The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Ordinary Time
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1 Kings 17:10-16
Chps 17-19 are stories of Israel’s greatest prophet, Elijah. He began prophesying in the reign of Ahab, who was married to Jezebel, the de facto ruler of the kingdom and Elijah’s staunch enemy. Elijah means “my God is YHWH.”
At the beginning of chp 17, God predicts a 3-year drought through Elijah. And then God has Elijah do something very interesting in vv2-4: run and hide! I find it interesting that God sends him to a wadi. In the Middle East, many places experience rainy seasons and distinctly dry seasons. In the rainy seasons, rivers form to channel the water. In the dry season, these rivers become dry riverbeds, called wadis. Wadi Cherith might be a raging river right now, but, if what God says is true, it’s about to dry up. But Elijah goes and God takes care of him.
Eventually, the wadi does dry up, but, again, God provides in an unlikely way. Here’s Israel’s greatest prophet; he’s hungry and thirsty and God’s provisions seem to have run out. God says don’t worry; go to this little town in Sidon, and there’s a widow there who’s going to take care of you. So off to Sidon he goes.
The nation / city of Sidon had invaded and previously failed to conquer Israel (Judges 1:31), which meant that God was sending Elijah into enemy territory. Sidon was also at the heart of Baal worship, and Baal was the god of the weather. Elijah posed a direct threat when he predicted the drought, showing that YHWH, not Baal, controls the weather. We can imagine that he won’t exactly be welcomed with open arms. On top of that, God sends him to a widow, who are typically the most vulnerable members of society with no resources of their own.
So this is God’s plan.
Elijah doesn’t have much choice so in v10 he goes to Sidon and finds the widow and asks her for a drink. In ordinary times this would not have been out of place, even for a man to talk to a woman, and a foreigner at that. The rules of hospitality were strong, and demanded that strangers be cared for; it was a moral obligation to do so. He’s not asking for much, except there is a drought. So he asks for just “a small cupful.”
The woman dutifully goes off to get it. And then, almost as an afterthought, he says, can you also bring me a bite to eat? In a drought, asking for water is a pretty big deal, but in the ensuing famine, asking for food is huge.
The woman tells him she has just enough for one last meal for her and her son, and then they’ve got nothing. In a culture with no social safety net, she has nothing and no one to rely on, so she doesn’t expect to be cared for or fed. She doesn’t tell him no. She just explains the situation so that he can then honorably retract his request and release her from the obligation to feed him. This was the cultural norm.
But Elijah refuses. He asks for a bit to eat and then says she can make a last meal for her and her son. She had told him she had a handful of flour and a little oil – probably just enough for one little cake. In essence, he’s asked her to give him everything she has left to eat.
In v12 the woman invokes the LORD your God. In v14 Elijah gives a promise from the LORD, the God of Israel. This emphasizes that God is Israel’s God, not Sidon’s Baal, not the woman’s God. Nevertheless, Elijah promises this woman that Israel’s God will take care of her. And, just as God promised, the widow takes care of Elijah and they all have enough to eat.
Did the widow trust Elijah? Or did she just say: I’m gonna die anyway – might as well get in a good deed. Regardless of how she felt or what she thought, it’s her actions that matter here.
The purpose of this story in its context is to show that YHWH can provide for his servant, and even for the servants of his enemies. It’s about the efficacy of the power of God in a land that is considered the domain of another god.
Has God ever asked you to give above and beyond your resources? How did you respond?
Has God ever asked you to trust him completely and absolutely in the face of impossibility?
Hebrews 9:24-28
Today’s passage is the same one used for Ascension Sunday in some years.
Chps 8-10 summarize everything; they’re the pinnacle of the book. The main point is that Jesus’ sacrifice, his ministry, the tabernacle, the new covenant – all of this is vastly superior to what came before. This passage summarizes how Christ’s ministry and everything associated with it are superior to the old Mosaic covenant.
V24 implies that the earthly sanctuary was to be a copy of the heavenly one. The new sanctuary no longer constrains us geographically. We don’t all have to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem every year in order to encounter God.
V26 references the end of the ages. The Jews saw time as a linear progression: the past would give way to the future, and in that future would be the reign of God. The writer of Hebrew proposes that Jesus’ sacrifice has opened up a tear in the fabric of time, and the future has invaded the present.
The reading ends by saying now that Christ has done his work, we can be concerned more with salvation than with sin.
Think about your own fabric of time. In what ways have you seen the kingdom open up into the very present moment?
Mark 12:38-44
Chps 11-13 could be subtitled: Jesus comes to his temple. In Luke’s gospel, the temple has central significance. Jesus is there right from the start. But in Mark’s gospel, the temple is just now going to take on meaning, and chp 11 is the first time Jesus goes there. The lectionary skips quite a bit here because we read it at other times of the liturgical year.
The passage last week ended by saying “no one dared ask Jesus any more questions.” (v34). The lectionary skips a little section here where, since no one will ask him questions, Jesus proceeds to ask them questions. He starts in v35 by asking, “What do the scribes mean when they claim that the Messiah is the son of David?” He then gives an impromptu homily about Psalm 110, the purpose of which is to, once again, correct false notions about what it means to be the Messiah. They thought it just meant that he would come as an earthly king in the line of David. Jesus says, no, it’s more than that.
That section ends by saying, “The crowd heard this with delight.” Jesus has the rapt attention of the crowd. But remember It’s these same people who will cry “Crucify him!” very soon. They’re delighted because he has taught them to see scripture in a new light. And also because he showed up the religious authorities.
That leads us into today’s passage. Last week, Jesus applauded a scribe for his understanding and his proximity to the kingdom. This week is a scathing critique of other scribes. Which is probably a good reminder that we cannot make universally sweeping judgments about any group of people.
