Friday, November 4
James 4:1-10: Having spoken of the great evils that come from an undisciplined tongue (3:2-12) and having listed the contentions characteristic of demonic wisdom (3:13-16), James comes now to those strifes that destroy peace of soul.
This section breaks into two parts. In the first, James analyzes the source of this spiritual problem (verses 1-6), and in the second he prescribes the proper remedy (verses 7-10).
The source of these strifes, says James, is found in the inordinate passions that dominate the worldly heart. The word he uses for “passion” may more correctly be translated as “pleasures” (heonai, from which the English expression “hedonist,” of pleasure-lover). Strife, says James, is the expression of untamed and unsatisfied desires (verse 2).
Nor can these desires, being inordinate, be satisfied through prayer, because such a prayer is as disordered as the desires themselves (verse 3). The problem is deeper. It is friendship with the world, and the world is the enemy of God (verse 4). We recall that Jesus would not pray for the world (John 17:9). Prayer based on friendship with the world, therefore, is of no avail with God.
(We may note that the “scripture” quoted by James in verse 5 is not readily identified. It is possible that he is simply citing some ancient variant of a biblical text that has been lost in the transmission of the manuscripts. It does seem, however, that the “spirit” in this text means man’s natural spirit, not the Holy Spirit.)
The sole resolution to this dilemma, says James, is repentance and the acquisition of humility (verse 6). God is favorable to the humble, whereas He actively resists the proud. This notion from Proverbs 3:34 was apparently a common teaching in early Christian pedagogy. We also find it developed in a passage that closely resembles James here; namely 1 Peter 5:5-7:
“Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘ God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”
God never resists the approach of someone who desires to draw nigh unto Him. No sigh of repentance goes unheard. No tear of compunction falls unnoticed. On the contrary, He gives His grace to the humble, and mourning and weeping are the activity of the repentant spirit (verse 9).
This is the repentance proper to the foot of the Cross, described by the poet Sidney Lanier in 1882:
“Tell me, sweet burly-bark’d man-bodied Tree
That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know
From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow?”
Saturday, November 5
Luke 16,19-31: . In September of 1965 the talented writer Truman Capote received a letter from a man in Kansas named Dick Hickock. The letter read, in part: “My hair line, at my forehead, has receded a full inch. I’m almost frantic with worry about it. I certainly do not wish to be bald headed; I am ugly enough. Also, no one in my family was ever bald headed. If you have any suggestions, please state them in your next letter.”
Now what is most remarkable about Mr. Hickock’s worry, his being “almost frantic” about his impending baldness are the circumstance in which he wrote on the subject. When he sent Capote this letter, Dick Hickock was on death row in a state prison. Two months later, in April, he was hanged by the State of Kansas as a murderer. His hair line had not receded any further. He lived his life without going bald.
There is, of course, something terribly pathetic about this poor man waiting for execution and worrying about his hairline. He was not worried about dying. He was not worried about appearing before God, unrepentant and with blood on his hands. He was “almost frantic” about the possibility of going bald.
Dick Hickock in this respect illustrates a lesson in today’s Gospel—amely, the colossal loss of perspective. Like the rich man, he was soon to die. Dr. Samuel Johnson reflected that nothing so fixes a man’s attention as the thought that he is about to be hanged. Evidently Dr. Johnson did not know men of the kind we are considering here, men whose major worry in life has to do with impending baldness.
Today’s rich man lost his perspective. He was distracted from his focus. He “was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.” He forgot what was important, and what was not important. He was the sort of man of whom our Lord says that “the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.”
He has been deceived, but the deception was entirely of his own making. Perhaps he had let himself watch too many TV commercials. He had let himself become persuaded that the goods and wealth of this world are of lasting value. Someone had persuaded him that baldness was the worst thing that could befall him. He resembled the frantic co-ed, for whom the worst catastrophe would be a failure to get a date for the prom.
Perhaps the next time we find ourselves concerned about something in this world, we may recall this parable of our Lord, or perhaps we may recall the story of Dick Hickock.
