Missing from Lent 2B
One thing that always interests me in the lectionary is the passages we don’t read. Often these are signaled by commas indicating a number of verses left out. At other times it may be interesting portions before and after. I see three interesting cases in the lectionary for Lent 2B.
The first is in Genesis 17, where part of the omission is obvious. We are told to read Genesis 17:1-7 and then skip to 15 and 16. What happens in the intervening verses? The sign of circumcision is instituted. Christians don’t comprehend circumcision all that well, and perhaps it is good that the pastor won’t have to explain that portion, but I find the omission interesting, considering that we will also read Romans 4 in which Paul will use this passage for something quite different than what it was originally intended for. In fact, he uses quotes from it mixed with those from Genesis 15 to point away from the sign of circumcision.
A few years ago I wrote an essay, Was Paul an Exegete?, in which I maintain that clearly he was not. The problem is that the word “exegesis” has so positive of a connotation amongst many pastors and Bible scholars that suggesting Paul isn’t an exegete sounds positively sacriligious. Paul isn’t doing exegesis when he uses Hebrew scripture, but that doesn’t mean that he’s either a liar or a bad person. Rather, he’s doing something else entirely. Shouldn’t we be interested in seeing just what? Reading the whole passage will help. I would suggest at least reading Genesis 17:1-16 straight through if you are using the lectionary in a Bible study group. For a scripture reading, it’s possible you should use it as is.
But there’s more! If we read forward, verse 17 informs us that Abraham fell on his face and laughed. He didn’t believe the promise. We see that also in chapter 18, where it is Sarah who laughs. Yet in Romans 4:20-21 we’re informed that Abraham’s faith was strong and he was convinced God could do what he had promised. I call this the “faith” view, one that makes the heroes of the faith look better as we give them credit for what they grew into, not what they were at the time. But Paul’s view and that of the author of Genesis are not quite in line, and we miss that if we don’t read the whole passage.
Then there is Psalm 22:23-31. Here we have a contiguous block of praise, but we lack the reason for the praise, which is that the Psalmist has been ill and suffering and prayed for healing. The praise is thanks to God for bringing him through (possibly prospectively) that situation. Now we will read the rest of the Psalm on another day in the lectionary, but it’s omitted here.
Finally, in Mark, we have Peter’s rebuke of Jesus and Jesus’ rebuke of Peter in return, but we don’t have the story that brought it on. The positive part of Mark’s passage is removed, while the negative part of the Psalm is removed.
The Romans passage is in good shape, other than the fact that it is well-nigh impossible to get the right balance from any small portion of Romans. Yet we could hardly read the whole book, could we?
