Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost Study

12TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST   08-15-2021

FIRST READING:   Proverbs 9:1-6

The book of Proverbs is more than 500 sayings… many of them one-liners… collected over more than 200 years from various authors and sources… that seek to teach moral wisdom and sense that is not always “common”… so that people might live right. Proverbs seems to pose the notion that there are three basic types of persons: the “foolish” who unthinkingly or deliberately pay no attention to God or to any guiding principles and live by their own wits and whims; the “wise” who seek to listen to and learn from and be guided by God and the right people; to live happy and prosperous lives; and the “simple” who are presently ignorant and thoughtless, but have a chance if they will learn, decide, and obey. “Get wisdom!” is the call of Proverbs as it tells how life works out most times… as it submits that godly, moral, hardworking, and wise people generally reap many more rewards in their lives than those “fools” who might appear successful but will eventually pay the cost of their lifestyle.

In Chapter 8 wisdom is personified, imagined as a woman who calls out and appeals to young boys, begging to be heard, chosen, and obeyed. [Yes, here is one of those places in the Bible that shows a gender bias, that cares about the “boys to men” journey but pretty much ignores young girls as students.]  In today’s reading, the first part of Chapter 9, “Wisdom” personified as a woman is continued. Here is an invitation by the “right girl” to a banquet of insight and understanding… to a life’s journey of a better life, good health, more success and blessing. Not included in our reading is Proverbs 9:13-18, where another woman, “Folly”, sits at the doorway of her house, loud and stupid, trying to entice and lure the “simple” ones who are still searching, still deciding, to come on in. But Proverbs 9:18 offers the sobering recognition: “But they do not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.” [In early Jewish theology, Sheol was just the place of the dead, a place where God was presumed not to be present. In later Jewish theology, Sheol was regarded as a place of punishment for those who had been judged evil by God, a place of awareness of suffering and misery.]

Compare and contrast Wisdom and Folly. What are their personalities? Lifestyles? Residences? Messages? Results? Which meal invitation have you decided to respond to? Or are you among the “simple” who are still searching, still deciding? 

You might note that “Wisdom” offers bread and wine, the same symbols that Jesus often used to describe his revelation [See John 4:13-14 and 6:3, 51ff].

You might also read Proverbs 5-7, three chapters which warn young men against the adulteress and the invitation to illicit or stolen sex. How does this relate to Proverbs 9:17 and its mention of “stolen water” and “food eaten in secret”? What have you been “thirsty” and “hungry” for in your relationships to others?  

SECOND READING:   Ephesians 5:15-20

In his letter that is written from prison as a result of his missionary work, and probably intended for a wider geography of Gentile Christians than just the believers “in Ephesus”, Paul is now concluding his discussion about discipleship that began with Ephesians 4:17. Not so different from today’s First Reading, Paul calls upon Christians to continue to “live wise”, “making the most of the time”.  The new reality of living in Christ affects our fellowship with other believers and our daily conduct.

Note that in Ephesians 5:14 Paul calls out, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Note how worship with one another is emphasized as a way to be “filled with the Spirit” and to “understand what the will of the Lord is”. Paul is of the mindset that we are more awake, we are more alive, we are more faithful and productive when we show up and gather together… when we seek to live as children of love (see 5:2), light (5:8), and wisdom (5:17).

Compare Paul’s view of a Spirit-filled life with your own life. What might you do in order to be more available to the Spirit? What gets in the way of your Christian journey? 

GOSPEL READING:  John 6:51-58

This is the fourth of five Sundays in the lectionary that we are in John 6. The chapter began with the miraculous feeding of 5,000 people to satisfaction starting with a boy’s little lunch. We have witnessed that giant picnic, then panic in a boat, and an ever-developing dialogue between Jesus and that relentless crowd about bread, life, religion, and all sorts of hunger.

Many of us have heard the phrase, “You are what you eat.” Using an unusual image (For all his egotistic pandering, Trump never claimed this!), Jesus first boldly claimed that he is THE BREAD OF LIFE… then insisted that those who eat on this bread will live forever… and finally shocked with the grotesque statement that there can be no real life unless people are willing to “gnaw or chew” his flesh and gulp down his blood in almost a cannibalistic, vicious, savage frenzy.  As you might guess, the Church would later relate these words of Jesus to Holy Communion and to the theologies that proclaim that the bread and the wine of the Lord’s Supper symbolically represent (some Protestant churches, for example), actually physically are changed and become (the Roman Catholic church) or somehow just mysteriously have the real presence (the Lutheran church, which uses the phrase “in, with, and under” those elements of bread and wine) of the body and blood of Jesus. And as you might understand, pagans in the early days and doubters today have sometimes accused Christians of killing other human beings and consuming their flesh and blood. Not true!

Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” For many of us, “flesh and blood” points to kinship.  Are we willing to get that intimate with Jesus, that close? Or is it too hard to swallow? In this material world of fading treasures and fleeting pleasures, we might feel  pressured and tempted to covet more and more things and moments, even though they never bring true satisfaction. Jesus promises us that he is the bread that will satisfy our deepest hungers… that he is more to us than just food and drink… that he is the source of our very lives. If you want life, you must chew on his flesh and gulp down his blood.

Who’s hungry for some real living? Let us feast so that we can be more like him! Let us feast so that we can become part of that body of Christ, his living Church, all over the world and throughout the ages. And let us never forget how he willingly suffered and died on a cross to give us life! It was his flesh and blood, his self-sacrifice, that redeemed us.