Sunday, November 6
Isaiah 11: The original setting of this chapter was the same prolonged crisis that prompted Isaiah to speak earlier of the “stump” (6:13) and to describe the destruction of a mighty forest (10:33-34). The house of David had been reduced to a “stump” during the invasions of the Syro-Ephraemitic League and the Assyrians. If the Davidic throne seemed but a stump in the eighth century, this was even more the case two centuries later, when the Book of Isaiah received its final editing. By that time the house of David had been definitively removed from the throne of Judah, never again to be restored in recorded history. These later biblical editors (Ezra, perhaps) were keenly aware of the messianic tension in Isaiah, the tension between the prophesied downfall of the Davidic house (7:17) and the prophesied glory of its restoration (1:25-27). This tension produced chapter 9 and the two poems contained in the present chapter.
These two poems (verses 1-9 and 12-16) are joined by two verses of prose (verses 10-11) that summarize the first and serve as a preamble to the second. The two poems are complementary, both of them dealing with the eschatological characteristics of the divine, messianic reign. The theme of wisdom and knowledge in the first poem (verse 2) finds its parallel in the “knowledge of the Lord” in the second (verse 9).
The future tense of both poems is strengthened by the double “in that day” (bayyom hahu’–verses 10-11) of the prose section. This expression points to the future day of history, when God acts to define the destiny of the world. It will be the renewal of Israel’s ancient deliverance from Egypt (verses 11,16).
The short prose section (verse 10) also takes up “Jesse,” “root,” and “rest” from the first poem (verses 1-2), and introduces “remnant,” “hand,” “sea,” “Assyria,” and “Egypt” (verse 11), which will appear again in the second poem (verses 15-16).
Thus, the entire chapter anticipates a renewed world, in which all peoples will live at peace, both among themselves and with the rest of creation, under the Lord’s anointed King.
This latter, the Messiah, is identified as both the “shoot” (verse 1) and the “root” (verse 10) of Jesse. That is to say, He is both the descendent of David, Jesse’s son, and also the determining source, causa finalis, from which that royal line is derived. He is both David’s Son, in short, and his Lord (Psalm 109 [110]:1; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 1:32; cf. Hosea 3:5; Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23-24). The Messiah is born of David’s line, but He is the root of that line. This Old Testament truth comes to light solely in the New Testament.
The Messiah is endowed with the Holy Spirit (verse 2; cf. 42:1; 52:21; 61:1). The description of the Spirit in this verse resembles the Menorah, with a central core (“the Spirit of the Lord”) and three pairs of extended arms: wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, the knowledge and fear of the Lord.
The idyllic setting of peace among the animals (verses 6-8) recalls not only Eden prior to the Fall (Genesis 1:29-30), but also the conditions on Noah’s Ark, another of the great images of salvation.
The little child that presides over this universal peace (verses 6,8) is, of course, the newborn Messiah, the same One recognized by the ass and the ox (1:3). There is no more enmity between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of snakes, for the curse is taken away (verse 8).
The last part of verse 9 should read, “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the sea with water.”
Although the original context for the present message of encouragement was apparently the dark season of the Assyrian invasions, the hope contained in this text extends into the future. It is a prophecy that has in view the coming history of the people of God. This messianic reign is not solely for the Jews, because the nations (goyim will also seek the root of Jesse (verse 10; cf. verse 12; 2:2-4; 9:1-7).
Monday, November 7
Luke 17.20-37: If anyone in Holy Scripture, however, should ever have heeded the warning, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest
you receive of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4), surely that man was Lot. Still, Lot stayed put in Sodom, until it was almost too late. That time of crisis that Jesus called “the days of Lot” (Luke 17:28) had well-nigh run its course. Loudly sounded, even now, the hour of its overthrow.
The brimstone was ready, with the pitch pots boiling to the brim, and the rescuing angels were urging Lot to hurry: “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city. . . . Escape for your life! . . . Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed” (Genesis 19:15, 17).
It is always later than we think.
James 5.13-20: James speaks of prayer in each of the next six verses (verses 13-18). The link word joining these verses to the preceding section is the verb “to suffer” (kakopathein— literally, “to experience evil”—verse 13), which corresponds to the noun kakopathia (verse 9).
