our view of God. If we are preoccupied with survival, then Jesus becomes an expert in eternal life. If we want to learn things, then Jesus suddenly becomes a professor whose main task is to teach us what to think. In my case, I wanted guidance. I early found that guidance in the Bible, the church, Christian friends, spiritual guidance, and prayer. If we are lonely, then Jesus becomes a friend. If we are insecure, then Jesus takes charge and puts us through some strict regimen or other. If we are having trouble with our freedom and choices, then Jesus becomes a steely‑willed model for our lives. If we are looking for a little beauty in life, then Jesus suddenly becomes quite artsy (especially in liturgies). If we are looking for a sense of action and accomplishment, then Jesus becomes a hard‑charging organizer of worthy causes. At a given moment in your life, God may be any one of these things. Yet, our images of God are never adequate.
Verses 7-10, which remind us of the themes of the Deuteronomic Historian, the Lord now refers to the people engaging in revelry as the people of Moses, a people whom he has brought out of the land of Egypt, and are now acting perversely, quickly turning aside from the way the Lord has commanded, already breaking the first two commandments the Lord gave to Moses. They are far from living in covenant with the Lord, for they are headstrong and obstinate. The people of the Lord of every generation exhibit how resistant they are to giving full allegiance and loyalty to the Lord. The Lord wants Moses to let him alone, already implying that Moses can restrain the Lord if he chooses, so that the anger of the Lord can burn against them and destroy them. Such wrath has a strong connection to the holiness of God. The intercessions of Moses are reasons for repentance or self-control with which the gracious will of God overcomes the workings of wrath.[31] The Lord promises that of Moses he can make a great nation, thereby fulfilling the promise to the patriarchs through him. The Lord is willing to start over in forming a new people of the Lord. Thus, we can see that this incident brings everything in the biblical story of the covenant into question. The entire notion of the election of a people for a covenant with the Lord based upon grace is now in question. These people are to be separate from the nations in the sense that the Lord has chosen them to fulfill a divine mission. The existence of Israel is at risk.[32] However tempting it might have been, Moses is still the mediator for the people. The mind of the Lord changes, but now both are aware of the task that lies ahead.
The passage concludes with a prayer of Moses (verses 11-14), which has a parallel in Deuteronomy 9:25-29. In response to the anger of the Lord, Moses prayed a bold prayer comparable to the prayer of Abraham, Job, or the prophets. His prayer is for the people at whom the Lord is angry. He mounts a multifaceted plea. Israel is the procession of the Lord. On whose behalf the Lord has invested much effort. Thus, destroying this people, the possession of the Lord, would injure the reputation of the Lord among the nations. The Lord has an obligation to the ancestors of Israel, who were loyal servants of the Lord. In contrast with the people, Moses recognizes Yahweh as the one who delivered the people of the Lord. The Lord would violate the oath to the patriarchs to give them countless descendants and eternal possession of the promised land (Genesis 12:7, 13:15-16,, 15:5, 17:7-8. Even the violation of the conditional covenant made at Sinai would not justify destroying this people, since the earlier covenant with the patriarchs was unconditional and irrevocable (Genesis 17:7, Deuteronomy 4:31). This idea will form the basis of the merit of the ancestors in Jewish prayers after the biblical period, which suggests that even when the Jewish people lack merit, the merits of their ancestors can sustain it and the Lord may grant mercy for their sake. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so much if we understand the depth of the mercy and compassion of the Lord, the Lord has a change of mind regarding the destruction the Lord planned to bring upon the people. This is why theologically wrath is not an attribute of God, for in this case, the intercessions of Moses and the prophets can cause a change of mind that we can translate as divine repentance and self-control.[33]
The idea that God is swayed by human intercession is an idea put forward by many biblical writers. Repeatedly, patriarchs such as Abraham (Genesis 18:22-33) and Moses succeed in changing God’s mind. Other biblical stories portray God as regretful concerning a course of action previously decided upon (such as the decision to make Saul king, 1 Samuel 15:11). Having a God who reconsiders, who yields to mercy when justice is really called for, is one of the unique features of Israelite religion. Unlike the implacable gods of Mesopotamia or Egypt, Israel’s God is motivated by the emotions of compassion and love. While having a god who never changes was a high priority for some cultures, Israel allowed God to interact with and be profoundly affected by the actions of humanity. God responds, reacts, and can be appealed to. As troubling as a prayer that changes the mind of the Lord might be, it says something important to us about the wrath or anger of God. Anger does not determine the acts of God. The anger of the Lord is more like a sudden outburst that burns when the people scorn the holiness of God and fall away from God.[34] Thus, anger is not an attribute of God, for God can exercise a change of mind or even self-control concerning anger.[35] We would not think of asking God to repent of goodness, love or compassion (I hope), for these are attributes of God. The burning of the wrath of God is for a moment, but the persistent patience and love of God abide. Through the intercession of Moses as he appeals to the covenant righteousness of God and the helplessness of the people of the Lord when confronted with divine wrath, the gracious will of God overcomes the momentary working of wrath.[36]Yes, such behavior on the part of the Lord startles us. However, we should not view it as a sign of divine weakness. Rather, we need to see it a sign of divine grace. The grace of God got the best of the justifiable anger of God. In this way, the story is microcosm of the biblical pattern. Judgment is never the final word from the Lord.[37]
