Lectionary Discussion Group

Week of Sunday, November 25, 2007, Last Sunday After Pentecost

Sunday of Christ the King

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD. Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the LORD.

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: "The LORD is our righteousness."

Colossians 1:11-20

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-- all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Luke 23:35-43

The people stood by, watching Jesus on the cross; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

How to Read The Bible, The Anagogical Method:

Our method this week is the anagogical method. The noun is anagogy. It comes—like practically every theological word—from Greek, where the word anagw (=anago) means “to lead to a higher place.” Anagogy is a method that seeks to lead us to higher theological and personal truths, by looking beyond the face of the text, to understand its references and interconnections. For instance, the doctrines of the Trinity, Christ as the Good Shepherd, sin, grace, salvation and so on, are not disclosed on the face of the text. They can only be found through anagogy. But it is difficult, and requires a solid grounding in the doctrines of faith. The word anagw can also mean “to launch” or “put to sea.” When you do anagogy, you’re in a sense putting to sea, without the clear guidance of the words, as in the literal method, or your conscience, as in the moral method. Many of the truths of the Bible can be derived through reason, but many also are outside reason’s bounds. So it is incredibly important to keep things in perspective and be careful, so you don’t turn too far outside of the well-worn paths (usually they’re well-worn for a reason!) But once you start getting the spiritual truths out of texts, it’s really exhilirating!

Theological Tidbits:

- This is another passage from our friend Jeremiah, the sad prophet. But here he has something of a happy prophecy. In previous passages, he has pointed out the shortcomings of the earlier Kings of Israel. Here he gives a happy prophecy that some day, a King will arise—“a branch of David”—who will bring peace. This foretelling of the coming of Christ starts off our readings for today on a note of hope, even in the desolation and disasters of Jeremiah’s time. More importantly, it also foretells what Christ will be: the King, the fullness, and the good shepherd of his flock (=us).

- Colossae was a town in Asia Minor. Epaphras, a Greek who had heard the gospel in Ephesus, apparently started a church there. It was along the old road from Ephesus to the upper Euphrates, and had been of great commercial importance in former times. By the time of the Epistle to the Colossians, it had fallen into decay. It was abandoned in Byzantine times, and to this day there has been no archaeological investigation of the mound of ruins.

- Paul wrote this letter from prison in Rome during his first imprisonment, around a.d. 60. The context was that a syncretistic heresy had sprung up in Colossae. This doctrine, it’s now believed, focused on combining Jewish elements, such as following the purity laws, with heretical Christian elements that claimed Jesus was created in time, and with Neoplatonist elements that focused on higher, secret knowledge and what is called theurgy, or the use of magic to compel God and the angels.[1] It was a sort of early kind of Gnosticism. Paul wrote to combat these beliefs.

- The fundamental concept of this passage from Colossians is Christology. Jesus is the plhrwma (=pleroma)—the “fullness” and fulfillment of a human being. For this reason, all we can know of God as such that is not infinite and inconceivable is what we know in Christ. Thus, Christ the King of all is our model, and the head of our church.[2] He also is the co-equal of God the Father, begotten from all eternity. Through him, Paul says, all things were created, and he will be the first resurrected, even as he is where all ends; thus he is the end and the beginning—the alpha and the omega.

- This passage from Luke is a great passage for the end of the Church year. Jesus has had his ministry in provincial Galilee, and made his way through Samaria and the hinterlands of Israel on his way to Jerusalem, and he has finally reached the time of his “coronation,” so to speak, as the “King of the Jews.”

- Jesus teaches us the fundamental principle of the Christian life. Only by losing ourselves do we gain ourselves, just as by losing himself, he gained the world. True dominion, paradoxically, comes from giving it up.

- Some people at the time immediately felt contrite for what had happened. The Roman centurion who oversaw Jesus’s death said that he was “righteous” or “innocent,” (23:47) and Joseph, a Jew who had not acquiesced in the Sanhedrin’s plot, took his body for burial (23:53-54).

- Most importantly, notice the importance of faith in this passage. The sarcastic inscription of “King of the Jews”—inscribed in Aramaic, Greek, and Latin on the cross—was met with sarcasm by the crowd. However, both of the evildoers had faith, in their own ways. The one who asked Jesus to save him begins his opening question with the Greek “ouci,” which begins a rhetorical question whose expected response is yes.

Questions:

1. What is this whole resurrection versus paradise thing? When you die, do you think you wake up in Heaven, or do you sleep and wake at the time of the resurrection? Both? What does it come out to in the end?

2. Note the evildoer who was saved, and the evildoer who had the smart-alec remark. The wise guy starts his question off with the Greek “ouci,” which begins a rhetorical question—so the wise guy had faith in Jesus too. Why is it that only the one was saved? What is the important difference between their interactions?

3. This is extremely general—but what does Christ’s kingship mean to you? Obviously he isn’t like King Richard the Lion-hearted, or at least not solely. So what does it mean? How do these passages show his dominion? What type of dominion is it?

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[1] Note that this is different from anagogy—seeking higher, mystical meanings in the Bible can be good or bad.

[2] When we go through Ephesians and Song of Songs in the coming months and years, we will see how this plays out in Jesus’s relationship to the Church.