Standing Under the Scriptures
August 10, 2008

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

The readings we are considering this Sunday are the following:

Romans 10.5-15: Paul, drawing even more than usual on Scripture (Old Testament), urges the interiority of the gospel, in contrast to the externality of the Law.

Matthew 14.22-33: Jesus, in his dealing with the response of the disciples to his walking on the sea, speaks profoundly to our own lack of faith.

NOTE: I am to be the celebrant at the 8 o’clock service this Sunday. Thus I will arrive in class a bit breathless this time, as well as having to leave somewhat abruptly.

Last Sunday I contemplated our first reading (Genesis 32.22-32, Jacob’s wrestling with the angel) a bit skeptically. Not only was it not from the Lectionary, we had dealt with it before, last October 21. So I was not sure what more there was to be said. But as I came to grips with it the night before, wrestling in my own solitude, I made an amazing (to me) discovery, conceivably coloring the whole biblical tradition. Of that more later.

In the class we began by tracing how it was that Jacob found himself alone at the ford of the Jabbok that night, the make or break point in his life. His career had not been without moral ambiguity (with which some of us might identify?). He had tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright, aided and abetted by his mother Rebecca. To avoid Esau’s understandable wrath he had fled to his uncle Laban in the east. And for Laban he had toiled for 14 years, thereby acquiring his two wives Leah and Rachel, children, and considerable property and servants. Now the Lord was calling him to return to his homeland. But this meant encountering Esau, who might still be murderously angry. And thereby he stood to lose all that he had, not only his wives, children, and possessions but also his renewed moral standing. To hedge his bets he had divided his flocks and people in two and sent them on ahead, thinking that one set at least might be spared. But he remained behind momentarily, contending in his soul not only with the future and what it might bring but also the past: his offenses and their questioning of his acceptability in the Lord’s sight. In this situation the man who wrestled with him might be seen as the personification of his inner struggle.

But as we saw, in this struggle he did not give up. Instead he persisted until at dawn the man/angel asked to be let go. But instead of giving the blessing that Jacob set as a condition for doing so, the angel/Lord renames him: instead of Jacob he is to be called Israel, “for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” It was here that I made my great discovery. I looked up the word translated by striven in my ponderous Brown, Driver and Briggs Hebrew lexicon (BDB). Somehow I seem not to have done this the last time around. (BDB is a monument of scholarship; after more than 100 years it is still the authority) All Hebrew (and Semitic) words consist basically of three consonants, to which prefixes and suffixes may be added and between which vowels are inserted. In this case the three consonants are S-R-H. A feature of BDB is that all derivatives are listed under the triconsonental root (which makes them hard to find if you do not know what the root is---I frequently don’t). And as the first derivative under S-R-H I spotted Israel. Note that the two consonants, S and R, are present in both words. As for the el, or properly El, it is one of the Hebrew words for God. The other crucial point is that the primary meaning BDB assigns to S-R-H is persist or persevere. “Strive” is not inconsistent but is still secondary. Thus the basic meaning of “Israel” is persisting with God. Admittedly I should have figured this out years ago, but I did not, nor was it pointed out to me. Thus my discovery still has its freshness.

And Israel as conveying persistence with God makes sense, or rather itself gives sense to central aspects of Scripture. It may be seen as already characterizing Abraham in his apparent bargaining with the Lord over how many righteous men would need to be found for Sodom and Gomorrah to be spared. And as we have seen it characterized Jacob with regard to his present predicament and his past misdeeds. But this is by no means the end of the matter; it extends into the history of Israel itself. The prophets, in the face of the impending destruction of the nation and exile of the people, may be seen as persisting with God, striving to understand how the people’s fate could be consistent with the Covenant. Job would be another instance of persistence with God in the face of disaster, until the reaching of a conclusion. Nor was the persistence of Israel as a people in vain. For it issued ultimately in the Christ, his saving death and glorious resurrection. We need to follow Israel’s example, persisting with God concerning our own misdoings and the difficulties we are experiencing until we can see our reconciliation.

Our Gospel reading, Matthew 14.13-21, was this Evangelists’ version of Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the five thousand. A version of it appears in all four Gospels, and twice in both Matthew and Mark. As noted last week, this points to the importance it had for Christians of the first century---and that it now has for us. Before in the class we proceeded to probe this importance, I asked if the factuality of the narrative, compared with what a video camera would have recorded, was an issue for any. When it seemed not to be, I acknowledged that it had been for me in my younger days. In fact it was my main barrier to the biblical tradition. It is not so now. This is not because I consider that the narrative is necessarily factual in this sense. It is rather because I have come to see that the relevant question is a different one, something that the early Christians saw and that people in the Global South see today. The relevant question, in accordance with our “standing under the Scriptures,” is how the account as it has come down to us conveys God’s purpose and power. And we could see his purpose and power in the narrative.

For as I noted in last Sunday’s 10 o’clock service, the feeding narrative points both backwards and forwards. The Greek word for the place to which Jesus had withdrawn following the death of John the Baptist and where he encountered the crowds means basically desert. Thus it would have called to mind the wilderness wandering of the Israelites in the Exodus and the manna with which they were fed. So the feeding narrative serves to put Jesus and his ministry on a level with that event.

The forward pointing of the feeding narrative is no less significant. It points to the Eucharist and to the importance that this had for the early Church. This is already evident in verse 19: “taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples.” The action and even the words are to be seen in our own Eucharistic celebration. Nor is this the only evidence. In early Christian art, such as appeared in the catacombs, the feeding was a favorite theme. Moreover it was characteristically portrayed in Eucharistic terms. The parallel would have been between the physical feeding performed by Jesus in the desert place and the spiritual feeding provided by the Eucharist in the harsh conditions, spiritual as well as physical, in which most Christians lived under the Roman Empire. In both cases what appeared to be only a little sufficed for the many. In the Transfiguration, the Feast of which we celebrated on August 6, Peter, James, and John were enabled to see Jesus in a new and glorious light. Knowing that our Eucharist traces all the way back to the early Church and its concerns may enable us to see its vertical dimension, thus putting it also in a new light.

Finally on the feeding narrative, when the disciples perceived the crowds’ need for food, they reported it to Jesus and recommended that he dismiss them. They did not see themselves as doing anything about it. But Jesus’ response is, “You give them something to eat.” And when they protest the insufficiency of their resources, he directs them to bring them to him, whereupon they become sufficient (verses 15 to 18). So perhaps also with us. We may perceive the needs of people around us but not ourselves as doing anything about them. Yet Jesus tells us that we are in fact to act. And as for the dismaying meagerness of our resources, we have only to put them into his hands for them to become sufficient.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted