Bible Study: Pentecost 22 (B) – October 20, 2024

RCL: Isaiah 53:4-12; Psalm 91:9-16; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45

Note: During the 2024 Season after Pentecost, Sermons That Work will use Track 2 readings for sermons and Bible studies. Please consult our archives for many additional Track 1 resources from prior years.

Isaiah 53:4-12

This well-loved passage is from the fourth of Isaiah’s so-called “servant songs.” It describes the tribulation and ultimate triumph of a suffering servant who enacts God’s righteousness and salvation in the world. Christians typically read the servant as Jesus Christ. This interpretation goes back to the New Testament: in Acts 8, Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch discuss Isaiah 53:7-8 with reference to Jesus. And certainly, it is easy to see the resonance between the content of Isaiah 53 and the story of Jesus’ passion. For instance, verse 7, “And he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth,” will remind many readers of Jesus’ silence when on trial in the synoptic Gospels. And of course, the phraseology of verse 11 will seem very rich indeed to anyone familiar with the various paradigms of Christian atonement theology: “He shall bear their iniquities.”

But Christian readers must remember that to project Jesus onto this text is an interpretive move. The Christological reading of the suffering servant is not intrinsic to the text itself; there are other possible readings. For example, some Jewish thinkers have indexed the servant to Moses (see Sotah 14a in the Babylonian Talmud). Meanwhile, Isaiah himself seems to intend the servant as a symbol for Israel and its people (see 49:3). Jesus is only one interpretation.

Does this mean that it is wrong to read the suffering servant as Jesus? Not necessarily. This interpretive choice simply requires us to use our imaginations in order to infuse an old text with a newer meaning. In this vein, the preacher might explore how the Holy Spirit can inspire Scripture not only through the words themselves but through our creative interactions with those words. In short: did Isaiah mean to reference Jesus? Probably not. But does the Spirit speak to us about Jesus through Isaiah’s words? This is certainly a compelling possibility, worthy of our prayerful reflection.

• How does the servant song reflect the story of Jesus? In what ways does it contradict the life of Jesus? And what does it mean for someone to bear the iniquities of others?

Psalm 91:9-16

Psalm 91 is an exciting text promising the protection of angels, the defeat of wild beasts, and divine deliverance from adversity.  It’s also one of the traditional psalms prayed at Compline, the Church’s ancient office of night prayer. “You shall trample the young lion” may seem hardly the sort of promise that sends one off to a good night’s sleep with a cup of chamomile, but we should remember that this dramatically violent language is ultimately meant to be comforting. At its core, this psalm is a simple promise that God will take care of all those who seek refuge in him; the God of Psalm 91 is a God who empowers us to triumph over the many wild dangers that beset us. These days, we don’t tend to worry about literal lions or literal adders, but consider what these beasts might symbolize spiritually for us.

It is interesting to consider who is speaking in this psalm. At the beginning of the excerpt, the psalm seems to have a human voice; the Psalmist lectures his hearers about the saving deeds of God, speaking about God in the third person. But by the end of the Psalm, it seems that God himself is speaking in the first person: “Therefore will I deliver him.” What do we make of this shift? Perhaps there is an implicit promise that when we speak about God, sooner or later we may find that God is speaking about himself to us.

• What does it mean for God to be a refuge? And what sorts of dangers might lions and adders represent spiritually to modern readers?

Hebrews 5:1-10

Evidently, the author of Hebrews is obsessed with Melchizedek. He reads this figure from the Old Testament as a type for Christ, as one whose kingly priesthood points to Christ’s own kingly priesthood. Incidentally, the Old Testament itself says very little about Melchizedek. He shows up briefly in Genesis 14 as a priest-king who blesses Abram and his God. And he is referenced once in Psalm 110, which Hebrews cites in today’s reading: “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Frustratingly, the Psalmist never bothered to explain what on earth he meant by “the order of Melchizedek,” but the author of Hebrews offers his own creative elucidation in today’s text: he maps the priesthood of Melchizedek onto the life of Jesus. In Jesus’ “reverent submission” and compassionate self-sacrifice on behalf of others, Jesus is living into a priesthood just like Melchizedek’s priesthood.

This explanation certainly gives us some meat to put on the bones of Melchizedek’s limited presence in the Old Testament. But by the same token, this explanation also allows the author of Hebrews to argue that the priestly work of Christ is not new, but very old: for the priesthood of Melchizedek predates the founding of Israel and the Levitical priesthood of Aaron. Hebrews is making the case that the Christ event is continuous with something very ancient, part of the slow work of God enacted through centuries and generations. It is not an interruption, but a continuation of a long salvation story.

• How might we understand our own ministry in light of how Hebrews describes the priesthood of Christ?

Mark 10:35-45

It’s hard to fault the sons of Zebedee for their zeal, but this passage reveals them to be more than a bit woolly-headed. They come to Jesus asking to be glorified with him, one on his right and one on his left. They still see the reign of Jesus as mimicking human paradigms of power and authority. They expect Jesus to be an authoritarian Lord, and they want to be his vicegerents, his seconds-in-command. But they are missing the point. All the more embarrassing for them, given that, literally just before this excerpt, Jesus explained to his disciples that he would be mocked, tortured, and then killed by the imperial authorities. It seems that James and John were unable to hear this. Perhaps they ignored Jesus when he foretold his death; perhaps they misunderstood him, perhaps they were in denial. Whatever the case, in this scene, they come to Jesus assuming that his glory entails power. Jesus, however, shows that glory is found in weakness and humility: “Whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

In the end, in Mark’s Gospel, there are indeed two people who are at Jesus’ side in glory. But they aren’t two disciples lording it over all the others. They aren’t even two saints. They are rather two bandits crucified next to Jesus, unwittingly close in their powerlessness to the foolish glory of his cross. God’s logic of power is so drastically different from our own.

• How do members of the Church today find themselves reflected in the power-hungry aspirations of James and John? How can we, instead, seek the glory of being last, the glory of servanthood, the glory of the cross?

Aidan Luke Stoddart is a third-year seminarian at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. His primary academic interest is the theology of prayer. He is excited to be ordained in just over a year, and in the meantime plans to spend some time working as a hospital chaplain after he graduates. In addition to Jesus Christ, Aidan’s passions include video games, fantasy literature, ambient music, and walks to tea-shops.