First Lesson
Joshua 5:9–12 (earlier verses added for context)
As soon as all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts melted and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of Israel.
At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.” So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt. Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished, because they did not obey the voice of the LORD; the LORD swore to them that he would not let them see the land that the LORD had sworn to their fathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So it was their children, whom he raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised. For they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way.
When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed.
And the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” And so the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.
While the people of Israel were encamped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho. And the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. (ESV)
Second Reading
2 Corinthians 5:16–21
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (ESV)
Gospel Text
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (Omitted verses in italics)
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable:
“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” (ESV)
Questions/Comments for Discussion
First Reading
This week’s reading from Joshua seems focused on the first Passover in the Promised Land. At least, that appears to be the intention of the folks who prepared our lectionary. It does follow shortly after the crossing of the Jordan on dry ground, but not as immediately as it seems at first glance.
I put in the earlier verses from Joshua 5 to give it a little more context. You’ll notice that in the bit that I added before our reading there’s one sentence by itself before you begin our lectionary selection. “When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed.” That’s sitting alone because it really belongs as the first sentence of the next paragraph. I haven’t studied Hebrew, so I can’t say this for certain, but I’m pretty sure that the ancient Hebrew scrolls didn’t have paragraphs in them. We add them to make better sense of them in English. So this paragraph decision in our text may be wrong, but from a literary standpoint, it does bear the markers for a change that we would indicate with a new paragraph.
So as I read it, it tells me that the immediate precursor to the removal of the disgrace or reproach of Egypt is not the crossing of the Jordan, but the circumcision of all the men.
When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. And the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” And so the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.
I would like to say that it is the crossing into the Promised Land that has resulted in the removal of the shame of Egypt, but it isn’t that, or not that alone. It’s the combination of that alongside the rededication of the people to their God.
First God demonstrates to a new set of kings His power, so that their “hearts melt.” These kings of the Amorites and of the Cannanites had not witnessed the miracle at the Red Sea. They had no reason to think that the God of this rag tag people who wandered the waste lands was anyone to be respected or revered. So God repeated the miracle in their sight, and then had the people rededicate themselves to Him.
The generation that had grumbled against God, remembering the onions and the leeks of Egypt is gone. All those had perished in the desert. Their shame perished with them, but they were still wanderers, and the nations among whom they’d live still saw them as a shameful people. So God first demonstrated His power to the surrounding kings, then had His people do this act of rededication.
Only then was the disgrace of Egypt removed.
It reminds me of what we learn in Acts, that the preaching of the Gospel in the early days of the followers of Jesus was “accompanied by signs and wonders.” The two, the sharing of the truth, “This is the good God i worship,” and the demonstration of that goodness went together. (By the way, that’s real evangelism, pointing to God and God’s goodness, not saying, “You really ought to believe in my God.”) And there’s something about the act of circumcision that speaks of a humility that can often get lost in the sharing of our good God. I think that’s one of the reasons that “testimony,” the telling of how God has saved us, is so powerful. In this I look to Paul, perhaps the most effective of the evangelists in the early church, who never failed to remind his hearers of his unworthiness to do what he’d been called to do.
And I don’t suppose I can get away from this reading without acknowledging that this act of rededication was limited to the men. It remains an unfortunate truth that at this time, what men did, the nation did. Perhaps then it’s a good thing that Paul speaks of the circumcision of the heart, something that has no real reference to gender.
Second Reading
Last summer we encountered a series of readings from 2 Corinthians. At that time I wrote a brief introduction to the letter, outlining a couple of the main questions that govern a lot of scholarship on this letter and my take on them. I won’t try to reproduce it now, but instead offer a LINK here to that specific part of the Divergence for Proper 4, Year B.
Though scholars differ on the identity and message of Paul’s opponents in 2 Corinthians, on one thing they all agree. Much of the letter is written by Paul to defend his apostleship against their attacks. It is in that context that I would like to try to read this week’s lection from this epistle.
I came across a fascinating article this week that examines Paul’s use of “reconciliation-reconciled” with regard to our relationship to God. I hadn’t realized this, but Paul’s reconciling, “katalassein” terminology is peculiar to him. Scholars have theorized a lot about how he came to use this expression. Some see it as his adaptation of its secular usage in the time, a military term that describes what a vanquished foe does with their conqueror. Some see Paul using it the way it is used in Maccabees, in the way that the death of martyrs reconciles the people to an angry God. Still others see in it reflections of the actions of the Servant in the fourth Servant Song in Isaiah 52-53. In the article that I read this week, Seyoon Kim suggests that there are indeed elements of all these that are applicable, but none of them is a sufficient source.
