St. Stephen's Episcopal Church

Introduction to today’s lessons

— Introduction to today’s lessons —

1/15/12 W The Second Sunday after the Epiphany B

First Samuel 3:1-10 Samuel’s mother was barren when at the Shiloh sanctuary where Eli was the priest she prayed to the Lord for a son. In her prayer she asked, “...if only you will look on the misery of your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.” Eli told her “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.” That is how Samuel came to be at the Shiloh sanctuary ‘ministering...under Eli.’

In today’s lesson Samuel is an apprentice to Eli, the priest at Shiloh, under whom he is to learn his vocation as God’s prophet.¹ Tradition holds that Samuel was 12 years old at the time of this lesson but the “Hebrew word [here] is used of any age from a newborn infant to a man of forty.”. ²

In verse 1: “‘The word of Yahweh’ functions in Israelite literature as a technical designation for an oracle or revealed message, communicated to man by Yahweh…[Thus] the incident that follows was something out of the ordinary.”³ Verse 3: The ‘temple of the Lord’ refers to a holy site where a building had been constructed for the ‘ark of God,’ thought of as the throne of Jahweh. The ‘lamp of God’ was a light that burned “in the sanctuary,”⁴ where the Ark of the Lord was maintained. “Israel thought of the Ark as the throne of Jahweh. Wherever the Ark is, Jahweh is always fully present.”⁵

The prophet Eli had a room in this building. “Samuel was sleeping in the actual shrine, an appropriate place to receive a divine call...”.⁶ “’The lamp of God’ would burn all night (See Exodus 27:20-21) as a symbol of God’s presence, also indicated by the Ark. ⁷Verse 10: “The call begins with a voice, but when at last Samuel answers the voice becomes a vision.”⁸ Samuel’s call from God is for him to be a prophet.⁹ “That which was implied from the beginning is now made explicit. Samuel accedes to the office for which he has been prepared from the womb...Samuel is henceforward to be the medium through which Yahweh will address his people.”¹⁰

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 This is “A psalm of innocence composed by a religious leader who was accused of idol worship.”¹¹ Since he has been accused of worshiping idols, the psalmist asks Yahweh to personally examine him concerning the accuracy of the charge.”¹²

“Verses 1-5 contain a description of God’s knowledge as well as his foreknowledge.¹³They reflect God’s omniscience, i.e., he knows everything: verse 1—‘you know’ in the sense ‘you know I am innocent’.

Verse 13: God personally created the psalmist. “…Creation implies full knowledge of the person created. Hence Yahweh should know the inmost thoughts of the psalmist.”¹⁴

In verse 15, “one may infer that ‘in secret’ is another poetic name for Sheol.”¹⁵

Verse 16 affirms God’s knowledge of the author’s as yet unlived life. ‘In your book’: “At the root of the idea of the book of the living, which bears analogy to the tablets of destiny known from Babylonia, is the original conception of the efficacious power of the written word.”¹⁶

“The psalmist’s meditation on God’s nature is concluded in vv. 17-18 by his confession of man’s inability to comprehend God’s greatness.”¹⁷ Verse 18: “”...the psalmist pleads to be enrolled among the just who will enjoy the gift of resurrection and everlasting existence with God.”¹⁸

First Corinthians 6:12-20 Some members of the Corinthian Church apparently had sex with pagan prostitutes and thought there was nothing wrong with that. Their conduct raised “the whole issue of the nature of Christian freedom...Gnostic libertines had used the…fact that food did not raise a moral issue to support their contention that sexual conduct also had no moral significance.”¹⁹ The thought is since “the body is perishable …its acts are therefore insignificant.”²⁰

“Sexual intercourse, unlike eating, is an act of the whole person, and therefore participates not in the transiency of material members but in the continuity of the resurrection life.” ²¹“Christian existence is dependent not upon the observance of rules...It does not follow, however, that it is a good and profitable thing for a Christian to exercise his freedom in an irresponsible way.”²² Verse 14 reinforces why God’s will is to be followed.

