000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

Sira, combining elements from the wisdom and Torah traditions, wrestled
with how the Jewish community should respond to Hellenism. Ben Sira
urges the community to practice Jewish values in personal and home life
and within the Jewish community while living peacefully with the various
occupying powers, even while criticizing those powers and reminding the
Jewish community that God will eventually topple them.
Today’s reading from Ben Sira warns readers against pride, which in
Jewish tradition is esteeming oneself and one’s power more highly than is
deserved, especially in comparison to God’s power. Pride begins when the
human being does not have a respectful sense of the divine (Sir.
10:12–13a). God will bring such calamities upon the prideful—especially
rulers and nations—that they will be destroyed. In their place, God will
enthrone the lowly and plant the humble in place of the prideful. The
lowly and humble are those who have a proper sense of themselves as created
beings whose purpose is to cooperate with other created beings in
living according to God’s aims (12:13b–18). This passage encourages
readers to avoid pride and live humbly according to the principles of
Torah and, thereby, avoid being completely annihilated and forgotten.
The readings above are wisely paired with Luke 14:1, 7–14. The Lukan
Jesus counsels that instead of seeking places of honor, people should follow
the wisdom of the Jewish tradition (represented in the readings from
Proverbs and Sirach) and take the lowest places at the table. By doing so,
the guests, having taken a high seat, will avoid the shame of being asked
to take a lower one. As he does so often, Jesus commends classic Jewish
tradition while bringing it into a new situation.
Proper 18 [23]/Year C
Jeremiah 18:1–11+ (Semicontinuous)
Proper 18 [23]/Year C 267
The key picture from this passage—God as a potter—is one of the bestknown
images from the Bible. A popular hymn in many Protestant congregations
captures associations that people tend to have with God as the
potter and the singing congregation with the clay. The congregation
invites God to mold them and make them after God’s will while they wait
quietly. 78 Even those with little acquaintance with this hymn sometimes
think of God as a potter, gently shaping them. However, Jeremiah’s comparison
of God to a potter moves in quite a different direction.
Jeremiah believed God was about to punish Judah for idolatry, injustice,
and other crimes against covenant, by sending Babylon to conquer