P&F Lectionary Commentary: 5-Lent 03/28/2004

Lectionary Commentary

Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 12:1-8

If there is a common thread among the passages in the lectionary for this fifth Sunday of Lent it is thanksgiving, though the Philippians does not fit there. The two Old Testament texts are thanksgiving texts, and the story of Mary’s purchase of the precious ointment for Jesus means, among other things, her thanks for his friendship and the salvation he has brought to her family in restoring Lazarus to them.

Isaiah 43:16-21
For the third time in these Sunday Lenten readings we face a text from the Second Isaiah. Second Isaiah (Isa 40-55) is a collection of homilies delivered by a prophet—whose name is not known to us—to the community of Judean exiles in Babylon. For reasons that need not concern us, the collection was used to shape the book of Isaiah. Although this means that relations with the preaching of Isaiah were perceived as important, we are dealing with a different prophet faced with a different situation.

As happens in many exiled communities, there were divisions among them on political questions of the day. These people were descendents of the leaders of Jerusalem, priests and scribes who were men of letters revered by their fellow citizens. For that reason they were deported by Nebuchadnezzar in order to dismantle the social order in what was to become a Babylonian province. Because they were learned families, actually the composers of much of our Bible, there skills were of some service to the city of Babylon. Some of the community was installed there and saw their future in that city. They had no interest in returning to a land impoverished and leaderless and to a city that had not been rebuilt. A second group no doubt foresaw a long Babylonian domination and, if return was to succeed, wished to stay in the good graces of their captors.

But the prophet represented what must have been at first a small minority that was convinced that Babylon was doomed and looked to Persia as the new imperial power in the region, the region between the Indus River and the eastern Mediterranean being the entire world they knew. Second Isaiah was a passionate advocate of a return under the auspices of Cyrus the Persian king. So much so that he interpreted Cyrus as the messiah that Isaiah of Jerusalem had foreseen (compare Isa 9:1-6 with Isa 45:1-5). God, the Lord of Israel, had chosen Cyrus for the task of restoring the people in Babylon to Jerusalem. The prophet did foresee the rebuilding of the Temple (Isa 44:28) but not the restoration of the Davidic monarchy.

His homilies are a passionate appeal to this community to prepare to pull up stakes and return to a land unknown to them except from the stories of their parents and grandparents. They must believe that YHWH, the God of Moses and the other ancestors, can and will make this return possible and successful. This must have seemed very doubtful to many of the community. But the Second Isaiah is an eloquent preacher, as we can still appreciate from the collection that has been preserved in the book of Isaiah.

YHWH, the God of Israel, is speaking in our passage. He identifies himself through his deed of salvation in opening a path in the sea for his people on their flight from Egypt. [Today the masculine language for God is offensive. And it is correct to seek ways to speak of God that do not give God a specific gender. But YHWH, the God of Israel, is consistently presented as male, and this justifies using the masculine pronouns in referring to “him.” In our liturgies we must find better ways of referring to God.] The speaker is he who opened the sea to make a passage there, and who drew down into the depths chariot and rider, those who pursued the people of Israel in their flight to safety.

V 18, “Do not remember the first things...”, turns attention to something new that YHWH is about to make happen. The new thing that will spring up is a path in the desert, rivers in the wilderness. The beasts of the field will burst forth in praise at this wonder. Its purpose is made clear in v 20c, “in order to give drink to my people whom I have chosen.” One of the discouraging prospects of returning to Judea and Jerusalem was the fear of the long walk across deserted lands where it would be difficult to find water. The prophet wants to put that fear away. If YHWH could open a road through the sea, why should he not be able to make rivers in the desert to water his people on their way through these inhospitable lands.

The day will come when the people I formed will sing forth my praises (v 21). This last verse turns this little homily into an invitation to praise God for what God did in leading the Exodus from Egypt and for what he is about to do in leading the exiled community back to the land promised to them in days of yore.

Psalm 126
We have tried in these Lenten meditations to begin by placing each psalm in the liturgical and formal category it shares with some of the other psalms in the book. In this case, we have a communal prayer of thanksgiving, one of eleven such psalms in our Psalter. As the category name indicates, we have in them praises to God for the wonders he has wrought for the people (there are other psalms that praise God for wonders performed for individuals).

