Tag: On Earth as in Heaven

Shut Up and Come Out of Them!

Psalm 111:1-3  Hallelujah! I will give thanks to God with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the deeds of God! they are studied by all who delight in them. God’s work is full of majesty and splendor, and righteousness endures for ever.

Introduction

When you think about an encounter with Jesus, what do you think of first? You might think of wisdom. For surely encountering Jesus would be bringing you face to face with the wisdom of the ages. Jesus is a true teacher, one who can enlighten hearts and open minds. Maybe you’d think of healing. This would also make sense; there are so many stories in the Gospels about Jesus healing people, adults and children, living and dead. So, maybe you’d think of possibility… for truly this one is the Son of God and with God all things are possible. Maybe, being really good church school students, you would think of grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness. These, too, would be spot on; many stories about these very things confront us on every page of the Second Testament. Some of you might think about kindness, gentleness, and comfort; again, good thoughts and biblically solid. Maybe some of you—the stout hearted, the tell-me-like-it-is folx—would think about the way Jesus exposes us, like a bright light shining into the marrow of our bones type of exposure, yet a safe type of exposure, an exposure into life and love.

To all of these I say YES! An encounter with Jesus would carry all of these things. But we are still missing one more, the one that wraps up all of these: Liberation.

To encounter Christ in all of these ways—in wisdom, healing, possibility, grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, comfort, and exposure—is to encounter Christ as the liberator, the one who sets captives free. Christ brings liberation to the people who are stuck, not only spiritually stuck but physically stuck. Christ comes to identify with humanity stuck in its plight and to set them (all!) free from those things that torment and haunt, oppress and possess.

Mark 1:21-28

And then at once there was a person with an unclean spirit in the synagogue crying out, “Go away! You leave us alone, Jesus of Nazareth![1] Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God!” And Jesus admonished the unclean spirit saying, “Shut up and come out of him!” And then after convulsing the man, the unclean spirit called out in a great voice and came out of him (Mark 1:23-26).[2]

Mark uses a story about Jesus’s teaching in the synagogue to demonstrate the depth of his divine power and authority. Mark’s use of ἐξουσία is potent here. This was a word normally used of kings and God is being applied to Jesus. He has authority in his teaching and in his deeds. [3] Mark moves the story from the shore of the sea of Galilee (Mk. 14-20) to Capernaum (v.21). Mark’s normal fast pace is heightened: as soon as they entered Capernaum, Jesus immediately taught in the synagogue on the sabbath.[4] Jesus didn’t force himself to the front to teach, he was invited to do so; this reinforces that Jesus was known and respected for his authority to interpret the scriptures and teach the people of God.[5] As Jesus teaches, the crowd was astonished/amazed regarding his teaching, for he was teaching them as having authority and not the authority of the scribes. Mark lets his audience know that not only does Jesus have authority to teach, his teaching exceeds that of the scribes; this truly is the Son of God (1:1).[6]

Then, in the midst of it all, the dramatic focus shifts[7] from Jesus to a person with an unclean spirit who enters the synagogue crying out and saying, “Go away! You leave us alone, Jesus of Nazareth![8] Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God!” (vv.23-24). It’s worth pointing out that a person with an unclean spirit (being ritually impure) was not to be in the sacred space of the synagogue.[9] And this, too, is worth pointing out that they make themselves the center of attention by yelling… at Jesus; not that this person is yelling, but the unclean spirit(s) inside them are yelling at Jesus because they recognize who Jesus is (as they always do).[10] Jesus—the ultimate non-anxious presence—responds with authority to the unclean spirit and admonished it saying, “Shut up[11] and come out of them!” With this type of divine command, the unclean spirit has no choice but to obey this superior spiritual power[12] and leave; however, not without first yelling in a loud voice and then convulsing the person as it leaves. The crowd was already astonished at his teaching, and now with this exorcism, they were amazed, almost terrified at Jesus’s ἐξουσία to liberate this person from such oppression. The people turn to themselves and begin wondering, what is this new teaching according to authority and commanding unclean spirits, and they obey him?! This new teaching is about profound liberation for the oppressed, the burdened, the lowly, the possessed, the ones who don’t belong in the synagogue, and the unclean. This is the new thing that God is doing in the world among God’s people: authority to teach and authority to liberate as one divine activity. Surely, the truth will set you free. And this freedom, if taken seriously, will provoke to anger everyone who is in power. What happens to the system if it is undone from the bottom? Even the top falls.

Conclusion

Beloved, in your encounter with God in Christ by faith you… you are liberated, inwardly and outwardly. When we go about conformed to the image of who we should be according to the world, we are no better than the unclean spirit storming into sacred places, hooting and hollering. We must dare to be fully “exorcised” of whatever vision we have of ourselves that is tied to things that are not of God, we must dare to (fully) step into the liberative encounter with God by faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and be ushered into our deliverance into and unto divine life and light. Mark is desperate to bring his readers, you, to the feet of this Jesus who sets the captives free, releases the bondages and fetters, and commands unclean spirits to be shut up and be gone so that the reader will be liberated into the world to participate in this great mission of the revolution of divine love in the world, to assist the divine Spirit seeking and searching for the beloved, bringing lightness and life out of the depth of darkness and death.

I’ll close with this quote from Dorothee Sölle talking about “renewed praxis” for those who encounter God in faith,

What the theologian should learn here is to dream and to hope. Our imagination has been freed from original sinful bondages, and we are empowered to imagine alternative institutions. We become agents of change. Prayer and action become our doing. The literary form is now the creative envisioning. We find new language. Only this last step discloses the text and makes us not only into readers but into ‘writers’ of the Bible. We say to each other ‘take up your bed and walk,’ which is a necessary step in any liberation theology.[13]

[1] France, Mark, 103. v. 24 “τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί; is an OT formula of disassociation…When addressed to an actual or potential aggressor it has the force of ‘Go away and leave me alone’… The demon assumes, without any word yet from Jesus, that his mission but be ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς; there is instant recognition that they are on opposite sides.”

[2] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[3] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 37. “Twice in a few verses observers remark that he has authority. Exousia, the word for ‘authority,’ was often applied to kings and especially associated with what God would have when his reign came. This section mentions no opposition, but there are hints of things to come. He has authority, not like the scribes. His fame begins to spread.”

[4] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 101.

[5] France, Mark, 101. “Mark’s καὶ εὐθὺς τοῖς σάββασιν ἐδίδασκεν might suggest that this unknown man of Nazareth took the initiative in imposing himself on the congregation, but the right to teach in the synagogue was controlled by its leaders (Acts 13:15), and the fact that Jesus was invited or allowed to do so suggests that, despite the orle of this pericope in Mark’s narrative as Jesus’ first public appearance, he had already been active in the area long enough to be known and respected.”

[6] France, Mark, 102. Stunned/amazed ἐκπλήσσομαι [these types of words] “…indicate the recognition of something out of the ordinary, and keep the reader aware of the unprecedented ἐξουσία of Jesus, and of the surprising and even shocking nature of some of the things he said.”

[7] France, Mark, 103. v. 23 “καὶ εὐθύς here serves to introduce a specific dramatic event within the more general scene set up in vv. 21-22.”

[8] France, Mark, 103. v. 24 “τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί; is an OT formula of disassociation…When addressed to an actual or potential aggressor it has the force of ‘Go away and leave me alone’… The demon assumes, without any word yet from Jesus, that his mission but be ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς; there is instant recognition that they are on opposite sides.”

[9] Placher, Mark, 37. “A man with an unclean sprit did not belong in a synagogue. He was ritually unclean, and this was a sacred space.”

[10] Placher, Mark, 37. “…he promptly disrupts things by yelling his head off. The spirit or spirits within him recognize Jesus as ‘the Holy One of God.’… Evil spirits never have any problem knowing who Jesus is…”

[11] Placher, Mark, 38. “English translations usually water down the blunt forcefulness of Jesus’ response: ‘Shut up’ or ‘Muzzle it’ and ‘Get out.’ The evil spirit(s) spoke truly enough, and Jesus’ insistence on secrecy about this identity is a theme in Mark…”

[12] France, Mark, 104. Son of God “Here it serves…to convey the demon’s awareness that he has come up against a superior spiritual power. If it is not yet a direct ascription to Jesus of the title ὀ υἰὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, it suitably prepares the reader for its use in 3:11; 5;7.” And, ἐπιτιμάω “In Mark the verb is used for Jesus’ authoritative silencing of unwelcome human utterance in 8:30, 33, and, strikingly, with reference to the natural elements…in 4:39…ἐπετίμησεν here therefore describes the effective command expressed in the direct speech which follows … rather than representing a separate element in the encounter,” 104-105

[13] Dorothe Sölle, On Earth as In Heaven: A Liberation Spirituality of Sharing, trans. Marc Batko (Louisville: WJK, 1993), xi.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0

“Nothing Seems to Satisfy”: Craving Stability

(for part 1 click here)

Psalm 32:6-9 6 “I will confess my transgressions to God.” Then you forgave me the guilt of my sin. Therefore all the faithful will make their prayers to you in time of trouble; when the great waters overflow, they shall not reach them. You are my hiding-place; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance.

Introduction

The past few years and the last few months have felt like walking on water. Now, before you get the idea that I’m either comparing myself to Jesus the Christ, the son of God and humanity, or that I’ve felt so light and effervescent, I need to tell you that is not the case. By “walking on water” I mean: navigating the wind and the waves of life. Thrust upward only to be left falling downward as the surface drops, swept left and then swept all the way right, and smacked forward and backward by liquid turned solid by force and velocity.

There’s no way to extricate myself from this unending sea of waves and wind. It’s water as far as the eye can see. I fear something swimming just close enough but beyond my ability to see through murky water to prickle my skin with its sinister swish-swish-swishes right below my feet. The threat of doom leaves its own trauma. My other fear is becoming so water logged that I forget my real needs, that I confuse swallowing sea water for satisfying hunger, that I just become one with my environment, that I’ll give up or forget to keep fighting. When humans go about just surviving, they end up learning how to just survive and forget that life is so much more than just surviving.

Everything right now feels so unstable and nothing seems to satisfy.

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’“ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:1-4)

Here, early in Genesis, we are offered a story. A story well known to us. Moses (the traditionally assumed author) tells us that after God created Adam, God brought Adam into the garden. Here, Adam was to work and care for creation. God gave Adam two commandments: eat from any tree but do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The consequence? “‘In that day you eat of it you will surely die.’” (v.17b) From our perspective this command seems astounding, and the consequence atrocious. Why would God implement such a command and consequence? Why would the acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil be punished severely? Why is God keeping this power from us?

One of the issues is our evaluation of good and evil. These are not just moral executive decisions. According to the JPS Study Bible, we have to reframe our understanding of “knowing” away from a post-enlightenment, scientific revolution outlook to one that offers a more wholistic picture of “knowing.” We know intellectually, but we also know experientially; therefore, there is not only knowing about good and evil, but knowing morally good and evil and (even more) knowing through experience things pleasant and painful.[1] And in these experiences, in this knowing morally, and even in knowing about good and evil there is death. It’s not so much a punishment as it is a consequence of finding ourselves suffering in the midst of good and evil, pulled this way and that, torn through with doubt and inner conflict, suffering from (even unto death) the force of evil in the world.

Then, enter the serpent. In chapter 3, Moses tells us the serpent comes along and strikes up a conversation with Eve. The serpent asks a trick question, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”; there’s no yes or no here, and Eve knows it.[2] So, she answers the serpent, and this response opens up a means by which the serpent can attack further. Eve says, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’“ As she quotes the law differently than it was handed to Adam, the serpent can certainly show her that she can touch it without dying, and here in the chaos of conflict with what one knows and sees and the inner doubt over divine credibility surges.[3] Then the serpent presses further adding in just the right amount of potential divine jealousy: seems God doesn’t want you to have the same power God has…”[4] The deal is sealed when she takes and eats of the apple and hands it to Adam, who was with her the entire time. The one who taught her the law failed to teach it to her rightly, and was himself subject to contemplating another word apart from God’s word.[5] Upheaval was already underway.[6]

Here the couple is thrust into tumult; what was, is now no longer. They were comfortable, now they are uncomfortable. Here they are falling from “true wisdom,” to quote Martin Luther, and “…[plunged] into utter blindness.”[7] They are now saddled with the weight of determining moral good and moral evil, held hostage by the onslaught of pleasure or pain, and chased by the threats of weal and woe. All of their relationships are now upended, their relationship with God, with each other, with themselves, and with creation; the ricochet of the sound of fracturing forever heard in the echo of lightening of the storm clouds threatening doom and in the rumble of their hunger pains.

