Luke 13:10-17 — Who are we most like in this story?

January 28, 2013

At least two theological themes emerge from this pericope. On the one hand, the kingdom of God breaks into the life of a woman who had been bound by her disability for eighteen years. She is healed and experiences redemption. On the other hand, opposition to the kingdom of God arises in response to her healing on the ground that Jesus violated the Sabbath. This provides an opportunity for Jesus to interpret the significance of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the backdrop for both of these stories and functions as the unifying theological root question: what is the meaning of the Sabbath?

The Sabbath is not an incidental referent in this story. There is something incongruous with Sabbath and the fact that a disabled, apparently pious, woman was present in the synagogue. Despite her disability she is present in the synagogue on the Sabbath, but the Sabbath reminds us that God rested within the creation on the seventh day. Originally, Sabbath is the communion between God and humanity in the Garden of Eden. But the “curse” of the “Fall” marred that communion as creation itself was filled with brokenness.

Jesus initiates a reversal of that curse. He makes the first move and through him Sabbath—in a theological sense—is renewed for this woman. She experiences the renewal of creation through the redemptive act of healing. Healings are no mere testimonies of power or ability. Neither are they mere proofs of Jesus’ messianic role. They are ultimately the intrusion of eschatological healing—new creation—into the brokenness of the present creation. Jesus reverses the curse and restores Sabbath for her. He breaks the reign of Satan in her life. He looses what binds her. The eschatological kingdom of God is revealed in this moment. She recognized the “God-moment” and “glorified God.”

The ruler of the synagogue recalls creation’s relation to the Sabbath, but his interest is polemical. Rather than thinking theologically about the implications of Sabbath and creation, he reminds the people of the legalities of Sabbath-keeping. He pours the tradition of the elders into the creation account to protect the Sabbath, but he thereby subverts the intent of the account itself as well as the meaning of the Sabbath. Indeed, the tradition—as Jesus notes—valued the health and wholeness of their domestic livestock more than a daughter of Abraham. The ruler turned the Sabbath into a legality rather than rejoicing over the intrusion of the eschatological Sabbath into the present.

The Sabbath is where humanity rests in the healing and loving presence of the Creator. Sabbath supports healing and redemption. It is an abuse of Sabbath to use it to hinder wholeness in human life and exalt the legalities of the ritual over the mercy the day represents. The Sabbath is itself a gracious gift of God to the creation; it is now a divine mercy in a broken creation. The meaning of the Sabbath is grace and thus mercy in relation to creation’s groans. The Sabbath promotes gracious healing and it is a subversion of the Sabbath to use it to hinder mercy.

This story calls us into the ministry of Jesus as we take up the mission of reversing the curse instead of hindering the renewal of the Sabbath in the lives of people. It cautions us that we should not use legalities to subvert the divine intent. The story asks us whom will we follow. Will we follow the ruler of the synagogue or will we follow Jesus?

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 2:23-3:6 — Son of Man, Sabbath and Opposition

October 6, 2011

Though Jesus was a popular teacher and healer at the end of Mark 1, opposition to his ministry emerges throughout Mark 2 and culminates in plans to kill him in Mark 3:6. Mark 2:1-3:6 contains five “controversy” stories which highlight this emerging opposition.

Jesus forgives sin (thereby committing blasphemy). Jesus eats with sinners (and thus defiles himself). Jesus feasts rather than fast (contrary to the traditions of the elders). Jesus works on the Sabbath (violating the traditions). Jesus heals on the Sabbath (violating the traditions). In each case Jesus crosses boundaries that mark him as an agent of change. The change, of course, is the inbreaking of the kingdom of God.

The final two stories, both centered on the Sabbath, occur in Mark 2:23-3:6. In the first the disciples harvest a crop and prepare a meal. In the second Jesus heals. Both were regarded, by the traditions of the time, as violations of the Sabbath. They were forms of “work.” Later Rabbinic traditions verify such attitudes. And n the first century, contemporary with Jesus, the Qumran community explicitly denied people the option to heal on the Sabbath or help an animal out of a ditch. One could not even draw water from a cistern on the Sabbath at Qumran or eat anything that was not already “in the camp.”

This practice is called “fencing the law.” While the Torah, for example, does not explicitly say one cannot heal on the sabbath or draw water from a cistern, these regulations are put in place in order to distance a person from breaking the law.  One does not want to get too close to the line for fear of violating the holy command. Thus, traditions accumulate. Jesus and his disciples violated a couple of those traditions by harvesting and healing on the Sabbath.

