The Synoptic Gospels: A Journey Into the Kingdom

Well, it looks like I am a little late to blog on the lectionary for the First Sunday After Christmas, since that day came and went on December 30. At Trinity Episcopal Church in Asheville this year, we held a service of lessons and carols. Our worship encapsulated the entire Christmas season rather than focusing specifically on the lectionary. Some Presbyterian friends visiting from Greensboro got lots of exercise, though, what with all the standing, sitting, kneeling, singing, and praying that attends lessons and carols!
As with some of our other seasonal readings, the lectionary for the First Sunday after Christmas is the same each year.

John 1:1-18
The gospel offering is John 1:1-18. Though John is not among the synoptic Gospels, it does occasionally receive some commentary in the Journey series. In fact, it was a subject of our blog entry of Monday, December 24, 2007, as Christmas selection III.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about John 1:1-18. The text is located at pages 208-212.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in PDF format.

Galatians 3:23-35; 5:4-7
The First Sunday after Christmas features an important reading from one of the letters of Paul. The Letter to the Galatians contains his most powerful declaration about how freedom in Christ liberates the people of the way from what Paul by now considers to be the shackles of Judaic law. Paul focuses on faith working through love, rather than obedience to ritual requirements, as the center of one’s relationship with God.

Paul’s view about the relationship of the Christian believer to the Hebrew law was far from unanimous. Other early Christian leaders, including James the brother of Jesus, adhered to the notion that the law was still operative, and that gentile converts to even this Christian expression of Judaism were required to accept all the burdens of the law, including circumcision and dietary restrictions.

In fact, the experience of the early church coming to grips with a mission that embraced gentile converts was among the most important developments in first-century Christianity. It opened the richness of life in relationship to the God if Israel to those who were previously outside that fellowship.

Among the Gospels, Matthew is the one most focused on connections between Jewish tradition and the growing church. For that reason, we considered the text from Galatians in light of statements that Matthew’s Jesus makes about the law in the Sermon on the Mount. The sermon itself receives the lion’s share of our attention in Volume II of the Journey.

Click here to view what Volume II of the Journey has to say about Galatians 3:23-25 and 5:4-7. The text is located at pages 255-264.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume II in a PDF format.

A Personal Note of Thanks
One final comment about the First Sunday After Christmas, 2007. That date also served as the occasion for the retirement of The Reverend Thomas D. Hughes from active parish ministry. Tom has served Trinity for a number of years as an Assistant to the Rector by preaching, celebrating, teaching, providing pastoral care, and doing whatever else needed to be done. We were always appreciative of getting better than full-time service from Tom for part-time pay! Trinity served as Tom’s last formal vocational call after a lifetime of wonderful ministry.

After the service, we sent Tom and Peg on their way to what we hope will be a fun-filled time of vacation, travel, and new adventures. Thanks be to God for how both the Hughes have touched our lives, and the lives of many others.

Matthew 2:13-18

The Christmas season lectionary takes us quickly from the joy of Jesus’ birth to the brutality of King Herod’s Slaughter of the Holy Innocents, remembered annually on 28 December. This passage reminds us how, even as we bask in the warm light of God among us, darkness and depravity of the worst sort remain.

Our Journey commentary on this passage begins with a consideration of life under King Herod. Despite considerable deeds benefiting his people as a younger man, the aging Herod has become so consumed by the desire to preserve his power that he is willing to kill the weakest among his people to hold onto his might.

The commentary also considers how this passage fits into Matthew’s theological and literary patterns of connecting Old Testament prophecy with New Covenant fulfillment. Matthew’s skill is not found so much in making concrete connections between prophecy and fulfillment, as in remembering the communal history of Israel and hearing it echo in his own time. He also does this indirectly, as the story of the flight into Egypt echoes Moses being delivered from Pharaoh’s grasp.

Perhaps most importantly, we grapple with theological problems that the story presents as we consider how the innocent die even as one among their number is spared through divine guidance.

Finally, our text considers the role of dreams in scripture. How do we experience dreams today?

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about Matthew 2:13-18. The text is located at pages 139-149.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in a PDF format.

Luke 2:1–20

Christmas Day offers three selections for lectionary reading. Because the selections are the same each year, we depart for now from the specific Year A path tethered to the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, and immerse ourselves in Luke’s historical, literary, theological, and communal world.