Conclusion

How do we find stability in the midst of chaos and tumult? Do we really forego peace and comfort until our leaders figure it out? Do we run from each wave? Hide from the wind? I know there’s power finding stability in yourself, but it only lasts for so long. One strong gust or undulation and it topples. No material object can ever offer us the stability we so crave, all of it is of the dust and to dust it will return. There is no job, no amount of money, no home, no relationship secure enough to depend on no matter what. This is what we learned through skepticism: nothing is permanent; so, nothing is permanent. We are all one precarious moment from a free fall.

So, if nothing seems to satisfy, how do we navigate all this instability? We must look beyond ourselves and our consumption. We must be awakened to our deep-seated need and hunger for stability.

Dorothee Sölle writes this in her book, On Earth as in Heaven,

There is a spiritual that begins with the words, ‘Every time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart….’ When I hear this song, I ask myself when was the last time I felt the Spirit? And I would like to ask you: When was the last time you felt the Spirit move-on what occasion, where, why, when? The song ‘Every time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart’ awakens my spiritual hunger, the hunger without which we can, of course, vegetate but not live.[8]

Stability will always be found through and in awakened spiritual hunger, spiritual hunger and need for God. Spiritual hunger will bring us back—time and time again—to the age-old story of unconditional love, resurrected life, and present tense liberation.[9] It is here in this particular story where we are met and reminded of a covenant that runs steady, has no boundaries, and can safely carry us to solid ground over and over again.

Right now, I need God. Right now, God is my constant and my stability because God’s story never changes: God in Christ comes low to walk with those who are hungry, those who crave stability and whispers I will never leave you or forsake you, no matter how bad it gets no matter how scared you are, I am with you. It’s here where I’m brought further out of myself and my desperate attempts at false stability to find true stability…with you, because you are the beloved of God and God is where you are; God is where we are in the hunger.

[1] Levenson, “Genesis” The Jewish Study Bible, 16. “Knowledge of good and bad may be a merism, a figure of speech in which polar opposites denote a totality…But knowledge can have an experiential, not only an intellectual, sense in biblical Heb and ‘good and bad’ can mean either ‘weal and woe or ‘moral good and moral evil.’ The forbidden tree offers an experience that is both pleasant and painful; it awakens those who partake of it to the higher knowledge and to the pain that both come with moral choice.”

[2] Levenson, “Genesis”, The Jewish Study Bible, 16. “His question is tricky and does not admit of a yes-or-no answer. The woman, who has never heard the commandment directly (2.16-17), paraphrases it loosely. Why she adds the prohibition on touching the fruit is unclear…”

[3] Levenson, “Genesis” The Jewish Study Bible, 16-17. “Tragically, this praiseworthy act gave the snake his opening. ‘He touched the tree with his hands and his feet, and shook it until its fruits dropped to the ground,’ thus undermining the credibility of God’s entire commandment in the woman’s mind…”

[4] Levenson, “Genesis” The Jewish Study Bible, 17. “The serpent impugns God’s motives, attributing the command to jealousy. Whereas in the first creation account human beings are God-like creatures exercising dominion…here their ambition to be like God or like divine beings is the root of the expulsion from Eden.”

[5] LW 1 147. “For the chief temptation was to listen to another word and to depart from the one which God had previously spoken: that they would die if they ate from it.”

[6] LW 1 105. “This sermon was delivered on the sixth day; and if, as the text indicates, Adam alone heard it, he later on informed Eve of it.”

[7] LW 1 161.

