Eleventh Sunday after

Pentecost B

Eleventh Sunday after

Pentecost B
1. Is every word in the Bible Gods revelation? Are there statements in the Bible that reflect the
culture and mentality of Israelites back then and are not coming from God? How can we tell
the difference between revelation and cultural baggage?
Contrary to what fundamentalists believe, not everything in the Bible is the word of God. The Bible was
composed by human being who wrote about their experiences. Some of these experiences are stunning
intuitions about God and about Gods will, while others reflect the narrow, backward and often barbaric
culture of the Middle East, 25 centuries ago.
We must also remember that the Old Testament does not contain the full revelation of God. Jesus is the one
who completed Gods revelation. The full revelation about God and about how God wants us to relate to each
other is in the New Testament.
The Old Testament books contain key nuggets of revelation that, for the time, were truly revolutionary. For
instance: that the world was created by God (Genesis), that there is only one God, that God selected a people
from whom his son Jesus would eventually be born (Exodus), that God is good and moral and wants all human
beings to live morally (Exodus), that it is our duty to obey Gods laws and there are consequences if we
disobey them (Samuel).
These key revelations set the religion of Israel far ahead of other peoples religions, even though the Israelites
were not the most advanced civilization of their time. There are, however, misconceptions about God in the
Old Testament. For instance the idea that God is a punishing God and that he makes children pay for the sins
of their parents. The reading from the book of Samuel is an example of that.

2. We have been reading the story of king David. Last week we read about David and
Bathsheba. How David coveted a woman who was someone elses wife, and arranged for her
husband to be killed so he could marry her.
The prophet Nathan then told him that his children would pay for his sin: his family would be torn apart by
murder and sexual crimes. Todays reading tells us about the death of Davids son Absalom .
David was a polygamist, had several wives and many children from them. Ammon, his oldest son, raped
Tamar, one of his half sisters. Absalom, who was Tamars full brother, avenged his sister by killing Ammon,
and ran away. After a few years David pardoned Absalom and invited him back. Absalom eventually rebelled
against his father, tried to depose him and make himself king.

Eleventh Sunday after

Pentecost B

There was a civil war, and eventually, against Davids orders, Joab, his army chief solved the problem by
having Absalom killed.
The the writers of the Old Testament knew that some bad guys got away with murder. So the Israelites
became convinced that if a father committed a sin and got away with it, his children would pay for it.
Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are adamant about this idea, and present it as Gods will. God was
viewed as a king or stern judge who made people pay dearly for all their mistakes.
So the story of Davids children is presented as a proof of this belief: nobody gets away with anything, and
if you think you can get away, watch out: your family will pay for it. The reality is that bad things happen
in all families: accidents, diseases, deaths, but, if you are convinced that tragedies are Gods punishment,
then you will find the justification of this idea in every painful situation.
For the early books of the Bible God is always king and/or judge. Kings and judges of antiquity tended to
be rather nasty and despotic, so the message was if you mess with God, you will pay for it.

3. Please note that the idea that the crimes of the fathers will be visited upon their children did
not go unchallenged in the Old Testament.
The prophet Ezekiel took a firm stand against it: everyone pays for his own sins. Children are not held
responsible for the sins of their parents, nor are parents held responsible for the sins of their children
Yet the mystery remains: why are some criminals getting away with their crimes, and why do innocents
suffer? The Old Testament was composed over a period of about 1,000 years, and the later books of
struggle with this issue. In the book of Job, Job was a good and innocent man who was made to suffer
horribly. His friends were sure that he was guilty of something. He protested his innocence, and at the
end, God agreed that Job was innocent, but did not explain why Job had to suffer so much.
In the last few books of the Old Testament, the Wisdom books, a new revelation begins to appear: the
Israelites for centuries had believed that this life is all that there is. The later books introduce the idea of
eternal life, and the idea that the good are rewarded and the bad are punished in the next life.
Let me change the subject for a moment and point out that the fundamentalists have a real tough time
dealing with contradictory statements in the Bible: if everything is the word of God, then God either makes
children pay for their parents or, as Ezekiel claims, he does not. Either there is no life after death, as most
of the Old Testament books believe, or there is. You cant have it both ways.

Eleventh Sunday after

Pentecost B

4. Jesus was the fulfillment of Gods revelation, and, his revolutionary insight was that God is love .
Although Jesus too used king and judge as metaphors for God, his most enduring insight was the description of
God as the father of the prodigal son, always waiting for his son to return, ready to forgive and embrace him.
Jesus taught that God does not want to punish and destroy us but wants us to have eternal life with him and
that we will achieve eternal life if we love and believe.
But bad things happen even to innocent people, accidents, diseases, violence at the hand of bad people.
Unfortunately, that is the world we live in. It is the world we have helped shape with our sins and with our
abuse of Gods creation.
But the bad things that happen to us are not Gods punishment for sin. They are the reality of the world we live
in. We live in a violent society people kill each other because they choose to do so of their own free will.
Furthermore we have a mortal body that will eventually get weak and die. That is reality
Jesus invites us not to accept the suffering and the evil around us but to work with him to change things ,
change society, change our laws, change our exploitation of Gods creation and make this a better world. We are
called to work with God to make the kingdom of God a reality even here on earth.

5. The reward for those who believe and love their neighbors will be in the next life. Sin is still a part
of the human condition, but Jesus has given us the tools to overcome sin: the grace of God we receive in the
Sacraments.
1. Those who believe will achieve eternal life. However, to believe does not merely mean to agree with all the
statements in the Creed. To believe is to shape our life after God, who is love and to act in every situation as
Jesus would. How can we do that?
2. Paul, in the letter to the Ephesians reminds us that if we believe we must convert and imitate Jesus: speak the
truth, do not let the sun set on your anger, do not steal, work honestly, help the needy, be kind, forgive one
another as God is Christ has forgiven you. The reward for following Christ and imitating his way of life will be
an eternity of peace and happiness with God and with all those who have gone before us.
3. Finally, what about the bad guys? What will happen to them? The images of a fiery hell are metaphor inspired
by medieval fantasies. But note that eternal life is promised only to those who believe and love. Maybe those
who choose not to believe and act morally will just die and their live will end there. We have a choice: choose
life.