Monday 30 June 2014

Bible Lecture 2 - With us on the way to Caesarea Philippi - reading the Prophets

Bible Lecture 2

With us on the way to Caesarea Philippi
reading the Prophets – Mark 8:27-9:1

On the Road from Emmaus to Jerusalem

When he was at the table with them he took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them.                    

Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight.

They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning with us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

There was nothing else for it.

That same hour, they got up and made the seven mile walk back to Jerusalem.

They made their way through the dark and forbidding streets to the upper room.  They found the eleven and their companions gathered together.

There was a buzz of excitement.  They were bursting to tell their story but the others got in first.

“The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!”

Cleopas and his travelling companion then started their story.  They told the others exactly what had happened on the road, and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

They were in full flow, talking about everything that had happened, going through the conversation in every last detail when it happened.

They hadn’t been expecting it

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them

Peace be with you.

They were startled.  More than that they were terrified.

They were convinced they were seeing a ghost.

There was something in Jesus’ voice that calmed them, made them focus …

“Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.

Touch me and see; for  a ghost does not have flesh  and bones as you see that I have.

When he had said this he showed them his side and his feet.  While in their joy there were disbelieving and still wondering he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”

They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate in their presence.

Then he said to them something very profound.

In a strange way it was familiar to the two who had journeyed on the road to Emmaus.   

These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”

Then he did exactly as he had done with the two on the road.

He opened their minds to understand the scriptures.





Luke is in no doubt at all.

This was the priority the risen Jesus had on this Resurrection day.

Jesus wanted to leave his closest disciples a way of reading the Bible, a strategy for reading the bible  – it was a way of reading the Bible that found its focus in him.

His concern was to open their minds so that they could understand the scriptures – see how they worked, see what was at the heart of them.

It’s the big question we as Christians need to ask ‘How do we read the Bible?’

Thinking back to our first Bible  Study we need to remember the questions Jesus asked of the expert in the Law

What is written in the Law?

What do you read there?

We need to remember the response Jesus accepted

Love God, Love your neighbour.

And we need to remember the Midrash Jesus gave on what is written in the law, the story we think of as the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and we must realise that we can put no limits on who our neighbour is!

Today I want to see what happens when you apply those two questions Jesus asked of the expert of the law to the next section of the Hebrew Scriptures.


What is written in the prophets?  What do you read there?

What is written in the prophets is what you find in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings and in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve

That’s what’s written in the Prophets – but Jesus is interested in enabling his friends and followers to understand the scriptures.

And so there’s a second question we might expect Jesus to ask …

What do you read there?



To help us I and to move from Luke’s Gospel to Mark’s Gospel and to a passage that comes right in the middle, at the centre of Mark’s Gospel.  Indeed it is a passage on which the whole of Mark’s gospel hinges.

As we take a look at Mark 8:27-33 we shall find that the Lord our God is with us wherever we go and when it comes to reading the Prophets he is especially with us on the way to Caesarea Philippi.

Pause and ask people to look at Mark 8:27-33  or bring to mind what they recall of that passage headed ‘Peter’s Declaration about Jesus’ and ask ‘What’s it about?’

Peter’s Declaration about Jesus

27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ 28And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ 29He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ 30And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

I am always in a rush to get to the punch line of a joke, to the end of a story.  I have been influenced by the heading of this passage and I rush to Peter’s acclamation of Jesus as Messiah.

Until fairly recently I always tended to skip over what the disciples report the crowds as saying.

I have read it in a tone of voice which suggests that Jesus implies that the people have got the wrong answer – of course he’s not John the Baptist!  Of course he’s not Elijah!  Of course he’s not one of the prophets!

But I have been thinking again about this conversation.

Let’s suppose Jesus is asking a very searching question.  He is wanting to check out whether he is getting the message across, whether people have really understood what he is about.

And so on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”

When they answered him John the Baptist I wonder now whether a smile began to creep over Jesus’ face.  Yes, they are beginning to get it, was his implied response.

Others were saying Elijah.  The smile was growing.  Yes, so they are getting the message, Jesus thought.

And still others, one of the prophets.

By now Jesus was excited.  Yes the people had got the message.

They were beginning to understand what he was doing, what he was saying.

Jesus is quite clear on the evening of resurrection day that everything written about him in the Law, the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.

But in what way did Jesus set about fulfilling the prophets?

How does Jesus fulfil the prophets?

It is very easy to slip into the way of thinking that scattered through prophets are predictions that come true in the story of Jesus.

I wonder whether something very different is going on, something very much more interesting.

One thing we know about Jesus is that from a very young age he knew his Bible.

At the age of 12 when taken up to Jerusalem by his parents he went missing.  When they found him, what did they find him doing?

They found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.   And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

1)  Jesus positions himself in the line of the prophets as a prophet

Might it be that by the time Jesus embarks on his mission and his ministry he deliberately models himself on what the prophets did.  In the synagogue in Nazareth he described himself as a prophet, ‘a prophet is not without honour except in his own land’.

When his cousin John the Baptist appears and starts his ministry he dresses like the archetypal prophet of old as if he is another Elijah, another Elisha, another prophet.   His message is a powerful indictment of the powers that be exactly in the mould of the prophets of old.

When Elijah died he took Elisha with him down into the Jordan and up from the Jordan and then he cast down his mantle for  Elisha to take up the mantle of Elijah, cross back through the Jordan and take up where Elijah had left off.

And when the time comes for Jesus to start his ministry he goes down into the Jordan is baptised by John and then comes up out of the Jordan into the wilderness … and only when John has been arrested does he begin his ministry.

It is as if Jesus is taking up the mantle passed on from Elijah to Elisha passed on down through that great line of prophets passed on to John the Baptist and now passed on to Jesus.

John’s message had been simple

Repent – not so much sorry as have a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of looking at the world for the kingdom of heaven has come near.  Matthew 3:2

And when John had been arrested, from that time Jesus began to proclaim Repent, not so much sorry as have a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of looking at the world for the kingdom of heaven has come near.  Matthew 4:12,17.

The words are identical.



What is it about the prophets that John takes up and Jesus does too?

Joshua to the end of 2 Kings sees the slow move of the people towards thinking of themselves as a kingdom.

The prophets are those who see that move as fraught with dangers.  They are the ones who challenge those who aspire to positions of power, who hold them to account.  They are the ones who speak truth to power.

When Abimelech attempts to forma a monarchy in Judges 9 Jotham tells a parable, a story about the trees of the forest who look for one tree to be King over them.  The olive, the fig tree, the vine all say their task is to produce olives, figs, grapes – they cannot be king.  It is only the bramble that is left … and the bramble is only too keen to seize power and become king with calamitous consequences.

When the people demand a king to be just like the nations, Samuel warns them in no uncertain terms that God alone must rule over them.

When David arranges the death of Uriah and takes Bathsheba to be his wife he thinks he has got away with murder until Nathan tells him a story about two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.  The rich man had very man flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had brought up.   When a traveller came to the rich man seeking hospitality, the rich man did not want to lose one of his fine creatures and so took the poor man’s one and only lamb to make a feast of it.

Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Micah, Isaiah – as the story of the kingdom unfolds it is a sorry tale whereby those in power are so often found lacking – and it is the prophets who speak truth to power, hold the king to account and challenge.

This is exactly what John the Baptist did as Luke records in his powerful preaching – it is when he calls Herod the Great’s son, Herod Antipas to account for his marital arrangements that he is arrested.

When he is executed Jesus withdraws to the mountain to be quiet in prayer.

Jesus’ preaching in the sermon on the mount, in so much that he does holds the powers that be to account.  When that same Herod Antipas hears what Jesus is doing and what he is saying he is taken aback – he thought he had silenced John the Baptist, now Jesus is saying much the same thing.  Pharisees came to Jesus warning him that Herod wanted to kill him.



In replying Jesus speaks of himself as a prophet and speaks to Herod in the voice of a prophet holding truth to power

Go and tell that fox for me.  Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow and on the third day I finish my work.  Yet today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.

