The Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

FIRST KINGS 18:20-21 (22-29) 30-39: The pattern for Israelite prophecy was set by a strange man who burst unexpectedly before the nation during the kingship of Ahab. In the name of his God Yahweh, and in the spirit of the covenant made by Moses, Elijah the prophet challenged the policies of Ahab the king.

In Elijah's view, Ahab was perpetuating the basic pagan heresy begun in the time of Solomon and espoused by Ahab's own father, King Omri of Israel: the marriage of throne and altar. King Ahab, who ruled in the northern kingdom of Israel from about 869 to 850 BC, approximately l00 years after Solomon had taken over the throne of David, had inherited a wealthy and powerful state from his father Omri, and was anxious to continue to build the political and economic strength of his nation.

One of the methods he employed was to link his kingdom in commercial treaties with other principalities by marrying a princess of the other realm. Accordingly, Ahab went to the sea-coast town of Sidon, an important trading and commercial center one hundred miles north of his capital city of Samaria, and married a young woman named Jezebel, daughter of the Sidonian priest-king Ethbaal. While Ahab was relatively tolerant in matters of religion, Jezebel was not. Her name and her father's were both compounded with the name of their god, the baal, and Jezebel meant to live up to her name.

Ahab's tolerance was her opportunity and his undoing. Ahab was willing to worship Yahweh if it seemed a politic thing to do, but he did not intend to make such worship normative for all Israelites; if other gods were important to some of his subjects, he would provide for their worship as well. So when Jezebel was added to his family he built a temple to her baal.

To Jezebel, however, the worship of baal was of prime importance not only to herself but to all Israel. She immediately began to persecute the priests and worshipers of Yahweh and in the purge, as far as was within her power, she wiped out the worship and worshipers of Israel's God.

Her actions had wide-ranging political and ethical results. In the regions of Canaan and Syria where the baals were supreme, the king considered himself not only the primary political officer of the state but also the nation's chief spokesman for God. In other words, the king was the absolute ruler, accountable for his policies to no one in heaven or on earth but himself. This was the direction that the Davidic covenant under Solomon's Israel had pointed. Under Ahab and Jezebel it came into full focus: the king was both king and high priest, and anyone who attacked the policies of the king was in effect attacking God.

It hardly needs to be pointed out that this was contrary to the basic religious faith of Israel. Ever since the time of Moses, Israelites had insisted that the king was not to be thought of as God's infallible spokesman; like all other citizens of the realm, he too was accountable to Yahweh. It was Elijah the prophet who stepped forth in the time of Ahab to call both king and people back to the ancient sources of their religion, back to the covenant established between God and people at the time of Moses, back to accountability to the living God.

Scriptures tell of three episodes in this critical contest between Elijah and Ahab. The first took place on Mount Carmel, a mountainous promontory which juts into the Mediterranean Sea thirty-five miles due west of the Sea of Galilee and fifty miles northwest of Samaria.

Israel, at this time, was experiencing one of the worst droughts in its history; for three dreadful years there had been no rain in the kingdom. Elijah, a native of the village of Tishbe in Gilead, had announced that the drought had been caused by the policies of King Ahab: because of the king's unfaithfulness. Yahweh had withdrawn the dew and the rain.

Elijah's very name speaks of his allegiance: "My God is Yahweh" is the precise meaning of the name. His little village was east of the Jordan river, where he had lived a rough, semi-nomadic life on the very edge of the desert. He must have been a strange sight to the cultured people of the land of Israel, clothed as he was in a garment of hair, held in place by a leather girdle around his waist, a man of rugged strength and enormous endurance.

In announcing that the drought came at the hand of Yahweh, he was challenging the prophets of baal in the very sphere of their power. They insisted that their god was the god of fertility, who brought life to the seed and water to the earth. In issuing his challenge, Elijah was claiming that Yahweh's authority extended over the fertility of the land as well as all other spheres of life. The priests of baal accepted his challenge, and both sides agreed that the contest should take place on Mount Carmel.

