·
17 Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, and
Martyr, 1977
·
18 Martin Luther, 1546
·
20 Frederick Douglass,
Prophetic Witness, 1895
·
21 John Henry Newman, priest and theologian, 1890
·
22 Eric Liddell, Missionary to China, 1945
·
23 Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr of Smyrna, 156 According
to the Martyrdom of Polycarp he died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire
failed to touch him.[2] Polycarp is regarded as a saint and Church Father in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches. His name 'Polycarp' means 'much fruit' in
Greek.
OLD
TESTAMENT: Jeremiah 17: 5 - 10 (RCL)
Jeremiah 17: 5 -
8 (Roman Catholic)
Jere 17:5 (NRSV)
Thus says the LORD:
Cursed are those
who trust in mere mortals
and make mere
flesh their strength,
whose hearts turn
away from the LORD.
6 They shall be
like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see
when relief comes.
They shall live in
the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited
salt land.
7 Blessed are
those who trust in the LORD,
whose trust is the
LORD.
8 They shall be
like a tree planted by water,
sending out its
roots by the stream.
It shall not fear
when heat comes,
and its leaves
shall stay green;
in the year of
drought it is not anxious,
and it does not
cease to bear fruit.
9 The heart is
devious above all else;
it is perverse-
who can understand
it?
10 I the LORD test
the mind
and search the
heart,
to give to all
according to their ways,
according to the
fruit of their doings.
PSALM 1 (RCL, ECUSA)
Psalm 1: 1 - 4,
6 (Roman Catholic)
Psal 1:1 (NRSV)
Happy are those
who do not follow
the advice of the wicked,
or take the path
that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat
of scoffers;
2 but their
delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law
they meditate day and night.
3 They are like
trees
planted by streams
of water,
which yield their
fruit in its season,
and their leaves
do not wither.
In all that they
do, they prosper.
4 The wicked are
not so,
but are like chaff
that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the
wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the
congregation of the righteous;
6 for the LORD
watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the
wicked will perish.
1 Beatus vir qui non abiit (ECUSA BCP)
1 Happy are they who have not walked in
the counsel of
the wicked, *
nor
lingered in the way of sinners,
nor
sat in the seats of the scornful!
2 Their
delight is in the law of the Lord, *
and
they meditate on his law day and night.
3 They
are like trees planted by streams of water,
bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; *
everything
they do shall prosper.
4 It
is not so with the wicked; *
they
are like chaff which the wind blows away.
5 Therefore
the wicked shall not stand upright when
judgment comes, *
nor
the sinner in the council of the righteous.
6 For
the Lord knows the way of the righteous, *
but
the way of the wicked is doomed.
NEW
TESTAMENT: 1 Corinthians 15: 12 -
20 (RCL)
1
Corinthians 15: 12, 16 - 20 (Roman
Catholic)
1Cor 15:12 (NRSV)
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say
there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the
dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised,
then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15 We
are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he
raised Christ-whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If
Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your
sins. 18 Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. 19 If for this
life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20 But in fact
Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.
Paul continues his
argument against those at Corinth who deny that Christians will be resurrected
bodily. He has written of three basic doctrines he has received and passed on:
Christ died, was buried, and rose. Perhaps he is countering some who attached
all importance to the spirit, thus neglecting physical, earthly, living.
Perhaps they, under the influence of the philosopher Philo of Alexandria,
believed that they already possessed eternal life. For such people,
resurrection would be meaningless. It was commonly thought that only the soul
is immortal. He now confronts these people with a logical argument and the
consequences of their denial, and tells the benefits of affirming resurrection.
In v. 12,
he restates a point: a tenet of our faith is that Jesus physically rose after
being dead. He did this as a human being, so how can some argue that physical
resurrection of humans does not exist? In vv. 13ff,
he states five logical consequences if these people are correct:
Jesus was not raised (vv. 13,16);
Paul’s (“our”, v. 14)
preaching is “in vain”, unproductive, i.e. has not introduced anything new into
his readers’ lives;
the faith of his readers is “futile” (v. 17),
ineffective, pointless, so they are still subject to God’s wrath for their sins
(vv. 14, 17);
he has taught something about God which is not true (v. 15)
and
those Christians “who have died” (v. 18)
are definitively lost (“have perished”).
