3RD SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

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2ND SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus 

Lk 9:28b-36

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BY G B. CAIRD

According to Mark it was in the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi that Peter declared Jesus to be Messiah. Immediately to the north of Caesarea lay Mount Hermon, and it is likely that this was the mountain to which Jesus resorted a week later with three of his friends. The mention of a precise interval by Mark and Luke indicates that in their opinion the two events were intimately related.

For the three witnesses their experience on the mountain provided an impressive confirmation of the new teaching they had received at Caesarea. There Jesus, in response to Peter's confession, had made a threefold disclosure: that the Messiah must suffer, that his disciples must be prepared to share his suffering, and that his suffering and theirs must be seen against a background of ultimate and certain glory. Now they have a prevision of the glory to come and hear a voice from heaven bidding them heed the words of God's Son.

The form of the words spoken from heaven shows that the transfiguration of Jesus is to be linked also with his baptism. Then Jesus had accepted God's commission to be both Messiah and Servant of the Lord, and the voice from heaven had come to him to confirm him in the course he had chosen. Now he has begun to reveal to his disciples the secret of his calling, and the same voice comes to them to confirm his instruction.

But the transfiguration cannot be understood simply as a stage in the education of the disciples; it must also have been as a crisis in the religious life of Jesus. Luke draws our attention to this point in his usual manner. Jesus, he tells us, was praying; and his comment is borne out by the researches of Evelyn Underhill and others, who have shown that the intense devotions of saint and mystic are often accompanied by physical transformation and luminous glow. Many scholars, past and present, have treated the transfiguration story with suspicion, regarding it either as a misplaced resurrection story or as a legendary product of later Christian piety. But the account may be accepted as literal truth, if we suppose that Jesus underwent an experience so profound that his companions, in tire susceptible state between sleep and waking, were drawn into it.

The very fact that Jesus took with him the three men who were later to accompany him into Gethsemane suggests that, now as then, he expected some trial of his spiritual stamina in which he would be glad of their companionship. Luke gives us a clue to the nature of the trial when he tells us that Moses and Elijah appeared and, spoke of his departure which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. This was not the first time, according to Luke, that Jesus had contemplated the prospect of death in the service of God. From the outset he had accepted the prophecy of the suffering Servant of the Lord as the blue-print of his ministry. But it is one thing to believe that obedience to God's decree will lead ultimately to rejection and death; it is quite another thing to embrace rejection and death as immediate, human possibilities.

The Greek word which Luke uses for death is an unusual one - exodos; and it is clear that he used it because of its Old Testament associations with divine deliverance. At Jerusalem Jesus was to accomplish the New Exodus, leading God's people from a greater bondage than that of Egypt into the promised land of the kingdom. Like Moses of old, he was now standing on the brink of a great sea, the ocean of iniquity through which he must pass and in which he must accornplish another baptism (12:50).

He has always obeyed the Father, but the road he has travelled hitherto has been well marked by the feet of prophets and forerunners, like Moses and Elijah. Now God is about to lead him into a path never before trodden by human foot, a path which will lead him to Gethsemane and Calvary. Henceforth, as pioneer of our salvation (Heb. 2:10, 12:2), he must journey alone, and not even Moses and Elijah can bear him company. Others, indeed, like John the Baptist, have suffered and died in God's service, but the death that awaits this man is more than martyrdom.

Peter's proposal to build three booths, or tabernacles, was a plausible one, though Mark and Luke, from their vantage point of superior knowledge, judged it to be ill-considered. He saw three men, each one a manifestation of the divine glory, and he wanted to capture the fleeting and stupendous moment by providing for each one a tabernacle such as Israel had built in the wilderness to enshrine the glory of the Lord.

Perhaps it confirmed his faith in Jesus to see him in such company. For Moses had spoken with God as a man speaks with his friend, so that his face shone as he received the law at God's hand, and, like Elijah, he had stood alone as the champion of God's people. Both men had made such an impression on their fellows that they were believed to have been translated bodily to heaven, and both were regarded as forerunners of the kingdom.

What Peter did not realize was that Moses and Elijah belonged, with John the Baptist, to the old order that was passing away, and that a moment later he would see them vanish, leaving Jesus alone, and hear a voice say, 'This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!' (cf. Deut. 18:15). There was no need for three tabernacles. The divine glory, imperfectly and partially revealed under the old dispensation, was now being gathered up in the sole person of this Jesus who had set his face to go to Jerusalem. He stood alone, and the cloud of the divine presence overshadowed him and his disciples.

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5TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (C)

“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,

but at your command I will lower the nets.”

Lk 5:1-11

FROM G. B. CAIRD

The crowds pressed upon Jesus because of his words of authority and his deeds of power. But there were some upon whom he made a deeper and more permanent impression, who found in him something transcendent, numinous, utterly compelling.

The first to experience this humbling and exhilarating awe was Simon. Sitting in his boat on the Lake of Gennesaret (elsewhere called the Sea of Galilee or the Sea of Tiberias), he listened to the teaching of Jesus and it won him heart and soul. Common sense, reason, and fisherman's lore bade him go home to bed; but Jesus said, 'Let down your nets', and he obeyed.