V38 references “long robes,” which were probably intended for liturgical use, but the scribes wore them everywhere to attract attention to their status. Maybe like priests who wear a cassock to do their grocery shopping?
They seek out the seats of honor at church and common meals. Seating was an extremely important status indicator in that society. Their love of human accolades corrupts their actions. Hasn’t Jesus been telling us over and over and over again that we must die to self, give up status, become the least?! Apparently, these scribes weren’t listening.
Not only are they ostentatious but, in v40, they “devour the houses of widows,” reciting long prayers as a pretext. That word pretext would be better translated as “excuse.” They take from the widows and, to excuse their actions, they say long prayers. A widow with no male protector, rather than lose her property, would “give” it to a scribe in exchange for the scribe’s prayers for her and her family. The scribe would then take advantage of this by selling the house and pocketing the money. Now the widow has nothing. As an excuse, the scribes says these long prayers for the widow. But, of course, the widow now has nothing to live on.
The scribes were supposed to be the experts and teachers of the law. What did that law say about how to treat widows?
- Exodus 22:22 Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless.
- Deuteronomy 27:19 Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow.
- Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
- Zecheriah 7:10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor.
Jesus says these scribes will receive a very severe condemnation because they, of all people, are supposed to know and teach and live the law. And they’re not doing so. These scribes present a picture of counterfeit piety. They parade their supposed devotion but they don’t live it.
Having told us what counterfeit piety looks like, Mark will now give us a picture of real faith beginning in v41. We Jesus sitting down to watch the flow of people coming in to deposit their gifts in the temple.
There were 13 trumpet-shaped receptacles in the temple court. The tunnel downward and the box itself were both metal. A person would walk up to a priest and say how much they were giving and what purpose it was for. All the money was coins; there was no paper money. And the larger the coin, the more valuable it was. The priest would then deposit the money into the correct receptacle, and everyone could then appreciate the gift based on the amount of noise it made. That’s how Jesus could know exactly what this woman was giving – there was no hiding it.
A lepta was the smallest coin in circulation. A denarius was a day’s wage; a day laborer would have worked for a denarius and then used it at the end of the day to buy the day’s food. A lepta was a third of a tenth of a denarius. This woman had a third of a tenth of what would be needed for a day’s food.
Upon witnessing this, Jesus calls his disciples to him. The previous condemnation of the scribes was addressed to the larger crowd, But this is addressed to the inner circle. He says in v44 that the others contributed from excess, but the widow gave her whole livelihood, the word bios, meaning life. She contributed basically her life – everything she had to live on. Remember Bartimeaus tossing aside his cloak, his livelihood. I think Jesus could see himself in this woman, too, because very soon he will offer up his very life.
What is Jesus getting at here? Is he praising this woman for giving everything? How is she going to live? Will God miraculously feed her? Our experience indicates that isn’t what usually happens.
The traditional interpretation of this story looks at abundance versus poverty, and suggests that it is not outward show but depth of surrender to God’s care that matters. John the Baptist, Jesus, and this widow are the only ones in Mark’s gospel said to give their whole life. As such, she foreshadows Jesus’ own sacrifice. So this could be about the giving of one’s entire self; that’s a valid interpretation.
But we also have to look at the context of the story. Jesus has condemned the religious authorities who cover their greed with a pretense of piety. We might say that at issue here is not so much the widow’s generosity as it is Jesus’ critique of a religious system that would ask of her all she had to live on. The Torah commanded that widows be cared for. Jesus has condemned the scribes for not doing that. And then he praises the widow who, despite a corrupt system, seems to retain her faith and trust in God. But if the system weren’t broken, she perhaps wouldn’t be in such dire straights.
The Bible is always speaking to us on multiple levels, and there are usually a variety of interpretations that are all equally instructive in different ways. It is the same with this passage: it is both/and.
Over these last weeks and months, Jesus keeps telling us what it means to be a disciple. To find our life we have to lose it. The way of discipleship is a way of radical generosity. Such generosity requires radical faith that God’s generosity will be there to sustain our own radical giving. Also, remember that we are made in God’s image and likeness, and our God is radically abundant. He loves with reckless abandon. We are called to be like God. It’s not an easy calling!
Theologian Bonnie Thurston poses some great questions around this passage in her book Preaching Mark. She calls these “some very dangerous questions:”
- What activities of Christians and church leaders exhibit an unhealthy, even hypocritical interest in self-advancement and craving for status? I think it is all too tempting to point the finger at the clergy. We can, unfortunately, find many examples of this. But we should not make the mistake of failing to look for this within ourselves first of all.
- What practices in the contemporary church might be the equivalent of asking a widow to give “all she had to live on” while providing her basically nothing? One example that comes to mind is an extreme focus on the issue of abortion while providing condemnation for women who are forced to choose that option.
- What acts of false piety do we use to hide injustice?
- In what ways are we outwardly generous but inwardly meager?
- Is our surrender to God and God’s kingdom complete?
When discussing these questions with my Bible study group, two major thoughts surfaced. The first was around our innate and very human tendency to judge others even as we know that is God’s business. The second was how these questions are worded in such a way that we can make them less personal: we vs I. Based on that conversation, I have updated these questions a bit:
- What activities of Christians and church leaders seem to exhibit an unhealthy, even hypocritical interest in self-advancement and craving for status? How might I view these activities through a non-judgemental lens with a spirit of generosity and compassion?
- What practices in the contemporary church might be the equivalent of asking of a widow “all she had to live on”? What might I be called to do in support of the marginalized who suffer from these practices?
- What acts of false piety do I use to hide injustice?
- In what ways am I outwardly generous but inwardly meager?
- Is my surrender to God and God’s kingdom complete?
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© 2024 Kelly Sollinger