Tag: Jesus

Being Divine Salt and Light

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Matthew 5:13-20

After promising his disciples that they will be persecuted, Jesus immediately adds,

You, you are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses savor, by what will it be made salty? It is yet worth nothing if not to be tread down under people after being thrown out. You, you are the light of the cosmos. A city situated on a hill is not able to be hidden. No one kindles a lamp and places it under a basket but upon the lampstand, and it shines for all who are in the house. In this way, let your light your light shine before humanity… (vv13-16a).

Keeping in mind that Jesus hasn’t had a week off between his last statement and this one like we have, these verses are a corresponding instructional[ii] product of his promise to the disciples that they will be persecuted and the other blessed statements. The disciples are expected to participate and continue the work of Christ, which is both salt and light in the world. Thus, the disciples will also be light and salt in the world because they will—by faith and the presence of the (coming) Holy Spirit—continue God’s work revealed/made tangible in Christ.[iii] Because of their identity with Christ, because of their faith in him, because of their union with God through the Holy Spirit, the disciples won’t be able to be anything else but salt and light in the world…just like the prophets before them—caught up in the divine pathos. So it happens with those God calls to be disciples (prophets).[iv] Jesus exhorts the disciples: go and be lights, go and be salt; btdubs, you haven’t a choice in the matter (you are salt and you are a light hanging form a lampstand for all to see, not by your own doing but by God’s). And this will bring both wanted and unwanted attention, thus the previous statement about being persecuted.

Thus, the negative statements in these verses are not so much a curse (e.g. be salt or else!), but a practical statement of an either/or situation: salt salts or it doesn’t, when it doesn’t it’s thrown out and trampled; a light lights or it doesn’t, when it doesn’t it doesn’t help anyone. Jesus is setting up a practical if/then: those who are salt and light are those who are called by God to participate in the divine mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation;[v] they are to help the birthing of the reign of God amid the kingdom of humanity (which, by the way, will bring attention and persecution). A world that is void of divine justice, is a world that is awful to live in; the disciples are to bring the salt to make this world a better place to live in; they are to be the light that exposes human injustice and draws people unto the truth of God’s reign and justice.[vi]

But here is an important point: all of this is done by God’s power and presence in and with them. The disciples are not mustering up their saltiness and lightyness of their own free will and choice; they’re being used to salt and to light (they are these things). Without the divine calling (“come and follow me”), without this divine power (baptism of water and Spirit), without the incarnate Word (the gospel[vii]), one can’t be the salt or light of which Jesus speaks—not unlike when the words of a false prophet fall to the ground (there to be trampled upon, words that do not expose and bring to God).

Jesus continues, that your good works might be perceived and might esteem your Father who is in the heavens (v16b). It’s as if the light that they have by faith in Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit will illuminate (for all to see) their being the salt of the earth.[viii] To be salt of the earth is to cause the earth to be savory (tasty;[ix] thus good and well-pleasing) and also to preserve it so it doesn’t rot[x] and become corrupt(ed) (two uses common to the historical context[xi]). To be salt is to be active in the world to the benefit of others[xii] (being unsalty in the world is like being nothing).[xiii] And it’s the light that shines through them that will expose them as salt to the benefit to the neighbor and the entire cosmos; Jesus’s scope of the disciples saltiness and lightyness, according to Matthew, is all encompassing; it’s massive.[xiv] The salt and light born of faith is loving deeds;[xv] those who love, those who participate in bringing life, those who hunger and thirst for liberation from captivity (for others and not only for themselves), are the salt and light making the world better, more enjoyable, a place that not only sustains but causes life to thrive (for both salt and light are necessary for such conditions of grown and thrive[xvi]). And the depth and breadth of their loving (faithful) activity is a (divine intended) result of being members of the blessed ones just mentioned; like Abraham and Sarah and their family, the disciples are a blessing to be a (public[xvii]) blessing to others and the world.[xviii] In this way, God’s name will be esteemed because of the disciples[xix] (a fulfillment of the petition in the Lord’s prayer to come, let your name be hallowed!).

Thus, Jesus continues to speak of the law and of righteousness (justice),

Do not consider that I came to destroy the law or the prophets; I came not to destroy but to complete. For, truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth might pass away, one iota or one distinguishing point will not at all pass away from the law until all might come into being. …  For I say unto you, if your justice is not over and above, much greater than the scribes and pharisees, you might not at all enter into the kingdom of the heavens (vv17-20).

Jesus completes or fulfills the law and the prophets by being the substance of the promise, in doing what is expected therein, and embodying the heart of the law and not just the words; [xx],[xxi] rather than discard or destroy, he takes up into his being even the smallest strokes of the law (the iotas and distinguishing points).[xxii] Jesus is bringing into being that which the law and the prophets have been pointing to; “carry[ing] them into a new era of completion.”[xxiii] He does so through his orientation in the world that is the product of God’s love for humanity (for God so loved the cosmos…); the law was to be a tool used to structure fractured human love. However, the scribes and Pharisees often missed this component paying attention (instead) to the rubric of the law, the acting out of the words of the law rather than the intent, the “weightier matters” of the law.[xxiv] Thus the law has gone “undone” or not completed; Jesus is here to do such doing and completing. Jesus expects his disciples to participate in this doing and completing, too. How? By being one of the blessed ones, by being the salt and light of the world, by being his followers in the world now (while he is here) and (especially!) after he leaves; by being those who publicly live out what he taught and lived out.[xxv] It is in this way (Jesus’s way[xxvi]) that their righteousness (their Christ defined divine justice) will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (human defined justice). It’s not about doing the law better and harder than the scribes and Pharisees;[xxvii] it’s about doing it the way Jesus did it:[xxviii] by faith working itself out in loving deeds for the wellbeing of the neighbor and the world to God’s glory.[xxix]

Conclusion

The good and not so nice expectations offered in the first part of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, give way to the why…why do the disciples need to be concerned with identifying with the poor and those who mourn, being gentle, seeking and desiring justice in the world, being merciful and clear of heart, having an eye to making peace that surpasses understanding, and preparing for being persecuted? Because this is how they add life-sustaining flavor to the world and preserve it from decay; because this is how they become the light shining the light of Christ into the world, ushering everything it touches into the divine presence.

The beatitudes are not a personal pursuit of individual and autonomous righteousness, a means to a self-centered end. In post-modern America, we—each of us—want to know—before endeavoring to participate in a plan, offering a solution to a problem, fulfilling a request, or doing a task—what’s in it for me? We want to know how we will benefit from our investment (whatever form it takes). But what Jesus laid out in the beatitudes and solidifies here in this portion of chapter five is that our reward lies in being found in and participating with the reign of God that is meant not only to bring glory to God but to also bring well-being to the neighbor. Not our own happy state and satisfaction is in mind here; being so oriented is antithetical, according to Matthew, to the goal of the proclamation of the gospel. As disciples of Christ, those who follow Jesus out of the Jordan, we are to put ourselves aside (not deny ourselves as if we didn’t exist) and to intentionally put the needs of the neighbor first (which is exactly what God does in Christ). It is through this other-orientation that disciples are recognized as the salty salt of the earth and the lighty light of the whole world; and this goal—becoming the salt and light of the world—is precisely the goal of the law and the prophets, it is the goal of our encounter with God in Christ, it is the goal of our faith eager to work itself out in loving deeds.

In other words, Beloved, we are blessed to be a blessing; we are loved to be love, to be salt, to be light in the world bringing everything and everyone whom we touch and encounter into the life giving, loving, and liberating encounter with Godself in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 78. Moving into the instructional portion of the sermon on the mount

[iii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 78-79. “It is prefaced with ‘salt and light’ sayings addressed to the disciples in a way that points them toward their mission in the world. Neither salt nor light exists for its own sake. The salt needs to stay salty to fulfill its function and the light needs to be lifted up to give light.”

[iv] . T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 175. “Here the light which Jesus brings is also provided by his disciples, who will soon be commissioned to share in his ministry of proclamation and deliverance.”

[v] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 94. “Julio: ‘By liberating it. Because a world filled with injustice is tasteless. Mainly for the poor, life like that has no taste.’”

[vi] Cardenal, Solentiname, 94. “Elvis: ‘…Christians don’t have that Christian taste. They’re simpleminded, insipid. Only the ones who are struggling for a just society are the ones who have that taste of salt.’”

[vii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 95. “Marcelino: ‘I think that “salt” is the Gospel word given to us so that we’ll practice it and pass it on to others, practicing love, so that everybody will have it. Because salt is thing that you never deny to anybody.’”

[viii] France, Matthew, 177. “The metaphor of v. 15 is now explained more prosaically, with the ‘light’ shed by disciples interpreted as the good that they do.”

[ix] Cardenal, Solentiname, 94. “Adan: ‘It seems to me its because every meal should have salt. A meal without salt has no taste. We must give taste to the world.’”

[x] Cardenal, Solentiname, 94. “And Doña Adela, a little old woman with a weak voice: ‘We are the salt of the world because we have been placed in it so the world won’t rot.’”

[xi] France, Matthew, 174. “The two most significant uses of salt in the ancient world were for flavoring and for the preservation of food, and either or both of those uses would provide an appropriate sense here: the disciples are to provide flavor to the world the live in …and/or they are to help to prevent its corruption.”

[xii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “These metaphors imply a turning outward toward mission in the world. The impact of the followers of Jesus upon others is part of the message here. Something good and desirable is given that will cause them to give glory to God.”

[xiii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “These metaphors imply a turning outward toward mission in the world. The impact of the followers of Jesus upon others is part of the message here. Something good and desirable is given that will cause them to give glory to God.”

[xiv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The scope of this blessing is the widest possible…”

[xv] Cardenal, Solentiname, 95-96. “Felix Mayorga: ‘Maybe the light is the good people, who practice love. Everyone that has a good spirit and loves others, he is the light of the world.’”

[xvi] France, Matthew, 173. “Sir 39:26 lists salt as one of the essentials for human life…’The world cannot endure without salt.’ Disciples are no less essential to the well-being of ‘the earth,’ which here refers to human life in general.’”

[xvii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The community of disciples cannot be a closed community, an ‘introverted secrete society shielding itself from the world.’ Its witness is public.”

[xviii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The universal scope of divine blessing through the people of God is consistent with the theme in Hebrew Scriptures of ‘blessed in order to be a blessing’ (Gen. 12:2; 22:80) and called to be a ‘light to the nations’ (Isa. 2:2-5, 42:6; 49:6).”

[xix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The gifts/functions of salt and light are not self-contained; they are meant to be shaken out and shining forth. Followers of Jesus need to be salty and we have to shine. Are we ‘salt of the earth’ kind of people? Are we ‘shining examples’ of God’s light in the world? Do people have cause to praise God (v. 16) because of us?”

[xx] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79-80. “Jesus’ fulfilling the law and the prophets can have several dimensions of meaning:

  1. That Jesus brings into being what the law and prophets promised. Reference to the fulfilling of the law is often made just before Matthew quotes something from the Hebrew Bible.
  2. That Jesus himself does what the law and prophets in fact require of us. His life is molded by the law, and it defines his vocation and the conduct of his life.
  3. The Jesus teaches and lives the deeper meaning of the law, which is best understood in terms of the love command on which ‘hang all the law and the prophets’ (22:450). All the laws concerning tithing, ritual purity, and Sabbath observance remain in place, but they are subordinate to the love command. Love exceeds these. It requires more and not less than the law.”

[xxi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 80. “All three of these dimensions seem to be involved in Jesus’ relations to the law and the prophets as variously presented in the Sermon on the Mount.”

[xxii] France, Matthew, 186. “The jots and tittles are there to be fulfilled, not discarded, and that is what Jesus has come to do. They are not lost, but taken up into the eschatological events to which they pointed forward.”

[xxiii] France, Matthew, 183. “In the light of that concept, and of the general sense of ’fulfill’ in Matthew, we might then paraphrase Jesus’ words here as follows: ‘Far from wanting to set aside the law and the prophets, it is my role to bring into being that to which they have pointed forward, to carry them into a new era of fulfillment.’”

[xxiv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 80. “The commandments of Torah are not all of the same weight. Jesus argues later that love and compassion for the neighbor outweighs matters such as cultic observance…He chides the scribes and Pharisees because they ‘tithe the mint, dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy and faith.’ Jesus’ own life is an exemplar of attending to the weightier matters.”

[xxv] France, Matthew, 183. “From now on it will be the authoritative teaching of Jesus which must govern his disciples;’ understanding and practical application of the law.”

[xxvi] France, Matthew, 187. A different type of doing the law that is different from scribes and pharisees “That will mean in effect the keeping of the law as it is now interpreted by Jesus himself…”

[xxvii] France, Matthew, 189. “The paradox of Jesus’ demand here makes sense only if their basic premise as to what ‘righteousness’ consist of is put in question. Jesus is not talking about beating the scribes and Pharisees at their own game, but about a different level or concept of righteousness altogether.”

