The Lively Lectionary Old Testament is a blog that reflects on the Old Testament text from the Revised Common Lectionary each week.
Truly, this text for today is one of the Bible’s greatest poems. Its language and cadence are unforgettable, its theological thrust unmatched, its structure a superlative example of ancient Israelite verse.
Those who claim to speak for God may be believed for a moment, or even for a brief time, but over time their words and things may prove empty and hollow, given what finally comes of their words.
Jonah is the Bible’s best joke book. It is “Saturday Night Live,” “John Oliver,” and Jerry Seinfeld rolled into one. One simply cannot preach from this book with a straight face or without tongue squarely in cheek.
Israel is in need of a new mediator, and the calling of Samuel is proof that such a mediator is at hand. The famous three-times divine call to then boy is couched in ancient storyteller language.
In Is.60 there are multiple references to “light” out of darkness: “Arise, shine, for your light has come,” he begins and continues by describing earth and its people covered with “thick darkness,” but enlightened by “the Lord,” and the “Lord’s glory.” And this great light will be a beacon for the nations, represented by their kings who will “come to the brightness of your dawn.”
After three weeks with Isaiah, who helped us get clearer about what we can expect on Christmas, the sort of God who will appear and how, we now turn in a rather odd direction, toward a passage from the long and complex tale of Saul, Samuel, and David, found in 1 and 2 Samuel and the first two chapters of 1 Kings.
We continue our look at the surprising baby for this Advent season. We may have thought we needed a God who “tears the skies” and comes down in ferocious wrath against our enemies, cleansing the world of them and leaving us, the faithful ones, as the true chosen of God. But, surprise, surprise! What we received instead was a peaceful shepherd, carrying silly lambs in divine arms, gently guiding those who are pregnant.
During the two-generation exile, Israel found itself trapped in a theological cauldron with multiple competing voices trying to explain just what had happened to the chosen people of YHWH, just why land, king, and temple, had been snatched away. YHWH’s very first word to them is “comfort,” spoken “tenderly” (to the heart) to Jerusalem, assuring them that their “time of service,” and their “penalty” has been paid and that it was all too true that YHWH had indeed punished them for all their monstrous deeds (Is.40:1-2). But all that is now past.
I am struck by Is.64:1-2, and its hope: “If only (or “O that you would…”) tear open the skies and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence…to make known your name to your adversaries, so that nations might tremble at your presence!” Such language is generated by a people who find themselves helpless in the midst of multiple trials that they cannot seem to overcome.
Using the imagery of Israel as sheep, and reminding them that only God is finally the shepherd, the prophet promises that the great shepherd will once again call all the sheep together, and give them rich Israelite mountain pastures (Ez.34:14), making them “lie down,” using a clear echo from Psalm 23.
The prose account of Judges 4, locked as it is into the unbreakable Deuteronomic pattern of Israelite sin, divine punishment, enemy oppression, and eventual victory by means of a savior, leading again to sin, would appear to undercut any possible literary artistry. However, a closer look reveals considerable flair within the straightjacket of the pattern.
Refusing to look at the contexts in which texts are ensconced is to run the risk of completely misrepresenting and misusing material for foolish or even dangerous purposes. Today’s reading presents such a problem.
© SMU Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence
