Standing Under the Scriptures
March 1, 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

Genesis 9.8-17: The Lord renounces flooding the earth as a means for dealing with evil, thereby implying an alternative approach.

Mark 1.9-15: In these verses Mark recounts Jesus’ baptism, temptation, and the beginning of his preaching. Our focus will be on the temptation, drawing as well on Matthew and Luke.

We were agreed, I think, that our class last Sunday was an especially fruitful one. We should be aware that when this happens, it is not by my doing or that of class members but instead by the action of the Holy Spirit among us. And it behoves us to give thanks accordingly.

Last Sunday we were blessed by the urging of a class member that, instead of the Corinthians passage chosen for the service, we look at the lectionary’s Old Testament reading (2 Kings 2.1-12), in which Elijah is taken up to heaven by a whirlwind. We were thereby enabled to account for the appearance of Elijah, along with Moses, to the disciples when Jesus led them up the Mount of the Transfiguration.

The 2 Kings passage, the culmination of the Elijah saga, is dramatic enough in itself. Though the outcome is announced at the beginning, the tension remains. Elijah and Elisha his disciple proceed from Gilgal down to the Jordan River and eventually across it. At each stage of the way Elijah encourages Elisha to remain behind, but Elisha refuses (“as the Lord lives and as your soul lives”) to forsake him. (The Hebrew word for forsake is the same as in Psalm 22: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?) Along the way they encounter bands of prophets who inform Elisha that his master is about to be taken up, as apparently he already knows. When they reach the Jordan, Elijah strikes it with his rolled-up mantle, allowing them to cross on dry ground. On the other side, Elijah tells Elisha that if he sees him as he is taken up, he will inherit the double measure of his spirit that he has asked for. Just then a chariot of fire and horses of fire separate them and a whirlwind takes Elijah up into heaven, in Elisha’s sight.

We wondered, without quite deciding, why Elijah was concerned to have Elisha stay behind. Was it to spare him a so awesome and perhaps dangerous experience, or was it perhaps to test his loyalty? In any event Elisha met the challenge, inheriting Elijah’s spirit and his mantle too. A more fundamental question was the significance of chariot and horses of fire, or, as Elisha had it, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen. I proffered an answer, deriving from my working out of the theme of biblical redemption history (a.k.a. Heilsgeschichte or salvation history) in the first part of my book. .Elijah was the pivotal figure in the emergence of the prophetic movement, so important in the history of Israel---and of salvation. The movement matured at a time of unparalleled crisis: the impending destruction of the nation and exile of the people, first by Assyria and then by Babylon. This posed the question of the validity of the Covenant itself: was the Lord unwilling, unable even, to protect his people? At the time most Israelites averted their eyes from the looming catastrophe, just as we tend to from our own prospective catastrophes. But to the prophets---Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah and the rest---it was given to look at it squarely and, further, to see deeply within the people: their corruption, their idolatry, their social injustice. This was the basis of their declaration that not the Lord but the people themselves had fallen short. And in making it they preserved the validity of the Covenant, overcame a crisis of meaning.

The prophetic movement began evidently with bands of ecstatics such as appeared in 1 Samuel 10.5-13, which Saul temporarily joined after his anointing by Samuel. These were given to spirit-possession rather than to formal prophesying. They were still around in Elijah’s time, as indicated by his and Elisha’s encountering them in our reading. But Elijah, like Elisha after him, was of a different sort. He was still not a “writing prophet,” the author of a prophetic book. But his two main recorded actions were his contest on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal sponsored by Queen Jezebel, and his rebuke of King Ahab over his expropriation of Naboth’s vineyard. And in these he confronted the politico-religious establishment, as Amos and the rest were to do in their writings. So he opened the way for them, the final stage.

As confirmation of my thesis I cited the clustering of miracles in the Scriptures around three events or moments: the Exodus, the emergence of the prophetic movement, and the ministry of Jesus. And in the first part of my book I took these three as the basis for discerning the theme of biblical redemption history: Power lies ultimately in acceptance of our (human) powerlessness. But that is only the beginning of the story.

Thus we were able to account for the appearance to Peter, James, and John of Elijah with Moses on the Mount of the Transfiguration (Mark 9-2-9). And this in turn related to their perception of his true identity. We were struck with how much the passage conveys. Already the mountain calls to mind Mount Sinai, on which Moses communicated with the Lord, and even a bit Mount Carmel. At its summit Jesus is transfigured (Greek: “metamorphosed”) before them, his garments becoming a dazzling while. And Moses and Elijah not only appear, they talk with Jesus. The disciples were familiar with Jesus as an everyday figure. But now, suddenly, they see his underlying identity, his parity with the two great figures of Israel’s tradition. To be sure, they had intimations of it; according to Mark Peter’s Confession came just six days before. But it had not been made nearly as graphic to them. No wonder Peter was so taken aback as to offer to make a lodging each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. But despite his confusion he may have been speaking more truly than he knew. For as a class member pointed out, he was the appointed architect of the church.

Peter’s speaking, however it is to be construed, was cut short by the cloud that overshadowed them (cf. the pillar of cloud that by day led the Israelites in the wilderness) and the voice that came out of it: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him”---a variation on the voice at Jesus’ baptism. This put Jesus not just on a level with Moses and Elijah but above them. And following it the vision disappeared, so that the disciples saw Jesus only. Going back down the mountain, he charged them to say nothing about it “until the Son of man should have risen from the dead.”

For us as well as the disciples, nothing is held back in this passage. The claims about Jesus---his culmination of Israel’s history as represented by Moses and Elijah, his divine status, his resurrection---are put forward here without the slightest reservation. There is something almost “in your face” about them. And it is up to us, as it was to the disciples and his other followers, to decide whether to accept or reject them. However much we might fancy otherwise, there is no middle ground. And the consequences of our decision are unlimited.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted