Proper 20 – Year C
Sermon Notes from the Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People
RCL Readings[1] – Amos 8:4-7; Psalm 113; I Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13
ACNA Readings – Amos 8:4-12; Psalm 138; I Timothy 2:1-15; Luke 16:1-13
Seasonal Introduction. This season is often called “Ordinary Time,” a term derived from ordinal, meaning “numbered” or “in sequence.” However, there is nothing ordinary about this time. Rather, it is a time when we may reflect on how God (starting on Trinity Sunday and ending with Christ the King Sunday) has been at work in our own lives, the lives of his people, and how he will continue to work in the days to come. Ordinary Time is a season when we are invited to perceive the mystery of God at work in our daily lives, in the ordinary, in the mundane.
Common Theme. We are not meant to live and worship alone. God designed us to live in peace and community with one another. But we cannot isolate ourselves and only live in community with other believers—we are called to live in the world. Although we still recognize that God is Lord of all and we must not prioritize things of the world..
Hebraic Context. Parables are a narrative based metaphor. Narrative is integral to human learning. Statistics, philosophy, and theology are all important, but we are moved by stories. The nature of a literary metaphor not only allows varied conclusions but encourages nuance to be explored within the story.
The parable was developed during the Second Temple period. While the term parable (mashal) is used in Scripture, it refers to a type of parable or oracle. Almost every culture on earth has something similar to parables. We can see similarities to a parable in the story Jotham used regarding the election of the first regional king of Israel, Abimelech, and the murder of his siblings[2] or Nathan’s story to David.[3] Nonetheless, parables were very specific to a time, place, and even language and had certain qualities that set them apart.
Interestingly, the New Testament is the first place we encounter parables. They were found neither in diaspora literature nor historical or even Essene literature but only in the New Testament and [Second Temple period] Hasidism and Pharisaical literature following the fall of the temple.[4] They were almost certainly always spoken in Hebrew. With over 450 parables available to us today, there isn’t a single parable in Aramaic—even though the Mishnah had some Aramaic and the Talmud was predominantly written in Aramaic. There are also no parables in Greek beyond what the gospel writers translate for us. Parables should not be read in light of Greek philosophy or even the Aramaic diaspora world.
Despite the close tie between parables and Judea and Galilee and Hebrew, they are also always used without specific locations or people spoken of. They do not speak of Jews nor of Gentiles; They do not speak of Israel nor of Parthia or Rome—“a certain man” or “went on a journey to a distant land” or “planted a field.” But the parables were meant to teach, to simplify and explain to the common man. They aren’t supposed to be riddles or to hide the meaning of the teaching—the parables aren’t discussed in the synagogue or house of study, but in fields and at meals to the populace.
Amos 8:4-7.[5] Amos states that he was not a prophet, although God did send him to prophesy to the people.[6] God shows Amos many things, which is why he is called a seer by Amaziah, and Amos 8 begins with a vision. Amos is shown a vessel. A common translation is “a basket of summer fruit,” but that bypasses some of the important word-play in the passage. The Hebrew literally says that Amos was shown “a vessel of summer”.[7]
In Israel, there are two distinct seasons: winter and summer—rain and no rain. This division between summer and winter is ingrained in the lives of anyone living in this land. During the two transitions—from winter to summer and then from summer to winter—all the important holidays occur. Passover and Shavuot occur as winter gives way to summer. God’s great provision is seen both in the grain harvests and in the festivals that remember His deliverance of His people. Not only deliverance, but God gave His Torah at Shavuot—that the people might live by it.
Then summer begins. Summer, קיץ (kaitz), has no rain and Israel has no major yearly water sources beyond the Jordan Valley—which was useless for the vast majority of Israel.[8] Nonetheless, pomegranate, fig, dates, and grapes ripen and are harvested as the end of summer arrives. Could it be these live-giving fruits that Amos saw?[9]
As Amos sees the vessel of summer, God declares, “The end has come upon my people Israel.” “End” is a play on words with summer, as it is קץ (ketz). Normally, the end of summer is a good thing. The end (קץ, ketz) of summer (קיץ, kaitz) brings rain and the season is celebrated with the other major festival season of the year. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot all occur as summer transitions to winter.
