Pentecost 15B

A God so near!
Ordinances as righteous!
Deuteronomy 4:7-8

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9

¹ So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.

² You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you.

⁶ You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!"

⁷ For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? ⁸ And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

⁹ But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children.

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Pentateuch, Ha Torah. They've been called Books of Moses, not because Moses could have written them, but because Moses is the central human character. In Greek Deutero means "second" and nomen means "law;" in a limited sense Deuteronomy refers to a second giving of the law.

Our English word "law" too easily can lead to a caricature of Torah. God's covenantal way of Torah is fluid, dynamic, stretchy, and flexible, always on the side of grace, mercy, love, justice, and life.

Deuteronomy 4:1 "Give heed to the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live…" Choose life by considering the needs of the other at least as important as our own. That's the neighborology we especially discussed during Luke's lectionary year.

The compilation of Deuteronomy was a long time coming over about five centuries:

• from the United Monarchy of Saul, David, and Solomon
• to events and written sources prior to the Babylonian exile
• to events and sources afterwards

• during rebuilding of Jerusalem's infrastructure, social, political, and economic institutions
• restoration of worship
• "rediscovery" and canonization of Torah
• into the post-exilic period of (almost endless) Persian imperialism

Wide, expansive, and inclusive, Deuteronomy demonstrates Torah neighborology to stranger and native-born actively lived out on turf and in time.


Today's Reading

Immediately before the actual Ten Words or Commandments, scribes who assembled Deuteronomy placed today's passage that asks:

• what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him?

• what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just, as righteous, as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

What country, gathered people, community, assembly, has such a wonderful way of being, style of living, of guidelines:

• for living together
• for loving the neighbor
• for maintaining the common-wealth
• for staying free?

Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21 refer to the ten commandments of the Sinai Covenant not as statues, ordinances, or commandants, but as words. The Hebrew dabar denotes speech and action as one.

At least twice in Exodus, the account of the formation of Israel as a people, God's people / Moses' people (who are one and the same), announce

"we will do all the words the Lord has spoken."
Exodus 19:8; 24:3, 7

Reformer John Calvin insisted "there is no pre-obedience knowledge of God." Reformer Martin Luther began his Small Catechism – traditional preparation for First Communion – with the Commandments. Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann reminds us, "It is the God of the Commandments with whom we commune."


God in Our Midst

"…a god so near to it as the Lord our God"–the commandments carry the same attributes or characteristics as God; this God whose people, "do all the words" have the same qualities as the God who gifted them. When they practice Torah/observe the Ten Words, the people assume God's justice, love, righteousness, and mercy. When God's obedient, observant people are nearby, God is there.

In our recent five weeks of John 6, we heard about manna and quail from heaven, water from the rock, feeding a whole lot of people with very few fish and five loaves of bread. Like people in the scriptures, we daily encounter evidence of God's presence. Those signs or symbols include waters of baptism, bread and wine of holy communion. Signs and symbols of God's nearness include the commandments that share God's characteristics of holiness, righteousness, justice for the neighbor and the stranger. Signs of God's presence include us, the church, the contemporary people of God, wherever we go…

The people all answered together,
"All the words the Lord has spoken
we will do!"
Exodus 19:8

Pentecost 14B

The Lord is near to the broken-hearted,
and saves the crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18

Kiev, Ukraine skyline photo by Sergiy Galyonkin

John 6:56-69

⁵⁶ "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever." ⁵⁹ Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

⁶⁰ When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?" ⁶¹ But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, "Does this offend you? ⁶² Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³ It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

⁶⁴ But among you there are some who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. ⁶⁵ And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father." ⁶⁶ Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.

⁶⁷ So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?' ⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

Bread of Life, Week 5

We've reached the last of five weeks of John chapter 6 presented alongside Old Testament scriptures related to food and bodily nourishment, with Psalms that remind us of God's physical provision. A Twitter user serendipitously refers to this long stretch as Breadtide!

