Standing Under the Scriptures
January 11, 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

Genesis 1.1-5: Here is the beginning of all beginnings, God’s creatio ex nihilo, these verses taking us through Day One.

Mark 1.1-11: Jesus’ Epiphany, or manifestation to the world, begins with his baptism by John.

Special Notice. On Sunday, February 8, the Rev. Dr. Peter Walker will visit All Saints’. He is a New Testament scholar, on the faculty of Wycliffe Hall in Oxford. I have known him since the latter 1980s, when I was in residence in Wycliffe and he was a student there. He will be speaking at the 10 o’clock Forum, on Paul in general perspective. And he will be taking over our class.

This is an exceptional opportunity. One of the things I have to contribute to our class, along perhaps with my daily scripture reading in Greek and/or Hebrew for 45 years, is my experience of Oxford, whither in some sense I have tried to transport you. But Peter’s presence will be an instance of Oxford coming to us. I trust that we will avail ourselves of it.

Our Ephesians reading last Sunday (1.3-6, 15-19a) provided us with what we supposed to be the premise of the letter as a whole: God’s blessings overflow but still leave room for further appropriation. But further readings in Ephesians would be required to confirm this.

We began our discussion, actually, with a consideration of the letter’s authorship and its relation to the rest of the Pauline corpus. Although it is clearly consistent with the tenor of Paul’s thought, some have questioned whether he actually wrote it. This is largely on grounds of its style, the distinctiveness of which is more apparent in Greek than in English. But in that case we would have to ask who did write it. It would have to have been someone with great spiritual gifts, approximating those of Paul himself. And we do not know who this could have been nor, as with so many aspects of the early Church, are we ever likely to know.

As for the premise of our reading, and tentatively of the letter as a whole, we noted that it begins with a blessing of God for bestowing on believers “every spiritual blessing… even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” But this does not mean that believers arrived at perfection and so have nothing left to attain to. For Paul goes on to pray that they may be given “a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened.” And the letter seems to continue much in this vein. We took this to mean that the riches of God’s grace can never be exhausted, that there is always more for us to appropriate.

Our second reading, Matthew 2.13-23, was more concrete in its speaking of manifestations of God’s grace, and more in terms of the difficulties and ambiguities of life. Its concern is with what happened to the Holy Family in the wake of the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem. It includes the slaughter of the innocents, commemorated on Holy Innocents’ Day, December 28. When Herod was thwarted in his initial plan to do away with Jesus by the Magi’s failure to report back to him, he ordered all the young children in Bethlehem killed, thinking to get at him that way. Joseph, however, having been warned of this by an angel in a dream, had already fled with mother and child to Egypt, remaining there until the death of Herod. They then returned to Israel, again as instructed by an angel. But since Herod’s successor was his son, Archelaus, they feared to go into Bethlehem or anywhere else in Judea. So they settled instead in the Galilean town of Nazareth.

It would be possible to take quite a reductionist view of this passage. We might suppose that Matthew, having reinforced Jesus’ Davidic lineage through his birth in Bethlehem (“the city of David”), then needed to get the Holy Family to Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. And the events recounted in our reading---Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, the Family’s flight to Egypt to avoid it, their subsequent return but to Galilee rather than Judea---are his device for doing so. To render his device more effective he adduced two Old Testament citations having in their own contexts rather different meanings. The first of these, “Out of Egypt have I called my son” (Hosea 11.1) originally referred to the nation of Israel. The second was “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children… because they were no more (Jeremiah 31.15). This would seem applicable to the Bethlehem mothers bereaved by Herod. But actually Ramah is somewhat north of Jerusalem, whereas Bethlehem is 20 miles or so to the south.

But we saw, at least I think we did, that there is another view to be taken, expansionist rather than reductionist, that is the more valid. I was put in mind of this by the excellent paper on Mark s Gospel that Richard Hays presented in Oxford last October. Mark’s account seems straightforward and even a bit breathless as we read it. Yet Hays showed that in it there are all sorts of Old Testament allusions and resonances, not readily apparent but adding greatly to its significance. And we found that much the same thing could be said of our Matthew passage. The calling out of Egypt of “my Son” effectively equates Jesus with Israel, constituting him as its representative, indeed its embodiment. Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, which their mothers bewail, points up his sensitivity to any threat to his rule, however remote. And this in turn reflects the inevitable insecurity of someone relying on guile and coercion rather than people’s support to retain his position. Here already is an anticipation of the reaction to Jesus of the religious establishment, who felt their own position to be threatened by him and in the end brought about his crucifixion.

Another aspect of the reading is its presentation of Joseph as acting not in his own right but simply in response to the angel in his dreams. Indeed, the only individuality attributed to him is in his fear of Archelaus, Herod’s son, which keeps him from returning to Judea. But his response may be seen also as his obedience to the Lord, immediate and unquestioning. Jesus’ connection with David, and thus with the messianic tradition arising from him, is through Joseph. But it is not a physical one, as Matthew makes evident. However, as a class member astutely pointed out, it may be regarded as coming through Joseph’s obedience, which is more valid than biology. Hereby we are provided with Joseph’s obedient example to follow. And this may be our most significant offering to the Lord.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted