Lectionary Notes - Pentecost 4C

Lectionary Notes - 4th Sunday after Pentecost

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Readings for 4th Pentecost, 6/24/07:

1 Kings 19:1-15a, Psalm 42, Galatians 3:23-29, Luke 8:26-39

1 Kings 19:1-15a:

No satisfying conclusion to last week's Jezebel story. In fact, this week's passage from 1 Kings skips back a couple chapters. It's like a prequel!
In a volatile time, when prophet-killing sponsored by King Ahab and wife Jezebel was all the rage, Elijah, an outspoken and bold prophet becomes afraid and flees. In his darkest despair, ready to die, God comes to him in a messenger, who bids him to eat the food at hand:
"Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you." Literally, bread for the journey. What do we need to fill up with before we can take the path God has set for us? What do we need inside us so that the journey itself does not overwhelm us?
"I have been very zealous for the Lord." Can we say that of ourselves? I am: faithful. searching and seeking. loving of God. Zealous? Not often. What a shame!
Elijah stands on the mountain - God is about to pass by - but not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire. But in the sheer silence. Where do we look for God? The expected places? Where do we find God? Where we least expect God? In my covenant group this past week, we talked about how rare it is to find actual silence. Even as I type this in the quiet of morning, I play music in the background . . . No silence for God to speak through!
"Go, return." Yeah, they might be seeking Elijah's life - tough luck! God's got other plans for him!

Psalm 42:

"As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God." A popular (and one of my favorite) praise/camp songs comes from this Psalm.
This is a kind of Psalm that I like, one that reads almost like a love poem about one's beloved.
This Psalm is different than usual because it doesn't accuse God of abandoning or neglecting the writer either, at least not very long. In a dialogue with the writer's own soul, the writer asks why God has forgotten him, but then turns it back on himself: "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise [God], my help an my God."
Also, we finally get a Psalm that can speak about enemies ("why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?") without calling God down to condemn, vanquish, and destroy them. That's something worth cheering in the Psalms!

Galatians 3:23-29:

Law and faith. Paul argues that we can live by law when there are no better alternatives, and that's alright. But since Christ's coming, our better alternative, to live by faith and be justified (set straight) by it, in clearly the path to take. Paul contrasts by calling the law a 'disciplinarian', and painting a much nicer picture where faith gives us status as "children of God."
No longer slave or free, Jew or Greek, male or female, "for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Devastatingly progressive in its consequences toward equality, but bound up in the reality that these words alone could not and did not necessarily intend to undo systems of classism, sexism, racism, etc.
"If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise." I.e., you become part of the chosen people, part of the people of the covenant. Now that' a more significant claim than Paul has made thus far - belonging to Christ brings you into the covenant of the chosen. Not by law, but by faith.

Luke 8:26-39:

The famous pig incident that makes Jesus even harder to explain than usual! Really, however you look at this story, we can't help but classify it is 'weird' even for Jesus ;)
The man possessed by a demon named 'Legion' - so wild that none could contain him. He, intriguingly, correctly identifies Jesus right off: "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God." Even if regular folks didn't get who Jesus was, this demon, this evil, could identify him as the Christ.
'Legion' - reference to Rome and Roman occupation . . . laden with double meanings about what is demoniac and diseased really in their society.
Instead of expelling the demons altogether, Jesus, at their pleading, sends them instead into swine who then run over the bank into the lake and drown themselves. Crazy weird scene! The people see the man healed, and the pigs dead, and it is too much for them. But they did not see the healing itself, and they were afraid. Was this man a sorcerer? a wizard or magician, using some dark magic to make this switch? They saw the ends but not the means, not that I think watching the whole incident would have calmed them any!
Jesus does not want the man to defend his name or his 'honor' though - instead, his task is to tell about the transformation that God has worked in him. To share the good news. And so the man goes, and shares his story.

Pastor’s Note: (I use the Greek-English Lexicon from Liddell and Scott, the “little Liddell” and the Metzger et. al Greek New Testament in my translation work.)

Lectionary Notes are from the Lectionary Chat Group Bible Study of St. Paul's UMC, Oneida, NY, Rev. Beth Quick.

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