Psalm 99 (Year A October 16-22) is an enthronement hymn that has a a refrain at verses 3, 5, and 9, which contain the praise of the holiness of the Lord: “Holy is He.” It focuses upon the Lord in the Temple and in Zion. It opens with the holiness of the Lord receiving praise through the dominion the Lord has over the earth. The occasion is the covenant festival, so the images remind us of Sinai. The Lord is present in the Temple, where the Ark with cherubim serving as the throne of the Lord. The earth quaking with the presence of the Lord is a reminder of Sinai. The Lord is great in Zion and exalted above all peoples, inviting the peoples to praise the great awesome name of the Lord. Further, the holiness of the Lord receives praise in the establishment of righteousness, focusing upon the character of the Lord as lover of justice. The establishment of justice in righteousness did happen through Israel, Persia, or any human rule, the Old Testament will look with a critical eye toward the rule provided by any world empire. If so, we may need to re-think the relationship between the people of God and the political order considering the future lordship of God.[38] The refrain is expanded to include worship at the footstool of the Lord, a reference to the Ark. The poet concludes by saying that the holiness of the Lord receives praise through the saving history of Israel. It refers to the leadership the Lord provided as the Hebrews journeyed through the wilderness. This enthronement hymn focuses upon the character of the Lord as one that responds to the call for help and who forgives. He singles out Moses as a priest, which the pre-exilic tradition did not do, then Aaron and Samuel, as they cried out to the Lord, and the Lord answered. The Lord spoke to them in pillar of cloud and they kept the decrees of the Lord, this reference making the mention of Samuel surprising. The Lord is a forgiving God, but also an avenger of wrongdoing, holding both the grace and judgment of the Lord together in the experience of the people. One way to think of this is that the grace the Lord shows us does not remove the concerns generated from the holiness of the Lord. The Lord takes sin seriously in judging it and in forgiving it. It is an oblique request for a divine answer for the poet. It reflects upon the divine attributes extolled in Exodus 34:6-7. The refrain returns inviting us who sing this song to worship at the holy mountain of the Lord.
Exodus 33:12-23 (Year A October 16-22) we have the story of the request by Moses to see God face to face. This reflection on the face or presence of the Lord is the final mediating institution that will deal with the apostasy of Israel in the wilderness. The passage unmistakably demonstrates the singular relationship between Moses and the Lord. It signifies their unique bond as they negotiate how they will lead the people of Israel to Canaan. The request is bold. This passage suggests immanence while at the same attempting to protect the divine transcendence.[39] This text is one of the many places in the Old Testament in which we see the tension between divine transcendence and divine immanence. Christianity would resolve this tension in its notion of the Trinity. Moses affirms the importance of the Presence or Face of the Lord going with them. The Lord promises to be with them as they travel. Moses asks the Lord to show him the divine glory. The Bible makes it clear that God has a “glory” before which we cannot stand. In theology, we call this transcendence. This does mean hierarchy and authority. Someone stands above us and over us, to whom we are accountable. Many of us have found in the casual our level of comfort. Yet, God is more than our pal is. Relating to God is not a matter of minimalism. We do not serve anyone well, if we boil down the divine and human relation into a single phrase, a simple emotive transaction, or a silly slogan. A relationship with God is painful. It ought not to surprise us, then, that the Lord does not agree to this request. However, the Lord will cause the goodness of the Lord to pass before him, and the Lord will be gracious and merciful, grace being an inner mode of being within God.[40] However, he could not live if the Lord showed the full divine presence, for participating in eternity with the divine we require a radical change. [41] that creation itself involves letting the works of God take their place alongside God. God gives creatures such a space where they can stand in their finitude and temporality, even as the presence of God still embraces them.[42] We can stand with this God only because God has created a place for us to stand in the divine presence. This place, theology calls “immanence.” God is available to us. Moses spoke with God as with a friend. The Lord called him to a vocation, that of leading the Hebrew people out of slavery and to the Promised Land. To fulfill that vocation, Moses would need to listen to God and God will listen to Moses. That is what friends do. The Lord will then place a hand over Moses so that he will not see the Face, but he will see the back of the Lord. Thus, not even Moses can comprehend fully the reality of the glory and presence of God. Our knowledge of God is in that sense never complete and always indirect.[43]
What is the deepest desire of our hearts? What do you really want? Asked in one way, we legitimately want many things. We want things for family, community, work, nation, and church. Asked in another way, do we want to see God? If we see God truly, we will discover proper honor and authority that belongs to God. We will also discover that God has granted us a place alongside of God. We will acknowledge the transcendence and immanence of God. when it comes to making our requests known to God, what do you really want? Is there anything which you desire so much that you are willing to bring that desire to God in prayer, and ask God to make it happen? That is what concerns me about prayer ‑ my prayer. There are times when my petitions are half‑hearted. I do not really mean it. Not deep down in my heart.
