The Synoptic Gospels: A Journey Into the Kingdom

The Fourth Sunday in Lent does not offer texts from the synoptic Gospels. However, the Journey series has commented on two of the day’s readings as part of our synoptic studies. They are found in both the RCL and BCP lectionaries.

1 Samuel 16:1-13

The Old Testament reading comes from the founding era of the kingdom of Israel. Saul, the first king, has fallen out of favor with God. So God must dispatch his prophet, Samuel, to anoint Saul’s successor.

Samuel comes to the home of Jesse, and is guided by the Spirit in choosing the king from among Jesse’s sons. To Samuel’s surprise, it is not the tall, strong, older sons, but the young boy, David, who was brought to him from tending the sheep, almost as an afterthought.

The Gospel according to Saint Luke, set a thousand years later, again focuses on shepherds. Unlike modern perceptions, which tend to idealize pastoral life, the shepherds of Jesus’ time and place were marginal characters, located on the social scale somewhere between the lowest laborers and petty thieves. It is to those types of people that God chooses to announce the arrival of the Savior.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about the Birth of Jesus, according to Luke, and how that experience takes us back to the anointing of David in the Old Order. The text is located at pages 111-119.

Psalm 23

The appointed psalm for the day is the best known of all-the twenty-third psalm. It contains lyrical praise and thanksgiving offered to the shepherd who makes his sheep lie down in green pastures by the still waters, and who guides them through the valley of the shadow of death.

We considered this model Old Testament prayer as we studied a model New Testament prayer in Volume II of the Journey. The Lord’s Prayer, found at Matthew 6:9-15, has Jesus teaching his disciples to pray. We see how one thought is spoken (for example, “Thy kingdom come”), and how the next thought elaborates on the meaning of the first (for example, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”).

Just as the sheep of Psalm 23 are not left wanting because the shepherd is making them to lie down in green pastures, the will of God is being done on earth as it is in Heaven, because his kingdom is arriving.

Click here to view what Volume II has to say about how the Lord’s Prayer follows the model of the twenty-third psalm. The text is located at pages 316-319.