Today we move from Jesus' "I am" declarations (that equate him with Yahweh's "I am" revelation to Moses) to the disciples "You are / Thou art" the Holy One of God.


Interpreting Scripture

The historical question of the original setting in time and place (and purpose, to the extent we can figure it out) of a passage always is our first question when we read scripture, before we apply or discern the passage as God's word to us and for us. As historians we need to read the present through the past (presentism) and not interpret the past through events we now know about and attitudes that have changed (historicism).

However, we often do theology backwards, but theology is a different endeavor from history. Though we can't erase the Sacrament of Bread and Cup from our awareness, it's still important to remember feeding 5,000+ people and Jesus' Bread of Life declarations happened before Maundy Thursday, before Resurrection Sunday.

When Jesus announced he was the Bread of Life, no one would have heard those words in terms of the Last Supper/Lord's Supper or related to a post-resurrection Eucharist/Holy Communion with the risen Christ.

Jesus' disciples later would be with him in the upper room on the Thursday he broke bread and told them it was his body, when he poured wine and declared it the cup of the new covenant, but that hadn't happened yet. Jesus' followers also had not experienced the risen Christ hosting a post-resurrection Eucharist/Holy Communion.

We sometimes do theology backwards, and during distribution of the sacrament, the contemporary church often sings Sister Suzanne Toolan's "I am the Bread of Life" that's based on John 6.


Words in the Greek

A translation of any text in any language always is also an interpretation.

In 6:60 "When many of his disciples heard it, they said, 'This teaching [logos] is difficult; who can accept it?'" The word translated "teaching" is logos in Greek. You probably remember John's gospel brings us a new creation and opens with, "In the beginning was the Word [logos], and the Word [logos] was with God, and the Word [logos} was God." John 1:1 "And the Word [logos] became flesh and tabernacled among us." John 1:14a

"Difficult" is the root of our word sclerosis for physical hardening of body parts and organs, so it would be a hard to wrap our heads around concept, and not necessarily something intellectually or academically tough.

John 6:68 "Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words [declaration, statement] of eternal life.'" I find it surprising this "word of eternal life" isn't logos again—but it's rhema, the other Greek term that translates into English as "word." You may have sung this as the gospel acclamation in some settings of the liturgy.

We call Jesus "Lord." In Saxon England, the Lord provided the loaf, the bread, to help sustain the community.

Pentecost 13B

God is ever mindful of the covenant.
Psalm 111:5

Proverbs 9:1-6

¹ Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars. ² She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table. ³ She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, ⁴ "You that are simple, turn in here!"

To those without sense Wisdom says, ⁵ "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. ⁶ Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight."

• This is the fourth of five weeks of Jesus' Bread of Life discourse in John's gospel. For this Breadtide episode, Jesus proclaims himself as the living bread: John 6:51-58


Hebrew Bible Overview

As this blog mentioned last week, the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible has three main sections:

1. Torah or Pentateuch, the first five books, sometimes called Books of Moses, not because Moses could have written them, but because parts of them focus on Moses as liberator of God's people.

2. Prophets or Nabi include Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings—the former prophets; and the writing prophets or latter prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel plus the Book of the Twelve or the Minor Prophets that are minor in length but not minor in content.

3. Writings or Ketuvim are a miscellaneous collection that includes Psalms, Proverbs, Chronicles, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Song of Solomon...

1, 2. Pentateuch and Prophets both carry a sense of an authoritative, revelatory Word of the Lord.

Pentateuch brings us creation accounts, stories of patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God's people Israel in imperial Egyptian slavery, their exodus or departure from Egypt, Ten Commandments twice, journey to the edge of the Promised Land.

Prophets bring us disruptive words from heaven, promises of a future, of death and resurrection. Pentateuch and Prophets emphasize God's covenanting with humanity and with all creation.