The relationship with God of which I write is the reason religious institutions exist. The danger of all religious institutions is that they will get quite good at organizing religious activities and not guiding people to the experience of God. Participants learn what religious people do within that tradition without discovering the joy and pain of a true relationship with God. Oscar Wilde once said that religion is the fashionable substitute for belief. The point of true religion is not to bring more people into the institution, but to bring them to a transforming relationship with God. In fact, institutions and activities can feel like our human attempt to avoid what truly matters, namely, our relationship with God. We can hear about God and we can teach about God without every relating to God. If religion has become shallow, thin, and the same as culture, maybe the time has come to become deep, think, and become different (Jack Davis). In Hebrew the word for honor and glory is kbd (kabod), meaning “heavy.” We need a better grasp and experience of the holiness and weightiness of God. God is not the lightweight of much of contemporary theology.[44]
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17 (Year A October 23-29) has a connection to the Old Testament lesson, which relates the death of Moses. The psalm is a communal lament. It has a profound depth that speaks to the human heart. In the maturity of old age, the author looks back and sees the eternal being of God contrasted with the transient nature of present reality. It is a meditation on the brevity of life occasioned by an unspecified crisis. The author perceives the transience of life. This is one of the most sober, if not downright depressing psalms in the Bible. This psalm takes an honest look at the limits of life. Although short of prescriptions of what to do about the brevity of life, an honest look at finitude is prescription enough. Shakespeare captured the feeling of this Psalm so well.
'this but an hour since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven,
And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And from hour to hour we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale.
(Shakespeare, As You Like It )
The Buddha advised having a little bird upon our shoulder that periodically whispered in our ear, "Is this the day? Is this the last day of your days?"[45]
The psalm has a confident opening, affirming divine constancy, who formed the earth (Genesis 1-2). It quickly offers a lament on human mortality, contrasting the eternal being of the lord with the transient nature of humanity. The eternal nature of the spirituality, knowledge, and will of God stands in contrast to everything on earth. The Spirit of God opposes the frailty of all things earthly, for the Spirit is the source of all life is unrestricted life. The existence of God is the constant. God is unchangeably God. Distance in time is of no significance to God.[46] Time stands before the Lord as a whole.[47] The Lord turns us back to the dust out of which human came (Genesis 2). Any great span of time is of insignificant matter to the Lord, even the billions of years of which modern science speaks. The imagery of a thousand years being like yesterday shows the difficulty of expressing unlimited duration for temporal creatures who experience an unlimited present that fades while remaining present, while the remote future is already here. In the presence of the Lord, the moment humanity flourishes is like the morning and in the evening humanity fades. Such a meditation helps us face the limits of a human life realistically.
We are finite creatures who are born, grown up, grow old, and die. Knowing that we are terminal can make a difference in the way we live each day. Because the time of our lives does not go on forever, we can learn to treasure the time being, to live today in gratitude for the time that God has allotted us. This is the beginning of wisdom. By facing that which our culture urges us to deny, namely our finitude, our God-ordained human limits, we get wise, and we have the possibility of walking through a door into a place called wisdom. The French novelist, Proust, notes the inadequacy of remembrance: "What memory is able to retrieve of the past, is hardly ever the past." Something about us would love to freeze each good moment, to preserve it all, just as it is today, but we cannot.
Advancing to verses 13-17, we find a petition for the help and grace of the Lord to restore divine favor and prosperity. Darkness ends and daybreak comes; sorrow is mitigated by joy. The poet wants the Lord to turn, to fill the void created by the lack of compassion from the Lord. He achingly wonders how long it will be before compassion comes, appealing to the grace and mercy of the Lord for the forgiveness of sins, the language being like that Exodus 32:12. He longs for a time of renewal, as occurs in the morning, so that he can meditate upon the constant love of the Lord. He longs for the time of judgment to be transformed by the grace of God. God casts down, and God raises up. The point is that poet prays for parity between days of joy and days of affliction. In the end, the only immortality the poet recognizes is the achievements of his generation and those of his children., and thus, they can rejoice and flourish within the favor of the Lord.
Deuteronomy 34:1-12 (Year A October 23-29) presents the death of Moses and his burial in the land of Moab. It highlights the absence of access to Moses, who leaves behind no progeny and whose burial site is unknown. It opens with a renewal of the promise of land, as Moses responds to the command of the Lord in 32:49 and Numbers 27:12 by going to the Mount Nebo/Pisgah opposite Jericho. The Lord shows him in a vision the land to which he has led Moses and the people. Moses, the hero of the Torah, will not triumphantly lead the people into the land of promise. Moses will receive a fitting tribute and die. Deuteronomy 1:37; 3:26-28; and 4:21 place Moses in an intercessory role, dying outside of the Promised Land for the sins of the people. In this line of narrative Yahweh’s anger because of the people’s unfaithfulness and doubt leads to punishment. Rather than punishing the people by excluding them from the land permanently, Yahweh will allow the people to enter after a suitable time of deference, the death of the wilderness generation and the death of their leader, Moses. Deuteronomy 31 suggests that the death of Moses is a natural and timely event, as he is now weak and prepares for death.
In a sense, we have the failure of fulfilling the heart’s desire of Moses. The desire of his heart was to lead his persecuted people into a new land. He would see the land, but he would not lead the people into that land. As readers, we are to have a sense of disappointment. All of us have desires of our hearts. Some of us will live our lives faithfully but not find them fulfilled. That is the life of Moses. The focus in Chapter 34 shifts from the reason for the failure of Moses to enter the Promised Land to praise that will take an almost mythic recounting of his accomplishments.
How do we feel when life shortchanges us? When we have paid our dues, done our homework, burned the midnight oil, kept our shoulder to the wheel and our nose to the grindstone, when we have poured our heart, mind and strength into reaching a goal or fulfilling a dream, and then find that the reward is going to elude us, what does that do to us? When, like Moses, we are kept out of our personal "promised lands" for no more reason than "that's the way it worked out," can we carry on without letting that disappointment make us bitter or cause us to give up? Can we remain healthy and maintain our faith in God despite such turns of events? A marriage may not reach the longed-for level of companionship. The job may not have been as fulfilling as we had hoped. Retirement may not be what we envisioned. The words many of us have heard repeatedly come back to us. “If we want something bad enough and work hard, we will achieve it.” Such a statement may have given us the determination to persevere in difficult times, but if we hold on too long, we will never free ourselves for the realities of life now. Some doors have closed. We will not always win. We have no guarantee of happy endings. Sometimes, we miss out. The reason might be bad luck. The reason might be the complexity of the circumstances at a critical moment in our lives. We made a decision that determined a course for our lives. It has led to a failure to fulfill the desire of the heart. We might receive some consolation in the journey we have taken to arrive at the place we now are in our lives. In other words, the goal represented by the desire of our hearts is not everything. It may well be that the desire has led to a worthwhile journey that has nourished your life and the lives of others. Our focus needs to be on the journey we still have the privilege of enjoying. Further, we might also look for new doors that have opened and that we have ignored precisely because our focus was upon opening a different door. We may need to begin again. Most importantly, we may need to learn what we can from not fulfilling the desire of our hearts, relinquish that desire, and discover a new desire.
The passage concludes with detailing the burial of Moses and extolling his virtues and achievements. He is the servant of the Lord who died, not by natural causes, but by the command of the Lord, who also buried him. He died in the place from which he delivered his final message to the people, which consists of most of our book of Deuteronomy. There will be no pilgrimages to his burial site since no one knows where he was buried. Given the honor recognized for the burial sites of so many biblical personalities, as well as the pyramids of Egypt, this is a surprise. In a sense, Moses transcends such boundaries and defies precise definition. His final resting place remains unmarked and unremembered. Yet, the next verses show that people have properly memorialized him in their memories and stories. As a sign of divine blessing, he lived to 120 years of age, his sight was unimpaired, and his sexual vigor remained. Israel mourned for him for 30 days, the normal period of grieving for a parent 21:13). There are no special rituals or observances. Yet, he was a one-of-a-kind and remarkable servant.