Unfortunately, while the end of summer should be good—the rains come and both the righteous and unrighteous can live another year—God’s provision of rain, the grain harvest, and fruit harvest, along with the latter olive harvest, depends on whether Israel is obedient to Him.[10]
Amos prophesied during a relatively stable period of Israel and Judah—both Jeroboam II of Israel and Uzziah of Judah were long-reigning kings. Amos did not see the invasion or destruction of Israel. Instead, God confronted Amos with the truth that the people of Israel were in utter disobedience. Rather than shepherding the needy and allowing poor and rich alike to observe Shabbat as God had commanded, they brought “the poor of the land to an end.”[11]
Amos 8:2-14 consistently uses words that would have brought to mind the festivals. Amos 8:2 speaks of God not passing by the people of Israel as He did in Exodus 12:12. He continues to speak of the songs that should have been sung in the temple. In Amos 8:4 he uses the same root word ‘to cease’ as the Sabbath. Like Isaiah 58, a contemporary of Amos, there is a disregard for the poor on the holidays. Rather than providing a time to cease from their work, the poor and needy are disregarded and go unheard. In Amos 8:5, God goes from wordplay to directly speaking of Sabbaths and New moons.
Not only did the people seek to move past the Sabbath to start making money again, but they were cheating in their business. Universally weighted coins with specific amounts of precious metal for every coin were not used in regular bartering practices until the Persian Empire, several hundred years after the time of Amos. Instead, counter-weights were used to check both the payment and trade goods sold. Some dishonest merchants used two sets of weights: one lighter than the official weight, which they measured their own goods against when selling, and the other heavier, which they used to measure the buyers. They “make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances.”[12] And if the poor were not able to pay enough? They might have to indenture themselves for a coin or a pair of sandals.
These practices would have been common throughout the world. But they were not the practices that God commanded. When God spared the Israelites in the land of Egypt, rescued them from slavery, and gave them the law that they might be holy as He is holy, He also told them to remember.
Remember that they had been trampled and in need. “You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there… When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands… You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.”[13]
Remember that they had been slaves in a foreign land. Rather than seeking to enslave their brother for a silver or a sandal, they were commanded: “in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed… You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you.”[14]
Remember that they were not the ones who made themselves rich. “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth… and if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.”[15]
Israel had forgotten. But God would not forget. And so the land would vomit Israel out until God brought them back to the land.
Psalm 113. Why do we praise the LORD in Psalms and hymns? Surely it is because He is great. He is above all nations, from the farthest east and the rising of the sun to the farthest west and its setting, for He is enthroned above the heavens themselves. There are, of course, many ideas about the gods and they too are worshipped. Some are unreachable—gods who don’t care about human affairs, for humans are so far below them as to not matter. Other gods are just like humans, squabbling and fighting over pride, jealousy, and greed.
But the LORD, for all that He is great beyond measure, still bends down to look at the earth. He doesn’t simply watch what happens to the beings He created, He interacts with us. He brings hope and joy to a people who would otherwise be without it. Of course, we praise God because He is great—but His greatness is shown by both His Being and His revealed actions
I Timothy 2:1-7.[16] With chapter divisions and short sermons preached once a week, it can be easy to forget that I Timothy is a single epistle that can be read in less than 15 minutes. Paul doesn’t end chapter 1 with, “I have handed [Hymenaeus and Alexander] over to Satan” and then begin chapter 2 with “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people.” Paul is continuing to teach about false teachers, those who devote themselves and promote vain discussion without understanding. He is continuing to teach Timothy how to interact with them—just as he will continue to teach about Jesus’ faithful interaction with men and His call on Paul’s own life.
Who do we intercede for? All people. Paul continues by returning to Israel’s history as an example for Timothy. Before the destruction of the Temple, some Judeans were already taken into captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah wrote to them and told them to live peaceably—build houses, plant gardens, marry, and have children. They were also to seek the welfare of the city where they were exiled, “pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” But they, like the early church, had troublemakers—prophets and diviners who tried to deceive. Like the early Jewish church, they lived under a potentially hostile government. But they were still told to pray even for foreign kings and be at peace.
How do we live a peaceful and quiet life? First of all, we should know that God desires “all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”[17] Which God? From Deuteronomy through Isaiah, it is clear that there is only one God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and yet also of the whole world. God never limited salvation to the children of Israel alone and Jesus “gave Himself as a ransom for all.” Paul was sent to testify to this truth.