3. Writings are not a coherent body of literature; the official canonical content even varied some over the years. Among other angles, they bring us human words to God and human speech about God. They have a sense of discerning God's work in the world from observing creation and social structures, a sense of what we learn from living daily life. Some books report narrative events (Chronicles, Nehemiah, Ezra, Esther for example) or address God in temple or another worship context as the Psalms do.


Proverbs

Although the Proverbs belong to Israel's religious literature, they're not about creation, covenant, or temple; for the most part they're practical advice for living with integrity or wholeness in community. The Proverbs reveal structure, order, continuity of creation and of all life. The book's 31 chapters contain short essays like the one we'll read and hear today, metaphors, similes, memes/ cultural pieces of different types; poems.

Some bibles say King Solomon wrote the Proverbs; most likely they're from many different authors over a span of 400 years. In a similar way to Moses' connection with liberation, Israel correlated Solomon with wisdom, and some of the content of Proverbs probably is from the united kingdom monarchy of Saul, David, and Solomon.

Wisdom in Proverbs and in the other scriptural wisdom books of Job and Ecclesiastes isn't so much head knowledge as it is heart- and foot knowledge—the sense of how life comes together people often gain after they've journeyed for a while.

During this year of grace, we'll read several selections from Proverbs.


Proverbs 9:1-6

Today's reading from Proverbs aligns with Jesus' declaration that he is the Bread of Life. The woman in this story is not vegetarian.... but just as Jesus does, she offers radical, fully inclusive hospitality and welcome to everyone without exception. In both Hebrew and in Greek, the noun for wisdom is feminine. We find the biblical number 7 in this reading.

Pentecost 12B

Get up and eat; otherwise the journey will be too much for you.
1 Kings 19:5

1 Kings 19:4-8

⁴ But Elijah himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." ⁵ Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep.

Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat." ⁶ Elijah looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. ⁷ The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you."

⁸ Elijah got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

• To follow the Bread of Life discourse, here's the reading for Breadtide week 3: John 6:35-51

More About Sources

When we discussed the Manna from Heaven narrative from Exodus last week, I used the technical German theological word Heilsgeschichte that combines Heil=salvation and Geschichte=history and means God's action in the lives of the people, in creation, in all the world. These stories are about some of the historical (measurable in time and space) experiences of the people. Even more, they're about emotional, psychological, and spiritual human experience and have a high degree of multi-layered density.

Hebrew Bible Sections

The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible is in three major sections:

• Torah or the five books of the Pentateuch
• Prophets
• Writings

Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings come from the same group or committee of authors we often refer to as the Deuteronomic Historian.

Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings belong to the Former Prophets. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and the book of the twelve (Minor Prophets in the Christian bible) belong to the Writing Prophets.

Writings include Job, Psalms, Proverbs. Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Song of Solomon… I may have left out a few.

Bread for the Journey

In each of the five Bread of Life Sundays, the Old Testament reading is about hunger and sustenance. Today we hear one of the famous Elijah stories from 1 Kings. If you'd asked me about Elijah, I'd have remembered
• water and fire in the moat and the prophets of Ba'al;
• God in the still small voice; and today's account of • bread and water for the journey.

But I couldn't have told you what kind of bush or tree or shrub it was, so I researched Broom Tree. Turns out it's more of shrub than a tree; people made coals from its roots, trunks, and branches. Broom embers retain heat a long time; Elijah's bread probably baked on a fire left from an earlier traveler. I discovered broom trees symbolize renewal and resurrection; a hot fire can sear open the seeds so they germinate and begin to grow. Thats familiar information to us in southern California where fires are a major hazard.

"Angel" means "messenger." Elijah was in a deep blue funk (it's a long complicated story—read what comes before this); God sent the angel who pointed out the ready to eat food because without physical sustenance the journey would be too difficult. Then there's the basic human need for community. Eating alone can be too lonely… but this short reading focuses on physical feeding. As it is throughout scripture, 40 days and 40 nights is approximately one month. Horeb and Sinai are the same place—which word depends upon the source.

