This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 120; Psalm 121; Psalm 122; Psalm 123; Zechariah 11:4-17; 1 Corinthians 3:10-23; Luke 18:31-43
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)
“…everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished” — Luke 18:31b-32a. There is an astonishing convergence in today’s reading between Zechariah’s prophecy and what Jesus says in Luke.
Yahweh gives Zechariah the sad task of playing out an advance tableau of some of the most ironic aspects of Christ’s future redeeming work. Yahweh sends (in the person of Zechariah) a good shepherd. Symbolized by the names of his two staffs, the hallmarks of the shepherd’s coming are “Favor” and “Unity.”
This good shepherd is rejected by false shepherds and even by the people he has been sent to shepherd. His wages—a most ironic prophecy—are thirty pieces of silver that are destined to be thrown “into the treasury” (Zechariah 11:12-13; and see Matthew 27:3-10). As a symbol of the people’s rejection of God’s favor toward them, Zechariah breaks the staff named “Favor.”
Absent God’s favor, their unity cannot stand. Five hundred years before Zechariah’s time, the united kingdom had split into the rivals, Israel to the north and Judah to the south. Now, after the end of Babylonian exile, there is the potential for reunification. Instead, the people and their leaders are going to cement the wall of division: Samaria versus Judah. Symbolic of that disunity, Zechariah breaks his second staff, the one named “Unity,” thus “annulling the family ties between Judah and Israel” (Zechariah 11:14). No sadder prophecy was ever uttered.
Even though in Luke, Jesus points to all the “Easter eggs” in the writings of the prophets, his disciples can’t understand what he is telling them about what lies ahead of them in Jerusalem (namely, his death and resurrection). In truth, it is “hidden” from them by God’s mysterious providence (Luke 18:34b). Nonetheless, Luke records a magnificent anticipation of the reversal of Zechariah’s breaking of the covenant of “Favor,” in the plea uttered by the blind man of Jericho: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Luke 18:38-39). Of course, Jesus responds in the affirmative: “[Y]our faith has saved you” (Luke 18:42). Deeper even than the restoration of this man’s physical sight, is the gift of insight into the restored covenant of “Favor.”
Paul writes to the Corinthians in the full wake of Christ’s redemptive work. Not only has Christ restored Zechariah’s covenant of “Favor,” Christ has restored the covenant of “Unity.” That is why Paul is tasked “like a skilled master builder” to build on the foundation that is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:10-11). What Paul sees himself helping to build is “God’s temple,” which is comprised of followers of Christ: “For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:17b). God help you if you tear down God’s holy (and therefore united) temple.
Negatively, Paul does not want that holy unity to be destroyed by a spirit of party-loyalty or by division into cults of personality. Anathema to him are cries of: “I am of Paul!” or “I am of Apollos!” or “I am of Cephas (Peter)!” or even “I am of Christ!” (see 1 Corinthians 1:12). You can just imagine what Paul would say about cries of: “I am of Rome!” or “I am of Constantinople!” or “I am of Calvin!” or “I am of Arminius!”, much less of “I am of the Cathedral!” or “I am of All Saints” … or “of St. Michael’s … or “of fill-in-the-blank!”
Positively, Paul wants believers to bask in the realization that they are that temple. Paul says, “God’s Spirit dwells in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16). He’s talking about the very Shekinah glory that inhabited the Tabernacle in the wilderness, providing unerring guidance to the children of Israel. He means the same Shekinah glory that so filled the Temple at Solomon’s dedication that everyone had to flee. That same glory-cloud, asserts Paul, lives in each of Christ’s followers and among them all together. That’s why he can exclaim, “all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (1 Corinthians 3:21b-23).
I can scarcely take in all that Paul’s “all things are yours” means. There’s no sphere of life that is unworthy of the believer’s interest and engagement—whether science and math, or art and literature; whether family or work or leisure. For we belong Christ, Lord of it all—and he superintends it all, and that, to the glory of God.
To whatever the Lord calls you today, be blessed in it,
Reggie Kidd+