Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship: Year C, Volume 3, Season after Pentecost

By Joel B. Green, Luke A. Powery and Thomas G. Long

Designed to empower preachers as they lead their congregations to connect their lives to Scripture, Connections features a broad set of interpretive tools that provide commentary and worship aids on the Revised Common Lectionary.

For each worship day within the three-year lectionary cycle, the commentaries in Connections link the individual lection reading with Scripture as a whole as well as to the larger world. In addition, Connections places each Psalm reading in conversation with the other lections for the day to highlight the themes of the liturgical season. Finally, sidebars offer additional connections to Scripture for each Sunday or worship day.

This nine-volume series is a practical, constructive, and valuable resource for preachers who seek to help congregations connect more closely with Scripture.

This volume covers Year C for the season after Pentecost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Release date: Apr 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781611649277

Thomas G. Long

Thomas G. Long is Bandy Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Candler School of Theology,  Emory University. He has taught preaching for over forty years, and his introductory textbook, The Witness of Preaching, has been translated into a number of languages and is widely used in theological schools around the world. Long has served as the president of the Academy of Homiletics and as senior homiletics editor of the New Interpreter’s Bible. He has been editor of Theology Today and serves as an editor-at-large at The Christian Century. Long has been honored with the distinction of delivering the Lyman Beecher Lectures in Preaching at Yale Divinity School and was also named by Time magazine as one of the most effective preachers in the English language. A Presbyterian minister, Long has served churches in Georgia and New Jersey.

Book preview

Editorial Board

General Editors

JOEL B. GREEN (The United Methodist Church), Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA

THOMAS G. LONG (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)), Bandy Professor Emeritus of Preaching, Candler Theological School of Emory University, Atlanta, GA

LUKE A. POWERY (Progressive National Baptist Convention), Dean of Duke University Chapel and Associate Professor of Homiletics, Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC

CYNTHIA L. RIGBY (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)), W. C. Brown Professor of Theology, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX

Volume Editors

ERIC D. BARRETO (Cooperative Baptist Fellowship), Frederick and Margaret L. Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ

GARY W. CHARLES (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)), Pastor, Cove Presbyterian Church, Covesville, VA

WYNDY CORBIN REUSCHLING (The United Methodist Church), Professor of Ethics and Theology, Ashland Theological Seminary, Ashland, OH

GREGORY CUÉLLAR (Baptist), Associate Professor of Old Testament, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX

WILLIAM GREENWAY (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)), Professor of Philosophical Theology, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX

CAROLYN B. HELSEL (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)), Assistant Professor of Homiletics, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX

JENNIFER L. LORD (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)), Dorothy B. Vickery Professor of Homiletics and Liturgical Studies, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX

BLAIR MONIE† (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)), Professor in The Louis H. and Katherine S. Zbinden Distinguished Chair of Pastoral Ministry and Leadership, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX

SONG-MI SUZIE PARK (The United Methodist Church), Associate Professor of Old Testament, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX

ZAIDA MALDONADO PÉREZ (The United Church of Christ), Retired Professor of Church History and Theology, Asbury Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL

EMERSON POWERY (The Episcopal Church), Professor of Biblical Studies, Messiah College, Mechanicsburg, PA

DAVID J. SCHLAFER (The Episcopal Church), Independent Consultant in Preaching and Assisting Priest, Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Bethesda, MD

Psalms Editor

KIMBERLY BRACKEN LONG (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)), Editor, Call to Worship, PCUSA, Cambridge, MD

Sidebar Editor

RICHARD MANLY ADAMS JR. (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)), Director of Pitts Theology Library and Margaret A. Pitts Assistant Professor in the Practice of Theological Bibliography, Candler School of Theology of Emory University, Atlanta, GA

Project Manager

JOAN MURCHISON, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX

Project Compiler

PAMELA J. JARVIS, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX

Year C, Volume 3

Season after Pentecost

Joel B. Green

Thomas G. Long

Luke A. Powery

Cynthia L. Rigby

General Editors

2019 Westminster John Knox Press

First edition

Published by Westminster John Knox Press

Louisville, Kentucky

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Westminster John Knox Press, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, KY 40202-1396. Or contact us online at www.wjkbooks.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. Scripture quotations marked CEB are from the Common English Bible, © 2011 Common English Bible, and are used by permission. Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are from The Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971, and 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. Scripture quotations marked TEV are from the Good News Bible—Old Testament: Copyright © American Bible Society 1976; New Testament: Copyright © American Bible Society 1966, 1971, 1976.

Excerpt from Heaven Shall Not Wait by John L. Bell and Graham Maule, © 1987, WGRG, Iona Community (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.). All rights reserved. Used by permission. Excerpt from Before I Take the Body of My Lord by John L. Bell and Graham Maule, © 1989 WGRG, Iona Community (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Book and cover design by Allison Taylor

The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier volume as follows:

Names: Long, Thomas G., 1946- editor.

Title: Connections : a lectionary commentary for preaching and worship / Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby, general editors.

Description: Louisville, Kentucky : Westminster John Knox Press, 2018- | Includes index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2018006372 (print) | LCCN 2018012579 (ebook) | ISBN 9781611648874 (ebk.) | ISBN 9780664262433 (volume 1 : hbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Lectionary preaching. | Bible—Meditations. | Common lectionary (1992) | Lectionaries.

Classification: LCC BV4235.L43 (ebook) | LCC BV4235.L43 C66 2018 (print) | DDC 251/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006372

Connections: Year C, Volume 3

ISBN: 9780664262457 (hardback)

ISBN: 9780664264871 (paperback)

ISBN: 9781611649277 (ebook)

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Westminster John Knox Press advocates the responsible use of our natural resources. The text paper of this book is made from 30% postconsumer waste.

Most Westminster John Knox Press books are available at special quantity discounts when purchased in bulk by corporations, organizations, and special-interest groups. For more information, please e-mail [e-mail].

Contents

LIST OF SIDEBARS

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

INTRODUCING CONNECTIONS

INTRODUCING THE REVISED COMMON LECTIONARY

Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8:1–4, 22–31

Psalm 8

Romans 5:1–5

John 16:12–15

Proper 3 (Sunday between May 22 and May 28 Inclusive)

Isaiah 55:10–13

Psalm 92:1–4, 12–15

1 Corinthians 15:51–58

Luke 6:39–49

Proper 4 (Sunday between May 29 and June 4 Inclusive)

1 Kings 18:20–21 (22–29), 30–39 and 1 Kings 8:22–23, 41–43

Psalm 96

Galatians 1:1–12

Luke 7:1–10

Proper 5 (Sunday between June 5 and June 11 Inclusive)

1 Kings 17:8–16 (17–24)

Psalm 146 and Psalm 30

Galatians 1:11–24

Luke 7:11–17

Proper 6 (Sunday between June 12 and June 18 Inclusive)

1 Kings 21:1–10 (11–14), 15–21a and 2 Samuel 11:26–12:10, 13–15

Psalm 5:1–8 and Psalm 32

Galatians 2:15–21

Luke 7:36–8:3

Proper 7 (Sunday between June 19 and June 25 Inclusive)

1 Kings 19:1–4 (5–7), 8–15a and Isaiah 65:1–9

Psalms 42 and 43 and Psalm 22:19–28

Galatians 3:23–29

Luke 8:26–39

Proper 8 (Sunday between June 26 and July 2 Inclusive)

2 Kings 2:1–2, 6–14 and 1 Kings 19:15–16, 19–21

Psalm 77:1–2, 11–20 and Psalm 16

Galatians 5:1, 13–25

Luke 9:51–62

Proper 9 (Sunday between July 3 and July 9 Inclusive)

2 Kings 5:1–14 and Isaiah 66:10–14

Psalm 30 and Psalm 66:1–9

Galatians 6:(1–6), 7–16

Luke 10:1–11, 16–20

Proper 10 (Sunday between July 10 and July 16 Inclusive)

Amos 7:7–17 and Deuteronomy 30:9–14

Psalm 82 and Psalm 25:1–10

Colossians 1:1–14

Luke 10:25–37

Proper 11 (Sunday between July 17 and July 23 Inclusive)

Amos 8:1–12 and Genesis 18:1–10a

Psalm 52 and Psalm 15

Colossians 1:15–28

Luke 10:38–42

Proper 12 (Sunday between July 24 and July 30 Inclusive)

Hosea 1:2–10 and Genesis 18:20–32

Psalm 85 and Psalm 138

Colossians 2:6–15 (16–19)

Luke 11:1–13

Proper 13 (Sunday between July 31 and August 6 Inclusive)

Hosea 11:1–11 and Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12–14; 2:18–23

Psalm 107:1–9, 43 and Psalm 49:1–12

Colossians 3:1–11

Luke 12:13–21

Proper 14 (Sunday between August 7 and August 13 Inclusive)

Isaiah 1:1, 10–20 and Genesis 15:1–6

Psalm 50:1–8, 22–23 and Psalm 33:12–22

Hebrews 11:1–3, 8–16

Luke 12:32–40

Proper 15 (Sunday between August 14 and August 20 Inclusive)

Isaiah 5:1–7 and Jeremiah 23:23–29

Psalm 80:1–2, 8–19 and Psalm 82

Hebrews 11:29–12:2

Luke 12:49–56

Proper 16 (Sunday between August 21 and August 27 Inclusive)

Jeremiah 1:4–10 and Isaiah 58:9b–14

Psalm 71:1–6 and Psalm 103:1–8

Hebrews 12:18–29

Luke 13:10–17

Proper 17 (Sunday between August 28 and September 3 Inclusive)

Jeremiah 2:4–13 and Proverbs 25:6–7

Psalm 81:1, 10–16 and Psalm 112

Hebrews 13:1–8, 15–16

Luke 14:1, 7–14

Proper 18 (Sunday between September 4 and September 10 Inclusive)

Jeremiah 18:1–11 and Deuteronomy 30:15–20

Psalm 139:1–6, 13–18 and Psalm 1

Philemon 1–21

Luke 14:25–33

Proper 19 (Sunday between September 11 and September 17 Inclusive)

Jeremiah 4:11–12, 22–28 and Exodus 32:7–14

Psalm 14 and Psalm 51:1–10

1 Timothy 1:12–17

Luke 15:1–10

Proper 20 (Sunday between September 18 and September 24 Inclusive)

Jeremiah 8:18–9:1 and Amos 8:4–7

Psalm 79:1–9 and Psalm 113

1 Timothy 2:1–7

Luke 16:1–13

Proper 21 (Sunday between September 25 and October 1 Inclusive)

Jeremiah 32:1–3a, 6–15 and Amos 6:1a, 4–7

Psalm 91:1–6, 14–16 and Psalm 146

1 Timothy 6:6–19

Luke 16:19–31

Proper 22 (Sunday between October 2 and October 8 Inclusive)

Lamentations 1:1–6 and Habakkuk 1:1–4; 2:1–4

Lamentations 3:19–26 and Psalm 137, Psalm 37:1–9

2 Timothy 1:1–14

Luke 17:5–10

Proper 23 (Sunday between October 9 and October 15 Inclusive)

Jeremiah 29:1, 4–7 and 2 Kings 5:1–3, 7–15c

Psalm 66:1–12 and Psalm 111

2 Timothy 2:8–15

Luke 17:11–19

Proper 24 (Sunday between October 16 and October 22 Inclusive)

Jeremiah 31:27–34 and Genesis 32:22–31

Psalm 119:97–104 and Psalm 121

2 Timothy 3:14–4:5

Luke 18:1–8

Proper 25 (Sunday between October 23 and October 29 Inclusive)

Joel 2:23–32 and Jeremiah 14:7–10, 19–22

Psalm 65 and Psalm 84:1–7

2 Timothy 4:6–8, 16–18

Luke 18:9–14

All Saints

Daniel 7:1–3, 15–18

Psalm 149

Ephesians 1:11–23

Luke 6:20–31

Proper 26 (Sunday between October 30 and November 5 Inclusive)

Habakkuk 1:1–4; 2:1–4 and Isaiah 1:10–18

Psalm 119:137–144 and Psalm 32:1–7

2 Thessalonians 1:1–4, 11–12

Luke 19:1–10

Proper 27 (Sunday between November 6 and November 12 Inclusive)

Haggai 1:15b–2:9 and Job 19:23–27a

Psalm 145:1–5, 17–21 or Psalm 98, Psalm 17:1–9

2 Thessalonians 2:1–5, 13–17

Luke 20:27–38

Proper 28 (Sunday between November 13 and November 19 Inclusive)

Isaiah 65:17–25 and Malachi 4:1–2a

Isaiah 12 and Psalm 98

2 Thessalonians 3:6–13

Luke 21:5–19

Proper 29 (Reign of Christ)

Jeremiah 23:1–6

Luke 1:68–79 and Psalm 46

Colossians 1:11–20

Luke 23:33–43

CONTRIBUTORS

AUTHOR INDEX

SCRIPTURE INDEX

COMPREHENSIVE SCRIPTURE INDEX FOR YEAR C

Sidebars

Trinity Sunday: God’s High, Plenteous Grace

Julian of Norwich

Proper 3: Christ for You and Me

Martin Luther

Proper 4: The Many-Voiced Instrument of the Universe

Clement of Alexandria

Proper 5: Into the Broad Daylight

G. K. Chesterton

Proper 6: By Grace You Have Been Saved!

