Friday, June 3
Ephesians 5.8-21: The life in Christ is both fruitful and wise.
With respect to being “fruitful,” a few days ago we read, “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples” (John 15:8).
Bearing fruit is important because some Christians imagine that they will be judged by their roots, not by their fruits. To Christians such as these we say, with John the Baptist, “bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Mt 2:9).
What shall we say to those who imagine that God will judge them by their roots? We will say, again with John the Baptist, “even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Mt 3:10).
These are the fruits that come from union with Christ. This is the union of which Jesus says,
The present text partially describes this fruit: “for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.” A more ample list is available in Galatians 5: “the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, good-ness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Second, the life in Christ is wise. That is to say, it is a life characterized by dis-cernment. Paul writes in this text, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,”
The Apostle here contrasts the wise man with the fool, a contrast elaborated at great length in the Wisdom books of the Bible. In the Book of Proverbs the wise man is described as circumspect, honest, industrious, obedient, vigilant, cau-tious, and self-controlled. He is contrasted with the fool, who is described as mentally lazy, dishonest, slothful, rebellious, imprudent, and undisciplined. These are the qualities that Paul mentions in the present text as “the unfruitful works of darkness.”
Wisdom is a quality of the mind and heart. It is the highest form of understand-ing. That is to say, wisdom is a quality of the mind, that which the Greeks called the nous and the Latins called the intellectus. Wisdom is a high quality of thought, and those who avoid thinking will never become wise. God is to be loved “with the whole mind.” There is no fruitful life in Christ without the use of the mind. Therefore Paul says in the present text, “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. . . do not be unwise but understand.”
Saturday, June 4
John 17.1-10: We come now to the lengthy prayer that begins, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You” (17:1). Today and continuing next week, we will be reading this prayer dominated by the act of consecration. Here the verb hagiazo, to “sanctify” or “conse-crate,” appears three times in immediate succession: “Consecrate them in truth. . . . And for their sakes I consecrate myself, that they them-selves, likewise, may be consecrated in truth.”
In the traditional Greek translation (Septuagint) of the Torah, the verb hagiazo (along with its nominal cognates) is frequently found in refer-ences to the consecration of the priests and of the appointments of the priestly ministry (for instance, twelve times in Exodus 29 and six times in Leviticus 22). The use of this same verb in Jesus’ prayer summons to mind those priestly as-sociations in the Torah. The verb’s concentrated appearance in this Johannine prayer amply explains why Christians have long referred to it as “high priestly.” This description manifests an intuition—as early as Cyril of Alexandria (In Joannem 1.8)—that the Johannine Christ is especially Christ the Priest.
The faith of the first Christians included the perception that the priestly self-consecration of Jesus was an essential component of Redemption. That is to say, they believed that Jesus knew himself to be the priest and that, as the priest, he offered himself in sacrifice in an intentional way.
Although there is no evidence that Christians used the noun “priest” in reference to Jesus until it appeared in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the idea itself was already familiar enough for the Apostle Paul to write, “Christ loved us and handed himself over (paredoken) for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet aroma” (Ephesians 5:2). In this passage, we observe, Paul deliberately employs the language of priestly ritual to elaborate on his earlier reference to “the Son of God, loving me and handing himself over (paradontos) for me” (Gala-tians 2:20). It is difficult to explain Paul’s recourse to this liturgical elabo-ration unless he understood Jesus’ “handing over” to be sacrificial.
Jesus first prays for himself, then for his disciples, and finally for the whole People of God, who will come to faith through the apostolic preach-ing. This threefold of Jesus’ prayer corresponds to the triple concern of the officiating priest on Yom Kippur, as prescribed in Leviticus 16: First—and second—the priest makes the sin offering (hahatta’th), “which is for himself, and to make atonement (kipper) for himself and for his household” (Leviticus 16:6, 11). Third, having sprinkled the blood of the victim on the mercy seat (kapporet), the priest offers another victim, “which is for the people” (16:14-15).
Pentecost Sunday, June 5
The Coming of the Holy Spirit: The Psalmist prays, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew the right Spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy face; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and strengthen me with thy governing spirit.” Let me suggest that in these three verses of the psalm we touch on three points appropriate for considera-tion on Pentecost Sunday:
First, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew the right Spirit within me.” This verse tells us that renewal in the Holy Spirit is inseparable from purity of heart. In those impure of heart there is no guidance of the Holy Spirit, no Spirit of wisdom, no Spirit of discernment, no fear of God.
It is imperative that the Holy Spirit not be confused with just any spirit that happens to speak to us. Indeed, most of us know our hearts well enough to sus-pect that most spirits that speak to us are not of God at all. And if our own hearts do not warn us of this danger, God’s Word does so. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God,” wrote St. John (1 John 4:1).
The Apostle John perceived, even in his own day, the peril of confusing the Holy Spirit with every manner of deception and mendacity. The Bible insists that there are many sprits in this world that have in mind to deceive the children of God. These spirits will usually tell us exactly what we want to hear, which is why we listen to them readily. We recall the admonition of the prophet Micaiah to King Ahab. He describes the evil spirit who boasts, “I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets” (1 Kings 22:22). And this lying spir-it told King Ahab exactly what he wanted to hear.
Second, “Cast me not away from thy face; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.” You see, even though we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in the recep-tion of the sacraments, we must be conscious that this sealing was not an act of magic. The maintenance of this seal is to be jealously and fervently defend-ed. Even when we are sealed by the Spirit in the sacraments, we explicitly pray that God will protect that seal until our life’s end. The Holy Spirit’s guarantee is from God’s side, not from ours. This prayer reminds us each day of the danger of God’s casting us away from His face and taking His Holy Spirit from us.
It is important to think of this truth each day, because if we do lose the Holy Spirit, it will not be suddenly. It will not happen in a moment, nor, as it were in-advertently. Oh no, the loss of the Holy Spirit is gradual and comes from the accumulation of many small infidelities.
We look at Saul, whom Samuel anointed in the Holy Spirit—Saul, on whom the Holy Spirit poured out the gift of prophecy. Saul did not lose that Holy Spirit in a single moment. His downfall came, rather, at the end of a string of infidelities. This brave young man, who heard the messenger of Jabesh Gilead and rushed to their rescue, gradually deteriorated into the craven old man who consulted a witch on the night before the battle of Mount Gilboa. Humble Saul, who con-fessed himself to be the least in his father’s house, by degrees waxed into the arrogant man scorned by Samuel and rejected by God. If we want to know what happens to a man of impure heart, from whom the Lord withdraws the guidance of the Holy Spirit, there is no need to look further than the sad career of King Saul.
Third, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and strengthen me with thy governing spirit.” If the second prayer fills us with a healthy measure of godly fear, this third line strengthens us with the hope of godly restoration. The Spirit we pray for is the Spirit of our salvation and the joy with which this salvation fills the pure of heart.
The Spirit for whom we pray is what our psalm calls God’s “governing Spirit” (Pnevma hegemonikon). This is the Spirit that leads. But the Spirit leads only the humble and the pure in heart.
Monday, June 6
Acts 2.22-36: Immediately after Jesus’ ascension, when the Church gathered prayerfully in the upper room to await Pentecost, the brethren chose a re-placement for the fallen Judas by having recourse to the Book of Psalms (Acts 1:20). It was the Apostle Peter who took the initiative in that decision.
Then, when the Pentecostal Spirit descended upon them and they began to preach, the first sermon was an exegesis of two psalms (Acts 2:25–35). Once again, St Peter was the man quoting the Psalter; he combined lines from Psalm 16 (Greek 15) and Psalm 110 (Greek 109). In the first of these, Peter sees a prophecy of the Resurrection of Christ. Even though David spoke the words, Pe-ter declares, he did so, God was using his voice in order speak in behalf of
Christ:
“Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrec-tion of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see cor-ruption.”
This psalm, by introducing the Resurrection of Christ, is followed by Psalm 110, which speaks (again in first person singular) of Christ’s Ascension and glorifica-tion at God’s right hand: “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand . . . ’”
In all of the Psalter, is there a line more precious and beloved than this? No other line of the Book of Psalms enjoys, in the New Testament, a prominence equal to the opening words of this psalm. In the traditions reflected in the Syn-optic Gospels, for example, Christians remembered that Jesus had quoted this verse in controversy with some of His rabbinical opponents (cf. Matt. 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42) and that the context for his citation was the decisive and great kerygmatic question of the Lord’s identity: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” (Matt. 22:42). In these few words of the Psalter, “The Lord said to my Lord,” Christians learned that Jesus is not only David’s descendant but also his preexisting Lord. He is the Son, not only of David, but of God.
Having mysteriously addressed the identity of Christ, this same line of our psalm goes on to speak of His triumph and enthronement, with the solemn proc-lamation: “Sit at My right hand.” These majestic words were quoted in the first sermon of the Christian Church, that of Pentecost morning at the third hour (cf. Acts 2:34), and became the foundation of some of the most important Christo-logical and soteriological statements of the New Testament (cf. Mark 16:19; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2.).
In this one line of the psalm, then, we profess, in summary form, those pro-found doctrines at the foundation of our whole relationship to God—the eternal identity of Jesus Christ, His triumph over sin and death, and His glorification at God’s right hand: “God . . . has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, . . . who . . , when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:1–3).
Tuesday, June 7
Acts 2:37-47: The summary of the response to Peter’s first sermon includes (in verse 42) the three constitutive components of the Church’s liturgical life: First, the authoritative proclamation of the Word of God (“the apostles’ doc-trine”); second, the serving of the Sacraments (“the Communion, the breaking of the Bread”); third, common worship (“prayers”). It is in these three things that the “baptized” (verse 41) are to “continue steadfastly.”
The practice of “holding all things in common” should not be interpreted in a legal sense of ownership (cf. 5:4) but with respect to their operative attitude toward their possessions.
It is significant that this attitude is mentioned in the immediate context of the Church’s liturgical life. It was from the beginning that the Church made “collec-tions” of material resources at the common worship, particularly the Eucharist. All the components of the liturgical worship mentioned here are also found in our earliest extant description of the Eucharistic Liturgy by Justin Martyr in the mid-second century:
“And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather to-gether to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the presi-dent in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and will-ing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the presi-dent, who succors the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers so-journing among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need” ( Apolo-gia Prima 67).
We observe, also, the first generation of Christians maintained their worship in the temple (Luke 24:53) as well as the Eucharistic communion in their homes (Acts 2:46). Like Jesus (Luke 2:27,49; 19:45; 22:53), they used the temple as a missionary forum (Acts 3:11; 4:2; 5:20-21,42).
Wednesday, June 8
1 Samuel 2: The latter part of this chapter introduces the vile sons of Eli, about whose fate their father will learn in the following chapter. Eli’s lack of parental wisdom not only compromised the spiritual health of Israel; it also led directly to the invasion of the Philistines and the capture of the Ark of the Covenant.
In the larger context of this book, these unworthy sons of Levi serve as fore-figures of the sons of David, and the rejection of Eli’s house foreshadows the tragic history of David’s own family. In Holy Scripture, few things are con-demned so forcefully as bad parenting, particularly bad fathering of lazy, delin-quent, even vicious, sons. Both Eli and David are portrayed as men who failed to maintain proper vigilance over their sons.
We recall that Adam himself apparently had been a delinquent parent. The frat-ricide of Cain strongly suggests that Adam and Eve had a deeply troubled household.
In the case of Eli’s sons, their offenses are directly related to their sacred min-istry. That is to say, these two scoundrels used their priestly authority and posi-tion to take advantage of the very people for whom they were ordained (He-brews 5:1). Their sins were particularly heinous.