Jesus responds on both occasions. Because he is the Son of Man–the eschatological figure that brings the reign of God into the world–he is also Lord of the Sabbath, and Jesus identifies what is most important about the Sabbath. His responses employ a general principle–mercy.

In the first instance, Jesus uses an example from the Hebrew Bible to defend the actions of his disciples. He recalls how David and his companions once “entered the house of God” and “ate the bread of Presence, which is not lawful for any but priests to eat.” David did this because he was hungry and needy. Sharing the forbidden bread was an act of mercy.

In the second instance, Jesus asked a simple question, “Is it lawful to do good, or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” To “do good” is a Hebraic expression for benevolence or mercy, for charitable acts. With this question, Jesus argues that it always lawful to do good, that is, to show mercy….even if it is on the Sabbath.

Jesus grounds this principle of mercy in relation to the Sabbath with a broad hermeneutical principle:  ”The Sabbath was made for humanity, and not humanity for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath was a good thing; it was divinely instituted. It served an important and vital function within Israel. However, it was not an end in itself, but a means to an end. The Sabbath served humanity, and it must not be used to obstruct what is good for humanity.

God’s commanded rituals (as, for example, the Sabbath) are intended to serve humanity.  They do not rule humanity nor should they ever be used to subvert God’s goal for humanity. Consequently, mercy will always take precedence. Matthew called attention to this in his version of the story–if people truly understood Hosea 6:6 (“I desire mercy and not sacrifice”), then they would not use the Sabbath (or any rituals) in such an obstructionist manner (Matthew 12:1-8). God’s heart lies with mercy rather than sacrifice.

This explains Jesus’ anger. When he asked the question about whether it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath, the Pharisees were silent. To Jesus it was obvious, but the Pharisees were caught in the dilemma of their own traditions and understanding of the law. Jesus was angered by their insensitivity to the Torah’s mercy. Moreover, he grieved their hardness of heart, that is, their inability to see the world through God’s merciful eyes. They could only see the world through their rules.

The Pharisees also responded with anger. They been to conspire with the Herodians to kill Jesus. Herodians were not an official party or sect like the Pharisees, but a loose-knit alliance that supported the Herodian family’s rule of Galilee.  Herod Antipas ruled Galilee at this time. Herodians opposed messianic figures and revolutionaries as they supported the Roman power that backed Herod. Consequently, opposition to Jesus made strange bedfellows. Devout oppressed Pharisees joined forces with politically empowered Herodians to kill Jesus.

On the one hand, the religious establishment opposed Jesus because he was a threat to their pious practices. On the other hand, the political establishment opposed Jesus because he was a threat to royal stability. Either way, opposition to Jesus has emerged.

The kingdom of God had broken into the world in the ministry of Jesus. The religious establishment opposed it and the political establishment opposed it. Not much has changed. Practicing the kingdom of God is scandalous.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

God’s Rest

September 1, 2009

Why does God need to rest? Is he fatigued? It must have been exhausting work for God to create the cosmos, the earth and everything in it, right?  NOT!

So, why did God rest?

In some of the ancient creation myths the gods built their own heavenly sanctuary when they finished their creative work (or battles) and sat down on their heavenly thrones to rule the new cosmos. Yahweh is a bit different. Yahweh does not construct a heavenly sanctuary or temple, but the earth and sky are his sanctuary.

Architectural construction is one of the more common metaphors for creation in the Hebrew Scriptures. For example, when Yahweh questioned Job about creation his questions are framed in architectural language:  “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?…Who marked off the dimensions?…Who stretched a measuring line across it?…who laid its cornerstone?…set its doors and bars in place…” (Job 38:4-10).

When God created, he was constructing his temple, a sanctuary, in which God would live with his people. The Psalmist parallels the creation of the earth with the construction of the Tabernacle. “He built his sanctuary like the heights, like th earth that he established forever” (Psalm 78:69). The Tabernacle was a poor substitute for the earth, but it was the beginning of a renewal of God’s redemptive presence among his people.  God would come to the Tabernacle (Exodus 40), and then he would come to the Temple (2 Chronicles 6:40-7:3). When the first couple was excluded from the Garden of God’s Temple, God did not forget them but pursued humanity through the calling of Abraham and his presence in the Temple.

God would then come in Jesus as the incarnate presence of God in the flesh. The flesh became God’s temple, his dwelling place (John 1:14). When Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, God poured out the Spirit upon his people and the Spirit of God rested upon them and dwelt in them. Now we are the temple of the living God (1 Corinthians 6:18-20; 2 Corinthians 6:14-16). In the new heaven and new earth there is no temple except that the whole of the new creation has become the temple of God because the Father and the Lamb are there (Revelation 21).

