Holy Textures

Luke 5:1-11

Short, easy to use, thought provoking background commentary for your sermon, bible study lesson, or scripture reflection.
Listed on The Text This Week, www.textweek.com.

Year C, Season of Epiphany
Fifth Sunday After Epiphany
Sunday Between February 4 to February 10 Inclusive

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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We sometimes think that one of the first things Jesus did was call the disciples. But as we read in Luke 4:14 Jesus begins to teach in the synagogues of Galilee before returning to Nazareth and the confrontation that happens which we have read about the previous two weeks: Luke 4:14-21 and Luke 4:21-30.

Following this event, the Lectionary skips over the rest of Chapter 4 in which Jesus travels to Capernaum where once again he teaches on the Sabbath, amazes everyone, and drives out a demon. (Luke 4:31-37) He then goes to Simon's house and heals his mother. (Luke 4:32-39) Crowds then come for healing. (Luke 4:40-41) And when they try to make him stay, Jesus says, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also." And then Luke concludes, "So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea." (Luke 4:42-44)

So unless Luke has once again demonstrated his unfamiliarity with the geography of Israel, Jesus has left Galilee in the north and gone to Judea in the south.

So the opening of Chapter 5 is a bit of leap in both space and time: "Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret ..." (Luke 5:1) In the previous verse, Luke 4:44, Jesus was in Judea, and now we come upon him happening to stand beside a lake back in Galilee. (And the lake here called Gennesaret is more commonly called Lake Galilee.)

Luke 9:28-36, (37-43)

Short, easy to use, thought provoking background commentary for your sermon, bible study lesson, or scripture reflection.
Listed on The Text This Week, www.textweek.com.

Year C, Season of Epiphany
Transfiguration Sunday
Last Sunday After Epiphany
Sunday Before Ash Wednesday

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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This passage requires reading the First Testament passages about the prophet Elijah, 2 Kings 2:1-12: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). 

"About 8 days after" could be a foreshadowing of a later 8th day - what we now call Easter Sunday. On the 7th day, Saturday, the Sabbath, God rested; on a Sunday, the next day, the 8th day, Jesus was raised from death to new life.

Jesus selects Peter, James, and John to accompany him. He leads them up a high mountain. Although unnamed and unstated, a "high mountain" is a "thin place," a place that is close to the spiritual realm, a place for sacred encounters.

Elijah and Moses represent the Prophets and the Law. Their talking with Jesus would signify the high spiritual status of Jesus.

Luke 4:21-30

Short, easy to use, thought provoking background commentary for your sermon, bible study lesson, or scripture reflection.
Listed on The Text This Week, www.textweek.com.

Year C, Season of Epiphany
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
Sunday Between January 28 to February 3 Inclusive

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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In my not so humble opinion, the authors of the lectionary give us preachers a difficult task by splitting a single story into two passages, last week's proclamation of Good News, Luke 4:14-21, and this week's - the reaction. The whole point of "Gospel" is that it must be both proclaimed AND heard to be fulfilled.

By splitting these, the Lectionary seems to suggest we can blather away proclaiming all we want without bothering about being heard. Or, we can listen endlessly without bothering about really hearing.

Whereas the point of Luke 4:14-30 is that proclaiming and hearing must be seamless in order for the Good News to be fulfilled.

Luke 4:14-21

Short, easy to use, thought provoking background commentary for your sermon, bible study lesson, or scripture reflection.
Listed on The Text This Week, www.textweek.com.

Year C, Season of Epiphany
Third Sunday After Epiphany
Sunday Between January 21 to January 27 Inclusive

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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The context for this passage is Luke 3:22, Jesus' baptism:

and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the bodily form of a dove. And a voice came from Heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

Luke then provides 3 forms of evidence for the truth of this wildly outrageous claim of the highest possible honour for this lowest status hillbilly carpenter's son:

1. The genealogy of Jesus, Luke 3:23-38, which ends, "... son of Adam, son of God."
2. The 3 cosmic tests of Jesus' loyalty to God, Luke 4:1-13. "If you are the Son of God, ..." (Verses 4:3 and 4:9), and "If you will worship me (Satan), ..." (Verse 4:7).
   [Aside. Similar testing will occur at the end of Jesus' life when the crowds watching his execution on the cross will taunt him, "If you are ..." (Luke 23:35, 37, and 39)]
   Jesus passes these tests - honourably - not by demonstrating his own power / wisdom / glory, but by quoting from Scripture the power / wisdom / glory of his true Father - God. It is God who has ascribed to Jesus the honour of being a Son. And so, as any honourable, worthy son would do, it is God's wisdom and honour that Jesus defends in rebutting the tests of Satan.
3. Gossip spreads about Jesus and his public reputation grows as people speak well of him, Luke 4:14-21.

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Short, easy to use, thought provoking background commentary for your sermon, bible study lesson, or scripture reflection.
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Year C, Season of Epiphany
Baptism of Jesus
First Sunday After Epiphany
Sunday Between January 7 to January 13 Inclusive

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As we learned back in Verse 3:1, Luke pinpoints the date of this event as "the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius." Which would be 28-29 A.D. Which would make John and Jesus about 33. Which in their day was about the average life span of the poor. Which was about 80% of the population. And which were the people both John and Jesus belonged to. Jesus and John were not young men in the prime of their life. They were elders. And if they had not escaped the usual life of the poor, they also suffered from long hours of hard work, poor diets, and lack of sanitation.