[xxviii] France, Matthew, 182-183. Jesus “the way in which he  ‘fulfills’ the pattern laid down in the law and the prophets.”

[xxix] France, Matthew, 190. “Those who are to belong to God’s new realm must move beyond literal observance of rules, however good and scriptural, to a new consciousness of what it means to please God, one which penetrates beneath the surface level of rules to be obeyed to a more radical openness to knowing and doing the underlying will of ‘your Father in heaven.’”

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A Disciple or One of the Crowd?

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Matthew 5:1-12

Matthew begins by telling us that Jesus after seeing crowd went up/ascended up the mountain; after he sat down his disciples came to him. And after opening his mouth he was teaching them saying… (v1-2). Jesus pulls back a bit. Matthew doesn’t tell us why he creates distance between himself and the crowd, but only that he does. Most likely, Jesus aims to teach something (pointed and specific) to his disciples about what is expected of them. So, Jesus ascends a mountain to give himself (and thus his disciples) some distance from the crowd. What follows is primarily for the disciples of Christ (his own who came to him) and only then, secondarily, for the overhearing crowd who followed the disciples and overheard the teaching.[ii] Thus, what Jesus teaches his disciples must be understood as an expected characteristic of their life in the world; Matthew is intentionally drawing Jesus and the disciples up and out to focus the narrative spotlight on them. This teaching isn’t for the average passerby or casually interested; it’s for those who are called to be disciples, the ones empowered by faith and the Holy Spirit to be Christ’s representatives in the world to the glory of God and well-being of the neighbor.

So, what does Jesus teach his disciples that the crowd overhears?

  1. Blessed [are] the beggarly poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven (v3).

Who are the “beggarly poor in spirit”? Matthew is not setting up a dichotomy between those who have materially naught and those who have spiritually naught. Matthew has in mind the very same people Luke does, the poor. These are the “‘anawim’”; translated from the Hebrew, these are “‘the poor of Yahweh,’” those who find themselves captive to sin (in themselves) and the sin of the kingdom of humanity holding them hostage (in other words these are the “oppressed”; there is no Greek word that neatly translates the Hebrew).[iii] The blessed here are the ones who cry out to God for liberation and long for the kingdom of heaven, exhausted and fatigued by dehumanizing rules and demands of the kingdom of humanity. The “beggarly poor in spirit” are the ones who Jesus then mentions in the following “blessed” statements: the mourners, the gentle, the hungry and thirsty for righteousness, the merciful, the clear of heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, and his representatives who will live in the world as he did and who will suffer like he did.[iv] To these “beggarly poor in spirit” will be given the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God that will liberate them from death, indifference, and captivity. Jesus exhorts his disciples to see that around them are those who do not fit into the status quo, those who are rejected and pushed out, those who are scapegoated by the powerful and mighty, those who are exiled and deported; it is these, Jesus tells his disciples, who will be heard and answered by God through Christ’s representatives inspired by the power of the Holy Spirit.

  • Blessed [are] the ones who mourn, because they, they will be comforted (v4).

This one is straight forward: those who mourn for loss and in grief and sorrow will be comforted. The mourners are the widows who find themselves afraid and scared, thrust into a situation of precarious dependency on agencies and institutions for their well-being. They are the children who do not know what has happened to their parents. They are the ones who carry the burden of remembering a life cut short too soon and too early, life lost in the wake of impulsive and deadly actions of the kingdom of humanity. Those who lose in the game of health and wealth; their deaths are mourned for. Jesus promises that these who mourn will be comforted; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, that which is to come, that which is being born through Christ’s disciples and representatives, those who are eager to see life, love, and liberation reign.[v]

  • Blessed [are] the gentle/humble, because they, they will inherit the earth (v5).

In our understanding of the world (the ideologies that are resonant with the kingdom of humanity) it is the powerful and mighty who take ownership of the land, those who initiate and win wars dedicated to taking lands and nations unto themselves, causing their empire to grow in presence and stature. But Jesus says something different: it is not the powerful and mighty who inherit the earth, but the gentle, the humble, or we could say “the beggarly poor in spirit.”[vi] Why? Why does Jesus flip the expectation? Because it is not the powerful and mighty who are the trustworthy, but those who put themselves aside to take up the cause of the earth—flora, fauna, humanity, and creation.

  • Blessed [are] the ones who hunger and thirst for justice; [vii] because they, they will be filled (v6).

Jesus then promises that the ones who hunger and thirst for justice will be filled. God is on the side of the hungry and thirsty, for those who are hungry and thirsty desire and call out for justice which is God’s justice.[viii] It is also those who advocate (in word and deed) on behalf of the hungry and thirsty and strive for justice to be done in the world who find God on their side. The disciples of Christ are to be driven by a hermeneutic of hunger for God and God’s justice to be done on earth as it is in heaven for the well-being of the neighbor.

  • Blessed [are] the merciful/compassionate, because they, they will be shown mercy/will have mercy by God’s grace (v7).

A trademark characteristic of the disciples of Christ is connected to the pursuit of justice: mercy, compassion. It is not a blind reverence and obedience to the law, executing harsh judgment and deadly punishment for noncompliance. Those who dare to wear the name of Christ, those who have faith, those who are participants in the grace of God are those so called to be patient, discerning, calm, and (most of all) merciful. Just like justice, mercy does not set out to harm but to cause to flourish. For in showing mercy they receive mercy from God.

  • Blessed [are] the clear of heart, because they, they will see God (v8).

One may expect this to come first. But it doesn’t. For only the clear of heart are those who do not carry internal burdens of dissonance, shame, and guilt; these ones are aligned—inner to the outer and with God and God’s will. Thus, why they will (and do) see God. Only those who attempt to find a compromise or live according to the tenets of the kingdom of humanity while claiming Christ are considered the “unclear of heart” who, then, cannot see God.

  • Blessed [are] the peacemakers/peaceable, because they, they will be called [children] of God (v9).

To be a maker of peace is to be one who causes peace to happen amid conflict and tension. It is not done by threat or condemnation, it is not obtaining security by means of might and power, it is not done by being the biggest and the strongest. It is done through humility seeking justice; it is done through mercy and patience; it is done through vulnerability and risk. No military of the kingdom of humanity will ever be able to bring peace; security maybe—but only temporarily—but not peace and real safety. It is the ones who strive for peace and unity by means of love, mercy, humility, and justice that can expect to be the children of God.[ix] Like children do, they carry with them (inside and out) the genetic traits of their parents. And in this instance that parent is Abba God and to make peace is to bring divine justice into the world.

  • Blessed [are] the ones who have been persecuted on account of justice, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven (v10).

