John Shearman's
 Liberal Lectionary Analysis

Rev. John Shearman

 INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

[A more complete analysis follows this brief summary for church bulletins.]

ACTS 9:36-43. The story of Peter healing Dorcas, the disciple of Lydda, presents the apostle in the role of continuing the ministry of Christ. It demonstrated to the early church that Jesus was alive and still ministering through the apostles.

This story also serves to show that Peter, the recognized leader of the apostles, engaged in the mission to the Gentiles. Luke describes Peter’s role in detail in the next two chapters.

PSALM 23 This best known psalm uses the metaphor of the shepherd, so familiar in ancient times, to express the fullness of God’s protective care. The metaphor changes to that of a gracious host in the last two verses.

REVELATION 7:9-17 In this vision John sees a host of faithful Christians joining in a victory song before the throne of God. The victory is a spiritual one, the victory of faith in Jesus Christ and his self-giving love over all that can seduce and contaminate the faithful person or community.

The great ordeal through which they have come is a grim conflict of loyalties in which a Christian may well genuinely doubt where his/her duty lies.

JOHN 10:22-30 Thus far Jesus had only hinted at who he was. Now hecklers wanted him to declare himself openly. He insisted that he had already told them by his actions and they would not believe. Only those who recognized him as the Messiah would follow him as sheep follow a shepherd.

ACTS 9:36-43. The story of Peter healing Dorcas, the disciple of Lydda, presents the apostle in the role of continuing the ministry of the risen Christ to demonstrate to the early church that Jesus was alive and still ministering through the apostles. It recalls the story of Jesus raising the daughter of Jairus in Luke 8:41-56 just as the immediately previous healing miracle about Aeneus (9:32-34) recalls the healing of the paralytic in Luke 5:18-26.

Hans Conzelmann points out in his The Theology of Luke, (Fortress Press, 1961. 177) that the story assures Luke's audience in a second generation community that the church still has living contact with Jesus whose presence with the apostles fulfills the commissions of Luke 24:46-49 and Acts 1:8. "It is the Exalted Lord who heals ...." This became of great significance toward the end of the 1^st century. The apostles were aging - many who had known Jesus had already died - and the rest would soon no longer be present to witness to their direct experience with Jesus. How was the church of future generations to continue the ministry of those who had been directly appointed by Jesus? This pericope clarifies that the spiritual power which was in them as it had been in him will continue in the Christian community.

In a sense, this affirms a true apostolic succession. It does not depend on the presence of the apostle, but on the members of the Christian community. The Spirit that functioned through the apostles would still carry on Christ’s ministry through the church. In his new book, The Pagan Christ, Canadian scholar and journalist, Tom Harpur, has taken this to its furthest conclusion. The Spirit of God is present in all humanity and has been since the dawn of human self-consciousness and spirituality which differentiate homo sapiens from our mammalian ancestors. Harpur believes that this is part of the universal myth to be found in many other religious traditions, the earliest definition of which are still visible in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writings. He further holds that this radically new approach to spiritual living, as distinct from a literal, historical view of spirituality and scripture which have dominated Christian thought, will prevent the church from being irrelevant in the present and future centuries.

The story we have in this lesson also serves to show that Peter, the recognized leader of the apostles, engaged in the mission to the Gentiles. Luke describes Peter's role in this mission in considerable detail in the next two chapters through to 11:18. The way in which these stories appear immediately after the stories of Stephen, Philip and Paul, all of which end abruptly and inconclusively, signals that Peter, not those others, actually initiated the Gentile mission. Yet the main narrative from 13:1 on deals almost exclusively with Paul. Behind these conflicting traditions may lie the tension within the apostolic church to which Paul refers in Galatians 2. Certainly, as G.H.C. Macgregor stated in The Interpreter's Bible, ix, 129, "The narrative, like the story of Peter’s and John's visit to Samaria (8:14-25), reads like the account of an episcopal tour."

On the other hand, the late Prof. Heinz Guenther, formerly of Emmanuel College and the Toronto School of Theology, described the true protagonist of the whole narrative of Acts as neither Peter nor Paul, but the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, The Acts of the Apostles is a misnomer. They are the "helpers" who carry out "The Acts of the Spirit." They are always successful because in this "salvation history," created by Luke's "faith imagination." They function under the protection of the Spirit and nothing can go wrong. For Luke, the Christian faith is both creative and productive. He wanted to get away from the problem the second generation had of hanging on until the Kingdom comes. So he created the theology of the Spirit active in the Apostolic Church to explain the delayed Parousia. All the miracle stories and the missionary activities of the apostles elucidated this theological viewpoint.