The site itself was significant. Mount Carmel stood on the shores of the Great Sea, a region that the people of Sidon and the followers of baal had claimed as belonging to their god. The confrontation had drama written through it. On one side stood 450 prophets of baal and four hundred prophets of Asherah. On the other side, alone, stood Elijah. The people of Israel had gathered to witness the confrontation, and Elijah called upon them to make a choice. "How long," he asked them, "will you limp along with two different opinions, like a bird hopping from one leg to another?" (I Kings 18:21) He was comparing them to a bird jumping along a branch until it came to a fork, then vainly imagining it could continue its course by putting one foot on one branch and the other foot on the second branch. "Israel is like that bird," said the prophet. "You people want to keep one foot in the faith of Israel and the other foot in the worship of baal." But the time had come to make the choice, either to worship Yahweh, God of the covenant, or baal, god of fertility. To Elijah, the questions of religion were basically questions of loyalties and allegiances: to whom will a people give their allegiance?

The purpose of the confrontation between the two sides was to see which god would bring rain --in other words, who controlled the fertility of the land? Before the rain could come, however, one god or the other had to make a bold response to their agent's entreaties so each party agreed to perform their respective rites with the understanding that "the god who answers by fire" is God. (1 Kings 18:24)

The prophets of baal worked themselves into ecstatic frenzy as they performed their limping dance around the altar and shouted their ritual cries to baal. As they were doing this, Elijah stood off to the side, magnificently confident, laughing the baal into meaningless unreality and taunting the fanatic priests with jests: maybe baal does not answer, he suggested, because he is on a trip, or needs to be awakened from his slumber, or who knows, perhaps he had even gone out to the privy. Under Elijah's goading, the prophets of baal whipped themselves into even more frenzy. They were unsuccessful. No fire appeared. These solemn words stand in judgment over their futile efforts:

"There was no voice; no one answered; no one heeded." (1 Kings 18:29)

Elijah stepped forward. He repaired the altar to Yahweh that had been torn down in Jezebel's purge. Then he did a curious thing. He poured water onto the wood and into the trenches around the altar. Did he do this only to make it impossible for fire to appear except by supernatural means? Did he do it to have the water represent the storm that was about to come? Then he prayed. Then fire descended from heaven and consumed everything upon the altar, the altar itself, and the water in the trenches around it The people were so awed by the spectacle that they exclaimed, "Yahweh is God!" They quickly condemned to death the defeated prophets of baal and the sentence was immediately carried out.

The climax of the story came, however, not with the destruction of the antagonistic prophets but with the ending of the drought. Elijah announced to Ahab, "There is a sound of the rushing of rain." The prophet of God sent his servant to look toward the Mediterranean Sea while Elijah himself lay prostrate in prayer; seven times, in fact, he sent him to search the heavens for some sign of rain. The seventh time the servant returned with the announcement that a storm cloud -- "a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand" -- was approaching. (1 Kings 18:44)

The storm gathered and the rains descended. Ahab hurried to the Valley of Jezreel, the shortest route from the coast to Samaria, fearful all the while that his chariot might bog down in the mud. Elijah, with the triumph of the day hard upon him, in a mighty burst of exuberant energy ran before the king into the Valley. The issue had been contested and Yahweh had won: Yahweh was clearly God of the land and the skies and the seas, clearly the God who provides all things necessary for the people.

PSALM 96: "Sing, sing, sing, bless, tell, declare": these are the words that introduce this hymn. Sing him a new song, bless his name, declare his glories among the nations and his marvelous works among all the people. Something new and great is about to happen in Israel, and Israel needs to break into song to celebrate it.

