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08/31/2011

Textweek ATLAS links Proper 20 OT 25 P+14 September 18, 2011

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts.

Proper 20 / Ordinary 25 / Pentecost +14

September 18, 2011

 

Exodus 16:2-15

Poetry from Cross Currents.

 

“God’s first covenantal relationship in the Bible was not with humanity alone but with all of creation.”

 

“A literary-theological study of the Sabbath in Exodus 16 reveals two main biblical traditions, covenantal and priestly. In the covenantal tradition, the Sabbath provides a means of testing Israel's faith and readiness for a covenantal relationship with God. The priestly tradition presents the Sabbath as the completion of God's creation of the world. God's provision of the manna in the wilderness and the Sabbath points to a new understanding of holiness and time.”

 

 

Jonah 3:10 – 4:11

“God's mercy—God's slowness to anger, God's steadfast love, God's desire for us all to know the reality of divine love—takes those of us who are God's servants to many places we might not otherwise go; and, sometimes to places we would rather not go. Today, that includes the great cities of the world—as godless as they may seem to some and as fearsome as they feel to many. But the love of God must be proclaimed and lived out wherever there are persons who have not experienced that love. There are souls, precious to God, who will live, at incalculable loss, without a knowledge of God and God's love unless we who know the truth take seriously God's call. God still sends prophets to Nineveh.”

“Jonah is called to Nineveh. Seven times in chapter 3 the city is named lest we as readers forget that the call is to a place that epitomizes violence and wickedness (cf. Nahum for a description of the city). As we look at Jonah out baking in the hot desert sun, we realize that we, too, can be called to unsafe and frightening places. From what places do we flee? What do we fear?”

 

 

Philippians 1:21-30

“Paul's concept of grace was not static. His experiences as an apostle of Christ led him to probe its limits, but not necessarily to reach them.”

 

“In Philippians Paul uses contemporary societal norms and language to describe the life of the Philippian disciple community.”

 

Matthew 20:1-16

Section on this text begins on page 442. “The response of the workers is not unlike that of the elder brother in Luke 15:25-32. It is not a matter of either the elder brother or the day long workers being cheated or rejected. Their sense of fair play and equity has been violated according to human standards, but the radicality of God's ways goes beyond all expectation and human convention as we are constantly surprised by grace at every juncture.”

“Our culture is obsessed with what we think we deserve. Not much has changed since Jesus' time.”

08/31/2011 at 12:50 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

08/29/2011

Textweek ATLAS Links Proper 19 Ordinary 24 Pentecost +13 September 11, 2011

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts.

Proper 19 / Ordinary Time 24 / Pentecost +13

September 11, 2011

 

 

Exodus 14:19-31

“The Bible, in both Old Testament and New, speaks candidly about violence—both human violence and divine violence. We must take the reports of God's violence seriously, over against ourselves, while also exercising the appropriate critique already begun by people within the Bible itself. Finally, we will see that, in everything, including violence, God seeks to accomplish loving purposes.”

 

Genesis 50:15-21

“Throughout his career, Joseph struggles for equilibrium, for the balanced expression of a politically expedient commitment to both host and heritage, to both father and Pharaoh.”

“The God who takes our evil works and bends them to good is the God who prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies, who sustains us by the hand of one whom we have rejected, who fills the hungry with good things but sends those who are self-sufficient away empty. God would not even be above providing for "little ones" by self-emptying and feeding them from the feast of Christ's own crucified flesh. In God are all made heirs to this promise, quite without our contriving. Such a comedy could only be a comedy of the cross, a comedy in which "God's weakness is stronger than human strength"(1 Cor 1:25), a ‘divine comedy’ in which the evil we do is absorbed by the good that overcomes it. The world, you say, does not work that way? Perhaps not. Or perhaps we too are in a story that we do not understand.”

“I can give you many reasons why forgiveness is a good thing, but at the end of the day there is only one compelling motivation. It is that God is like that. Jesus is like that. And we are called to be like him.”