Karl Barth

Proper 7: Serve and Hope in God’s Mercy

Teresa of Avila

Proper 8: Imitators of His Endurance

Polycarp

Proper 9: Reverence for Life

Albert Schweitzer

Proper 10: A Closer Neighbor

Origen

Proper 11: A Body Knit Together

Tertullian

Proper 12: The Revelatory Moment

James H. Cone

Proper 13: A Way Opened into Heaven

John Henry Newman

Proper 14: What God Has Is Given to Us

Cyprian

Proper 15: The God Who Never Leaves Us

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Proper 16: Cherish the Desire of God

Thomas Merton

Proper 17: Consider What We Are

Meister Eckhart

Proper 18: The Soul in Whom God Reposes

John of the Cross

Proper 19: Empty Our Hearts of Hatred

John Calvin

Proper 20: The Things That Have Power to Save

Clement of Alexandria

Proper 21: Open Our Hearts to the Poor

Gregory of Nazianzus

Proper 22: Christ This Day Calls and Invites

Jonathan Edwards

Proper 23: All Creatures of Our God and King

Francis of Assisi

Proper 24: Our Only Wisdom

Augustine

Proper 25: The Embrace of God’s Maternal Love

Hildegard of Bingen

All Saints: The Eternal Shore

Charles Wesley

Proper 26: The Harmony of Love

1 Clement

Proper 27: Adored Forever Be the God Unseen

Phillis Wheatley

Proper 28: We Are All in God’s Power

The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas

Proper 29 (Reign of Christ): The Glorious Hour

William Lloyd Garrison

Publisher’s Note

The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God, says the Second Helvetic Confession. While that might sound like an exalted estimation of the homiletical task, it comes with an implicit warning: A lot is riding on this business of preaching. Get it right!

Believing that much does indeed depend on the church’s proclamation, we offer Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship. Connections embodies two complementary convictions about the study of Scripture in preparation for preaching and worship. First, to best understand an individual passage of Scripture, we should put it in conversation with the rest of the Bible. Second, since all truth is God’s truth, we should bring as many lenses as possible to the study of Scripture, drawn from as many sources as we can find. Our prayer is that this unique combination of approaches will illumine your study and preparation, facilitating the weekly task of bringing the Word of God to the people of God.

We at Westminster John Knox Press want to thank the superb editorial team that came together to make Connections possible. At the heart of that team are our general editors: Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, and Cynthia L. Rigby. These four gifted scholars and preachers have poured countless hours into brainstorming, planning, reading, editing, and supporting the project. Their passion for authentic preaching and transformative worship shows up on every page. They pushed the writers and their fellow editors, they pushed us at the press, and most especially they pushed themselves to focus always on what you, the users of this resource, genuinely need. We are grateful to Kimberly Bracken Long for her innovative vision of what commentary on the Psalm readings could accomplish, and for recruiting a talented group of liturgists and preachers to implement that vision. Bo Adams has shown creativity and insight in exploring an array of sources to provide the sidebars that accompany each worship day’s commentaries. At the forefront of the work have been the members of our editorial board, who helped us identify writers, assign passages, and most especially carefully edit each commentary. They have cheerfully allowed the project to intrude on their schedules in order to make possible this contribution to the life of the church. Most especially we thank our writers, drawn from a broad diversity of backgrounds, vocations, and perspectives. The distinctive character of our commentaries required much from our writers. Their passion for the preaching ministry of the church proved them worthy of the challenge.

As this volume was in production we received the sad news of Blair Monie’s passing. Blair was a good friend of Connections, having served as one of our original editors and having remained a steadfast supporter of the project when his struggle with cancer required him to set aside his editorial responsibilities. The resource before you is more insightful, more helpful, and more faithful to the gospel for his leadership.

A project of this size does not come together without the work of excellent support staff. Above all we are indebted to project manager Joan Murchison. Joan’s fingerprints are all over the book you hold in your hands; her gentle, yet unconquerable, persistence always kept it moving forward in good shape and on time. Pamela Jarvis skillfully compiled the volume, arranging the hundreds of separate commentaries and Scriptures into a cohesive whole.

Finally, our sincere thanks to the administration, faculty, and staff of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, our institutional partner in producing Connections. President Theodore J. Wardlaw and Dean David H. Jensen have been steadfast friends of the project, enthusiastically agreeing to our partnership, carefully overseeing their faculty and staff’s work on it, graciously hosting our meetings, and enthusiastically using their platform to promote Connections among their students, alumni, and friends.

It is with much joy that we commend Connections to you, our readers. May God use this resource to deepen and enrich your ministry of preaching and worship.

WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS

Introducing Connections

Connections is a resource designed to help preachers generate sermons that are theologically deeper, liturgically richer, and culturally more pertinent. Based on the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), which has wide ecumenical use, the hundreds of essays on the full array of biblical passages in the three-year cycle can be used effectively by preachers who follow the RCL, by those who follow other lectionaries, and by nonlectionary preachers alike.

The essential idea of Connections is that biblical texts display their power most fully when they are allowed to interact with a number of contexts, that is, when many connections are made between a biblical text and realities outside that text. Like the two poles of a battery, when the pole of the biblical text is connected to a different pole (another aspect of Scripture or a dimension of life outside Scripture), creative sparks fly and energy surges from pole to pole.

Two major interpretive essays, called Commentary 1 and Commentary 2, address every scriptural reading in the RCL. Commentary 1 explores preaching connections between a lectionary reading and other texts and themes within Scripture, and Commentary 2 makes preaching connections between the lectionary texts and themes in the larger culture outside of Scripture. These essays have been written by pastors, biblical scholars, theologians, and others, all of whom have a commitment to lively biblical preaching.

The writers of Commentary 1 surveyed five possible connections for their texts: the immediate literary context (the passages right around the text), the larger literary context (for example, the cycle of David stories or the passion narrative), the thematic context (such as other feeding stories, other parables, or other passages on the theme of hope), the lectionary context (the other readings for the day in the RCL), and the canonical context (other places in the whole of the Bible that display harmony, or perhaps tension, with the text at hand).

