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Center for Theology, Lenoir-Rhyne
College
The Feast of St. Bartholomew
August 24, 2003
First Lesson: Exodus 19:1-6
On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone forth out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. And when they set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mountain. And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. - RSV
1. "On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone forth out of the land of Egypt"- They are not long out of Egypt, delivered by Passover, but far enough to have complained about the fare and to have received already the manna and the quail (Exodus 16:4ff). In the wilderness of Sin (!) they have found fault with Moses about water (17:1ff) and for Moses to have struck the rock at Massah/Meribah. And Moses has received already from his father-in-law Jethro good and sound advice as to how to "govern and judge" this mass of people (18:1ff) - by dividing into groups and appointing judges, rather than to hear all complaints himself. All this in two lunar months, and their trekking has taken them as far as the wilderness of Sinai, encamped before the mountain.
Moses had been there before (Exodus 3:1ff), and knew the One he was likely to encounter there. This time it was not a burning bush, but Moses went up for the encounter. This marks the beginning of the conversation that was, in a couple of days, to yield - amongst thunders and lightnings and eruptions - the Ten Commandments. The opening Divine declaration can be seen as a kind of preface to what follows.
2. "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." " Pharaoh's army got drownded, in the deep blue sea"…. That drowning they had seen, looking back, possibly even over their shoulders, half in terror and half in awe. Whatever the dynamics of the miracle of the parted water, the children of Israel came out of it alive and walking, with the Egyptians either perished or in disarray. The whole affair was couched in Divine intervention, from plagues to Passover to deliverance. The imagery of "eagles' wings" is a testimony to austere power and transcending height. The eagle is above the fray, of all raptors the most imposing. The founding fathers of the United States chose well the national symbol … God more properly invoked the imagery of Himself. The Greeks suspected the birds of omniscience, capable as they are of flight and perch….silently to hover, taking it all in. The eagle links omniscience to fierce power, here in behalf of God's justice and deliverance.
3. "Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples;" - The covenant is intimate and the promise is exclusive: "you shall be my own possession among all peoples." Intimate and exclusive, yes, and also conditional: "if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant." The voice presently heard and the covenant soon to come are not only sign but also substance of this extraordinary action of God, following through on His earlier promises.(1) Obeying the voice and keeping the covenant proved to be more difficult than doable, as subsequent account of the wanderings, settlement, and kingdoms reveal. Finally, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, to accomplish through the Cross and Grace what obedience could not deliver. But at the dawning of the "holy nation" the Law and the Covenant invoked obedience. Wandering and sometimes complaining souls were put on notice as to the conditions…if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples.
4. "and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." - An ecclesiology as definitive of a nation? A nation of those who are priests one to another, the "priesthood of all believers"? A holy nation? The conceptual framework later invoked by St. Peter as to the nature of the church is resident here at the onset of exodus and covenant. As Peter wrote it, "…you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy….Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God." The conceptual framework for that understanding of the church is resident already in the Divine directives from Sinai, prior to the formal setting of the covenant. It is resident in the invitation to covenant. What Sinai could not finally deliver, not for want of Divine power and mercy but from want of human capacity, Calvary conveyed. The cross and the empty tomb. And now those who are baptized into His death and resurrection are themselves "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." And that is we ourselves!
Second Lesson: I Corinthians 12:27-31a
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members in it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts.- RSV
1. "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members in it"- St. Paul here uses the image of the body, rather than "the nation." His immediate aim is to interdict their fractious disruptiveness, their divisiveness predicated on jealousy over charismata, spiritual gifts. Paul invokes modesty, which honors, out of decency, those parts of the body "less honorable."(2) The body works best when all its parts are honored for their contribution, rather than scorned for their appearance or glorified for their attractiveness. All the parts working in harmony, and according to intended purpose (cf. Aristotle) assure the better working of the whole. So in the body of Christ: individuals make their respective contribution according to their individual gifts, but all to the good of the whole. No one is subsumed as to his or her identity into some faceless whole. But no one becomes himself or herself the "center of the universe." We are all one body … each unique … God has known us by name even before we were born….but making no claims to privilege on that account.
2. "And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues." - There is an order to things, for Paul, as to priority (or at least as to sequence). The disciples were first, chosen by Christ himself. Last of all, as to one untimely born, St. Paul, on the road to Damascus. As to the successive ordering, one is left to speculate as to whether it is in order of priority. The labels "second" and "third" and "then" would suggest so. But no one is excluded, as to his or her calling. It is true that not all can be apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles or healing, administrators or even speaking in tongues or interpreting. But anyone not otherwise so gifted can be a "helper." All are called, in the body of Christ.
3. "Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?" - Here Paul raises what is obvious … not everyone is alike gifted. The "apostles" are a closed fraternity, called and sealed by the Lord himself. To be a prophet is as much a burden as a gift. Ask Jeremiah. Or Stephen. Not all are teachers, and some of us who attempt it could do a lot better. Miracles are, for the most part, a contemporary pretension. But woe to the pastor who does not invoke the healing power of the Holy Spirit in praying for a parishioner at his or her bedside. Doctors and nurses are students of the task of healing, and some of them are, indeed, gifted. And there may be those rare persons whose gift of healing may reside in a special charism for which they do not need medical school and license. Speakers in tongues reside aplenty in Pentecostal communions, as, one hopes, do interpreters.
Apart from the Pentecostals, we have those in the present church who are fairly shouting that "all" is interpretation. Everything is hermeneutic. And, furthermore, everyone is in principle himself or herself possessed with the competence to interpret. That kind of "interpreting" is predicated on a suspicion of authority. Or that anything is itself authoritative. It is the malaise of Protestantism that sola scriptura no longer holds, as interpretative authority. And now it is interpretation that reigns. Absent a hierarchical magisterium everyone's opinion competes for its own authority.
4. "But earnestly desire the higher gifts." - From the listing, it would seem that the "higher gifts" are the ones foremost named - apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles. Paul continues, in the next chapter, to write the script: the highest gift, the "more excellent way," is the charism of agaph. Itself another story, the story, of life in the body of Christ. All the other gifts are indicative of gifts of the Spirit, in the body of Christ. One has this or that, one or the other. A prophet, a helper, an administrator. Even an apostle. Though not an accident of birth, the charism is a gift not sought but conferred. But agaph is not indicative. It is normative. If your are not an apostle, you can still be part of the body of Christ. But if you have not agaph? You are a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. But you are no longer in the body of Christ. You are nothing. To "earnestly desire the higher gifts" is to move on the next chapter, where that higher - normative, necessary - gift is described.
JLY - 08.19.03 [for St. Bartholomew, August 24, 2003]
1. As to Abraham: Through you and your seed, all peoples of the earth shall get themselves a blessing. (Gen. 12:3) …. "And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you through their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you." (Gen. 17:7) And as to Jacob: "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves." (Gen 28:13-14)
2. In our day the aesthetic, if not also the ethic, has become rather: if you got it, strut it! And, of course, show it, flout it, sell cars with it. Even toothpaste.
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