Then v. 19:
if our faith in Christ stops with his death (i.e. does not include his
raising), we are living a hoax, and a tough one: Christian life involves
suffering, disappointment, etc., so we are “most to be pitied”. Jesus’ death
alone doesn’t gain forgiveness of sins (v. 17):
it’s his resurrection that does. If he did not rise, we are caught in affirming
death rather than life. But, says Paul (v. 20),
Jesus really was raised. In fact, he was the forerunner, the model for
all those who have died (and of those yet to die). The “first fruits” of the
harvest (the initial yield) was offered to God as a symbol of offering the
whole harvest to him.
Verse
14: “in vain”: The Greek word, a technical
term for Paul, is kenos, meaning unproductive. In
v. 17, mataia,
“futile” is even stronger. Paul also uses kenos in 15:10, 58;
2 Corinthians 6:1;
Philippians 2:16;
1 Thessalonians 2:1; 3:5.
[ NJBC]
Verse
17: This is the key argument, and the one
most likely to hit home with the Corinthian Christians. They
thought themselves wisdom-filled (in 1:30,
Paul writes that Christ “became for us wisdom from God”) precisely as Christians.
Through conversion to Christ they had been changed, raised to a new level of
being, but if Christ was not as Paul said, then nothing had altered: they were
like other humans. [ NJBC]
Verse
18: In 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17,
Paul writes: “... this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who
are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede
those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the
archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven,
and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left,
will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air;
and so we will be with the Lord forever”. [ NOAB]
Verse
19: Scholars differ as to how to interpret
this verse; several consider that the meaning is obscure.
Verses
20-28: Human logic here gives way to the
passion of the prophet proclaiming a conviction that transcends reason and
experience. [ NJBC]
Verse
20: “first fruits”: The Old Testament
origins are in Exodus 23:19 (“The
choicest of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of
the Lord your God”);
Leviticus 23:10; Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Numbers 18:16-18; Ezekiel 44:30. [CAB]
Verses
21-28: Jesus’ resurrection is the first
step in a series of God’s actions which will culminate in the final triumph of
his purpose for the whole of creation.
Verses
21-23: Jesus is the prototype of the new
creation as Adam was of the old: see also Romans 5:12-21:
“... just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through
sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned ...”.
Verse
23: “first fruits”: Elsewhere Paul carries
the metaphor of first fruits further than he does here. [ CAB]
Verse
23: “at his coming”: i.e. at the glorious
return of Christ (see 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 4:13-17,
quoted above), at the time of the general resurrection. [ NJBC]
Verses
24-27: Christ’s “enemies” are the demonic
powers dominating the present age; one of these is “death”. [ NOAB]
Verse
24: “every ruler ...”: i.e. powers hostile
to authentic humanity: in Romans 8:38-39,
Paul writes: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”. See also Colossians 1:16; 2:10;
Ephesians 1:21.
[ NJBC]
Verse
25: Paul quotes Psalm 110:1b (“Sit
at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool”) implicitly. [ NJBC]
Verse
25: “his enemies”: i.e. demonic powers
dominating the present age, one of which is death.
Verse
26: “death”: For the personification of
death in the Old Testament, see Psalms 33:19; 49:14;
Jeremiah 9:20-22;
Habakkuk 2:5.
[ NJBC]
Verse
27: Psalm 8:6 (“...
you have put all things under their feet ...”) is also associated with
Psalm 110:1 in
Ephesians 1:20-22and
Hebrews 2:8-10.