The writers of Commentary 2 surveyed six possible connections for their texts: the liturgical context (such as Advent or Easter), the ecclesial context (the life and mission of the church), the social and ethical context (justice and social responsibility), the cultural context (such as art, music, and literature), the larger expanse of human knowledge (such as science, history, and psychology), and the personal context (the life and faith of individuals).

In each essay, the writers selected from this array of possible connections, emphasizing those connections they saw as most promising for preaching. It is important to note that, even though Commentary 1 makes connections inside the Bible and Commentary 2 makes connections outside the Bible, this does not represent a division between "what the text meant in biblical times versus what the text means now." Every connection made with the text, whether that connection is made within the Bible or out in the larger culture, is seen as generative for preaching, and each author provokes the imagination of the preacher to see in these connections preaching possibilities for today. Connections is not a substitute for traditional scriptural commentaries, concordances, Bible dictionaries, and other interpretive tools. Rather, Connections begins with solid biblical scholarship then goes on to focus on the act of preaching and on the ultimate goal of allowing the biblical text to come alive in the sermon.

Connections addresses every biblical text in the RCL, and it takes seriously the architecture of the RCL. During the seasons of the Christian year (Advent through Epiphany and Lent through Pentecost), the RCL provides three readings and a psalm for each Sunday and feast day: (1) a first reading, usually from the Old Testament; (2) a psalm, chosen to respond to the first reading; (3) a second reading, usually from one of the New Testament epistles; and (4) a Gospel reading. The first and second readings are chosen as complements to the Gospel reading for the day.

During the time between Pentecost and Advent, however, the RCL includes an additional first reading for every Sunday. There is the usual complementary reading, chosen in relation to the Gospel reading, but there is also a semicontinuous reading. These semicontinuous readings move through the books of the Old Testament more or less continuously in narrative sequence, offering the stories of the patriarchs (Year A), the kings of Israel (Year B), and the prophets (Year C). Connections covers both the complementary and the semicontinuous readings.

The architects of the RCL understand the psalms and canticles to be prayers, and they selected the psalms for each Sunday and feast as prayerful responses to the first reading for the day. Thus, the Connections essays on the psalms are different from the other essays, and they have two goals, one homiletical and the other liturgical. First, they comment on ways the psalm might offer insight into preaching the first reading. Second, they describe how the tone and content of the psalm or canticle might inform the day’s worship, suggesting ways the psalm or canticle may be read, sung, or prayed.

Preachers will find in Connections many ideas and approaches to sustain lively and provocative preaching for years to come. But beyond the deep reservoir of preaching connections found in these pages, preachers will also find here a habit of mind, a way of thinking about biblical preaching. Being guided by the essays in Connections to see many connections between biblical texts and their various contexts, preachers will be stimulated to make other connections for themselves. Connections is an abundant collection of creative preaching ideas, and it is also a spur to continued creativity.

JOEL B. GREEN

THOMAS G. LONG

LUKE A. POWERY

CYNTHIA L. RIGBY

General Editors

Introducing the Revised Common Lectionary

To derive the greatest benefit from Connections, it will help to understand the structure and purpose of the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), around which this resource is built. The RCL is a three-year guide to Scripture readings for the Christian Sunday gathering for worship. Lectionary simply means a selection of texts for reading and preaching. The RCL is an adaptation of the Roman Lectionary (of 1969, slightly revised in 1981), which itself was a reworking of the medieval Western-church one-year cycle of readings. The RCL resulted from six years of consultations that included representatives from nineteen churches or denominational agencies. Every preacher uses a lectionary—whether it comes from a specific denomination or is the preacher’s own choice—but the RCL is unique in that it positions the preacher’s homiletical work within a web of specific, ongoing connections.

The RCL has its roots in Jewish lectionary systems and early Christian ways of reading texts to illumine the biblical meaning of a feast day or time in the church calendar. Among our earliest lectionaries are the lists of readings for Holy Week and Easter in fourth-century Jerusalem.

One of the RCL’s central connections is intertextuality; multiple texts are listed for each day. This lectionary’s way of reading Scripture is based on Scripture’s own pattern: texts interpreting texts. In the RCL, every Sunday of the year and each special or festival day is assigned a group of texts, normally three readings and a psalm. For most of the year, the first reading is an Old Testament text, followed by a psalm, a reading from one of the epistles, and a reading from one of the Gospel accounts.

The RCL’s three-year cycle centers Year A in Matthew, Year B in Mark, and Year C in Luke. It is less clear how the Gospel according to John fits in, but when preachers learn about the RCL’s arrangement of the Gospels, it makes sense. John gets a place of privilege because John’s Gospel account, with its high Christology, is assigned for the great feasts. Texts from John’s account are also assigned for Lent, Sundays of Easter, and summer Sundays. The second-century bishop Irenaeus’s insistence on four Gospels is evident in this lectionary system: John and the Synoptics are in conversation with each other. However, because the RCL pattern contains variations, an extended introduction to the RCL can help the preacher learn the reasons for texts being set next to other texts.

The Gospel reading governs each day’s selections. Even though the ancient order of reading texts in the Sunday gathering positions the Gospel reading last, the preacher should know that the RCL receives the Gospel reading as the hermeneutical key.

At certain times in the calendar year, the connections between the texts are less obvious. The RCL offers two tracks for readings in the time after Pentecost (Ordinary Time/standard Sundays): the complementary and the semicontinuous. Complementary texts relate to the church year and its seasons; semicontinuous emphasis is on preaching through a biblical book. Both approaches are historic ways of choosing texts for Sunday. This commentary series includes both the complementary and the semicontinuous readings.

In the complementary track, the Old Testament reading provides an intentional tension, a deeper understanding, or a background reference for another text of the day. The Psalm is the congregation’s response to the first reading, following its themes. The Epistle functions as the horizon of the church: we learn about the faith and struggles of early Christian communities. The Gospel tells us where we are in the church’s time and is enlivened, as are all the texts, by these intertextual interactions. Because the semicontinuous track prioritizes the narratives of specific books, the intertextual connections are not as apparent. Connections still exist, however. Year A pairs Matthew’s account with Old Testament readings from the first five books; Year B pairs Mark’s account with stories of anointed kings; Year C pairs Luke’s account with the prophetic books.

Historically, lectionaries came into being because they were the church’s beloved texts, like the scriptural canon. Choices had to be made regarding readings in the assembly, given the limit of fifty-two Sundays and a handful of festival days. The RCL presupposes that everyone (preachers and congregants) can read these texts—even along with the daily RCL readings that are paired with the Sunday readings.