But God doesn’t work alone to bring peace. He expects us to live peaceably. The Scriptures repeatedly command us to “seek peace and pursue it.”[18] Men are to pray without anger or quarreling—even for foreign kings and those who are being disciplined by the church—and women are to adorn themselves with good works. Paul continued with a few more instructions to women before moving on to overseers and deacons.
While Scripture is clear that both men and women are made in the image of God and that both male and female are counted among the children of God, Paul gives several actions by which women can be an example of living a peaceful and quiet life.
First, they are to learn. They cannot be mere bystanders who neglect the study of Scripture and theology any more than men can. Again, this is still in the context of teachers who made assertions about the law without understanding, simply speculating rather than changing their heart, conscience, and faith in love. Women should not follow their example. Rather, they should pursue the knowledge of God through study of Scripture, which is good, and love Him.
Paul also states that a woman should not teach or exercise authority over a man. What this means practically is harder to decipher—first, because the term for “authority” is rare and lacks clear literary context, and second, because it may have been undergoing a linguistic change.[19] We do know that women served in several ways that God approved. Miriam, Huldah, Anna, and Philip’s daughters were all famous prophetesses—Josiah sought and heeded the advice of Huldah.[20] Deborah not only served as a prophetess but also as a judge—overseeing cases of any who came to her, male or female.[21] Both Priscilla and Aquila instructed Apollos,[22] and Phoebe is described as a deacon, or servant, of the church.
Nonetheless, women did not serve in the Aaronic priesthood. Nor did Jesus have women among the twelve apostles—although He had many female disciples who were every bit as beloved as the apostles.[23] Within the biblical text, we do not find either examples or textual support for women serving as bishops (episkopos).
Rather than take authority, Paul states that women should remain quiet—just as he had previously told Timothy and all within the church to lead a quiet life. The verb for “quiet” ησυχαζειν (esuchazein) is used by Paul as he writes to all the brothers in Thessaloniki that they should “aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands.” Acts 11:18 uses the same term for some of the leaders of the church who criticized Peter. After he explained all that God had done for Cornelius and the gentiles, “they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.’”
Rather than being devoted to speculation and endless debate, women should learn sound doctrine. All this with the aim to love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith and live a peaceable life—just like Timothy and all those in Ephesus were charged.
Luke 16:1-13. Once more, Luke shares a parable of Jesus. It appears to focus on a particular branch of Judaism. Jesus often lived among, spoke with, and debated the Pharisees in His ministry. Jesus disagreed with and condemned the Sadducees. But there was a third strain of Judaism in Judea at the time of Jesus and the apostles—the Essenes.
On the one hand, the Essenes (particularly those in the Qumran community) wrote about and believed in spiritual warfare, the unseen world, and even God’s holy spirit. They often emphasized God’s sovereignty. They were also a close-knit community, sharing what they had with one another. On the other hand, the Essenes separated themselves not only from the Gentiles but also from fellow Israelites. They called themselves “sons of light” and those who were not of their community “sons of darkness.”
Jesus, in Matthew 5:43 states, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” The Pharisees never taught this. In fact, they rightly understood passages such as Exodus 23:4-5, “If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.”[24] However, the Community Rule swiftly defines a communal boundary of the people of Qumran: members are told “that they may love all the sons of light … and hate all the sons of darkness”[25] Who were the sons of darkness? Those who were outside of their community—Jew and Gentile alike.
Jesus' parable is shocking, even absurd, particularly if the rich man is supposed to represent God and the manager His servants. For the manager is mismanaging his master’s goods and, when charges are brought up against him, he acts dishonestly on purpose. In a bid to make himself look better to the general populace and garner sympathy, he lowered the bill of everyone who owed the rich man goods. When the rich master learns of the manager’s actions, instead of throwing him in jail or firing him, he praises the actions of the dishonest manager.
But the parable isn’t about being shrewd or dishonest. Jesus states, “The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” In using an almost comical depiction of an interaction between a rich man and a dishonest manager, Jesus was not praising dishonesty but calling out the isolationism and sectarian life of the Essenes—the sons of light.