In the Herodian City of Caesarea Phiilipp Jesus checks to see if the people have got it.

 It is not without significance that it is when Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesara Philippi and when he is on the way that he asked his disciples,  Who do people say that I am?

It’s easy to miss the point.  But location is important here, very important.

This is one of hose points in the Gospel story when geography matters.

Here it matters a lot.

Where is Caesarea Philippi?   What is Caesarea Philippi.  It is significant for Mark – he wants us to know exactly where Jesus is at this point.

Caesarea Philippi is a brand new town.

It is one of those great towns that were built first by Herod the Great and then by his sons as his Jewish kingdom was divided among them.

Herod the Great was a tyrant, ruling his people with a rod of iron.  His building works were monumental and designed to establish his power over the people.

His summer palace overlooking Bethlehem was to be his mausoleum and it was incredibly powerful statement.  He carved off the top of a mountain shored up its sides and sank into the top a palace that would be cool in the heat of the summer.  At the foot of the mountain a palatial villa complete with a large scale pool big enough to have mock battles with small –scale war ships.  And on the side of the hill his mausoleum

On the coast he built the city of Caesarea – named after ht emperor.  It had a full sized chariot racing stadium, a theatre, it was the seat of government for the roman occupation of Judea and Samariaand in the theatre they have discovered a seat with Pontius Pilate’s name on it.   The harbour used under water setting cement and as ships arrived trading across the Mediterranean world they were greeted with the sight of a temple Herod the  Great had built to Augustus the emperor as  Son of God.

The part of his kingdom to the west of the Sea of Galilee was handed over to Herod Antipas.  And what should he do but set about rebuilding the city of Sepphoris near Nazareth up in the hills, and by the shores of the  Sea of Galilee  a great new Roman city, tourist resort complete with shopping mall and theatre, the city of  Tiberias.

And Philip another son, had the area to the north and east of Galillee – and he too built a city nestling uneder the hills and he called it Caesarea after the emperor and I nall humility to differentiate it from his father’s city on the coast he called it Philips’ Caesarea, Caesarea Philippi.  Ooh and he built a temple to the Emperor as  Son of God.

It had been a stroke of genius of Augustus, the first Roman emperor to decree that his Dad, Julius Caesar was a god.  If his dad was god, what did that make him, Son of God?

And you owe complete allegiance to the Emperor as Son of God.

What is Jesus message?

Repent – not just say sorry, not just turn around and make a new start.  Have a whole new way of thinking a whole new meta narrative to understand the world – metanoio – repent.   For the Kingdom of heaven has come near.

He makes his base in Capernaum facing off Tiberias – he offers an alternative way of being kingdom to the Roman way of empire – it is based on love for God, love for neighbour, love for enemy too

Jesus is himself a prophetic voice speaking truth to power … and it is no wonder that the is arrested and executed by Herod in collaboration with Pontius Pilate.

Read through the prophets to see the way they bring people back to God and the way they speak out against the powers that be – and this is the line that Jesus is in.

But he is more than a prophet. 

He turns to the disciples and asks, “Who do you say that I am?”

And Peter is the one who responds.

You are the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one, the one anointed of God to be king in the kingdom of God.

2) Jesus shapes the way he is to be Messiah by drawing on those passages that show what it takes to rule in God’s Way in God’s Kingdom

Jesus accepts this description and goes on to describe how the Messiah must suffer, be killed and after three days rise again.

Peter doesn’t however read the prophets in that way at all.

And so he intervenes.

As far as Peter is concerned the Messiah will be one to overturn the might of Rome and use might to do it – Jesus will be another Joshua, as it were, coming in power and might … and so Peter takes Jesus on one side and rebukes him.

He wouldn’t let such a thing happen.

This elicits a really strong response from Jesus

Looking at the disciples he rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.


In one sense Jesus fulfilled the prophets simply by living, working, preaching, telling stories, doing miracles and taking a stand against the powers that be in exactly the way the prophets had done.

