The Lectionary.
A lectionary is a list of readings. As a spiritual discipline, a person may simply open The Bible at the beginning, and start reading. They might read a chapter or more each day. The weakness of this kind of reading is that it is the reading style of our time, the method for reading a novel, or even a text book. It assumes a narrative thread from beginning to end. However, a text book is often not read from cover to cover. It may be designed as a resource with discrete sections to be consulted at appropriate times.
The Bible is even less novel-like. With 39 "books" in the Hebrew Scriptures, and 27 in the Christian Scriptures, there are multiple authors, times, geographic locations, and theological perspectives represented. This considers only the main collection (Canon) of the books common to most Christian traditions. There are also the books not present in the Hebrew Scriptures or "Old Testament" which are often known as the deutero-canonical books. How does one read all this and make sense of it?
Christian groups have traditionally created lists of texts that are considered important to read. They sketch out some of the key planks of that group's tradition, and its understanding of the Christian faith.
One well known modern lectionary is the Revised Common Lectionary, which is used by many churches world wide. It divides the bible over a three year period, based around the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The readings are chosen to reflect the cycle of church year as it progresses from the hope for a Messiah (Advent), through Christmas, and on to Easter. Each week also has a reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Psalms, and from the letters of the New Testament. The Gospel of John is used in each year around the times of the major festivals. There are often readings assigned for special days which do not occur on a Sunday.
Many ministers preach from a lectionary. It provides a discipline which works against the temptation to avoid uncomfortable subjects and concentrate on favourite themes.
A lectionary provides an overview of the Christian tradition. Unfortunately, it also represents a particular theological and historical outlook. Some people point out, for example, that women's stories, often already marginalised in Scripture are further submerged by the RCL . The lectionary is also constructed of short readings, excerpts from the whole, so that some parts of the bible will never be read in public worship under this scheme. It also means that the wider flow of a narrative is interrupted, and perhaps divided in ways never anticipated by the authors. In their own devotions, many people will at least read from the end of the previous week's readings to the end of the designated readings of the current week, in some attempt to overcome this disintegration of the narrative.
The eye teeth of perfection
Sunday of 20 February: Epiphany 7
Gospel: Matthew 5:38-48
38 ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
43 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
I became aware of a crowd. Two women stood facing each other, each armed with a club. One stood head bowed, and the other hit her... very hard. Then she bowed her own head and received a solid thump in return. There was a kind of Queensbury Rules happening; the clubs were smooth with no sharp edges, and hitting was restricted to areas which would bruise and hurt like hell, but were not critical. The head was out of bounds. The crowd watched with some humour, but also with serious intent. This was no “catfight” with its animal barrackers. Its purpose was to settle the issue safely, and draw things to a close. After some time, the elders called a halt, and everyone went home.
It sounds savage. Perhaps it was. But in another universe, I watched a protracted series of court actions which, from my vantage point, seemed mostly about wreaking as much vengeance as possible. Not much seemed concerned with justice or appropriate reparation. It seemed the justice system was being used to enact injustice and to vent personal hatred. Our legal system appeared less successful at limiting vengeance and inhumanity than the isolated “primitive” community I had witnessed years before.
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was a major ethical breakthrough. It prevents the Hatfields and McCoys from turning into genocide. It limits violence.
An eye for an eye was working well in my little community, while the court process looked more like “your whole life for an insult.” An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is always under threat. People want more than an eye back.
In contrast Jesus calls us beyond the Law. We are to do better than the Law of Moses, and the law of our own lands.
You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
Matthew’s Jesus is talking first of all to the church, and how we should live with each other. And it seems, at first, that what he says does not improve the inherent justice built into an eye for an eye. It opens the way for every manipulative clergy killer, grooming paedophile, and any other evildoer to have carte blanche. Do not resist... turn the other cheek. God forgive us where we have been afraid, lazy, or just plain abusive in making these verses into a doorway for evil or a justification for our own desire for power.
We know the context of this part of Jesus’ teaching is to go beyond the law, and to fulfil it, not to weaken it. How do we resolve the apparent contradiction? This is a critically serious question; I sometimes wonder if all the active abuses of the church are far exceeded by our inability and unwillingness to confront the evildoers among us. We let them take advantage of our gentleness and goodness, and of our fear of the difficulty of confronting them.
The wider tradition is very clear about all this. Paul says in Romans 12
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds... (2)
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good... (9)
Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. (12)
There is something critical about the spirit of our confrontation with evil and with injustice. Do we confront it with self righteous glee, or “revenge taken cold” as a sort of legitimised vengeance? Or do we confront evil with sorrow, and gentleness and generosity?
What is noble in the sight of all, and what is simply socially sanctioned revenge cloaked in false piety?
When a small business person, we'll call him Fred, has been coming down to the church office midweek and midnight, to steal reams of paper via the photo copier, how will we react? Will we apply the right foot of fellowship, swear a complaint to the police, and using the ever efficient grapevine of the church, make sure Fred’s name is mud forever in the local community? After all, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; this is theft. People should be protected.
Or will we quietly do due diligence, and change the password on the photocopier, ask for Fred’s key back, maybe change the locks, and trust our elders enough to reach an arrangement between them and Fred that the office is always “off limits” to him? And then...
and then love him enough to sit in the pew with him next Sunday, and shake his hand warmly? (What about that Christmas letter we once ran off, and forgot to pay for?) Will we love him enough that someone will sit down and ask how business is going? If it is so bad that he needs to steal paper and copier time, would we even help out? “Bring it down on Tuesday morning and I’ll print it up for you and pay for it.”
All this is work. It will be costly to change locks. We may feel like we do not now like Fred very much. And some other Fred may have done something which must be reported to the police; indeed, many of us are mandated reporters. But will we then seek to make it safe for some of us at church to still love him, with all the risks that entails?
Such love will sometimes be abused. But such love also has the potential to be more effective than rejection, more redemptive than judgement, and far more healing than the lies we tell about penal “rehabilitation”.
Of course this all applies within our own community, the church. What of other evildoers?
43 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
It hardly needs comment!
Verse 48 is the critical verse for us as Christians and as Church. If we are to be perfect; that is, if we are to be whole and entire as people and congregation, we need to be the things that Jesus describes. Matthew 5 needs to be a description of our Spirit. It is true that we need to do things, but it is the being that is important. It is the being that takes us beyond the examples Jesus gives us, and through the intricacies and difficulties of our own situation. It is the being that grows us and gives us the heart to resist deep evil without being consumed by our very human desire for retaliation and revenge.
"Perfect" is not flawless, unstained purity, but integrity and truth. For the young man, later in 19:21, where Matthew introduces "perfect" again, it means, in a fine play on words, grown-up, mature faith which shows itself in a deep commitment to the poor. The same word means "perfect' and "mature". It is about grown-up faith. It is not about partial or part-time religiosity. There is for Matthew only one way for all - being completely open to love, to receive it and give it. (Bill Loader)
To be whole (perfect) means to go the second mile, even as we hunger and work for justice. In the second mile we may find time to help our oppressor see that demanding even the first mile of us is not just. It is always so much easier to cut evil off, and end all relationship. Sometimes that is what a person will force us to do, but Jesus call us to first of all walk the second mile. Turning the other cheek is the sustaining spirit of Jesus which steers us between being a door mat and becoming consumed by the evil of revenge.
Andrew Prior Feb 16 2011
Direct Biblical quotations in this page are taken from The New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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