Problem of Preaching the Old Testament by Franklyn L. Jost
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Introduction
Preaching the OT presents a problem to Christians. The problem is interpretation. It is a canonical question: what is the relationship of the OT to the NT? We confess that the OT is part of the inspired, Christian scriptural canon. The Hebrew Bible is the written Word of God and reveals God to us. We also confess that the OT is preparatory, bearing witness to Messiah Jesus, who brings continuity and clarity to the two testaments.
How do Christians describe the relationship between the OT and the NT? Luther suggested a contrast between law and grace. Caricatured, Luther becomes the authoritative excuse to read the OT primarily as law, which defines the human problem with sin; here the NT is read as a witness to God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Calvin spoke of old and new covenants, suggesting the possibility of an interpretive approach labeled supersessionism; here the NT is read as superceding the OT. Anabaptists are particularly susceptible to the latter. Jesus is the starting point for interpretation; Jesus is the hermeneutical key, making the NT primary. In this reading, the OT is old—old news and worn out.
How does one use the Hebrew Bible to preach? Prof. Elmer Martens gave direction to a generation of OT preachers. Years ago he pointed students to a helpful book by Donald Gowan, Reclaiming the Old Testament for the Christian Pulpit.1 Gowan encourages the preacher to match the message and the sermonic approach to the text’s genre. Martens also encouraged students to give attention to Elizabeth Achtemeier’s counsel that the preacher should always pair a NT text with the preached text of the OT.2 This seemed an improvement to my undeveloped, largely undirected homiletic approach. The {88} NT would give direction, serving to protect against legalistic or overly earthy or earthly messages.
Later graduate school training pointed out the weakness of Achtemeier’s dictum. By insisting on a NT text to tutor or supervise the message, we were undercutting OT authority. The OT, if it is God’s Word, does not need NT scaffolding for support. In fact, many scholars avoid the term “Old Testament,” because it can be heard as pejorative, and instead they prefer the term “Hebrew Bible.”
When I visited India, I was intrigued by the system of chapel preaching at MB Centenary Bible College under the tutelage of Principal V. K. Rufus. The sermon was followed by an open session of critique. I soon learned that it was woe to the preacher who preached an OT text that did not lead to Jesus. I discovered that the insistence was born of an apologetic demand. The Indian church had been influenced by liberal interpretation in the national Christian seminary system. People had been taught that the OT was the Jewish holy book that was the precursor to the Christian Scriptures in a way that corresponded to the Indian holy book of the Vedas, Upanishads, and Bhagavad Gita. Although Mennonite interpreters did not completely buy the argument that the OT was on a par with Hindu literature, they did accept the need to play the Jesus trump card in every sermon. But does not the OT enjoy a privileged position in the Christian Bible? The OT is not simply preparation for the true divine Word. If we are listening for God’s voice, is not the authority of the Father of Jesus who speaks in the Hebrew Bible as great as that of God’s Son who speaks in the NT?
In this essay, my aim is to encourage OT preaching by claiming its place as a full partner with the NT. My proposal aims to develop what Paul House describes as “Whole Bible Theology” (the Bible is considered one book with the two testaments read in continuity).3 I propose to begin reading in a manner that may initially seem counterintuitive—by reading first the NT text of Matt 19 rather than reading an OT text. Through this “Whole Bible theological reading,” I hope to show that the OT is more than important background for the NT. Rather, OT theological voices continue in conversation with one another into the NT (and beyond!).
Before proceeding to the text, let us review some of the perspectives that inform this reading. Walter Brueggemann’s Theology of the Old Testament makes the case for testimony and countertestimony within the text.4 The OT is a {89} dialogue—perhaps a chorus of voices. Brueggemann claims that his is a “nonfoundational” reading, one that refuses to be predetermined by Enlightenment categories such as historicity, historical criticism, and Christian doctrine. He argues for an alternative reading that opposes the ideological assumptions that privilege the reading of the powerful. According to Brueggemann, nonfoundationalism is not an attempt to imagine a world without God but rather “an attempt to give voice to a deep alternative that is given in the text and that is not particularly respectful of our preferred inclinations and modes of reasoning.”5 Brueggemann suggests the metaphor of guerilla theater (suggesting, revealing, and yet concealing surprises) to describe his approach.6
From Brueggemann, we gain the perspective that recognizes currents and crosscurrents. Not everyone perceives God’s reign in the same way. More than one voice is allowed to speak.
