Fifth Sunday of Easter

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

May 3, 2015

 

Acts 8:26-40

This story has suffered considerable exegetical abuse in the name of a good cause. The preacher contrasts restrictive, legalistic, oppressive Judaism that excluded the Eunuch from participating in the religious life of the temple with Jesus and the apostles who welcomed the Eunuch into the church with “boundary-shattering” inclusiveness.

This interpretive model has the effect of reinforcing anti-Judaism and feeding anti-Semitism. As my colleague Clark M. Williamson points out, both the exegetical picture and the theological resolution are more complicated, and more liberating. (Clark M. Williamson, “The Ethiopian

Eunuch: Dealing with a Gender-Bender,” Encounter 63.3 2013, 47-56).

The eunuch is likely a Jew by birth, or a proselyte, who has followed Jewish custom by going to Jerusalem to worship. In the Book of Acts, Luke shows that people in positions of wealth and power are attracted to the eschatological witness of the church. The eunuch is such a person: not only a court official of the Candace (the Queen of Ethiopia) but “in charge of her entire treasury.” Ancient culture did not have a category of race parallel to ours, but given contemporary struggles around race, we should note that he likely had deeply hued skin.

He is a eunuch. At one time, eunuchs could not serve as priests (Leviticus 21:20) and were restricted from the liturgical assembly (Deuteronomy 23:1). These texts are tension with the Mishnah, given its present form only slightly later than Luke-Acts, that gives instructions concerning eunuchs who were married priests (Yebamoth 8:6). Jewish practice may not have been as rigid as preachers like to say.

Some prophets anticipate the day when God will gather the faithful from the ends of the earth, including Ethiopia (e.g. Psalm 68:31; Isaiah 11:1-9; Zephaniah 3:10). In Jewish end-time theology (including Luke-Acts), the Realm of God, includes a great reunion of scattered peoples. Isaiah anticipated that God would welcome faithful eunuchs and give them “an everlasting name that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah 56:4-5). Wisdom of Solomon anticipates a similar time (3:10). Williamson emphasizes that Acts 8:26-40, like the larger story of Luke-Acts, is not a break with the story of Israel but an extension. To Abraham and Sarah, God promised to bless all human families (Genesis 12:3). One way God extends that blessing is through Jesus and the church.

While traveling, the eunuch is reading Isaiah 53:7-8, a passage that speaks poignantly of the eunuch’s own condition: the eunuch was led like a sheep to the slaughter (castration), “like a lamb silent before its shearer.” The eunuch identifies with the figure in the prophetic reading.

Philip explains the relationship of Isaiah, Jesus, the church, and the coming Realm, an arena in which the eunuch would be everlastingly fruitful. The eunuch requests immersion immediately.

Many people today are in situations similar to the eunuch: they feel cut off, dried up. This story promises that participation in the eschatological community provides a setting for generativity. The act of immersion could hardly be more richly symbolic: water coming onto dry ground. The preacher might take Isaiah 56:4-5 figuratively: those who do not have a sense of future come into a community in which they will have an everlasting name that will not be cut off.

Psalm 22:25-31

Psalm 22 begins with Jesus’ cry from the cross in Mark and Matthew, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46) (See the Sixth Sunday in Lent, March 29, 2015). On the one hand, this cry is a point of identification for individuals and communities in distress. This opening line resonates with our feelings of being forsaken.

On the other hand, Psalm 22 is an individual lament. Such psalms typically contain similar elements and move in similar ways. . The elements of this form are evident in Psalm 22. The elements are: complaint (Psalm 22:1-2 vss. 6-8), confession of trust in God (vss. 3-5, 9-10), prayers for help (vss. 11-21a), and finally vow or praise and thanksgiving for God’s saving presence and activity (vss.22-31).

A preacher could organize the movement of the sermon according to the movement of the Psalm: complaint/lament, expression of trust, prayer (yearning) for help, thanksgiving and praise

From this point of view, Jesus’ cry from the cross in both Mark and Matthew is not simply a cry of dereliction, but is an expression that God can be trusted through the crucifixion. Beyond the suffering and death on the cross, Jesus trusts that God will bring the Realm.

The reading for today should be expanded slightly to Psalm 22:21b-31 to include whole of the thanksgiving part of this psalm. The congregation should read whole psalm to honor its integrity. However, if the congregation reads only part, then this part fits the Sundays after Easter. It is not clear whether the psalmist gives thanks for help that has come or whether the thanks is proleptic. In the latter, the help has not arrived but the psalmist gives thanks as if it is here.

The psalm emphasizes that God is present in the depths of suffering (Psalm 22:24).

Psalm 22:29 is another appropriate connection between the Psalm and the Sundays of Easter in that this verse voices an unusual attitude in the Torah, Prophets and Writings toward existence beyond this life. From an exegetical perspective, it is not clear what happens when the dead (“all who sleep”) bow down, or what psalmist means by saying, “I shall live for him.” From a theological perspective, however, it is clear that the psalmist trusts God beyond death. This hope belongs not to Israel alone but to “all the families of the nations” (Psalm 22:27-28).

While the present crisis is severe and painful, hope lies beyond. The psalmist is confident that the community will continue. Indeed, “posterity will serve” God, and “future generations will proclaim . . . deliverance to a people yet unborn” (Psalm 22:30-31). The preacher could follow the psalm in inviting the community both to name their suffering in the utter clarity of the beginning of the psalm, and, without diminishing the pain, to frame that suffering in the confidence that God is present, walks with them through it, and can be trusted with what lies beyond.