In another way he has an understanding of the Prophets that draws him to particular passages that show what it takes to rule in God’s way in God’s Kingdom.  These were the passages the prophets of old used to hold their kings to account.  These are the passages that Jesus draws on as he shapes the way he envisages God’s rule to happen.

So what does it take to rule in God’s way in God’s kingdom?



What does it take – in the first sermon in Nazareth that he preaches he shapes the kind of Messiah he is to be from Isaiah 61

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

Initially all spoke well of him and were amazed at the words of grace that came from his mouth.

But in Jesus’ mind it wasn’t just ‘our poor’ that needed good news preached to them – it was all poor – it was when Jesus recalled an incident in the life of Elijah when he was sent to the widow at Zarephath in Sidon, a Gentile, and an incident in the life of Elisha when he was sent to cleanse Naaman the Syrian that the crowds turn against Jesus.

Other passages have gown to be linked with Jesus, the Messiah.

Isaiah 7 – that in Jesus God is with us – Immanuel.

Isaiah 9 –

authority rests upon his shoulders;
   and he is named
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
   Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
   He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
   from this time onwards and for evermore.

Isaiah 11

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
   the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
   the spirit of counsel and might,
   the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
   or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
   and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
   and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

Isaiah 32

See, a king will reign in righteousness
And princes will rule with justice

He will be a suffering servant in the mould of Isaiah 53.

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
   nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by others;
   a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
   he was despised, and we held him of no account. 


These passages are the ones that find their focus in Jesus because these are the passages that determine what it takes to rule in God’s way in God’s kingdom..

What’s written in the prophets runs from Joshua chapter 1 verse 1 through to II Kings chapter 25 verse 30.

What you read there finds its focus on the way the prophets hold the powers that be to account and show what it takes to rule in God’s way in God’s kingdom – and what it takes amounts to nothing less than righteousness and justice, good news to the poor, release to the captive.

Read the prophets in this way and something happens.

Seven weeks after that first Resurrection day, Peter it was who on the Day of Pentecost was the first to draw on the kind of passages from the prophets that Jesus had opened up as he could see that that prophetic role was now to be passed on to us

In the words of the prophet Joel

God declares
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh,
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
And your young men shall see visions
And your old men shall dream dreams
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
In those days I will pour out my Spirit
And they will prophesy.

Read the Prophets in this way, through the eyes of Jesus and it becomes and we too must take up the mantle of the prophets from Jesus and have a prophetic voice.   We are called to speak truth to power, holding the powers that be to account.



And we can measure what those in power do by the very measure Jesus used as we recognise that what it takes to rule in God’s way under God’s kingdom is that kind of justice, that kind of righteousness that is indeed good news for the poor.



As you seek to fulfil that prophetic voice and shape be sure to know that the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.




Wherever you go on a wilderness trail to Iowa

While our friends had business sessions this morning we took the opportunity to do some more exploring!

We re-visited the installations on the theme of respect at the other side of the hotel car park.   Always Forgive - never forget worked in a geometric pattern on a steel fence was pretty impressive once again ... and very thought provoking.



We then made our way to Capitol Street and the Spirit of Nebraska's Wilderness Park.  It marked the start of a trail of wonderful larger than life bronze sculptures telling the story of the pioneers making their way through to the mid-west as they played such an important part in founding the nation.



The trail took us over the road with a view in the distance of the old Capitol building.  And then we followed the trail of bison around a corner as they seemed to jump through the corner of a building.



Then the bison took us to a flock of geese rising from water and soaring into the heights over a road - we followed one and then another as they then curved back on themselves and the leading bird had flown into the glass porch of an enormous office block.





We had followed the trail of the pioneers to the offices of the sponsors.  There was a certain irony here.  This historic trail had taken us into the glass fronted ground floor of an enormous office block that was headquarters for the First national Bank.



But the bird was now trapped, as if caged in.



It made me think of Maya Angelou and her autobiography, I know why the caged bird sings.  I googled the book and tracked down the poem 'the Caged Bird'.

