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This Weaks' Hermeneutic includes commentary and reflection on the Revised Common Lectionary readings for the week. While these these reflections serve as "sermon starters," they are offered for use in your personal spiritual journey, and in honor of the faithful preachers who search each week for a relevant and genuine Word to share with the community of faith. This Weaks' Hermeneutic is normally posted by Tuesday for the upcoming Sunday. In addition, I will occassionally post a full sermon. My Ph.D. work in Biblical Studies is fulfilling only in that it serves the greater purpose of sharing the work with the wider church. If you find this page helpful for your spiritual journey, or sermon preparation, I would love to hear from you.
May God bless you with grace and peace as you serve,
Joe Weaks
Hermeneutical Reflections
First Sunday of Advent
November 28, 1999
(For a Thanksgiving Sermon, see Last Weaks' Hermeneutic.)
Old Testament
Isaiah 64:1-9
A striking text with several themes. One is nostalgia: There is in the text the longing for the way things used to be. The Church has specialized in nostalgia. Through restoration sentiments, through throwback beliefs, we cry out that things are what they used to be. People used to go to church. People used to tithe. People used to... I always get nervous when the past is more than a foundation, and becomes an anchor preventing us from moving forward.
Another theme is the yearning for God's time to come. True, things aren't good as gravy presently. But this precoccupation with the end time is unhelpful. (See the longer reflection under Mark 13.)
Finally, notice the tone of Isaiah in vss. 8 and 9. It is as if he's attempting to pursuade and convince God. "Lord, you are our Father, and whatever we are was made by you, like a potter and his clay. So, don't forget that and be angry at us." This is true intercession.
Psalm
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
What could we act out in worship that would make us feel restored?
Epistle
1Corinthians 1:3-9
1Corinthians 1:3-9
My own translation of vss. 8 and 9: "Jesus Christ also will confirm you as blameless, until the culmination*1, on the day of our Lord Jesus *2. Faithful is God, through whom you were called into the common relationship*3 with the his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
*1=telos means more than end. It is the final purpose, the culmination of God's will for Creation.
*2=Sinaiticus and P46 do not have the word for Christ here. I believe it was added by a later scribe to coincide with the other references.
*3=koinwnia can be more than fellowship. It is communion.
Gospel
Mark 13:24-37
Worry of the future--the sin of not trusting God
The church begins Advent, turning its attention to the anticipation of Christ coming into the world anew. And yet with professional hockey, football, cricket and basketball in full swing around the world, I am saddened that attention is drawn away from the church. However, at so many of these sporting events, you often see religious folk displaying their religiosity. The sterotypical one is the guy who must have a season ticket to every sporting event. The John 3:16 guy. Everyone has seen the guy who holds up that sign. I've seen a man with sandals and a cloak holding up and waving a sign; and the sign read: "Be prepared, the world is ending tomorrow!" Funny how he's there every time though. The future and the end times and signs. Not just signs we hold up but signs that we observe in the world. This is the content of Mark in the 13th chapter.
The thirteenth chapter of Mark is somewhat unique in the gospel because it is apocalyptic literature, a form of prophecy. This is the form of literature we find also in Revelation and Daniel and much of Ezekiel and Isaiah among others. It uses imagery to speak in futuristic terms about the present. We shouldn't reduce prophecy to prediction; it is about the "now." Jesus was giving instruction about how to live now. But I'm afraid that the fanaticism with end times will always be an easy word to spread. And as we get closer to the year 2000, preoccupation with the calendar and the end times will increase.
It is difficult not to get sucked into this frame of thought. They play on our fears and anxieties. An issue of the Weekly World News, had a headline as such. It's one of those magazines that you see right next to the cash register in the grocery store with a headline about the 60 pound woman giving birth to a 150 pound pig. There was a headline right next to that one that said "Warning! The end of the world is near. World's top twelve Bible scholars all agree! Prepare now before it is too late!"
And it makes me think, "What, the top twelve Bible scholars? I better read that." And I turn on my TV and I see someone coming on late into the evening saying, "Salvation is at hand." And I say, "Well, I thought so too." "No, you don't understand; it is coming in a couple of weeks. I can tell you exactly when for the low, one time only, price of $50." And I think, "Hey, that is a Christian station isn't it? He's a reverend isn't he? He must know the scriptures. I might ought to get that book."
I wonder if it is a sin, the sin of mistrust, to spend all of ones time focused on the end times? Is wanting to know when the end will be, sin of not trusting in God? But we do not know the day nor the hour. Do I have time to go home and get more fuel for my lamp? NO! Be prepared! Can I go first and bury my father? Noone who sets their plow to the task and then turn back and take care of something else. Will I have prior notice when the master will return? No, keep awake.
The passage raises interesting thoughts about the significance of the end times. It's possible that obsession concerning the end time, although packaged in spiritual language, is the very desire to live our lives independently of God. If we have a knowledge of when the eschaton is, then we have control over our own lives--the way we want to live right up to the last possible moment. Would we only be concerned about God if we believed the end was near? As a child, I would watch cartoons all day, until I heard my mother pull up into the driveway. I would then turn off the TV and scamper to my room and look busy cleaning.
Concern to even prove the end is near is in a way giving support to this end time thinking. And Jesus declared that such thinking is irrelevant. Or at best pointless. We have nothing to fear. The victory Jesus accomplishes includes the victory over death, which is the ultimate end time. Jesus ushers in a new time where death is no longer the end. Life is the end, the purpose. Jesus reasserts God's authorship of time and through Christ we all have new life. And so wars are of no consequence. They simply indicate the birth pains of new life in Jesus Christ. And so it is with the love of God. Confident that God's love is sure and steadfast we are free from worry about the end times. And free to actively love others in Christ's name. So be wary of not trusting God, or the desire to put trust in others such as a man who fell off a cliff. Plunging to his death, he reached out and found a branch sticking out from the cliff that he grabbed hold of. Doing all he knew to do, though it seemed pointless, he cried out; "Help, help, someone help me!" Of course no response. He's by himself alone on this cliff. "Help!" And then a voice came from above that said, "Let go." And he asked, "Who is that up there?" And the voice said, "This is God." And he said, "Is there anyone else up there?"
It is not easy always to trust. To put away worry. There was a newspaper comic that had a guy with a long beard, similar to the one we often see at the stadium at sporting events. And he too had a sign. And he held it up. But it read instead, "The end is not coming tomorrow, you must learn to cope."
Let us have patience in the Lord, and live each day as if it was God's. And keep awake, knowing not the day nor the hour.
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