But the story began with creation. It began with the construction of God’s temple in which God would dwell with his people. The whole of creation is God’s temple or at least would become his temple with the sanctuary located in the beginning within Eden. “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool,” Yahweh declares. “Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” (Isaiah 66:1-2a).

When God finished his temple, the creation, he “rested” in it. He came to dwell in it, to love his people, walk with them in the Garden and enjoy the shalom he created. When God finished creating, he declared it “good,” that is, pleasing, beautiful, and delightful. God rejoiced in his works (Psalm 104:31) and rested in them.

God’s rest is his delight and joy in his creation; he enjoys what he created and blesses it through his presence within it.

God created the cosmos as his dwelling place–a place where he can dwell with humanity and the rest of creation, a place of communion, delight, righteousness and peace. The earth is his sanctuary and we are his people. God invites us into his rest that we might enjoy him (Hebrews 4:1-11).

9 Comments | Theology | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

Creation: A Divine Piece of Work (SBD 3)

May 8, 2009

[Note: I am attempting to keep these SBD installments under 2000 words each, but that is--of course--quite inadequate for the topics covered. Consequently, these contributions are more programmatic than they are explanatory or defenses of the positions stated. You may access the whole series at my Serial page.]

The divine community enjoys communion with the created community as God rejoices over and rests within the creation that reveals the glory of God.

A Triune, Sovereign and Gracious Act

The Triune community creates the human community and places them within the creation. The Father is the fountainhead and origin of creation. The cosmos originated with the Father, but it came into being through the agency of the Son (1 Corinthians 8:6) as the wisdom and principle of creation (Proverbs 8). The Spirit is the dynamic breath of God who gives and preserves life within the creation. The Father created through the Son by the power of the Spirit.

The act of creation testifies to the “infinite qualitative difference” between the Creator and the creation; creation ratifies God’s transcendence and sovereignty. Psalm 33, for example, moves from creation to sovereignty with theological ease. God created what was intended; nothing frustrated the divine purpose.

The sovereign act of creation testifies to God’s aseity. This means that God is God before and without the creation. God is not dependent upon anything outside of the divine life itself. The divine community is sufficient in itself; it is full and rich without anything or anyone else. Besides God there is nothing else before God created. This excludes any kind of metaphysical dualism, panentheism or pantheism.

The act of creation testifies to the love of God; it was a gracious, free act. God was not compelled by some inner necessity to create as if some hole had to be filled in the divine life or for that God created so that God might become fully God. God was not lonely; the Triune God has lived in eternal communion. Rather, God freely chose to create. That gracious act was one of self-giving–not by compulsion or grudgingly.

To Enjoy and Develop

The divine community created a human community within the creation. Why did God create? The root answer is not power or ego, but love. While sovereign power enabled creation, love moved it. While God created for glory, God experiences this glory as the divine community delights in the creation and the fulfillment of God’s telos. The glory of God is not ego-driven but moved by love for the other. God is glorified through communion with the creation.

This movement is rooted in God’s own ontology. God subsits in the communion of the Father, Son and Spirit; God is being-in-relation. This mutual indwelling of the divine life is the fullness of divine communion. God created to share this communion—this mutual indwelling—with others. The act of creation was other-centered; the divine community chose others rather than the satus quo of its own communion.

The prayer of Jesus in John 17:20-26 glories in the love the Father has for the Son, but the goal of this love, though mutual, is not self-focused. On the contrary, the telos of God’s self-revelation is to share the mutual love between the Father and Son with the creation. God draws humanity into the orbit of the Triune love so that we might participate and share in the divine communion which existed before the world began.

This is God’s joy. As the story constantly reveals, God delights in the communion of those created by his power for the sake of love. Moreover, God delights in the creation itself. Psalm 104 describes God’s care and joy for the creation (inclusive of animals as well as the stars). God rejoices over the works of creation and the earth is full of God’s faithful love.

God did not create the cosmos in order to annihilate it, but created it to live within it—to dwell within the creation. Scripture often describes the creation with architectural imagery—the creation is a divine temple in which God lives even though it cannot contain the fullness of divine presence. The earth was created as the temple of the Lord in which God would dwell in peace, joy and community. This is a significant theological trajectory in Scripture.

When God had finished six days of creating, God rested within it. The creation became God’s “resting place” (Isaiah 66:1). The creation—filled with shalom—is the divine sanctuary in which God rested. The divine Sabbath rest is not merely about cessation from work but about enjoying what was created. The Sabbath rest—both divine and human Sabbaths—are the experience of communion, joy and peace. God not only rests from creating but also rests within and with the creation. God invites the creation—both human and animal—to share the divine rest.