Frank H. Ballard (IB4:517-518) describes the psalm in this manner: "The psalm falls into four almost equal parts. Vss 1-3 assert that Yahweh is to be praised at all times and in all the world. Vss. 4-6 affirm that he alone is worthy of praise and that the idols of the surrounding nations are nothing. Vss. 7-9 call upon the heathen to accept these facts and to come to the temple and take their share in its privileges. In the concluding vss., 10-13, the psalmist calls not only upon the sons of humankind but upon all nature, heaven and earth, sea, plain, and forest, to acknowledge the rule of God and to unite in the universal and joyous act of praise."

What is the occasion for the celebration? It is an announcement to all the world that God now reigns. This God is the God of justice, righteousness, and truth. This word "truth," not much used in the Old Testament, combines the ideas of reality and reliability. We can rely on God, who does not change. God demands the same reliability from us. When this occurs, "heaven and nature sings," all the families of the earth give God the glory due him, and all nature - sea, field, trees, and forest, the heavens themselves - joins them to sing for joy before the Lord.

But where is God's justice, truth, and righteousness? We do not see it established upon the earth. What is God doing in the midst of the dishonesty, the greed, the cheating, the self-serving, the outright evil that we and all the world face every day. We have no answer to that. Yet the fact that we, with Israel, sing this song indicates that we want to be part of that coming kingdom, that we want to involve our lives with God's justice, God's truth, and God's righteousness.

GALATIANS 1:1-12: It is important to tell the story of the Letter to the Galatians before moving on to the interpretation of the text assigned in Galatians for this day. In my thinking, the Letter to the Galatians stands alongside those to the Corinthians and that to the Romans as the most important of Paul's letters. I make a number of scholarly assumptions about Galatians that I want to share with you.

First, it is my assumption that Galatians was the earliest letter of Paul that we have in the New Testament. I see Galatians as having been written to the Christian communities in Galatia shortly after Paul had left them and before he arrived at the conference of Christian leaders held in Jerusalem around the year 46 AD. Having been written before that conference, it states the understanding of the faith held by Paul in his earliest days. After that conference and in the name of Christian unity, Paul felt compelled to make changes in his practice. In this letter, we find the faith of Paul set forth in his boldest and purest way.

Second, the churches of Galatia to which this letter was written were those in Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra. Paul and Barnabas had arrived together in the Syrian city of Antioch, and they were sent by the church through the power of the Holy Spirit to those cities near Tarsus where Paul had grown up. They had some initial success in converting persons, both former Jews and former Gentiles, to the faith. But they were dogged by "some Jews" who came to each of these churches and who made their mission miserable. (This story is told in Acts 13 and 14.) So they returned to Antioch.

In Antioch they also ran into trouble. "Certain individuals came from Judea, and they were teaching the church in Antioch that unless they were circumcised according to the custom of Moses, they could not be saved. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed to go up to Jerusalem (Acts 15) to meet with the apostles and the elders who were there.

Before they arrived in Jerusalem, however, (this is my assumption) Paul wrote a letter back to the churches in Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Derbe and Lystra from which they had just come. In this letter Paul asked the Galatians to remain true to the faith they had received through him. This letter is "The Letter to the Galatians."

In the opening chapters of the letter, Paul did two extraordinary things. He set out his own journey of faith to that point, and he quoted from agreements that had been made between the leaders of the church in Jerusalem and Paul and Barnabas, the apostles (the Sent Ones) that the church had sent out.

In these chapters he related the manner in which he received his call to be an apostle. He described how, before this call came, he had been trained as a Pharisee. Pharisees were strict in their interpretation of the Law of Moses, and they were especially strict on the issue of who they would eat with at meals. They had determined that they would eat only kosher food. They had said that they would not eat with anyone who did not wash for the meal in the prescribed manner and who ate food that was not properly prepared. This meant that they ate only with other Pharisees, no one else. Paul had accepted that practice, and he was zealous to maintain it. He was so zealous about it, in fact, that he tried to destroy "the church of God," those Christian fellowships which did not accept his strict interpretation of the Law of Moses.