Whether Luke supposed the amazing catch of fish to involve control over nature or supernatural insight, who can say? The point of his story is Jesus' miraculous influence with dispirited men, wearied by a night of profitless toil. These were the men he needed as his disciples, men disciplined by labor and hardship, but with the impetuous loyalty to say, 'If you give the order, I will do it.'

On Simon at least the impact he made was a profoundly moral one, resulting in a sense of sin. It was not the miracle that brought him to his knees but the grandeur of sheer goodness.

Miraculous catch of fish in Luke and in John

This incident is in some respects similar to the one recorded in John 21, and it has been conjectured that the two accounts are variants of a single story, which came to Luke without any indication of its original setting.

The differences, however, are far more striking than the similarities. This is part of the very complex problem of the relation between the third and fourth Gospels. One possibility is that two independent stories have in the course of oral transmission interacted on one another, as in the case of the two stories of the anointing of Jesus (Luke 7:36-38; Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-8).

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4TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (C)

They rose up, drove him out of the town,and led him to the brow of the hill to hurl him down headlong.

Lk 4:21-30

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FROM G. B. CAIRD

Jesus' announcement that the messianic age had dawned was received at first with rapt attention and excited comment, but when the people began to realize that he had incidentally laid claim to central position for himself in the inauguration of God's reign admiration turned first to doubt, then to hostility.

Their earthbound eyes saw in him only the son of Joseph, and it did not occur to them that he might also be Son of God. Jesus saw that behind their scepticism lay injured pride. 'Physician, heal yourself' was a popular proverb, akin to 'Charity begins at home'; but it had an apt reference to the present situation. The people of Nazareth felt that, if the son of Joseph had anything to offer, his own home town should have had the first benefit of it. But those who stand upon their rights and insist on preferential treatment are not likely to appreciate one who offers the chance to spend and be spent in the service of others and of the Gospel which leaves no room for privilege.

The stories of Elijah and Elisha should, indeed, have taught them that with God charity begins wherever there is found human need to call it forth and faith to receive it, irrespective of class or race. In fact, however, the suggestion that Gentiles could be admitted to God's kingdom produced an outburst of nationalist fervor which would have ended in the death of Jesus had the crowd not been overawed by the sheer majesty of his commanding presence.

3rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” 

Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21

G. B. CAIRD

Mark records the rejection of Jesus by the people of Nazareth almost at the end of the first year of his ministry (Mark 6:1-6). Luke's account is probably an independent version of the same incident (vv. 22b and 24 may have been added from Mark), and implies a previous ministry of some duration in Capernaum. Nevertheless he places the incident at the beginning of his story of the Galilean ministry, because it announces the pattern which the ministry is to follow, and for this reason he has condensed into a brief compass events which may have taken longer to develop.

Having repudiated in his temptations the various false conceptions of Messiahship current among the Jews, Jesus publishes his commission to bring in God's year of Jubilee. It is greeted first with enthusiasm and then with doubt, and finally threatened with mob violence when he hints at the inclusion of the Gentiles within God's purpose of grace. The rest of the Gospel is simply the working out of this program.

Jesus claims that the scripture has been fulfilled in their hearin. They are listening to the promised preaching, the good news of which the prophet spoke. He has not merely read the scripture: as King' messenger he has turned it into a royal proclamation of amnesty and release. He is the Servant of the Lord, sent to announce to Israel that “'Your God reigns” (Is. 5:27); and that this kingly power of God is t be exercised in pardon, healing, and liberation. Beyond all this the reader of the Gospel is expected to recognize echoes of Jesus’ baptism experience, which would be missed by the Nazareth congregation.

Jesus' announcement that the messianic age had dawned was received at first with rapt attention and excited comment, but when the people began to realize that he had incidentally laid claim to central position for himself in the inauguration of God's reign admiration turned first to doubt, then to hostility.

FEAST OF THE STO. NINO

The Gospel as the same as that of the Holy Family.

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Baptism of the Lord

“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Lk 3:15-16, 21-22

G. B. CAIRD

John was a great man. But his greatest contribution to the kingdom of God was one of which he himself was quite unconscious: he excited to open flame the hidden fires in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. The stories of the baptism and temptations must have been told to the disciples by Jesus himself. The pious ingenuity of the early Church could no more have created these stories than the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. On this subject Luke has two pertinent editorial comments. Jesus was praying: the rending heaven, the descent of the dove, the voice are all part of a religious experience which belonged to Jesus' life of private converse with God. But the Spirit descended in bodily form, i.e. not in hallucination or fantasy, but in real event, spiritual and private, but nonetheless objective.

Jesus also was baptized. Why? To be baptized was to ask God's forgiveness, and it is the uniform witness of the New Testament that Jesus had no sins of his own to confess (Acts 3:14, 2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Pt. 1:9, Heb. 7:26, John 8:46). In his own teaching there is no suggestion that he ever experienced the alienation from God which is the most baleful consequence of sin. Yet his scathing attacks on empty formalism forbid us to believe that he would have undergone baptism unless the ceremony had held for him, as for others, a profound significance. The story of his baptism, brief as it is, gives us Jesus' own answer to this question.

