The Gospels. They afford us precious windows into the most important lifeworld of any era since Eden — when God walked among men and taught them. We are distanced from the scenes of that world by many layers. We believe the Greek language to be the franca lingua of the Roman Empire, and while we are far from being done, much work has been done to master Koine Greek with a new, significant advancement appearing only two years ago (the two-volume Cambridge Greek Lexicon, 20). But there is much more that remains before us — a maze we must make our way through before the light of that first-century world comes into view.

German scholars coined the term Sitz im Leben, or "place in life," to signify all aspects of culture, society, and the life of the community that explicate scenes from the Bible. For example, if we were to say, "Are you going to San Francisco? Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair?" we would be presenting a historical and cultural riddle, not to someone who had lived in that lifeworld but, say, to a visitor from interior China born twenty years ago. This riddle would be impenetrable to him. Now, we could have to train them in American English, with its many idioms. But we would still have before us the task of unpacking the complexities of mid-1960s culture. But mid-1960s culture takes in many things — baseball, football, the Cuban missile crisis, but we're thinking about a particular layer. We could discuss music of the mid-1960s. That too has many elements. We would have to isolate the particular music among many: Detroit (Motown), Chicago (Blues), New York (Brill Building pop), Philadelphia (Do-wop). And then there's the Great American Songbook and Big Band music that continued. This is the general context, but specifically we would have to explore the spiritual ideals (so-called) associated with psychedelic music, with its so-called consciousness-raising and mind-expanding elements. Having done all of this — and it would not be easy because I doubt there is anything in interior China to provide analogies or reference points. Having done all of this, we would be in a position to explain "flower children" and "the summer of love" and begin to bring the riddle into focus. Could we ever be sure our imagined visitor would see these things with clarity?

The "life situation" of the Twelve Tribes of Israel was much more complex, for internal tensions caused the twelve to split into a Northern Kingdom and a Southern Kingdom. But survive no detailed histories of this, much less reliable streams on YouTube. They split, laying themselves open to be dominated by neighboring powers. The Neo-Assyrian Empire of the eighth century in the north and the Neo-Babylonian Empire of the sixth century in the south had fractured and atomized the remaining sub-cultures.

All of this would be so much dust in the wind had not God sent His Son to gather these lost tribes. This is the primary reason for attempting to recover the Sitz im Leben surrounding each tribe such that we can.

Judah is a particularly complex case. Returning from Babylon after two generations of exile, the ruling class was thoroughly acculturated to their captors. No longer Hebrews, they dressed in Babylonian garb, they spoke in the Babylonian language (Aramaic), and they had become inured to the Babylonian religion. As Persia had conquered Babylon during their exile, another layer was imposed. Upon the return, the Judean governor was a Persian, Nehemiah, and his court scribe, Ezra, was his faithful servant upholding the ideals of Persian culture.

Together they were charged with constructing a building to serve as the imperial headquarters in Judah. Outwardly designed to resemble the Temple of Solomon, it, nonetheless, carried out the religious obligations of Babylonian Persia. For that was the first duty of the Persian King: to ensure that the rites of their god Marduk were carried out properly and faithfully. Remarkably, in this same era it was forbidden to mention the Tetragrammaton, the Hebrew proper noun for God, YHWH. Instead, elohim or adonai were to be used meaning "Lord," which was the same term the Persians used to address Marduk, in Babylonian, bel or baal. The scribe Ezra famously revised the Hebrew Scriptures to conform to these ideals.

The great mass of Hebrews that had been left behind during the Exile, who had not undergone this Babylonian re-programming, did not go along with these planned changes. Many went to Elephantine (that island in Egypt) and built a Hebrew Temple there. But they were pursued by order of the Persian king and commanded to offer blood sacrifice or be annihilated.

But most lived far enough from Judah and its capital Jerusalem to ignore these goings on. For centuries the hybrid Babylonian religion, which became known as Judah-ism, carried on as a separate religion in its own world. Meantime, the people practiced the religion of the Patriarchs, after the manner of Abraham, which consisted of relationship with God and specifically not blood sacrifice (which was the significance of the drama enacted on Mt. Moriah ..... your recall with Isaac, the son of Abraham).

Several centuries later, drawing close to the birth of Jesus, the situation in Jerusalem went into high gear with the rise of the Maccabees. They destroyed the Temple in nearby Samaria, which claimed to be the true Temple erected on ancient Mt. Moriah, and whipped the people in Judah into a nationalistic fervor centering upon Judah-ism as a unifying force. They needed a common text. They needed a common text which would unify the people, and they settled on Judah-ism. Throughout the Levant, they built synagogues — a word which simply means "community center" but were designed to promulgate a certain core curriculum: the "school of Moses." All of this sets the historical scene and Sitz im Leben for the Advent of God.