Another central connection found in the RCL is the connection between texts and church seasons or the church’s year. The complementary texts make these connections most clear. The intention of the RCL is that the texts of each Sunday or feast day bring biblical meaning to where we are in time. The texts at Christmas announce the incarnation. Texts in Lent renew us to follow Christ, and texts for the fifty days of Easter proclaim God’s power over death and sin and our new life in Christ. The entire church’s year is a hermeneutical key for using the RCL.

Let it be clear that the connection to the church year is a connection for present-tense proclamation. We read, not to recall history, but to know how those events are true for us today. Now is the time of the Spirit of the risen Christ; now we beseech God in the face of sin and death; now we live baptized into Jesus’ life and ministry. To read texts in time does not mean we remind ourselves of Jesus’ biography for half of the year and then the mission of the church for the other half. Rather, we follow each Gospel’s narrative order to be brought again to the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection and his risen presence in our midst. The RCL positions the texts as our lens on our life and the life of the world in our time: who we are in Christ now, for the sake of the world.

The RCL intends to be a way of reading texts to bring us again to faith, for these texts to be how we see our lives and our gospel witness in the world. Through these connections, the preacher can find faithful, relevant ways to preach year after year.

JENNIFER L. LORD

Connections Editorial Board Member

Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8:1–4, 22–31

Psalm 8

Romans 5:1–5

John 16:12–15

Proverbs 8:1–4, 22–31

¹Does not wisdom call,

and does not understanding raise her voice?

²On the heights, beside the way,

at the crossroads she takes her stand;

³beside the gates in front of the town,

at the entrance of the portals she cries out:

⁴"To you, O people, I call,

and my cry is to all that live.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

²²The LORD created me at the beginning of his work,

the first of his acts of long ago.

²³Ages ago I was set up,

at the first, before the beginning of the earth.

²⁴When there were no depths I was brought forth,

when there were no springs abounding with water.

²⁵Before the mountains had been shaped,

before the hills, I was brought forth—

²⁶when he had not yet made earth and fields,

or the world’s first bits of soil.

²⁷When he established the heavens, I was there,

when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,

²⁸when he made firm the skies above,

when he established the fountains of the deep,

²⁹when he assigned to the sea its limit,

so that the waters might not transgress his command,

when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

³⁰then I was beside him, like a master worker;

and I was daily his delight,

rejoicing before him always,

³¹rejoicing in his inhabited world

and delighting in the human race."

Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture

The book of Proverbs belongs to the genre of biblical Wisdom literature, which derives its name from its focus on wisdom and folly. Wisdom literature is didactic, offering teachings grounded in the observations and experiences of daily life and the natural world: Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise (Prov. 6:6). However, this appointed portion of Proverbs does not contain the kinds of pithy aphorisms we may have come to expect from the rest of the book. Instead, Proverbs 8:22–31 offers a lengthy poem voiced by Wisdom, which is personified as a woman throughout the first nine chapters. Verses 1–4 introduce Wisdom crying out in the public square to all of humanity, echoing a similar call at Proverbs 1:20–21. The remainder of the verses appointed by the lectionary constitute a self-contained poem devoted to Wisdom’s reflections on her primacy among all of God’s creation.

Though the poem in verses 22–31 can stand alone as an independent unit, one of our first tasks still should be to investigate the intervening lines that have been omitted (vv. 5–21), as we would for any lectionary text that includes nonconsecutive verses. In them Wisdom testifies to the truth, nobility, and righteousness of her speech. Drawing on a favorite metaphor of the wisdom tradition, Wisdom describes her paths as straight and just. These characteristics contrast with the seductive speech and dangerous paths of the strange woman (NRSV loose woman), who is presented as a contrast to Woman Wisdom throughout Proverbs 1–9. In fact, the contrasting parallel of the strange woman, who is essentially the personification of folly, is the first connection to make with Proverbs 8, which itself is dominated by the voice of Woman Wisdom. Though absent from this particular lection, the shadow of the strange woman looms over any discussion of Woman Wisdom in these chapters.

Proverbs 8 is situated within an extended discourse from father to son that stretches throughout Proverbs 1–9. As the father instructs his son on how to navigate the world in ways that will enable him to flourish, the father builds divergent images of these two metaphorical women. Proverbs 7, focused on the strange woman, is a helpful place to see these contrasts, because it is so starkly different from the poems from Wisdom that follow. Carol Newsom describes Proverbs 7 and 8 as a diptych that sets up these two metaphors in a kind of oppositional parallel.¹ The strange woman of Proverbs 7 lurks in the twilight to target the young man, whom she entices into her house with a perfumed bed and smooth talk. By contrast, Woman Wisdom proclaims aloud at the city gates for all to hear (8:3–4); her words are all straight to one who understands and right to those who find knowledge (8:9). Whereas the strange woman incites licentious desire, Woman Wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her (8:11). The strange woman leads to death (7:27), but Wisdom leads to life (8:35–36).

Following the more general observations of verses 4–21, Proverbs 8:22–31 turns our attention to the cosmic realm, broadening its antithesis with the previous chapter. As Newsom notes, Chapter 8, with its strong mythic overtones, is written largely in the symbolic register; chapter 7 largely in the realistic.² The cosmic is often the answer to the mundane in Wisdom literature. Think of God’s answer to Job out of the whirlwind (Job 38–41). As a destitute Job scrapes his sores, God takes him on a rhetorical tour of the beginnings of the universe, pointing out the absence of Job’s power and the magnitude of God’s own. Proverbs, like Job, invites us to connect everyday virtue with the cosmic order, albeit in a slightly different mode. Whereas God’s speech all but shuts down Job’s complaint, Wisdom’s reflections on her position as the first of creation invite her listeners to engage with her in their everyday lives.

Wisdom literature is built on the notion that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10), but God does not feature as a character in Wisdom literature in the same way God does in biblical narrative or prophecy. Though set in a theological framework, much of the content of the book of Proverbs focuses on practicalities like using accurate scales and disciplining children. That emphasis makes the scope of the poem of Proverbs 8:22–31 all the more striking. The poem is replete with vocabulary that emphasizes Wisdom’s first-ness; Wisdom was there at the beginning, at the first, before the beginning of the earth, before everything else but God. While God created the earth, Wisdom was God’s joyful companion. Where the NRSV uses master worker in verse 30, an alternative (and, in my evaluation, better) translation is child. In other words, the poem imagines the first take-your-daughter-to-work day, when God is busy setting limits for the sea, and Wisdom is trailing along as a happy observer, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race (v. 31). To walk in the straight and righteous paths of Wisdom, then, is to connect with this same primal joy.

