Preaching the infancy narratives
In my previous post, I argued that nosotros should be preaching at all our Christmas services, even when at that place are significant numbers of visitors. But can we find something fresh to say most texts that we know so well?
The last piece Dick France wrote before his untimely death was a chapter in the volume I edited with David WenhamWe Proclaim the Give-and-take of Life: Preaching the New Testament Today. Following an exploration of questions of historicity and whether nosotros can let the text challenge the traditional accretions to the story, he offers annotate on the texts of Matthew and Luke—and suggests there is still a wealth of issues to explore.
There is a significant mismatch between what most Christmas congregations expect to hear and what Matthew and Luke were primarily interested in conveying in their opening capacity. They did non write to tell the story of how Jesus was born. Indeed, Matthew hardly mentions Jesus' nascency, just rather focuses on events that preceded and followed it, while Luke's business relationship of Jesus' birth is a relatively brief, though key, part in a circuitous of stories well-nigh the families of Elizabeth and Mary. In their unlike ways, both evangelists present us rather with an extended demonstration that the child born in Bethlehem is the Messiah of Quondam Testament expectation. Should this then also be the concern of the Christmas preacher, and if so how may information technology be conveyed today?
Matthew
The plan of the first 2 capacity of Matthew has been outlined in 2 unlike ways, which I believe are complementary rather than in conflict.
- Krister Stendahl's article 'Quis et Unde?'[i] famously argued, on the basis of the content, that chapter 1 answers the question of identity, 'Who [is Jesus]?', and affiliate 2 the question of geographical origin, 'Where [did Jesus come] from?'
- In my commentary I divided these capacity, on the basis of their literary form, into two sections, 'The "Book of Origin" of the Messiah' (1:1-17) and 'A Demonstration that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah: 5 Scriptural Proofs' (ane:18 – 2:23). The latter section consists of five episodes gear up before and after Jesus' nascency, each of which is focused on a formula-quotation
The preacher who bases a sermon on an episode in Matthew's 'infancy narrative' should recognise that it is not a gratis-standing story but part of a carefully constructed circuitous, and that its purpose in Matthew'southward plan was to demonstrate the scriptural credentials of Jesus as Messiah. In do such a sermon is probable to be on either Joseph'due south dilemma (1:18-25) or the visit of the magi (2:1-11); I practice not recall hearing (or preaching) many sermons on the escape to Arab republic of egypt, Herod'due south slaughter of the children or the settlement in Nazareth.
But practise congregations today either need or want to be convinced from Scripture that Jesus is the Messiah promised to the Jews? And even if they practise, how receptive are virtually modern Gentile congregations likely to be to the extremely creative (some would say fanciful) deductions that Matthew makes (or rather is supposed past commentators to have made) from his odd selection of texts? The formula-quotations of chapters 1-2 are a happy hunting-ground for the exegetical commentator, and telephone call forth an extraordinary range of suggested scriptural connections, with each commentator vying with the adjacent in the rabbinic subtlety deployed. But is this what our Christmas congregations have come for?
And then perhaps it is non surprising that Luke, with his greater human interest and more attainable fashion of story telling, is the more popular quarry for texts for Christmas sermons (together, of course, with the prologue of John, the familiar Christmas reading in which 'St John unfolds the bully mystery of the incarnation'). But I would be sorry to encounter Matthew abandoned as 'too difficult' or too culturally remote.
I don't call up I have ever preached an actual sermon on Matthew's genealogy, but I have found cracking interest when it is explained as not simply a listing of names but a radical theological argument. Its royal focus is easily grasped, peculiarly when the significance of the two turning-points of the 3×14 structure (David and the Exile, the outset and stop of monarchy) is explained. And while not everyone today is convinced by the numerological significance of the coming of the seventh seven, people can still grasp something of Matthew'south excitement as he discovers the whole blueprint of Onetime Attestation history now arriving at its intended climax in the new Son of David. But I suppose nearly expository attending these days is given to what is for Matthew a very pocket-size part of the genealogy, the presence of the 4 women in 1:3-6. Their non-Jewish ethnicity and dubious marital status are commonly used as the basis for meditation on God'south unexpected choices, sometimes in explicit relation to the incomparably unconventional means of Jesus' own arrival. In my experience Michael Goulder's notorious poem on the subject[two] can be guaranteed to evoke strong reactions (unremarkably, but not e'er, favourable) from a congregation.
Information technology is failure to appreciate the significance of the genealogy in Matthew's project that has led to the story of Joseph's dilemma (1:xviii-25) often beingness thoughtlessly labelled as an business relationship of the birth of Jesus. It is nothing of the sort. The genealogy has left a major apologetic problem. Joseph is a descendant of David, a legitimate heir to the kingship, simply, as ane:xvi has fabricated explicitly clear, Jesus is non his son. It is only as Joseph, Son of David (1:20), submits to divine force per unit area to adopt and name Jesus as his official son that his genealogy becomes the genealogy of Jesus too. The whole story depends on Joseph'south non being the biological father of Jesus, and it is this that is the focus of the much-debated quotation from Isaiah 7:14 which provides Matthew with the theologically significant championship Emmanuel. Well-nigh congregations are unlikely to exist very interested in the debates over Matthew'due south handling of the Isaiah prophecy, but the virgin birth is a key, and controversial, office of the Christmas story, and the preacher might well use this short pericope as a basis for exploring it. The more fully Matthew'south scriptural and apologetic agenda is appreciated, the more obvious it becomes that he and Luke accept introduced this theme into their infancy narratives in quite dissimilar means and therefore probably also from independent sources, a point which is not without its importance for Christian apologetics.
Space does not allow us to explore in detail the homiletical possibilities arising from Matthew'southward other most memorable story, that of the Magi, with its rich scriptural resonances especially through the Son of David typology which links this story to that of the visit of the Queen of Sheba, and through the echoes of the stories of the birth of Moses and the hostility of Pharaoh. Typology is probably non high on most people's interpretative calendar, only here is a familiar pericope in which it is close to the surface, and therefore an opportunity for the preacher to innovate people to what was certainly a major element in the New Attestation (and particularly Matthean) presentation of Jesus as the fulfilment of Israel'due south promise.
Luke.
Luke's infancy capacity are not only significantly longer than Matthew's, but also present a much more than varied range of narrative moments, with a more than developed characterisation and man involvement that make them more immediately attractive to the preacher. And and then in that location are the wonderful Lucan canticles, which stand in a course of their own. Space does not allow united states to go through the pericopes seriatim, so a few sample soundings must suffice. I will confine myself to the sections that bargain with Mary and Jesus rather than the parallel story of Elizabeth and John, since the latter, though evidently of great importance to Luke and therefore to exegetes of Luke, is not so likely to be the focus of our Christmas preaching.
The Proclamation to Mary (Luke ane:26-38).
Classical Christian art and frequent repetition at Services of Nine Lessons and Carols have fabricated this one of the most familiar stories of the infancy bicycle. Luke places heavy accent on the miraculous conception without human sexual intercourse. This pericope and Matthew ane:eighteen-25 are the only places in the New Testament where that issue is straight addressed, and the preacher tin can inappreciably avoid making this a key theme of the sermon, with all the atoning issues it raises in the lite of modern scientific understanding and too in relation to the nature of the incarnation (how human is a homo without a man father?). But Luke shows no embarrassment on either forepart, and a sermon that is to practise justice to Luke's concerns will focus primarily on the positive contribution the virgin conception makes to his presentation of the uniqueness of Jesus. The pericope includes a succession of titles or descriptions of Jesus that encapsulate this emphasis: the name Jesus, 'Son of the Well-nigh High', 'the throne of David', 'of his kingdom there will be no end', 'holy', 'the Son of God'. The preacher on this pericope faces a christological embarras de richesses.
Merely it is also a story about Mary, and Christmas is the fourth dimension of year when i tin can most naturally focus on Mary herself without provoking controversy over the claims and counter-claims of Catholic and Protestant concerning her status in Christian worship and salvation. God's surprising choice of a young hamlet girl, and her response to both the honour and the peril of her calling, allow the preacher to explore her role as a model of faith and obedience in farthermost circumstances, a worthy recipient of the congratulation (makarismos) which will be pronounced concerning her (vv. 45,48).
The Magnificat (Luke 1:39-56).
The canticles of Luke's infancy chapters are unique and wonderful, both as poetry and as spiritual meditation. This has made it all as well easy to take them out of their context and turn them into complimentary-standing psalms, and they will be familiar as such especially to many whose background is in Catholic or Anglican worship. And of class they richly repay report and exposition on that basis. The Magnificat in particular is 1 of the near powerful expressions in Scripture of God's 'bias to the poor' and of the destructive principles of his kingdom in which the start are last and the last starting time.
But information technology tin can as well exist a liberating feel for a congregation who have long been familiar with the Magnificat as a sublime piece of liturgy to be reminded that Luke introduces it every bit the personal response of a village girl to the overwhelming grace of God in her own life and calling, to be made to read it through her eyes and to reflect on how its universal principles were to apply to her hereafter experience and to the mission of her promised son. The preacher may usefully explore the numerous echoes of the song of Hannah (1 Sam. ii:1-x) and of other One-time Testament poetic passages, as a mode of entering into the mind of Mary at the moment when God turned her life upside downward.[3]
The Nativity of Jesus (Luke 2:ane-7).