I thought in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008  it is an awful irony that the pioneer trail in this sculpture park, wonderful as it is, leads all the way to a bird caged in by of all things a bank.

Read the poem at the end of that trail and it takes on a whole new meaning!

Caged Bird

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.” 

― Maya AngelouI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

We made it for a coffee in the Urban Abbey, had one more look at the books in the Soul Desires bookshop and then got back just in time for lunch.

After lunch we had presentations from two colleges associated with our Congregational Churches, Piedmont College and Olivet College.

Then it was time for my second Bible Lecture - the next of my blogs!

That was followed by my third workshop - this time asking the question why there should be no temple in the new Jerusalem.  I shared the message of the Kairos Palestine Document.  A message of Faith, Hope and Love from the heart of Palestinian Suffering.

We got in to conversation with folk from our New York churches and did some planning for our stay in New York with ideas to visit the Plymouth church in Brooklyn, home to the anti-slavery movement and the Riverside Church, home to the civil rights movement.

We then joined the whole conference in an evening meal on the banks of the Missouri.  It was a lovely evening in the sun, with clear skies.  The meal over, we went for a walk over the foot bridge and into Iowa.  A beautiful sunset with marvellous views across the river of Omaha.





The evening over another day has come to an end.


Sunday 29 June 2014

With us on the Road to Jericho - reading the Law - Luke 10:25-37

Bible Lecture 1

With us on the way to Jericho – reading the Law – Luke 10:25-37

On the Road to Emmaus

When things go wrong it’s good to talk.

And they needed to talk.

They knew all the theory.

The Lord your God is with you, wherever you go.

But sometimes the theory isn’t enough.

And this was one of those times.

They talked as they walked.  But it didn’t make them feel a lot better.  So much had happened and they simply couldn’t make sense of any of it.

While they were talking and discussing trying to make sense of it all someone joined them.  They should have seen who it was.  But they didn’t.  Their eyes were kept from recognising him.

What’s this you are talking about, what’s the discussion all about?

They stopped in their tracks.

Sadness was written all over their faces

Are you the only stranger who does not know all that’s happened in the last few days?

They couldn’t believe it.    Surely everyone knew what had happened.

What things?  He asked.

And then they began their tale.

And what a story it was!

They had been convinced this Jesus of Nazareth really was another Joshua – Jesus Joshua – same name after all just a different way of spelling it.

He was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.

They couldn’t believe it when the chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.

That’s not what they had expected.

They had been convinced.  He would do what Joshua had done.  He would lead his people to victory over the oppressive regime of the Romans.

Oh how we had hoped! they said, we had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel, to set Israel free.

It had been three days since that execution – and they still couldn’t believe what had happened.  That morning some women claimed the tomb was empty – they said they had seen a vision of angels, they said he was still alive.

Their problem was this.

Conquering heroes don’t go to their death on a cross.



Their hopes were dashed.

The stranger had been listening intently as they walked along.

But he seemed to be getting more and more irritated with what they had to say.

When he spoke he was pretty worked up

Oh how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared.

Haven’t you got it yet!

Haven’t you realised that this is what it takes to be God’s anointed one.  Haven’t you got it yet?  Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? 

And then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus, for none other than Jesus it was, interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.


Their seven mile walk nearly over they came near to the village – it looked very much as if he was going to move on as he walked ahead of them.  But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it Is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.

So he went in to stay with them.

While he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.

Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him, and he vanished from their sight.



They said to each other,     “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”





75 Years of Preaching on the Road to Emmaus

It’s wonderful to  be with you and to share in this special conference with such a wonderful theme.  “The Lord your God is with you wherever you go!”
Felicity and I have known the National Association for forty years and more – my father, Reg Cleaves, was one of the founders of the Congregational Federation in the UK,; he worked closely with the likes of Harry Butman, Henry David Gray, Mr Alexander and many others.  I was at Chiselhurst for the foundation of the International Congregational Fellowship and my wife, Felicity, came to Chicago to plan one of the early meetings.  It’s great to join you now.

