Worship Notes February 23

Worship Notes

The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

February 23, 2014

The Season

Today we are in the fourth of four consecutive Sundays in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Last Sunday we heard Jesus admonish us to be about the business of reconciliation before coming to the altar with our offerings. Today our Gospel reading picks up where we left off last week, and, if anything, Jesus ups the ante.

In Word

“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). A high calling, indeed! Holiness, in the Hebrew understanding, is not so much about purity as it is being set apart, not to be exclusive, but rather to be an example (we think of Jesus telling us two weeks ago in the Gospel: “You are the salt of the earth . . . you are the light of the world.”). Then follows a litany of laws, rendered in the negative (“You shall not . . .), that flesh out what this holiness—this being set apart—might look like. Here we have some of the 600-plus laws prescribed in the Old Testament. Our lection ends with the familiar, but not so easy, “. . . you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18b).

Given the context of Leviticus, it is fitting that today we have a segment of Psalm 119 for a second Sunday in a row. Our psalm, the longest in the psalter, an acrostic with eight verses for each of the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, celebrates God’s Torah—God’s teaching, God’s instruction—as God’s gift to us. Each of the 176 verses contains the word Torah or an appropriate synonym. Consider verse 40: “Behold, I long for your commandments; by your righteousness enliven me.” We are “enlivened” by God’s righteousness revealed in God’s Torah. Just as our holiness is from God (Leviticus 19:2), so, too, is our righteousness.

The Apostle Paul in our Second Lesson continues his assault on the divisions within the church in Corinth, divided by factions loyal to various leaders who had come and gone. Paul insists that all who preach Christ are contributing to the construction of the building—the Body—of which Christ is the foundation. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” The you is plural—we are collectively the temple of God. There is no room for division if we are collectively God’s temple.

In our Gospel, Jesus employs the formula, “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you . . .” to insist that all that has come before him is both interpreted and fulfilled in him. He also ups the ante: “Do not resist an evildoer . . . Give to everyone who begs from you . . . Love your enemies . . . Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” If our holiness comes from God (Leviticus) and our righteousness also from God (Psalm 119), then perhaps our perfection also comes from God.

In Song

Our Sending Song, “Goodness Is Stronger Than Evil,” is a pairing of lyrics from Desmond Tutu, who knows something about living our texts for today, and composer John Bell of the Iona Community, which embraces non-violence in its covenant of life together.