See the brief comments and suggestions in i.ii above; infinite allows no more.
Simeon and the Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2:22-35).
Here we have moved beyond Christmas, but remain within the infancy narratives. Those churches that preserve the aboriginal banquet of Candlemas on February two provide the preacher with a welcome opportunity to reflect on the Janus character of the feast, looking dorsum to Christmas in Simeon'due south hymn of praise for the coming of the long-awaited Messiah, but likewise looking forward to Good Fri in his warning to Mary of the heart-piercing sorrows to come up. Information technology is a bitter-sweetness festival, a stark reminder of the paradox which lies at the heart of the 'salvation' that Simeon hailed.
In the atmosphere of Old Testament piety which surrounds this episode, it is of import to note in the Nunc Dimittis the theme of 'lite for revelation to the Gentiles', an aspect of Old Testament expectation (Gen. 12:3; Isa. 49:6 etc) which was evidently not widely recognised in contemporary Judaism, but which is to become one of the cardinal features of Luke'due south evolution of his central theme of 'salvation' (every bit of course information technology was also in Matthew'southward story of the magi). Modern Christian congregations which are predominantly Gentile may need to be reminded of the importance of this aspect of our Jewish heritage.
Conclusion
In my experience people are often surprised and pleased to hear a Christmas sermon which does not simply range again over the familiar themes of family values, peace on earth and goodwill to men, or homelessness and intendance for refugees. There is much about these gospel narratives which is non as obvious as many people think, and which good expository preaching will bring to light. Someone remarked to me after a service just this week: 'Nosotros practice enjoy existence taught'–a sorry comment, peradventure, on the experience and expectation of routine preaching these days. It is the privilege of the Christmas preacher to be in a position to fulfil that desire for a wider and often less conditioned clientele than usual.
[1] K. Stendahl, 'Quis et Unde? An Analysis of Matthew i-2' in W. Eltester (ed.), Judentum, Urchristentum, Kirche (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1960) 94-105; repr. in Thousand.N. Stanton, The Estimation of Matthew (London: SPCK, 1995) 69-fourscore.
[2] M.D. Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974) 232: 'Matthew'due south Genealogy is a poem, and comment upon information technology should perhaps be besides.
Exceedingly odd is the ways by which God
Has provided our path to the heavenly shore–
Of the girls from whose line the true calorie-free was to smooth
There was one an adulteress, one was a whore:
There was Tamar who bore–what we all should deplore–
A fine pair of twins to her begetter-in-law,
And Rahab the harlot, her sins were as crimson,
Every bit red as the thread that she hung from the door;
Even so alone of her nation she came to salvation
And lived to be mother of Boaz of yore–
And he married Ruth, a Gentile uncouth,
In a manner quite counter to biblical lore:
And of her at that place did spring blessed David the King,
Who walked on his palace i evening and saw
The wife of Uriah, from whom he did sire
A baby that died–oh, and princes a score:
And a mother unmarried it was too that carried
God's son, and him laid in a manger of straw,
That the moral might wait at the heavenly gate
While the sinners and publicans go in earlier,
Who take not earned their place, but received information technology by grace,
And have constitute them a righteousness not of the law.'
[3] In that location is textual evidence for a tradition in some parts of the early on church that the Magnificat was the song non of Mary only of Elizabeth, and some modern scholars have defended that reading (see R.Due east. Brown, The Nascency of the Messiah [New York: Doubleday / London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1977] 334-336). The majority remain convinced that Luke attributed it to Mary.
For the complete chapter, and a wealth of other resources on preaching, y'all can club the book online or at all good Christian bookshops.
Follow me on Twitter @psephizo.Like my page on Facebook.
Much of my work is washed on a freelance ground. If you have valued this mail, would you considerdonating £one.xx a month to support the production of this blog?
If yous enjoyed this, practise share information technology on social media (Facebook or Twitter) using the buttons on the left. Follow me on Twitter @psephizo. Like my page on Facebook.
Much of my work is done on a freelance basis. If yous have valued this post, you lot can make a single or repeat donation through PayPal:
Comments policy: Skillful comments that engage with the content of the postal service, and share in respectful argue, can add real value. Seek beginning to empathise, then to be understood. Make the most charitable construal of the views of others and seek to learn from their perspectives. Don't view contend as a conflict to win; accost the argument rather than tackling the person.
Source: https://www.psephizo.com/preaching-2/preaching-the-infancy-narratives/
0 Response to "Preaching the infancy narratives"
Postar um comentário