[8] Sölle On Earth 93

[9] Sölle On Earth ix-x.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 5

Just like the Prophets

Psalm 15:1-2 1 God, who may dwell in your tabernacle? who may abide upon your holy hill? Whoever leads a blameless life and does what is right, who speaks the truth from [their] heart.

Introduction

Did you know that the Sermon on the Mount was probably given in the hills?[1] I mention this little detail because there are texts and stories, teachings and preachings that we’re very familiar with, so familiar that we are prone to pay them less attention. We take them for granted and lock them in some form in our memory. We are familiar with the tonality and the cadence of the textual rhythm. We can recite some of them from memory. We may be more familiar with some over others; we may even know the blessed statements show up altered in other gospels. Maybe it’s time we did what Jesus’s disciples did: follow Jesus and sit with this divine Rabbi, [2] listening (again) to these words meant for those who follow Jesus out of the river Jordan, even those of us who sit here these many years later. As we do, may we come into an encounter with the love and passion of God anew, for God’s Word seeks to awaken us from our slumber, provoke to animation calcified hearts, invigorate sluggish souls and exhausted minds, graft us into God’s mission on the earth,[3] and to place us into the great prophetic tradition of God’s representatives bringing God’s love and life and liberation to the captives.[4]

Matthew 5:1-12

Before beginning our dive into the statements, I want to address a little, teensy-weensy textual thing: the word, markarioi is fairly hard to render into English. The complication comes in that “‘Macarisms’ are essentially commendations, congratulations, statements to the effect that a person is in a good situation, sometimes even expressions of envy.”[5] This isn’t “blessed by God”,[6] but “happy”. They are happy who… However, this is misleading in our context because it is not as if the person is happy but that they find themselves in a happy place demanding envy from others.[7] In short, these statements are not merely colloquialisms about happy go lucky, but describe and commend the good life,[8] and not the good life or an ethic for back then but even now, for us.[9] To be envied is to do and be like this…

To be envied are the beggars for the Spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.[10]

The “poor in spirit” are not those who lack God or have weak character. Rather, these are the ones claimed by God but poor, those held captive by oppression, those refused the material liberation of God. [11] These people know their need for God, cry out to God, call on God, and take God as God. It is these who have the kingdom of God because they are with God[12] and loved by God and in this love the kingdom is now and to come.[13]

To be envied are the ones who mourn, because they, they will be comforted.

Like those before who are “poor in spirit” and those who follow (the meek and those who hunger and thirst), those who mourn have comfort in that they are those who are with God because God is in our suffering.[14] And in being with God, having God’s life and love there is the possibility that this heavy grief will not always be so, that there is more to this material existence than what can be seen and touched right now.[15]

To be envied are the meek, because they, they will inherit the earth.

Meekness here harkens back to “poor in spirit”, these are the ones who love their neighbor as themselves, serving the neighbor in their freedom, feeling compassion and sympathy for the plight of their neighbor. The meek live among the sufferers in this life and make it their aim to alleviate that suffering, to bring God close.[16] For these meek ones are servants of all, live by the law of love for their neighbor before God, and are the ones who inherit the earth at the expense of those claiming the earth for themselves now at the expense of their neighbor.

To be envied are the ones who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they, they will be satisfied.

Those who are hungry are hungry for justice, those who are thirsty are thirsty for righteousness; and this hunger and thirst fuels the embers of the fires of God’s love and justice.[17] These are the ones who desire earnestly (2x!) to live into the calling of God on their lives made known through their baptism and faith in God, and to participate in God’s mission of love, liberation, and life in the world. These are they who step into the responsibility of representing God in the world and eliminating alienation and isolation.[18] By this activity they satisfy their hunger and thirst for justice and righteousness come.

To be envied are the merciful, because they, they will be shown mercy.

Just like those who judge will be judged and those who forgive will be forgiven, those who show mercy will be shown mercy. In other words, those who are merciful are those who offer grace to other fellow humans trying to get from point A to point B, those who share in the pain in the world and celebrate the joy, those who are willing to let go of societal standards of “an eye for an eye”.[19]

To be envied are the pure in heart, because they, they will see God.”