An example of this is 1 Sam 8–12, which seems to preserve both promonarchic and antimonarchic voices. Brevard Childs, who counters Brueggemann’s testimonial reading with the “canonical” approach, reads 1 Sam 8–12 in a way that smooths the final edition. Childs resolves the tension within the text by identifying editorial shaping that privileges the antimonarchical voice, yielding “a literary and theological solution.”7 Brueggemann, on the other hand, recognizes an ongoing “sharp interpretive dispute” in the text.8 The problem is not “solved” but highlighted.
The second perspective is that of N. T. Wright. Wright argues that the mission of Jesus is to embody and to call into being a new people, a restored Israel, a returned-from-exile people of God.9 To understand Jesus’ mission, one must grasp God’s purposes for the OT people of God. Borrowing from Wright, Walsh and Keesmaat argue that the canonical story is a unified drama in six acts. Act one is creation followed by human rebellion. Act two has God calling out a people and giving them a covenant and a land with a mission to be a blessing to all nations. Act three describes the exilic loss of land as judgment of Israel’s failure to fulfill its divinely appointed mission. Act four shows how the Messiah Jesus reverses Israel’s exile, fulfills Israel’s mission, and conquers the enemy power that had enslaved all of humanity. The Messiah acts to {90} accept the world’s violence, dies, and rises from the dead. We presently participate in the drama in act five, which began with the biblical book of the Acts of the Apostles and continues into the present church age. Act six, the consummation, is still to come.10 In each of these six acts, God’s purpose remains to create a covenant people.
The six-act-drama perspective shows that the OT is important not simply because it provides historical context for the NT story. The OT is part of the story. It is the story. From the OT, we learn about God’s creation objectives, God’s redemptive purposes, and God’s judgments of human failure to fulfill these purposes. Neither law versus grace nor old versus new covenant is sufficient to understand the story. Wright’s drama metaphor encourages reading with deliberate intertextuality. Because the drama is unfolding, the interpretation of an OT text may be informed by events that occur in another act of the drama. This may in fact pair an OT text with a text from the NT—or it may pair OT texts.
A third perspective informs this “Whole Bible” reading. Elmer Martens’s reading of God’s purpose in Exod 5:22–6:8 enriches the perspectives of Brueggemann and Wright.11 What is God about in the six acts of the biblical drama? How do we gain footing in this kind of nonfoundational reading? What alerts us to the voice of the oppressed? Martens’s observation of the fourfold design of God in deliverance, covenant community, knowledge of God, and abundant life in the land offers a grid that gives direction to Brueggemann’s iconoclastic, deconstructionist perspective. It clarifies the purpose of Wright’s drama in six acts.
A “Whole Bible” Reading of Matthew 19
Having set out these parameters for reading, I now want to pursue a “Whole Bible” reading of Matt 19. At first it may seem counterintuitive to claim a NT text for this reading. Matthew 19 is chosen for three reasons. First, Matthew is a NT text used by Martens in God’s Design to test the fourfold design in the NT.12 Second, Matthew not only uses the OT extensively to write to an apparently Jewish audience, but he also includes in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus’ teaching on the greater righteousness that fulfills the law and the prophets—Jesus’ Bible! Third, Matt 19 is chosen because in it we find Jesus {91} himself twice reading OT texts—citations from the creation story (Gen 1:27 and 2:24 with an allusion to Deut 24) and a citation of the second tablet of the Ten Words from the law (Exod 20 and Deut 5). Can the reading that Jesus gives these texts help us evaluate the primitive, OT hermeneutic outlined above in this essay?
Matthew 19 contains three narratives, a controversy story regarding divorce (19:1–12), a pronouncement story (19:13–15), and a call story (19:16–30).13 The chapter opens with the typical Matthean concluding formula for Jesus’ authoritative sermons, a geographical marker emphasizing Jesus’ movement to Judea, and a report of crowds who witness Jesus’ healing ministry.
Reading Matthew 19:1–12
Matthew portrays the relationship of the Pharisees with Jesus as a continuation of the testimony/countertestimony of the Hebrew Bible. Jesus, with authority, claims to adjudicate among the possible readings. The Pharisees’ question assumes that Jesus will become embroiled in the continuing rabbinic argument between the conservative Shammaites and the more liberal Hillelites regarding proper grounds for divorce.14 Jesus refuses to take the Pharisees’ bait, avoids the contemporary controversy, and focuses on the question he considers more central by asking them about the twin references to the creation stories. To read Jesus’ answer is to read the Hebrew Bible. Or, again, to read Jesus’ answer requires that we grasp the argument of the Hebrew Bible. To read Jesus is to do a “Whole Bible” reading.
In Matthew’s account, Jesus begins with the text that sets the paradigm. Creation theology is the larger rubric within which Jesus addresses this ethical issue. By quoting the creation story, Jesus is claiming that the solution to this ethical dilemma comes from God’s purpose for all humanity. The first act (creation) of the six-act drama gives essential guidance to Jesus (who acts as a character in act four, according to the schema outlined above).
Jesus quotes first the final phrase of Gen 1:27. While the emphasis on “male and female” fits the divorce controversy, we do well to understand the allusion in its biblical context. Genesis 1:27 states that “God created human beings in his own image.” What do we need to know about Gen 1 to read Jesus?
J. Richard Middleton posits that Gen 1:27 is the rhetorical climax of the creation story. Middleton argues that Barth’s focus on “male and female” has value for insight into human relationships but disagrees with Barth’s conclusion that the phrase explains that the fundamentally relational, interpersonal, {92} intercommunal character of humanity is the essence of being created in God’s image.15 Rather, according to Middleton, the reference in Gen 1 to being created in God’s image is best understood by reading it in context with the succeeding verse, with its mandate to “rule” and “subdue” the earth.16 Middleton concludes that the concept of human beings created in God’s image must be connected to the divine ruler metaphor. The notion of likeness to God as ruler is both “representational” (an analogy between God and humans) and “representative” (a task delegated to humanity by God).17 Humans created in God’s image are rulers together of God’s creation.
Middleton’s conclusion that being created in God’s image has to do with the human function of ruling creation leads to several implications. First, humans as rulers are also creators, following the model of God’s creativity.18 Second, the image of God includes a priestly dimension in God’s cosmic sanctuary as they mediate blessing to creation.19 Third, the biblical language of ruling creation in God’s image is essentially democratic (anti-imperial) and extends this royal priesthood to all humanity through their first parents.20 Fourth, “Genesis 1 constitutes a normative framework by which we may judge all the violence that pervades the rest of the Bible.” It “provides a framework for judging human violence” as a “contradiction to the disclosure of God’s power in Genesis 1.”21
Though Jesus does not comment further on the quotation from Gen 1, the implications for marriage are striking. Humans are created for a purpose, a divinely imagined role that implicates them as servants to others. Their task of ruling and subduing the earth, of tilling and keeping the soil moves them beyond the selfish confines of self-pleasure within marriage. Following the model of God’s creativity invites humans to develop creatively within their marriage relationship as well as serve others. As mediators of blessing, husband and wife together lead within the home and within the faith community to extend God’s blessing to others. Not only Gen 1 emphasizes that humans male and female are created in God’s image—thus implying egalitarian status—in significant contrast to the Babylonian Enuma Elish account, which celebrates imperial power structures. The implications for marriage are egalitarian. If Gen 1 judges {93} violence, Jesus’ citation of Gen 1 reinforces a stance against domestic violence—a common complaint in divorce proceedings.
Jesus also quotes Gen 2:24, this verse in its entirety. Following the principle used above, we can posit that Jesus in quoting a single verse is alluding to the larger context. Without an exhaustive study of the second creation account, one can again identify elements of the story that inform Jesus’ comments in the divorce controversy.