PSALM 23. This best known psalm uses the metaphor of the shepherd, so familiar in ancient times, to express vividly the fullness of God's protective care. The metaphor has been a great boon to artists, pastors and preachers ever since. According to the Gospel authors, Jesus himself made several memorable references to it and it is also found in many OT passages.

Near the reconstructed ruins of the great theatre in Caesarea Maritima, on the west coast of Israel, one can still see a small statue of a shepherd with a lamb across his shoulders. It has been badly battered, but one cannot tell whether this was deliberately done or the result of an accident of history. One wants to imagine that it was a Christian symbol of the Good Shepherd destroyed during the persecutions of the 2nd and 3rd centuries or the Islamic invasions of the 7th century. It could just as likely have been an idol of some pagan god cast in the same providential role as Israel regarded Yahweh.

The metaphor changes to that of a gracious banquet host in the last two verses. This metaphor may have had a messianic reference. From earliest times, religious festivals included feasting. Sacrifices offered in temples were, in fact, meals offered to and consumed in fellowship with the deity. This became an important element of the liturgical tradition in Israel and well as having its social counterpart in weddings and other family celebrations. The practice of welcoming strangers, fugitives and even enemies with a feast was a significant feature of Middle Eastern culture. According to the gospel narratives Jesus drew on such cultural practices in a number of his well-known parables and symbolic actions; e.g. the prodigal son; the wedding at Cana; the feeding of the five thousand. Indeed, it has been proposed by Bruce Chilton in an extensive study of Jesus’ concept of sacrifice formed the main source of his conflict with the temple priesthood and the cause of his execution. (The Temple in Jerusalem and the Sacrifice of Jesus.

No one can now determine whether or not this or any other psalms attributed to him by superscriptions throughout the Psalter were composed by David. This attribution may be a part of the legend of the shepherd singer who became Israel’s great king. It was designed to increase the national religious tradition. Most scholars agree that this is highly unlikely that David authored this or any other psalm. Though 73 of the 150 psalms carry a Davidic superscription, these were not added until the Hellenistic period (4^th to 2^nd centuries BCE). It is futile, as some have ambitiously attempted to do, to fit different psalms such as this one into different periods of David's life. These so-called "Psalms of David" do no more than indicate that behind the final collection of the Psalter as we now have it lay earlier collections which contributed to the complicated history of psalmody in Israel.

REVELATION 7:9-17. In this vision full of weighty metaphors, John sees a host of faithful Christian martyrs joining in a victory song before the throne of God. The victory is a spiritual one, the victory of faith in Jesus Christ and his self-giving love over all that can seduce and contaminate the faithful person or community.

In most translations, the word soteria in vs.10 is translated as "salvation." Professor George Caird translated it as "victory." While acknowledging the common translation throughout the NT, he claims that is not the sense in which John used the word here. The martyrs were not celebrating their salvation which had been achieved long since. First, the vicarious death of Christ, who loved them and released them from their sins by his own life-blood had done this. Then by faith they had accepted his redeeming love and the baptism which sealed their faith and made them members of the redeemed and priestly community. Now, before the heavenly throne with Christ, symbolized by the Lamb, they celebrated their triumphant passage through persecution. (G.B. Caird. The Revelation of St. John the Divine. Black's New Testament Commentary. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1966. 100-101.)

Caird goes on to point out that in the Septuagint sozein and soteria normally translate the Hebrew verb yasha and its cognate nouns. Besides meaning "to save," (yasha) means 'to give victory to' or 'to win a victory.' It could be that both of these ideas are present in the martyrs' shout of triumph. Primarily, however, they are conquerors, to whom the promise was made that they should share both the conquest and the throne of Christ (3:21). They attribute their victory to Christ who fully revealed his power to conquer in the cross. But the victory of Christ is also the victory of God over all the powers of evil which compete with him for possession of creation.

The great ordeal through which the martyrs have come is a grim conflict of loyalties in which a Christian may well genuinely doubt where his/her duty lies. This was as real a danger for the church members to whom John was writing at the end of the 1st century as it is for us at the beginning of the 21^st century. The tragedy may be that so many of us do not realize how our loyalties are being tested every day as we seek to live in two cultures - the one characterized by Christian moral and spiritual values and the one which attempts to maintain the comfortable materialistic values of the world.