The voice from heaven addressed Jesus in a composite quotation from scripture (Ps. 27, Isa. 42:1). Psalm 2 proclaims the accession of the anointed king, who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron. Isa. 42:1-6 is the first of a series of prophecies about the Servant of the Lord, who has been chosen to carry true religion to the Gentiles and who, in achieving this mission, must suffer indignity, rejection, and death.

Thus the words which he heard must have meant to Jesus that he was being designated to both these offices, “anointed…with the Holy Spirit and with power (Acts 10:37; cf. Luke 4:18), sent out to establish the reign of God, not with the iron scepter but with patient and self-forgetful service. Remembering Luke's story of the boy Jesus, we cannot suppose that all this now flashed upon him as a new and startling revelation, that up to this moment it had never occurred to him that God had singled him out for a special vocation. The baptismal experience represented the end of a long development, of deepening appreciation of the divine fatherhood and his own filial responsibility, of growing insight into his mission and the world's need, of meditation on the meaning of the scriptures and their application to himself

Jesus went to be baptized, then, not for private reasons, but as a man with a public calling. John had summoned all Israel to repentance, and with Israel Jesus too must go. He dwelt in the midst of a people with unclean lips and could not separate himself from them. Rather he must be fully identified with them in their movement towards God. If he was to lead them into God's kingdom, he himself must enter it by the only door open to them. He must be their representative before he could be their king. He must be numbered with the transgressors before he could see the fruit of the travail of his soul (Isa. 53:11-12). The words from heaven were more than a: divine appointment: they were the divine approval of the course to which Jesus had committed himself in accepting baptism. To him who had chosen to identify himself with his people in their need and their expectation the ratifying voice declared, “Yes! That is what it means to be my Son, to be my Anointed One, to be my Servant.”

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FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?

Lk 2:41-52

G. B. CAIRD

To illustrate the thirty years of growth which led to the climax of his baptism, Luke records but one incident.

At the age of twelve a Jewish boy became bar mitzvah, a son of the Law, able to accept for himself the responsibilities and obligations to which his parents had committed him by the rite of circumcision. For Jesus this occasion was celebrated by a family visit to Jerusalem for the Passover. When the seven-day festival was over, his parents started for home along with a caravan of other Galilean pilgrims, not realizing that Jesus was left behind.

The great city had laid its charm upon him, and he was taking advantage of his opportunities to learn from the rabbis in the temple courts, so utterly engrossed in the exciting new world of intellectual adventure as to be oblivious to the consternation he was causing.

To Mary's mild rebuke he replied in words of profound significance for our understanding of his later career. His parents should have known where to look for him - in his Father's house. This description of the temple betokens that the doctrine of the divine fatherhood, long a tenet of Israel's faith, had become for him an intimate personal experience.

Besides becoming a bar mitzvah he had become intensely aware of being Son of God, and henceforth he was to live his life not merely under the Law but under the higher authority of his filial consciousness.

Luke's Gospel is more than the story of what Jesus did and taught: it is also the story of what Jesus experienced. He was, as the Epistle to the Hebrews has it, 'the pioneer of our salvation', blazing a new trail for others to follow. It was his calling to explore to the uttermost what it means to call God 'Father'.

4th SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb.

Lk 1: 39-45

From G. B. CAIRD

When Elizabeth and Mary met, the unborn herald leaped for joy to greet his unborn Lord. We cannot but remember that in later life John was by no means certain that Jesus was 'the Coming One' whose way he had been sent to prepare (7:18). This is idealized history, in which Luke is describing not the actual historical relationship between the two men but the prenatal relationship which existed in the predestining purpose of God.

We must exercise a similar .caution with regard to the Magnificat of Mary. Our inclination is to agree with Elizabeth and call Mary the most blessed among women. But another woman who called Mary blessed met with a rebuke from Jesus (11:27-28), which is also a rebuke to all sentimentality. Mary was not blessed because of any special understanding that she had for the mission of her son; for she and the rest of her family understood him as little as John did (2:50; cf.  Mark 3:21. 31-35). Her blessedness consisted simply in this, that, having been chosen for special service and having received an amazing promise, she believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.

3rd SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

The crowds asked John the Baptist, "What should we do?"

Lk 3:10-18

From G. B. CAIRD

The religious leaders ignored John (7:30), but for others, including the most unlikely people, his preaching had an irresistible fascination. To each class he spelled out in simple terms the meaning of repentance. 

• To ordinary, selfish folk, blind to the needs of others because of their preoccupation with security, 
• to tax collectors whose trade was a form of licensed extortion, 
• to soldiers accustomed to line their pockets by intimidation and blackmail, he gave the same injunction: 

renounce your besetting sin. 

When we compare such teaching with the profundity of the teaching of Jesus, we can see that John's passionate urgency was not matched by any penetrating analysis of man's moral problem. There were depths which John, for all his heroic stature, was unqualified to explore.

