Year C

Dec 11 2024

Scripture Study for

In the first recorded instance of “passing the mantle,” the prophet Elijah signals to Elisha that he is to be his successor. In a dramatic gesture typical of biblical prophets, Elijah walks past the young man, throws his mantle on him, and continues on, leaving the bewildered Elisha to run after him. The invitation is made, but the one invited must accept wholeheartedly and immediately. Elisha does accept, only making the reasonable request to say good-bye to his family. But the call of a prophet means giving up absolutely everything to serve God, and the first test is the willingness to leave family behind without a word, and even to sever oneself from one’s past life. Elisha signals his total commitment to his new role as attendant and successor of Elijah by destroying the instruments of his former work.

Thus far in his Letter to the Galatians, Paul has argued strenuously that Jews who have become Christians are no longer subject to the Law, at least not in the same way as before. Gentiles too ought not to place themselves under the “discipline” of the Law; all should accept the freedom they have been given through faith in Christ. Some Galatians, however, seem to have taken this to mean that their “freedom” means liberty to do whatever they want. This is no freedom, Paul says, but slavery of a different kind, slavery to the flesh. Those who live by the Spirit serve Christ, not that part of them that resists God’s will. Christian freedom is freedom to live for Christ and in service of one’s neighbor. Only to the extent that their life in the Spirit releases them from bondage to their own passions and selfishness can Christians call themselves truly free.

As Jesus begins his final journey to Jerusalem, where he knows he will be killed (9:22), he encounters three individuals who would follow him—which means following him to Jerusalem and all that stands for. Each is warned of the cost. They will endure insecurity and they will have to give up even their own family duties for a greater obligation. Everyone must consider carefully the cost of following Jesus, because although he leads them to the kingdom of God, the way to the kingdom necessarily goes through Jerusalem. Those who look ahead to the kingdom will be tempted to look back at what they left once they arrive at Jerusalem, but this will deter them from their course, just as looking back while plowing risks ruining the field with crooked furrows.

Dec 11 2024

Our Daily Bread

An old black-and-white photograph sits before me. Twenty-five people stand on a southern Illinois porch in 1906. All in this farming family of Greggs and Wilsons and Humphreys are wearing their Sunday best. My father’s mother, Grace, is toward the right, a girl of fifteen. My great-great-grandparents sit surrounded by children and grandchildren. What occasion brought all of them together? The celebration would have included a big meal. Yet those in this picture are slim. To be satiated after a meal would have been a rare treat. On this day in the early twentieth century, they came together. They ate and were satisfied.

Most U.S. citizens in the twenty-first century are not slim. “To eat and be satisfied,” for many, is a daily occurrence. The Greek word for “satisfied” means “to be gorged”—for the well-fed, gorged implies gluttony. And yet, we ache in a different way. Depression, anxiety, and despair abound; though physically gorged, we hunger spiritually. My farming ancestors sacrificed to build a future for their children. Today, many have lost hope that the future will be better. Dreams are dashed. Deism, not Christianity, carries the day—many believe that the God who set this mess in motion has walked away and does not care. Though we hunger, nothing satisfies.

Today’s feast speaks to those hungers. Five thousand people came together. They were probably also slim. The Lord didn’t just take the edge off their hunger: they gorged until they absolutely could eat no more! And there were twelve baskets left! He who was the Bread of Life gave abundantly: the people ate and were satisfied.

He provides abundance for us as well. He has not walked away. He is here. He is with us now. As family, we come together for his meal. We are fed. We are satisfied.

The Bread of Life wants to nourish us. “Come to me,” he says. “Come hungry.”