To pursue the justice of the reign of God as children of God will pit the disciples of Christ against the forces of the kingdom of humanity. [x] This is not persecution because one sides with traditional ideologies or the status-quo of the kingdom of humanity; this is persecution because you dare to be a midwife for the divine reign of God being born into the world. These ones who are so persecuted are already in the kingdom of heaven.[xi]

  • Blessed are you when they might insult you and they might persecute [you] and they might say all evil against you, lying on account of me. Be glad and exult, because much is your reward in the heavens; for in this way they persecuted the prophets those before you (v11-12).

This statement targets the disciples directly (moving it to a direct address with “you”). If they weren’t paying attention before, they are now. Jesus prophesies that they will be persecuted as they pursue God’s justice in the world in the name of Christ and just as Christ will be persecuted for the very same thing.[xii] Those who are persecuted for pursuing justice, for thirsting and hungering after God’s justice are those who follow Christ and will be persecuted because of his name and this pursuit. They are, by default, guilty of bearing into the world the collision of the reign of God with the kingdom of humanity in the name of Jesus and will be treated like he was treated and as the prophets before were treated. Jesus is linking—through himself—those who follow Christ in Christ’s name are the same as the prophets who came before. It is these prophets (past, present, and future) who declare the reign of God comes and who denounce the present controlled by the kingdom of humanity.[xiii] They will be persecuted. But they are to take heart, their reward is the kingdom of heaven because the kingdom of heaven is for the “beggarly poor of spirit.”

Conclusion

We are faced with a question in this moment: are we the disciples of Christ or just the crowd? Are we being addressed by Jesus’s sermon here, or are we overhearing? Discern your answer because how you answer will determine how you walk away from this sermon and what you do with the commands therein and the grace so promised by God and received by faith.[xiv],[xv]

To be a follower of Christ, a disciple and representative, offers not ease and comfort but blessedness. [xvi] The life of faith is not a solitary endeavor, one relegated to isolated mountaintops and singular experiences of worship one hour each Sunday. The life of faith is not meant to take the believer up and out but to push that believer down and in, it is an incarnated faith that is active in love, that is eager to show itself in loving deeds to benefit the neighbor and bring glory to God, it is to be the body broken bearing into the world the reign of God. To be a follower of Christ, a disciple and representative, is to be left without recourse to compromise with this world and it’s fractured and misdirected human rule; to follow Christ out of the Jordan—to be baptized into his baptism (both of water and Spirit)—is to be positioned—forever—at odds with the way things are because they know, by the Word, what should and could be. The disciples and representatives of Christ—not the crowd in general—are called to a higher level of righteousness of the reign of God that is in opposition to the errant righteousness celebrated by the kingdom of humanity.[xvii]

This is both very good news and very hard news.

While our faith does bring us assurance—all who believe are saved and all are the beloved of God—those daring to live out that faith—those “foolish” enough to follow Christ out of the Jordan—will find themselves in the paradox of blessedness and persecution.[xviii] For, “[t]he gospel of the love of God is…good news for sinners, but it is not nice news without any confrontation with human sinfulness for what it really is, a nothing.”[xx] There is absolutely no way for the disciple and representative of Christ to see the pain of the world, to feel the pain of the world and not speak up and not act even if it means being brought to our own end. The life of faith brings discontent and confrontation with the kingdom of humanity; the life of faith—eyes and ears, and hands and heart set on the bringing forth of the reign of God—will cause us to “quarrel” with and “chaff against” the current reality under the rule of the kingdom of humanity.[xix]

But the good, good word, Beloved, is that in all this heaviness of being called to be a disciple of Christ means that God is with us; we labor not alone but with Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. And if God is for us, then who, I ask, can be against us?

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 76.

[iii] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf&Stock, 2010), 82. “I said that in the Bible the poor are often called anawim, which in Hebrew means ‘the poor of Yahweh.’ They are so called because they are the poor of the liberation of Yahweh, those that God is going to liberate by means of the Messiah. It’s like what we now understand as the ’oppressed,’ but in the Bible those poor people are also considered to be good people, honorable, kindly and holy, while their opposites are the oppressors, the rich, the proud, the impious. This word anawim was probably the one that Jesus used. In Greek there was no word like that, and when the Gospel of Matthew was translated into Greek that word was translated as ‘poor in spirit,’ whereas Luke in his Beatitudes as simply ‘the poor.’ This phrase of Matthew, ‘poor in spirit,’ has created confusion, and many have believed that it deals with spiritual poverty. And I said that I met a priest who said that the ‘poor in spirit’ were the good rich people.”

[iv] Cardenal, Solentiname, 85. “I said: ‘The other Beatitudes seem to be only other ways of saying the same thing. In all of them the same poor people are spoken of by other names, and what they promise is the same thing.’”

[v] Cardenal, Solentiname, 86. “…Felipe…: ‘We can be happy about the news that the Kingdom is coming, but we can’t be satisfied until it comes.’”

[vi] Cardenal, Solentiname, 86. “Rebecca: ‘And he blesses those of humble heart. It seems to me that these are the poor in heart or the humbled. Maybe they were even humbler before (that’s my idea anyway) and yet for God they were the most worthy. People shouldn’t feel sad, then, even though they are poor, poor in spirit or humbled, because God will bring them into the Promised Land, which is the kingdom. But those of proud heart will not enter.’”

[vii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 76. “The righteousness to which the Sermon on the mount calls people is not a sinless perfection but a calling to do justice and love mercy (tsedaqah). Matthew is the only synoptic Gospel that uses the word dikaiosynē, or justice. Five of his seven uses are here in the Sermon on the mount. Clearly it is an important theme for him tin understanding Jesus’ central message. To ‘know God’ is to do Justice (Jer. 22:15-16).”

[viii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 86. “Marcelino: ‘He blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice. Hunger and injustice amount to the same thing. Anyone who hungers for good also hungers for justice. They are the ones who are going to make social change, not the satisfied ones. And then they’ll be filled with bread and social justice.’”

[ix] Cardenal, Solentiname, 88. “Oscar: ‘If I’m trying to have one person not exploit the other, I am one who is looking for peace. He says that people who look for peace will be the children of God, because they look for unity, that we should all be brothers and sisters. It’s clear that the kingdom of God belongs only to the children of God.’”

[x] Cardenal, Solentiname, 88. “Alejandro: ‘And he says that they are going to be persecuted because they seek justice, and for that also he blesses them.’”

[xi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 77. “The blessings are directed toward those who have certain disposition and inclination to act in ways consistent with God’s will rather than toward those who have a particular circumstance or status. Matthew is taking an ethical perspective.”