As Jesus continued to teach, He seems to turn His attention to the Pharisees. The closer one came to Jerusalem, the more corrupt the Pharisees generally became.[26] Rather than going out and teaching the people and serving God (as many of the Pharisees did around the country), they were drawn to power and money. But Jesus was clear that “no servant can serve two masters”—a well-known doctrine the Pharisees would have taught in the Second Temple period as they looked at the Exodus from Egypt and the history of Israel.
Luke goes from the Parable of the Lost Sheep, Coin, and Son—where we are called to seek and receive the lost—to a parable rebuking a community that turned to isolationism and communalism in their endeavor to avoid an evil and corrupt world. We cannot run from the world. But Jesus also warns us that we cannot serve the world.
Endnotes
[1] Alternate RCL readings: Jeremiah 8:18-9:1; Psalm 79:1-9
[2] Judges 9:7-21
[3] II Samuel 12:1-5
[4] Because of the sharp division between Christianity and Judaism since the first century, we sometimes forget that the New Testament is actually an incredibly important resource for learning about the development of Judaism in the 100 years leading up to the destruction of the Second Temple and Rabbinic movement after it. For instance, the first historically noted rabbi is Jesus. The idea and job of the rabbi was still in development, which is why we often call the teachers who came before and at the time of Jesus “proto-rabbis” until after the destruction of the temple.
[5] ACNA reading includes Amos 8:8-12
[6] Amos 7:14-15
[7] Jeremiah 40:10-12 shows that “a basket of summer fruit” is almost certainly the best and closest translation for English. Jeremiah 8:20 uses similar wordplay to Amos 8:1-2 where summer (קיץ) is related to the harvest (קציר) and the end (כלה, which Jeremiah uses instead of קץ for the finality rather than the hoped for “end” of the summer season). Likewise, Micah 7:1 also shows the close connection and reasonable translation between summer (kaitz) and summer fruit such as grapes even when no adjective is directly used with summer, “Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer (קיץ) has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned.”
[8] The Jordan river is formed from the karstic springs coming out of Mount Hermon. However, the river itself flows down the Jordan Rift Valley to the Dead Sea. Some settlements could survive and even thrive north of the Sea of Galilee or on the eastern bank of the Jordan Rift Valley, but only Jericho survived on the western bank of the Jordan Rift Valley. While Egyptian civilization thrived on the banks of the Nile, Mesopotamian civilization grew around the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, South of the Galilee, no civilization developed from the Jordan river.
[9] Many scholars believe that the “honey” spoken of in “the land of milk and honey” was not only apiary honey but also fruit honey.
[10] Deuteronomy 11:13-17; Leviticus 26
[11] See also: Amos 2:6-7; 4:1; 5:11-12
[12] See also: Leviticus 19:35-36; Deuteronomy 25:13-16
[13] Deuteronomy 24:17-22
[14] Deuteronomy 15:12-15
[15] Deuteronomy 8:17-20
[16] ACNA includes I Timothy 2:8-15
[17] If we divide knowledge, theology, and action from one another, Paul’s continual interposing of Christology into his epistles may seem out of place. But if we understand that our actions come out of our knowledge and theology, then understanding more about God, about Jesus, and about ourselves and our neighbours is incredibly important from a practical standpoint.
[18] Psalm 34:14; I Peter 3:11; Hebrews 12:14; Romans 14:19.
[19] The term αυθεντεω (authenteo) is only used here in the NT and isn’t used at all in the LXX. In earlier Greek literature, it may have meant something more akin to violence or murder but by the time of Paul it seems to have transitioned to having power or “authority” over someone.
[20] II Chronicles 34:22-33
[21] Judges 4-5
[22] Acts 18:26
[23] Junia may have either been called an apostle (which also means messenger, such as Philippians 2:25) or was in close association with them (Romans 16:7).
[24] The closest example to the idea of “hating one’s neighbor” may be Sirach 12:1-12. But generally Judaism purely taught, “love your neighbor” and placed it well within the context of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
[25] 1QS 1.7-11
[26] It could have also still applied to the Essenes as they spoke of the wealth of unrighteousness—or mammon. But they weren’t the ones walking with Jesus to Jerusalem and so a few of the Sadducean influenced Pharisees were the ones who responded.