JOHN 10:22-30 Thus far, John tells us, Jesus is accused of having only hinted at who he is. Now the hecklers who followed his every move so they could entrap him wanted him to declare himself openly. He insisted that he had already told them by his actions and they would not believe. Only those who were capable of recognizing him as the true Messiah would follow him as a flock follows its shepherd.

John's description of the time and place of this confrontation deserve some attention. The festival of the Dedication is celebrated today as Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights, which occurs on the 25th of the Hebrew month, Chislev, somewhere near our Christmas. Its origin lies in the rededication of the temple after the Maccabean Revolt of 165 BCE. According to the Jewish legend, when the temple was purified, only one cruse of unpolluted ritual oil was found intact. It contained only enough oil to last a single day. By a miracle the contents that little cruse lasted for the full eight days of the rededication period until new oil could be prepared according to the correct ritual formula.

William Barclay speculated that this confrontation between Jesus and his opponents must have occurred close to the time when the lamps in the temple and in all Jewish homes were being lighted for the festive commemoration of this miracle. He also suggested that it may have been close to the time when Jesus declared himself to be "the light of the world." After the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, the festival celebrations took place entirely within the home as is commonly done to this day.

The portico in which this incident took place was a columned and roofed area which enclosed the temple precincts. Some models or drawings of the temple show columns on all four sides. In most reconstructions, the name Solomon's Portico is generally reserved for the eastern side only. It was breached by the Shushan or Beautiful Gate which gave general access from the Kidron Valley to the Temple Mount and the Court of the Gentiles. The portico on the north side was named the Royal Porch. Barclay states that the columns which held up the roof were magnificent pillars almost forty feet high. People walked there to pray and meditate. There too rabbis strolled as they talked to their disciples (not necessarily students) and expounded their particular doctrines and interpretations of the traditional faith. (Daily Bible Readings. The Gospel of John, ii, 83) All of these details give the story unmistakable messianic undertones. In another study of Jesus’ confrontation with the temple authorities. Jesus has been described as a rabbi with a special interpretation of the tradition about sacrifice which thrust him into a messianic role he reluctantly and only late in his ministry accepted. (Bruce Chilton, of The Center for Progressive Christianity, Bard College, Annandale-on-the-Hudson, NY.) According to Chilton, Jesus believed that every Jew should have the right to present his own sacrifice directly on the altar rather than purchasing a properly sanctioned sacrificial beast from the authorized supply controlled by the temple priesthood.

The narrative includes the corroborating data that "it was winter." Such details seem to suggest that the story comes from an eyewitness. If it was the apostle John whose account of this incident is reported here, he certainly would have been aware of this location and the message Jesus delivered to his disciples. The content of Jesus' conversation with his opponents is a continuation of the teaching in 10:1-18 in which another messianic declaration, "I am the good shepherd," is the central focus. Typical of John's sub-plot of a continuing controversy with the Jewish authorities, he has Jesus confirm the difference between those who believe and follow him, and those who don't. Obviously John was writing this to exhort his own community at the end of the 1st century to remain faithful under duress, a theme which is extensively elaborated in the Book of Revelation.

The issue remains: How are we to maintain our loyalty to Christ when everyone and everything around us denies that for which he lived and died? Chilton’s view of Jesus’ unique teaching about sacrifice may have some relevance. The purpose of sacrifice which Jesus emphasized was not to placate a deity angry with us because of our sinful behavior, but to have the intimate fellowship of a festive meal with the deity. Sacrifice did nothing to make the worshiper pure and so worthy to be in God’s presence. The person who brought a sacrifice was pure already because of being included in the divine covenant with Israel. An intimate relationship with God such as is the purpose of every meal became the central focus of Jesus’ view of sacrifice. This was contrary to the contemporary priestly practice of controlling who was pure enough to enter the temple to offer sacrifice and what sacrifices were permitted as pure. What is more, Jesus sought to open the temple to all who desired to enter the presence of Israel’s God. This included not only women, but social outcasts and even the hated Samaritans and all other Gentiles to whom the priesthood rigorously denied all entry.

Such universalism was anathema to the priesthood as this pericope clearly shows. On the other hand, the prophetic tradition did envision a time when all nations would come to the temple of Israel to worship Yahweh. Jesus’ contention was that this time had come and that he was the Messiah. But only those who followed him could understand that.

The church still struggles with the question of who is acceptable in the intimate fellowship with God. Inclusiveness almost always creates conflict for those who fear all outsiders.