Philippians 3 opens with the sharpest language in the letter. Paul has just written blepete tous kynas — "watch out for the dogs" — and then blepete tēn katatomēn, a savage pun: peritomē is circumcision, a cutting-around; katatomē is mutilation, a cutting-to-pieces, the word used for the self-gashing of pagan priests. He is talking about the teachers pressing circumcision on gentile converts — and having called them mutilators, he says: we are the circumcision. Today's reading begins there.
What happens
"Brothers and sisters: We are the circumcision, we who worship through the Spirit of Theos, who boast in Christ Jesus and do not put our confidence in flesh, although I myself have grounds for confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he can be confident in flesh, all the more can I. Circumcised on the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrew parentage, in observance of the law a Pharisee, in zeal I persecuted the assembly, in righteousness based on the law I was blameless. But whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my master."
What to notice
The CV is arranged with care and divides cleanly in two. The first four items were done to him: circumcised on the eighth day (not a proselyte circumcised late), of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, Hebraios ex Hebraiōn — a Hebrew born of Hebrews, probably meaning an Aramaic-speaking household rather than a Greek-speaking one. The last three he did himself: Pharisee by choice of school, persecutor by zeal, amemptos — blameless — by performance under the law. Two items repay a pause. Benjamin is a boast — the tribe of the first king, Saul, whose name Paul carried; the tribe that stayed with Judah when the north broke away; the tribe whose territory contained Jerusalem. And amemptos is not a small claim. Paul does not say he tried and failed at the law; he says that by the law's own measure he was without reproach — and this from a man who elsewhere argues at length that the law cannot make anyone right. He is not converting a failure into a testimony. He is converting a success. Then the metaphor turns commercial: hatina ēn moi kerdē, tauta hēgēmai dia ton Christon zēmian, "whatever things were gains to me, these I have reckoned, because of Christ, a loss."Kerdos is profit; zēmia is the loss column, the word for damage or forfeit; and hēgēmai is perfect tense — I made the entry and it stands. Notice how the arithmetic works: he does not say the entries were fraudulent. A gain that never existed cannot be moved to the other column. The items were real assets, correctly recorded, and he has reclassified all of them — a much stranger operation than repentance, and much harder to argue with. The reason given is to hyperechon tēs gnōseōsChristou Iēsou, "the surpassing-ness of the knowing of Christ Jesus" — hyperechonbeing used of a superior officer and of a sum that exceeds, and gnōsis here meaning acquaintance, to which Paul immediately adds tou kyriou mou, my master. The lectionary stops one clause short of the sentence's end. What comes next is hēgoumai skybala — "I reckon them garbage" — table scraps thrown to dogs, and in plenty of ancient usage, excrement. Having called his opponents dogs in Philippians 3:2, he throws his own pedigree to them.
Psalm 105 is a history lesson set to music: forty-five verses running from the covenant with Abraham through Joseph in Egypt, the plagues, the exodus, and the gift of the land. Its distinguishing feature is that Israel is barely the subject of any sentence in it — almost every verb belongs to Yahweh. Today's selection is the opening summons, before the history begins.
The selected verses
Psalm 105:2–3."Sing to him, sing his praise, proclaim all his wondrous deeds. Glory in his holyname; rejoice, O hearts that seek Yahweh!" Psalm 105:4–5."Look to Yahweh in his strength; seek to serve him constantly. Recall the wondrous deeds that he has wrought, his portents, and the judgments he has uttered." Psalm 105:6–7."You descendants of Abraham, his servants, sons of Jacob, his chosen ones! He, Yahweh, is our Theos; throughout the earth his judgments prevail."
What to notice
Hithal'lu b'shem qodsho — "boast in his holy name." The verb is halal in the reflexive stem, and it does mean to boast, not merely to praise; it is what a man does about his own strength in Jeremiah 9:23. The psalm does not tell Israel to stop boasting — it tells them where to aim it, which is precisely the move Philippians 3:3 makes: kauchōmenoi en Christō Iēsou.Baqqeshu panav tamid, "seek his face continually," uses a liturgical word: tamid is the term for the perpetual offering, the fire that never goes out, the bread always on the table. The seeking is specified as the kind that does not stop and start. And then Psalm 105:6, which the lectionary has plainly chosen for today: zera Avraham avdo, benei Ya'aqov b'chirav — "offspring of Abraham his servant, sons of Jacob his chosen ones."That is Paul's list — descent from Abraham, the line of Jacob, election: the first three items on the balance sheet he has just moved to the loss column. But look at how the psalm uses them. It uses them as a vocative, not as a claim. They are how the congregation is addressed, not what the congregation asserts, and everything the psalm then recites is something Yahweh did: zakhar l'olamberito, he remembered his covenant forever.The descent is real and it is not the subject of a single verb.