Selections I and II, from both the RCL and the BCP lectionaries, have Luke 2:1–20 as their gospel readings. The two selections break the text out into standard and optional parts at different verses. Selection II divides the material into Luke 2:1–7 (standard) and Luke 2:8–20 (optional). This division compares closely to our own division in the Journey series.

Luke 2:1–20 is the heart of the Christmas story. The first seven verses speak of the universal census, requiring Mary and Joseph to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be enrolled. Our Journey commentary on this passage considers the historical circumstances around Jesus’ birth. What Luke tells us about it differs from what we know of the precise chronology of Roman rule and administration. It also differs from what Matthew tells us. Even so, Luke places the reader in a world where a Roman decree can impose hardship on struggling young people who find themselves on a long and difficult journey, with all the risks attendant to pregnancy and ancient travel assumed in order to comply with the imperial demand. At the end of the trip, our pair is met, not with welcome, but with disinterest and were shuffled aside to a place fit for animals. The experience of Mary and Joseph at Christmas prefigures the encounter between the mature Jesus and the Roman power structure at Holy Week.

Verses 8–20 describe how the birth of God’s anointed is announced by heavenly visitors. Ironically, it is proclaimed not to the high and mighty, but to the meek and lowly. As our Journey commentary describes, the shepherds of first-century Judea are not to be considered among the solid, salt of the earth peasantry. They exist at the fringe of society, considered unclean because of the requirements of their trade. At best, they were low-class workers. At worst, they were like petty criminals, often accused of grazing their sheep on other people’s land.

It is to these ruffians that the arrival of the Messiah is announced. They go to behold him on the occasion of his birth, and soon tell others about him. By their actions they become the first witnesses, and the first evangelists, of the Christ.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about Luke 2:1–20. The text is located at pages 105–115.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in a PDF format.

Isaiah 9:2–7

We also receive a little bonus from the Old Testament with the Christmas lectionary. Selection I—from both the RCL and the BCP—contains excerpts from Isaiah 9:2–7. The OT passage offers a familiar promise that Christians associate with the coming of Jesus. To us a child is born and a son is given, upon whose shoulders the government will rest (see Isa. 9:6).

We studied a few words from this passage in Volume II of the Journey as we explored how Matthew 4:12–17 considers the onset of Jesus’ ministry as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Isaiah promises that those dwelling in the Galilean lands of gentile darkness will see a great light. Matthew considers the prophecy fulfilled with the commencement of Jesus’ ministry. It begins in darkest Galilee—which, in truth, was an incredibly vital land by the time that Jesus walked; a place where cross-cultural currents carried forward, even to this day, the first words that Jesus preached.

Click here to view what Volume II of the Journey has to say about Isaiah 9:1–2. The text is located at pages 90–95.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume II in a PDF format.

With the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we are given a rare glimpse into the mind of Joseph, the man who would discharge faithfully the role of earthly father to the Son of God.

Matthew 1:18–25 is the gospel reading in both the BCP and the RCL lectionaries. This passage is the subject of reflection, exploration, and questioning presented in Volume I of the Journey series.

It is there that we reflect on how Joseph responds to the awful news that his betrothed is pregnant, knowing that he is not the father. We explore ways in which his response foreshadows how righteousness will come to be understood in the new order. We question what the virgin birth means, to Joseph then, and to us now.

• Click here to view what Volume I from the Journey series has to say about Matthew 1:18-25. This includes text excerpts from pages 90-103.
• Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in a pdf format.

The Second Sunday of Advent offers Matthew 3:1-12 as the Gospel reading in both the BCP and the RCL lectionaries. In the Journey series, we have broken this passage down into three separate sections, with parallel readings from Mark and Luke interspersed.

In Matthew’s version, John the Baptist dramatically enters the stage. It is the first appearance of authentic prophecy in Israel after centuries of silence. John challenges, cajoles, and even threatens his audience, saving his harshest words for the Pharisees and Sadducees, those two great forces that will stand in opposition to Jesus’ own movement.

Yet, with the warning is also hope. One is coming “who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

• Click here to view what Volume I from the Journey series has to say about Matthew 3:1-12. This includes text excerpts from pages 177-179; 186-189; and 196-197.
• Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in a pdf format.