Monday • 8/21/2023
Monday of the Twelfth Week After Pentecost (Proper 15)
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106; 2 Samuel 17:24–18:8; Acts 22:30–23:11; Mark 11:12–26
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)
Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 15 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.
2 Samuel 17–18. Civil war comes to the people of God. We’ll return to that theme tomorrow.
Acts 22–23 and Paul’s faith. I find myself reflecting today on crucial insights into Paul’s faith from today’s narrative about his appearance before the Sanhedrin.
Image: "St Paul (Burne Jones)" by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Pre-Christian Paul was not plagued by an introverted, guilt-ridden conscience: “Men, brothers, up to this day, I have lived my life with a clear conscience before God” (Acts 23:1). Then, in one fell swoop, Jesus revealed to him that he has a Redeemer (Acts 9). It is on the far side of that revelation that Paul realizes he needs a Redeemer far more than he had previously understood. Thus, note the progression of Paul’s self-realization as “least of the apostles” in 1 Corinthians 15:9 to “least of the saints” in Ephesians 3:8 to “chief of sinners” in 1 Timothy 1:15. And thus, his renunciation of the value of everything else: zeal, birthright, education, status, personal righteousness (see Philippians 3). Some of us need to be convinced we are sinners, and then that there’s a Savior. Others of us need to see the glory of Christ — so we can see how limited our pre-Christ perspective on life has been.
In a testy exchange, it seems odd that Paul does not recognize the high priest: “I did not realize, brothers, that he was high priest” (Acts 23:5). In his persecuting days, Paul (known as Saul then) had been close enough to the inner circle of power that you can’t imagine him not knowing who the high priest was. But Saul/Paul was last active among the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem during the early A.D. 30s. The current high priest, Ananias, wasn’t appointed to office until A.D. 47. Today’s narrative takes place in the late 50s. So, Paul has been out of Jerusalem’s power loop for two decades. It’s quite possible he’s lost track of who’s in charge.
I rather like the suggestion by I. Howard Marshall and Ben Witherington that Paul knows exactly who has ordered him to be struck and whom he rebukes so strongly. Paul follows the rebuke of his own rebuke, suggest Marshall and Witherington, with a sarcastic “apology” (I paraphrase): “Well, I am SO SORRY! But from your dishonorable behavior, how could anybody recognize that you’re God’s high priest?”
What Paul does make clear in this exchange is his submission to the same Scriptures as all his accusers, and therefore that his Christian faith is not a departure from those Scriptures: “…for it is written…” (Acts 23:5).
However, having the same book doesn’t mean people have the same interpretation. Nor are all interpretations equally valid. “When Paul noticed that some were Sadducees and others were Pharisees, he called out in the council, ‘Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am on trial concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead’” (Acts 23:6).
With Christianity, some of Pharisaism’s hopes are confirmed (resurrection of the dead), and, with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, even partially realized. With Christianity, Sadducees’ doubts about the doctrine of resurrection are smashed. In particular, Christianity upends Sadducees’ refusal to infer resurrection-hope from Yahweh’s self-designation as God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matthew 22:32), and their rejection of direct statements of prophets like Daniel 12:2–3: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”
Fast forward to our time: at the least, one should expect that those who have decided that the Sadducees were right and that there is no resurrection (neither of Jesus in the past, nor of us in the future, except perhaps in the most metaphorical and “spiritual” of ways) should have enough respect for the truth, not to mention respect for themselves, not to call themselves Christians. As Jaroslav Pelikan put it: “If Jesus Christ rose from the dead, nothing else matters. If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, nothing else matters.”
More importantly, one might pray that if one does believe that Jesus rose from the dead (the same Jesus who cleansed the temple in anticipation of one last purifying sacrifice), one might live as though “nothing else matters”!
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+