The Fifth Sunday After Epiphany 2020 Series A

Midweek Lectionary
​1.5.1

“The Sermon on the Mount” Károly Ferenczy 1896

Collect of the Day
O Lord, keep Your family the Church continually in the true faith that, relying on the hope of Your heavenly grace, we may ever be defended by Your mighty power; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Isaiah 58.3-9
Chapter fifty-seven includes a litany of the sins of the people: they burn with lust among the oaks and sacrifice their own children (5), they have ”made their bed” on the lofty mountain to offer sacrifice (7), “let your collection of idols deliver you!” (13). But there is also a word of hope and deliverance with allusions to the Servant and the promise, “I will heal him” (19). Then chapter fifty-eight opens with a call to repentance leading into our text.

The question of fasting that dominates the reading speaks to the larger issue of sanctification and sanctified living. As we apply the text to ourselves, we are reminded to pray both halves of the fifth petition; forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Forgiveness empowers us to love our neighbor in a proper and God pleasing way, “then shall your light break forth like the dawn” (8). This forms the solid connection to our gospel reading, “you are the light of the world” (Mt 5.14) and the epiphany theme of manifestation or more literally, to shine forth.

Read the Text and Discuss

• Have you ever asked with the people in our text, “Why have we fasted, and you see it not?” “Why is this not working?”
• How are the activities described in verses 6 and 7 understood to be a fast?
• For the second week in a row, the OT reading has a strong emphasis on horizontal righteousness; where is the gospel, the promise in our reading?

Psalm 112.1-9
The context for this psalm holds some interest for its interpretation as both our reading and the preceding psalm share a common form and theme. Both are acrostic psalms; each half line beginning with the next letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Both share the theme of wisdom, especially wisdom’s relationship to obedience and the fear of the Lord. Psalm 111 closes, “the fear of the Lordis the beginning of wisdom…” and our psalm opens “blessed is the man who fears the Lord” neatly tying the two psalms into a pair. 

The psalm shares the connection of horizontal righteousness with the reading from Isaiah and also the image of light dawning with both the OT and the gospel readings. On a deeper level, only Christ can prayer this psalm in complete truth; He is the blessed man who truly fears the Lord. This fear Reardon insightfully defines as “resolved dedication of oneself to the accomplishing of God’s will” (Reardon 221). For our part, only through His cross do we participate in His righteousness and so can take this psalm upon our lips in truth. 

Read the Text and Discuss

• How does the psalmist express the “ongoing” benefit of the “fear of the Lord”?
• How do we understand the light dawning in the darkness for the upright?
• When will “he looks with triumph on his adversaries” (8) happen?
• How could a “prosperity gospel” misuse this psalm?

1 Corinthians 2.1-12
We must read this section of Paul’s letter in the context of first century Corinth. When Paul speaks against “lofty speech or wisdom,” he likely has in mind the sophists of his day, the traveling rhetoricians that earned their living by public discourse for entertainment. These and the philosophers of Corinth could put on quite a show of learning yet the “mystery, the hidden wisdom of God” (7) was the true wisdom that Paul had come to impart. His appearance and speech did not draw attention to itself but to the message it contained, Christ crucified.

Regarding the context of the other readings, the image of light and seeing finds a connection with “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit” in verse 10. But it is not a seeing that the wisdom of this age can know or a power the rulers of this age can harness; it is the power of God revealed through the Spirit of God.

Read the Text and Discuss

• Does “lofty speech or wisdom” still try to mislead the believer of our day?
• Who are “the mature” that Paul is referring to in verse 6?
• Why does Paul stress the crucifixion for the fourth and fifth time in this letter?

Matthew 5.13-20
The boundaries of our reading create a contextual problem. Jeff Gibbs argues strongly that verses thirteen through sixteen adhere closely to the preceding Beatitudes. The blessings of God’s reign have been given to the “spiritually bankrupt” making them profoundly and eternally blessed that they might be salt and light. The second half of our reading constitutes the introduction to a new and specific topic within the Sermon on the Mount, the so-called “antitheses” found in Matthew 5.21-48. 

As we have already seen, the strongest theme tying these readings together revolves around the image of light. Jesus declares that we, the redeemed, have become the light of the world in Him. This is a profound opportunity and compelling responsibility. The light of God’s inbreaking reign is to become visible in our “good works” so that the Father might be glorified – certainly something that should give us pause to reflect and to pray.

Read the Text and Discuss

• Jesus suggests a literal impossibility, salt cannot “lose its saltiness,” but what about believers? Can we become good for nothing expect to be “trampled underfoot?”
• Is this word of encouragement individual or corporate? Why?
• How does Jesus “ramp up” the law in the second half of our readings?