Suddenly Paul had a change of heart. In the Book of Acts it is described as a vision of Christ appearing to him and a voice from heaven calling to him. As Paul describes his call in Galatians (1:15-16) it is a purely internal matter. God had set Paul apart before he was born and was pleased to reveal his Son in him ("en emoi" is the Greek phrase) so that Paul would preach him to the Gentiles. After this occurred, Paul did not go up to Jerusalem to confer with those who were Christian before him. Instead he went across the Jordan into the lands called "Arabia," and then he went on to Damascus.

Three years later Paul did go up to Jerusalem. He visited Cephas (Peter, the leader of the group called The Twelve), and he saw James, the Lord's brother. He did not see any of the apostles. Out of that meeting came a credential that Paul used while he was preaching in Syria and Cilicia: "The one who was formerly persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy."

Fourteen years later (we do not know whether the "fourteen years" are dated from the time of Paul's call or the time of his visit in Jerusalem) Paul went back up to Jerusalem. This time he went up with Barnabas, his fellow apostle, and they took Titus along with them. Titus was one of their Gentile converts, and in this meeting the pillars (Cephas, James and John) did not insist that Titus be circumcised. Out of this came another agreement. "They saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter was entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised," and they agreed that "the one working in Peter to the circumcised also worked through me (Paul) to the Gentiles. They gave Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised."

This agreement unraveled quickly. In Antioch Peter began to eat the meal, presumably the Lord's Supper, with both circumcised Jews and uncircumcised Gentiles seated at the same table. Some members of the party of James arrived in Antioch from Jerusalem. They objected to both parties eating together. They persuaded Peter to withdraw from the table with the Gentiles, and even Barnabas drew back. Paul was incensed and confronted Peter to his face. When he describes that confrontation, Paul's account of his life in the church ends, and he turns to the theological issues that he considers to be facing the church.

These opening verses in Galatians set the context for the confrontation.

1:1 The writer begins by introducing himself. "Paul," he calls himself. This is the name by which he was known in Greek-speaking circles. To the Hebrews he was "Saul," the name he was given at his circumcision. He used that name until he was converted from Judaism to the Christian faith. Then he took the name "Paul."

He goes on next to call himself "Apostle." The English Bibles say "an apostle," but the Greek carries no modifying word. Prior to its use by the Christian Church, the word was found in both the Greek and the Hebrew languages.

In Greek the word had a number of meanings. It meant "one who brings good news," "a naval expedition," and, probably, "its commander." It also meant "a ship ready for departure," "a bill of lading, a passport, a dispatch, a letter." Finally it was used for an "ambassador, delegate, messenger."

The Hebrew equivalent meant "a messenger or agent of the individual, who has a definite commission whose authority and work terminated when the commission terminates." It also signified representatives of a corporate body, either of the court or the synagogue. Its most inclusive meaning was that of "God's agent." The agent performs his work on behalf of someone else. His activities are strictly defined by the commission he has received. His commission was not transferable.

"Apostles," as used in Christian circles, carried many of these meanings. In addition, the apostles seem to be Hellenistic Jews converted to Christianity, and through a special revelation of Christ they are entrusted with his message.

An interesting feature of their work is that they always seemed to travel in pairs, as follows:

Paul and Barnabas

Junias and Andronicus (Rom 16:7)

Barnabas and Mark

Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:28)

Gaius and Aristarchus (Acts 19:29)

Zenas and Apollos (Titus 3:13)

Tychicus and Onesimus (Col 4:7)

Aristarcus and Secundus

Gaius and Timothy

Titus and unnamed brother ((2 Cor 12:18)

Tychicus and Trophemus (Acts 20:4)

Add to the above the names of Timothy, Epaphroditus, and Mark, and we might have a listing of most of those in the early church who were called "apostles."