[xii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 89. “Olivia: ‘Before he talked of people persecuted for looking for justice and now he says ‘because of me.’ He wants to point out that it’s the same thing. Everyone who is persecuted in the cause of justice is persecuted in his cause.’”

[xiii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 89. William: ‘And Jesus compares us with the prophets. The prophets in the Bible were not so much people who predicted the future as people who denounced the present.’”

[xiv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 74. “Perhaps the Sermon on the mount strikes a better balance between God’s grace and human action than this question suggests. It is true that it is full of commands to do God’s will and ‘bear fruit,’ but right alongside these are promise of divine mercy and blessing along the way. These are intertwined throughout.”

[xv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 75-76. “In the Sermon on the Mount, this twofold grace is exemplified. Grace and calling to obedience intertwine. They are not a before and after. The law is not primarily a judge that convicts us of sin; it is primarily a guide for life in relation to God and neighbor. It is already an expression of God’s grace to us. … The law is a good gift of God in its role as a guide for living. To live in this way is to already experience the hoped for reign of God. The new relationship with God that Jesus exemplifies is open now for all who would follow him.”

[xvi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 77-78. “Those who have ‘crossed over’ to radical commitment do not find a life of ease and luxury; they find a life of blessedness instead.”

[xvii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 78. “The phrases of the beatitudes may well have reference not only to discipleship attitudes but to minority social position (those who are meek, poor in spirit, hungering and thirsting for righteousness/justice). That would be consistent with the warnings elsewhere in Matthew (6:19-21) concerning the danger that wealth and power present to the higher righteousness which the disciples are called.”

[xviii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 76-77. “The first four beatitudes declare blessing for those who were traditionally understood as being defended by God: the poor, those who mourn, the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness/justice. The second set blesses those who do what is right by being merciful and pure in heart, making peace and enduring the persecution that attends following in the way of Jesus Christ. When one’s life is characterized by the attributes highlighted in the beatitudes, two things are assured: blessedness on the one hand and persecution on the other.”

[xix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 78. “If we would—even now—live under the reign of God, there are implications. The alternative reality will chaff against the present reality. To love as God loves is to be discontented with the present reality…In our discontent, we may pray with William Sloane Coffin, ‘Because we love the world…we pray now…for grace to quarrel with it, O Thou Whose lover’s quarrel with the world is the history of the world…’”

[xx] Paul Hinlicky, “A Synopsis of Theodor Dieter, Der june Luther und Aristotle: Eine historisch-systematische Untersuchung zum Verhältnis von Theologie und Philosophie (Berlin & NY: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), 19. online article; page number based on printout.

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Epiphany: God for Us

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

At times, in the cool, dark of January and after all the festivities have wound down and the decorations and ornaments have been packed up, one can feel alone, unseen, unheard. Going from Thanksgiving to New Years is a tour of parties and engagements, concerts and events, gatherings and celebrations. One can feel swept up and out of banalities of regular life, being entertained from one moment to another.

As a parent of three children, each of whom is in a different stage of education, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of sweet returns and homecomings as semesters end and all the kids come home to stay, the onslaught of various concerts and parties threatening to overlap, and the rush of shopping, dining, traveling, and being ushered from one family visit to the next. This energy carries all the way through the first week of January. And then… Silence. And everything slows all…. the…. way…. down as if being caught in mud.

It’s not just parents who suffer the experience of the radical shifts between up and down, loud and quiet, active and inactive. Everyone feels it. The first few weeks of January, in the stillness, darkness, and coldness of the month, pose the greatest challenges for mental health; these can be the hardest weeks for our friends and family working with and through depression and grief, sorrow and loss, anxiety and despair, loneliness and alienation. The big drop after the cessation of the holiday feasts and fests paves the way for a dark cloud to loom over vulnerable humanity.

Thus, our orientation outside of ourselves is even more important as we tumble out of celebrations and land on that regular and blah day to day. Last week, Luke guided us to refocus our attention on the initial vibrations of the beginning movement of God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the tween Jesus. Today, Matthew continues that refocusing outside of ourselves and on to another. Matthew tells us a story of the divine Son, Jesus the Christ, who identifies with us in all aspects of our life from the greatest of great to the lowest of lows.

Matthew 3:13-17

Jesus has no need for a baptism of repentance[ii] like the one Matthew tells us John is offering to those gathering to and in the river Jordan.[iii] And yet, Jesus shows up. Matthew tells us, At that time Jesus arrives from Galilee to the Jordan toward John to be baptized by him (v13). The sinless one, the Son of Humanity and the Son of God, shows up for the purpose of being baptized by John like everyone else. However, everyone else in that river needed to confess, needed to be washed clean, needed to repent.[iv] But Jesus is not like everyone else; John knows this. John nearly refuses Jesus this event, as Matthew tells us, But John was hindering him, saying, “I, I have need to be baptized by you, and you, you come to me?!” (v.14). Our English version makes it sound like John was speaking it as if from a script but not acting on it. I think he was acting on it with all the passion of a Palestinian Jewish man. With the emphasis embedded in the original language, John is (literally) astounded[v] by Jesus coming to him; it wouldn’t be farfetched to imagine Jesus’s cousin holding Jesus back by the shoulders with wet hands, confessing such words. John’s astonishment and confession to Jesus showing up in the Jordan will be echoed in Peter’s similar astonishment and confession when Jesus goes to wash his feet. God on the move is always on the move in a way that defies human reason and common sense.

Jesus (lovingly) replies to John’s passion not with chastisement or offense, but acknowledges that John’s not wrong, but here in this moment God is up to something different, something that doesn’t make sense, something that is new, something that will fracture the stagnant and toxic status-quo (the status quo he witnessed all those years ago in his week-long stay in the temple). Matthew tells us, Now, Jesus answered him and said, “You permit me just now; for, in this way, it is fitting for us to fulfill all justice.” At that time, [John] permits him (v15). Jesus links his being baptized to the fulfillment of (divine) justice. But what divine justice is being fulfilled here in the sinless God-man being baptized like a regular sinful human being? It is the justice of God that is fulfilled in identifying[vi] with the plight and predicament of God’s people.[vii] And it is through this identification with God’s people—in their highs and especially their lows—that God’s justice is manifest among and in those who are oppressed (spiritually and politically).[viii] Divine justice, divine righteousness is not about what one has (as if it is something we can possess on our own right); it’s about having a fleshy heart and a humble mind that drives one to live life before God in a human way with the people of God[ix] for the goal of “keeping human life human.”[x]