That story of the two on the Road to  Emmaus has been an important part of my ministry.  Every Easter Sunday evening (I think) my father preached on the story of the Road to Emmaus – I have taken up the tradition into my ministry and do the same.  That means next year, in the year my father would have reached his 100th birthday had he not died a long time ago we will mark the 75th anniversary of that sequence of sermons.

In the face of the rise of fundamentalisms in all the major faiths a key question for us as Christians is How do we read the Bible?  And in particular, how do we read the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures?

I believe it is a key passage that is of fundamental importance to us all in the 21st Century especially, it is a key passage in this conference as the keynote is such a wonderful verse taken fro the book of Joshua.

The Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

I say that because  in this 21st Century there has been a resurgence of fundamentalisms across the world’s religions.  It is as if in the uncertainties of this new century people have yearned for new certainties, new absolutes and they have found them in a very narrow, literal way of reading their sacred texts.



That becomes dangerous for us as Christians in some parts of the Bible particularly.  Nowhere is it more dangerous than in the Books of Joshua and Judges and in some of those historical books of the Bible.

How often we have told the story of the Walls of Jericho – children walking round seven times blowing all sorts of home-made trumpets.  But as an adult when I return to the text I see what is written there and as a follower of Jesus I find it profoundly disturbing to see what is written there in Joshua 6 verse 21 “Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep and donkeys.”



What is written in some parts of the Bible has been used over the centuries and is still used in the 21st Century to justify the mass slaughter of whole populations. 



To draw on such a wonderful quotation as this from the Book of Joshua, The Lord your God is with you wherever you go, forces us to reflect on how we as Christians read the Bible, and in particular how we read the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures.

On the day of Resurrection Jesus opens up the Scriptures

Over the years as I have read and studied the Bible, the Gospels, following the new question for the Jesus of history, I have come to the conclusion that this was the key question Jesus was addressing that evening of the first Resurrection day on the Road to Emmaus with those two friends who did not at first recognise him.

They knew their Scriptures.  They knew the Law, the Prophets and the Writings that make up for us our Old Testament.

And they read it in a particular way.

They were looking for a prophet who would be mighty in deed and in word.  And they had found him in Jesus.

They were looking for a Messiah who would be a conquering hero in the mould of Joshua and they had found him in his name-sake Jesus.

It was NOT POSSIBLE for such a one to be put to death.

And so it was their hopes were dashed.

You’ve got it wrong.

Said Jesus.

What was it they had got wrong?

They had got wrong their reading of the Scripture. 

In the couple of hours it took to get to Emmaus Jesus gave them a strategy for reading the Bible.

Beginning with Moses – the first five books of our Old Testament, and all the prophets he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have eaves dropped on their conversation?

If we were able to do that I get the feeling that our hearts would burn within us we listened to the way he opened the Scriptures to us as well.

I have a hunch that we can.  And that it seems to me is very exciting.

I have a feeling that these two and the other disciples as well, as we shall see in a later study, took what Jesus had to say to heart.  And these conversations helped shape the way they read the Scriptures.

The inspiration behind the connection made between the Hebrew Scriptures and the story of Jesus in Acts and then in the letters is not so much down to the inspiration of the writers of Scripture, significant though that was, but it is down to the genius of Jesus himself and his approach to Scripture.

Indeed, I think if we pay attention closely to the Gospels there are points at which the Gospel story gives us pointers to the kind of strategy Jesus used in reading the Scriptures.  And it is one that we can take on board as we seek to read the Scriptures through the eyes of Jesus.

So today I want us to discover that that God is with us wherever we go and especially with us on the Way to Jericho helping us in reading the Law, the first five books of the Bible, and giving us a strategy to help us read the Old Testament as a whole.

It was the first sermon I preached … Felicity and I grew up together in the church in Leicester where my father was minister.  We belonged to a youth group and each year we took a service and one of us preached.  For that first sermon I preached I took as my text a passage that remains a favourite of mine and is a favourite of so many.