As noted above, Gen 2 reinforces the notion that human beings have responsibility for the well-being of the environment. If Gen 1 emphasizes the royal nature of the human created in the image of God, Gen 2 gives the ‘human’ (ʾadam) responsibility to till and keep (guard or protect) the ‘soil’ (ʾadamah, 2:15).22 Work and service are part of the good created order, not a result of human transgression.23
Genesis 2 recognizes that it is not good that the man is alone—in contrast to all the good that God saw in Gen 1. A companion for relationship is needed. The woman is called a “helper” who is a “partner.” Because the term ‘helper’ (ʿezer) is used for God (Ps 121:1–2), the word does not imply lower status for the woman, nor does it collapse the role of helping into merely procreation.24 The process of creating the woman also implies egalitarian complementarity. God designs and “builds” the woman to complete the creation design.
Verse 23 records the man’s first words about the woman. Everything the man has to say about creation concerns his helper: She is “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” he says. Hamilton suggests that, while flesh is often a symbol for weakness and frailty, bones may be a symbol of an individual’s strength.25
Alternatively, “flesh and bone” may express relationship.26 Brueggemann has argued that the term is actually a covenant formula. It speaks of reciprocal loyalty.27 When representatives of the Northern tribes approach David, they say, “We are your bone and flesh” (2 Sam 5:1). This is a pledge of loyalty. In Gen 2:23 Adam is pledging covenantal commitment to the woman. Hamilton again suggests that this corresponds to the modern wedding commitment to {94} be true “in weakness and in health.” Strength and weakness are not attributed to male or female alone.28
Verses 24–25 emphasize the closeness of the male-female bond. The text does not mention procreation but focuses on the closeness and intimacy of the man-woman relationship. Although the text envisions the future day in which children will leave parents, the emphasis here is on the marriage bond, not family life.29
The “leave” and “cling” language challenges interpreters. Why is the man the one who is said to leave? Does the text envision a matrilineal society? Because it was more common in Hebrew society for the woman to leave her parental home, perhaps the term alludes to emotional detachment or to forming a new identity.30
Hamilton emphasizes the significance of the covenant relationship. Israel is said to “leave” its covenant relationship with Yahweh (Jer 1:16; 2:13, 17), but the verb “cling” designates maintenance of the covenant relationship (Deut 4:4; Ruth 1:14). To leave father and mother and to cling to one’s wife is to end one loyalty and to enter into another.31
In Matt 19:6, Jesus concludes his opening statement by interpreting and applying the creation accounts to his contemporary context. In the tradition of the Hebrew Bible, Jesus gives testimony to God’s purpose. God’s purpose involves covenant community. Jesus embodies and models faithfulness. Jesus uses the image he finds in the OT creation story to reinforce the covenant loyalty inherent in community relationships. For Jesus, as Paul makes explicit in Eph 5:25–32, the marriage relationship of husband to wife is to be a model for community relationships.
The Pharisees, as good OT scholars, raise the countertestimony. Conceding for the moment, perhaps, the creation narrative’s ethic of lasting covenant bonds, they raise the question of the Mosaic command to issue divorce papers when husbands leave wives. Surely Jesus recognizes that the ideals of Gen 1– 2 must face the reality of Deut 24:1–4! Legal rulings about conditions for divorce restrict the flippant and cavalier breaking of legal bonds, but they also concede the reality that marriage covenants will break down. The Pharisees challenge Jesus’ creation ideals with traditional OT countertestimony.
Jesus’ reply adjudicates between competing OT traditions. Jesus uses creation theology to trump Mosaic legal tradition. Both ancient traditions revolve around covenant. In his first statement of rejoinder to the pharisaic {95} objection, Jesus reads creation theology as more authoritative than Sinai theology on the basis of priority. Creation theology reveals the purpose of God for relationship within covenant.
Jesus’ second statement to the pharisaic objection changes the focus from creation theology to Sinaitic covenant theology. Jesus teaches that divorce and remarriage constitutes a breach of the Ten Words regarding adultery. Ultimately, according to Jesus, identification of conflict between creation theology and Sinaitic covenant theology is a misreading of the traditions. Jesus’ teaching in Matt 19 is fully consistent with his third antithesis in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:31–32). Jesus engages the OT testimony, he reinterprets it, and he seeks to establish a consistent application that depends on what he considers primary and authoritative.
The controversy pericope concludes with Jesus’ answer to a private question from his disciples. Without trying to interpret what Jesus’ message about becoming eunuchs for the kingdom might involve, we do get a sense that Jesus recognizes the pluralistic context in which he speaks. He opens his statement with the phrase, “Not everyone can accept this teaching.” He concludes with the sentence, “Let anyone accept this who can.” Perhaps the reply to the disciples involves only their recommendation that it is best not to marry. Nonetheless, Jesus appears to be recognizing that a diverse community will not respond uniformly.
The divorce controversy illustrates Jesus’ use of the OT tradition. Jesus uses creation theology to establish the governing paradigm. His citations have been read in this essay as a witness in favor of egalitarian marriage relations and the primacy of covenant faithfulness. Jesus recognizes that there is testimony and countertestimony within the tradition. He makes an authoritative claim in favor of his interpretation.
Reading Matthew 19:16–30
Postponing for the moment attention to the brief pronouncement story, we next consider the third pericope in Matt 19. It is the call story of the young man with many possessions, a text containing extensive citations from the Hebrew Bible. This scandalous text presents plenty of problems for preaching to middle-class congregations in North America, setting aside for the moment the problem of the OT in preaching. Most northern/Western readers are uncomfortable with Jesus’ declaration that it is difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom. Perhaps our audience (and this may include the preacher) is more attuned to the grieving response of the young man than to the hopeful word of Jesus that God makes all things possible. {96}
The young interlocutor approaches Jesus with the question about a good deed that he must do to have eternal life. Jesus’ reply does not condemn the man for works righteousness. He does allude to the monotheistic confession of Deut 6:4 that Yahweh alone is God. Then Jesus makes the bold declaration that the way to life is through obedience to the Torah. This answer of Jesus need not surprise the reader. It reinforces the notion of “Whole Bible” theology, that the OT expresses God’s gracious gift of life. Jesus’ answer is consistent with his six antitheses in Matt 5:17–48. Jesus is here to fulfill the OT. Jesus’ fulfillment includes an authoritative interpretation of the Torah, a testimony that stakes a claim for truth within the diverse voices of OT testimony and countertestimony. Yet Jesus offers a humble, nonfoundational answer, recognizing that God alone is a good authority. Jesus tells his questioner that the commandments are the way to life.
When the young man presses him to be more specific, Jesus quotes the second tablet of the Ten Words, the heart of the Torah. Curiously, Jesus does not cite the first four Words, all of which address human worship of God. Jesus moves the order of the commandment regarding honoring parents from first to last in his list. Jesus replaces the Word(s) prohibiting coveting with a single command to love neighbor (Lev 19:18). In Matt 22:34–40, when asked to summarize the Law, Jesus quotes the OT commandments calling for love of God and neighbor, again summarizing the second tablet of the Ten Words with the command to love neighbor. Jesus teaches that keeping the Torah is the way to life.
While commentators might speculate on the rhetorical effect of placing the command to honor parents in the penultimate position and replacing the command prohibiting coveting with the one that commands love for neighbor, interpretation of the ensuing conversation does not seem to depend on this sort of analysis. When the young man insists on more specificity, Jesus issues the call to follow him as a disciple. Preparation for discipleship requires the rich young man to practice OT Jubilee principles.
Jesus prefaces his Jubilee call with the conditional phrase, “If you wish to be perfect.” The adjective ‘perfect’ (teleios) is used elsewhere in Matthew only in 5:48, where Jesus calls his followers to be perfect, because the Father is perfect. This construction parallels the construction of Lev 19:2: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” The Jubilee legislation follows in Lev 25. The Jubilee year is holy (Lev 25:12).
The Jubilee legislation is the great social and economic leveler, a program for social justice. The Deuteronomistic parallel to Jubilee is the sabbatical year. Here again the emphasis is on justice and generosity within the community. Deuteronomy calls for remission of debts, release of slaves, and soft-hearted, {97} open-handed, liberal, and ungrudging giving to the needy neighbor (Deut 15:1–17). Such generosity, Moses claims, will lead not to hardship but to God’s blessing in all that the faithful do.