The apostles were one of a number of movements in the early church. They were Hellenistic Jews from the Diaspora who carried on the work of Christ as they understood it. Other groups were the Hellenists of Judea, led first by Stephen and then by Philip, who worked with other Hellenist synagogues in the Roman world. A third group were "The Twelve" of Galilee, led by Simon Peter. A fourth group were the Torah-observant Jews who worked within the Jewish synagogues as they tried to combine the work of Jesus with the Jewish traditions they had received from Moses and the Hebrew Bible. This group was led by James, called "the brother of Jesus."

It was this last group, especially with their insistence upon circumcision as a mark not only of Judaism but of the Christian faith, that were causing disturbances in the synagogues of Galatia where Paul and Barnabas had been carrying out their work.

The next phrase in the letter is especially significant. Paul writes that his call to apostleship did not come from a human act but through the act of Jesus Christ and "God Father." (Again there is no modifying word before "Father" in Paul's original text.) We will discuss Paul's call more fully when we come to the next lesson in Galatians. Now we simply note the action of "God Father who raised him from the dead." Jesus did not rise from the grave by his own power. It was an act of God that caused the resurrection. The whole Christian faith revolves around that act.

1:2 It is significant that Paul says that "all the brothers with him" join in the sentiments Paul expresses in this letter. It was some of the "brothers from Jerusalem" who were upsetting the churches in Galatia. To counteract that, Paul says that "the brothers with him," members of this same party, uphold the position that Paul is describing in the letter.

The letter is addressed to "the churches of Galatia." I have identified these as the churches of "Antioch of Pisidia, Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium." The ministry to these churches that Luke describes in Acts 13:14 through 14:28 seems to correspond best with the letter. "Galatia" is an area of what is now Asia Minor to which Celts from Gaul had migrated some centuries before. "Gaul" was the area we now know as France. About three centuries before Paul came into this area, Gaulites had settled here and had given their name to the territory.

The word for "churches," ecclesia, needs explanation. As early as the time of Thucydides, it had been used for "an assembly of people convened at a public place for purposes of deliberation." A Hebrew word, qahal, had a similar meaning. In the Septuagint, an official translation for the Hebrew Scriptures made in Alexandria, Egypt, in the middle of the third century before Christ, "qahal, was given two translations. One was "synagogue," and the other was "ecclesia." The Jewish people called their assemblies "synagogues." To distinguish their meetings from the Jewish ones, the Christians began to call their assemblies "ecclesia." "Ecclesia" means "called out," "ec" meaning "out" and "clesia" meaning "called." In the Christian movement, ecclesia represented Jesus Christ calling persons to leave their homes, families, businesses, and religious communities to be a part of his movement. Since the word had been used both in Greek society and among those persons of Jewish background who had become Christian, the word carried meaning in both the Greek and the Jewish cultures that came together in the Christian church. Paul appears to have been the first to use the term for the Christian assemblages, though someone else may have appropriated it for Christian use before Paul did.

1:3 Paul offers both a Jewish greeting and a Greek greeting to the people to whom he addressed his letter. "Grace" was the word Greeks used in greeting each other on the street. It meant, "May the gods treat you better than you deserve to be treated." "Peace," shalom, was the greeting that Jewish people used in addressing each other. It meant "May the well-being of God be with you." Because there were both Jewish people and Greek people in the ecclesias of the Christian faith, Paul brought both greetings together in one magnificent act of cordiality.

1:7 This verse carries strong sentiment. The word for "trouble" describes the destructive work of political agitators who cause confusion and turmoil. The word for "upset" means to "turn things upside down," and it suggests revolutionary activities. From his point of view, Paul's adversaries are like political operatives bent on destabilizing the equilibrium of a society, false brothers secretly brought in to spy out the freedom we have in Jesus Christ.

When this delegation of friends conveyed the centurion's words to Jesus, he was astonished. "Not even in Israel have I found such faith," said Jesus. He expected to find such faith among the Israelites. He did not expect to find it among the Gentiles. Jesus did not even have to speak the word of command to the powers of disease; there is no record of a single word on Jesus' part to call the healing into play. But the slave was healed. When the delegation returned home, they found that the slave was healed.