Proper 14A, August 13, 2023

Prayer

Strong and faithful God, your outstretched arm governs the mighty forces of creation, and your gentle hand cradles event he smallest of creatures.  Strengthen our "little faith," and open our eyes to your presence at every moment of history and in every circumstance of life, that we may face with serenity times of testing and turmoil, and walk with Christ through every storm toward safe haven and true peace. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year A, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Matthew 14:22-33

"How can we preach this tired story in a way that people can hear it?"

"Salvation and Fear and Jesus' Ghost," Russell Rathbun, The Hardest Question, 2011.

"...faith is about doing. A faithful person eventually gets to the point at which s/he can say to God, 'I don't know where you're going, but I know that wherever it is, I'd rather be drowning with you than be crowned by somebody else.'"

Dylan's Lectionary Blog, Proper 14. Biblical Scholar Sarah Dylan Breuer looks at readings for the coming Sunday in the lectionary of the Episcopal Church.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text


There is a lot occurring in this passage from Matthew.  Not unlike the work of Jesus Christ as co-creator shining through the miracle of the loaves and fishes we now continue on to see God's hand at work as the lord of the seas.

At first glance we see here in this passage the miraculous acts of Jesus holding up Peter's faith walk, walking on the sea himself, and stilling the storm.  While miraculous in their own right we must also pay close attention to the notion that these are acts reserved for God; these are literally acts which throughout the narrative of the Old Testament are work reserved for God alone.  So, the story is on the one hand a story of miracles but as preachers we must not loose the notion that the story also reveals the holiness, the other-ness, the God-ness of Jesus Christ.  These acts reveal Jesus as the divine Christ.

Not unlike the creedal faith soon proclaimed by the church we see in this story that the Godhead shares with the divine Jesus his nature as creator.

Allison and Davies (the Matthean scholars) point out that Matthew is quick to address the theological for evangelism purposes while at the same time delivering a teaching on the nature of following Jesus.  The Gospel for this Sunday is as much about who Jesus is as it is about whom we are to become if we choose to follow Jesus.

Christians must have faith in the face of difficulties.  As Christians try and follow Jesus and try to enact or make real his commands we know we will have difficulties.  Get out and come to me....is not as easy as it may sound.  The idea that when we step out in faith we step out upon the deep water itself.  The metaphorical teaching of the Gospel lesson is clear: Jesus will not abandon his church (those in the boat) and will come to our aid when we tread the deep water for Jesus sake.  Jesus does not promise there will not be storms but does promise to be there in the midst of the storm.

There is still something more here though. We cannot forget that the Gospel voice of Matthew is one born out of a continuing Jewish context of Jesus followers.  Here in this passage we move from a general understanding of the kingdom to the specific building upon the shoulders of Peter a new community ( a specific Matthean community) of faithful followers.  The insight offered is not one of perfection (after all Peter sinks and will fail again at the passion).  The insight rather is one of understanding the difficulty of faithful following itself.  The apostolic witness of Peter is one upon whom the community will be built. He represents the continuation and tie with the ancient faith ancestors of Israel, and also the willingness to step out and bring the revelation of God in Jesus Christ into the messianic age of community.  A community of continuing Israel's faith in a Messiah who does not leave us but continues to engage the storm of community life and faithful attempts to bear witness to his divine nature and kingdom.

I have to admit that I fail.  That is not something we aspire to in the United States. Failure is not an American option.  It has led us to hold leaders up to a perfection unattainable. At the same time our aspiration for success has also led us to be unwilling to bend or fail; in turn this has led us to not even try.  It is the not trying that is the greater sin. As I reflect upon Peter's walk I think that the reality is that the greater sin is not found in his faith as it falters for there is enough grace for all.  The greater sin would have been not to have tried.  The greater sin would have to not believed in the grace of Christ such that we would have stayed in the boat.

I believe the issue with the church isn't so much that we don't believe in Jesus Christ, but that our real sin is that of perfection.  If it can't be perfect then we should not try.  The Episcopal Church (and my guess is all churches) today is being challenged to get out of the boat. We are being challenged to take a faithful step out into the world. We are being invited and challenged to step out upon deep waters and we are being challenged to fail gloriously.  When an institution and a culture no longer has the ability to tolerate failure the organization is dead.

I hope you will challenge people to get out of the boat.  I hope you will challenge the church to leave the building.  Most of all I pray for you and for me the gift of toleration to allow people to fail gloriously for the sake of the kingdom of God and the Gospel of Jesus.  In such grace we can hear Jesus' words to us:  “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Some Thoughts on Romans 10:5-15

"Paul seeks to work out a theology which is consistently informed by the being and nature of God as caring. Where it poses problems, even for the new Christianity, Paul refuses to surrender it as a starting point."

"First Thoughts on Passages on Year C Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Lent 1, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

"This is the word of salvation that God has ordained from before time. Jesus Christ is the word in whom all are called to rejoice, Jew and Gentile. This is the word that calls for heralds of God's promise today."