God’s High, Plenteous Grace

I beheld the working of all the blessed Trinity, and in the beholding I saw and understood these three properties: the property of fatherhood, the property of motherhood, and the property of the Lordship in one God. In our Father almighty we have our keeping and our bliss as regards our human substance, which is ours by our making without beginning. And in the Second Person, in wit and wisdom, we have our keeping as regards our sensuality, our restoring, and our saving: for he is our Mother, Brother, and Savior. And in our good Lord the Holy Spirit we have our rewarding and our recompense for our living and our labors which will far exceed anything we can desire, owing to his marvelous courtesy and his high plenteous grace.

For our whole life is in three. In the first we have our being, and in the second we have our increasing, and in the third we have our fulfilling. The first is kind, the second is mercy, and the third is grace. In the first, I saw and understood that the high might of the Trinity is our Father; and the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother; and the great love of the Trinity is our Lord: and all this we have and own in our natural kind and in the making of our substance.

Julian of Norwich, Revelation of Love, chap. 28, trans. John Skinner (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 129.

Metaphors are powerful literary devices. They function in two directions. They first serve to describe something unfamiliar or difficult to understand by means of something well established; for example, folly is like a loose woman. At the same time, metaphors can influence our perceptions of those supposedly well-established, well-known ideas. The gendered nature of the wisdom and folly metaphors makes them particularly fraught for today’s readers. On the one hand, to imagine wisdom, one of ancient Israelite culture’s highest values, as a female companion to God (v. 30) provides a welcome change from some of the more troubling OT metaphors, such as the prophets’ descriptions of Israel as an unfaithful wife who must be sexually shamed. On the other hand, pitting wisdom and folly against each other as opposing archetypes of womanhood can reinforce damaging stereotypes and unrealistic expectations, even today. When considering these texts for proclamation, preachers may wish to hold in tension the generativity of these metaphors with their potentially troubling effects.

In the NT, Proverbs 8:22–31 echoes through the Christ hymn of Colossians (Col. 1:15–20), which describes Jesus as the firstborn of all creation and before all things. Although the Colossians text is not one of the lectionary readings this week, the selection of Proverbs 8 for Trinity Sunday will surely give rise to some reflections on the use of this text in the early church’s christological debates. Nevertheless, the idea of the Trinity emerges as a theological and doctrinal category long after the composition of this poem. William Brown usefully reminds us, Poetry is not well suited for settling heated theological debates. The challenge is to look beyond the poem’s battle scars and welcome its wonder with eyes wide open, delighting in its richness, come what may.³ For the preacher, then, perhaps the wisest way forward is to take Brown’s advice and to delight in the beauty of Proverbs’ poetry: in its rhythms, its imagery, and its journey through the earliest moments of creation.

CAMERON B. R. HOWARD

Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World

A truly stunning natural phenomenon is the sudden appearance of a murmuration. This is a large flock of starlings, thousands of starlings, whirling and swooping in exquisite synchronicity over a marsh or field. Murmurations are exuberant living art; they convey joy and vitality. It is impossible not to feel delight in viewing such a natural wonder.

The personified woman of Wisdom in Proverbs 8 would certainly resonate with the marvel and amazement of a murmuration of starlings. The wise woman depicted in this highly structured text delights in the surprising displays of the created world and revels in them. This remarkable text, often the site of theological arguments about Trinity and Christology and creation, is better understood as a bold artistic portrayal of creation’s delights. In our frantic, highly competitive, materialistic, and individualistic culture, this text ought to serve as an invitation to a way of life much closer to the delight and joy of the wise woman. Rather than interrogating the text for Trinitarian and christological subtleties or orthodoxies, the judicious reader remains open to the gifts of this wise woman. The insights and instructions she offers for living in this world are multiple, flexible, and practical.

Some of the extensive scholarship crowding around this famous female image of personified Wisdom is argumentative, denying the quasidivine stature of the wise woman as a threat to orthodox Christian Trinitarianism. Taking the text on its own terms, as a celebration of created life in God’s wondrous world, it offers evocative insights for a life of flourishing. Two insights emerge that illuminate the challenges of pastoral ministry in a complex world.

First, this text highlights the irreducibly social aspect of creaturely life. The voice of Wisdom calls out in the public square; all are within the range of her voice (vv. 1–4). She is present and active at creation, not as a disinterested bystander, but as a companion and witness, even as an encourager. After all, Wisdom takes up the place of rejoicing before him always, a place of affirmation and encouragement to the creating actions of God. All of this highlights the deeply social and communal structures of the created world. No fullness of life is possible for the isolated individual who surveys life from a place of cool detachment. Rather, the multiple ways we are connected reach into the structures of creation itself. There is no room in this text for old and damaging anthropologies of human creatures as rational souls encumbered by bodies. The portrayal of both God and all creatures is one of relational connectedness and communication. Wisdom is with God daily (v. 30). Wisdom communicates with God (v. 30). Wisdom collaborates with God (v. 30). Furthermore, Wisdom rejoices in God (v. 31). Here is a portrayal of God’s profound and intimate connection with creation and of creation’s profound and lively connection with God, both evoked by the image of Wisdom, who relishes that relationship.

The unmistakable implications of the relationship between Wisdom and God reach out both into communities of faith and into communities of the public square. Here is a vision of human life lived fully only insofar as the whole created world lives fully. There are no winners and losers in this vision. This is not a zero-sum game. A Christian vision that looks out onto the world with the eyes of Wisdom constantly sees opportunities for participating in God’s own intentions and plans. God is not a Creator gone missing. God is intimately related to each and every creature. This surely motivates social action in every arena.

Furthermore, these relational interconnections happen in the most ordinary patterns of creaturely life. Biblical scholar Roland Murphy once commented, God’s creative intention for the world is fundamentally connected with the actual workings of the human mind and of human society.⁴ Scholars sometimes refer to the quotidian interests of the book of Proverbs, the day-to-day details that are included in divine care as well as divine call. Christine Roy Yoder underscores this: [Proverbs] urges us to examine our convictions about the human place in the world, the power and presence of God, the frame and fibers of moral character, the nature of knowledge, the contours of good and evil, the role of tradition, our assumptions about gender and ‘strangers,’ and the power and contingencies of speech.⁵ The scope of interest is both broad, cosmically broad, and detailed, minutely detailed, in this text.

