Lectionary Discussion Group

Week of Sunday, November 18, 2007, Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

Malachi 3:13-4:2a,5-6

You have spoken harsh words against me, says the LORD. Yet you say, "How have we spoken against you?" You have said, "It is vain to serve God. What do we profit by keeping his command or by going about as mourners before the LORD of hosts? Now we count the arrogant happy; evildoers not only prosper, but when they put God to the test they escape."

Then those who revered the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the LORD and thought on his name. They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them. Then once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.

Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

Luke 21:5-19

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."

They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?" And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, `I am he!' and, `The time is near!' Do not go after them.

"When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

"But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."

How to Read The Bible, The Moral Method:

The second method of reading the Bible is the moral method. Morality is at the center of the Bible. But the moral method is somehow easier done than said, because it is more of a morality of how to be a human, rather than a set of rules to follow. It is a morality that seeks to tell us how to be a good and loving person. A good and loving person will inevitably act according to the highest standards of morality out of the simply love in his heart, rather than by following rules.

That said, there is an important distinction here. The Bible calls us to be more than good people. The study of how to be fully human is called anthropology. If that is all you are interested in, there are terrific books by Aristotle, Plato, Kant, and various Buddhists that you could read. But the Bible calls us to derive our morals from christology. In short, to be not only good humans, but actually God-like humans, we read the Bible and attempt to understand Christ as our model.

Theological Tidbits:

- No one knows who Malachi was, or when he wrote. In fact, even his real name is unknown: In 3:1, he calls himself “God’s messenger,” which is Malachi in Hebrew.

- This reading is in many respects a fairly standard eschatological text, foreshadowing the New Testament—John the Baptist is occasionally referred to as a new Elijah—the Book of Revelation, and the End Times themselves.

- Paul’s statement that he and his companions worked and paid for all that they got is an oblique attack on the Jewish priesthood. The Levitical priesthood received the finest animals as offerings, and ate well, and their main duty was only to maintain the Temple complex. In the Middle Ages, the custom changed, and most rabbis had professions, except for a few who stayed in the Galilean city of Kinneseret (another name for the Sea of Galilee is “the Sea of Kinneseret”) and compiled the Talmud. In the Middle Ages, the financial rapaciousness and decadence of the Papacy did much to cause the Reformation.

- The situation in Thessalonica was not exactly as we might imagine. Many people were convinced that the End Times were coming shortly, or were even here already, and were refusing to work. This is therefore in a sense an admonition that attempting to predict the End Times is foolish, and even if they are here, we should not stop being the people we were all our lives.

- The discipline of work is good for us. It’s not an empty cliché that “idle hands are the Devil’s playthings.” Work, in good measure, is part of a good life.

- This passage comes at the end of Jesus’s journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, where he will be crucified.

- One of the thrusts of this passage is Jesus’s steadfast refusal to give any sort of definite timetable for the End Times. All of the things in this passage have happened in the meantime, sometimes many times. The Temple was methodically destroyed by the Romans in a.d. 70 following the Bar Kochba Revolt. The City was again destroyed during the warfare of the Crusades. The City was more or less destroyed by neglect under the Ottoman Turks and the British, when the only economy was built around tourism from Europe and the farther regions of the Middle East. It may be destroyed again, and that does not mean the End Times are necessarily near.

o When the warfare of the late Roman Empire came, many churchmen thought that the End Times were near. They were not.

o When the year 1000 neared, the Holy Roman Emperor thought the End Times were near. They were not.

o In the late Middle Ages, as the Papacy became decadent and Europe was torn by warfare between France, the Holy Roman Empire (Germany), Spain, the Moors, the Turks, and the English, while simultaneously the church was torn by the controversy between the Spiritual and Regular Franciscans, and the Conciliar Movement threatened to make the Papacy a constitutional monarchy, many thought the End Times were near, causing heresies in Italy and southern France that were brutally put down. The End Times were not near.

o When, in 1755, a massive earthquake struck Portugal and killed nearly 100,000, most of whom were in church for All Saints’ Day, many thought the End Times were near. They were not.

- A word appears in this passage, but not elsewhere in the Bible. The word upomonh (=hypomone), meaning, more or less, to “hang in there,” is here, but only appears one other place. Also note that in 8:14, Luke uses the word telesforew (=telesphoreo), which has to do with ripening fruit. By hanging in there, we ripen into the human beings we should be.

Questions:

1. Do you fear or welcome the End Times? Both? What would it mean to you if the world ended tomorrow?

2. What do you think is the meaning of the saying “anyone unwilling to work shall not eat?” Is it a saying that means an end to social welfare programs? Does it excuse us from charity? What does it mean in an ecclesiological context?

3. What do you think Jesus means when he says, “by your endurance you will save your souls?”