Holy Scripture mentions two abuses of Hophni and Phineas:
For one thing, they violated the trust of “the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle” (1 Samuel 2:22). It was a sin of raw and crude exploitation: For the purpose of sexual gratification, they betrayed the confidence and ex-ploited the vulnerabilities of those religious women, whom it was their responsi-bility to serve and care for. That is to say, their ministry in the Lord’s house provided the very means and context of their infidelity.
The other offense of Hophni and Phineas involved the act of sacrifice itself. Disdaining that part of the sacrificial victim assigned to the priest, these two scoundrels insisted on taking a “choice cut” from the offered meat prior to the sacrifice itself (2:12-16). Thus, instead of serving the Lord’s house, they made sure the Lord’s house served them. This will always be the mark of an unworthy priest.
Following the lead of Venerable Bede’s commentary on this story, we should regard those unworthy priests at Shiloh as erly types of the later priests—chiefly Caiaphas—who condemned Jesus in the Sanhedrin and then accused him before the judgment seat of Pontius Pilate. Indeed, it was at the home of Caiaphas that the whole plot was planned (Matthew 26:3-4). This supreme rep-resentative of the Jewish people used the very office of his ministry—the wor-ship of God—to murder God’s Son. Even Pilate read the motive as envy (27:18; cf. 21:38). Thus, Caiaphas remains for all time the egregious example of a genuinely rotten priest.
Thursday, June 9
Ephesians 6.10-24: We know from the Acts of the Apostles that the Roman procurator, Felix, kept St. Paul in prison at Caesarea for two years, hoping that Paul would bribe him to be released (14:26-27). Thus, Paul was obliged to stay in prison, never formally charged with a crime, from the summer of the year 57 to the autumn of the year 59. It was during those two years of imprisonment that the Apostle to the Gentiles wrote the epistles to the Colossians, to Phile-mon, and to the Ephesians.
One day, as he sat in his prison cell, Paul took note of the uniform and equip-ment of the Roman soldiers that guarded him. He observed that this equipment (panoplia) included a belt, a breastplate, shoes, a shield, a helmet, and a sword. Reflecting on the possible significance of these items, he wrote down the exhortation in today’s reading from the Epistle to the Ephesians. Three points suggest themselves in this text. We will illustrate each point with reference to a particular book of Holy Scripture.
First, Paul describes the panoply of a soldier standing guard. One does not sit guard, or lie down guard. He stands guard. Indeed, Paul especially emphasizes this point: “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth” and so on.
The obvious context here is the threat of combat. We stand because there are enemies about, and Paul speaks of these enemies: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wicked-ness in the heavenly places.”
Paul identifies these enemies for us. They are the demonic powers dedicated to our downfall and ruin, and these are our real enemies.
Second, there is defensive equipment in the panoply of the Christian soldier. Paul speaks here of the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salva-tion. He had used a variant of these images in his very first epistle, where he spoke of “the breastplate of faith and love, and a helmet, the hope of salva-tion” (1 Th 5:8).
For these images we go to the Book of Isaiah, the prophet who said of the Lord, “For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head” (59:17).
This defensive equipment in the Christian’s panoplia is essential to his survival. We may especially observe the importance of what St. Paul calls “the shield of faith.” This is a shield to be carried at all times. There are no instances when the Christian can safely take leave of his faith aside. He dare not leave the house without it. He must carry it with him wherever he goes, and no matter what he is doing. When he goes to work, or to school, he takes his faith with him. He must never be without his shield, because he is surrounded by spiritual enemies that have his ruin in mind.
Third, the Christian soldier is armed with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. This is the sword with which he defeats the enemy. It hangs from the Christian’s belt, which St. Paul identified, we remember, as truth: “having girded your waist with truth,” he wrote. Truth is the proper human girdle, and the Word of God is the sword that hangs from it. It is truth that binds us to the Bible. That Word of God hangs from the belt of truth. It is the cultivated love of truth that binds us to the Word of God.