The wise woman of Proverbs 8 calls out to us in all our places of activity with the message that we are at our creaturely roots deeply social and communal. We live in webs of interrelatedness and connection. We experience our true humanity not in isolation but in communion. A perceptive pastoral leader will be shaped by this text in calling communities of faith away from fearful schisms and competitions and toward forgiveness, trust, and wholeness.

The second implication for pastoral ministry that emerges from this text comes from the clear divine invitation to play. In this text, Wisdom takes up her work with such utter delight that work and play mix and merge into one joyful response to God. In fact, the remarkable image of divine Wisdom playing with the creatures that God has created, including human creatures, suggests both that play is part of the palette of God’s encounter with creation and that play is part of the proper human response to God.⁶ This invitation is a correction to a common assumption that theology and biblical interpretation are serious tasks best undertaken by serious people. The wise woman chuckles and says, Let’s play.

Congregations in some cultural contexts have been trained by well-intentioned pastors to approach God with deadly solemnity. Other cultural contexts express without reserve the palette of play. A pastor who has caught the delight of the wise woman of Proverbs 8 will lead the congregation into all the colors and tones of creaturely life, into joy and play and delight as well as sorrow and grief and loss. The church can certainly better fulfill its mission to communicate the gospel to a jaded world with winsome cheer and joyful delight rather than judgment and blame.

Imagine a congregation who gradually come to understand God as genuinely relishing the common delight of play and joy and wonder shared by both God and creatures. Imagine a congregation who can, however partially, envision their God as one who gets the joke of a murmuration of starlings or the delight of small daily rituals that shape life and bring joy. Such a congregation will come to know that the delights of wisdom are not cognition or knowledge proven by data. The delights of wisdom are a deep disposition, an attitude, a perception. Pastoral leaders who name and nurture that deep disposition of delight and wonder can then also connect it to faithful action in the world. Wonder and witness are twin energies in the life of faith, both born of Wisdom who rejoices daily at the side of God.

LEANNE VAN DYK

1. Carol A. Newsom, Woman and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom: A Study of Proverbs 1–9, in Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader, ed. Alice Bach (New York: Routledge, 1999), 85–98.

2. Newsom, Woman and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom, 95.

3. William P. Brown, Sacred Sense: Discovering the Wonder of God’s Word and World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 56. Brown devotes a chapter to Prov. 8:22–31, in which he dwells helpfully on Wisdom’s childlike playfulness and the poem’s inherent beauty.

4. Roland Murphy, Wisdom and Creation, Journal of Biblical Literature 104, no. 1 (1985): 67.

5. Christine Roy Yoder, Proverbs (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009), xxx.

6. Ellen Davis, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 69.

Trinity Sunday

Psalm 8

¹O LORD, our Sovereign,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.

²Out of the mouths of babes and infants

you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,

to silence the enemy and the avenger.

³When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars that you have established;

⁴what are human beings that you are mindful of them,

mortals that you care for them?

⁵Yet you have made them a little lower than God,

and crowned them with glory and honor.

⁶You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under their feet,

⁷all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,

⁸the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

⁹O LORD, our Sovereign,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Connecting the Psalm with Scripture and Worship

Psalm 8 is read in response to the first reading, Proverbs 8:1–4, 22–31, in which God is proclaimed as the creator of the universe by the personified Wisdom. While Romans 5:1–5 points to God’s reconciling work with humanity through Jesus Christ, and John 16:12–15 explains the work of the Holy Spirit as the Advocate, Psalm 8 connects to the first reading by praising God for the creation of all the creatures in the world, particularly human beings.

In the reading from Proverbs, Wisdom calls for attention from people (Prov. 8:1–4) and discloses to them her identity as the closest one to God (vv. 22–31). Wisdom, being associated with prudence and possessing knowledge and discretion (v. 12), introduces herself as the precedent of the creation of the universe, and stresses that she was with God when God created the universe. More precisely, God as the creator has been by, with, and in Wisdom; and the voice of Wisdom, crying out repeatedly in the most public places, such as on the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads . . . beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals (vv. 2–3), is an attribute of the voice of God. In the presence of God, she rejoices and delights in the whole world God created (v. 31).

Later, in the Gospel of John, Wisdom is equated with the Logos and is identified with the Christ (John 1:1–2). Moreover, the christological hymn in Colossians 1:15–20 applies the description of Wisdom in Proverbs 8 to Jesus Christ and confesses that [t]he Son is . . . the firstborn over all creation. . . . in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth (NIV). In this way, the relationship between God and Wisdom in the OT became the foundation of understanding the relationship between God and Jesus Christ in the NT. The Council of Nicaea (325 CE) signified the absolute equality of the first person with the second person of the Trinity. Accordingly, Wisdom, who was identified with the second person of the Trinity in the NT, is coequal with God.

A reflection of Wisdom’s joy and delight in God’s work of creation can be heard in Psalm 8, which is the first hymn of praise in the book of Psalms. Verse 1 directly addresses God in an exclamation of adoration, and then recounts God’s creation of the cosmos (Ps. 8:3) and human and nonhuman creatures (vv. 4–8), based on the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2. The last verse (v. 9) is a refrain of the first verse to conclude the hymn with the tone of the praise of adoration.

The poem says that the essential reason for us to praise God is that God has created and cares for human beings. A profound theological question about humanity is raised in verse 4 (What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?) and is answered in the following verses: God has made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor (v. 5) and has granted them dominion over other creatures that God has created in the world (vv. 6–8).

Do we praise God for creating us and our fellow human beings? How, then, could we praise God the Creator in our reality, where not every human being is regarded as being a little lower than God and crowned with glory and honor? Our relationships with others are discriminatory and exclusive when we discount people with disabilities, the elderly, the poor, and the racially, sexually, and religiously marginalized as the wonderful work of God. As a result, we make God the Creator not of every human being but of a select, privileged people. What is our relationship with nonhuman creatures? If we misuse the divine gift of dominion as domination over them, how can we sing wholeheartedly the hymn of praise for God’s creation? Authentic worship with praise and adoration of God is possible when we remember the way God created the world and confess such sins of humanity.

The liturgy of worshiping God the creator may begin with praise songs (O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!) and move through lamentation for God’s creatures in prayer to the evocation of worshipers’ imagination by proclaiming the renewal of God’s creation. By praising the sovereign Lord in God’s promise of the new creation, the liturgy may end with doxology and remind us of the sovereignty of God over the universe as well as human responsibility for creation.

