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DonateJuly 18, 2010 Commentary by Russell Pregeant |
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Amos 8:1-12
Genesis 18:1-10a
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42
As Turid Karlsen Seim has noted, earlier interpretations of Luke 10:38-42 often circumvented the gender perspective by turning the two sisters into symbols such as works versus righteousness or the active versus the contemplative life.1 However, Luke’s well-known emphasis upon women as active agents insures that this story does in fact manifest a concern for gender roles; and the specific effect of the story is to challenge standard cultural expectations in this regard.
Robert Tannehill lists this passage among those in which women followers of Jesus “are led by him beyond normal social roles and the restrictions which confine them to the family.”2 Clearly, Martha’s attention to household duties represents the accepted pattern of “women’s work,” while Mary’s attention to Jesus’ teachings fits a pattern traditionally reserved for males. This is particularly significant, Tannehill argues, in light of the pattern of hearing and doing the word that Luke presents as paradigmatic for discipleship.
Both the indication that Mary had “seated herself beside the Lord’s feet” and the statement that she “was hearing his word” (10:39) show her beginning to assume the role of a disciple. She is beginning to respond to Jesus’ call to hear his words and do them (6:47). If she continues by not only hearing but doing, she will be included in Jesus’ family, for “my mother and brothers and sisters are those who hear the word of God and do it” (8:21).3
The force of the story, is thus, on Tannehills’s reading, that “Jesus protects the right of Martha’s sister Mary to be free from domestic duties in order to begin the path of discipleship.4 And Seim treads on similar ground when she notes that “the text alludes to terms that in rabbinic tradition are connected to teaching institutions.”5
Alan Culpepper argues that this story “stands in a complementary relationship with the story of the good Samaritan and gains much of its meaning from the tensive relationship between the two stories.”6 For example, with the lawyer’s identification of love of God and love of neighbor as the way to eternal life in the background, the Good Samaritan focuses on the meaning of loving the neighbor while Mary illustrates love of God. The stories are parallel, moreover, in that “both the Samaritan and Mary, a woman, represent marginalized persons—unlikely heroes. As a composite, they are model disciples: “‘those who hear the word of God and do it’ (8:21).”7
There is some dispute among scholars as to how severe Jesus’ rebuke of Martha in v. 41 is. Culpepper thinks that Martha’s being “distracted by many things” places her in the category of the seed that fell among thorns in the Parable of the Sower in 8:4-8, 11-15. Just as these seed were “distracted by the cares and riches and pleasures of life,” so Martha, although “fulfilling the role assigned her to her by society…allows secondary matters to distract her from hearing the Word of God.” Seim, however, argues that the priorities of Mary and Martha
are not necessarily absolute: the rejection of Martha’s utterance comes unambiguously only when Jesus adds that Mary’s good part is not to be taken from her. When there is a set priority among “the parts,” these cannot be played off against one another. Devotion to the Word is given priority even where this may lead to conflict with the preoccupation that demands that one give support in provision, hospitality, and service.8
Mary’s attention to Jesus’ word is in fact more important than Martha’s household duties, but neither pattern need exclude the other. Thus, Seim argues that the contrast in the story is
not between hearing and serving, but between hearing and agitated toil. What truly causes the problem is that Martha, in her agitated toil with so many things, demands her sister’s assistance….So Martha represents a threat that Mary’s part can be taken from her.”9
The selection from Amos is a classic instance of a prophetic witness on economic justice, which reiterates the prophet’s condemnation of the lavish lifestyles of the rich who oppress the poor in the northern monarchy of Israel in the late eighth century B.C.E. It is also an interesting illustration of the prophetic imagination.
Norman Gottwald describes Amos’s message in its socio-economic context in these terms:
The prophet whose work lies at the core of the book attacked the patriotic and pious conservative reaction that had gained currency among the upper classes during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II….The greedy upper classes, with governmental and juridical connivance, were systematically expropriating the land of commoners so that they could heap up wealth and display it gaudily in a lavish “conspicuous consumption” economy. Hatred of other nations, military swaggering, and religious rhetoric were generously employed to persuade people to accept their miserable lot because it was, after all, “the best of all possible societies.”10
In the lectionary reading, Amos announces Israel’s doom: its “end” has come, because God will no longer forestall just judgment (8:2). The rich “trample on the needy” and sit on pins and needles waiting for holy days to get past so they can resume their exploitative practices of buying and selling (8:4-6). In describing the portending punishment, the prophet imagines God using natural forces. In 8:8, he makes “an unusual comparison of an earthquake to the flooding of the Nile,” and in vv. 9-10 he introduces images of mourning and lamentation with a reference to a solar eclipse.11
In a liberation-critical reading with feminist concerns, Carol Dempsey notes that the text assumes “a certain ‘hierarchy’ of power.” The less powerful are oppressed by the more powerful “and are then punished by an even more powerful God.” And throughout the book of Amos power is conceived largely along gender lines. “With the exception of the women of Samaria who exert power over their husbands, most of the document power plays rest with the men. God is portrayed as a male involved in power plays for the sake of justice.”12 This passage from Amos is tailor-made for a sermon on economic justice, but preachers sensitive to issues of gender and hierarchical power might want to explore the limitations of the text from these perspectives. Most especially, the problem of defending justice through violence is worthy of consideration.