Matthew continues the story, telling us about what happened after Jesus is baptized, Jesus immediately ascended from the water. And, behold!, the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove coming upon him. And, behold!, a voice out of heaven saying, “This one is my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well-pleased!” (vv16-17). Something new is afoot and God is making Godself known in and through Jesus ascending out of the water and the dove descending to alight on him. Here we have clear images of new creation, of love, of life, of liberation. Jesus ascends from the midst of the water like his ancestors before him crossing the Red Sea to find themselves liberated from the oppression of Egypt; the dove descends and lands on firm ground that is the Christ, the son of God and the son of Humanity, much like Noah’s dove after the flood.[xi]

But what is significant here is the way God makes it known (directly and without mediation[xii]) that God identifies with Jesus and Jesus identifies with God. This is my son, the Beloved…Jesus identifies with the people and identifies with God. In that God identifies with Jesus, who identifies with the people, means that God identifies with the people in and through Christ. In this way, Jesus represents God to humanity and humanity to God.[xiii] In Jesus the Christ, the son of God and the Son of Humanity, humanity and God are united forever. In this way, humanity, the yous and mes of this world, participate by faith in being the Beloved with whom God is well pleased.

Conclusion

We hear this story every year, but do we pause long enough to consider the significance of Jesus taking a baptism of repentance he didn’t need? There’s no logical conclusion except for his desire (thus, God’s desire) to identify with the plight of humanity in its ups and especially in its downs. The Sinless one identifies with the sinful ones, and it’s this profound and earthy and fleshy identification that marks the very beginning of Jesus’s active ministry. If you’ve ever wondered if God is for you, Epiphany gives us a resounding HECK YES, GOD IS FOR YOU!

And not just for you when you are up, when you are “too blessed to be stressed,” when you are clean, neat, put together, organized, straightened up, physically killing it at work and at the gym, spiritually killing it in your quiet time and charity. Epiphany highlights and emphasizes that God is with us at our worst: in our desperate need to confess, to be washed, to repent. God is with us when our acts are not together, when we can barely get out of bed, when we just can’t anymore, when we are depressed and despairing, when we are consumed with grief and emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual pain, when we bare tremendous burdens of loss and sorrow, when we want to quit and when we do. God is with us when we fail. God is with us when our shoulders and backs feel as if they are about to break with the burdens. And what’s more? God is with us when society is against us, threatens us when we are different, and condemns us because we have need, because we lack, because we can’t rise to the demands of a system dead set on devouring us.

Epiphany is the unmediated voice of God telling you, telling us, that we are unquestioningly, undoubtedly, unconditionally accepted by God because God chose to identify with us on no other condition than God’s love and pleasure made known in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 117. “The first appearance of the adult Jesus in Matthew’s story takes place in the context of John’s baptism, with Jesus as John’s Galilean ‘follower’ … who receives baptism along with the repentant Judean crowds.”

[iii] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 50. “John has been preaching a baptism that signifies repentance. Why would Jesus need to be baptized? What does he need to repent? Our theological tradition has insisted that Jesus is without sin.”

[iv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 51. “Regular ritual washing with water was widely practiced within Judaism and its symbolism of cleansing form sin was understood. This singular experience of ‘baptism’ that John was practicing is more reminiscent of the practice of ‘proselyte baptism.’ When Gentiles converted they were baptized. In extending this practice to everyone, John is in effect declaring that everyone stands in need of conversion, signaling their repentance and turning to God. Even the religious leaders stood in need of baptism.”

[v] Merriam-Webster “Astounded”, “feeling or showing great surprise or wonder”

[vi] France, Matthew, 120. “The most obvious away in which Jesus’ baptism prepares for his mission is by indicating his solidarity with John’s call to repentance in view of the arrival of God’s kingship. By identifying with John’s proclamation Jesus lays the foundation for his own mission to take on where John has left off.”

[vii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. “One way we might understand Jesus’ presenting himself for baptism is a sign of his solidarity with sinners. In this context, ‘to fulfill all righteousness’ is to be with God’s people, stand in their place, share in their penitence, live their life, die their death.”

[viii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. Righteousness/justice according to Hebrew thought, “It is about the establishment of God’s will that justice should everywhere prevail. God’s righteousness is connected with ‘vindication,’ ‘deliverance,’ and ‘salvation’…God’s righteousness is seen in God’s special regard for those who are powerless or oppressed and stand in need of justice.”

[ix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. “Thus righteousness is not to be conceived as a static quality that one possesses (what one is) but rather a matter of what one does in living life before God.”

[x] Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context.

[xi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50-51. “That he is baptized in the Jordan (v. 3) recalls the crossing of the Jordan into the promised land. That when he comes up from the water, the Spirit descends like a ‘dove’ reminds us of the links between water and Spirit in Genesis, as ‘a wind from God swept over the waters’ (Gen.:2). After the flood Noah sends out a dove. Themes of creation and new creation are reverberating here.”

[xii] France, Matthew, 122. Divine voice, “…the most unmediated access to God’s own view of Jesus.”

[xiii] France, Matthew, 120. “Further, as Jesus is baptized along with others at the Jordan, he is identified with all those who by accepting John’s baptism have declared their desire for a new beginning with God.” (representation)

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Jesus, Our Anchor Between

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

A new year is upon us. 2025 is now in the books; 2026 remains unknown as it stretches out before us. We are caught between letting go and taking in, wrapping up and rolling out, caught between what was and what will be. The beginning of a new year always invites resolutions and promises, some of which will be broken and others fulfilled. Somethings we can leave behind in 2025, others we will carry with us into 2026. For some of us there’s excitement as we think about all the unknown terrain to be discovered over the next 361 days; others of us may be feeling the heaviness the new year brings, fearing and worrying as we contemplate the potential for (more) loss and (more) pain to come our way.

The reality is that most of us probably have some form of all these feelings as we celebrate the new year. We are both excited and nervous, confident and skeptical, in control and not in control. So, it can be hard to feel anchored at this time between two years—one being completed and one barely started. And because we are caught between all these emotions and feelings, we can’t find our anchor in ourselves because that’s where all the instability is currently residing. So, where do we look?

Outside of ourselves. And this is the power of the Christmas season. Something new (even if the story is quite old) is born among us and to us and in us. Jesus, the Christ, is given to us anew, again. And while on Christmas Eve we were part of the rabble invited to the manger among shepherds and animals to look upon the newborn child who is the savior of the world, today we are invited to witness Jesus as tween participating in religious (and family!) life in a new way. The anchor we need at the beginning of this new year is found in Jesus the young and curious teacher and learner.