This is less about being sinless and more about being declared pure apart from your material and social circumstances that would render you “unclean” for lack of “outward purity”.[20] Godliness is about one’s trust and faith in and love of God made most manifest in love of one’s neighbor; it’s not about being ritualistically clean and upright thus removed from being able to love one’s neighbor no matter what.

To be envied are the peacemakers, because they, they will be called children of God.”

Those born of God are born of love, of life, of peace. Thus, the peacemakers are not those who merely present a peaceful demeanor in the world, benefitting only themselves. These are they who “make peace” by causing reconciliation where there is estrangement, reuniting others, and letting love do what love does: turn the enemy into the beloved.[21]

To be envied are the ones who are persecuted on account of righteousness, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. You are to be envied whenever people revile you both persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be fully of joy, because your reward is great in the heavens, for in this way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Of interest here are those who are blessed because they are persecuted and not only because they’re upright, but upright specifically related to following Jesus.[22] It’s not a lifestyle that is good, but one that adheres to the authority and principles of Jesus; this is the reason for the persecution. In adhering to the radical demands of Christ by pursuing justice, peace, mercy, and love in the world,[23] the disciples will end up challenging the self-conceptions of others who live according to the world[24] and persecution will follow. Then Jesus does something at the end of the text, according to Matthew, he draws a correlation between those who do his will with the prophets. Those who follow Jesus and do as he did are grafted into the great line of prophets, those who declare God’s kingdom come, those who advocate for the sufferers and oppressed are those who share in the great prophetic tradition and participate in the prophetic voice.[25]

Conclusion

Beloved, the “sermon among the hills” is the foundation of our ethical activity in the world. Loved by the radical God of Love made known to us in Christ, we love radically like God, risking our creaturely comforts and daring to stand out[26] we bring and declare this love into the world.[27] We’re called by and in faith to be born anew into a new life defined by God’s will and desire to seek and save the lost, to liberate the captives, to bring good news to the poor and destitute, those struggling to live and exist. We are created anew to be God’s representatives in the name of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit in the world. We are to feel our discontentment with the world because God is discontent with the way the world is for God’s beloved.[28] We’re to press into God by pressing into the plight of our brothers and sisters, in this the light breaks through the darkness, hope defeats hopelessness,[29] and love births life.[30]

The following is taken from Ernesto Cardenal’s poem, “Coplas on the death of Merton”,[31]

Love, love above all, an anticipation
of death
            There was a taste of death in the kisses
                        being
                                    is being
                                                in another being
            we exist only in love
But in this life we love only briefly
and feebly
            We love or exist only when we stop being
when we die
            nakedness of the whole being in order to make love
                                    make love not war
                        that go to empty into the love
                        that is life

[1] RT France, in his commentary, makes the compelling case that the location where Jesus sits and teaches his disciples in this pericope are “hills” rather than a mountain (which is the technical translation of to oros). France uses the corresponding text in the gospel of Luke which describes Jesus as going down to this location…

[2] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007. 157-158.

[3] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2015. 71-72. “The Sermon on the Mount, in its clarion call to a radically different way of life, does unmask the sinfulness of the life we now live—turned in on ourselves as we are. Indeed, it makes our need for God’s grace very clear, but the message also moves and motivates us toward the higher righteousness to which Jesus calls us. It does so not by giving a set of prescriptions to be followed in a legalistic manner but rather examples of life oriented by the love of God and neighbor.”

[4] Cardenal, Solentiname, 89-90. “WILLIAM: ‘And Jesus compares us with the prophets. The prophets in the Bible were not so much people who predicted the future as people who denounced the present. They were protesting against the celebrations in the palaces, the cheating on the weights and the coins, the things that they bought very cheap from the labor of the poor, the swindles of widows and orphans, the abuses committed by the mafias of priests, the murders, the royal policy that they called prostitution, the dependence on foreign imperialisms. And it’s true they also predicted something for the future-the liberation of the oppressed. Christ says that our fate has to be like the fate of those prophets.’”

[5] France, Matthew, 160-161.

