31 March 2014

Psalm 89:1-18; Gen. 49:1-28; 1 Cor. 10:14-11:1; Mark 7:24-37

Jacob's "blessings" for his children are certainly a mixed bag.  He essentially curses his oldest son Reuben in much the same way Noah cursed his son, Ham.  He has never forgiven for going in to Jacob's concubine, Rachel's maid, Bilhah and having intercourse with her.  Simeon and Levi are, likewise, given no blessing based on their actions at Shechem in retaliation for the rape of their sister Dinah.  On Judah and Joseph real blessings fall.  Judah is the one we have seen who has grown more than all the rest in his life.  He was the one willing to take the place of Benjamin in order to spare his father the loss of what he believed was the only remaining son of Rachel.  He, then, is given the blessing of ruler among all the children of Jacob.  With Joseph, it is almost as though Jacob isn't quite sure how to bless him so he just blesses him and blesses him, using the word bless six times in his little speech about Joseph.  His love for this first-born of Rachel is evident and his joy at being reunited with him has overwhelmed him.  We know that Judah, through David and then through Jesus, will always reign over not only his brothers but over all the earth forever.  Jacob got at least that one right.

In both these stories, Jesus is dealing with non-Jewish people.  They Syro-Phoenician woman perseveres through a rough conversation to get Jesus to heal her daughter.  The exchange between her and Jesus would be offensive to say the least.  He compares her, as a Gentile, to dogs in rebuffing her request but she is willing to accept that insult if, in the end, she gets what she wants, healing.  Her faith isn't based on anything other than what she has seen and heard about Jesus.  The second story, the restoration of hearing, takes place either in or near the Decapolis, the area where the Gerasene demoniac incident occurred.  The man is brought before Jesus and He takes the man away privately to heal him.  The people will not be dissuaded from talking about this healer.  His fame is spreading beyond the Jews.

There are two different issues here.  One is that we shouldn't participate in pagan feasts where food is "blessed" and dedicated to some god that is nothing more than a demon.  Anything that lays claim to being God but is not is a demon.  The other issue is that in Corinth and even in our world today we have no idea where our meat comes from.  Some today is killed in keeping with Islamic practices in order that they might be able to sell to Muslims who keep dietary restrictions in this regard.  Paul says, don't worry about that, you can't avoid it and an idol is nothing at all.  At the house of a non-believer Paul says to eat what you're offered but if you are told that it has been sacrificed to an idol, then abstain from eating so that you don't affirm this practice.  We are to eat and do all else to the Lord, He should always be uppermost in our minds.  We are always witnesses to Him, just as Jesus showed in these lessons today.

30 March 2014

Psalm 66, 67; Gen. 48:8-22; Rom. 8:11-25; John 6:27-40

As Jacob is dying, Joseph bows his knee to his father, reversing the image from his dream.  It is a tender moment between a father and his favorite son who were separated from one another through no fault of their own.  Was there any doubt that Jacob would play favorites with both these children and with Joseph in the end.  Joseph presents his children in birth order to receive the blessing from Jacob and yet the old man crosses it up, blesses the younger over the elder, just as he had done in his own life.  He took his father's blessing away from his elder brother, he now also blesses the younger son, Joseph, over his brothers with an extra inheritance, and blesses Ephraim over Manasseh.  That's just Jacob being Jacob.

There is a parallel here in this Gospel reading with John 4, the Samaritan woman at the well.  Here, Jesus has fed the multitudes the day prior and now they come seeking again that bread and Jesus refuses, pointing them to something more, the bread of heaven.  Their hunger is aroused and they respond, "Sir, give us this bread always."  In Samaria, the woman didn't understand He was talking about spiritual things when He spoke of water and she responded to his offer, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”  She continued the conversation and received what she truly sought, these are more material in their needs, while Jesus is promising true bread, Himself. 

Jesus was pointing to the bread that satisfies, the bread of which Isaiah wrote, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" Paul reminds us that we must not spend our lives gratifying the desires of the flesh.  Our problem is we are all, at heart, materialists.  We see with our eyes and we want what we can experience with our senses.  We fail to live at the level of Spirit, that which makes us different from everything else in creation, God's gift of His own Spirit to us.  Adam and Eve became materialists when they took and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, believing material things could provide spiritual wisdom and insight.  The entire advertising world revolves around the promise of fulfilling a desire if we will only get this material thing.  We need to see with spiritual eyes to know good and evil.  Maybe, in the end, Jacob saw that way, Ephraim endured and Manasseh did not and the well Jacob apparently dug in that land he gave to Joseph enduringly produced water all the way up to the time of Jesus and does so today.

29 March 2014

Psalm 87, 90; Gen. 47:27-48:7; 1 Cor. 10:1-13; Mark 7:1-23

Jacob will not consent to be buried in Egypt.  He makes Joseph swear an oath that he will take him to the place where his fathers, Abraham and Isaac, are buried.  Why does he not simply request and believe that Joseph will do as he promises?  When Jacob is dying Joseph comes to his father and brings his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh with him.  In that encounter, Jacob decides to adopt the two boys as his own, they will receive blessing and inheritance with his children, further dividing the inheritance, cutting into the portions the natural born children will receive, but effectively increasing the share that will pass to Joseph and his descendants, and also they will receive his blessing.  The family is now complete, the tribes are set and Israel from now forward will be numbered according to these men and the descendants who will come after them.  They will all receive not only the inheritance from Jacob but also the Land will be apportioned according to these same tribes. 