Luke 2:41-52

Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph were traveling to Jerusalem every year for the festival of the Passover. And when [Jesus] was twelve, they went [to Jerusalem] according to the custom of the festival and when the days of the festival came to an end, they returned and the boy Jesus remained in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know (vv.41-43). Every year for eleven years they traveled, as a family, to Jerusalem for the celebration of the festival of the Passover; every year for eleven years Jesus returned with them. And then, at year twelve, Jesus remains while the family leaves. Luke doesn’t give us a reason (upfront) about why Jesus decided to stay back or if it was an accident as if he was caught up in the events and the dialogues indwelling and swirling about the synagogue and in Jerusalem and couldn’t pull himself away. What is clear is that something new is happening; Luke wants his audience to see a shift in the narrative, to take note of Jesus’s self-differentiation from his family, his parents and siblings, even any extended family that may have been in the traveling company.

Luke continues the story, But considering him to be in the company, they went a day’s journey and then they were seeking carefully for him among the relatives and acquaintances. When they did not find [him], they turned back toward Jerusalem and were seeking carefully for him. After three days, they found him in the temple sitting down in the middle of the teachers and listening to and enquiring of them (vv44-46). Following Luke’s story, Jesus is missing for at least five days if not six. While it took his parents a harrowing three days to find him in the temple, he (most likely) spent more than just that moment (preceding his being found) in the temple. He spent about a week; a week is plenty of time to form observant opinions and rational conclusions.[i] Now, there is a correlation here between Jesus being found by his parents on the third day in the temple and Jesus being found on the third day after his death in resurrected glory; [ii] I’m not sure that’s Luke’s main point. Luke’s point is to make known the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry at a young age. While we know his active ministry starts at the Epiphany, what Luke is showing his audience is that the very beginning—the inception/conception—is here; for it’s here where Jesus is listening and asking, answering and debating with the very same religious leaders he will come into conflict with later when he’s an adult. It’s here, for Luke, where Jesus begins to make himself known and where Jesus begins to become aware of the toxicity of the religious situation for the people of God.[iii] Here, for Luke, God is moving Jesus’s spirit and planting the seeds of God’s divine gospel proclamation that will come.

So, after a week his parents find him and he’s teaching and questioning the elders of the synagogue. Then Luke tells us, Now, all the ones who were listening to him were amazed about his understanding and answers. And after seeing him, they were struck with astonishment and his mother said to him, “Child, why did you do this to us in this way? behold, your father and I were seeking you with suffering pain.” And he said to them, “Why were you seeking me? Did you not consider that it was necessary for me to be in this place of my father?” (v47). Not only has Jesus separated himself from his family, but he is also separating himself from the authorities of the synagogue. Their amazement at his insight and answers indicates that his comments and questions were not textbook but came from a different source, a divine inspiration, a divine, prophetic stirring. And this is what Luke wants his audience to see, to focus on, wherein to find anchor. Jesus the Christ, Jesus the child of Mary; Jesus the Son of God, Jesus the Son of humanity. It is through this one that God will challenge and overhaul the kingdom of humanity through the reign of God; it is through this one that the oppressed (spiritually and politically oppressed) will find liberation not only spiritual liberation with God but political liberation with the neighbor from the systemic oppression of the kingdom of humanity. It is through this divine child of Mary that the challenge and collision of the reign of God with the kingdom of humanity is already starting.[iv],[v] It is in and through this one that the very center of the temple[vi] will be relocated away from cold stones and in fleshy human hearts, away from cold law obedience and to warm faith wherein the law is satisfied and done.[vii]

Conclusion

As we enter this new year—with all its unknown and uncertainty, with all its mileage laying out before us and unchartered territory—we enter with a story of God for humanity guiding our way. We are given someone to walk with: Jesus the Christ, God’s son. So, we enter this new year knowing something significant and timeless: for God so love the world that God gave God’s only son to bring love, life, and liberation to the unloved, the dead, and the captive. Luke gives us a place to look, a focal point, something to allow our anxious minds and nervous hearts to focus on and find anchor. Luke gives us someone outside of ourselves to look to: Jesus of Nazareth, this man who is God. Christmas will always remind us that God comes to dwell with human beings on earth. This is God’s desire: to dwell with humanity whom God loves with all God’s heart. So, with resolutions or not, with promises or not, with intentions or not for this new year, we enter this new year with an ancient story made new to us at this moment. And in this ancient story we find the fulfillment of all we were waiting for through Advent: hope for the hopeless, peace for the peaceless, joy for the joyless, and love for the loveless.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[i] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 46. “Olivia: ‘he went to the temple to teach the teachers of the law, because these teachers knew the law by heart but they didn’t put it into practice.’”

[ii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 46. “Olivia: ‘He also did it to help prepare them. He was going to be away from them later. And once Mary and his other relatives came looking for him, and he told them that his family was the community. And then Mary lost him in death, but on the third day, like here in the temple, he was found.’”

[iii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 46-47. “…Jesus was taken to the temple by his parents, in accordance with the religious traditions that they faithfully observed, ‘as was the custom,’ as the Gospel says. There he saw the Jewish religion, legalistic pharisaical, external. He also saw the money-changers that he was going to drive out later. And then, when his parents were leaving, he went back to the temple to see if he could do something to change the situation.”

[iv] Cardenal, Solentiname, 46. “Felipe…: ‘In this Gospel Jesus appears as a rebellious kid. He’s still a child and he’s already in the temple challenging their religion, criticizing and arguing with those guys, giving them arguments they can’t answer.’”

[v] Cardenal, Solentiname, 47. “Felipe: ‘Conclusion, then: Jesus was a revolutionary from childhood.’”

[vi] Gonzalez, Luke, 44. “The temple is the sign of God’s presence in the midst of the people.”

[vii] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 43. Potential echo of 1 Samuel 2:26 in Luke 2:52. And, “Furthermore, Samuel’s connection both with the temple and with Jesus hint at the typology that sees Jesus as the new and final temple of God. For this reason, a common theme in early Christian theology was that the destruction of the temple showed that it was no longer necessary, for the temple prefigured the one who had already come.”

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Nothing to Lose; Everything to Gain

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Now it happened, writes Luke, in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus to take a census of all the inhabited world … and all the people were going to enroll, each one to their own city (v1,3). Luke’s story about the event of Christ’s Nativity contrasts with what we expect it to be. Experiences and feelings of hope and peace, of love and joy, fill our expectations of Christmas and its season. But, on that night, for Mary and Joseph, for the shepherds at work, there was no hope and peace, there was no joy and love. There was fear. There was anxiety. There was chaos. There was pain (physical and emotional, maybe even spiritual). There was worry and concern threading through every thought and action. There were people struggling to find bravery when they needed it the most.

