Habakkuk 1:1-4 (5-11) 12-2:1

The following comments are repeated here with revision and supplement from November 14, 2004, two years ago (the Sunday closest to November 16, Year Two):

Have you ever wanted to cry out, “Help! God” or “Why, God?” That’s the way Habakkuk begins. “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, / and you will not listen? / Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ / and you will not save?” (Habakkuk 1:2). The prophet sees “wrongdoing,” “trouble,” “destruction and violence” (v. 3). He complains that “the law becomes slack, / and justice never prevails,” adding that “the wicked surround the righteous–therefore judgement comes forth perverted” (v. 4). When we consider that Habakkuk lived “during the height of Babylonian power” ( R. Lansing Hicks and Walter Brueggemann, NOAB, 2^nd ed., Introduction to Habakkuk), we are not surprised at God’s reply: “I am rousing the Chaldeans, / that fierce and impetuous nation . . . to seize dwellings not their own” (v. 5). They have horses “swifter than leopards” who “fly like eagles swift to devour” (v. 8). They “come for violence” and “gather captives” (v. 9). Ancient historians and biblical scholars call Nebuchadrezzar’s Babylon the “Neo-Babylonian Empire,” the first being more than a millennium earlier, in the times of Hammurabi. Some in modern Iraq apparently had visions of a third Babylonian Empire (a fourth if we count the medieval Abbasid Empire). One only hopes that somehow, there can be an end to this time when again “the wicked swallow / those more righteous than they” (v. 13). But Habakkuk recognizes the violence, conquests and captivity brought by the Babylonians (vv. 9-11) as God’s “judgment” (v. 12) and asks “Why do you look on the treacherous, / and are silent when the wicked swallow / those more righteous than they?” (v. 13c, d, e). According to Gregory Mobley, this is “the heart of Habakkuk’s problem” (NOAB, 3^rd ed., on Hab. 1:13, with ref. to Ps. 5:4-6. To the words, “your eyes are too pure to behold evil, / and you cannot look on wrongdoing” (Hab. 1:13a, b), we may compare “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; / evil will not sojourn with you” (Ps. 5a, b). Habakkuk says that God has “made people like the fish of the sea, / like crawling things that have no ruler” (v. 14), in other words, vulnerable to the dangers posed by such as the Chaldeans. “The enemy brings all of them [the fish-people] up with a hook; / he drags them out with his net, / he gathers them in his seine; / so he rejoices and exults” (v. 15). Then he proceeds to worship the instruments, the net and the seine, with which he inflicts God’s punishment, and thereby is enriched (v. 16). Habakkuk asks if the enemy will continue “emptying his net, / and destroying nations without mercy?” (v. 17). He will have an answer: “yet I will rejoice in the LORD” (3:18a), but that’s in Tuesday’s reading.

Philippians 3:13-4:1

13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. 16 Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

17 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.4 1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. (Philippians 3:13-4:1, NRSV)

The following comments are repeated here from November 14, 2004, two years ago (the Sunday closest to November 16, Year Two):

Paul presents himself as an example for the Philippian believers: Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us” (Phil. 3:17). In chapter 2, Christ was the example. Paul says, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5), introducing the Christological passage about the humility of Christ–he “emptied himself, / taking the form of a slave” (v.7), to be exalted later (vv. 9-11). So Paul’s direction to imitate him includes his leaving behind earthly credentials (3::5-8), to focus on knowing Christ (vv. 8, 10) “and the power of his resurrection.” He wants to share Christ’s sufferings and death “if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (v. 11). In imitating Paul, the Philippian believers are to focus on their “citizenship . . . in heaven” (v. 20), not “[food for] the belly” and “earthly things” (v. 19), but the coming of the Lord (v. 20) and their resurrection with Christ (v. 21). The apparent contradiction in the Authorized Version, “Not as though I . . . were already perfect” (Phil. 3:12 AV/KJV; “Not that I . . . Have already reached the goal,” NRSV), “ Let us therefore, as many as be perfect . . .” (v. 15 AV/KJV); “Let those of us then who are mature . . .” (v. 15 NRSV) was resolved by John Wesley: “Not that I have already attained - The prize. He here enters on a new set of metaphors, taken from a race. But observe how, in the utmost fervour, he retains his sobriety of spirit. Or am already perfected - There is a difference between one that is perfect, and one that is perfected. The one is fitted for the race, Php 3:15; the other, ready to receive the prize. But I pursue, if I may apprehend that - Perfect holiness, preparatory to glory. For, in order to which I was apprehended by Christ Jesus - Appearing to me in the way, Acts 26:14. The speaking conditionally both here and in the preceding verse, implies no uncertainty, but only the difficulty of attaining” (Wesley’s note on Phil. 3:12, http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/notes/philippians.htm, accessed again November 17, 2006). The prize, the end of the race, is to “attain the resurrection from the dead” (v. 11).

