Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 15), 19 August 2018

1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
The lectionary for this Sunday takes us into First Kings. This book is the third book in the Bible to follow the story of the Kingship in Israel. First and Second Samuel are the first two, following Saul and David. First Kings picks up by telling the story of Solomon’s accession to the throne of Israel.

Today’s text begins with David’s death in chapter 2, verses 10-12. The verses that we do not read for this Sunday are filled with more palace intrigue. Bathsheba makes a brief return and Solomon deals with one of his brothers who vies with him for the throne. Solomon triumphs over his brother and in chapter 3, verse three opens with a declaration of Solomon’s love for God, his adherence to the Law of Moses, and faithfulness in worship. Solomon goes to Gibeon to worship God since this is before Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem. Gibeon is a few miles north of Jerusalem, and as the text says, it was a popular place to go for worship. At Gibeon, he makes a thousand burnt offerings. It should be noted that burnt offerings are an extravagant offering because an animal sacrificed in this way would not be available to use for food afterward as it had been completely burned. Typically when making sacrifice a portion was burned on the altar for God, a part went to the priest, and the rest went back to the family. While we often think of animal sacrifices as exotic and brutal, this is not the case. In a time before refrigeration and modern grocery stores, each family had to slaughter livestock for food regularly. An animal sacrifice was just an offering, where a portion of an animal a family would otherwise use for food is brought to the Temple/high place. In days where money was scarce, food was the offering instead. Solomon’s sacrifices were an over-the-top sign of his devotion to God (and his wealth and power).

That night at Gibeon, God appears to Solomon in a dream. In the dream, God offers to grant Solomon whatever he asks for. Solomon remembers that God has been really good to his father David and has been good to Solomon as well by allowing him the throne. He talks to God with humility calling himself a little child that does not know how to come in or go out. Solomon is not actually a little child, he is a grown man; this is a figure of speech indicating his humility and willingness to learn how to be a good king. He counts his blessings, remembering that God has made a great nation of the people.

So, in verse nine, Solomon gets to his request. He asks for an understanding mind, able to discern good from evil in order to govern God’s people. The words “understanding mind” in the original Hebrew are actually “listening heart.” A translation choice has been made here that does a little injustice to Solomon’s request. We assume that governance is a matter of the mind, the seat of reason and logic. This is not what Solomon requests. He asks for a listening heart. For the ancient Israelites, the heart was the center of decision-making. He asks for the ability to listen with his heart. The difference between listening with one’s heart and understanding with one’s mind is not insignificant. Solomon’s choice may have been wiser than our translator’s choices.  

God recognizes the wisdom in Solomon’s request and is pleased. In the dream, God tells Solomon that because he did not request selfish things like wealth or long life or revenge on an enemy, God will grant his request and then some. In addition to his wise and understanding heart, God grants Solomon riches and honor so that no other king can compare to him. Then, God gives a conditional. Solomon has to follow God, keeping God’s commandments and rules, if so God will provide him with a long life.  It seems as if Solomon and God are off to a good start.

Solomon serves as a good example of a wise ruler and a faithful child of God. His relationship with God serves as a good example of what our relationships with God are like. In Christianity, we tend to see our relationship with the Divine as nearly one-sided. God acts. We obey and earn rewards, or we disobey and garner punishment. In this passage, we see a more subtle side to our relationship with God. God is clearly godly — the one who gives and can take away, the one who sets the rules and expectations — and yet, God invites Solomon into this relationship as a participant and not merely a spectator. God asks what Solomon wishes. Upon discovering that Solomon seems to be made of some suitable material, God is pleased.

Solomon has a choice, God is unaware of precisely what Solomon will choose, and God has emotions. Typically, Christians do not think in these terms about our relationship with God. This passage draws a picture of God that reveals a God different from much traditional Christian theology where God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and completely unchanging. So much Christian theology through the years has argued that humans really have no free will (just the illusion of free will) or our free will is so corrupt that we can only choose the wrong. Here we see that Solomon has the free will to choose and he chooses wisely. God has a reasonably good idea what Solomon will choose, among the possibilities of wealth, long life, revenge, and wisdom (or good leadership skills); Solomon chose well, but God, it seems, was not exactly sure what Solomon would choose. God’s response is pleasure.