[ CAB] The emphasis is on “all”,
including Death, but to avoid a misunderstanding, Paul explains: those in
subjection do not include “the one” (God) who subjected all things to “him”,
Christ. [ NJBC]
Verse
27: “his feet”: i.e. Christ’s. [ NOAB]
Verse
28: At the end of time, there will be no
more struggle so Christ, who now exercises the sovereignty of God, will remit
into the hands of the Father the authority given to him for his mission of
salvation. [ NJBC]
Verse
29: “those people ... who receive baptism
on behalf of the dead”: A practice otherwise unknown. Presumably Christians
accepted baptism on behalf of loved ones who had died without being baptised,
in order that the latter might share in the final resurrection. Without
advocating this practice, Paul makes it a point in his argument. [ NOAB] CAB thinks that Paul is taking a
hypothetical case.
Verse
31: The Corinthians are Paul’s boast.
In 9:2,
he writes “you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord”, and in 2
Corinthians 3:2:
“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by
all”. [ NJBC]
Verse
32: It is unknown whether the fighting
“with wild animals” is to be taken literally or is merely a strong metaphor.
In 4:9,
Paul writes: “... I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as
though sentenced to death ...”. In any case, Paul had bitter and dangerous
enemies. [ NOAB] CAB thinks that this is a
hypothetical example. He notes that this letter was written from “Ephesus”. By
translating the first words of the verse differently, NJBC argues that fighting with the
animals at Ephesus should be taken figuratively.
Verse
32: The citation, which is from
Isaiah 22:13,
would have evoked Epicurean sayings;
those who denied physical resurrection would not have wanted to be associated
with such materialists. [ NJBC]
Verse
33: Quoting a proverb from a play by the
Athenian poet Menander, Paul warns the Corinthians not to associate with those
who deny the resurrection. [ NOAB]
[ CAB] Here “bad company” means
those who deny physical resurrection. [NJBC]
GOSPEL: Luke 6: 17 - 26 (RCL, ECUSA)
Luke 6: 17, 20 - 26 (Roman Catholic)
Luke 6:17 (NRSV)
He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his
disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the
coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their
diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And
all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and
healed all of them.
20 Then he looked
up at his disciples and said:
""Blessed
are you who are poor,
for yours is the
kingdom of God.
21 "Blessed
are you who are hungry now,
for you will be
filled.
""Blessed
are you who weep now,
for you will
laugh.
22 "Blessed
are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame
you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for
surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to
the prophets.
24 "But woe
to you who are rich,
for you have
received your consolation.
25 "Woe to
you who are full now,
for you will be
hungry.
""Woe to
you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn
and weep.
26 "Woe to
you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the
false prophets.
Jesus has ascended a
mountain to pray. While there, he has chosen twelve of his disciples, his
followers, to be apostles. Now he descends part-way, to a “level place”. There
he finds other followers and many others, from Israel and beyond (“Tyre and
Sidon”, v. 17).
Many are healed, both of known “diseases” (v. 18)
and of being possessed. Evil “spirits” made them ritually “unclean”
so they were not permitted to share in corporate worship of God.
Luke tells us of
four beatitudes (vv. 20-22)
and corresponding woes or warnings of deprivation in the age
to come. Some are “blessed” (happy) by being included in the Kingdom Jesus
brings. The warnings are prophecies, cautions. The pairs are:
The “poor” (v. 20)
are those who acknowledge their dependence on God; the “rich” (v. 24)
do not want to commit themselves to Jesus and the Kingdom; they are comfortable
with the existence they have now. The Greek word translated “consolation”
(v. 24)
is a financial term: the “rich” do not realize what they owe to Jesus. The
“hungry” (v. 25)
hunger for the word of God, the good news; the “full” are the materially
satisfied. In v. 22,
“exclude” means socially ostracized and excluded from the synagogue and Temple.
The “Son of Man” has a corporate sense: it includes Jesus and his followers:
they will be persecuted, as Israel (“their ancestors”, v. 23)
persecuted Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Amos, but “in that day” (at the end of the
era), they will be rewarded. Jeremiah 5:31 says
that people spoke well of “false prophets” (v. 26).