The creation is good but not perfect. The goodness of creation means that that it fits what God intended–it is shalom-filled, serves the divine purpose and there is no inherent evil within in (Genesis 1). But this is not a Platonic perfection that resists change. On the contrary, God created something that would grow and develop, that would mature, adapt and change. The creation was intended to develop into the fullness of the future—to become all it could be. The creation is only the starting point; it was not the goal. The creation, under God’s sovereign care and in partnership with humanity, would emerge, grow and develop till the divine telos was reached. God created something dynamic rather than static.

To Reveal

The heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). What God created and how God sovereignly rules the creation proclaims the glory of the divine community.

Creation is God’s own self-disclosure but it is not full disclosure. The creation cannot enclose the fullness of God’s own life but it does testify to it. Creation is an act of revelation. Some call this “general revelation” because it is generally available to all humanity while others call it a “natural knowledge” of God because this knowledge comes through the natural constitution of things.

As creatures living in a creation generated and indwelt by a Creator there is an innate awareness of a presence that transcends us; ther is an awareness of the infinite within our finitude. A divine presence—as if fingerprints on the creation—is immanent within the created reality. This is not so much a “natural theology” as a “creation theology.” God is manifest within the creation (Romans 1:19-20). Humans have a pre-reflective (Rahner) or immediate (Van Til) knowledge of God; this intuitive knowledge of God is the sense of divinity (Calvin’s sensus divinitas) within every human being. It is an openness to transcendence (Pannenberg). God created a world in which humans would know the divine, where they would seek beyond themselves for something to ground their existence and give meaning to it. The divine is revealed rather than obscured.

This revelatory work of God is not simply a past act of creation. Rather, God is immanently at work in the world to seek a people and acts within creation and history to evoke a response. Paul’s sermon in Acts 17:22-31 describes God as the creator and ongoing giver of life as well as the founder and ruler of nations. The divine purpose creates an environment in which humans will seek, grope after and find God. Human existence and history have a divine telos. The one in whom we live and move and have our being is the one who reveals life through creation and history.

God has left a witness not only in creation but in history as well. Consequently, we listen for God’s work in history as part of his witness to us. This entails a certain amount of openness to how other religions speak the truth about God in the feeble, fallible manner of human reason, experience and culture. Since there is an immediate awareness of God within the creation and God is active in human history, an openness to a history of divine disclosure within the history of religions is appropriate despite the degenerative dimensions of the human condition that distort God’s revelation.

Further, the goodness of creation entails a certain openness to the human sciences of anthropology, psychology and sociology as avenues of insight into the human psyche and an openness to science as a divine gift for understanding and caring for the creation. This divine presence within human nature, religions, disciplines and history is called “common grace” by Reformed theologians because it recognizes these as moments of revelatory grace whereby God leaves a witness within the creation.

But that witness is not left only to creation and history as a process of divine providence and sovereign care. More particularly, God entered history in the person of Jesus, the crucified and raised one, as a witness of and means to the divine telos. He is the good news of God. This divine revelation is specific, historic, and personal—sometimes called “special revelation.” This revelation in Jesus is the exegesis of God whereby God gives us an interpretative lens through which to see the divine telos more clearly, more decisively and more personally. God has a “Word” (Logos)  for humanity that transcends the creation even as it given within the creation as a part of the creation. Paul, in Acts 17:30-31, appealed to the resurrection of Jesus as evidence of God’s enagament with the creation.

So What?

The ground of worship is creation (Psalm 148:5; Revelation 4:11). We worship the Creator because the one who created is infinitely and qualitatively different from us. Creation evokes doxology because of the goodness and grace—not merely the power—revealed by God’s act. We worship because we are part of the creation rather than the Creator ourselves. The doctrine of creation defends against all forms of idolatry—nothing or no one can stand in the place of the Creator.

Since God is ontologically communal, being-in-relation, his creative act is relational in character. God creates to be-in-relation rather than simply to put omnipotence on display. God desires worship not because of some egocentricity but because of the desire to be-in-relation as God experiences mutual joy with the worshippers in the moment of worship. God intends to commune with his creation rather than subjugate it as tyrant or annihilate it as destroyer.

The creation is a divine dwelling-place; it is God’s sanctuary. The creation, of course, is not God, but the creation is valued, loved and enjoyed by God. The divine intent is to dwell among humanity within the creation. This entails a deep ecological theology whereby human beings value, love and enjoy the creation just as God does. It also entails a strong sense of immanence—not panentheism or pantheism—whereby God reveals himself through the birds, the trees, the sunlight and other “messengers” (Psalm 104) of creation. God conveys his presence through the sacrament of creation itself.