1 John 4:7-21

As we have said in connection with prior readings from 1 John, today’s lection assumes the two-story Johannine understanding of existence mentioned on Easter Sunday (April 5, 2015). It also assumes that John writes to a community that has recently had an acrimonious split over what to believe about Jesus and the faithful life. Some members left the community. The writer seeks to help the people remaining interpret what happened from John’s theological frame of reference, and to believe that their version of the faith is reliable. Today’s passage is intended to help this sectarian community reinforce its identity.

1 John 4:1-6 sets the stage for 1 John 4:7-21 in a way that is remarkably helpful for the church today. 1 John 4:1-6 calls for the congregation to have an adequate theological method to evaluate claims that are made in the church and offers theological criteria to use as a norm in making such judgments. 1 John 4:7-21 amplifies those criteria.

The writer admonishes the community: “Do not believer every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). The “spirits” here refer to messages the Spirit sent to the church through early Christian prophets. This passage warns that some messages are from “false prophets” in the world. The “world” is the lower story of existence marked by such things as death, darkness, slavery, scarcity, and falsehood. False prophets represent the anti-christ. John’s congregation faced the question of how to distinguish among rival claims.

John sets out two criteria for distinguishing spirits that come from God (i.e. theological claims that are consistent with God). One is claims about Jesus that are consistent with the claim that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2). That is, the revelation of God from heaven took place through Jesus Christ in bodily form in the world. Therefore, it can have material effect on people who are otherwise entrapped in the world. The other criterion is that the message of the false prophets is nothing other than the message of the world. “What they say is from the world” (1 John 4:5). They promise little more than broken existence as it is.

The demonstration that a community confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh comes when a community enfleshes what Jesus did in the world (1 John 4:7ff.): the community loves one another. For John, love is less an emotion and is more a decision to act for the good of the community and the world. 1 John 4:9 reminds listeners that the story of Jesus in Gospel of John is the paradigm of love, for the Word came down from heaven in the midst of the brokenness of the world (in flesh) to reveal the possibility of heaven. The effect of Christ’s “atoning sacrifice” is that the values and practices of the world no longer determine the existence of believers in Jesus (1 John 4:10). The most reliable test of the degree to which a spirit is from God, or whether a community is living faithfully is the degree to which Johannine style love is manifest in it.

The theology of 1 John contains a certain circularity in that the concepts of 1 John 4:7-21 mutually interpret one another. God is love. When we love, God abides in us. We cannot see God but when we love, we know God abides in us. If we do not love sisters and brothers whom we do see, then we cannot love God whom we cannot physically see. When we love our sisters and brothers, we love God which, in turn, shows that God is love.

John 15:1-8

In this passage, the Johannine Jesus draws on a staple network of images for Israel as community—vine, vineyard and gardening—as in Isaiah 5:1-7. The language “I am the vine, you are the branches,” is a way of saying that the revelation that God made through Jesus (the vine) continues through the Johannine synagogue (the branches and the fruit).

A one level this passage is theologically empowering. The vine and branches abide in one another. “Abide” (menō) is a pivotal Johannine term. In 14:10, Jesus says he is in God and God is in him. In John 15:4, Jesus says that he abides in those who believe in him. In John 14:17, Jesus explains that he continues to abide in the congregation through the Advocate.

To abide is to indwell. In John, as noted above, to reveal is not simply to point to, but is to bring into existence in the present. In the Fourth Gospel, this quality pertains particularly to revealing heaven and the things of God (bringing heaven into existence in the present). God abides in Jesus, thus imbuing Jesus with revelatory power. Jesus reveals God and heaven through his ministry and resurrection. Through the Spirit, Jesus abides in his followers. His disciples live in the world in spheres of heaven (even while being buffeted by the world).

Those who abide in Jesus are to bear fruit (John 15:4-5). Indeed, the abiding power of Jesus makes it possible for the community “to ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7; cf. 15:16). “Whatever you wish . . . here, refers to things that are consistent with God’s purposes. Jesus makes these purposes clear: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept [God’s] commandments and abide in [God’s] love” (John 15:10). The commandment, of course, is to love one another as Jesus as loved the congregation (John 15:12). The community is to bear the fruit of love (15:16).

Many people today long to belong to authentic community and to bear fruit. The congregation that is truly in a vine-and-branches relationship with Jesus can offer community and mission.

At another level, however, John 15:1-8 is theologically difficult. The passage presumes tension between the Johannine synagogue and some traditional synagogues (see Easter Day, April 5, 2015). This passage, then, is polemical. Jesus the true vine is continues the ministry of Israel in contrast to the false interpretation of the vine by Jewish leaders. Indeed, “Whoever does not abide in me,” i.e. whoever does not believe in Jesus, “is thrown away like a branch [cut off the tree] and withers; such branches are gathered into the fire and burned.” (John 15:6).

There is a theological irony here. John instructs the members of the community to bear the fruit of love towards one another, i.e. towards other members of the Johannine synagogue (e.g. John 13:34-35). However, John denies that fruit to members of the traditional synagogue.

At still another level, this passage is theologically sobering. The preacher could help the congregation ask, “Are we bearing fruit in an optimum way?” The passage says that God will prune the unfruitful branch so that it may become fruitful. Appropriate pruning can be painful, but it leads to strengthening the plant. Does the congregation need to prune its life, that is, to shape itself so that I can bear optimum fruit in its context?