Luke 10:25-37 – headed in the NRSV The Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Pause and ask people to look at Luke 10:25-37 or bring to mind what they recall of that passage headed ‘the Parable of the Good Samaritan’ and ask ‘What’s it about?’

It’s a wonderful story that works in all sorts of ways and can be put into modern dress in the most powerful of ways.  It speaks to us all.

Asking Questions

Five years ago I visited the Holy Land for the first time – it was to share in a conference on Reconciliation.  We met in Bethlehem, but on the Israel side of the separation barrier, the wall that separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

We had Christian, Jewish and Muslim speakers giving us different perspectives on the situation in the Middle East.  And wonderful guides and lecturers who took us to sites that figured in the Bible Story.

We visited Capernaum and spotted the house that has Christian graffiti going back to the first century – the house that is said to have belonged to Simon Peter’s family and become the bases for Jesus’s ministry.  It was convincing. 



In Capernaum there is a synagogue built a couple of hundred years later.  But the lecturer who was with us pointed out a stone that had a picture of the synagogue – it had clearly fallen from the synagogue building itself.  But look carefully and the synagogue is on wheels.  In the Old Testament the thing that is on wheels was of course the Ark of the Covenant that was brought into Jerusalem – it was as if the picture was saying God’s presence is felt not just in the Temple in Jerusalem but in the Synagogue – where people gather together for fellowship, for prayer, to break bread, and to read the Scriptures.



He suggested that it is the nature of the Jewish approach to the  Scripture that you ask questions of it.   That’s the Jewish way of teaching.  It’s what goes on in rabbinic schools.   The text will be put in front of two students and they will ask questions of each other about its meaning. 

It has been the tendency in Protestant circles to seek a definitive meaning in Scripture.   This is quite different from the Jewish approach – for the Jewish approach asks questions of  Scripture. And it is in the questioning that the truths of Scripture emerge.

[Walter Breugemann quote - “I suggest that a  Christian reading of the Old Testament requires a recovery of the Jewishness of our ways of reading the text.  Whereas a recurring Christian propensity is to give closure to our readings and interpretations, it is recurringly Jewish to recognise that our readings are always provisional, because there is always another text, always another commentary, always another rabbinic midrash, that moves byeond any particular reading.”  Walter Brueggemann,  An Unsettling God – the Heart of the Hebrew Bible (Fortress Press, 2009),


Let’s look again at this passage.

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.

An expert in reading the Law, the first five books of the Bible - it is easy to assume he is out to trap Jesus. Might it not be that he is simply testing Jesus out.  He asks questions of Jesus because that is what you do with a teacher.

‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

Note the respectful way of addressing Jesus as Teacher.  And note the question – it is not – ‘what  must I do to get to heaven?’

It’s a much more interesting question that has to do with the here and now as much as with the hereafter.  After all you inherit something from people who have gone before you, from those who have already died.

What must I do to inherit from those who have gone before me that life that is to be lived to the full here and now and is not bounded by death but is to eternity?

Two key questions

26He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’

This is so typical of Jesus.

It is also typical of the Jewish way of reading the Scriptures.

The teacher of the Law knows you get to the heart of the matter by asking questions.

Jesus responds to the questions by asking more questions in turn.

There is a tendency, not least among protestant Christians to look for a definitive meaning of Scripture, to tie down its meaning.

The Jewish way of reading Scripture is to ask questions of Scripture.

Note carefully the two questions Jesus asks.

What is written in the law – is from Genesis 1;1 to Deuteronomy 34:12

Those are all the words that are written there.  And there were those among the Jewish people who were focused on all the words.

But then Jesus asks a second question

what do you read there?

What is the nub of the matter?  What is the heart of the matter?

Some Jewish people might have responded by talking of purity of race, keeping ritually clean, doing the right thing to the last detail

But this teacher of the Law makes a very Jewish response and goes to the nub of the matter.  This is a classic Jewish understanding

27He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ 28And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

Jesus is with this particular teacher of the Law – this is the way to sum the law up – that’s what you read there.