In terms of process theology, this exchange between Solomon and God seems only natural. First, this is a genuine relationship, not of equals, but equality is not necessary for relationship. My children and I, my boss and I, my friends and I, all have genuine but different relationships. God offers Solomon a real choice. Of course, Solomon has the free will to choose what he will. God is also unaware of exactly what Solomon will choose. In process theology, God, who is God, after all, can have a pretty good idea of what an individual will choose because God has immediate access to unlimited data about the world, the circumstances of the moment of this choice, and the choices we have made before. God can see out in a mind-boggling infinity of possibility. Yet, ultimately, the choice for each moment rests in the privacy of the individual without coercion from God. Solomon made a genuine choice. God is genuinely pleased. Far from an unmoved mover, God responds to our choices with pleasure at the good and dismay at our failures.

Since God is in genuine relationship with us, we are in genuine relationship with God. This kind of relationship changes the game a little. When we begin to think about God clearly, the impetus to do right, to choose well, lies not in fear of reprisal (punishment or hell) but in maintaining good relationship. God who loves us wants the best for us, will do all in the Divine power to move toward the best for us. Yet, God will not coerce. The impetus also arises from the unavoidable truth that our choices are real and we are responsible for them. God has not laid out all of our actions since the beginning of time. What we choose is real. What we do builds a world, action by action, choice by choice, that determines the world in which we live and that our children will inherit. We cannot put that responsibility on God. It is ours. This, dear preacher, is where this passage gets real. Solomon made a choice and went on to build a lasting legacy for the better. We have to decide what kind of legacy we will leave and what type of relationship we will have with God.

John 6:51-58
In our text for today, Jesus is still in the area of Galilee, in a town called Capernaum on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee.  Verse 59 tells us that he was teaching in the synagogue there. These verses are located in the section of John often called “Jesus and the Jewish Festivals.”  This is so because many of these stories mention the important Jewish festivals, but also because Jesus draws parallels between himself and these festivals. Today’s lectionary text is part of a larger narrative where John describes the significance of Jesus and his teachings in terms of Passover, particularly how Passover, Jesus, and the Lord’s Supper connect.

It will do well to note that of all of the Gospels, John is the only one that does not mention bread and wine at the last supper. In John’s version, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and tells Judas that he had better get on with the betrayal part. Nothing looking like Eucharist appears in John’s telling of Jesus’ final hours. Instead, Eucharistic language appears here in the context of Jesus’ teachings on the Passover.

Jesus begins by telling the people that he is the living bread (as compared to manna) that came down from heaven. Jesus stands in the line of Moses, and yet offers something that Moses could not. Unlike those who ate manna in the wilderness and eventually died, those who eat the living bread will live forever. The bread that Jesus will give for the life of the world is his flesh. Jesus seems to be referring to the crucifixion. However, the people do not understand and take his words literally. They wonder just exactly how they will be cannibalizing Jesus. As Jesus tends to do, he takes their misunderstanding and uses it as a teaching opportunity. He goes on to say that those who eat and drink will have eternal life and will be raised up on the last day. Those who eat and drink the flesh and blood abide in Jesus, and he abides in them.

Abide is a tough word since we do not use it very often in English today. When was the last time you abided in something? My parents would tell me occasionally when I was a teenager that they “would not abide that behavior.”  I figured that meant they wouldn’t allow whatever thing I was doing (I think it had something to do with MTV way back when MTV actually played music videos that my parents were pretty sure it had something to do with the devil, and I needed saving from it.).  The only other place the word abide has appeared outside of the Bible in my life is in the movie The Big Lebowski. At the end of the movie, after the Dude has survived all sorts of shenanigans, he sums up his philosophy of life, “the Dude abides.” Much ink has been spilled over the meaning of this line, but I have taken it to mean the Dude continues on just fine. Abide then, is a funny word. It carries the meaning to accept or act in accordance with a rule. So, when my parents insisted that I abide by their rules, they were using this word correctly! Abide also carries the meaning of continuing or persisting. So, the Dude was correct in his use too.

