The Sixth Sunday of Easter, 25 May 2014
Acts
17:22-31
Psalm
66:7-18
I
Peter 3:13-22
St.
John 14:15-21
Background: Rogation Days
Although a gift from the
French to the Universal Church, Rogation Days have a rather rich practice in
the British Isles as well. The
days are those that precede the Feast of the Ascension. Although there is a specific day of
rogation (from the Latin – “to ask”) it is the days at the end of Easter that
are most popularly followed. It is
primarily an agricultural feast, beseeching God to bless the fields and crops,
and may have emerged from an earlier Roman holiday, which had similar aims. The days were first celebrated as a
Christian festival in Gaul around 470 CE, and in the seventh century were
commonly celebrated throughout what is now France. In the ninth century, the practice was introduced into the
Roman Rite by Leo III. As a fast,
the vestments were purple, despite their presence during the Easter
season.
In addition to the
blessing of fields, orchards, and gardens, other practices have developed, such
as the “beating of the bounds” during which a procession was made around the
edges of the parish. In England
from the twelfth century on Rogation processions became popular with banners
representing Pontius Pilate and Christ.
These celebrations survived the puritans, and were brought to American
from both French and English sources.
Acts 17:22-31
Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how
extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and
looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar
with the inscription, `To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as
unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in
it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human
hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he
himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor
he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of
their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that
they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him-- though
indeed he is not far from each one of us. For `In him we live and move and have
our being'; as even some of your own poets have said,
`For we too are his offspring.'
Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is
like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of
mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands
all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have
the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this
he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
Although Luke situates Paul in a complimentary sort
of attitude toward the Athenians and their religious piety he is yet set on
having them understand the God of the Jews as the one God. The device he uses for this is the “altar
to an unknown God”. Most scholars
think that this is more of a visual device that Luke/Paul uses to open a
theological wedge into Athenian thinking.
(For a new and interesting study on the cult in Athens, see Joan Breton
Connelly’s recent study of the iconography of the Parthenon, The
Parthenon Enigma). More
likely it was an altar without any inscription. Regardless, Luke wants Paul to make a point here – that the
struggle in searching for God has been completed in the story of Jesus
Christ. He quotes Isaiah in verse
24, where he comments on the God who created all things not living in shrines
made with human hands. (Was the
Temple already destroyed by this time?)
He argues out of their own culture, quoting Epimenides of Knossos (sixth
century BCE), “In him we live and move
and have our being,” and Aratus of Soli (third century BCE, Cilicia), “For we too are his offspring.” From this cultural point, Paul moves in
an iconoclastic manner, calling the Athenians to repentance, and promoting the
righteousness won by Christ and ascertained in his resurrection.
Breaking
open Acts:
1.
How do you
reconcile your own faith with popular religion?
2.
What is
Paul’s fundamental message here?
3.
How do you
preach Jesus to our world?
Psalm 66:7-18 Jubilate Deo
Bless our God, you peoples; *
make the voice of his praise to be heard;
Who holds our souls in life, *
and will not allow our feet to slip.
For you, O God, have proved us; *
you have tried us just as silver is tried.
You brought us into the snare; *
you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.
You let enemies ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water; *
but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.
I will enter your house with burnt-offerings
and will pay you my vows, *
which I promised with my lips
and spoke with my mouth when I was in trouble.
I will offer you sacrifices of fat beasts
with the smoke of rams; *
I will give you oxen and goats.
Come and listen, all you who fear God, *
and I will tell you what he has done for me.
I called out to him with my mouth, *
and his praise was on my tongue.
If I had found evil in my heart, *
the Lord would not have heard me;
But in truth God has heard me; *
he has attended to the voice of my prayer.
Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer, *
nor withheld his love from me.
The initial verses of this psalm, not used on this
Sunday, look back at the miracle at the Red Sea, and urge the earth to “hymn his name’s glory.” When we pick up the psalm in verse
7 the focus turns to the notion of God who has “kept us in life”, or in our translation, “who holds our souls in life.
The poet then goes on, perhaps moving from the Red Sea, to the Sinai
Peninsula, to treat on the themes of testing and struggle – “You trapped us in a net.” What began as a thanksgiving now
seems to morph into a supplication.
Just as quickly the psalm again refocuses on themes that we also see in Psalm 116, where the author
promises to bring offerings and prayers, and celebrates God having listened.
Breaking
open Psalm 66:
1.
In your
praying do you vacillate from one emotion to another?
2.
What does
that mean for you?
3.
What
sacrifice do you owe to God?
1 Peter 3:13-22
Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if
you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they
fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.
Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an
accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and
reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those
who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is
better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to
suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the
righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to
death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and
made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey,
when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark,
in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism,
which this prefigured, now saves you-- not as a removal of dirt from the body,
but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with
angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
The Biblical commentator Bo Reicke, in his commentary
on the Epistles of James, Peter and Jude[1],
reminds us of the Jewish zealots who during the decade that preceded the Roman
campaigns against the Jewish revolts used violent means as a device to gain
their freedom. The strategy did
not work, but it influences the author of first Peter, whose book may have been
written during this period. Here
the author of I Peter urges Christians to abandon violence and to become “zealots for good.” Other commentators place the book
at a much later date, and the content of the successive verses seems to argue
for that. The theme and topic is
suffering, and it seems to be the suffering that arises from the official
persecution of Christians during the reign of Domitian in 81 CE. The author uses the example of Christ’s
suffering. In a magnificent
juxtaposition, the author describes the so-called “Harrowing of Hell” when
Christ descends and “preaches to the
spirits in prison,” and in the concluding verses describes the Christ “who is at the right hand of God; since he
ascended into heaven, angels, magistrates, and powers have become subject to
him.” The official Roman
policy doesn’t matter, for it is subject to Christ’s rule. Its affect in life becomes a
participation in the sufferings of Jesus.
Breaking
open I Peter:
- What are you zealous for?
- How do you suffer in life, and for what?
- How do you participate in the suffering of Jesus?
St. John 14:15-21
Jesus said to his disciples, "If you love me, you will keep my
commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,
to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot
receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he
abides with you, and he will be in you.
"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little
while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you
also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in
me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who
love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them
and reveal myself to them."
Jesus continues his instruction of the disciples. Here again we are introduced to a strong
visual image in the name that Jesus applies to the Spirit – Paraclete (literally “called to one’s
side”. Thus we have several words
that apply here, “counselor”, “advocate”, or “Paraclete”. There is the flavor of a courtroom or
perhaps the classroom in this scene.
The spirit is the one who “convicts” us of Christ’s presence,
instructing us in his ways.
What follows next is the promise of continued
presence. The fear of Jesus’
departure is one that seems to debilitate the disciples and their mission. Thus the presence of the Spirit, to
continue the instruction and presence, and the promise of knowledge “in the Father” becomes paramount. All of this is centered in an on-going
love, from God to humankind, and amongst those in the community. It is this love that reveals the true
nature of what God intends, and keeps those who follow Jesus from the emotional
reaction of fear.
Breaking open Gospel:
1. Do you feel that Christ is absent in your life?
2. How can you make Christ present?
3. Where is the Spirit leading you?
After
breaking open the Word, you might want to pray the Collect for Sunday:
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such
good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love
towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain
your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our
Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and
ever. Amen.
All questions and commentary copyright © 2014,
Michael T. Hiller
[1] Reicke, B.
(1964) The Anchor Bible, The Epistles of
James, Peter and Jude, Introduction, Translation, and Notes, Doubleday and
Company, Inc., Garden City, N.Y., 221 pages.
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