 

 

Matthew 18:21-35

“Living as one who can forgive and be forgiven involves a healthy balance of ‘holding on’ and ‘letting go’ in an appropriate balance of ‘autonomy’ and ‘shame.’ Forgiveness finally is about freedom, the freedom to ‘hold on’ and ‘let go’ at will.”

 

“The literary tension in the Gospel of Matthew concerning conflicting images of God and the ethical dilemma this poses for disciples who attempt to emulate God can be satisfactorily resolved by understanding the eschatological context of Matthew's eight violent parables. These depict divine action at the end-times, not how human beings are to respond to evildoers in the present. Rather than retaliate violence for violence, disciples of Jesus are to engage in creative acts of nonviolent confrontation, to love their enemies, and to pray for their persecutors, in imitation of God's boundless and indiscriminate love. The Sermon on the Mount gives concrete examples that arouse the imagination to new possibilities for action. The violence in the eschatological parables underscores the seriousness of the choice to follow Jesus' teaching and example. Not all the questions related to this study can be answered through biblical exegesis. Still, the Gospel of Matthew is an important dialogue partner for Christians in the contemporary quest to end violence.”

08/29/2011 at 02:44 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Textweek ATLAS links Proper 18 Ordinary 23 Pentecost +12

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts.

Exodus 12:1-14

“Egyptians prized the ability to appear strong, firm, resolute, and unmoved by events.”

 

Abstract:  “Several passages in the Old Testament portray Yahweh as behaving in ways that seem unfair or immoral. Two such narratives are the episodes describing the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and the spirit dispatched to deceive Ahab. In each of these two cases, careful attention to the literary context and the final form of the MT shows that Yahweh 's behaviour is best understood as a sign-act directed toward a specific end.”

 

Ezekiel 33:7-11

The section on this text begins on page 374. “Ezekiel gives us another slant on the difficulties inherent in being one of God's prophets. (We have seen aspects of this already in Elijah and Jeremiah.) One of the functions of a prophet is to be a sentinel, a watchman, a lookout who sees the danger coming and tries to rouse people out of their doldrums before it is too late.”

 

 

Romans 13:8-14

“The preacher's task here is to refocus the church on the need to embrace Christ daily, even moment by moment. Otherwise, the powers of darkness and evil either look more and more appealing or become less and less obvious, so that we are seduced by them as if we were half-asleep (v. 11). The Greek word for sleep is hypnos, and while we cannot attribute the notion of being "hypnotized" to Paul himself here, it is nonetheless true that Christians as well as others can become so accustomed to the normalcy of evil that we live under its spell, as if hypnotized by a power outside ourselves that we cannot discern or dislodge.”

 

 

Matthew 18:15-20

“This grace does not (and perhaps need not) come to everyone. It is not a matter of magic that we can invoke or a prize we can earn. There are no "should's" in any of this, nor should we hold this in front of survivors of violence as a goal at the end of an emotional or therapeutic process. Perhaps the best pastoral counsel we can give to someone who may be feeling pressure (either internal or external) to forgive an offender is this: Sometimes people may have a feeling of having forgiven another person as a letting go and moving on, but do not blame yourself if you are not "there" in your own emotional life. Forgiveness is a gift of grace, and it may be given to you in God's own good time. In the meantime, don't worry, and don't be preoccupied with something that is God's job to do, not yours.”

08/29/2011 at 02:19 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

08/01/2011

ATLAS Textweek Proper 17 Ordinary 22 Pentecost +11

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts.

Proper 17A Ordinary 22A Pentecost +11

August 28, 2011

 

Exodus 3:1-15

“The story of God's faithfulness did not begin nor did it end with Moses on Mt. Horeb. The faithfulness of God, despite what God's people do in response, is recorded for us in the great stories of the faith, like this story of ‘The Call of Moses.’ The whole canon of Scripture bears witness to this faithfulness.”

 

“Who has not heard this (divine!) voice? Sometimes we have disregarded it, only later to realize that we have been untrue to our inner center. Other times, however, we have really heard and seen at heart-depth what is taking place. We say ‘That's it—it is enough’ and take a stand. Such is the experience of Moses.”