A special form of prayer is that offered by the presbyters off the Church when they anoint the sick in the Lord’s name (verse 14; Mark 6:13). These “presbyters,” from whose name we derive the English word “priests,” were the pastors of the local congregations (Acts 14:23; 20:17; 1 Timothy 5:17,19). Prayer for the sick is a Christian practice inherited from Judaism (Sirach 38:9-10). The reference to the sacramental rite of anointing indicates that it is distinct from the charismatic gift of healing (1 Corinthians 12:9,28,30).
The sacramental rite of healing, inasmuch as it also heals from sins, introduces the subject of the confession of sins (verses 15-16). It is instructive to observe that this text, which is perhaps the New Testament’s clearest reference to auricular confession, is placed in the context of the ministry of local pastors. Like the Old Testament priests, who were obliged to hear confessions in order to offer the appropriate sacrifice for sins (Leviticus 5:5; Numbers 5:7), the pastors of the New Testament are also to be “father confessors,” who absolve from sins on behalf of the Church (John 20:22-23; Matthew 9:8).
As James invoked Abraham and Rahab as exemplars of good works (2:21-25), and Job as a model of patience (5:11), so now he appeals to Elijah as a person to be emulated with respect to prayer (verses 17-18; 1 Kings 17:1,7; 18:1,41-45; Sirach 48:2-3).
The author’s recent reference to the forgiveness of sins (verses 15-16) prompts him finally to speak of the conversion of sinners. No greater favor can we do for a man than to bring him back to the path of conversion (verses 19-20).
The epistle thus ends abruptly.
Tuesday, November 8
Psalms 22 (Greek & Latin 21): It is arguable that this, of all the psalms, is par excellence the canticle of the Lord’s suffering and death. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus is described as praying the opening line of this psalm as He hangs on the Cross: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34). In Luke, on the other hand, the last recorded words of Jesus on the Cross are a line from Psalm 31: “Into Your hands I commit My spirit” (23:46). From a juxtaposition of these two texts there arose in Christian sentiment the popular story that Jesus, while He hung on the Cross, silently recited all the lines of the Psalter that lie between these two verses.
Whatever is to be said of that story, there is no doubt about the importance of Psalm 22 in reference to the Lord’s suffering and death. Not only did Jesus pray this psalm’s opening line on His gibbet of pain; other lines of it are also interpreted by the Church, even by the Evangelists themselves, as prophetic references to details in the drama of Holy Friday.
Consider, for instance, this verse of Psalm 21: “All who gazed at Me derided Me. With their lips they spoke and wagged their heads: ‘He hoped on the Lord. Let Him deliver him. Let Him save him, since He approves of him.’” One can hardly read this verse without recalling what is described in Matthew: “And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, . . . ‘If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.’ Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, . . . ‘He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him’” (27:39–43).
The Gospels likewise tell of the soldiers dividing the garments of Jesus at the time of His Crucifixion. St. John’s description of this event is worth considering at length, because he actually quotes our psalm verbatim as a fulfilled prophecy:
Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also His tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. They said therefore among themselves, ”Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be,“ that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: ‘They divided My garments among them, / And for My clothing they cast lots’” (19:23, 24).
Moreover, if Holy Church thinks of the Lord Himself as praying this psalm on the Cross, such an interpretation is amply justified by a later verse that says: “Like a potsherd has my strength been scorched, and my tongue cleaved to my palate.” Hardly can the Church read this line without calling to mind the Lord who said from the Cross: “I thirst” (John 19:28).
And as she thinks of the nails supporting the Lord’s body on the tree of redemption, the Church recognizes the voice that speaks yet another line of our psalm: “They have pierced my hands and feet; they have numbered all my bones.”
In addition, according to St. John, at the foot of the Cross stood the Mother of the Lord, a loyal disciple to the last, her soul transfixed by the sword that aged Simeon prophesied in the temple when she first presented the Child to God. To her the Lord Himself now makes reference in this psalm. Speaking of that consecration, Jesus says to His heavenly Father of his earthly mother, “You were He that drew me from the womb, ever my hope from my mother’s breasts. To You was I handed over from the womb. From the belly of my mother, You are my God.”