V 1 announces immediately the motive for the thanksgiving: YHWH has restored the fortunes of Zion. This can only refer to the reconstruction of Jerusalem as a result of the waves of exiles who returned during the Persian domination of the whole area. So we have a hymn of praise for the deed that second Isaiah announced as a future event, which he needed to convince his audience would really come to pass. Here it has happened and a joyous people gather to praise God for his mercies. “Our mouths have been filled with joy and our tongues with songs” (v 2). The surrounding nations marvel saying, “YHWH has done great things for that people.”

In the light of the marvel, the people of the nation are called to rejoice, evidently to share in a worship commemorating God’s salvation. No doubt such services were held in the Persian province of Yehud. We in the United States are reminded of our national Thanksgiving celebration, which is a recognition of God’s mercies in giving safe passage across the ocean to fleeing puritan pilgrims and giving them the means to survive the inclement winter in their new home. (One is led to remark that in our Thanksgiving little recognition is given to the native peoples who helped feed these strangers in their lands in those first winters. Likewise, in the celebrations of the Judahites the role of the peasants who never left the land, who never went to Babylon, but who provided the food to sustain them are always ignored. We are often ungrateful when we praise God but fail to recognize the role of others in sustaining us.)

The whole psalm ends with a reflection on the toils of the field, a reality that is probably more a glorified myth than a genuine experience of at least the composer of this psalm. The arduous toil of planting and weeding is followed by the joy of collecting the sheaves in the time of harvest. Typically, nothing is said about who are the people who actually do this work, the peasants who must take the risks of not having conditions to even feed their families. Usually, city people can get their food elsewhere if crops fail in their immediate surroundings. The real risks are borne by the peasants who will go hungry if rain is not sufficient to sustain their crops.

Phillippians 3:4b-14
Our text is a polemical text. Paul has just warned the Philippians: “Watch our for the dogs. Watch out for the doers of evil. Watch out for the circumcision” (Phil 3:2). He then picks up on the last danger, “For it is we who are the circumcision, those who worship God in the spirit and boast in Christ Jesus and do not put confidence in the flesh” (Phil 3:3). He evidently feels there is a problem at Philippi. Circumcision is a visible sign of keeping the Law of Moses as practiced in standard Jewish groups of the time. Paul is a Jew and never renounced being one. When he says here, “we are the circumcision,” referring obviously to those who boast in Jesus Christ, he is making a contrast to those who have not known or trusted in Christ.

In v 4 his argument begins with the issue of trusting in the flesh, which is then fleshed out, if the expression is permitted, as being circumcised on the eighth day, having the right genealogical pedigree, being observant of the law, showing zeal for the true Israel, and expecting to become just through the law. Paul as a Jew of pedigree has all of these in his favor. He is blameless in regard to the law. This should not be understood as sarcasm. Paul does feel that he is blameless before the law of Sinai. He just does not believe that this has made him a just man. The way to justice is the one Paul discovered when he was confronted by Jesus in a special revelation (Gal 1:15-16).

The positive aspect of this polemic comes now as Paul briefly reminds his readers of things he must have explained often when he was with them. One becomes just through faith. This is what Paul learned in the confrontation with Jesus Christ–the initial revelation and the years of experience with Christ since then. In v 9 Paul places two “justices” over against each other, the justice that comes from the law and the justice that comes from the faith of Christ. According to a common translation, this pistis Christou means faith “in” Christ. This is not impossible but it is not the natural meaning of the expression. The translators who take this path probably want to support their understanding of Christian faith. This justice through the faith of Christ is what Paul will summarize famously in writing to the Romans (Rom 1:17): “For the justice of God is revealed from faith to faith.” From which faith? The faith of Jesus Christ. To which faith? Our faith.

Paul is a Jew, and proud of it in a world where Jews were often despised. This Jewishness of Paul should not be minimized. It was often costly to be a Jew in the Roman cities where Paul traveled. Philippi itself was a Roman colony–a place whose population nucleus was retired soldiers of the Roman armies. But he was convinced that the law, neither God’s law nor Roman law, can make a person just. Paul was impressed with the faith of Abraham (see Rom 4) and especially the faith of Jesus. It was this faith that allowed Jesus to be just even when it meant facing down the Roman and Jewish authorities all at once. How so? In the next verse, v 10, Paul refers to the power of his resurrection. Probably even Paul did not think the resurrection was an objective event that anyone could have witnessed. His list of witnesses in I Cor 15:5-9 only includes believers in Christ. Jesus could put his life at risk at the hands of the authorities because he trusted in the fidelity of God. God would not let the just one perish at the hands of the wicked. This faith is faith-trust and not faith-belief.

