Year C • 26th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 28
Malachi 4:1–2a • Psalm 98 • 2 Thessalonians 3:6–13 • Luke 21:5–19
Malachi 4:1–2a • Psalm 98 • 2 Thessalonians 3:6–13 • Luke 21:5–19
The Sermon
Let the rivers clap their hands,
and let the hills ring out with joy before the Lord,
and let the hills ring out with joy before the Lord,
when he comes to judge the earth.
In righteousness shall he judge the
world
and the peoples with equity.
(Psalm 98:9–10)and the peoples with equity.
The End is Near! Don't Prepare!
In
today’s reading from the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus predicts the future destruction
of the city of Jerusalem and its temple. “The days will come,” Jesus says, “when
not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down” (Luke 21:6). Then, addressing his
disciples, Jesus gives them a warning:
But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict (21:12–15).
That
last sentence really struck me: “Make up your minds not to prepare your defense
in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents
will be able to withstand or contradict” (21:14–15)…. Now, I take the Bible
very seriously, and I try to make the Scriptures relevant to my life. So as I
meditated on this passage, this is what I heard. “Make up your mind not to
prepare your sermon in advance; for I
will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to
withstand or contradict.” Well that might save some time. So I toyed with the
idea of not preparing my sermon in advance, … but alas, I couldn’t do it. In
the end, I just didn’t have enough faith not to prepare. Now, in my own
defense, I would argue that Jesus’ words do not really apply to my situation.
For example, I was not arrested or persecuted, I am neither in a synagogue nor in
a prison, and as far as I am aware, none of you are kings or governors. And so,
I think I am safe. But I am sorry…
because I am sure that the sermon I didn’t prepare to preach… would have been
much better than the one I did prepare.
Hear • Read • Mark
• Learn • Inwardly Digest
Today, I
would like to begin our reflections by looking at the Collect for the Day,
which is printed on the first page of your bulletin.
X Rite I. Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be writ-ten for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that, by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ….
X Rite II. Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ….
According
to this Collect, the Scriptures are designed to lead us into and to help us
embrace eternal life. But let’s be very
clear. When Jesus and the
Bible talk about eternal life, they aren’t simply talking about a life that is
far off and far away, a life that awaits us in some distant future and some
disembodied place. No, when Jesus and the Bible talk about eternal life, they
are talking about life, right here and right now. They are talking about the
eternal kind of life that Jesus ushered into human history. It’s the life of
the kingdom of God, a life lived under God’s administration, a life empowered
by God’s love and grace. With all that being said, it is also true that while
we live the eternal kind of life in the here and now, we do not experience the fullness of this life. The heavenly
banquet, that banquet where we shall feast with God and God’s people in God’s
kingdom, it still awaits us. Nevertheless, we are able to taste (or partake of)
it now. We taste it when we gather around the Lord’s table. And we taste it,
when we gather together to hear the Word of God, to read, mark, learn, and inwardly
digest God’s life-giving and life-sustaining Word.
Feasting on the Word
The Bible
is filled with the imagery of feasting on the Word. For example, in Deuteronomy,
when Moses is preparing the Israelites to enter the Promised Land, he reminds
them to remember what the Lord did
to sustain them during their forty-year sojourn in the wilderness. He says, “[The
Lord] humbled you by letting you
hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your
ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand… that one does not
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut
8:3). Of course, this is the same Scripture that Jesus quotes to the
devil, when he suggests that Jesus satisfy his hunger by turning stones into
bread. “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the
mouth of God” (Matt 4:4).
Turning to Psalm 119, we hear the psalmist exclaim in
rapturous tones, “How
sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103). What an apt image.
Honey is not something that one swallows quickly. Instead, we savor it as long
as possible; we mull it around in our mouths so that every taste bud comes into
contact with its sweetness. This is what it means to hear and read and mark and
learn and inwardly digest the Word of God in the Scriptures. We must savor the
Scriptures; we must mull them around in our hearts, and our minds, and our guts
until every particle of our being is touched by the Word of God. Why? Because
the Word of God is life itself. In the beginning, God spoke, and life happened.
The Word that God speaks, expresses who God is. The Word that God is, embodies
God’s character, and God’s Spirit, and God’s purposes for the world. So when we
hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Scriptures, we are in fact
taking God into ourselves, so that we might be animated by the life of God, so
that we might acquire God’s character, so that we might be transformed and
empowered by God’s Spirit to carry out God’s purposes in the world. We are what
we eat. We feed on the Word of God so that in turn we might become God’s Word
to a spiritually starved and hungry world.
Scriptural
Indigestion
Now I am
sure that this all sounds very articulate and inspiring, but there’s a question
that needs to be asked? A question that may have already occurred to some of
you? What do we do with those difficult passages of the Bible?
If
you have spent any time at all in the Bible, then you have no doubt come across
passages that you have some serious questions about, for example, passages
about God’s anger and judgment. Take today’s reading from Malachi 4. Now, we
only heard read the first few verses, but I want to read a bit further.
See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts (4:1–3).
That seems
pretty severe. So what are we to do? Are we really expected to hear, read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest a difficult text like this. Won’t that give us
a sour stomach? If this is your question, then you are not alone. On at least
two occasions, the Bible narrates a story in which a prophet is instructed to
eat a scroll, the idea being that by consuming the words of God they will be
able to speak for God. On both occasions, the scroll is said to taste as sweet
as honey, after all it is the Word of God, but on one occasion, the consumer
get’s indigestion. In Revelation, John describes his experience: “I took the
little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in
my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was mad bitter” (Rev 10:10). Why bitter? Because the
contents of the scroll, the message that John had to deliver, was one of
judgment; it was a call for repentance.