[6] France, Matthew, 160-161. The Hebrew equivalent of Makarios is asre rather than the more theologically loaded baruk, ‘blessed (by God).’ The traditional English rendering ‘blessed’ thus also has too theological a connotation in modern usage; the Greek term for ‘blessed (by God)’ is eulogetos, not makarios.

[7] France, Matthew, 160-161. “The sense of congratulation and commendation is perhaps better convened by ‘happy,’ but this term generally has too psychological a connotation: makarios does not state that a person feels happy … but that they are in a ‘happy’ situation, one which other people ought also to wish to share.”

[8] France, Matthew, 160-161. “The Australian idiom ‘Good on yer’ is perhaps as close as any to the sense, but would not communicate in the rest of the English-speaking world!…Beatitudes are descriptions, and commendations, of the good life.”

[9] Case-Winters, Matthew, 71. “I would propose that the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount is a fitting ethic nor just for ‘the interim’ and not just tor an inner circle, but for followers of Jesus in all times and places. It has been pointed out that a new way of life is at the heart of the gospel call.”

[10] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[11] Ernesto Cardenal The Gospel in Solentiname Trans. Donald D. Walsh. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 82. “I said that in the Bible the poor are often called anawim, which in Hebrew means ‘the poor of Yahweh.’ They are so called because they are the poor of the liberation of Yahweh, those that God is going to liberate by means of the Messiah. It’s like what we now understand as the ‘oppressed,’ but in the Bible those poor people are also considered to be good people, honorable, kindly and holy, while their opposites are the oppressors, the rich, the proud, the impious.”

[12] France, Matthew, 165. “‘Poverty in spirit’ is not speaking of weakness of character (‘mean-spiritedness’) but rather of a person’s relationship with God. It is a positive spiritual orientation, the converse of the arrogant self-confidence which only rides roughshod over the interests of other people but more importantly causes a person to treat God as irrelevant. To say that it is to such people that kingdom of heaven belongs means (not, of course, that they themselves hold royal authority but) that they are the ones who gladly accept God’s rule and who therefore enjoy the benefits which come to his subjects.”

[13] Cardenal, Solentiname, 83. “And OSCAR’S MOTHER: ‘It seems to me that the kingdom is love. Love in this life. And heaven is for those who love here, because God is love’”

[14] Case-Winters, Matthew, 76-77. “The first four beatitudes declare blessing for those who were traditionally understood as being defended by God: the poor, those who mourn, the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, justice.”

[15] France, Matthew, 166. “For those who, as God’s people, find their current situation intolerable and incomprehensible, there are better times ahead.”

[16] France, Matthew, 166. “‘Meek,’ like ‘poor in spirit,’ speaks not only of those who are in fact disadvantaged and powerless, but also of those whose attitude is not arrogant and oppressive. The term in itself may properly be understood of their relations with other people; they are those who do not throw their weight about.”

[17] Cardenal, Solentiname, 86. “MARCELINO: ‘He blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice. Hunger and injustice amount to the same thing. Anyone who hungers for food also hungers for justice. They are the ones who are going to make social change, not the satisfied ones. And then they’ll be filled with bread and social justice.’”

[18] France, Matthew, 167-168. Dikaiosyne “It is thus better understood here not of those who wish to see God’s will prevail in the world in general or on their own behalf in particular, but of those who are eager themselves to live as God requires, those who can say, as Jesus himself is recorded as saying in John 4:34, ‘My food is to do the will of the one who me.’”

[19] France, Matthew, 168. “‘Mercy’ is closely with forgiveness, but is broader here than just the forgiveness of specific offenses: it is a generous attitude which is willing to see things from the other’s point of view and is not quick to take offense or to gloat over others’ shortcomings (the prime characteristic of love according to 1 Cor 13:4-7). Mercy sets aside society’s assumption that it is honorable to demand revenge.”

[20] France, Matthew, 168. “In the context of first-century Judaism, with its strong emphasis on ritual ‘purity’, the phrase ‘pure in heart’ might also be understood to imply a contrast with the meticulous preservation of outward purity which will be condemned in 23:25-28 as having missed the point of godliness…”

[21] France, Matthew, 169. “This beatitude goes beyond a merely peaceful disposition to an active attempt to ‘make’ peace, perhaps by seeking reconciliation with one’s own enemies, but also more generally by bringing together those who estranged from one another.”

[22] France, Matthew, 172. “A significant new note in comparison with v. 10 is that the cause of persecution is not simply ‘righteousness,’ the distinctive lifestyle of the disciples, but more specifically ‘because of me,’ a phrase which makes it clear that this discourse is not just a call to conduct but is grounded in the unique authority and radical demands of Jesus himself.”

[23] Cardenal, Solentiname, 88. “ALEJANDRO: ‘And he says that they are going to be persecuted because they seek justice, and for that also he blesses them. Because it’s clear that people who look for this kingdom have to be persecuted.”

[24] France, Matthew, 169-170. “The pursuit of ‘righteousness’ (v. 6) can arouse opposition from those whose interests or self-respect may be threatened by it. Already in the commendation of the merciful and the peacemakers these beatitudes have marked out the true disciple not as a hermit engaged in the solitary pursuit of holiness but as one engaged in society, and such engagement has its cost. As the following verses will spell out more fully, to live as subjects of the kingdom of heaven is to be set over against the rest of society which does not its values, and the result may be – indeed, the uncompromising wording of this beatitude suggests that it will be—persecution.”

[25] France, Matthew, 173. “Those who have spoken out for God have always been liable to the violent reprisal of the ungodly. In the light of that heritage, to be persecuted for the sake of Jesus is a badge of honor. The phrase ‘the prophets who came before you’ perhaps suggests that Jesus’ disciples are now the prophetic voice on earth (cf. 10:41; 23:34).”

[26] France, Matthew, 159. “The sharply paradoxical character of most of its recommendations reverses the conventional values of society—it commends those whom the world in general would dismiss as losers and wimps; compare the presentation of disciples as ‘little ones’ in 10:42; 18:6, 10.14; 25:40 (cf. the ‘little children’ of 11:25). The Beatitudes thus call on those who would be God’s people to stand out as different from those around them, and promise them that those who do so will not ultimately be the losers.”

[27] Case-Winters, Matthew, 77. “In a way the beatitudes are ‘more description than instruction;’ they are a kind of report from the other side of radical commitment for those who have entered into life within God’s community of love and justice. For those who have ‘crossed over’ there is genuine blessedness. They are living-even now-in the reign of God.”

[28] Case-Winters, Matthew, 78. “If we would-even now-live under the reign of God, there are implications. The alternative reality will chaff against the present reality. To love as God loves is to be discontented with the present reality. ‘Until the eschatological reversal takes place, it is not possible to be content with the status quo.’ In our discontent, we may pray with William Sloane Coffin, ‘Because we love the world. . . . we pray now… for grace to quarrel with it, O Thou Whose lover’s quarrel with the world is the history of the world…’”

[29] Dorothee Soelle On Earth as in Heaven: A Liberation Spirituality of Sharing Trans. Marc Batko. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993. 50-51. “Christian hope in the tradition of the supernatural virtues, that is, of virtues poured into us by grace, is distinguished from the hope of the observer by sharing, cooperation, and participation. Chrisitan hope is hope in which I share in the production of another state. The hope of peace lives with the peacemakers and not beyond them. Participation in the struggle distinguishes this hope form the contemplative observation that is optimist once moment ad resigned the next.

[30] France, Matthew, 171-172. “Light is of no use under a bowl. It is the town conspicuously sited on hill which people notice. And the outcome of distinctive discipleship is intended to be that other people will notice and, though sometimes they may respond with cynicism and persecution, ultimately the light will have its effect and they will recognize and acknowledge the goodness of the God is its source, Disciples, therefore, must be both distinctive and involved. Neither the indistinguishably assimilated nor the inaccessible hermit will fulfill the mandate of these challenging verses.”

[31] Ernesto Cardenal Apocalypse and other poems Trans. Thomas Merton, Kenneth Rexroth, and Mireya Jaimes-Freyre. Eds. Robert Pring-Mill, Donald D. Walsh. New York, NY: New Directions Publishing, 1977. 47.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0