Outside of the Gospels, the New Testament’s most vivid references to the Lord’s Passion are arguably those in Hebrews, which speaks of the Lord’s sharing our flesh and blood so that “through death He might destroy him who had the power of death” (2:14). Quoting Psalm 22 in this context of the Passion, this author tells us that Jesus “is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: ‘I will declare Your name to My brethren; / In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You’” (2:11, 12).
Finally, just as each of the Lord’s three predictions of the Passion ends with a prediction of the Resurrection (cf. Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34), this psalm of the Passion appropriately finishes with the voice of victory and the growth of the Church: “My spirit lives for Him; my seed will serve Him. The coming generation shall be herald for the Lord, declaring His righteousness to a people yet unborn, whom the Lord created.”
Wednesday, November 9
Luke 18.9-14: Today’s parable begins, “Two men went up the Temple to pray.” This is a story about prayer.
All four Gospels instruct us that Jesus himself prayed. I have argued elsewhere that hardly any other activity of Jesus better proclaimed his full manhood. This is important, because the whole Christian life is based on the assumption that Jesus of Nazareth is the ideal and perfection of what a human being is supposed to be.
If we reflect that prayer is the highest human activity—the defining purpose of human existence and the goal of human destiny—we should say that Jesus’ prayer reveals more about him as a human being than anything else he did.
The Gospels inform us with a good deal of information about Jesus at prayer. For instance, we read in the Gospel of Mark, “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, he went out and departed to a solitary place; and there he was praying” (Mark 1:35).
In the Greek text, that final verb—“was praying”—is expressed in the imperfect tense, which denotes continued and/or repeated action. By using this verbal tense, Mark implies that Jesus spent a significant period of time occupied in that prayer. It began in the dark and ended after sunrise. That is to say, the Savior prayed through the transition from darkness to light.
We also know Jesus prayed through the transition from light to darkness—from day to night. Mark writes of this phenomenon a bit later. The scene in question comes immediately after the multiplication of the loaves, an event that happened late in the day (Mark 6:35). Mark describes the apostles getting into their boat to sail away, while Jesus remains behind on the shore. He writes, “And when he had sent them away, he departed to the mountain to pray. Now when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea; and he was alone on the land” (Mark 6:46-47).
In this text, the prayer of Jesus is said to begin in the light and continue into the darkness. It is not broken off until very late—“the fourth watch.” Thus, by way of sanctifying the structure of time, Jesus prays during the two daily transitions of light and darkness.
All of us want to be like Christ. I take this as our common understanding. But if we want to be like Christ, the activity to which we are most especially required to give ourselves is prayer. The goal of our transformation in Christ is to pray all the time—to remain constantly and consciously under the divine gaze—to cultivate the habit of devout recollection—to remove from our lives the million silly distractions that cause our minds to wander during the time of prayer.
Thursday, November 10
Luke 18.15-23: This account, which Luke shares with the other Synoptics (Matthew 19:16-22; Mark 10:17-22), is often referenced as the story of “the rich young man.” In fact, however, only Matthew says that the fellow was “young” (neaniskos–Matthew 19:22). Bearing in mind that references to youth are always relative (I now find myself using that reference to men in their thirties, for instance), it would be pointless to think of this as an inconsistency among the Evangelists.
The emphasis is different in Mark and Luke, however; indeed, these two quote the fellow to the effect that he had kept all the commandments “since youth” (ek neotetos), which may suggest that the man in question thought of himself as somewhat older. Luke, moreover, specifies that the man had been around long enough to have become a “leader” (archon–verse 18).
2 Thessalonians 2:13—3:5: The vocabulary of call and election came naturally to Paul as a Jew, because God’s choice of the Israelites as a special and consecrated people had long been formative elements in the self-consciousness of that people. Abraham had been “called” from Ur of the Chaldees; Israel had been “called” out of Egypt.
