Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 27 August 2023; Proper 16A (RCL); Exodus 1:8 – 2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20.
In Mark’s account of Peter’s confession, Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do people say that I am,” while Matthew changes that to, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” Then, in both versions, he asks the disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” Matthew seems to be distancing Jesus from the title “Son of Man.” If the Son of Man is an eschatological figure (as in Daniel), then perhaps Matthew is suggesting that Jesus is not the eschatological figure who will judge and reign at the end times. That makes the Messiah (or Christ) something different from the eschatological Son of Man. Does Matthew, like Luke, see an intervening age of the Church?
In Romans, with Chapter 11, we arrived at the end of Paul’s sustained argument that the promises of God now extend to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Beginning with Chapter 12, we arrive at his vision for this “new humanity” inaugurated in Jesus Christ. The NRSV makes an interesting translation choice in the first sentence of Chapter 12, which then governs the rest of the chapter. NRSV translates “I appeal to therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” The word the NRSV translates as “spiritual” is λογικὴν. “Logical” might be a good translation, or better yet, “reasonable” — your reasonable worship.
In Protestant readings of Paul’s letters, Paul (and Christianity in general) is shifting us away from a physical worship of sacrifice toward a spiritual and ethical religion. But I don’t see that that is what Paul is doing at all. Whenever Paul uses the linguistic field of sacrifice, he has a banquet in mind: Christ our passover has been sacrificed for us, therefore, let us keep the feast. In our minds, sacrifice is primarily about the death of the animal, and usually as a substitute for the death of the offerer. Hence, Jesus’ death as a sacrifice takes the stead of our punishment by death.
But in the ancient world, the death of the animal was accidental to the whole idea of sacrifice. The animal had to die, in order that we might eat it. The linguistic field always indicated the banquet or meal that was to follow. Even if the animal was to be converted entirely to smoke, the language spoke of a sweet smelling savor to God. God like the smell of a barbecue grill. In one of the deutero-Pauline letters, Jesus is our sweet smelling savor to God.
So, what follows in Chapter 12 is appropriate banquet behavior, and we are the food, just as Christ is the food, and our sharing in the loaf is a sharing in the Body of Christ. This is our reasonable worship, the appropriate way to behave at the eschatological banquet, and all the banquets that provide a foretaste of that one.
By participating in these banquets, we will not follow worldly standards, but be transformed into new ways of thinking. The next line resonates with Jesus advice at banquets — don’t take the highest seat, but sit at a low place, and then you might be invited up higher. And each diner will have a different function at the banquet — some my sing a song, some may offer instruction, some may give a prophecy — all of this makes sense in the context of a Greek symposium. And what we are doing as we dine together like this, is offering the world another way of being, not tied to status, wealth, ethnicity, gender, and all those other categories of “the flesh” which Paul repudiates.
Spiritual worship implies an interior mode of worship, while reasonable worship suggests appropriate and ordered. Our worship can hardly be spiritual in the sense of interior if we are being asked to present our bodies as a sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.