Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for March 4, 2018

Mosè (Moses) with the Ten Commandments, 17th century painting by Pietro Novelli “Il Monrealese” (1603-1647). Palazzo Abatellis, Palermo, Sicily. (Click image to enlarge.)

So far in Lent we have read the ancient stories of God’s covenantal promises to Noah and Abraham. Now we come to the great covenant with Moses and the people in the desert at Mount Sinai. God promises that the people will become a holy nation, living and prospering in the promised land. The people agree to walk in God’s way, living in accord with the familiar commandments that they now hear told for the first time in God’s thunderous voice that shakes the mountain. These ten simple principles sum up the way in which we are to live, loving God and loving each other.

Psalm: Psalm 19

“The heavens declare the glory of God.” This memorable poem of praise and thanksgiving has been arranged as a popular 18th century hymn by Isaac Watts, although it’s regrettably not in our 1982 Hymnal. In beautiful poetic language the Psalm celebrates God’s gifts to all the people of the world and to all the span of the universe. Within that bountiful creation, the Psalm continues, God’s laws and statutes – the great commandments – grant us wisdom and joy and lead us to righteousness.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Paul first great pastoral letter to the people of Corinth opens with a simple but important pastoral issue: The community is splitting into factions, each following a different leader. Stay united by following the Cross, Paul urges the people. Never mind if their Jewish and Gentile neighbors mock Christians as “foolish” for worshiping a man who was brutally executed on the Roman cross. Outsiders may view the cross as a symbol of pain, shame and degradation when they were expecting a powerful warrior Messiah; but their opinion doesn’t matter, says Paul, because we prefer God’s “foolishness” to mere human wisdom; God’s “weakness” far outweighs human strength.

Gospel: John 2:13-22

For the remaining Sundays of Lent we turn to John’s Gospel, beginning with the familiar story of Jesus throwing the money-changers out of the temple. This narrative appears in all four Gospels, but curiously, while Matthew, Mark and John all place it at the beginning of Holy Week, in John we find it near the beginning of the Gospel, during an earlier trip to Jerusalem for Passover that none of the others mention. Moreover, John alone tells of Jesus not merely throwing over the money changers’ tables but fashioning a whip of cords to lash them in his anger at their exploiting the poor in the name of God. Then Jesus foreshadows his own passion and death, likening his own body to the temple and declaring that he will “rise up” three days after his body’s destruction.