“This question of thorn-bush theophony was rhetorically raised by Jewish homileticians; what implicit theology or symbolic meaning can be derived from God's choice of a burning thorn-bush? One suggestion is that this was done to underscore the importance of peace.”

 

Jeremiah 15:15-21

“But one suspects that, in the final analysis, these pieces were included in the book because they were there, and were considered too precious to be left in the wastebasket, as it were. Future readers of the completed Jeremiah book would be forced to ponder the tragedy that befell the nation because of its rejection of the prophetic word; but they might also ponder the tragedy of the rejected prophet, whose word had now been shown to have been true.”

 

“The confessions of Jeremiah are prayers for people mired in loss and play a major role in the theological and spiritual process of healing. They keep communication with God alive in the midst of destruction and despair.”

 

Romans 12:9-21

 

“Paul's advice is difficult to swallow. We are challenged to respond personally and to act concretely.”

“This text from Romans contains thirty imperatives—which would merely be another set of moralisms and religious requirements were it not for the "renewing of your mind" that Paul commends in Rom 12:2. Only God in Christ can work that transformation, and only then do Paul’s commands become possibilities.”

 

Matthew 16:21-28

 

“Jesus teaches his followers that conflict with the elite will result in his crucifixion in Jerusalem and God’s resurrection of him from the dead. This event has numerous implications for their lives as followers.”

“Luther understood Jesus Christ as both the bearer and bestower of the cross. May believers hear Luther and learn to receive this and all other things from God's hand when and as He gives them.” 

Proper 17A Ordinary 22A Pentecost +11

August 28, 2011

 

Exodus 3:1-15

·         Beach-Verhey, Kathy, "Between Text and Sermon, Exodus 3:1-12," Interpretation, 2005.
  EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
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“The story of God's faithfulness did not begin nor did it end with Moses on Mt. Horeb. The faithfulness of God, despite what God's people do in response, is recorded for us in the great stories of the faith, like this story of ‘The Call of Moses.’ The whole canon of Scripture bears witness to this faithfulness.”

 

·         Holmgren, Fredrick C., "Between Text & Sermon, Exodus 2:11-3:15," Interpretation, 2002.
  EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
  EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials

“Who has not heard this (divine!) voice? Sometimes we have disregarded it, only later to realize that we have been untrue to our inner center. Other times, however, we have really heard and seen at heart-depth what is taking place. We say ‘That's it—it is enough’ and take a stand. Such is the experience of Moses.”

·         Levine, Etan, "Midrash on the Burning Bush," Reconstructionist, 1971.
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  EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials

“This question of thorn-bush theophony was rhetorically raised by Jewish homileticians; what implicit theology or symbolic meaning can be derived from God's choice of a burning thorn-bush? One suggestion is that this was done to underscore the importance of peace.”

 

Jeremiah 15:15-21

·         Bright, John, "A Prophet's Lament and Its Answer: Jeremiah 15:10-21," Interpretation, 1974
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  EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials

“But one suspects that, in the final analysis, these pieces were included in the book because they were there, and were considered too precious to be left in the wastebasket, as it were. Future readers of the completed Jeremiah book would be forced to ponder the tragedy that befell the nation because of its rejection of the prophetic word; but they might also ponder the tragedy of the rejected prophet, whose word had now been shown to have been true.”

 

·         O'Connor, Kathleen M., "Lamenting Back to Life," Interpretation, 2008.
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“The confessions of Jeremiah are prayers for people mired in loss and play a major role in the theological and spiritual process of healing. They keep communication with God alive in the midst of destruction and despair.”

 

Romans 12:9-21

 

·         Barram, Michael, "Between Text and Sermon: Romans 12:9-21," Interpretation, 2003. (See also, "Evil," issue focus, Interpretation, 2003.)
  EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
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“Paul's advice is difficult to swallow. We are challenged to respond personally and to act concretely.”

·         Harrisville, Roy A., "'Do not repay evil with evil': Preaching Romans 12:9-21," Word & World, 2008.
  EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
  EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials

“This text from Romans contains thirty imperatives—which would merely be another set of moralisms and religious requirements were it not for the "renewing of your mind" that Paul commends in Rom 12:2. Only God in Christ can work that transformation, and only then do Paul’s commands become possibilities.”