© 1996-2019
Chris Haslam
|
Verse 17: “Tyre and Sidon”: Perhaps some who came from these
cities were Gentiles.
Verse 18: Disease and possession by evil spirits were seen as
closely linked. [ NOAB]
Verse 19: “power”: 4:33-36 tells
us: “In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon
... They were all amazed and kept saying to one another, ‘What kind of
utterance is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean
spirits, and out they come!’”, and 5:17 says:
“One day, while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were
sitting near by (they had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and
from Jerusalem); and the power of the Lord was with him to heal”. [ BlkLk]
Verses 20-23: Matthew presents beatitudes in 5:3-12.
In Luke 4:18-19 Jesus
reads from Isaiah in the synagogue: “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to
proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let
the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour’”. The order
of the Beatitudes is different in Matthew and Luke, perhaps indicating that
the authors drew from different sources (either oral or written). While Matthew
has nine beatitudes and no woes, Luke has four of each. The woes
are in the same order as the beatitudes, e.g. the first beatitude speaks of
“the poor” and the first woe concerns “the rich”. [ JBC]
Verse 20: “poor”: Jesus has special love for the unfortunate. The
Greek word is ptochoi; in the Septuagint translation of
the Old Testament, it usually means the lowly who depend desperately
on God for help. See Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12.
[ JBC]
Verse 20: Here, and in 4:18,
Jesus fulfils the prophecy of Isaiah 61:1:
he has been “anointed ... to bring good news to the oppressed” and “to
proclaim liberty to the captives”. [ BlkLk]
Verses 21-26: In Matthew 5:1-12,
Jesus gives the Beatitudes on a mountain, in the Sermon on the Mount. He has
fewer teachings here than appear there; he includes others found elsewhere in
Matthew. Vv. 24-26 appear
only here. [ NOAB] CABnotes three other differences from
the story in Matthew:
NJBC postulates that vv. 20b-23 are
derived from Q (the sayings
source) and are therefore found in both Luke and Matthew.
Verse 21: “hungry now”: Amos 8:11ff tells
of a time when there will be famine of a different kind:
“The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on
the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the
words of the Lord”. Deuteronomy 8:3 says:
“He [Yahweh] humbled you [people of Israel] by letting you hunger, then by
feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were
acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread
alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord ”.
See also and Luke 4:4.
[ JBC]
Verse 22: John 9:22 refers
to the exclusion of Christians from synagogues: “the Jews had already agreed
that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the
synagogue”. John 12:42 says:
“... many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the
Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the
synagogue”. See also 16:1-2.
[ BlkLk]
Verse 22: “Son of Man”: For the corporate sense of this phrase,
see Daniel 7:13ff, 18 (“...
the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the
kingdom forever ...”). There it is used of the persecuted saints in the trial
at the end of time. [ JBC] The
footnote in the NRSV says that the Aramaic words translated “human being” in
Daniel 7:13 literally
mean son of man.
Verse 23: “in that day”: This expression was launched by Amos ( 2:16 and 5:18)
and given firm place by Isaiah in 2:11; 3:18; 4:2; 7:20.
[ JBC]
Verse 23: “ancestors”: Tradition said that Isaiah was also
persecuted. [ BlkLk]
Verse 24: From v. 18,
it is probable that few “rich” people were present. So is Luke writing for
his own church (possibly in Antioch)? Note also “their ancestors” in
vv. 23, 26.
Verse 25: See also 12:19-20 (the
Parable of the Rich Fool); 16:25 (the
rich man and Lazarus); James 5:1-5.
[ NOAB]
Verse 25a: This thought is akin to that of Jeremiah 31:10ff,
in which ransomed Jacob will come to the good things of the Lord and will not
hunger anymore. See John 6:35 and
Revelation 7:16.
The Septuagint translation
of Jeremiah 31:14 is
(translated into English) “my people shall be satisfied with my bounty”. The
same Greek word appears in the Septuagint and here in Luke: there rendered as
“satisfied” and here as “full”. [ BlkLk]
© 1996-2019
Chris Haslam
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