At least John was aware of his own limitations. His task was to create an immense tide of messianic expectation, and then to make way for the Messiah. His baptism with water was but a prelude to another baptism. It is, however, open to question whether John regarded this other baptism as a promise or a threat. According to Mark, the coming baptism was to be with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8); and, if this is what John had in mind, he was echoing the ancient prophecy that on his restored people God would bestow the gift of the Spirit (Ezek. 3:27, Isa. 44:3, Joel 2:28).

According to Q, the source Luke is here following, the baptism was to be with the Holy Spirit and with fire; and this may be taken either as a hendiadys - 'with the sacred flame of the Spirit' - or as a description of a dual baptism, the gracious gift for the penitent and the rigors of retribution for the obdurate. 

A third possibility is that what John really predicted was a baptism of fire (i.e. judgment), and that the versions given by Mark and Q are the result of reinterpretation by the Christian Church in the light of the experience of the apostles at Pentecost, when the Spirit was seen to descend in tongues of flame. The theory fits well with John’s repeated emphasis on a fiery judgment, and with the fact that twelve of his disciples professed never to have heard of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:2); and a prediction of this kind seems to be reflected in a saying of Jesus in which his death is described as a fire that he has been sent to kindle and a baptism that he must undergo (12:49f).

Even if this third view is adopted, however, it must not be thought that John was a prophet of unrelieved gloom. This would be to do less than justice to his winnowing metaphor. The ancient method of winnowing was to toss shovelfuls of mixed grain and chaff into the air, so that the wind might blow away the chaff, while the grain fell back on the threshing floor. The primary purpose of the winnower was not to dispose of the chaff, but to gather the wheat into his granary. In the same way, the Messiah would come to gather to himself the new Israel over which he was to reign as King, and it is for this reason that Luke can describe even the fulminations of John as a preaching of good news.

2nd SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

A voice of one crying out in the desert:"Prepare the way of the Lord."

Lk 3:1-6

WILLIAM BARCLAY

To Luke the emergence of John the Baptist was one of the hinges on which history turned. So much so is that the case that he dates it in no fewer than six different ways.

• Tiberius was the successor of Augustus and therefore the second of the Roman emperors. As early as A.D. 11 or 12 Augustus had made him his colleague in the imperial power but did not become sole emperor until A.D. 14. The fifteenth year of his reign would therefore be A.D. 28-29. Luke begins by setting the emergence of John against a world background, the ground of the Roman Empire.

 The next three dates Luke gives are connected with the political organization of Palestine. The title tetrarch literally means governor of a fourth part. In such provinces as Thessaly and Galatia, which were divided into four sections or areas, the governor of each part was known as a tetrarch: but later the word widened its meaning and came to mean the governor of any part. Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. after the reign of about forty years. He divided his kingdom between three of his sons and in the first instance the Romans approved the decision.

• (a) To Herod Antipas were left Galilee and Peraea. He reigned from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39 and therefore Jesus' life was lived in Herod's reign and very largely in Herod's dominions in Galilee.
• (b) To Herod Philip were left Ituraea and Trachonitis. He reigned from 4 B.C. to A.D. 33. Caesarea Philippi was called after him and was actually built by him.
• (c) To Archelaus were left Judaea, Samaria and Edom. He was a thoroughly bad king. The Jews in the end actually petitioned Rome for his removal; and Rome, impatient of the continual troubles in Judaea, installed a procurator or governor. That is how the Romans came directly to rule Judaea. At this time Pilate, who was in power from A.D. 25 until A.D. 37, was Roman governor. So in this one sentence Luke gives us a panoramic view of the division of the kingdom which had once belonged to Herod the Great.

 Of Lysanias we know practically nothing.

Having dealt with the world situation and the Palestinian political situation, Luke turns to the religious situation and dates John's emergence as being in the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. 

There never at any time were two high-priests at one time. What then does Luke mean by giving these two names. The high-priest was at one and the same time the civil and the religious head of the community. In the old days office of high-priest had been hereditary and for life. But with the coming of the Romans rule the office was the object of all kinds of intrigue. The result was that between 37 B.C. and A.D. 26 there were no fewer than twenty-eight different high-priests. 

Now Annas was actually high-priest from A.D. 7 until A.D. 14. He was therefore at this time out of office; but he was succeeded by no fewer than four of his sons. And Caiaphas was his son-in-law. Therefore, although Caiaphas was the reigning high-priest, Annas was the power behind the throne. That is in fact why Jesus was brought first to hirn after his arrest (John 18: 13), although at that time he was not in office. Luke associates his name with Caiaphas because, although Caiaphas was the actual high-priest, Annas was still the most influential priestly figure in the land.

Verses 4-6 are a quotation from Isaiah 40: 3-5. 

When a king proposed to tour a part of his dominions in the east, he sent a courier before him to tell the people to prepare the roads. So John is regarded as the courier of the King. But the preparation on which he insisted was a preparation of heart and of life. “The King is coming,” he said , “Mend not your roads, but your lives.” There is laid on everyone of us the duty to make his life fit for the King to see.

1st Sunday of Advent (C)

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 

Lk 21:25-28. 34-36 

Lk 21:25-28 

This passage concerns the end of the ‘time of the Gentiles’ and the judgment of mankind.

Lk resumes his narration of the cosmic signs, but now introduces a Christological dimension: Jesus, the victorious Son of Man, is in control of the forces of evil whether these are wars (v. 9) or sea (v. 25). He is the judge.

vv. 25-26. There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Luke’s apocalyptic description, based on Mk 13:34, has been influenced by Is 13:10 and Ps 65. More clearly, too, the whole world is involved (v. 26).

The powers of heaven are the heavenly bodies, identified with the gods of oriental and Greco-Roman religion and regarded by Jews as angelic beings created by God and allowed by him to preside over the destinies of pagan nations (Dt 32:8; Is 24:21, 34:1-4). Thus, shaking these powers denotes not so much the ruin of the physical universe as the overthrow of pagan imperial supremacy.

v. 27. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

The fulfillment of Dn 7:13f. Lk sets aside Mk 13:27.

In place of ‘the clouds of heaven’, which Mark derived fom Dn 7:13, Luke has simply ‘cloud’. It is an alteration which establishes a link between the glorious advent of Christ and other events in the gospel story in which the same cloud of the divine presence is mentioned (9:34).

v. 28. But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

This verse looks back to the signs of v. 25f. The cosmic events that will terrify the nations will indicate to the followers of Christ that the time of persecution is ending. Their ‘redemption’ (a Pauline word, cf. Rm 3:24; 8:23; Eph 1:7) is drawing near.

These signs before the End do not contradict 21:34f. The End will be preceded by signs, but yet the Son of Man will appear like lightning.

This verse bursts with a message of confidence and hope for the disciples. In contrast to the cowards actions of other men and women (vv. 26-27), the faithful disciples stand erect with heads held high to greet their faithful judge, Jesus, Son of Man (cf. 9:26; 12:9).

Lk 21:34-36

Lk has replaced the passage Mk 13:33-37 with an admonition to watchfulness (cf. 1 Thess 5:1-11), one influenced by his realization of the delay of the Parousia.

By placing the parable of the fig tree (Mk 13:28-31; Lk 21:29-31) after the description of the coming of the Son of Man, Mark has shown that he understood it to be a warning to be ready for the imminent Parousia. By itself, however, the parable suggests quite a different application: for it could easily have been spoken by Jesus as a warning to be ready for the disaster which was overhanging Jerusalem and which would on day be, quite literally, ‘at the very gates’ (Mk 13:29). Luke has followed Mark’s interpretation and has eliminated any possible ambiguity by introducing the words “the kingdom of God”.

As in Mark’s Gospel, this parable is followed by a declaration that all things will be accomplished within a generation (Lk 21:32-33). Mark undoubtedly understood this prediction to include the Parousia, and he was writing at a date near enough to the time of Jesus to feel no embarrassment about such a prophecy. But Luke, writing fifteen to twenty years later, was in a different case. We should expect him to interpret the saying otherwise and there is every indication that he did so. For his discourse ends with instructions to the disciples to pray that they may have strength to escape ‘all these things’, and it is a reasonable assumption that for him ‘all things’ in v. 32 covered the same set of events as ‘all these things’ in v. 36. But from the Parousia and the final consummation of the kingdom there could be no escape, nor can we imagine the disciples of Jesus being taught to pray for any. The disciples were taught to pray that they might survive the preliminary crises of persecution and the siege of Jerusalem. These, according to Luke, were the events which Jesus declared would happen before a generation has passed away. 

CHRIST THE KING (B)

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33rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

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32nd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.

Mk 12:41-44

This beautiful story is PERHAPS best explained as originally a Jewish parable which Jesus took over in his teaching and which was later transformed into an incident in his life. A number of quite close parallels are known from both pagan and Jewish sources, most notably the story in Leviticus Rabba of a priest who scorned a woman's offering of a handful of flour. Overnight he received in a vision the rebuke: “Despise her not; it is as though she offered her life.”

The present setting of the story may in part be due simply to the catchword widow (vv. 40 and 42), but a more apt position for it could hardly be imagined. Not only does it form a fitting contrast to the previous section (in contrast to the bad scribes, who "eat" widows' property, we have now the tale of the good widow and her sacrifice), but with its teaching that the true gift is to give 'everything we have' (v. 44) it sums up what has gone before in the Gospel and makes a superb transition to the story of how Jesus ‘gave everything’ for men.

v. 41. He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.

The details are even more imprecise than usual, especially as there is some uncertainty about what is meant by the treasury.

Elsewhere the Greek word is used for the rooms or cells in which the temple valuables or deposits were stored (e.g. 1 Macc. 14:49, 2 Macc. 3:6, etc.). Here it is generally taken to refer to some kind of receptacle for offerings.

According to the Mishnah there were thirteen such receptacles (known from their shape as 'trumpets') placed round the walls of the court of women. Other suggestions, however, have been made, particularly with a view to explaining how Jesus could have known what the rich people and the poor widow gave. But even such suggestions do not explain how he knew what the widow gave was her whole livelihood (v. 44).

It is probably simplest to suppose that a story related by Jesus (on the basis of a current Jewish parable) has been transformed into a story about him. In that case St Mark himself may have had no very clear idea what treasury was intended.

v. 42. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.

