• Hosea 2:14-20

Having reminded Israel of the source of the bounty in creation and then having “withdrawn” it, the text of Hosea now depicts Yahweh as trying to “allure” God’s people back into relationship.  (Walter Brueggemann points out that the verb translated “allure” is closer in Hebrew to “woo,” as a husband would attempt to “woo” back an estranged wife, with its suggestive overtones of seduction and courting motivated by a passionate desire for reunion.  Theology of the Old Testament, p. 361)   The Lord will restore “her vineyard” to re-kindle the passion in the relationship when the Lord delivered them from slavery in Egypt.  Once again, Israel will call the Lord, “My husband….”  The name of the one who led Israel into infidelity– Baal– will no longer be on her lips.  Yahweh will restart the relationship (“covenant”) with a new creation, the bounty of the earth and peace.  “And I will make you my wife forever….”

• Psalm 103:1-13,22

The psalmist summons every fiber of his being to “Bless the Lord.”  Such fervor is in response to the Lord’s “generous acts,” forgiveness and healing, “kindness and compassion.”  The Lord has enabled the psalmist to be “renewed” like the renewal of the “eagle.”  For all God’s people, the Lord “performs” justice, compassion, graciousness and kindness.  Notably, the Lord has not responded to them “according to the Lord’s people “according to our offenses,” but rather with “kindness” that separates us from our “transgressions” as far as the East is from the West.  “As a father has compassion for his children/the Lord has compassion for all who fear him.”  Indeed, not only should the psalmist and all God’s people “Bless the Lord.”  But all creation, too.

• II Corinthians 3:1-6

Alluding to some difficult and controversial events in his life, (which apparently the recipients of his letter knew about but we do not), Paul resumes correspondence in an apparent attempt to re-establish his good name and his relationship with them.  Rival teachers had brought  to Corinth “letters of recommendation” from leaders in the church (2:17), but Paul asserts no such formal, written documents are needed.  “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God….”  Paul claims no personal “competence,” but “our competence is from God, who has made us to be ministers of a new covenant….”

• Mark 2:13-22

Mark’s narrative emphasizes that the response of the first people called by Jesus to be disciples was immediate, spontaneous and head-over-heels.  Also in Mark’s narrative, the stories of the calls of the first disciples are intertwined with stories of miraculous healing, growing crowds and attracting the scrutiny of local religious authorities.  This scene opens with Jesus teaching before crowds on the shore of the Lake of Galilee.  He spots one person,  “Levi son of Alphaeus,”  sitting in his “tax booth.”  Without any introduction, Jesus addresses Levi, “Follow me.”  Mark writes: “And he got up and followed him.”  The scene continues in “Levi’s” home, where he has offered a meal to Jesus.  The house is filled with other “tax collectors and sinners.”  Jesus, his disciples and these notorious “sinners” mix and mingle easily.  The local “scribes of the Pharisees” see what is happening and ask the disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  Jesus overhears their question and responds, “Those who are well have no need of a physician….”   “I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.”  Recalling the disciples of John the Baptizer and the Pharisees who “fasted,” these challengers to Jesus wonder why they kept the Law and his disciples do not.  Jesus replies, “the wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them….”  A time for fasting will come later.  The scene concludes with two aphorisms that emphasize the “newness” of Jesus and his message: you do not sew a piece of new cloth onto an old garment because when it is washed the new material will pull away from the old garment;  you never put  “new wine into old wine skins,” because new wine requires a new container, a new “wineskin.”

Bled of their inherent passion by Western modernity, biblical texts for postmodern writers are allowed to once again be passionate, even sensual and seductive.  The Book of Hosea shows no hesitation in exposing God’s passion for restoration of a broken relationship with Israel to the point of using the sweet words of seduction to “woo” the “bride” back to intimacy with her “bridegroom.”  The psalmist finds God’s generosity, forgiveness, kindness, compassion, and justice irresistible.  Mark places Jesus in the home of a “tax collector” and his unsavory fellow “sinners” with whom he and his disciples  mix and mingle at dinner.  The ease and willingness of this celebrated holy man (he already had a rapidly growing reputation for teaching and powers of healing that must be from God) to party with such people, quite openly shocked the religious establishment, but must have flattered and seduced such a crowd as that.  They were disarmed by his genuine interest in them.  And they were all together in the home of “Levi” because Jesus had invited himself into the his life and “Levi” had responded spontaneously.    The exchange between Jesus and “Levi” was brief, but there was an instantaneous attraction.  Each responded to the other impetuously.

Meditating on Caravaggio’s (1573-1610) glorious painting, “The Calling of St. Matthew,” (see above) Jean-Luc Marion describes in Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Giveness what the great artist captured:

“…we only have to look for a minute at the phenomenon that Caravaggio has put into visibility to sense that Christ’s gesture is not addressed generally to the indistinct group surrounding Matthew… but rather to Matthew and to Matthew alone, who sees in it his calling.  By what do we see it– by what do wee see this gesture in fact exercises a call, that this call constitutes a calling and is therefore addressed to one alone, whom it identifies and who is recognizable by it?  We see it– this call- appear in Matthew’s gaze infinitely more than we do in Christ’s gesture. ”   “If Matthew alone suffers the silent call of his calling, even  though everyone indifferently could see its indistinct signal, this is because he alone answered it straightaway.  Matthew received the call of his calling by taking it upon himself– and this taking it upon himself already constituted the first response.” (pp284-285)

Then Marion makes the key observation, “the vocation [calling] always happens as a seduction.” (p.286)

The “seduction” is completed when its target yields.  Marion’s perspective is:

“By admitting itself to be the target of the call, therefore by responding with the simple interrogative ‘Me?’ the gifted opens a field for manifestation by lending itself to its reception and the retention of its impact.” (p.287)

In Dorothy Sayers’ play, The Man Born to be King, Matthew the tax collector has a prominent role.  In the introduction to the published play (1943), she richly develops Matthew in his life as a tax collector  as a repulsive, greasy character, but then describes his call this way:

“He has been swept off his feet by a heavenly kindness and beauty of mind  which had never dawned, even as a possibility, on his sordid experience.”  “He is having a wonderful time [after he accepts the call and becomes a disciple] and Jesus is wonderful, and he wants everybody to know it.  Jesus likes Matthew very much.”