Jesus' kerygma, of course, departs from the school of Moses. He eschews blood sacrifice. And He asserts that merely keeping the commandments of Moses falls far short of the Kingdom of Heaven. Read the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:8-10; Lu 6:20-26)! The Kingdom of Heaven — a phrase which no one had heard before the coming of Jesus. The Kingdom of Heaven, signifying ultimate personal relation with God, Whom Jesus called Father.

By the first century, the Levant had become a patchwork of religious beliefs. To one side were the Essenes (a population comparable to the population of Pharisees), who also protested against blood sacrifice and thought the commandments insufficient.

At the other extreme were the Sadducees, who governed the Temple. They rejected all religious propositions that were not directly proposed from Books of Moses, which could be the only Divine revelation possible, by their lights. They held that the rituals of sacrifice were sacrosanct. But this was to no spiritual purpose, for they rejected the possibility of angels, they denied the resurrection of the dead, and they dismissed any form of afterlife.

The Pharisees were somewhere in between. They had rejected the Temple and the strictures of the Sadducees and were trying to cobble together a spiritual tradition, which, nonetheless, still stubbornly held to Judah-ism. They had managed to wrest control of the synagogues from the Sadducees and were trying to foster it as a center for religious worship outside of and separate from the Temple. No more sacrifices. Certainly, angels and the afterlife. But all within the scope of Judah-ism. By the way, the seed they planted grew to be the Judaism we know today.

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Now, Jesus' teachings come to us in three forms: sermons, parables, and little dramas taken from the Gospel narratives. If the Man they call "Teacher" (He is called "Good Teacher" in our Gospel lesson) were a university professor, we would say these are His lectures, His seminars, and the conversations He has while going about campus. He, of course, is a faculty of one, And His academy "has nowhere to lay its head." He is a peripatetic teacher.

The man who approaches Jesus in our Gospel lesson is also a professor. In fact, he is the dean of a well-established "university." He is the ruler of a synagogue (Lu 18:18), established with "campuses" to promulgate the "school of Moses." He is also clearly a Pharisee: "What must I do to inherit eternal life."

As he approaches, you can cut the tension with a knife. He comes to challenge Jesus. He begins by posing a litmus test question:

The whole scene is dripping with irony. For he has come to the Master to ask, "Could you please recite your ABCs for me? .... You do know the Alphabet." He asks Jesus the most elementary question.

The sparks fly immediately:

You see, Jesus poses a far more advanced question in answer to the synagogue ruler's question.

In answer to his request of Jesus to recite His "ABCs," Jesus turns the tables on Him:

"Let's hear you recite your ABCs."

Yet, in this encounter something has happened to this brash, young man in drawing near to the Son of God. The sparks that began their exchange have abated. The young man's irony has subsided. We have seen this happen many times as people have drawn near to the brilliant light and Divine life-force which is Jesus. In a word he is healed. The young man's heart has been made tender. His mind is now open to the Master.

I suppose that anyone serious about religious conversion realizes that the commandments are baby blocks. Do you know any holy people who regard the commandments as being the sum total of holy life.

I recall a Roman Catholic monsignor responsible for organizing diocesan retreats. He told me disconsolately, "We say our prayers, and then its cigars, beer, and poker." Is this holy life?

In fact, the young man is standing closer to the beginning of his path to enlightenment than to its completion. And perhaps he is ready to see that the great obstacles which lay in his path. They are easy to move. The task can be done in an afternoon. The challenge is not in the doing of them. The challenge is the state of young man's soul. Is he ready to begin the path to enlightenment? Is he ready for conversion?

Jesus tells him,

What an invitation! If Jesus stood before us and said these same word, we would abandon our crops, abandon our several building projects, and run to follow Him! Eternal life! Treasure in Heaven! The intimate Company of God!

Jesus has said it from the beginning: Metanoeite! And He says it throughout the Gospels. Be transformed! Open your heart and mind to conversion!

The young man's task is the task before all of us. The irony of following Jesus is that it is easy for us to do. It is the work of a few hours. But what is the state of our souls?

We stand at a crossroads: the things of the world or the things of God. St. John, our highest earthly authority, says it simply and plainly:

You cannot even begin until you divest yourself of the things of the world.

And the Teachings of the Apostles (the Didache), those earliest teachings of the Church, begins this way:

To begin to follow the Apostles, we stand at a crossroads. Are you ready to complete the work of a few hours and be free of worldly entanglements?

To look at it another way, Jesus says to the dean of the "academy of Moses," "Won't the Books of Moses save you?" He is cut to the quick.

There is something more. And that something more is most of what remains. We are invited not to read about the ascent to the summit of Sinai, but to ascend Mt. Sinai ourselves and to see, Face-to-face, God .... as even the synagogue ruler now does on a roadside somewhere in the Levant.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.