Psalm 8, therefore, leads us to worship God the creator with joy and delight in humility. It helps us remember who we are and what we are required to do as God’s precious creatures, and it invites us to praise God for the continuous work of creation and recreation of all the world.

EUNJOO MARY KIM

Trinity Sunday

Romans 5:1–5

¹Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture

In his book Open Secrets Richard Lischer describes his rural Illinois congregation’s shared life of intersecting paths, connections, and graced relationships through an image: a vision of the Trinity in stained glass. The window’s image, of course, is rather conceptual: a triangle for God, and smaller triangles within for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,¹ and between them, the paths of the three-in-one God in relation. Lischer later juxtaposes this image with a bird’s-eye view of a community from an airplane. From the sky, one can see the paths that run between homes and farms, where people have walked over the many years—reaching out, connecting, helping, sometimes suffering together. There is for Lischer a deep relationship between Trinity as doctrine and life as lived.

If chapter 5 of Paul’s Letter to the Romans were to be described visually, it would probably be as a two-sided tapestry. The Trinity, three centuries before the Council of Constantinople, is far from fully defined. Romans 5 bears only indirect witness to a way of thinking about God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet at the same time, what are pictured here in starker relief is the relationships between God, Christ, and Holy Spirit, and the corresponding relationships in the church at Rome, to whom Paul writes, possibly around year 57 or 58 CE. Note the relational emphasis here. We moderns are sometimes tempted to read Paul as the introspective individualist. In reading Romans, however, we know that Paul has in mind the relations between Jews and Gentiles in the mystery of the gospel. These relational tensions and possibilities are what we should best juxtapose with the curious language of God, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit; this is less than Constantinople, but as close as first-century Paul gets to anything Trinitarian in Romans 5:1–5. For Trinity Sunday, this Pauline interethnic understanding in nuce will just have to do. Yet the tapestry’s juxtaposition of community life and emerging doctrinal formulation may prove almost as illuminating as Lischer’s stained-glass paths.

Within the pericope itself, we note on close reading that the text begins and ends with a grace sandwich. It starts in verse 1 with justified by faith and ends in verse 5 with God’s love poured and Holy Spirit given. We cannot understand our pericope apart from God’s grace in justification and God’s love and Holy Spirit poured out as a lavish gift. We may be in a heavy-duty doctrinal section of the middle of Paul’s letter to the Romans, but Paul wishes to remind us that his claims are bounded by divine grace. What may surprise us is the point of view. These five verses are doctrinal, but they are not directed to the lonely individual. Throughout our pericope the pronouns are we and us and the possessives are ours.

While we may not wish to pin too much on word choice here, it does help to underline an ongoing feature of Romans overall. Paul is concerned to understand how the gospel can be universal when the communities to whom it speaks are both Jewish and Gentile. The we of these texts thus also serves to remind us later readers of the complexity of we. We are not the same; and yet we are graced. Whatever Paul is saying about justification, reconciliation, Spirit, and love must be read through the Jewish/Gentile fabric of his we in the letter to the Romans.

Between talk of gifted justification, love, and Spirit is the hard-won naming of suffering and glory, endurance and hope. Gifts are great; but life in human flesh is lived in deeper paradox and shadows—even in the gospel. Paul is here speaking eschatologically—not in some pie-in-the-sky sense, but in an earthy sense, realizing that a gospel promise always points ahead to a future not yet fully present. For now, as is typical for many apocalyptic thinkers of the time, suffering and hope are comingled in the life of the community’s faith. Yet this proleptic language is no interloper in the middle of verses 1–5. Justification itself is also an eschatological notion, as is the Spirit, whose presence is understood as a down payment, a firstfruit of the new age to come. Our text is about struggle bounded by grace. Here you may want to notice: proto-Trinitarian talk of God, Jesus Christ, and Spirit is uttered in the same breath as speech about reconciliation and shalom with suffering/hope along the way.

The tapestry threads connect our text to its wider literary context. Chapter 5 helps stitch together the so-called doctrinal section of Romans. Some argue it is the last part of Paul’s long treatment of justification. Others claim it is the beginning of a section that concludes in chapter 8, where life in the Spirit, perhaps even sanctification, is in view. The main thing to note for our purposes is that all these are connected. Doctrine is not abstraction over life; it is rather in deep relation to life as lived, like Lischer’s well-worn paths in the field.

That is why it is important to remember that even this doctrinal discourse is situated in a letter from Paul to the Romans. Paul must be mindful of connections here: the church is likely not one that he founded. If Paul’s goal is as he professes, to stay in Rome on his way to preaching in Spain, he will need to make his gospel clear and help a community understand itself more deeply in communion with both Jews and Gentiles. For Paul, these are never just abstractions; just consider the wealth of personal greetings with which Romans concludes.

Thematically, Romans 5:1–5 is of a piece with what follows. There is a similar word cluster of Spirit/suffering/hope in Romans 8:18–25, along with the use of a rhetorical climax. Those who argue for a centrality of life in the Spirit here have the evidence of our text in their favor. Whatever Paul’s language of God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit offers us on Trinity Sunday is not just about the internal doxology of the mysterious Godhead. It is also about the mystery of human communities, human realities of suffering, and gifts to humans of hope.

Within the lectionary and the church calendar, our text has even wider valence. On Trinity Sunday, we can take any first-century text only so far. If Romans 5 helps with Trinitarian theology, it does so only in nuce. Nonetheless, its value on Trinity Sunday is potentially deep. How does the reality of justification in a divided community relate to experience of Spirit and the grace in which we stand as God’s diverse people together? The payoff may seem modest. At the same time, Paul’s lively letter pushes back against any abstract doctrinal focus to the day and instead asks pointedly about the warp and woof, the living texture of community in which such language makes sense.

Within the wider canon, Romans also reminds us about the importance of Holy Spirit language—especially since Trinity Sunday comes right after Pentecost. The Holy Spirit here and elsewhere in the canon (John, for example) is not just some free agent, but precisely the Spirit of Christ. This relation is important for holding things together that at first blush would seem to be spiraling apart. For in the end, only in this way can it possibly lead our communities down the well-worn path from suffering to hope.

DAVID SCHNASA JACOBSEN

Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World

This text encourages us to join Paul and boast in two things: our hope of sharing the glory of God, and our sufferings. While these might seem at odds, if not contradictory, Paul invites us to recognize our sufferings as somehow lying at the root of a journey that, in stages, produces within us the fruit of hope.

How will such a pair of boasts sound in our day? Will they be laughable to those who hear them? Will they in fact stick in our own throats when we try to utter them?