This Week's Lectionary

I've got some meaty choices this Sunday, and I want to choose early in the week, rather than later. I'm attending an all-day conference on Youth Ministry at Houghton College on Thursday, and would like to have the reading locked down before that. The big choice is between the Gospel and Epistle readings.

The Gospel reading is Matthew 4:12-23, which tells the story of the calling of the first disciples. The Epistle reading is First Corinthians 1:10-18, an exhortation to unity among the believers in Corinth. Both are great stories.

The Isaiah reading (Isaiah 9:1-4) brings a bit of confusion, especially when paired with the Matthew reading. The versification is unclear here. In most modern Bibles, Isaiah 9:1 doesn't seem to flow into 9:2. The text seems to change gears between the verses. In fact, the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint both number 9:1 as 8:23, tacking it on to the preceding chapter. This makes better sense as I read it, though it's still not crystal clear. How the modern Bibles got the verses changed can probably be traced (as so many things can) to the Latin Vulgate Bible. Saint Jerome labels the Hebrew Isaiah 8:23 as 9:1, and most modern (post-Vulgate) Bibles cleave to the versification of the Vulgate. Why Jerome deviates from the Hebrew and Septuagint numbering is beyond me.

Anyhoo, this is more than just an interesting [to me, at least] detour in textual criticism. The Matthew passage (Matthew 4:12-23) cites the Isaiah text. Matthew's citations (where they can be identified) are universally from the Septuagint. In this case, he connects verses 8:23 (the modern 9:1) and 9:1 (the modern 9:2). Modern readers with modern verse numbers will find these two verses connected (9:1-2) in their Bibles and not blink an eye. The author of the first gospel, however, would have to explicitly make the connection between verses in two hard-to-connect chapters (8:23 and 9:1).

I'm generally underwhelmed by the author of Matthew's use of Scripture, and this citation is a perfect example. While I admire his excellent use of Typological Prophecy in some of his citations, he often seems to be straining to connect the story of Jesus with the stories of the Hebrew Bible. Many of these connections don't seem to make sense at first (or second) glance. The connection cited in Matthew 4 between the lands of Zebulun & Naphtali and the coming of the great light in the darkness is forced, at best. The only connection in the base reading of the text seems to be the fact that the verses are adjacent. Hardly a deep, theological connection.

Because of this textual confusion and the less-then-clear connection between the verses cited, I'm leaning towards the First Corinthians passage. I'm not afraid to tackle tough textual issues, I just wonder if the best place to do it is a ten-minute sermon. I suspect it would leave people uninspired, not to mentioned confused and perhaps annoyed.

The Psalm for this week is great (Psalm 27), but the lectionary does it's standard hatchet job on it. They suggest reading verses 1 and 4-9. I hate it when they do this. What did poor verses 2 and 3 do? They mention evildoers and enemies, strife and calamity. Without those two verses, we get a watered-down Happy Sunshine poem of praise! It's the curse of the Easy Answer all over again (I need to write an essay on the Easy Answer and the huge problems it causes). Ah well... Maybe I need to preach on the Easy Answer this week? Hmmmm...