Love for God and love for neighbour.

He does not say do this and then you will get to heaven.

Do this and you will live, you will have life to the full – that life that is not bounded by death but is to eternity.

But the questioning is not over.


29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’

Then Jesus does something else that is profoundly Jewish – he tells a story in order to explain the meaning of the biblical text that’s being discussed – the Law.   He offers a midrash on the text.

A midrash on ‘the Law’ – a story to tell

But the story Jesus tells is for some ways of Jewish thinking deeply shocking and disturbing.

It is particularly disturbing for the strands of Jewishness that want to adhere to every word of the Books of the Law and shape their whole lives by them.  It is deeply shocking to those who adhere to the letter. 

30Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,

And it really is downhill – less than 20 miles dropping from 2,800 feet above sea level to 1500 feet below sea level!

and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that road;

We can modernise the story – punk rockers back in the 80’s  I seem to remember.  But doing that misses the profound point here.  And side tracks us … unless we are very careful.

The priest is part of the Temple infrastructure which in many ways Jesus finds offensive – focus on the temple as the place of God’s presence and the detail of ritual, ritual cleanliness becomes all important.

And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

A Levite – is also tied up with the Temple, with the Jewish hierarchy that is in Jesus day caught up with the Herodian dynasty and all its compromises with the Roman occupying power.  Maybe they too have a particular way of reading the Bible that places the emphasis on ritual cleanliness.

3But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

It is so easy for us to read the story as if Jews and Samaritans were bitter enemies.  That in a sense is to miss the point.  There are still a handful of Samaritans left in the Palestinian town of Nablus.  Some suggest the Samaritans were the descendants of those who had returned from the exile in Assyria that had happened to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, often known as Samaria.  The Samaritans had then own version of the Law, the Torah, which they honoured and which for them made up the entirety of their Scriptures.  At their return and ever since they had been rejected by the people of Judea and the Southern Kingdom who experienced a later exile to Babylon from which they had returned to Jerusalem.

It is not so much the enmity between Jews and Samaritans that is at issue here, as the thought that the Samaritan with a different version of the text could arrive at the correct reading of the Law, while the Priest and the Levite part of the Judean hierarchy sustaining the Jerusalem temple could not get it.

34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

The story over, there is one more question to ask.

36Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’

That’s tantamount to asking which of these three had read the Law in the right way?

37He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

Powerful stuff in all sorts of settings.

Despised Samaritan?

Try seeing it as a glimpse of this strategy for reading the bible that is so important to Jesus and what happens?

While it is important to ask what is written in the Law?  The all important question to ask is ‘what do you read there?

Testing the theory out

Now we can test this theory out.

The books of the law are very explicit about not touching someone suffering from leprosy – and Jesus touches them

About a woman who whether at menstruation or through haemorrhaging is not to be touched – and Jesus is touched by the woman with the issue of blood and goes so far as to call her Daughter.

And the women caught in adultery.  The letter of the  law says she is to be stoned to death.   And Jesus gives her the opportunity for a new start.

Mathew 5 – you have heard it said .. .but I say to you

I think we have in this passage a strong indication of the strategy Jesus invites us to adopt in reading the books of the Law.

Be very wary when someone builds a whole edifice of Christian doctrine or of Christian practice on isolated verses from the Books of the Law.

A strategy for reading the Bible

To read the Bible in the 21st Century we need to read it through the eyes of Jesus with a questioning mind that is alert to the ever present possibility that the Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from his word.

How do we read the Old Testament?

Remember the questions Jesus asked of the expert in the Law.

What is written in the Law?
What do you read there?

Remember the response Jesus accepted

Love God

Love your neighbour

Remember the story Jesus told and don’t limit who your neighbour is



It is when we seek the presence of Jesus and as it were allow him to open the scriptures to us that we shall find the Scriptures speak to us the Word of God for this time and for the future that lies ahead of us.  And we shall also discover as did those two on the Road to Emmaus that we are not alone in grappling with the problems of the world for in Jesus we may be sure the Lord our God is with us wherever we go.