Pentecost 11B

Can God prepare a banquet in the wilderness? Psalm 78:19

Exodus 16:1-15

¹ The whole congregation of the Israelites set out from Elim; and Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. ² The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. ³ The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, "I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.

⁵ "On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days." ⁶ So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, "In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, ⁷ and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaining against the Lord. For what are we, that you complain against us?"

⁸ And Moses said, "When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord has heard the complaining that you utter against him—what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord."

⁹ Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, 'Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.'" ¹⁰ And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

¹¹ The Lord spoke to Moses and said, ¹² "I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.'" ¹³ In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. ¹⁴ When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground.

¹⁵ When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat."

Can God really set a table in the wilderness? Can God really provide a feast in the desert? Psalm 78:19b

Where We Are

We've journeyed two-thirds of the way through this Year of Grace with our local assembly and together with the the worldwide church catholic.

If you're following the five week long Breadtide segment that covers most of the Bread of Life discourse in John 6, today's reading is John 6:24-34.

This reflection opened with a verse from earlier in Psalm 78 than the portion appointed today as our responsive psalm. It's a long psalm, but how sad the lectionary peeps didn't include verse 19.

Exodus means leaving or departure. You probably know most of the Exodus account about God's people Israel escaping slave labor in Egypt, how they wandered through a series of deserts in total trust of God's provision on their way to the Promised Land; during their trek they received the Ten Words or Commandments of the Sinai Covenant.


Salvation History

Let's talk about Heilsgeschichte! It's a technical German theological term that means salvation history: Heil=salvation, redemption; Geschichte=history. Heilsgeschichte brings together fairly objective, empirical facts with the lived experiences of the people, often with a sense of saga or myth; Heilsgeschichte has a far greater degree of density than the evidence, cause, and effect history we study in school.

Regarding the Exodus narrative, it's very unlikely a huge group of thousands of people left Egypt together in one fell swoop for the promised land under a leader named Moses. However, almost definitely quite a few smaller groups or bands of people escaped harsh conditions of barely surviving under empire and spent quite a lot of time wandering through the desert in trust, relying on God's provision.

The book of Exodus formally got compiled from different written and oral sources after the Babylonian captivity, as a committee put together several discrete narratives. Again, the salvation history of God, people, and creation is far denser than conventional history. It includes saga, myth, meaning, emotion.


Bread from Heaven

At the start of today's reading:

• God's people have left Egypt
• they've passed through the Red Sea-Sea of Reeds
• Moses and Miriam have sung jubilant freedom songs
• Moses has thrown a healthy tree branch into bitter water to sweeten the waters at Marah

In Genesis we mostly encounter the people of God as a family that in our terminology grows from nuclear to extended; you remember the stories of patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph in Genesis. Exodus is about identity-formation as God's people become a nation, a constituted people. The Ten Words or Commandments of the Sinai Covenant become the touchstone of their identity.

Today's text includes bread of Egypt that was counted, stockpiled, all administrated up. In our world, bread/food of empire even contains preservatives, it will last almost forever, and in general it isn't particularly healthy or life-giving. This Exodus passage contrasts breads and foods of Egypt/empires with the freedom bread and other types of sustenance God provides as gifts of grace.

Whether four thousand years ago or right here and now in 2024, freedom bread is healthy and life-giving; it doesn't stay fresh very long, so there's no point in stockpiling or hoarding it. A friend mentioned a grocery store employee told him they got a whole lot more bugs when they began bringing in and selling more organic food; read the rest of Exodus16 and find out what happened when the people tried to save some manna for later!

Manna is a semitic word asking "what is it?" The manna itself might have been cilantro/coriander; it could have been tamarisk. Scripture and church talk about the Kingdom of God, Reign of Heaven, Kingdom of Heaven, Reign of God. Here we read about the Rain of God, as God rains nutritious food from the sky!

Can God really set a table in the wilderness? Can God really provide a feast in the desert? Psalm 78:19b