Handwashing may seem a minor thing to you but it was a very big issue with the Jews of Jesus' time.  They were in the Land but they didn't rule over it and the law wasn't their Law.  They had much contact with Gentiles with whom they shared the Land.  Because of this constant contact with "the world" there was a constant need to wash the hands because of defilement.  Those with whom they traded and conducted other business were ritually unclean so there was a cultural problem that required frequent washing.  The disciples of Jesus were not keeping this law and the Pharisees wondered why not.  The problem, Jesus said, is not the world that defiles us but that which is in the heart.  Sin isn't a contagious disease in the sense that we catch it from others, it is more a part of our DNA and that must be dealt with in some other ways.  How do you cleanse that?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Paul says that "these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did."  These things are the failures of the nation in the wilderness.  When he says they desired evil he mentions two things, idolatry in the making of the golden calves, and sexual immorality (a Jewish understanding of the episode of the golden calf is that the people were "playing" in worship, and that play was essentially sexual play).  In addition, he speaks of putting God to the test, the sin of unbelief, and grumbling or murmuring.  For all these sins, the people suffered God's judgment in one form or another and Paul says we are to learn from that example.  How do we understand the giving of the Spirit?  Living by the Spirit requires discipline, vigilance on our part to avoid temptation and when we face it, to be strong in our decision to withstand it.  For that, we need to have that inner cleansing to allow outer obedience.

28 March 2014

Psalm 88; Gen. 47:1-26; 1 Cor. 9:16-27; Mark 6:47-56

What the family says to Pharaoh is that they have come to "sojourn" in the land.  In other words, they don't expect to stay in Egypt permanently.  Little could anyone have imagined that this sojourn would be many generations, over four hundred years.  Likewise, when Jacob comes before Pharaoh, he says that the years of his sojourning have been 130 years on this earth and they have been difficult years.  Over the next several years as the famine continued to plague the land, Joseph manages to get all the money in the land, all the livestock in the land and ultimately all the land as well for Pharaoh's benefit.  He, Pharaoh, through Joseph's management not only rules the region, he owns it and all the people are his servants, sharecroppers if you will.  They receive seed from Pharaoh to plant in the land on which they live and in return they owe Pharaoh a twenty percent tax of all the produce. 

Why did Jesus intend to pass by the boat?  They were working hard to try and get across and Jesus was planning to walk right on past them to get across the lake.  It is only because they cry out in fear that He gets into the boat with them to calm both their fears and the wind.  It is a strange little detail that Mark gives us that Jesus was planning to pass them by and he doesn't give an explanation for it.  They were stupefied by the change and didn't know what to make of it.  Who was He to have such power?  The people of Gennasaret knew what to do about Jesus, bring out all the sick they could find so that He could heal them.  There was no doubt in their minds that Jesus was a healer, but is that all?

Paul says he is beholden only to the Gospel.  He must preach, there is a compulsion laid on him that can only be satisfied by fulfilling his obligation to preach, whether he receives compensation from men or not.  He says that while he is free of all, he has willingly made himself a servant to all, just as he will argue that Jesus did in Philippians.  He serves others by submitting himself to the Lord.  Ultimately his service is to the Gospel.  He compares what he does to runners in a race, an activity that requires discipline and perseverance.  Jacob, in our first lesson, sees the years of his life as few and evil.  He has surely many regrets in his life as he looked back over those years, and some seemed longer than others.  Paul implores us to run the race in such a way that we don't have those regrets, that we run to win at all times, keeping our eyes on the prize.  Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

27 March 2014

Psalm 42, 43; Gen. 46:1-7,28-34; 1 Cor. 9:1-15; Mark 6:30-46

Did you ever think about the fact that God had been silent on some important matters for many years in the lives of Joseph and Jacob?  Neither of these men knew the truth about the other for all the years Jacob served Potiphar, was in prison, and now for the nine years of plenty and famine.  The Lord allowed them to live without knowledge and with their false narratives for many years before bringing them back to one another.  Only when Jacob goes to Beersheba and offers sacrifices there on his way to Egypt does he hear from the Lord on the matter.  When they go down, Joseph makes a decision to separate his family from the Egyptians by settling them in the land of Goshen.  His instructions to them are that when Pharaoh asks what they do they are to tell them they are shepherds and this will further isolate them from the pagan nation.  Joseph, without directly saying so, is preserving the remnant spiritually as well as physically.  He apparently never gave up on God even though he had no other Yahweh worshipper with him in all this time.

As they return from the mission to go, heal, and proclaim, Jesus sees the disciples need a break.  His desire is for them all to go away to a "desolate place", somewhere apart, where they can rest, talk and process all they have just seen and done.  Instead, people see them, recognize them, and run ahead of them and arrive before the disciples get there.  The press of ministry is sometimes never-ending.  Jesus sees the crowd and has compassion on them, recognizes they are hungry for that which is real food and begins teaching them.  At the end of the day the disciples beg Him to send them away for this is a desolate place with nothing to eat there.  Jesus' response is to say, "You give them something to eat."  They have just done miraculous things at His command but this is too much, they don't have enough money and even if they did, there is no place to buy food.  Jesus reveals that even though they have done miracles their faith isn't complete and He feeds them all.  Oh, that's what He meant.

Perhaps it is that the church at Corinth questions Paul's apostleship because he has refused their patronage.  He defends his rights both to make an independent living and also to be supported by the church.  More than either of these options, however, he defends his freedom to choose which of these two courses of action is appropriate for him.  Frequently that is truly the issue in church leadership, we have our freedom circumscribed by others.  Is someone a lesser pastor if they are bi-vocational than if they are fully supported by the church?  Paul's status seems to be in question because he has refused to make use of his rights as apostle to receive support from the local church.  The church may need soon to re-evaluate such things and it may need to see if professionalism is right or not.  Perhaps we have become more like the world in that regard.  I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know we are quickly approaching a time when we may see change.