Psalm 72 reinforces the link between justice and generosity to the poor. The righteous king “delivers the needy,” “has pity on the weak,” and “saves the lives of the needy” (72:12–13). He enjoys long life (72:15)! Linking righteousness to care for the poor demands notice, given Jesus’ frequent use of the term in Matthew’s Gospel (5:6, 10, 20; 6:33).
The prophets reinforce the call to distributive justice that favors the poor. Isaiah calls for Israel to “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (1:17). Amos speaks woe to hearers who live a luxurious lifestyle (6:4–8). Jeremiah speaks woe to people who build luxury homes by unrighteousness and commends the king who does justice and righteousness and judges the cause of the poor and needy. He declares that this is what it means to know Yahweh (22:13–16).
Preachers often feel compelled to relativize or mitigate the effect of Jesus’ words to the rich young man. These words are spoken to a single individual with a particular need, we say. They are unreasonable, we argue. How would we live if everyone sold everything? Preachers and other readers seek to avoid Jesus’ word as a word to us today.
A “Whole Bible” reading of the words of Jesus reinforces their contemporary relevance. Jesus confirms the testimony of Moses, interpreting the Ten Words as leading to Jubilee practices. Jesus inaugurates the kingdom of heaven with royal justice described in Psalms and Jeremiah. Jesus speaks in a manner consonant with the OT prophets. Jesus’ words cannot be relegated to the sidelines as a specific message to an isolated individual.
Jesus’ response to Peter closes the OT link and reinforces the notion that Jesus is deliberate in his OT contextualizing. Eternal life in the kingdom will involve just rule. Because of their own faithful following after having experienced the Jubilee freedom of God’s grace, the disciples will judge all Israel. Matthew 19 concludes with an eschatological reference to Israel.
Reading Matthew 19:13–15
The brief pronouncement story does not have an obvious link with the Hebrew Bible. Unlike the other two pericopes in Matt 19, in Matt 19:13–15 Jesus does not quote an OT text. Further, one wonders why Matthew places this pericope where he does unless one attributes its placement to Matthew’s slavishly following the lead of his Markan source (which pushes the question of placement back one generation to Mark’s Gospel). {98}
In the reading that follows, I will, by necessity, take a different direction from my reading of the other two pericopes, which investigate OT quotations and allusions. While one might profitably read Matt 19:13–15 in light of other OT texts that deal with parents and children (e.g., Ishmael and Hagar, the Hebrew midwives, Jacob’s blessing of Joseph’s children), the analysis that follows reads this text in parallel with Samuel.
Barbara Green, interpreting 1 Samuel with a reading guided by the Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, suggests that the genre of the story of Saul is best identified as a riddle.32 It is a riddle that attends to the sons in the book of 1 Samuel, particularly the riddle located in the wordplay that gives Samuel and Saul their names. 1 Samuel 1:20 reports that Hannah gave her son the name Samuel (the name itself sounds like “heard of God”) because, she said, I have asked (this verb sounds like “Saul”) him of Yahweh. Green suggests that the riddle reminds the reader of both the hope and the eventual disappointment that is experienced by the reader with the sons of Eli, Samuel, Saul, and David. It also raises questions, in Green’s analysis, of the role and appraisal of kings in Israel and Judah.
Pursuing Green’s analysis at length would take us too far from our focus. However, Green’s theological conclusion regarding both Hannah and the king-Israel nexus is worth considering for our reading of Matt 19:13–15. She asks why Hannah weeps in 1 Sam 1:3–18. Green considers the apparent remedy of offspring when Hannah bears a child as a way of “faking out” the reader. After all, Hannah immediately gives the child back to Yahweh. Green claims to detect what both Elkanah and Eli are too blind to see. Eli mistakes Hannah’s tears for drunkenness, a disorder that more nearly describes the sons of Eli than Hannah. Elkanah tries to solve the problem with additional sacrificial portions. Green concludes that what Hannah is truly seeking in her prayer before Yahweh is a relationship. Reading the riddle of the life of Saul, Green concludes that “the vitality of the relationship between God and humans is more central” than other issues or questions interpreters have brought to the text. “The son is a way of Hannah’s asking God for what she lacks.”33 The basic relationship of God and Israel should be the point of kingship as well (1 Sam 12:14–15, 24).
Just as I have raised a question about the place of Matt 19:13–15 in its context, so scholars have been skeptical of the place of the poem of Hannah (1 Sam 2:1–10) within the original Samuel narrative. Scholars have also regarded {99} 2 Sam 21–24 as a later addition, an epilogue that interrupts the narrative. Robert Polzin, acknowledging his debt to Mikhail Bakhtin, claims that a “literary study” of Samuel locates the Samuel story within the context of kingship criticism. Polzin appreciates the care with which the Song of Hannah is “inserted” into the prose narrative. Following Bakhtin, Polzin detects a “polyphonic composition” in the Song of Hannah; it is a “chorus” of voices including the rejoicing mother, Hannah; the exultant king; and the Deuteronomist, the “author” of the current text.34
The voice of Hannah appears at the most superficial level, a once-barren woman exultant in the birth of her child. Like the parents who bring their children to Jesus, Hannah rejoices in the life of her son.
Polzin notes, at a deeper level, that the language of 1 Sam 2 is strikingly monarchic and develops parallels between Hannah’s Song and the royal psalm found in 2 Sam 22 (part of the so-called epilogue). Both praise the victory of kingship in Israel.35 Polzin notes other connections between the royal voice of 1 Sam 2 and the rest of the book of Samuel. For example, Hannah sings, “Do not multiply your words, ‘Tall! Tall!’ ” (Polzin’s translation of 2:3). We are reminded of Saul’s stature (and Goliath’s) and of Yahweh’s warning to Samuel not to give attention to appearance when he seeks to anoint one of Jesse’s sons. Eli has already made a mistake about appearances when he accused Hannah of drunkenness. Thus, the exaltation of the lowly and the debasement of the mighty can be traced throughout Samuel (and Kings).36
Polzin, on a still deeper level of reading, perceives a more melancholy voice in the song. This is the voice of the Deuteronomist, who anticipates the failure of the monarchy and the eventual exile. Jehoiachin in exile is alternately hungry and well fed at the king’s table. The people who remain in Jerusalem are the poor, the barren in Israel.37
Reading the book of Samuel in conversation with Matt 19:13–15 is the aim of this “Whole Bible” analysis. Note that the reading of Samuel with Matt 19:13–15 succeeds on two levels. First, it provides depth of insight to the pronouncement story. Second, it connects Matt 19:13–15 with the pericopes that precede and follow it.
A brief summary aims to integrate these fresh insights. First, the aim of Hannah’s prayer is consistent with the aim of Jesus’ blessing of the children— what is needed is a renewal of the relationship that Israel has with its God. {100} Further, in both the divorce controversy and the call story, we see that covenant relationships within Israel are primary. Self-giving compassion and loyalty to the “other” are expressions of right relations with God. Second, the sons of this world may disappoint (hard-hearted divorcing men and grieving rich young men), but Jesus gives hope by blessing a new generation of children. Third, Jesus continues God’s policy of reversals, of raising the humble and sending the proud and the rich away empty. Fourth, Jesus comes to embody and call out a new Israel that reverses exile. The final reversal does not end in Babylon but in Jerusalem with a new kingdom. In this new kingdom, covenant relationships are honored, children are blessed and exalted, and thrones are given to those who have left all to follow Jesus.
Conclusion
The purpose of this essay has been to assist the preacher (teacher) who has struggled with preaching (teaching) the OT as authoritative. By interpreting one NT chapter in light of the OT, I have attempted to demonstrate one way to read the testaments in continuity. The task of using this reading to craft sermons is the challenge that awaits preachers. Additional guidance in this task remains a future project.
Brueggemann’s approach to nonfoundational assumptions has guided our reading of Jesus’ appropriation of the OT tradition. Jesus taught in a pluralistic context, well aware that his was not the only reading of the tradition. He spoke with authority but explicitly gave freedom of response to his audience. He also made claims regarding the testimony of Israel with particular attention to justice for discarded wives, unappreciated children, and disenfranchised poor persons.
Wright’s insight regarding the six acts of the story, with Jesus seeing himself as the embodiment of and caller to a newly reconstituted Israel also shaped this reading. Jesus is calling a new community that lives in covenant loyalty. This new people develops within the story begun in the earlier acts of creation and the formation of Israel’s covenant community. The story anticipates a sixth act in which an eschatological community rules with justice in the reign of God.
Martens’s attention to God’s purpose has informed our reading throughout. Martens’s contribution to our understanding of God’s fourfold design punctuates this essay. We see God’s act of deliverance in the concern for justice for divorced wives and blessing for disregarded children. The justice theme is more dominant in the story of the rich young man, who is called to act with Jubilee care for the poor. We see God’s concern for covenant community in the primary theme of relationship. Just as Hannah prayed for a son when she yearned for relationship, so Matt 19 emphasizes that community relations express {101} right relations of the community with God. Divorce is forbidden because it breaks covenant. Children are blessed in order to facilitate relationships with God. The rich young man is called to be loyal to covenant commitments by selling his excess to provide for the needy in the community. We see how God’s concern that the knowledge of God be growing relationally overlaps with the preceding pillar of the fourfold design. Suffice it to say that Jesus emphasizes that knowledge of the one who is good (holy) leads to life. We see God’s concern for land in the Jubilee expressions of the final pericope. The young man seeks life eternal—the abundance of life in the land. Jesus offers a kingdom—a kingdom that anticipates the renewal of all things.
NOTES
1. Donald E. Gowan, Reclaiming the Old Testament for the Christian Pulpit (Atlanta: John Knox, 1980).
2. Elizabeth Achtemeier, Preaching from the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1989) 56–58.
3. Paul House, “God’s Design and Postmodernism: Recent Approaches to Old Testament Theology,” in The Old Testament in the Life of God's People: Essays in Honor of Elmer Martens, edited by Jon Isaak (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009) 29–54.
4. Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997).
5. Idem, Ichabod toward Home: The Journey of God’s Glory (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 88–89.
6. Ibid., 110.
7. Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 277–78.
8. Brueggemann, Theology, 602.
9. N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999) 41.
10. Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004) 133.
11. Elmer A. Martens, God’s Design: A Focus on Old Testament Theology (3rd ed.; N. Richland Hills, TX: Bibal, 1998).
12. Ibid., 341–46.
13. Lamar Williamson Jr., Mark (Interpretation; Atlanta: John Knox, 1983) 178, 183.
14. M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” New Interpreter’s Bible 8.385.
15. J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005) 49.
16. Ibid., 50.
17. Ibid., 88.
18. Ibid., 89.
19. Ibid., 89.
20. Ibid., 231.
21. Ibid., 269.
22. Theodore Hiebert, “Creation, the Fall, and Humanity’s Role in the Ecosystem,” in Creation and the Environment: An Anabaptist Perspective on a Sustainable World (ed. Calvin Redekop; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) 115–17.
23. Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1–17 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990) 171.
24. Terence E. Fretheim, “Genesis,” New Interpreter’s Bible 1.352.
25. Hamilton, Genesis, 179.
26. Ibid., 179.
27. As cited by Hamilton in ibid.
28. Ibid., 180.
29. Fretheim, “Genesis,” 1.354.
30. Hamilton, Genesis, 180; Fretheim, “Genesis,” 1.354.
31. Hamilton, Genesis, 181.
32. Barbara Green, King Saul’s Asking (Interfaces; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2003) xvi.
33. Ibid., 16.
34. Robert Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History, Part Two: 1 Samuel (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989) 30.
35. Ibid., 33.
36. Ibid., 32–35.
37. Ibid., 36–39.
Franklyn L. Jost, “The Problem of Preaching the Old Testament,” in The Old Testament in the Life of God's People: Essays in Honor of Elmer A. Martens, edited by Jon Isaak, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009, pp. 87–101.