The
fact is, some Christians and some Christian traditions relish texts of judgment
and destruction in the Bible, while others avoid them altogether. Yet, neither
extreme does justice to the Bible or to God; neither approach prepares us to
follow Jesus and to participate in what God is doing in the world. We need to
wrestle with difficult texts, we need to hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly
digest them, even if it does lead to some abdominal discomfort. Why? Because such
texts reveal something of who God is.
For
example, difficult texts often reveal what God loves and highly values and
therefore lifts up what we are called to love and value. So in Malachi, the Lord criticizes and condemns the priests
because they have corrupted the sacrificial system.
A son honors his father, and servants their master. If then I am a father, where is the honor due me? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. … When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not wrong? Try presenting that to your governor; will he be pleased with you or show you favor? … Oh, that someone among you would shut the temple1 doors, so that you would not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hands.… You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand?
Again,
these are very harsh words, but in their harshness, they express what God loves
and values. The temple priests were seeking to secure God’s favor and blessing,
and yet they showed contempt the things of God. And if they despised God in such a blatant way, how much more
do you think they despised the people
who came to present their sacrifices, the people who came to offer up their
sins, their sorrows, and their thanksgivings to the Lord. The priests were called to be a means of grace; they
were called to mediate God’s love and forgiveness; they were called to bless
God’s people so that God’s people could be a blessing; but they despised their
calling and so they fell under God’s judgment and became the objects of God’s
wrath. God loves humanity with a ferocious love, and sometimes God expresses
that love with a ferocity that can be truly terrifying. We see it in the Old
Testament; we see it in the Gospels. Sometimes God appears to us like Aslan in
the Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan is a gentle and loving lion, yet he is not a tame
lion. Likewise, God is gentle and loving, but he is not a tame.
God
is always good and loving and out to do us good, but God is not always nice.
God’s judgment and wrath is always in service to God’s love, but it doesn’t
always feel good. The Word of God in Holy Scripture is always life-giving, but
it does not always taste like honey. To avoid the difficult texts of the Bible
is an attempt to domesticate God, to make God into something that we are
comfortable with, but we need to resist that temptation. As the community of
God’s people, we need to hear, read, mark, and learn difficult passages of
Scripture, we need the bitter herbs of Scripture because they are part of God’s
story and they remind us what God loves and values in this world and therefore
they bring life.
There
is so much more that could and should be said about this, and I feel that I may
have done some of you a bit of disservice today, but let me leave you with two
bits of advice. First of all, don’t go it alone. Partaking of Holy Scripture is
first and foremost a communal activity, just as partaking of Holy Eucharist is
a communal activity. That’s not to say that we cannot read the Bible on our
own, but it is to say that our reading of the Bible occurs within the community
of God’s people. Why? Because we need support, and because Holy Scripture seeks
to develop our capacity to love and be loved, which requires community.
Secondly,
take everything to God. That is, as you spend time with Scripture, as you
listen to it, as you read it, as you repeat it to yourself, as you mull it over
in your heart and in your mind, as you do whatever it takes to get the Word of
God deep inside you, pay attention to the thoughts and feelings that arise
within you, and then offer those up to God, even if, and especially if, those
thoughts and feelings are not pleasant. If the Word of God gives you
indigestion, then tell God, complain to God, give God what for. Why? Because
God can take it, and because in the end, engaging Holy Scripture is all about
relationship with God, it is all about encountering and being encountered by
the God of the Bible, a God who loves you with such ferocity that he will go to
the ends of the earth to draw you unto himself, and he will never let you go.
In
the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Scriptures
RCL, Year C, Proper 28, Thematic
Track
Malachi 4:1–2a
See, the
day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers
will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave
them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of
righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.
Psalm 98 (BCP
727–728)
1
Sing to the Lord a new song, *
for he has done marvelous things.
for he has done marvelous things.
2
With his right hand and his holy arm
*
has he won for himself the victory.
has he won for himself the victory.
3
The Lord
has made known his victory; *
his righteousness has he openly shown in the sight of the nations.
his righteousness has he openly shown in the sight of the nations.
4
He remembers his mercy and
faithfulness to the house of Israel, *
and all the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.
and all the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.
5
Shout with joy to the Lord, all you lands; *
lift up your voice, rejoice, and sing.
lift up your voice, rejoice, and sing.
6
Sing to the Lord with the harp, *
with the harp and the voice of song.
with the harp and the voice of song.
7
With trumpets and the sound of the
horn *
shout with joy before the King, the Lord.
shout with joy before the King, the Lord.
8
Let the sea make a noise and all that
is in it, *
the lands and those who dwell therein.
the lands and those who dwell therein.
9
Let the rivers clap their hands, *
and let the hills ring out with joy before the Lord,
and let the hills ring out with joy before the Lord,
when
he comes to judge the earth.
10
In righteousness shall he judge the
world *
and the peoples with equity.
and the peoples with equity.
2
Thessalonians 3:6–13
Now we
command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from
believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that
they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we
were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without
paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we
might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right,
but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you,
we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear
that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.
Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their
work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be
weary in doing what is right.
Luke 21:5–19
When some
were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and
gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days
will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown
down.”
They
asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is
about to take place?” And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for
many will come in my name and say, `I am he!’ and, `The time is near!’ Do not
go after them.
“When
you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must
take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then he said to
them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will
be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will
be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
“But
before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand
you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and
governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So
make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you
words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or
contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and
friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all
because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you
will gain your souls.”
Delivered on Sunday, November 24th, a.d. 2013
at St. John's Episcopal Church (Wichita, Kansas)
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