Two small (copper) coins:

The Greek word (lepton) means ‘a tiny thing’ (cf. English 'mite') and was used for the smallest coin in circulation.

Worth a few cents:

Or ‘which make a penny’ (literally a quadrans). . St Mark transliterates the Latin word into Greek. The coin is often said to have circulated only in the West, and the inclusion of the explanation that the two lepta make a quadrans is held to point to Roman readers, who could not be expected to be familiar with the coinage of Palestine. However, there is evidence that the name was naturalized in Palestine through the Greek, and Cadbury shows that it is unsafe to deduce from this verse any conclusions about the Gospel's place of origin.

  

31st SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

“Which is the first of all the commandments?”

Mk 12:28b-34

Taken from Nineham

v. 28. One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”

We know of a number of attempts by rabbis before and after the time of Our Lord, to sum up in the shortest possible form the fundamental principle, or principles, of the Law, the most famous being that of Hillel (c. 25 B.C.): 'What you yourself hate (to be done to you), do not do to your fellow; this is the whole law; the rest is commentary; go and learn it.' Cf. also Gal. 5:14 and Rom. 13:9.

But as Abrahams points out the aim of all such rabbinic attempts was to formulate the basic principle from which the rest of the Law could be deduced as a corollary (cf Matt. 22:40), not to isolate certain commandments as being vital, in contrast to others which were less important or could be ignored.

According to the rabbis, all the commandments must be kept (cf. James 2:10), and because the rabbinic formulations just described tended, despite their authors' intentions, to conflict with this principle, they became suspect and unpopular in many quarters. And Abrahams thinks that what the inquirer in our passage really wanted was 'an opinion as to whether Jesus did or did not share this fear of reducing the Law to fundamental rules'.

The answer he received was clearly entirely satisfactory to him as an orthodox Jew and for that reason we should not perhaps too easily assume that by formulating the ‘first of all commandments’ (v. 28) Jesus implied any more than contemporary rabbis implied by their formulations.

No doubt the importance of the episode from the standpoint of the Evangelist lay precisely in the fact that the Christian Church had drawn the inference which Judaism refused to draw, namely that provided the spirit of the Law, as thus summed up, were kept, all else might be ignored. But how far such an attitude went back in its entirety to Jesus is a further question, and one too far-reaching to be decided here (such. passages as Matt. 5:17-20, Luke 16:17, Matt. 23:23, and James 2:10 would have to be taken into account, as well as on the other side, Mark 7:19).

v. 29-30. Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

The first part of the so-called Shemah (Deut. 6:4-9, 11:13-21 and Num 15:37-41) which every pious Jew recites daily and which played a great in late-Jewish piety and rabbinic discussion.

St Mark is the only Synoptist to include v. 29b, so it must remain doubtful whether the early Church saw in it the profound significance. Perhaps in a Gentile milieu, such as St Mark's, an emphasis on the strict monotheism of Christianity was particularly necessary; cf. 1 Cor. 8:5-6.

And with all your mind:

This does not occur in the Old Testament text, though “dianoia” (mind) is often used in LXX as an alternative translation for the Hebrew word here translated heart. The addition no doubt emphasizes the all-embracing character of the required response.

v. 31. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Strictly speaking the inquiry concerned only one commandment (v. 28); perhaps the two Old Testament passages are thought of as constituting a single supreme command.

Neighbor:

Love for one's neighbor is a complex concept. In Lev. 19:18, where the concept stands in contrast to 'taking vengeance or bearing any grudge' against one' neighbor, the idea is clearly of a tender regard for others and a promoting of their good, as active as our promotion of our own. Probably Jesus interpreted the command in the same sort of way, except that, whereas in Leviticus neighbor meant simply a fellow countryman, Jesus gave it the wider connotation it was generally taken to have in his time.

Whatever the meaning of the word in the original Leviticus passage, it seems clear that by Our Lord's time it was taken to include at any rate the resident aliens in Israel as well as the Israelites themselves; whether it was interpreted more widely still is disputed.

Christian commentators almost always assume, on the basis of Luke 10:29-37 that Our Lord here understood it in a completely unrestricted sense, but perhaps caution about this deserves to be considered.

A further point which is often stressed is the essential interrelatedness of the two commandments; true love of the neighbor springs from the love of God, and on the other hand there can be no true love of God which does not express itself in love of the neighbor. Wellhausen goes even further and sees the grounding of the whole matter in the monotheism proclaimed in v. 29b: 'Monotheism is no theory; it is a practical conviction; it is the spring of inward character and of our conduct to our neighbor. It is in other words, the motive of morality'.

vv. 32-34a. The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, ‘He is One and there is no other than he.’ And ‘to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself’ is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.And when Jesus saw that [he] answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

These verses are found only in Mark and their presence produces the unusual result that the decisive saying of Jesus does not form the conclusion of the pericope. Those who think that in the original version of the story the decisive words were spoken by the scribe see in these verses a reminiscence of it, and they point out that Jesus' strong commendation in v. 34 would be most natural if the scribe had said something strikingly novel and bold. If we accept St Mark's version as the original one, perhaps the best explanation is that these verses were retained as driving home the complete identity of view between Jesus and this representative of orthodox Judaism.

Wellhausen comments: '(morality,) according to ... the scribe, belongs to the service of God and is the true way of worshipping him; it is of more value than all sacred actions which are specially rendered to God and are of no use to anyone else.'

Such ideas are by no means novel - cf. e.g. 1 Sam. 15:22 and Hos. 6:6; and there are rabbinic parallels. The words do not exclude ceremonies and sacrifice, and just how much they meant would have depended on the tone of voice in which they were uttered. Jesus clearly found them acceptable, though the precise terms of his answer raise a problem.

Taken at their face value they seem to represent the Kingdom as something already present. J. Weiss points out that there are other New Testament passages where we find the image of the kingdom as a goal towards which men must make their pilgrimage—some being neater to it than others. But he adds that does not alter the fact that in its basic idea, the kingdom of God is something which comes down to men from on high.

The present passage should not be pressed against the general impression of Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom which St Mark gives. We cannot be sure that we are dealing with Jesus' precise words, and even if we are, they may easily mean: 'You come near to possessing the qualifications requisite for entry into the kingdom when it comes' .

Despite their negative form, the sense of Jesus' words is no doubt to stress the scribe's nearness to the kingdom and we probably should not ask what he still lacked which kept him from a still closer approach. If,  however, St Mark did have any such question in mind, no doubt his answer was that 'what is lacking is the acknowledgement of Jesus, imitation of him, arid admission to the company of his disciples (cf. Mark 10:21 and Matt. 11:11 // Luke 7:28).

29th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

 Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?

Mk 10:35-45

v. 37. They answered him, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”

The positions on either side of a ruler or host were the most honorable.

In your glory:

St Matthew, probably rightly, takes this to refer to the future messianic kingdom (Matt. 20:21). If so, and the story is authentic, it perhaps points to a time when the disciples were expecting the imminent arrival of the kingdom.

But the request could envisage equally thrones of judgment (cf. Matt. 19:28, Luke 22:30) or the glories of the messianic feast (14:25) and we cannot rule out the possibility that the disciples expected Jesus on his arrival at Jerusalem to inaugurate a temporary earthly paradise and that the reference is to this.

vv. 38 – 39. Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They said to him, “We can.” Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.

As we have seen, there are a number of Old Testament passages which might have made the equation [cup and baptism = suffering] intelligible, and there is a second-century papyrus in which 'baptized' is used to mean 'overwhelmed with disasters'.

However, the Old Testament contains no really exact parallels, and the imagery here seems more likely to have originated with early Christians reflecting on Christ's life and death as a whole in the light of such sayings as 14:36 and Luke 12:50.  

In St Matthew's parallel version, 20:23, the reference to baptism is missing, and St Mark may have added it to his source to make the saying correspond more closely with the sacramental practice of the Church. The idea would be that, in the conditions of St Mark's day, to accept baptism and become a partaker of the eucharistic cup is to take a step which might well lead to martyrdom; let would-be converts count the cost!

As for the reason for the insertion of these verses into the original story, the usual assumption is that they were added at a time when the martyr deaths of the two apostles were giving rise to reflection in the Church. 'They were known to have been ambitious for high honor. Their wish is now fulfilled, but quite differently from the way they had intended ... and the actual terms of their request have been recast in such a way as to correspond with this fulfillment [i.e. they now ask only for pre-eminence in the next world]. The narrator, by making Jesus say you do not know what you are asking, means us to understand the apostles' request as an unconscious prophecy of their own death, but Jesus interpreted to them how it would be fulfilled' (J. Weiss).

This is a perfectly possible explanation, though it has to reckon with the difficulty that Christian tradition, while reporting the martyr death of James (Acts 12:2), ascribes to John a ripe old age and peaceful death at Ephesus. However, this tradition is not unanimous and may be inaccurate.

But the difficulty is avoided by the ingenious suggestion of Lohmeyer, who thinks that the verses were inserted in the course of controversies over the leadership of the early Church. In view of the way things had developed and of such a tradition as Matt. 16:18, it seemed impossible that James and John were meant to be the leaders. This passage was seen as evidence that this was in accordance with the will of Jesus. But though he had not been able to offer these two primacy in the Church, he had prophesied for them the honor of a martyr death very like his own. This interpretation is very much strengthened if we follow the MSS. which punctuate the end of v. 40 differently (allois instead of all'ois), so that it means: it has been prepared for others.

v. 45. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The Greek is a little stronger than R.S.V. suggests. The Son of man himself ... (who is by nature the greatest in the kingdom and therefore the example of what greatness in the kingdom implies).

A ransom:

The Greek word has a variety of meanings in the Greek Old Testament, among the most important: a monetary compensation paid for a crime (e.g. Num. 35:31-32), or for a life that would otherwise be forfeit (e.g. Exod. 21:30), the money paid for the release of a captive or slave (e.g. Lev. 25:51-52, Isa. 45:13), or the equivalent accepted instead of certain sacrifices (e.g. Num. 18:15).

The kindred verb and verbal noun (redeem, redemption) are used of God 'delivering' his people without any special emphasis on the idea of ransom in the narrow sense. In view of all that, it is probably wrong to press the word here as meaning more than 'means of deliverance' or 'redemption'.

For:

The Greek word (anti) normally means 'instead of'; 'in place of', and some commentators find that meaning here. The word 'suggests that in the act of deliverance "the many" not only benefit, but receive what they cannot effect'.

But there are passages where the word means no more than 'on behalf of' and it is doubtful how far we should press the more exact meaning.

Many:

A semitic use of the word which does riot necessarily envisage the exclusion of some.                

28TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!

Mk 10:17-27

v. 17. As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The first phrase, by setting the incident in the context of a journey, provides a formal link with the surrounding material.

Good:

Such an address was quite contrary to the Jewish convention. As Lohmeyer says, it would almost have been tantamount to 'holy' or 'divine', and like the accompanying gestures would have seemed altogether too much for one whom the man thought of, after all, as no more than a Teacher (i.e. rabbi).

Life:

The kingdom of God to come'

Inherit:

Or 'gain entrance to' were current usage among the rabbis.

v. 18. Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good?* No one is good but God alone.

Undeniably a very puzzling verse which has never been wholly satisfactorily explained; it has caused difficulty to Christian readers at least since the time of St Matthew, who felt obliged to alter it radically (Matt. 19:17).

The suggestion has often been made - e.g. by the Jewish scholar Montefiore - that the words testify to a sense of sin, or at any rate sinfulness, on the part of Jesus, but even if that were true, it would not explain how, or in what sense, the words came to be included by St Mark; for certainly he, and those from whom he got the tradition, believed in the sinlessness of Jesus.

How did they understand the words? One popular line of approach has been to stress that Jesus was looking at the matter from the questioner's point of view, and saying, in effect: '(Though I am good) you have no right to call me good, for, as far as you know, I am simply a man.' Though that puts the point too crudely, there is probably some truth in it, and, bearing in mind what was said about the word good in the last note, we shall 'perhaps get nearest the truth if we suppose that what alarmed and offended Jesus was the indiscriminate bandying about of divine or quasi-divine titles.

 Any serious religious quest must be based on the recognition that the one God is the sole norm and source of all goodness, even of the goodness of Jesus in the days of his flesh. It sorts well with this that Jesus immediately goes on to point the man to the Law as the expression of God's righteous will.

v. 19. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.’”

As shown in the exposition, Jesus did not suppose that the Law could supply the full answer to the man's question. His words are a challenge.

The commandments cited are a rough summary of the so-called 'Second Table' of the Ten Commandments, the Fifth Commandment being placed last, and the Tenth summarized in the words Do not defraud, perhaps because fraudulence is a special temptation of the rich. No doubt these commandments were meant to typify the Law of God as a whole, but it is perhaps characteristic of Jesus' emphasis that those actually quoted deal with man's duty to his neighbor.

v. 21. Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

Loved him:

That is the normal meaning of the Greek word (agapao), but here we should perhaps think rather of some definite outward gesture of affection - 'caressed him' or 'put his arms round him'.

Will have treasure in heaven:

The phrase is rabbinic, and so, in one sense, is the whole saying which precedes it. According to the rabbis, God would reward righteousness with treasure in heaven,

and in later Judaism almsgiving, for those who could afford it, come to be regarded as a - if not indeed the - principal ingredient of righteousness.

On the other hand, it is one thing to give regular alms out of one's income (no doubt the man did that already) and quite another to be asked to give up the sources of the income itself. And, as we have seen, even the latter demand does not stand by itself; it is the prelude to the further demand: come, follow me.

v. 24. The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

Some MSS. (the 'western text') have v. 25 before this verse, and this s probably the original order. The disciples' growing astonishment  (cf. vv. 24 with 26) then corresponds to the way Jesus' insistence on the difficulty of salvation grows and widens its scope. In the R.S.V. order, v. 25, referring only to the rich, is something of an anti-climax after e general statement of v. 24. If  R.S.V. order is right, the words for “a rich man” in v. 25 may be an interpolation, but there is no MS. authority for such a suggestion.

In v. 24 the western text includes the words relegated by R.S.V. to the margin. As the exposition has shown, they are a perfectly sound comment on the difficulties of the rich. If they are genuine, the passage as originally concerned exclusively with riches as a barrier to salvation, but a number of extremely important MSS., followed by the majority commentators, omit them, and R.S.V. is no doubt right in doing so.

v. 25. It is easier for a camel to pass through [the] eye of [a] needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Sayings of other Jewish teachers have survived which speak of the possibility of some vast object (e.g. an elephant) getting through the eye of a needle, so the comparison was clearly proverbial, and there is no substance in the suggestion that camel (camelos) is a mistake for amilos (' cable'), or for the medieval fancy that there was a gate in Jerusalem, known as the needle, through which a camel might just squeeze. The fact that such minimizing interpretations have been brought up is itself an eloquent comment on the passage! The expression is of course a hyperbole meant to be memorable by reason of its very grotesqueness, but it would be a mistake on that account to ignore the utterly serious truth it expresses.                ,