Theology From Exile Volume II: The Year of Matthew: Commentary on the Revised Common Lectionary for an Emerging Christianity

by Sea Raven

The Year of Matthew is the second in a series of commentaries on biblical scripture found in the three-year cycle of Christian liturgical readings of the Revised Common Lectionary. Following the RCL provides a convenient format for Bible study for clergy and lay leaders (“believers in exile”) who are drawn to the social justice mandate found in Jesus’s teachings, but who no longer find meaning in orthodox interpretations of scripture. The continued existence of a Christian “faith” as a religious system of belief is clearly under siege by twenty-first century Biblical scholarship as well as the continuing evolution of scientific knowledge. The question addressed by this series is whether and how ancestral scriptures remain relevant and revelatory to twenty-first century cosmology. The project is grounded in the postmodern biblical scholarship of Karen Armstrong, Marcus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and the Jesus Seminar, as well as the transforming work of Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox, whose theology of Creation Spirituality has reclaimed Catholic mysticism for the third millennium.

290 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2013

Reviews

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sea Raven frames her thoughts on the RCL texts by presenting the God of the bible as nonviolent, inclusive, oriented to distributive (rather than retributive) justice, and to deliverance. But she seems to insist on only a single style of scriptural interpretation that apparently excludes mystery and paradox! Jesus' way is comprehensive, and though my theology tends toward the confessional traditions of the Reformation, I have almost no disagreement with the content of Theology from Exile, only long for at least some acknowledgment of the mysterious, paradoxical, humanly unexplainable ways in which God frequently self-reveals and acts in the world.

The omission of texts for Holy Week seemed like the big thing it really was, but the Speakeasy sent me a copy of Sea Raven's parallel Theology From Exile volume on the gospel of Luke that does include Holy Week; I plan to blog and review that book, too.

The mostly 3 or 4 pages long, relatively lightweight commentaries on each Sunday's RCL readings all incline to highlight ways that particular Sunday's texts come together—or sometimes don't cohere. Although like probably many of Sea Raven's readers, I attended a mainline (liberal, progressive... what terminology does one use these days?) seminary, and received instruction in twentieth century theological trends, that doesn't mean my entire theological perspective remains thus. Or ever was entirely grounded in what some folks have referred to as fundamentalism of the left—the type of apologetics that suddenly discovers or discerns the way scripture recorded an event is possible after all, because (after all) modern science has deemed it possible. But Theology From Exile still is a useful, insight-filled resource; it's a keeper for my library!