 

Matthew 16:21-28

 

·         Carter, Warren, "Matthew's Gospel: An Anti-Imperial/Imperial Reading," Currents in Theology and Mission, 2007. See entire issue of Currents in Theology and Mission 34, image focus on Matthew's gospel.
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“Jesus teaches his followers that conflict with the elite will result in his crucifixion in Jerusalem and God’s resurrection of him from the dead. This event has numerous implications for their lives as followers.”

·         Clark, John C., "Martin Luther's View of Cross-Bearing," Bibliotheca Sacra, 2006.
  EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
  EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials

“Luther understood Jesus Christ as both the bearer and bestower of the cross. May believers hear Luther and learn to receive this and all other things from God's hand when and as He gives them.”

08/01/2011 at 06:01 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

ATLAS Textweek Links for Proper 16 OT 21 Pentecost +10 August 21, 2011

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts.

Proper 16A Ordinary 21A Pentecost +10

August 21, 2011

 

Exodus 1:8 – 2:10

“The biblical stories can be categorized under two paradigmatic headings, each of which can be sub-divided in turn into two distinct types: (1) The story involves two mothers rather than one. In this case, two possibilities emerge:

a. At least two heroes are born, so to speak. Necessarily, then, one of the newborn children (usually the first) or more will prove to be a '"false" hero; and only one, as time will tell, will become the "real" hero who carries the divine promise (see below).

b. Two mothers (or even three) will produce, between them, one hero (Naomi and Ruth; Moses' biological mother, his sister, and the daughter of the Pharaoh who becomes his adoptive mother).

(2) In stories where only one prospective mother features, two sub-models are in evidence:

a. A single mother has two sons, or more (Eve, Rebecca).

b. A single mother has one son (Samson's mother).”

“Inasmuch as Philo's aim in his essay De Vita Mosis is to present Moses as the perfect example of the royal character, he follows the pattern found in other biographies, concentrating, in particular, on the subject's genealogy, birth, upbringing, and handsomeness.”

 

Romans 12:1-8

“To die in Christ and to live in Christ is nothing short of accepting and receiving a whole new way of thinking and living, which is to say that surrendering to God is at the same time an abandonment of the old ways of self-preservation. To be in Christ is to be reconstructed according to God's building plan and to be renewed continuously by the Holy Spirit. In this way, believers are enabled to discern what conforms to God's will, namely that which is holy, pleasing, and perfect. By faith, God gives us new direction and strength to live in the loving, self-sacrificing manner of Jesus Christ. This is the logical worship (often translated as "spiritual service") of the Christian life.”

 

Matthew 16:13-20

Abstract: “What did ‘binding’ and ‘loosing’ mean in the earliest tradition, and what did Matthew understand them to mean? commonplace claims regarding rabbinic usage are contradictory and inconclusive. Intertestamental and NT usages typically refer to overcoming demons and liberating their victims. The synoptic Jesus authorized the Twelve to exorcise demons. The Matthean passages arguably reflect the substance of such authorizations. Other early Christian texts corroborate this suggestion. Matthew, however, probably understood the terms more broadly, as authorizing disciples to overrule the power of death, and to determine matters of doctrine and morality for the sake of the church and its members' salvation.”

“A majority of scholars now recognize that the terms ‘to bind’ and ‘to loose’ are best understood with reference to a practice of determining the application of scriptural commandments for contemporary situations.1 The words are used in this regard by Josephus and in targumic materials. Jewish rabbis ‘bound’ the law when they determined that a commandment was applicable to a particular situation, and they ‘loosed’ the law when they determined that a word of Scripture (while eternally valid) was not applicable under certain specific circumstances.”

“The article examines the present meaning of the confession-keys passage in Matthew 16. The story in vv. 13-16 is seen as a type of narrative that culminates in the identification of a divine figure or a messenger of God. The lofty identification of Jesus as ‘prophet’ seems to be inadequate; finally, the account identifies him as ‘the Messiah, the Son of the living God’. That identification is approved in a response (vv. 17-19) that pronounces a blessing on Peter and gives him a new name and a special commission.”