What may at first seem surprising is that in these two earliest of Paul’s epistles, those to the Thessalonians (as in verse 13 of today’s reading), both of them written to predominantly Gentile Christians, he expects them to understand what he means by this vocabulary of call and election. Apparently during the three weeks of his oral instruction to them, to which he refers in these two letters, Paul had stressed election and call as central elements in the self-consciousness of the Christian Church. He had established in the minds of these Thessalonians that they too stood in a direct line of continuity with God’s Chosen People of old, with Abraham and with Moses. The Thessalonians too were called and elect.
After all, they had received “the word of God” (verse 13), a biblical expression that normally refers to a prophetic oracle. Paul sees himself as commissioned to speak this word, like the prophets before him. Thus, when Paul spoke, it was God speaking, just as He had spoken through Moses or Isaiah.
Paul feels the need to remind the Thessalonians of this. There is nothing here to suggest that the sense of being called and chosen involved an overwhelming experience not open to doubt. Otherwise it would not have been necessary for Paul to keep reminding the Thessalonians of the truth of their call and election.
It is important, furthermore, to observe that nowhere does Holy Scripture speak of call and election in a negative way, as though God deliberately chose not to call some human beings to salvation—as though some human beings were somehow outside of God’s love and care. Call and election are always spoken of in positive terms in Holy Scripture, never negative terms.
Friday, November 11
Luke 18.24-34: In all the Synoptic Gospels the story of the wealthy man, who declines the summons of Jesus, introduces a dominical discourse on the spiritual danger of wealth and the reward attending those that relinquish all things for the sake of Christ.
Although some manuscripts and versions (including the Latin) say that this discourse came in response to the sadness of the departing man (“Jesus saw that he was sorrowful”—verse 24), the older, more reliable texts (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, et al) omit this detail. Nonetheless, all the textual witnesses testify that this discourse was given on this specific occasion (“Seeing him, Jesus said . . .”–Idon de avton ho Iesus eipen).
The two passages are also linked by a concern for “eternal life” (verses 18,30). In context this eternal life is identified with the Kingdom of God (verses 24,25,29; cf. 16:17).
The rich man’s loss came from an inability to give up his wealth and trust solely in God, the only Good (verse 19). That is to say, it was a failure in faith. Wealth, after all, means more than finances. It means human achievement as a whole, including intellectual, cultural, and even moral achievement (“All this I have done from my youth”). The rich man found himself unable to make this step, the step of faith in God, the only step by which a man “enters” (verses 17,24,25) into the Kingdom and “receives” (verse 30) eternal life. This is not a human achievement. Only God, the one Good, makes it possible (verse 27). Salvation—being ‘saved”—is beyond the ability of man. Thus, the Lord’s summons to self-abnegation is an invitation to faith.
2 Thessalonians 3.6-18: Verse 11 has a play on words impossible to translate literally without losing the force of the expression: meden ergazomenous alla periergazomenous, which may be paraphrased, “not working but working around,” or “not busy but busybodies.”
This letter was written partly in reply to those who took the “last times” so seriously as to affect their duties and responsibilities in this world, with the result that they lived off the generosity of other Christians. Paul very seriously insisted that such people should not be helped: “If someone is unwilling (ou thelei) to work, neither let him eat.”
This seems harsh. Jesus has said nothing like this in the Sermon on the Mount or in His Last Judgment parable in Matthew 25. Paul, however, is not teaching an ideal of charity here; he is very practically trying to come to grips with a very practical problem. The resources of the Christian community are always going to be limited. Every effort must be made to assist the poor and helpless, but there is no room in the Church for drones and loafers.
With respect to loafers and drones in the Church, Paul criticizes more than their laziness. Worse, they spend badly the time that they have on their hands as a result of their inactivity. Later on he was obliged to deal with this problem of inactivity among the widows at Ephesus, those ladies who used their retirement to no good purpose, spending their time in idle curiosities and rumor-mongering (1Timothy 5:13). Paul, the heir of rabbinic wisdom on this point, believed that a proper and useful occupation of one’s mind, energy, and time was good for the soul as well as the pocket-book.