What sets Paul’s use of katallasein apart from all others is that is God who reconciles us to himself. In every other use of the word that he lists in all the other sources, the agent of reconciliation is not the powerful one, but someone else. What’s more, Kim also suggests that, though Paul only makes oblique references to it, his singular experience of being reconciled to God, by God occurred in his Damascus Road event. This is the source of his unique use of “reconciliation.”
Paul had once regarded Jesus “according to the flesh.” That is, he had once rejected Jesus as a possible Messiah because he, Paul, had expected a conquering Messiah – according to the flesh. When he experienced the power of God’s love revealed on the way to Damascus, he discovered that it was through the Cross that he, and everyone, had been reconciled to God, not through military conquest. In that moment, Paul became a “new creation” and was entrusted with the “message of reconciliation.”
He goes on then to implore the Corinthians to be similarly “reconciled to God.” That is, to regard Jesus no longer “according to the flesh” as we must assume Paul’s opponents do. The paper goes on to conclude that this perception “according to the flesh” focuses on Jesus’ life of power, not His death on the Cross, which would certainly fit in with the Corinthian fascination with their own spiritual gifts. (And calls into question the opinion I cited back last summer that Paul’s opponents were not necessarily powerful wonder workers.)
And all of this concludes with perhaps the most powerful summation of Paul’s theology in all of his letters, “God made Him to be seen who knew no sin so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.” This is what it means for Paul no longer to regard Jesus according to the flesh, and is nearly as startling to contemplate as it would be to be blinded on the Damascus Road.
I have done a poor job of summarizing Kim’s work in this brief Divergence, so I’ll include a link to the article here. But I do warn you that it is, or was at least for me, difficult reading.
Gospel Text
I included the parts of chapter 15 that our lectionary omits, again for some context. Luke groups together here 3 parables, of which we will read only one on Sunday. Two of these parables occur in Matthew. The shepherd and woman. The third is unique to Luke, and surely one of the most beloved of Jesus’ parables.
Since Luke knew and used Matthew I find it necessary to explain why this appears here but not in the first Gospel. My explanation is this: Matthew’s audience is a much more Jewish audience than Luke’s. Matthew writes for a congregation of Jewish Christians (probably in the area of Syria), while Luke writes from a Gentile context, though not (as I believe) an exclusively Gentile-Christian audience. Luke’s inclusion of this additional material speaks to my contention that his gospel’s overarching purpose is to write an additional Gospel text that seeks to bridge the growing chasm between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
Why do I say that?
The inclusion of the second brother in the story. We tend to be so focused on the profligate love of the Father shown to the prodigal son that we overlook the ending. The point of the story is in the resistance of the second son and the Father’s love and devotion to that son. “Everything that I have is yours,” He says. And the story ends there, with the Father making sense of His actions to His son. There is no conclusion that tells us if the younger son ever went in to the celebration or not. That isn’t the point, especially not Luke’s point. He has two sets of Christians in mind, those who have dutifully kept the law their whole lives, even for generations, and those who have debased themselves (in the eyes of the Jews) before “returning” to God. (Keep in mind that Luke traces Jesus’ genealogy all the way back to Adam, not just Abraham, as Matthew does, so the gentiles still have the same “father.”)
So this parable speaks, though differently, to both of Luke’s hoped-for audiences. To the Jewish Christians it makes the argument for the full inclusion as brothers and sisters (this is highlighted in the story by the robe and the ring, but especially the ring, which was a signet wring bestowing the Father’s authority on the son) those who have lived in a far country in a way that debased themselves, but to the Gentile Christians it makes the stronger argument (because it’s the “last word”) that the Jewish Christians have a special place of their own in God’s heart, something that needs to be said, lest Gentile Christians lord it over their Jewish counterparts, especially in the wake of the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD (well after which this Gospel was certainly written).
It is easy to see, then, why Luke chose to include this extra parable in his Gospel. Did Matthew know it and not use it? It’s possible, given how offensive this story might have been to an all-Jewish audience, but I don’t think I’d call it probable. But Luke knew it, and used it in this context because it so perfectly supports his efforts to reunite the Jewish and Gentile Christians of his day.
And now I’ve completely obscured the traditional reading of this text, which focuses so narrowly on the “Prodigal Son.” I myself think, as a preacher, that the story is much more about the “Profligate Father,” but lately I’ve come to focus as I think the story does, on the second son.
