When I first began my ministry at Faith
Lutheran of Philadelphia over twenty years ago, I thought I was pretty hot
stuff. In my first year worship attendance jumped 15%. This past year, it
dropped by 12%. I guess the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. As Jesus
reminds us in the Gospel text for Epiphany 6, Year C (Luke 6:17-26), “Woe to
you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep” (v.25b).
Nothing lasts forever. And that’s a pretty
good thing isn’t it? It means that the bad
times won’t last forever, either. Think about it. If you’ve ever been down,
sad, worried, or doing without then you know how joyful any tiny favor or scrap
of good news can be. When I was a seminary student studying urban ministry I
saw first-hand how folks in low-income neighborhoods sometimes had more joyful
and ebullient worship services in their churches than did folks in the more
comfortable suburbs. There’s something about having little which makes you
grateful for the little you have. And there’s always the promise of God’s favor—the
promise that the bad times aren’t going to last forever.
And yet, we always seem to think the good
times will.
Jesus, in our Gospel lesson, has been
riding pretty high in the ratings. Throughout Luke chapters 5 and 6 he’s doing
all kinds of wild, miraculous deeds. He’s really drawing the crowds, and, as prophets
go, he’s a rock star. People are actually coming from the coast of Tyre and
Sidon (v.17) to catch his act. That’s about 100 miles away. In fact, he’s
getting so famous and popular that he has to choose a Board of Directors from
his followers (Luke 6:12-16) just to manage his awesome ministry. Nevertheless,
as with every successful enterprise, nothing is ever perfect, and trouble is
always creeping around getting ready to bite us in the butt.
Yup. Jesus has done miraculous healings, but
some of them have been on the Sabbath (v.6-11). His disciples have had the
audacity to snack on some trail mix picked from the grain fields on the Sabbath—an
act which the ultra-pious see as harvesting (v.1-5). The Pharisees feel really
threatened by this, and they’re planning to get rid of Jesus (v. 11). The fecal
matter is getting ready to go “splat” against the rotary air conditioner (metaphorically
speaking). It’s only a matter of time.
The good times never last, do they? Not
even for Jesus.
It’s the old saying: No good deed ever
goes unpunished. Jesus came to liberate us from sin and our own idolatrous and
deceptive self-reliance. But this didn’t jive with the Pharisees’ ideas about
works righteousness and ritual piety. They liked to feel smugly superior. It
was only natural that they’d resent Jesus. By teaching folks they didn’t need
to rely on their own works to win God’s favor, Jesus got himself into a world
of hurt. But that’s always been the way. It happened to the prophets before
him, too.
Our Revised Common Lectionary marries this
story in Luke with a passage from Jeramiah (Jeramiah 17:5-10). Jeramiah is
called to proclaim God’s word, and he sees that things in Judah are headed into
the dumper. The Babylonians are at the gates, but the king is listening to
false prophets who tell him everything is groovy because they’ve made a fabulous
deal with the Egyptians. They’ve put their faith in their negotiating skills,
but they’ve forgotten the Law of God. The nation has forgotten God’s command to
mercy and charity. They don’t realize that no nation can be strong in the world
if it is weak at home. Jeramiah calls them out, naming their self-reliance for
what it is—idolatry.
Jeramiah’s situation puts me in mind of the
late, great Soviet Union. Remember them? The communist ideologues imagined a
world of share and share alike. “From each according to his ability, to each
according to his need” sounded pretty swell. The problem was they didn’t
recognize that no program of social change could be successful without the love
of God in the hearts of those who implement it. As the Psalmist said, “Unless
the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1). The
communists fed the peoples’ moral indignation, but they starved their souls.
Their utopian ideals were wet mud idols without the sacrificial love of God as
their foundation. They really could’ve used the voice of a Jeramiah to set them
straight. Sometimes, we all need that voice. BUT: if you happen to be the
Jeramiah, you’re going to make people mad. As Christians, it may be good to remember
that, if we’re not making someone mad, we might not be doing our job.
But back to the “woes” in Luke 6:24-26.
What if we are rich, full, laughing, and well-loved? It doesn’t necessarily
mean were a bunch of dirt bags, but it should make us stop and think. Being
well satisfied with the things of this world should make us remember that a reversal
is always looming. It’s time to be humble. It’s a time to remember that God is
in charge, not us. It’s a time to cultivate gratitude, and to pray, “Thy will
be done.” It’s a time to ask God how to be a good and loving steward. If you
hit the lottery, get the new job, have a new grandchild, pay off your mortgage—it’s
a time to remember this is God’s doing, not yours.
And, should the reversal come, should you
get the diagnosis, lose your job, get the tax or the home repair bill, or be
faced with a family member in crisis—this is the time to remember God is still
here for you. God is here in loving friends, in the spirit of hope, and in the
promise of salvation. If you can’t rejoice in these things in the bad times,
you won’t recognize them in the good times.
Things change. God doesn’t. Be blessed, my
friend, and thanks for reading.
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