It may be fair to say that Jesus implies both of these meanings when he says those who eat and drink of him abide with him and he abides with them. We act in accordance and continue on with Jesus when we participate in communion. Jesus continues on with us and acts in accordance with the will of God. He makes it clear that he acts in accordance with the will of God in the next verse. There he explains that God sent him and he lives because of God, so whoever eats of Jesus will also live. Abide binds up all sorts of notions of following the will of God, by following Jesus, who are connected to each other, and because they abide and we abide, because God is the living God who sent Jesus who lives because of God, (see reference to the resurrection here) and we who abide will live eternally as well. Verse 58 is a summary. Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven. He says repeatedly that his origins are from God. He is not manna like that which the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness ate. The manna-eaters eventually died. Those who partake of Jesus will live eternally.

If you are interested in preaching on communion this Sunday, I would suggest looking at the notes on John from Proper 14B. For this Sunday, let us turn our attention to the repeated promise made by Jesus. Eat and drink of him and gain eternal life. The afterlife remains an essential promise in the lives of most Christians, but also perhaps, one of the most unexamined tenants of faith. I would highly recommend reading a small monograph by Oscar Cullmann called Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead. This quick read carefully lays out the difference between the Greek, philosophical notion of the immortality of the soul and the Christian notion of the resurrection of the dead.  Cullmann’s careful analysis shows that early Christianity, as represented by the Biblical writings, did not hold to a belief in the immortality of the soul as separate from eternal life in a spiritual body. Paul promises that our resurrection will not be like the Walking Dead, but that we gain perfected spiritual bodies.  

Process theology rejects a soul-body dualism as does the New Testament. Both recognize the existence of soul, and both see body and soul as intermixed. Both acknowledge that resurrection and new creation are well within God’s abilities. John Cobb, in A Christian Natural Theology, in his chapter on the Human Soul discusses this so well that all I can do here is a paltry summary. Whitehead sees our current state of space-time as contingent. We simply cannot say that this space-time structure, what we experience as real here, is all there is. God certainly interacts with us as we function in the structure of space-time as we experience it, but the limits of space-time on us are not the same for God. Jesus’ promise is that in the New Heaven and New Earth that comes on the last day, we gain a different set of rules for living. These rules include perfected bodies and eternal life. Whitehead sees the possibility of a new cosmic epoch (Religion in the Making, 160).

The promise of eternal life is a significant promise.  At first glance, it can appear a little selfish. I do not want to die and wink out of existence because it negates the meaning of my life. My “me” is so important that it needs to go on forever. Well, at least my “me” is pretty important to me. It turns out, I’m pretty important to God too. Each of us is. Whitehead tells us that, “The consequent nature of God is his judgment on the world. He saves the world as it passes into the immediacy of his own life. It is the judgment of a tenderness which loses nothing that can be saved. It is also the judgment of a wisdom which uses what in the temporal world is mere wreckage” (Process and Reality, 346). We abide in God, and God abides in us.  Eternal life, perfected life, means continued relationship with God.

This assurance of continued relationship with God has repercussions for this life. Resting in the certainty of perfection frees us from fear here. The opposite can happen. Apathy can set in, and we can wait for God to fix everything in that sweet by-and-by. That is not real freedom; apathy is merely another brand of bondage to fear. True freedom results in living in this world in the way that Jesus has called us to live. Freedom results in action for the poor, the prisoner, the foreigner, the widow, the most vulnerable in our society. Freed from fear of meaninglessness is freedom from aimlessness. Because we have eternal life, we have a purpose. That purpose is found in the teachings of Jesus Christ. Your seekers, dear preacher, will need to hear the good news of eternal life that frees us from fear. Your mature followers will need to hear the good news of eternal life that frees us to purposefulness. That purpose can be found in the life of Jesus Christ, in what he taught about our ethical action in the world.

After all of that heavy theology, let me end with another bit of humor. A man died and approached the Pearly Gates. St. Peter told him heaven was getting crowded, so he had to test people with the point system. If he got to 100 points, he could enter. The man told Peter that he gave to the poor. Peter marked him down for 3 points. The man thought again, then said that he tithed. Peter added one point. The man, desperately searching his memory, finally said that he never cussed. Peter added 1/2 a point. By now the man got very frustrated and said that at this rate he could only get in by the grace of God. Peter replied, “Come on in!”

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Nichole Torbitzky received a doctorate from Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, CA and her Master of Divinity from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Her current research investigates Whiteheadian notions of subjective form and the internal relations subjective form has on the ordering of eternal objects in the primordial nature of God. Torbitzky is an assistant professor of religion at Lindenwood University and teaches courses on World Religions, Islam, Indian Religions, History of Christianity, and Women and Religion.