Commentary, Romans 10:5-15, Paul S. Berge, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

In our passage from Romans today we continue with Paul's attempts to understand and explain why the Jews have some how failed to grasp the truth about God in Christ Jesus.

The primary reason Paul says is that their faith and relationship with God the Father is based upon their covenant at Sinai.  They are in relationship with God through the law and the law alone. They are focused upon works and not faith.  Paul then does, what I think is an unfortunate thing, he twists a passage from Isaiah and offers a vision that God intended the Jews to fail.  I don't think this is true.  I think Paul has confused the passage completely.

The Jews still await a messiah but they have missed out on the Messiah that God has chosen Christ Jesus.  They remain focused upon the law and their own path to God's bosom.  Paul sees it clearly and says they ave essentially missed the messiah and Christ's redemption from the law so they remain imprisoned.

Paul points out that even Moses offered a faith of the heart and lips and not one solely based upon the law. Paul says they have gotten off track and that in missing Jesus they have missed salvation.  They have instead chosen the harder way to God and that the way of the law is ultimately going to lead to death.

Paul then uses Isaiah and Joel again to point towards Christ. He reinterprets the passage to mean Jesus and that Jesus is the bearer of the good news.  All people have the opportunity to understand it.  Yet many still do not believe.  

The problem I think for the preacher is how not to become anti-Semitic here in this teaching. I believe that God saves the Jews and the Muslims through and by their Abrahamic covenants.  That is theirs to sort out and to keep.  The three faiths are different.  So I would steer clear even though Paul has a very clear view of their predicament.

That being said I think this passage holds a great deal of prophetic teaching and preaching for those who choose to undertake the difficult work of parsing it out.  The reality is that humans in human communities all reject the grace and messianic truth of Jesus - even Christians. We too easily fall into the way of the law and begin to use the law as a means of salvation. 

1. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
2. I worship him in the spirit.
3. I am baptized.
4. I believe the scripture and fulfill it.
AND you (whoever the you is) don't...

We do well to remember the powerful place Romans plays in the reformation. The reformers read this and saw clearly that the Christian Church itself had become a place of the law and not a place of grace.

In this moment of great awakening let us preach and offer a Gospel message of grace and salvation. Let us focus upon our own saving, our gratitude and our response. And, let us make way within our community for God's grace to gather others in - especially those who do not follow the laws we have created to keep them out.

Some Thoughts on Genesis 37:1-28

"Discussions of the providence of God go hand-in-hand with questions of theodicy, and preachers should navigate the topic with care."

Commentary, Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28, Cameron B.R. Howard, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.

"In our text for today, sibling rivalry comes close to murder and sets in motion a chain of events that occupy the rest of the book of Genesis (chapters 37-50)."

Commentary, Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28, Kathryn Schifferdecker, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

Oremus Online NRSV Old Testament Text 

I enjoy the readings from Genesis in year A as they march right through the stories of the matriarchs and patriarchs. Today we begin the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors and join the journey as the people of Israel are about to find themselves in Egypt.

Here are some key points:

Jacob has settled in the Land of Canaan. While Isaac (his father) migrated there, it is now home for the tribe of Israel. Jacob likes Joseph a lot! And, his other brothers resent him for it. Jacob doesn't help by giving him a beautiful robe. Joseph has dreams and is a bit pompous. His brothers decide to try and get rid of him in this way continuing the repetitive violence towards the sons of Israel.

The story is important to the New Testament authors in this way. The memetic story of violence towards the least, the lost, the little is a continuous them picked up throughout the Old and New Testament. Mark clearly casts Jesus in this light too. Jesus both tells stories and parables about the kingdom of heaven in which such memetic (repetitive) themes occur. And, Jesus himself is to play the role of Israel's son now sacrificed. This is part of the overall Christology throughout the New Testament wherein Jesus is the "beloved son" and the beloved who will be offered on the altar of human required sacrifice. In this way the violence against Jesus mimics the violence against Joseph and Isaac.

We find that while Mark's Gospel and the synoptics pick up the theme of beloved Son, that it is Luke who carefully repeats the themes in Chapter 2 of his Gospel. Richard Hays in his book Echoes of the Scripture in the Gospels points out on page 201, how the story of Jesus actually (its Greek vocabulary parallels the Hebrew) rehearses the older scriptural narrative. He writes:

Both in Genesis 37 and in Luke 2, we find a loving parent given pause by the apparently grandiose claims of a young son who will later undergo suffering but then in fact turn out to be vindicated as an elect bearer of Gd's special favor; in both texts the paren "keeps" the word/words and ponders them. 

Theologically it isn't that Jesus is a parallel son of Israel as his faith ancestors, instead because of the nature of the God in the eternal incarnation the sons and daughters of Israel forever reveal the nature of the sacrificial incarnation of God. Jesus is in fact the culmination and perfect revelation of the theme that has been seeded throughout the story of humanity and recored in scripture.