08/01/2011 at 05:23 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Textweek/ATLAS Recommendations Proper 15 Ordinary 20 Pentecost +9 August 14, 2011

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts.

Proper 15A / Ordinary 20A / Pentecost +9

August 14, 2011

 

Isaiah 56:1-8

“Certainly this section of Isaiah is full of references to Israel as a light to the nations, proclaiming an inclusiveness that wants to bring together before God those who had previously been excluded (whether outcasts within Israel or because they were foreigners).”

 

Hoop, Raymond de, "The Interpretation of Isaiah 56:1-9: comfort or criticism?" Journal of Biblical Literature, 2008.
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“In general, however, it must be concluded that Isa 56:1-9 should not be read solely as a comfort for those possibly excluded from the community but should especially be considered an implicit criticism of the leaders of the community, who, in the view of the author/editor of the passage, hypocritically emphasized only those elements in the Torah that suited themselves.”

 

Genesis 45:1-15

Abstract: “In a previous issue JSOT, Victor Matthews treats the garment motif in the Joseph story, but does not include the Judah/Tamar story (Gen. 38) in his analysis. I argue that this chapter is more concerned with garments or personal objects than any in the Joseph narrative, and therefore deserves examination alongside chs. 37 and 39. In all three chapters, garments play a pivotal role in plot development as markers of status and authority by which identities are revealed or concealed. The motif is manifest in a variety of ways: deception through loss or removal of garments, deception through forced recognition, and authority signified via possession of garments or personal items. The Judah/Tamar episode in ch. 38 demonstrably shapes in various ways the reader's understanding of garment-related events in these chapters.”

Abstract: “This article examines the dynamics of good and evil as represented in the Joseph story (Gen. 37-50). It examines the story's plot, the larger conceptual framework of the narrative's Pentateuchal setting, as well as the semantic indicators and associated attitudes/behaviors qualified as good and/or evil. The main objectives of this article are: (1) to identify the main issues within the story's concept of the dynamics of good and evil; (2) to promote a more thorough consideration of the place of Joseph and God in those dynamics; and (3) to generate hermeneutical inquiries about the dynamics of good and evil using the insights gained from this examination—inquiries that are more relevant to contemporary discussion (e.g. understanding human atrocities, forgiveness, and reconciliation).”

“This examination poses a challenge to a number of recent treatments of the same literature that see the idea of divine favoritism (and its reflection in the favoritism exhibited by certain patriarchs and matriarchs towards one special child) as unfair and therefore morally and theologically retrograde…Rather, as will be demonstrated in the following analysis, the Joseph story offers a critique of the human rebellion that occurs when others persecute the elect, as well as when the elect misuse or fail to accept their special status and the responsibilities it entails.”

 

 

Romans 11:1-32

“I am often amazed at how many Christians forget that Jesus was a Jew, as was the apostle Paul. Romans 9-11 then is not a casual philosophical discourse on issues of election and covenant; they are Paul's concerted, complex, and not always clear attempt to wrestle with the paradox that at least one Jew sees Jesus as Lord, while most of his people do not.”

 

Matthew 15:21-28

 

“If the great commission is ever fulfilled, it will mean not the imperialistic triumph of the present form of the church but rather its death, followed by the resurrection of a genuine world-church, catholic in a sense we can hardly dream of. The one thing that would remain the same would be the church's Lord: the Son of David who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). He is already at work in Tyre and Sidon; we obtuse disciples have yet to catch up.”

 

“This passage, then, appears to be a pivotal one for Matthew's intentions. The woman is an unlikely candidate to be the ideal follower of God, yet that is how Matthew pictures her. She is a Gentile who knows Jesus well enough to use the right terms ("Lord" and "Son of David"). The woman is contrasted with Peter who fails to understand what Jesus is saying in the previous passage (vs. 16-17) and with the other disciples who attempt to chase her away. Therefore, we learn that discipleship is not automatic, even when someone has been chosen by Jesus to be a disciple; instead, a true believer is one who has absolute faith in Jesus.”

08/01/2011 at 11:08 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)