To illustrate this image, we go to the Book of Deuteronomy. We recall that Je-sus quoted three passages from the Book of Deuteronomy in order to defeat Satan’s temptations in the wilderness. This is the reason that some Christians refer to the memorization of Holy Scripture as “sword practice.” We want to have the Holy Scriptures constantly in our minds and on our lips; this is our sword to drive away temptation.
Friday, June 10
1 Samuel 4: Breaking off the story of Samuel, these next three chapters are devoted to the “exile” of the Ark of the Covenant: its capture on the battlefield (chapter 4), its “captivity” among the pagans in an alien land (chapter 5), and its return to the Chosen People (chapter 6). Since its important presence at the crossing of the Jordan and the Battle of Jericho (Joshua 6—8), the Ark has been little mentioned in the biblical narrative. Nor, apparently, has it always re-sided in the same place. We know that it was kept for a while at Bethel (Judges 27), and now we find it at Shiloh (3:3; 4:4).
These present chapters indicate how the Ark came to be at Kiriath Jearim (6:20—7:2), whence David will move it to Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 6. (The refer-ence to the Ark in the Hebrew text of 1 Samuel 14:18 is surely wrong. With the Septuagint, we should read that passage as referring to the oracular “ephod.”)
There are two parts to the present chapter: first, the loss of the Ark to the Phil-istines (verses 1-11); second, the death of Eli and the birth of Ichabod (verses 12-22).
After an initial defeat at the hands of their enemy (verses 1-2), the Israelite elders imagine that the Ark’s bare presence on the battlefield will assure the army of divine help in the next encounter (verse 3). Their reasoning on this point is doubtless inspired by the memory of the ark’s significant role in the Battle of Jericho.
However, those warriors commanded by Joshua at Jericho were assured of vic-tory by the Lord Himself (Joshua 6:2-5), and they bore the Ark, not as a lucky charm or a magic talisman, but as an expression of their faith (6:6-8). In con-trast, the elders in the present text forget that the Lord bases His judgments on the content of hearts. How can they imagine that the Lord does not regard the hearts of the two scoundrels who currently carry the Ark? Ironically, the Philis-tines seem to have more respect for the Ark than do the Israelites (verses 7-9). In the end, Israel’s losses in the second battle (verse 10) greatly outnumber those in the first.
The second scene of this chapter (verses 12-22) opens with the arrival of the messenger who runs 18 miles from the battlefield to the city of Shiloh, bringing tidings of the disaster (verse 12). Eli, apparently waiting at a gate different from the one entered by the messenger, becomes the last person to hear the message. The scene grows in drama: blind Eli, hearing the uproar and lamenta-tion in the city, demands to know the reason (verses 13-16). We learn much of the soul of the old man from the fact that he is anxious less for the safety of his sons than for the fate of the Ark. Hence, the full effect of the message seizes him only when he learns of the seizure of the Ark: Falling backward from a stool, he dies of a broken neck (verse 17-18).
The ironic climax of the tragedy arrives when the pregnant wife of Phineas sud-denly goes into labor, in reaction to learning the loss of her husband and father-in-law, along with the defeat of the army and the capture of the Ark. She dies after giving birth to a boy, on whom she confers the symbolic name Ichabod—“glory gone.”
This name is based on the important Hebrew noun kavod, “glory.” This is the glory associated with God’s presence with the Ark. This child, then, born on the day of Ark’s capture, will be a living reminder of the Lord’s judgment on the priestly family of Shiloh. Although some prophets continued to dwell at Shiloh (cf. 1 Kings 14:2, 4), its priesthood settled at Nob (1 Samuel 14:3; 22:11).
Samuel moves back to Ramah (7:17), his birthplace, and the Ark, though re-turned to Israel, will never again be installed at Shiloh. The Lord has abandoned the site, making it a symbol of the fate awaiting any city that forsakes His cov-enant (Jeremiah 7:12, 14).