Matthew 23:13-24

13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.’ 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.’ 19 How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; 21 and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; 22 and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! (Matthew 23:13-24, NRSV)

The following comments are repeated here from comments on Matthew 23:13-26 July 11, 2006 (Tuesday of the week of the Sunday closest to July 6, Year Two). On that date the comments were combined with some revision from an email sent December 10, 2003, for December 11, 2003, from July 6, 2004 in an email sent July 5, 2004, for July 5-11, and from December 9, 2005 (Thursday in the week of the second Sunday in Advent, Year Two). Other treatments of this passage may be found in the archives on November 14, 2004, two years ago (the Sunday closest to November 16, Year Two), and on December 8, 2005 (the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year Two).

Elwyn E. Tilden and Bruce M. Metzger remind us (NOAB, 2^nd ed., on Mt. 23:13), “Seven ‘woes’ follow; the denunciations are an indictment of some, not all, Pharisees.” I emphasize the words, “not all.” Matthew has a habit of arranging things topically, whereas Luke puts things in historical context. Luke presents the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11:2-4, on the occasion when the disciples asked, “Lord, teach us to pray” (v. 1). So Luke describes the circumstances when Jesus taught the disciples the prayer, but Matthew includes it in a “collection” of teaching about practical piety, including giving of alms (Mt. 6:2-4), praying in secret (vv. 5-6) without “empty phrases” (vv. 7-8), the Lord’s Prayer (vv. 9-13) with a comment on forgiveness (vv. 14-15), teaching about fasting (vv. 16-18), and so forth.

So in Matthew, chapter 23, Matthew has grouped things in a way that seems to make the indictment of some Pharisees very harsh. The church has appreciated Matthew as a kind of “church manual,” and it serves that purpose well, in part due to his systematic grouping of similar things together. Luke has parallels to five of Matthew’s seven “woes,” but the setting is different, and the last is addressed not to a Pharisee, but is given in response to the question of a “lawyer” [nomikos]. “While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him so he went in and took his place at the table” (Lk. 11:37). The “woes” follow: Luke 11:39-41 (without “woe”)//Matthew 25:26-27; Luke 11:42//Matthew 23:23-24; Luke 11:43//Mark. 12:38-39//Matthew 23:6 (not a “woe”); Luke 11:47-48 //Matthew 23:29-32.

Jesus criticizes Pharisees because they “tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Mt. 23:23). They are “blind guides” who “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!” (v. 24). They “clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence” (v. 25). “The Talmud’s ‘he that kills a flea on the Sabbath is as guilty as if he killed a camel’ (Shab. 12a) gives the background to this saying, which is more natural in Aramaic where ‘camel’ and ‘gnat’ are similar in pronunciation” (K. Stendahl, Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, sec. 691f, pp. 792-793, on Mt. 23:24). Who among us has not, at time, been confused about values and priorities? We all need to hear the call to focus on the weightier matters: justice, mercy and faith. And we should set our own houses in order before we attempt to set others’ houses in order.

Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.

rdworden@hgst.edu

rworden@houston.rr.com