Luke 15 opens with a complaint, and the complaint is the reason for everything in the chapter — including the prodigal son, the third panel of the triptych beginning today. All the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near, and the Pharisees and scribes diegongyzon, were murmuring.It is the same root Paul used on Wednesday — gongysmos, the wilderness word. Two days ago the instruction was do everything without grumbling; today the grumbling opens the scene.
What happens
"The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.' So to them he addressed this parable. 'What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy… I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance. Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it?… In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of Theos over one sinner who repents.'"
What to notice
The charge is precise and it is not about theology: houtos hamartōlous prosdechetai kai synesthiei autois — "this man receives sinners and eats with them."Synesthiō, to eat together, is the offense. Table fellowship is a statement about who belongs, and everyone in the argument knows it. The two parables are a matched pair, and Luke builds pairs like this on purpose — a man's story and a woman's, the same shape twice. A shepherd stands for Theos in the first; a woman with a broom stands for Theos in the second, and that the second image is domestic and unglamorous is not incidental. The shepherd leaves the ninety-nine en tē erēmō, in the wilderness (Luke's detail; Matthew puts them on the hills), and when he finds the sheep he does not drive it home — epitithēsin epi tous ōmous autou chairōn, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. A grown sheep is heavy. He carries the whole distance back. The woman's ten drachmas are a real sum — a drachma was about a day's wage, so a week and a half of work — and many readers have suggested they are the coins sewn onto a married woman's headdress. What is certain is the search: she lights a lamp (a village house had one small window), sweeps, and looks epimelōs, painstakingly, an adverb of professional thoroughness. And both stories end with a party that costs more than the thing recovered. Feeding the neighbours costs more than a drachma. Neither parable notices this, which is the point. Now the observation that changes the chapter: neither the sheep nor the coin does anything. The sheep does not come home; it is found and carried. The coin cannot even be said to be capable of being lost in any morally interesting sense. And yet both parables are applied with the same sentence — over one sinner who repents.The word repentance is attached to two stories in which the lost item is entirely passive. Finally, the sting: than over ninety-nine righteous who have no need of repentance, said in front of men who have just complained about the company he keeps. It reads as straight (there are such people, and heaven is less excited) or as edged (there are none, and you have just identified yourselves) — and Luke leaves the knife in the drawer.
How They Fit Together
Three sets of sums an auditor would refuse to sign
Leave ninety-nine to find one; sweep the house for a day's wage
Today is a day about counting, and all three readings do sums that an auditor would refuse to sign.
Paul's is the most disciplined. He lays out seven credentials in two groups — four inherited, three earned — and every one of them is real. He was circumcised on the eighth day; he was of Benjamin; he was a Pharisee; and by the law's own standard he was amemptos, blameless.This is not a confession. He is not saying he had been lying to himself, or that the assets were overvalued, or that he failed to live up to them. He says hatina ēn moi kerdē — "whatever things were gains to me" — and then reclassifies them, in the perfect tense, as loss. The ledger is accurate before and after. Only the column has changed.
The psalm shows what those same credentials look like when they are used properly. Offspring of Abraham his servant, sons of Jacob his chosen ones — the exact items on Paul's list, and the psalm sings them. But notice the grammar: they are a vocative. They are how the congregation is called, not what the congregation claims, and every verb of substance in Psalm 105 belongs to Yahweh. The pedigree is not denied. It is simply never the subject of a sentence.
Then Luke, whose arithmetic is the worst of the three and who knows it. A hundred sheep, one missing: the sensible response is to keep the ninety-nine together, because a shepherd who abandons a flock in the wilderness may come back to find he has traded one problem for ninety-nine. A woman with nine drachmas in hand spends an evening's lamp oil and a day's labour recovering the tenth, and then spends more than a drachma feeding the neighbours to celebrate.Neither parable acknowledges the objection. The math is not defended because the math is not the point; the disproportion is the point, and it is aimed at people who have just done a perfectly reasonable calculation about who should be at the table.
And what ties the day together is what the lost things contribute, which is nothing. The sheep is carried. The coin is swept up. Paul, for his part, does not say he found Christ; he says he was overtaken by something that outweighed. In all three readings the decisive verb belongs to the one doing the seeking.
One more thread runs across the week. Wednesday's reading told the Philippians to do everything chōris gongysmōn, without murmuring — the wilderness word. Today the scene opens with the Pharisees diegongyzon, murmuring, over a shared table. What they are murmuring about is exactly the thing Psalm 105 spends forty-five verses celebrating: that Theos went and got people who had no claim on him.
A Question to Sit With
Paul's list was true. He really was circumcised on the eighth day, really was of Benjamin, really was blameless under the law — and that is what made moving it so strange an act, because nothing on the list needed correcting. I keep a list like that. Not of sins; of the things I have honestly done well and would mention if the subject came up. Which entry on it is quietly functioning as an asset rather than as a way of naming what was done for me?