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Third Sunday of Lent (B)
Psalm 19
Exodus 20:1-17
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22
This psalm is sometimes divided into two psalms because of the abrupt change of subject in verse 7. The first six verses are about creation; the last eight are about the Torah, the law or instruction of God.
The verses about creation can in turn be divided into two parts. The psalm begins with the familiar declaration, “The heavens are telling the glory of God.” Verses 2-4 elaborate on nature’s witness to the greatness of God. Verse 3, in the NRSV, seems contradictory to verses 2 and 4, which describes the voice of nature. Verse 3 could be better translated in context, “ There is no speech, there are no words without their voice being heard” (my translation). The ‘yet’ at the beginning of verse 4 in the NRSV is not in the Hebrew, but made necessary by their translation of verse 3. Thus the beginning of verse 4 echoes verse 3: “their voice has gone forth in all the earth” (my translation).
While verses 1-4 focus on the praise and revelation of God in nature, in verses 5 and 6 the subject switches to the sun, which is likened to a bridegroom. This analogy is based on comparing the dome of the firmament to the dome of the bridal canopy. The ‘first’ psalm makes it clear that the world of nature is not a secular world, but has to do with God. Creation is not divine, but it does possess a certain transparency to the Divine.
The ‘second’ psalm begins with praise of the Torah in verses 7-10. This extolling of the Torah is followed in verses 11-14 with a personal application and petition by the psalmist. In this section there is a recognition that we all miss the mark, even if inadvertently. (In verse 12 the NRSV’s ‘errors’ would be more clearly translated, ‘inadvertent sins.’) This recognition leads to the request of verse 13, which reminds us of the words used in the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
What holds these two psalms together? In Christian tradition it has been held that there are two books of divine revelation, the book of nature and the book of writing, the Bible. In fact, Galileo held that the former, the book of nature, was clearer than the latter because the language of nature was mathematics, which was unambiguous, while the Bible was in human language and open to a variety of interpretations.
The analogy drawn in this psalm would seem to say that just as God has established the sun to rule over nature by day, so God has established the Torah as the rule for human life. Thus, just as the warmth of the sun is necessary for all creation, so the Torah is necessary for all humankind.
This psalm raises a troubling question for us, the question of authority and autonomy. During the time of Lent, when we focus on the most significant event in history for our lives, it is appropriate for us to ask, What guides my life? It has been claimed that we are never more regimented than when we claim freedom and autonomy. (See the findings of Bellah, et. al. in Habits of the Heart.) It seems that we will inevitably march to the beat of some drummer or drummers. The question of Lent is how do the drum of the Torah and the drum of the cross guide our steps?
Perry B. Yoder
The content of these verses is very familiar; it is what we call the Ten Commandments. And yet, I dare say, most of us have not given them adequate attention. First of all, this material is called the "words," and in the Jewish tradition these verses are called the "Ten Words." The commandments, or laws, begin in chapter 21.
That they are called "words" might tip us off as to the peculiar nature of these so-called commandments. For example, there are no punishments specified for any of them. We do find the rather vague statement with the command that we are not to take God's name in vain that in this case God will clear the offending party. The Hebrew has the sense of 'make clean.' But for stealing, adultery, murder, and false witness there are no stated penalties. What kind of law is this that is without any penalties?
Or consider another characteristic of these Ten Words. They are not written as imperatives, but as negative indicatives, best translated as "You will not murder, you will not commit adultery, you will not steal." This formulation allows us to see them as ideals: this is the way God's people should live. God's people will not murder, will not covet, will not steal. They are God's people and will live in light of this fact.
We are called to ideals. Whether or not we live in light of these ideals is our decision. We might rather ask the question, 'What will happen if we do this?' Or, 'How much can I get away with?' The Ten Words do not address this mentality. They speak to those who are forging a covenant relationship with God.
During Lent we meditate in a special way on the passion of Jesus. We rightly stress the atoning power of Jesus' death. But we also want to affirm the power of Jesus' life. He sets before us an ideal. He is a model of what it means to be a person living out God's will for humankind. At this season of the Christian year we are also invited to take up our cross and follow. We will never be perfect, but we have a goal. It is on this path that we are led toward God's ideals.
Perry Yoder
When the missionary pastor Paul ponders the reports which he hears from the church in Corinth he moves abruptly into a Lenten-like mood. During Lent it is appropriate to take stock, to fast and pray, to contemplate the darkness within ourselves and around us. With the help of the informal communication networks in the early church, Paul took stock of the circumstances in the Corinthian church, and he was troubled by what he heard.
Chloe’s people, likely a house church made up of slaves or freedpersons, complained to Paul about schismatic activity in their group. People were aligning themselves with certain human leaders, such as Paul, Cephas, or Apollos, and they were favoring one over the other (1 Corinthians 1:11-12). Paul diagnoses this as a spiritual problem: their rivalry betrays them as fleshly, as babes in Christ, as merely human despite their claims to be spiritual (3:1-4). So Paul confronts the church. It is noteworthy that he does not confront Apollos and Cephas, with whom he claims to be in basic agreement. Such behavior, Paul declares, is childish, even destructive. When groups within the church align themselves with certain leaders against each other, their behavior contradicts the character of the church as a community of the crucified Christ.
