Jeremiah 36:11-26

See the text and comments for October 10, one week ago.

1 Corinthians 13:(1-3) 4-13

See the text and comments for October 10, one week ago.

Matthew 10:5-15

See the text and comments for October 10, one week ago.

Jeremiah 44:1-14

ThePersistent Idolatry of the Judeans in Egypt

44:1 The word that came to Jeremiah for all the Judeans living in the land of Egypt, at Migdol, at Tahpanhes, at Memphis, and in the land of Pathros, 2 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: You yourselves have seen all the disaster that I have brought on Jerusalem and on all the towns of Judah. Look at them; today they are a desolation, without an inhabitant in them, 3 because of the wickedness that they committed, provoking me to anger, in that they went to make offerings and serve other gods that they had not known, neither they, nor you, nor your ancestors. 4 Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, "I beg you not to do this abominable thing that I hate!" 5 But they did not listen or incline their ear, to turn from their wickedness and make no offerings to other gods. 6 So my wrath and my anger were poured out and kindled in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they became a waste and a desolation, as they still are today. 7 And now thus says the LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel: Why are you doing such great harm to yourselves, to cut off man and woman, child and infant, from the midst of Judah, leaving yourselves without a remnant? 8 Why do you provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, making offerings to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have come to settle? Will you be cut off and become an object of cursing and ridicule among all the nations of the earth? 9 Have you forgotten the crimes of your ancestors, of the kings of Judah, of their wives, your own crimes and those of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 10 They have shown no contrition or fear to this day, nor have they walked in my law and my statutes that I set before you and before your ancestors.

11 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I am determined to bring disaster on you, to bring all Judah to an end. 12 I will take the remnant of Judah who are determined to come to the land of Egypt to settle, and they shall perish, everyone; in the land of Egypt they shall fall; by the sword and by famine they shall perish; from the least to the greatest, they shall die by the sword and by famine; and they shall become an object of execration and horror, of cursing and ridicule. 13 I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, 14 so that none of the remnant of Judah who have come to settle in the land of Egypt shall escape or survive or return to the land of Judah. Although they long to go back to live there, they shall not go back, except some fugitives. (Jeremiah 44:1-14, NRSV)

Jeremiah, now in Egypt with Judeans who left to flee to Egypt (Jer. 42:1-43:7), continues to preach against idolatry. In spite of what they have seen as God’s punishment of Jerusalem and Judah (Jer. 44:2-6), Jeremiah asks:

And now thus says the LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel: Why are you doing such great harm to yourselves, to cut off man and woman, child and infant, from the midst of Judah, leaving yourselves without a remnant? Why do you provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, making offerings to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have come to settle? Will you be cut off and become an object of cursing and ridicule among all the nations of the earth? (Jer. 44:7-8, NRSV)

He reminds them “of the crimes of your ancestors, of the kings of Judah, of their wives, your own crimes and those of your wives” (v. 9). For these reasons, he threatens them with disaster (v. 11). The Judeans will perish in Egypt (vv. 12-13), and “none of the remnant of Judah who have come to settle in the land of Egypt shall escape or survive or return to the land of Judah. Although they long to go back to live there, they shall not go back, except some fugitives” (v. 14). One would think they had learned their lesson!

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14

NOTE: This passage, yesterday’s reading for the Episcopal tradition, is repeated by the Presbyterian tradition as an alternative today. The comments are repeated here from yesterday as well.

Prepare for a Seventy-year Exile in Babylon

29:1 These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. (Jeremiah 29:1, NRSV)

4 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the LORD.

10 For thus says the LORD: Only when Babylon's seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me, says the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. (Jeremiah 29:4-14, NRSV)

Jeremiah writes a letter to people deported from Jerusalem to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B.C. (cf. Jer. 39:1-2). They were “being misled by the same baseless assurances of speedy return as those in Palestine (ch. 27)” (Mark E. Biddle, NOAB, 3^rd ed., on Jer. 29:3). Jeremiah counters these baseless assurances (vv. 8-9) with advice to “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease” (vv. 5-6). They are to prepare for a lifetime (“seventy years,” v. 20) in Babylon. They are even to pray for Babylon’s “welfare” (v. 7). As we know from hindsight, Jeremiah’s prediction proved to be correct. The edict of Cyrus which permitted the Jews to return (538 B.C., 2 Chron. 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4) took some years to be fully realized, and many Jews settled permanently in Babylon. They said of Hillel that, like Ezra, he came up from Babylon to teach Jerusalem the Law. Eventually it was the Babylonian Talmud (not the Palestinian Talmud) that became the official Jewish Talmud.

Jeremiah, while giving sound advice, was hardly aware of what the centuries would bring. But he passes on the word of the LORD that, for the captives from Judah in Babylon, the LORD has “plans for your welfare and not for harm,” “a future with hope” (v. 11). When they repent and “search for me,” you will find me, if you seek me with all your heart” (v. 13). The LORD “will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you” and “bring you back” (v. 14). Here, as often in Jeremiah, he must contradict the superficial optimism of false prophets with sound advice which may seem bitter for the moment, but in the long run, holds out more substantial hope.

1 Corinthians 15:30-41

Call to Be Serious about the Gospel

30 And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour? 31 I die every day! That is as certain, brothers and sisters, as my boasting of you-a boast that I make in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32 If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what would I have gained by it? If the dead are not raised,

"Let us eat and drink,

for tomorrow we die."

33 Do not be deceived:

"Bad company ruins good morals."

34 Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more; for some people have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. (1 Corinthians 15:30-34, NRSV)

Paul’s commitment to the Christian gospel, facing “danger every hour” (1 Cor. 15:30), as though he would “die every day” (v. 31), would be in vain “if the dead are not raised” (v. 32). His reference to fighting “with wild animals at Ephesus” (v. 32) points to serious opposition–possibly the disturbance described in Acts 19:23-41–but not literal facing of lions, as later Christians would in the Coliseum at Rome. Some see it as an indirect reference to imprisonment at Ephesus which, though not mentioned in the New Testament, would be one of the many imprisonments mentioned in 2 Corinthians 11:23. Paul calls on the Corinthians to be serious about their Christian commitment. “Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more” (1 Cor. 15:34). “The quotation in v. 33 is from the fourth century BCE Greek poet Menander” (Richard A. Horsley, NOAB, 3^rd ed., on vv. 33-34).

Explanation of The Resurrection Body

35 But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" 36 Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. (1 Corinthians 15:35-41, NRSV)

The Hebrew conception of life after death envisioned a resurrection of the body. The Greek conception, at least for some, was of the spirit or soul separating from the body at death. This difference is evident in Socrates’ discussion of death in Plato’s Apology:

Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: - either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? (Cited from http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html, accessed October 15, 20-05)

Matthew 11:16-24

Not Dancing to the Tunes of John or Jesus

16 "But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

17 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we wailed, and you did not mourn.'

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon'; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." (Matthew 11:16-19, NRSV)

Woes to Unrepentant Cities (Gen 19.12-14; Lk 10.13-15)

20 Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done, because they did not repent. 21 "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum,

will you be exalted to heaven?

No, you will be brought down to Hades.

For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you." (Matthew 11:20-24, NRSV)

These texts from Matthew may be compared with corresponding texts from Luke as follows:

There are passages in Matthew and Luke with practically verbatim (identical) texts but differences in context. Compare, for example, Jesus’ teaching about anxiety in Matthew 6:25-34 and Luke 12:22-32. Both parts of Matthew’s reading for today have nearly verbatim parallels in Luke, but, whereas the first sections (Mt. 11:16-19; Lk. 7:31-35) come in similar contexts: after Jesus responds to the messengers who brought John the Baptist’s question, he talks about the significance of John; Luke’s parallel to Matthew’s second section (Lk. 10:12-15; Mt. 11:20-24) comes after Luke’s description of Jesus sending out the Seventy on mission (Lk. 10:1-12), for which, as such, there is no Matthean parallel. Luke 10:12, the end of the paragraph about the mission of the Seventy, sets the context for the Woes on the Galilean cities, but Matthew 11:20 connects these Woes to Jesus comments about John.

The point in both passages, however, is the failure of the people to respond either to John’s message or Jesus’ preaching. “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;/we wailed, and you did not mourn” (Mt. 11:17; Lk. 7:32b). By describing the way that people ignored these prophetic messages in this way, and following with the passage on the woes directed against the Galilean cities, Matthew stresses the seriousness of this rejection. Luke also compares this response to preaching to the fate of Tyre and Sidon, but by presenting it in connection with the mission of Seventy, he makes it applicable to acceptance and/or rejection of the missionary preaching of the early church, not merely that of John and Jesus.

Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.

rdworden@hgst.edu

rworden@houston.rr.com