Verse 15: “The ‘body of Christ’ image is introduced as a corrective to Corinthian individualism and divisiveness.”²³ Verse 17: Paul assumes that “Under the guidance of the Spirit Christians are supposed to have the will of the Lord so united with their wills that they freely want to do his will.” ²⁴ To unite with a prostitute is a perversion “of faithful membership in the body of Christ.”²⁵

Paul “may very well have in mind that the prostitute in Corinth…was dedicated to the service of pagan gods. To resort to such a person was to effect union with the god she served.” ²⁶ To be united to that god denies one’s faith and commitment to God and to Jesus Christ.²⁷ Verse 19: “Sexual immorality desecrates the temple of the Lord. This figure is particularly appropriate if temple prostitution was the point at issue.”²⁸

John 1:43-51 The lesson opens with the calling by Jesus of Philip to be a disciple: ‘Follow me.’ ²⁹ Verse 45: This “testimony, apparently alluding to Deut. 18:15, 18, identified Jesus as the prophetic figure expected by some circles within 1^st-century Judaism.³⁰ Verses 45-46: John “insists from Chapter 1 onward that Jesus does come from Nazareth...” ³¹Verse 46: In Philip’s response, ‘See’ means “to perceive with the eye of faith the mystery of the Word in the flesh.”³²

“Although John means Nathanael to serve as a symbol of Israel coming to God, there is no evidence that Nathanael is a purely symbolic figure. John underlines Jesus’ ability to know things beyond the normal human range.” ³³Verse 47: “Because of Nathanael’s willingness to come to the light, Jesus hails him as one truly representative of Israel….the true Israelite believes in Jesus.” ³⁴Verse 49: Nathanael applies “to Jesus a great messianic title of Judaism. The title king of Israel is likewise taken from contemporary Jewish messianism.” ³⁵

Verse 51: ‘Son of Man,’ represents “the unveiling of divine attributes in human form, and so brings to believers a fellowship of the seen and the unseen.” ³⁶ “Jesus offers a self-revelation to Nathanael…who will see who Jesus truly is.” ³⁷ “The ‘greater things’ Nathaniel will see are the communion between the Father and the Son, indicating John’s dynamic understanding of the Incarnation.” ³⁸ “The Lord, as the Son of man, is the true or real ladder, whose ministry joins heaven and earth…He it is who in truth and reality joins heaven to earth, and earth to heaven.” ³⁹

Footnotes

First Samuel 1. The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol 5, [article, Samuel by George W. Ramsey, 1992], 954: “The Hebrew Bible portrays Samuel in a variety of roles: priest, prophet, judge and ‘seer.’”

Antony F. Campbell, S.J. and Mark A. O’Brien, O.P., Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History [Fortress Press, 2000], 222: Later “Samuel the prophet will replace Eli the priest; Israel will triumph over the Philistines; Samuel will anoint kings”, including David.

Peter Ackroyd, The First Book of Samuel [The Cambridge Bible Commentary], 42, 43: “Samuel is called to be a prophet, a messenger of God...the mediator of the word of God to his people...Now a new era begins, the era of prophecy”

Robert L. Wilken, The Land Called Holy [Yale University Press, 1992], 9-10: “In the ancient world a temple was not primarily a gathering place for worship like a synagogue or church or mosque. It was a dwelling place of the deity, the house of God, and the chief business of a temple was to offer sacrifices and offerings to God.”

2. The Interpreter’s Bible [exegesis of I Samuel by George B. Caird], 892:

TABD, Vol. 5, Ramsey, 955: However, “The stories of young Samuel are commonly classified as legend or idyll, and Samuel’s associations with the priesthood have been widely questioned.”

TABD, Vol. 5, [article, Book of 1-2 Samuel, by James W. Flanagan, 1992], 961: “...1-2 Samuel represents the views of Jerusalemite writers who, among other things, seek to reconcile and integrate a spectrum of attitudes and beliefs that spread among diverse peoples...The unifying force of Yahwist religion is central to the stories.”

TABD, Vol. 5, [article, Book of 1-2 Samuel, Narrative and Theology, by Walter Brueggemann, 1992], 966, 967: The books of Samuel form part of the Deuteronomistic History. “That is, the literature of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings is reckoned…to be one sustained historical-theological effort. It is named ‘Deuteronomistic’ because the theological presuppositions and impetus for the perspective of the literature derives from the book and tradition of Deuteronomy.

“This corpus in its present form, according to scholarly consensus, is dated sometime around the destruction of 587 B.C.E. and the Exile…In its present form, this entire literature is a reflection upon (not a report of) Israel’s historical experience…Historical realism in this corpus is mediated through literature that exercises the freedom of artistic legend concerning the major personalities…There can be little doubt that…the call narrative of Samuel…and many other narratives take important liberties of imagination in the presentation and portrayal of the main characters.”

__________ , 969: “Wide scholarly consensus holds that the present books of Samuel have been formed by

joining together independent literary pieces which in and of themselves are important literary achievements.”

McCarter, 15: Originally Martin Noth identified the Deuteronomic History as “the work of a single Deuteronomistic theologian. The F. M. Cross in his Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic posits “two editions, one from Josianic times (Dtr₁), the other Exilic (Dtr₂). It was a Josianic writer, he says, who gve the material in Deuteronomy through II Kings its primary shape, a history written to support the reform of Josiah with its emphasis upon the priority of the Jerusalem temple and allegiance to the Davidic king; the denunciation of idolatry is to be understood...as reinforcement of the call to reform. The smaller task that remained for the Exilic Deuteronomist...was to bring the earlier work up to date and provide an explanation for the failure of the Josianic freeform.” In addition he suggests “the sources of Samuel most often came into Deuteronomic circles as narratives of considerable length, already arranged in accordance with a ‘proto-Deuteronomic’ viewpoint.”

Israel Finkelstein (and Amihai Mazar) The Quest for the Historical Israel [SBL, 2007], 18: “It is clear therefore that the stories in I Samuel about the importance of Shiloh in pre-monarchic times cannot reflect late monarchic realities. Rather they must represent some memories concerning the importance of the site in earlier times...But there is much more than old memories in the late-monarchic composition labeled the Deuteronomistic History...The authors collected myths, folktales, popular heroic tales, and shreds of memories known to the population of Judah and employed them in their cause...The author included those stories that

suited their theological and ideological agenda.”

Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed [The Free Press, NY, 2001], 121, 13-14; and see 23; The books of Samuel are a part of the Deuteronomistic History, “the great expression of Israelite hopes and political aspirations, [which was] compiled in Judah in the time of King Josiah, in the seventh century B.C.E…[It] expresses the ideology of a new religious movement that arose among the people of Israel at a relatively late date…[it] was substantially shaped in the seventh century BCE.”

Anthony F. Campbell, S.J. and Mark A. O’Brien, O.P., Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History [Fortress Press, 2000], 13: “...The first edition of the DH [Deuteronomistic History] was pre-exilic, culminating in the hope presented by Josiah’s reform.

3.McCarter, Jr. 97; Ackroyd, 42: “It is not clear whether the statement about the rarity of the divine word and the hiddenness of [‘The word of’] God is to be regarded as a comment by the story-teller on this past period, contrasted with the later time of great prophetic activity, or whether it is a reflection on the low religious ebb of the days of Eli...”

4. McCarter, 98;

5. Gerhard von Rad, Vol. I, Theology of the Old Testament [Tr. D.M.G. Stalker, 1957 2^nd ed., 1962, Harper & Row, NY], 237; 6. Ackroyd, 43; 7. Ackroyd, 43; 8. TIB, Caird, 894; McCarter, 98: “Apparently the revelation to Samuel involved a vision as well as an audition.”

9. Reginald Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary, [Liturgical Press, Rev. Ed. 1984], 289: His call “serves as a type of Christ’s baptism. Like Jesus in his baptism, Samuel hears the call of God and responds with the words, ‘Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears.’ So, too, the fourth Gospel frequently speaks of the Son hearing the Father’s words.”

10. McCarter, 99;

Psalm 11. Mitchell Dahood, S.J., Psalms III [The Anchor Bible, 1970], 284-285, where he also says: “The psalmist begins (vs. 1)...the poem with an appeal to Yahweh to investigate personally, on the basis of his omniscience and universal presence, the charges of idolatry brought against him.” Dahood’s translation of verse 1 is, ‘examine me.’

Fuller, 545: This psalm expresses God’s concern for the individual from the moment of conception in the womb...It has an intensely personally and individualistic character...The psalm is structured as follows: verses 1-6: God’s knowledge of the individual; verses 13-17: God’s creative work, especially in conception, pregnancy, and birth.”

12. Dahood, 285;

13. ” Dahood, 284; Artur Weiser, The Psalms [The Old Testament Library, tr. Herbert Hartwell, 5^th Rev. Ed., 1959, 1965], 801, 802; The psalm is “a classical testimony to what the theologians intend to convey by such concepts as the omnipresence, omniscience, and omnificence of God… verses 1-5 speak of God’s omniscience; verses 6-11 of his omnipresence; verses 12-15 of his omnificence. The poet develops his thought ‘in the sphere of his personal experience of the reality of God in which he sees his whole life to be embedded.”

14. Dahood, 292; J.H. Eaton, Psalms, [SCM Press Ltd., London, 1967[, 301; “In structure and content the psalm has some resemblance to an Indian prayer (Atharva-Veda iv. 16), while influences from the hymns of the Pharaohs can be felt in the beautiful vv. 1-18.”

Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin, Old Testament Parallels [Paulist Press, 2006, article, ‘Hymn to the Aten’ (1353-1335 BCE)], 275: “Close parallels to the Hymn to the Aten appear in the book of Psalms. At page 277: “You massage the fetus in tits mother’s womb, you soothe the crying child unborn. You nurse the hungry infant in the womb, You breathe into its nostrils the first breath of life...You meet every human need...”

Weiser, 801: “…we light upon similar thoughts also outside the Old Testament, above all in India (Atharva

Veda IV, 16) but also among the Canaanites and Greeks and in Islam; an external dependence of the psalm on other literary documents, however, cannot be conclusively proved.”

15. Dahood, 294, where he adds, “…this inference is borne out by Job 14:13. Isaiah 45:19; Job 4:13; Job 3:21. Dahood, 295: “Thus, the psalm holds that the ‘frame’ of the person was made in Sheol, “the abode of the dead, beneath the earth…An impressive number of texts take for granted that man originated and pre-existed in the nether world; cf. e.g., Gen 2:7, 3:19; Ps 90:3; Eccles 3:20, 5:14, 7A:7; Ecclus 11:1; Job 1:21 cf. e.g., Ecclus 40:1; at 296 he adds: ‘In your book,’ means the book “upon which are written God’s decrees regarding the psalmist’s destiny…Like the Servant (Isa xlix 1,5), Jeremiah (i 5), and the Apostle Paul (Gal i 15), the psalmist was predestined; his life stages and his days were decided and counted even before he was seen by them.”

16. Weiser, 806;

17. Weiser 802; God’s omniscience as set out in this psalm was continued in the Christian church. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, [F.L. Cross, ed., Oxford University Press, 1958], 566: “By the time of Nicaea (325) the great lines of Christian thought were fixed, and such Divine attributes as eternity, immutability, omniscience, and omnipotence had become the undisputed belief of all Christians.” Somewhere along the line the doctrine of omniscience was applied to Santa Claus and is perhaps better known today among many than is the doctrine of God’s omniscience.

18. Dahood, 296;

First Corinthians 19. The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 10 [exegesis of I Cor. by Clarence T. Craig, 1953], 73; Some of the Corinthians thought that since the body, like the stomach and the food that is taken into it, will be destroyed, there is no harm in being with a prostitute—one’s body eventually will no longer exist so what is done is immaterial and not of eternal significance.

Barrett, 147: Some thought that since it is legitimate for a Christian to satisfy his physical hunger with food “without regard to food laws, similar considerations would justify him in satisfying his sexual appetite in the most convenient way available.

20. C.K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians [Black’s N.T. Commentaries, 1968, 2^nd ed. 1971], 144, 145: “‘All things are lawful for me’ There is fairly general agreement that these words are quoted by Paul, and that they were in use at Corinth...The most probable view is that they were the watchword of a Gnostic party in Corinth…Its disparagement of the material (see verses 13, 18f. below) could already have led to the moral indifferentism of ‘All things are lawful for me’...”

Fuller 289-290; “ Paul is not so much concerned with the guilty parties (perhaps some kind of temple prostitution was involved; it was a question of a hangover from their previous pagan life) but with the failure of the Corinthians to discipline the offender. As ‘gnostics’ they used the slogan ‘All things are lawful for me’—anything goes. They felt this way because as Gnostics they believed that their Christian experience enabled them to transcend the realities of the material world. Against this Gnostic position Paul argues that the Christian experience rather than delivering the soul from the body, brings the whole person, body and soul alike, under the lordship of Christ.”

21. Barrett 148; Fuller 290: “The Christian experience…brings the whole person, body and soul alike, under the lordship of Christ.”

22. Barrett, 145;

23. The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol.1 [First Epistle to the Corinthians, by Hans Dieter Betz and Margaret M. Mitchell, 1992], 1144;

24. Barrett, 201;

25. John Ruef, Paul’s First Letter to Corinth [Westminster Pelican Commentaries, 1971, 1977], 48

26. William F. Orr & James Arthur Walther, I Corinthians [The Anchor Bible, 1976], 203:

27. Fuller 290; C.K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians [Black’s N.T. Commentaries, 1968, 2^nd ed.

1971], 144-145: He points out that in baptism they all “were claimed by God as his own and made a member of his holy people…They must now become as perfectly holy and righteous morally as they already are theologically by participation in the holiness and righteousness of Christ.”

28. Fuller 290;

John

29. Raymond E. Brown, S.S., The Gospel According to John I-XII [The Anchor Bible, 1966], 82: “John thinks of Bethsaida as in Galilee; actually it was in Gaulanitis, Philip’s territory across the border from Herod’s Galilee.”

The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 8 [The Gospel According to St. John, exegesis by W. F. Howard], 488: “Philip came from Bethsaida Julias, a town on the east side of the Jordan...It is strange that this should be called the town of Andrew and Peter, whose house (Mark 1:21,29) was at Capernaum” in Galilee.

30. The Anchor Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 4, [Art. on Nathanael by Raymond F. Collins, 1992], 1030

Brown, Anchor, 86: “The identification of Jesus as ‘the very one described in the Mosaic Law and the

prophets’ is probably a general statement that Jesus is the fulfillment of the whole Old Testament.”

TABD, Collins, 1030: Nathanael’s “disbelief was apparently based on the scriptural lore that neither the awaited prophet nor the Messiah would have Galilean origins (John 7:40-44).” Brown, Anchor, 83: But, since “Philip has not specifically told Nathanael that Jesus was the Messiah… The saying may be a local proverb reflecting jealousy between Nathanael’s town of Cana and nearby Nazareth.” Fuller 291; John’s “concern is to present a theological interpretation of history, not a mere chronicle of historical events.”

31. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew [The Anchor Bible Reference Library, 1991], 215, where he continues: “John’s insistence on Nazareth as the place of Jesus’ earthly origins returns with theological force in his Passion Narrative...The evangelist never communicates any other tradition about Jesus’ hometown...There is no clear indication anywhere in the Johannine writings...that readers...would have known the special Infancy Narrative tradition about Bethlehem.”

32.Fuller 290;

33. Brown, Anchor, 82, 83; Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple [Paulist Press, 1979], 81: Brown calls Nathanael an apostle and says: “Nathanael may have been counted in the never-given list of the Twelve accepted in Johannine tradition.”

TABD, Collins, 1030: “In rabbinic tradition, fig trees were frequently cited as appropriate locales for teachers to discuss the meaning of the scriptures with their students.”

34. Brown, Anchor, 86-87;

35. John Marsh, Saint John [The Pelican Gospel Commentaries], 136;

TABD, Collins, 1030: “As is frequently the case in the fourth gospel, those who come to faith in Jesus because of his superhuman power or knowledge express their faith in a profound christological statement. Nathanael professed Jesus to be the Messiah, ‘You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’”

36. TIB, Howard, 490;

John Marsh, Saint John [The Pelican Gospel Commentaries], 136: The verse refers to Genesis 28:12, where Jacob dreamed of the ladder and the angels ascending and descending on it. Jesus, however, “significantly replaces the ladder as the means of communication between heaven and earth with the figure of the Son of man.”

N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God [Fortress Press, 2003], 217: Wright also says verse 51 is an allusion to Jacob’s ladder. 37. TABD, 1030-1031;

38. Reginald H Fuller, Daniel Westberg, Preaching the Lectionary [3^rd ed., Liturgical Press, 2006], 295; The Anchor Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 4, [Art. on Nathanael by Raymond F. Collins, 1992], 1030: “Seeing Jesus is characteristic of faith and discipleship in the fourth gospel.”

39. R.H. Lightfoot, St. John’s Gospel [Oxford Paperbacks, 1956], 104;

Brown, Anchor, 84: “Son of Man…has its roots in Ezekiel, Dan 7:13 and Enoch.” At page 89: “We may also suspect that the original meaning of the saying was a reference to the resurrection or to the parousia, where the presence of the angels about the glorified Son of Man would be appropriate. There are no angelophanies in the Johannine account of the public ministry; but angels are associated in all the Gospel accounts with the empty tomb and often with the final judgment.” At page 90: The last sentence shows “that Jesus himself is the connection between heavenly reality and the earth.” At 91 he adds: “Jesus as Son of Man has become the locus of divine glory, the point of contact between heaven and earth.”

TIB, Howard, 490: “The title ‘Son of man’...represents in this Gospel the unveiling of divine attributes in human form, and so brings to believers a fellowship of the seen and the unseen.”