In 1:18 Paul begins to react to these divisive patterns within the congregation. In his initial response Paul first reviews the content of his message, namely, the word of the cross (1:18-25). Before examining that unit in more detail it is worth noting that in 1:19-2:5 Paul underscores the gospel of the crucified Christ in two ways. He reminds the Corinth congregation that they were foolish, weak, and despised, and yet God chose them (1:19-31); and he recalls the manner of his evangelistic preaching in their midst in weakness and much fear and trembling yet in demonstration of the Spirit and of power (2:1-5). Ironically God’s power and wisdom are conveyed in the weakness and foolishness of the cross, the church, and the preacher!
What message for Lent might come from 1 Cor. 1:18-25? This could be a reflective meditation on the scandal of the cross. Ultimately the word of the cross displays God’s sovereign activity, which is characterized by a revolutionary reversal of weak and strong, of foolish and wise.
- God’s power is communicated in the weakness of the cross (1:18). The cross marks a turning of the ages. As Paul goes on to explain, the rulers of this age could not comprehend God’s ways; if they had understood they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (2:8).
- God’s wisdom is made known through the foolishness of the cross (1:19-21). Quoting Isaiah 29:14 and raising a series of rhetorical questions, Paul drives home the point that true wisdom is to be found not in human genius but through trust in the God who saves through Christ’s death.
- The scandalous message of a crucified Messiah also leads to an invitation: to defy both the desire for signs and the pursuit of wisdom, and to participate in the way of the cross (1:22-25). Followers of Christ are summoned to leave behind their petty squabbling and power-seeking, and to conform their lives as individuals and within the faith community to the way of the cross.
Jacob W. Elias
This text serves as a strategic sign early in John’s Gospel, and must be the reason for its relocation from the Synoptic Gospel where it comes soon after Jesus’ (last) entry into Jerusalem. Perhaps the episode functions in similar manner in both locations. For John, it presents an interpretative perspective for the entire Gospel: Jesus fulfills the temple function in his eucharistic life (John 6) and death (John 12ff.). For the Synoptics the prophetic act against the temple presents one interpretive angle on why Jesus was arrested and crucified. In both, the episode presents the political dimension of Jesus’ ministry. Also, in both the action must be joined to Jesus’ christological self-claims, which also become ‘grist for the mill’ of accusation against Jesus, in both John and the Synoptics.
Jesus’ first sign in John was turning water into wine, immediately preceding the temple sign. If the first, a grand nuptial celebration, is new use of old jars used for the water of purification rites, so the second, the temple renewed and ‘replaced’ by Jesus’ resurrected body, is viewed as announcing a new order in which the temple rituals will be transposed into a new key, through the resurrected Jesus who is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (1:29, 36). Here too we are reminded of the suffering servant of Isaiah 52-53. This ‘lamb of God’ enters the temple and causes a disturbance with a whip rebuking the oppressor.
“‘Making a whip of cords, he drove all (pantas exebalen) of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle’. Who does pantas (all) refer to? Pantas is a plural masculine. The masculine does not correspond to the probata (sheep) that is neuter, although it agrees with boas (oxen) which is a masculine. Jesus makes the whip because he finds in the temple those who sell cattle, sheep, doves and the moneychangers seated at their tables. But did Jesus use his whip only on the sheep and cattle, as implied in the NIV and NRS?”… “Macgregor and Wink … make the further point that if Jesus had used the whip on people he would most certainly have been in trouble.” Jean Lasserre, in an article trans. by John Yoder, makes the same point (OP 1, IMS, 1980; Swartley ed.). It is correct to conclude that John portrays Jesus using the whip on the animals.
“John emphasises the zeal and passion that Jesus felt about what he saw. For the Israelite, the uplifted hand was a way to show zeal for something or someone (Isa 26:11). John states that Jesus has zeal for this house (2:17). The quote is from the Septuagint Psalm 68:10. … In Psalm 119:139, zeal consumes the servant because his foes forget the word of God. He, too, is despised yet he still loves God’s word (v.141). Isaiah sees God expressing his zeal for this people with an uplifted hand (Isa 26:11a). John perhaps alludes to this image of the Lord with an uplifted hand when he depicts Jesus with the whip. This messenger of God, resonant in the imagery of Malachi 3.1, enters the temple with an uplifted hand with his whip and challenges the sellers.”
“John emphasizes the passion of Jesus’ act with the use of the whip and with remembrance of the Psalm. The whip reminds them of this quote. This is also why John mentions the sheep and cattle. The whip emphasizes Jesus’ zeal and the whip is used on the sheep and cattle. Jesus is ardent and utterly committed to put right that which offends him in the temple. He believes the temple has been insulted because it does not represent faithfulness.”
Jesus’a action is to be understood also as fulfillment of the last sentence of Zechariah, “A nd there shall no longer be traders in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day” (14:21d). “The sellers were oppressors who made money from the poor whether or not the sellers actually did. It may be that the sellers were not making that much money, but Jesus saw them as people who did.”
“John draws upon Zechariah 14 because he depicts a suffering figure that is pierced by his own people. But this very suffering awakens the oppressor to what they have done. Jesus’ death shows the violence of the world.” In this context Jesus’ own body as the temple to be raised (vv. 21-22) makes perfect sense. It becomes the life of the world, and points the way to overcoming the violence that crucified Jesus.
(Portions of this are quoted from an unpublished electonic copy of an article in process of publication, sent to me by Mark Bredin, recent Ph.D. graduate from St. Andrews, Scotland. The quotes are blended with my own work, and interpretation. Used with permission.)
Willard Swartley