This faith of Jesus Christ is no small matter. Often events in the “objective” world seem to belie the fidelity of God. The wicked prevail over those who are more righteous every day. To believe that this is a superficial reality because at bottom God is faithful requires a faith that is no everyday faith. Such was the faith of Abraham and such was the faith of Jesus Christ. Paul wishes to be found “in the justice from God that is by faith” (v 9b). This is the way of Jesus that we Christians aspire to be faithful to. And it is no simple matter.

Somewhat surprising Paul passes immediately to speak about sharing in the sufferings of Jesus and in his death. The transition is not as strange as it seems. If one is to live out of faith that God is faithful in spite of the apparent triumphs of the wicked, one will suffer and quite possibly find a premature death. It will mean facing down the powerful when they are doing the wrong, and this cannot be other than costly.

The last three verses of our reading, vv 12-14, emphasize that this justice of God that comes through faith like that of Jesus Christ is not something one achieves overnight. It is not given to us in the moment we believe in Jesus and determine to follow him in our lives. All our lives we will find ourselves striving to be more like Jesus Christ and we shall never be perfectly what we aspire. Of course. But this should be no excuse not to be faithful now.

As we approach the end of Lent in the week in which we commemorate the events of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection, this is a good text to focus our efforts at making the most out of this season. If we wish to be just with the justice of God, which is not a private justice that only God can see but should also be visible publicly, we shall need to focus on faith, our faith in God, in a world where God is the ultimate judge of all things and all people.

John 12:1-8
The Gospel of John interprets this scene of the anointing of Jesus quite differently than the other gospel writers. For Mark and for Matthew it happened in the house of Simon the leper in Bethany, and the woman is simply a woman who is not identified (Mk 14:3-9; Mt 26:6-13). In Luke it took place in the house of one of the Pharisees, and the woman is identified as a sinner (Lk 7:36-50). John places the scene in the homey atmosphere of the house of Jesus’ friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus, in Bethany. The woman who does the anointing is Jesus’ friend Mary.

The gospel writer deliberately reminds us that this is the Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead (Jn 12:1). A dinner is prepared for Jesus, and apparently for his friends also. A strange thing happens. It seems that during the meal Mary brings out an expensive jar of nard and pours it on Jesus’ feet, drying them with her hair. The whole house was filled with the perfume of this expensive ointment. It appears to be a beautiful gesture of gratitude and appreciation to the friend who gave her and her sister back their brother Lazarus. There is no indication that we should take it as a prophetic gesture, as it clearly is in Mark and Matthew. Just a sign of how very much these sisters appreciate Jesus.

The scene is interrupted by the philistine objection of Judas, why waste such a costly perfume? It could be sold for three hundred denarii and the produce used as alms for the poor. Of course he is right. It could have been. And that would also have been a good thing. But Mary and Martha wanted something to show their appreciation for Jesus. For them this was no waste. The money or goods exchanged to come by the jar of nard were well used to be able to give this gift to Jesus.

Jesus’ comment brings in a new element, the imminence of his own death, and this becomes thus the opening of the passion sequence in John. Mary bought it, says he, to anoint his body. Most likely she had no such intention. But Jesus sees that this will be a perfect use for the rest of this expensive perfume. As for the poor, they will still be around tomorrow and ways to serve them will be found. This should not be taken as a callous statement but rather one that is matter of fact.

All Christians share something of Mary’s great regard for Jesus. And gestures of friendship and appreciation cannot be measured by ordinary criteria. When one wants to show appreciation for a friend one can throw calculations away and go overboard. Many Christians have followed Mary’s steps in the generosity with which they have supported the building of structures that will serve as meeting places for followers of Jesus in his presence, as he promised. This Lent can be a time to commit ourselves anew to show no bounds in our love for Jesus.

Jorge Pixley received his doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Chicago and has taught in seminaries in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Argentina, and Nicaragua. His books include Biblical Israel and Jeremiah (Chalice Commentaries for Today)

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