One will be taken; one, left – 27 November 2016 – First Sunday of Advent

The religious imagination chews on images that sometimes clash and sometimes feed depth to each other. Such is the beginning of Advent, a time when we consider ultimacy.

In these weeks, if we prepare for the coming of the Holy One, we anticipate our ultimate salvation. If we ponder in these weeks our own finality and that of Earth itself, we practice living with the knowledge of oblivion and, in so doing, we hold what exists in the present of infinite value. Whichever path we emphasize in Advent, our comprehension of Jesus’ presence will be strengthen and altered by immersion in a story that is at once ancient and new.

Matthew 24:36-44

Jesus indicates that the time before the temple is destroyed will seem quite normal. People will be engaged in the activities of ordinary life—eating, drinking and marrying. But all of that normalcy will be swept away just like it was in the story of Noah's flood.

The image of “one taken and one left” is employed as a core element of the premillennial dispensationalist idea of the Rapture. It seems more likely that, following the image of the flood, to be “taken” is to be taken away in judgment or death, while being “left” is to remain alive.

Jesus reiterates his warning that no one knows when this flood of judgment will happen. Jesus' followers will not be surprised when the temple is swept away, together with the political and religious system built upon it. Instead, they will recognize it as God's vindication of Jesus.

This Advent text assists the Christian assembly to make spiritual preparation to greet the Lord. It is not difficult for us to be deceived by the apparent normalcy of daily life and fail to recognize that the risen Christ is ready to meet us at this hour and every hour, whether in prayer, service to the neighbor in need, worship or Bible reading. Advent summons us to be alert during all of ordinary life, recognizing that the living Lord is ever ready to break into our lives with saving power. – Aaron J. Couch

Isaiah 2:1-5

As the Christian assembly welcomes the season of Advent, it receives a word of promise that rings with hope for the coming of God and the triumph of peace. . . In the religious imagination of the ancient world, mountains were the “thin places” where one might encounter the divine. This passage announces that the Temple Mount will be recognized as the reality to which the Mesopotamian ziggurats aspired; the reality of which the Greek's stories of Mount Olympus were shadowy intuitions—the home of the living God on earth. . .

The exaltation of Zion points to the preeminence of Israel's God. The whole human family will discover the goodness of the Lord and will seek God's instruction (Torah). The result will be the end of warfare and lasting peace. People will realize they no longer need weapons that produce death, so they will transform them into farming tools for sustaining life. – Aaron J. Couch

Romans 13:11-14

Paul directs his readers' attention to the future and to the salvation that God will accomplish, because that future is what gives meaning and direction for believers in the present time. . . Paul employs the image of putting on the armor of light, which suggests that there is a struggle involved in embracing God's future fully in the present. He also uses the image of putting on Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:27) as a metaphor for baptism. The two “putting on” images may be considered roughly equivalent. The promises and character of Christ may serve as a strong defense against the enticement of a life lived only for personal gratification, which sadly will lead only into darkness. – Aaron J. Couch

Aaron Couch is a co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

Homily Service 41, no. 1 (2007): 5-14.

Word of Light – 4 January 2015 – Second Sunday of Christmas

Words have tremendous power, for good or for harm. I’ve seen a child on the playground reduced to a sobbing puddle of tears by the taunts and teasing of classmates, volunteers energized by inspiring words from a leader. Words have the power to create reality, which I suppose is why scripture pictures the whole of creation as the work of God’s word.

            – Aaron J. Couch

In Pastor Couch’s words from a 2010 Homily Service essay, I hear the whispers of a question that has haunted me: What is the origin of the imagery of Jesus as the Word? Is it God-inspired brilliant truth or hubris on the part of humans who like to write and had visions? Who chose the image? Word, logos, light, grace, glory––all filled with expanses of mystery.

Connecting Jesus with spoken language that creates universes is almost too gigantic to entertain. Surely this is one reason we can count on it being true.

John 1:[1-9] 10-18

In The Message, Eugene Peterson’s translation of the Bible, John 1:10 reads like this: ‘‘He was in the world, and the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice.’’

And yet the world didn’t even notice. It’s an odd note to sound in the wake of a month-long celebration of the birth of Christ, but the reality is the world has noticed Christmas, while there is serious doubt as to whether it has noticed Christ.

Of course, that’s what the church’s witness has been about, ever since the day John the Baptist . . . pointed to Jesus as the Christ . . . Not many people got it then, and not many people get it now.

. . . [B]ecause it is so difficult to get people to see Jesus as the Christ of the scriptures, we in the church are tempted to make it easier for them by presenting a more visible and palatable savior. This is not a fault simply of liberals or conservatives, liturgicals or evangelicals, mainliners or megachurches; we are all guilty. We all try to present Christ in a way that is attractive to our niche of the culture. Though somewhat necessary, we must be careful not to bend Jesus out of shape, not to turn the Gospel into something it isn’t. This text is a reminder to us of the unlikeliness of the story of Jesus and of our call to tell it as it is, trusting God to use our telling to open eyes and change lives.