Matter—the created reality—flows from the hand of God. Materiality is good, not evil. It is not an inherently inferior mode of being for creatures. In fact, it is the creaturely mode of being itself. God created matter, enfleshed our spirits, incarnated himself in matter (flesh), and intends to redeem matter (resurrection of the body and the renewal of creation). God intended the created world—the material world—to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18) and filled. His purpose has not changed.

The goodness of creation has significant implications for ethics. As creatures who are created to represent and imitate the Creator, what God created expresses the divine intent and norms human behavior. The ethical value of creation is not only about ecology, but also about sexuality, family, stewardship (divine ownership and human management of resources), work and rest, and vocation among many other concerns.

Conclusion

Creation is not only the first act of divine revelation; it is the beginning of the story. As far as the narrative of Scripture is concerned, creation is where our story begins. It identifies us, defines us and invites us to participate in God’s story as all creation moves toward the divine telos. Our first identity is creaturehood and our mode of being is creatureliness. We are not God; the Creator is.

26 Comments | Theology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mercy, Not Sacrifice: Sabbath Controversy in Matthew 12

January 8, 2009

A ”God of technicalities”?

The first article I ever published in academia was “The Sabbath Controversy in Matthew: An Exegesis of Matthew 12:1-14″ which appeared in the Restoration Quarterly 27.2 (1984) 79-91. I have now uploaded this on my Academic page.

At some point in the future, I may reflect in personal terms on how that study subsequently impacted me. But that is for another time when I have more time. Perhaps I will make it part of a series about theological turning points in my life. 

However, I linked it today because it relates to my last post, especially the paragraph I quoted from Daniel Sommer at the end of that post. Sommer rebuked what he called a “technical” use of the hermeneutic of silence and authorization. No doubt many wondered whether Sommer himself was not guilty of similar technicalities on where he drew lines of fellowship. In other words, why is the use of instrumental music in a worshipping assembly a godly reason to limit fellowship but to break fellowship over the right hand of fellowship is a technicality? Especially, I might add, when we have technical definitions of when a worshipping assembly begins and ends (choirs–even instruments!–are permitted after the closing prayer but not before), whether a family worship in the home using the piano meets the definition of “worshipping assembly, etc.

Sommer’s language of technicality intrigued me.  That language sometimes pops up in the Stone-Campbell Movement. One recent example  is F. LaGard Smith’s argument that the God of Jesus is a “God of technicalities” (e.g., Naaman, Uzzah) in his Who is My Brother? Facing A Crisis of Identity and Fellowship (p. 252; also p. 127).

It seems to me that this is exactly where Matthew 12:1-14, including the quotation of Hosea 6:6, has something to teach us.  God is not interested in technicalities–he desires mercy rather than sacrifice.  Technically, David broke the law when he ate the “bread of presence” because he was hungry and in a hurry.  Technically, the priests profane the Sabbath every week when they offer sacrifices on the Sabbath.  But if we understand the heart of God, then we will not make these technicalities into fellowship barriers between God and humanity.

Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 as a hermeneutical principle.  If the Pharisees had known the meaning of Hosea 6:6, they would have had the theological and hermenutical lens through which to consider the actions of others. If they had known the meaning of Hosea 6:6, they would not have condemned the disciples….and neither would we condemn David…and perhaps we might not condemn each other as well.

When we evaluate others based on the technicalities of ritual and precision obedience, we miss the heart of God. God is relational, not technical.  God is more interested in mercy than he is ritual.  God is more interested in relationship than he is perfectionistic precision. This is the declaration of Hosea 6:6, the application of Jesus, and Matthew expects his readers to embrace it as a principle for living in relationship with others (see also the use of “mercy” in 9:13 and 23:23).

This does not entail a rationale or an excuse for disobedience, but it should soften our heart with the mercy of God as we relate to others. After all, should we not treat others with the mercy with which God treats us? And, indeed, I need lots of mercy…mercy for my actions, my words, my ignorance…and much more!  I am grateful that God’s heart yearns for mercy more than sacrifice, for heart more than ritual, for relationality more than technicality.

The article I have posted–first written as a seminar paper for a course at Western Kentucky University in 1980–was one of my first steps toward seeing God’s heart instead of what I once thought was his technicalities.  Maybe it might help you…or maybe not.   :-)

16 Comments | Hermeneutics, Personal, Theology | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

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