John 2:1-11

Short, easy to use, thought provoking background commentary for your sermon, bible study lesson, or scripture reflection.
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Year C, Season of Epiphany
Second Sunday After Epiphany
Sunday Between January 14 to January 20 Inclusive

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This story is the first self-revelation by Jesus in John.

In John, these sort of actions - changing water into wine, for example - are not "miracles" - they are SIGNS. John does NOT want us to look at them; he wants us to look at what they point to. It is a complete mis-reading of this text to respond, "Wow! I wonder HOW he did that?" John wants us to respond, "Wow! I wonder WHO did that?" Wasting time discussing the sign is like going to a fabulous restaurant and spending the evening talking about the menu instead of enjoying the feast. (Click here to read my brief note giving an Introduction to John.)

Luke 2:41-52

Short, easy to use, thought provoking background commentary for your sermon, bible study lesson, or scripture reflection.
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Year C, Season of Christmas
Christmas 1
Sunday Between December 26 and January 1 Inclusive

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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Bruce Malina again provides helpful comment on why this one and only reference to Jesus' childhood appears in Luke who is writing for an educated Greek-Roman audience:

(Ancient) biographies usually featured one childhood incident that was taken to foreshadow the character of the adult. ... (Such honourific biographies will) comment on education, nurture, and quality of mind.
Page 234, see footnote below.

Exodus 12:1-27 and Deuteronomy 16:1-8 command the annual observance of the Passover in Jerusalem. We learn from Luke that Jesus' parents nurtured him properly by observing this ritual as required "every year."

John 1:1-18

Short, easy to use, thought provoking background commentary for your sermon, bible study lesson, or scripture reflection.
Listed on The Text This Week, www.textweek.com.

Year A, B, C, Season of Christmas
Christmas Eve / Day
December 24 / 25

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God bless the preacher who tries to say something sensible about this text in 20 minutes or less.

Perhaps the best approach is to read it; then prop the Bible open in a visible place; then lie face down in silent, abject humility before the text; then, after 20 minutes - or twenty years - stand up and say, "Amen."

Failing that, here is my summary of Bruce Malina's comments. (John, pages 29-41, see footnote below.) But let's start with a direct quote from Malina:

These verses have caused both wonder and controversy throughout Christian history. ... When read as ordinary language, they are majestic and profound yet bristling with interpretive and theological difficulties. ... Our (the authors, Malina and Rohrbaugh) interest is in the way these verses introduce the cosmic Messiah and describe his mission on behalf of those who "believe into him."
Pages 29-30

Luke 2:1-20 or Luke 2:(1-7), 8-20 or Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)

Short, easy to use, thought provoking background commentary for your sermon, bible study lesson, or scripture reflection.
Listed on The Text This Week, www.textweek.com.

Year A, B, C, Season of Christmas
Christmas Eve / Day
December 24 / 25

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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Luke's historical details for the birth of Jesus are problematic.

Luke 1:5, "In the days of King Herod," who died in 4 BC.

Luke 2:1, "In those days a decree went out from Emperor (or Caesar) Augustus that all the world should be registered," places the birth anytime between 27 BC to 14 AD, the length of the very long reign of Augustus.

Luke 2:2, "This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria," places the date at 6 or 7 AD.

Most scholars agree that Luke and Matthew's reference to "In the days of King Herod," is the most reliable reference and that Jesus was born sometime before Herod's death in 4 BC.

Note that Matthew 1:18-25 and 2:1-12, make no mention of Nazareth or a census.

Luke's historical details for the birth of Jesus are problematic.

Luke 1:5, "In the days of King Herod," who died in 4 BC.

Luke 2:1, "In those days a decree went out from Emperor (or Caesar) Augustus that all the world should be registered," places the birth anytime between 27 BC to 14 AD, the length of the very long reign of Augustus.

Luke 2:2, "This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria," places the date at 6 or 7 AD.

Most scholars agree that Luke and Matthew's reference to "In the days of King Herod," is the most reliable reference and that Jesus was born sometime before Herod's death in 4 BC.

Note that Matthew 1:18-25 and 2:1-12, make no mention of Nazareth or a census.

Luke 3:7-18

Short, easy to use, thought provoking background commentary for your sermon, bible study lesson, or scripture reflection.
Listed on The Text This Week, www.textweek.com.

Year C, Season of Advent
Third Sunday of Advent
Sunday Between December 11 and December 17 Inclusive

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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Contrary to Arthur Paul Boer's excellent advice, Never Call Them Jerks, I often have to resist adding as a personal aside while reading Verse 7, "You brood of vipers (and you know who you are) ..." But just as with Jonah and the Ninevites, it turns out that even vipers can heed warnings and repent.

However, as Malina helpfully points out, this phrase would also be understood as, "you offspring of vipers." And since all of one's social standing derived from one's parents - this is a high insult indeed. An insult that would be strenuously challenged by those listening to John - and a challenge that John anticipates and cuts off by saying, "Don't say that Abraham is your ancestor ..."

Indeed by going further with his image of the axe cutting at the ROOTS of the tree - as compared with cutting at the trunk of the tree - John is deepening the meaning of repentance to be RE-ROOTING. Luke does not explicitly expand on this in this text, but the practice of baptism for the Christian community would very early on become not just a rite for repentance for the forgiveness of sins - but more crucially, a rite for re-rooting one's identity away from one's birth family into the community of followers of Christ's way. It is this baptism of RE-ROOTING as a child of God that Jesus undergoes.

What Luke does expand on is John's message of repentance. And so, probably the best sermon title for this week is, "New Roots That Bear Fruits of Repentance." (Verse 8)