            – Delmer L. Chilton

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Telling the story “as it is” can take many forms. For the prophet Jeremiah the story is about God’s promise in the future to gather the people who have been estranged from one another in exile. When this gathering comes, the people “shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again.”

Ephesians 1:3-14

Likewise, the epistle to the church identifies us, along with the church of Ephesus, as people who are alone and estranged and in need of adoption. We will be gathered up, God’s word says, along with “all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

In these readings a spectacular consistency abounds: The word of God brings to all creation the joy of living according to a purpose that is beyond ourselves, beyond our ability to solve all ambiguities.

God is word and creator, savior and companion in the flesh.

Often, the word comes to us in words—the words of scripture that tell about Jesus’ teaching, and his command that we love each other. They picture for us his example of forgiveness and compassion, the stories of his ministry, healing the sick and feeding the hungry, how he suffered and died, and how God raised him to life on the third day. And the word still comes to us in the lives of believers who have an impact on us.

. . . Bill was a sponsor for the youth group; Ray, a professor who gave of himself, whether to usher or to paint the Sunday School rooms; Cole, the track coach at a rival high school, always had time to be interested in what I was doing. These adults, and others, gave me a glimpse of what a life of integrity looks like, what a Christ-like life looks like. Through them, the light of God’s love shone. It wasn’t that they were perfect people, . . . [b]ut their lives gave voice to God’s word, in the flesh.

            – Aaron J. Couch

Aaron J. Couch is co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

Delmer L. Chilton is assistant to the bishop of the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA in Atlanta, Georgia.

Homily Service 43, no. 1 (2010): 74-81.

What is Christ’s Value to Us? – 5 October 2014 – Lectionary 27

Some pairings of Gospel and Old Testament texts are so tightly linked in imagery that the preacher’s task becomes one more of presentation than theme. That is the case this Sunday, as Aaron Couch describes their connections.

Matthew 21:33-46 and Isaiah 5:1-7

Imagery for the parable may have been drawn from Isaiah’s “love song” concerning his beloved’s vineyard. Just as Isaiah announced God’s judgment on the leaders of Jerusalem in the eighth century B.C., so Jesus indicts the temple authorities of his time. That the tenants in the parable certainly do not love the owner, but are only concerned with their own gain, suggests that Jesus believes that the temple authorities are devoted to their own power and privilege rather than to God.

The parable becomes a telling of salvation history, with the landowner’s slaves representing the prophets sent by God. The story reaches its critical turning point with the arrival of the son, who represents Jesus himself. While it is unlikely that there were any circumstances under which actual tenants could have taken an inheritance by killing the rightful heir, historical plausibility is not the parable’s purpose. Instead, the story functions to condemn the Jewish leadership for rejecting Jesus as Messiah. Matthew’s editorial concerns are visible in verse 39 (compare Mark 12:8), so that the parable conforms more closely to the events of Jesus’ death.

Jesus tells the story in such a way that the religious authorities pronounce judgment against themselves. The owner will take the vineyard away from them and give it to others. It is important to resist reading this parable in any manner that suggests the church will supersede and replace Israel as God’s covenant people. Certainly the church’s history of persecuting Jews calls for a different reading of the text. In addition, the parable itself is not concerned with the status of God’s covenant with the Jewish people. Jesus directs his words specifically against the temple authorities, not the Jewish people. Unlike Isaiah 5, judgment does not fall on the vineyard itself, but rather on the rebellious tenants. The powerful Jerusalem elites will lose the privilege of representing God’s rule. Against them Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22–23.

The “song of the vineyard” . . . effectively hides its true meaning until the end, when it is revealed that the vineyard represents the kingdom of Israel. In this way, the poem delivers the announcement of judgment with devastating power. Isaiah of Jerusalem denounced the betrayal of covenant loyalty on the part of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the eighth century B.C. The prophet’s consistent themes are summed up in parallel accusations in verse 7: no justice, no covenant fidelity (righteousness).

            – Aaron J. Couch is a pastor at First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

Thematic clarity still leaves a preacher with questions like those posed by Ron Anderson about the Epistle reading.

Philippians 3:4b-14

Philippians suggests that the vineyard might be worthless apart from knowing Christ Jesus as LORD. As Isaac Watts wrote, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” In what ways do we express our desire to know Christ today? . . . Is our relationship to Christ such that we would willingly suffer the loss of all things for the sake of that relationship?

—E. Byron Anderson is Styberg Professor of Worship at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.

Homily Service 38, no. 11 (2 Oct 2005): 3-14.