Consider/Discuss

Human hungers can catch in our throat: We long for the past. We ache for fulfillment now. We are homesick for a better future. (Even those who recognize no god will admit to not being totally at home in this world.) Take a few moments each day this week to pray and allow the Holy Spirit to awaken you to the hungers that you carry. Don’t be afraid to look at them. Then when you come to the feast of Corpus Christi on Sunday, hold your hands open to offer God those hungers as you receive the Body of Christ. How does that heavenly food fill your soul?
As I look at the picture of my ancestors, my great-great-grandfather looks particularly thin. What crop failures and winters of hunger did he experience in the pioneering years of the nineteenth century? “Give us this day our daily bread” must have been very real to him. Think about your own times of hardship, whether physical or spiritual. How has the Lord provided for you, given you your “daily bread”?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, we bring you our aches, our yearnings, and our longings. A piece of dark chocolate satisfies for a few minutes. Then it’s gone. The adrenaline rush of a football playoff pleases us for a time. Then it fades. Making a wad of money feels good. Then it gets spent. Watching the sunrise brings joy to the new day. Then by evening, we’re weary. Earthly things are good. They are gifts from you. But they do not satisfy. Only in you can we find lasting satisfaction. Bread of Heaven, we open our hands to you this day. We offer ourselves. Take the offering of our lives, bless it, break it, and hand it back to us transformed. Thank you, Lord of Life, for nourishing us so abundantly!

Dec 11 2024

Scripture Study for

Abram’s meeting with Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the same God Abram worships (Numbers 24:4, 16), occurs after Abram has defeated a group of Canaanite kings who have taken his nephew Lot as a prisoner of war (14:12–17). The offering of bread and wine is an act of hospitality that may also be a sacrifice, although this is not stated. In any case, the priest calls down God’s blessing on Abram and blesses God for the victory given to Abram over the kings. The “tithe” Abram gives is a tenth of the spoils of his victory. Drawing on the mention of Melchizedek in Psalm 110, the author of Hebrews will associate his priesthood with that of Christ (7:1–25), which in later Christian tradition will add greater significance to the offerings of bread and wine.

Paul’s reminder to the Corinthians of the tradition of the institution of the Lord’s Supper flows from his criticism of their conduct during their own celebrations. By acting selfishly and shaming those who are poorer, they “show contempt for the church of God” and so betray the ethos that lay behind the Lord’s own sacrifice, which they are not only to remember but also to which they are to conform themselves (1 Corinthians 11:17–22, 27–34). Proclamation of the death of the Lord until he comes cannot be merely verbal but must be enacted in the self-giving of each member of the church. The “cup of the new covenant in my blood” reflects the sealing of the first covenant of Sinai with “the blood of the covenant” (Exodus 24:8). Just as the Sinai covenant was rooted in the previous covenant with the ancestors, so the new covenant sealed with Jesus’ blood is an extension of the older covenant.

Luke’s account of the feeding of the crowd ties it closely with his account of the Last Supper (22:19–20). In both scenes Jesus “takes” the food, “blesses” it, “breaks” it, and “gives” it. In the present scene, Jesus enacts the eschatological, messianic banquet, in which God provides abundantly for all, so that no one goes without or suffers, and even death is conquered (Isaiah 25:6–9). The verbal parallel between this scene and the institution narrative of the Last Supper invites the reader to see the intrinsic connection between God’s care for our material needs and God’s care for our spiritual needs through the ongoing “feeding of the multitude” in the banquet initiated in the new covenant.

Dec 11 2024

United by Delight

The round table in my kitchen has four chairs. A fifty-pound bag of high-gluten flour sits on one of them. It is too big to fit in the cupboard. I take out flour from time to time when I need it for baking bread. Most of the time, Dan and I don’t notice that the bag of flour is there. It just sits with us at the table.

I have a friend who enlivens every party. She sat in that same chair. She laughed and I laughed and we talked all afternoon without stopping. After she left, I smiled for two hours, flooded with friendship, full of the joy of being together.

It is Trinity Sunday. What is the Trinity? Is it like a delicate clover with three petals? Is it like a noble flame with light and heat and a wick? What is it? In theological thinking, the Trinity has often sat at the kitchen table like that sack of flour, an “it” to be taken out from time to time when needed, but mostly just . . . there. Why does the Trinity even matter?

Jesus hints at deep friendship with the Father and the Spirit in today’s Gospel reading. The Spirit shares that which is of the Son and glorifies him; both of them exalt the Father, in a mutuality of intimacy. We don’t know specifically what the Trinity “is,” but we know that there is delight in what the Father, Son, and Spirit do. The Trinity is not an “it” to be analyzed, but a Who to be enjoyed: One who bursts with love and delights in the human race.

Divine friendship is also meant to be ours. Human life may afflict us, but the Holy Spirit has flooded our hearts with love, St. Paul says. The Holy Trinity is the life of the human party, sitting at the table, ringing with laughter and joy.

Consider/Discuss

Who or what is sitting at your table? Have you been taught to see God as someone who is just there, like a big sack of flour, useful to have when you need it? Or does God the Father/Son/Spirit make you smile, flood you with friendship, and bring you joy in being together?
Do you know all of the U.S. presidents in order? The countries of Europe that belong to NATO? The boiling point of water? Once it was important to have that kind of memorized information. (It still helps to know that a green light means go and a red light means stop.) Nowadays, most information can be found online in a fraction of a second. But wisdom? That is altogether different from information. How do we partake of the wisdom of God? Where have you encountered wisdom in your life?

Living and Praying with the Word

Holy Trinity, One God, flood us with your friendship. As we pray, fill us with the joy of being together with you. The vastness of your Being is too big to fit into our limited minds; we do not grasp what it means that you are Three-in-One and One-in-Three. But all through history, you been at work in various ways and at various times. You delighted in us at the moment of creation. You have become one like us in all things but sin. You dwell with us now. You lift us from our afflictions. You strengthen our character and give us hope. O Lord, our God, how wonderful is your Triune Name in all the earth!

Dec 11 2024

Scripture Study for

The personified figure of Lady Wisdom, who speaks in this passage, is found in several places in the biblical wisdom books (Sirach, Proverbs, Wisdom). Everywhere she is portrayed as she is here: an emanation of God’s glory and the image of God’s goodness (Wisdom 7:25, 26), “poured forth from of old.” When one contemplates the created world, one notes the harmony that exists among its parts, everything working together to advance life. Biblical Wisdom understands this to be the work of God’s wisdom, which underlies the “logic” and the beauty of the world. The whole earth was created through and in God’s wisdom. Proverbs notes especially that Wisdom delights in human beings and seeks to find a home among them, so that they may know God and God’s ways—and therefore find life—through her (Proverbs 8:35).

Thus far in his Letter to the Romans, Paul has argued that those who wish to inherit the promises given to Abraham can, and must, do so through faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ entails believing that he died and was raised to make us righteous before God; this gracious gift of righteousness brings peace between God and the individual and is the basis of hope in future glory. To “boast” of this hope is not to brag of it, but to gladly lay claim to it or possess it. In the same way, to boast of one’s afflictions is to gladly accept them as the means to grow in hope. Finally, Paul notes that the Holy Spirit received by the baptized is the source of the “love of God,” which can mean both the baptized person’s love of God and, especially in this context, confidence in God’s love for us (5:8).

Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit takes place within the extended Last Supper discourse. This is the same “Spirit of truth” who proceeds from the Father, of whom he has already spoken (14:17; 15:26). The gift of the Spirit is to ensure that the apostles continue to be formed in the truth that Jesus has taught them and, as Advocate, to strengthen them and console them in times of trouble. Because the Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent by the Son, who himself is the image of the Father, the Spirit “speaks” for both the Father and the Son. In this context, to “glorify” is to reveal (God’s glory in the Old Testament refers to God’s mysterious, visible presence [Exodus 40:34]). Just as the Son glorifies/reveals the Father, so the Spirit glorifies/reveals the Son, and therefore also the Father.