The text continues with a brief account of a shift of leadership Joshua, who was full of the spirit of wisdom, which makes wisdom the essential qualification for office. The Spirit of the Lord is the source of wisdom, especially for the political shrewdness needed to lead a people.[48] Moses laying his hands on Joshua transferred wisdom and authority to the new office he would have. The Israelites obeyed him as the Lord commanded.
The text then offers an almost mythic testimonial concerning Moses. This is fitting, for this is true of all of us. It will be up to others to offer any testimonial to what our lives have meant. An editor eulogizes Moses as marking the pinnacle of prophecy, both because of his direct access to divine revelation and his power to work miracles. No prophet has arisen like Moses, suggesting this passage is from the exile or even a post-exilic text, since it assumes many of the prophets have delivered their messages. This thought contrasts with Deuteronomy 18:18, where the Lord will raise up a prophet for the people who is like Moses. To stress his uniqueness, he knew the Lord face to face (Numbers 12:8-10 and Exodus 33:11, both from J). The text then refers to the persecution under Egypt and the dramatic event of deliverance is the primary act of Moses. Israel will have many leaders, but none will compare to Moses. Yet, his time of leadership has ended.
When is the end not the end? This text ends the Pentateuch and the end of the paradigmatic figure of Israel, Moses. Yet, a new chapter in the Deuteronomic History begins. Commentators have recognized the pivotal place of Deuteronomy in the canon, closing the Pentateuch and providing the opening framework and measuring criteria for the events of the Deuteronomistic History in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. The death of Moses in the concluding chapter of Deuteronomy clearly marks this transition and summarizes the events that have gone before in the form of promise and power.
The effect of this account of the death of Moses, seen as the culmination of the momentous events of the Pentateuch and as preparation for the struggles and shifts of the Deuteronomistic History, provides an example of the characteristic biblical tension of the “already, but not yet.” The Lord promises, the Lord defines the covenant, and the fulfillment of the promise is in sight. However, the struggle for fulfillment is ahead. Unfaithfulness and failure are still possible. In fact, the writer of this history knows that both will happen. The tests recounted in the wilderness will continue in the Promised Land. Yet, the narrative will provide a testimony that the covenantal bond forged through the incomparable leadership provided through Moses will not break. The plan of Yahweh will not only survive but also prevail. In fact, the covenant forged by Moses will become the basis for a new exilic and post-exilic community.
[1] Jürgen Moltmann
[2] Jürgen Moltmann
[3] Inspired by Brevard Childs.
[4] (Pesach. 10.1-8; cf. J. H. Hayes, “Passover,” The Oxford Companion to the Bible [New York: Oxford University Press, 1993], 573).
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[6] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 137.
[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume I, 160.
[8] Pannenberg Systematic Theology, Volume I, 192-3.
[9] Brevard S. Childs commentary on Exodus.
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[13] (John Powell, Through Seasons of the Heart, in Christianity Today, "Reflections," February 1987, 54).
[14] Psalm 8; Psalm 89:5 ff.; Psalm 104; Genesis 1-2; Isaiah 40:26-31; 42:5; chapters 43 and 45 passim; Amos 4:12-13; Job 38-41; Romans 1:19-20, 25. Several NT passages declare that all creation is through Jesus Christ, God’s creating embodied Word: John 1:1-5, 14; Hebrews 1:1-4; Colossians 1:15-23; Revelation 3:14. Creation yearns for redemption in Romans 8:18-23, 38-39. For “new heavens and a new earth” see Isaiah 65:17 ff.; Isaiah 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1; for further passages about new creation see 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15; Ephesians 4:24 (= Colossians 3:10).
[15] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 56.
[16] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 162.
[17] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 646.
[18] Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, 2-29.
[19] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Two, Chapter 8, section 16.
[20] Martin Luther, The Larger Catechism, 78-102.
[21] —Scott Russell Sanders, Hunting for Hope: A Father's Journeys (Beacon Press, 1998), 69.
[22] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Two, Chapter 8, sections 39-40.
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[25] Martin Luther, The Larger Catechism, 222-253.
[26] Martin Luther, The Larger Catechism, 254-290.
[27] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Two, Chapter 8, 47-48.
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[37] Anthony Spina
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[44] Timothy Tennant said something similar and inspires this, though I have broadened the comments.
[45] William Willimon, "The Times of our Lives" (2002).
[46] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 374.
[47] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 401.
[48]
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