Amos’s vision that introduces his oracle is based upon a simple word-play. The word for “summer fruit” (qayits) suggests the similar-sounding term for “end” (qets). This ability to derive significant meaning from an ordinary perception is a fine example of the exercise of what Walter Brueggemann has called the “poetic imagination” of the Hebrew prophets, which he defines as “the capacity to construe, picture, and image reality outside of the dominant portrayals of reality that have been taken as givens.”13 In this instance, we hear the complaints of a social critic who interprets an everyday phenomenon as a sign that challenges an entire social system sanctioned by the governing authorities, the religious establishment, and the ruling classes. The notion that ordinary realities hold the potential for revelation is quite in keeping with a process perspective, which understands God as playing a role in the becoming of every moment. The way we perceive any past event is the product not only of our own freedom and creativity but also of God’s provision of possibilities for the shaping of every past into a future event. The prophet with a poetic imagination in Brueggemann’s sense is one who is sensitive to the subtlest of lures that God offers in ordinary experience.
The Letter to the Colossians, considered for good reason by many scholars to be the work of a slightly later follower of Paul rather than the apostle himself, combats a “philosophy” involving the recognition of cosmic powers in addition to Christ. It therefore stresses Christ’s supremacy over all celestial powers. The lectionary selection begins with 1:15-20, in all likelihood a pre-existing hymn celebrating Christ’s superior status that the author has edited. Vv. 15, 18, and 16 identify Christ as God’s agent in the process of creation, and v. 17 goes further with the declaration that “in him all things hold together.”
Scholars once debated whether the terminology regarding “the powers” that we find in v. 16 (“thrones,” “dominion,” “rulers,” and “powers”) and in various places in the New Testament letters refers to cosmic entities or to earthly, governmental authorities. It is generally agreed now, however, that such language embraces both early and heavenly dimensions, so that human institutions are manifestations of supernatural forces. Belief in such forces was rooted in the Jewish notion of angels. Thus, Margaret MacDonald comments that this terminology “is associated with angels in Jewish literature (cf. 2 Enoch 20:1; 2 Enoch 61:10). According to T. Levi 3.8 in heaven ‘there are thrones and dominions in which they always offer praise to God.’”14 This indicates that “the powers” are fundamentally good, and Colossians 1:16 presupposes this evaluation in proclaiming that they were created through Christ. In v. 20, however, we read that Christ also reconciles “to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,” which shows that a fundamental disruption has occurred: the powers have turned against God. The hymn thus proclaims Christ’s supremacy and at the same time introduces the theme of reconciliation, which is accomplished through the cross. Just as v. 16 declares reconciliation on a cosmic level, vv. 21-23 apply the concept to alienated humanity: the readers of the letter, too, were once alienated from God but are now reconciled. But the author adds a caveat in v. 24: God will, on the basis of Christ’s reconciling death, receive them as blameless, but only if they continue steadfast in the faith.
The Colossians text is ideally suited for interpretation from a process perspective. Although Eduard Lohse claims that the author’s interpolations into the hymn (the references to the church and the cross in vv. 18 and 20) undermine “any attempt to utilize the hymn for the purposes of a natural or cosmic theology,”15 it would have been odd for the author to have quoted such terminology without taking it with some seriousness; and in any case, the cosmic terminology remains in the text. And the recognition of an interest in the church need not be viewed as in competition with that element. As Paul Santmire comments, “we can appropriately interpret this hymn…in the sense of both/and: both cosmos and church, both exalted lord and crucified savior, both strophe one (on creation) and strophe two (on redemption).”16 Santmire goes on, moreover, to read v. 17 as reflecting a panentheistic (but not pantheistic) perspective: “Christ can be thought of—precisely because he his transcendent Lord of all—in the vision of this hymn as the transcendent divine whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts.”17 This may be a bit of a stretch, but it seems undeniable that this verse does in fact recognize Christ as in some sense pervading all creation, for it is difficult to understand the notion that “in him all things hold together” in any other way.
1. Turid Karlsen Seim, “The Gospel of Luke” in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 745.
2. Robert C. Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts, Vol. 1: The Gospel of Luke (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 136.
6. R. Alan Culpepper, The Gospel of Luke: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections. The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 231.
10. Norman K. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985.
11. Donald E. Gowan, “The Book of Amos: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VII (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 417.
12. Carol J. Dempsey, The Prophets: A Liberation-Critical Reading(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 21.
13. Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 625.
14. Margaret Y. MacDonald, Colossians and Ephesians. Sacra Pagina Series, Vol. 17 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2000), p. 60.
15. Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Phelemon. Hermeneia (Trans. William R. Poehlmann and Robert J. Karris; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1961), 60.
Russell Pregeant is Professor of Religion and Philosophy and Chaplain, Emeritus, at Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts and Visiting Professor in New Testament at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts. He resides in Contoocook, New Hampshire with his wife, Sammie Maxwell, who is pastor of the Contoocook United Methodist Church. As an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, he has served as Associate Pastor at Rayne Memorial U.M.C. in New Orleans and as interim pastor in Carter Memorial U.M.C. in Needham, Massachusetts. He is the author of several books, including Knowing Truth, Doing Good: Engaging New Testament Ethics, Christology Beyond Dogma: Matthew's Christ and Process Hermeneutic, and Mystery without Magic, which is a basic introduction to process thought. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University Ph.D., 1971), Yale Divinity School, (S.T.M., 1963), Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University (B.D., 1962), and Southeastern Louisiana University (B.A., 1960).
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