Luke narrows the scope of the story, focusing in on Joseph and Mary humbly going on their way: Now, Joseph went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea into the city of David being called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David. He went to be registered with Mary, the one who had been betrothed to him and the one who was pregnant (vv4-5). On that night, Mary and Joseph made a tough journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The path wasn’t easy, the ride wasn’t smooth, the forecast was unknown, and there was no confirmation that when they got to Bethlehem there would be lodging. On that night, all was not calm; it was scary and unknown because, on that night, tensions rose and the potential for harm from chaos loomed with every step they took. Adding to this heavy burden, Mary was ready to give birth to her first-born son; her body ached, her spirit fatigued, her mind consumed with what might happen if her time came. On that night, she fought to be brave—walking all that way, not wanting to be a burden to Joseph, unknowing of what was to happen or what would come. Where was God in this for Mary?

And what of Joseph on that night? We don’t hear much about his plight as he made his way, leading the pregnant Mary, to Bethlehem, away from the comfort of his own town of Nazareth, the places and spaces he knew so well. The discomfort of the unfamiliar road and journey barely eclipsed the rolling and roaming narrative in his head: is she telling me the truth? I know the angel spoke to me, but it feels strange, surreal, farfetched… Thoughts of the census accompanied his human doubt and questioning, what will happen to use once this census is done and all the chips are collected into wealthy pockets?[ii] As they traveled into Bethlehem and faced closed door after closed door, Joseph’s brave face faltered as he watched Mary’s face give way to the first pangs of labor. Now it happened, Luke writes, while being there, her days completed… (v6)One prayer passed over his lips, please let me find somewhere safe for her, for him…this child… that’s not even mine… Everything felt up to him; as frustration, fear, and maybe even some resentment began to surface, the burden continued to weigh down on his shoulders.[iii] Where was God in this for Joseph?

In a stable in Bethlehem, they felt safe enough. …[Mary] brought for her first-born son, and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was not lodging for them (v7). Neither Joseph nor Mary thought this situation ideal, but it was what it was. And, for now, the child was safe in the wooden manger and hay, among the animals forming fortress around the exhausted couple and the long-awaited Messiah of Israel and the world. Those who felt exhausted from the long, lonely journey, felt beleaguered by the socio-political demands of Caesar Augustus and Syrian Governor Quirinius,[iv] and isolated from family, those who wondered where God was in their plight, now had God in their midst, dwelling among them. God as brave, poor[v] infant daring to face the world in vulnerable humanity: to feel every pain, every sadness, every frustration with systems and ideologies set up and upheld just to keep the already down, down. This one, this brave divine infant, will be the one to heal the fractures existing among humanity and between humanity and God and creation, the fractures that fuel injustice, war, hatred, domination, inequality and inequity, disunity and discord.[vi]

And Shepherds were in that region spending the night and keeping guard through the night over their flock (v8). The shepherds held ground in that dark night, in that silent night. There was, of course, worry about potential animal attacks on their sheep;[vii] there was more worry about what would happen to them and their flock once the census completed. How much more will I lose? I already have so little and this feels like a kick in the gut while down… The shepherds feared not the literal wolf, but the metaphorical one, the one against whom they could not fight and if they did, they knew they would not win.[viii] The shepherds, the oppressed of the oppressed, where afraid; it is quite certain their blanket of anxiety that night did not keep them warm but it sure kept them awake and on guard.[ix] That night, those shepherds didn’t feel that brave as the powerful were gearing up to take what they wanted and they couldn’t do anything about it. Where was God for them?

And then to those who were eager to stay unseen and unnoticed, were exposed by divine, celestial light.[x] Luke describes,

And then an angel of God came upon them and the glory of God illuminated them, and they were frightened with a great fear. And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid! For, BEHOLD!, I announce to you great joy whichsoever will be for all the people. A savior was born for you today—who is the Lord Christ—in the city of David. And this is a sign for you, you will find a newborn child having been wrapped in swaddling closes and being laid in a manger. And suddenly it happened a great number, an army of heaven appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to the most High God and upon earth peace among humanity whom God favors!” And it happened the angels left from them into heaven… (vv9-15a).

Heavenly light encompassed the shepherds, and for this moment they are center stage in this divine drama. It’s not Jesus the Christ, it’s not God in a ball of fire or voluptuous cloud, it’s not kings or princes, not emperors or governors, it’s not even Mary, the “God-bearer”, who is the center of attention here. It’s the shepherds, the lowly, unclean, unknown, unseen, not-all-that-brave-in-this-instance shepherds.[xi] They are not only addressed by divine representative, they are sent to go find God in a stable, in the hay and wood, among animals, among two very tired, fatigued new parents.

And they go! They are addressed by divine messengers and they are terrified by them,[xii] but they still go because there is always comfort and joy in God’s Goodnews.[xiii] Luke tells us, and they went and hastened and they found Mary and Joseph and the newborn child being laid in the manger (v16). These shepherds feeling, a bit unbrave against the raging of the kingdom of humanity, feel empowered by divine Spirit to go and dare to be in the presence of God without an mediator they know of. These lowly are now the brave, these unclean are now the righteous ones seeking and finding God in God’s humble abode and vulnerable body, it is these humble who are the first to be sent on a great divine mission in the world seeking, finding, and embracing the one who will bring both spiritual and temporal[xiv] release and instigate the divine mission of the revolution of life, love, and liberation to Israel and to the world to defeat the death, indifference, and captivity of the kingdom of humanity.[xv]

Conclusion

Every year I tell you that we are the shepherds, we are part of the rabble that is surrounding the baby Christ in the wooden manger and straw bedding. And this isn’t wrong, we are.[xvi] We are the ones peering in and being vicariously included, completely invited in this story as witnesses and onlookers.[xvii] We are the ones filled with anxiety, plagued with sorrow and grief, dreading what is to come from our own socio-political realities…more anger? More strife? More fear? More division and derision? We’re the ones struggling to be brave in the face of it all. And we’re the ones met tonight by the divine baby in the manger just like the shepherds.

But it’s more than just that; there’s more good news. The theme of tonight’s sermon is bravery. It is the case, in the divine economy, that those who have the least to lose can be the bravest.

Why did Mary say yes to God all those months ago? Because she, the lowly and poor, had little to lose and everything to gain.

Why did Joseph say yes to Mary by way of angelic vision? Because he, the lowly and poor, had little to lose and everything to gain.

Why did the shepherds say yes and hasten to find the new family carrying divine hope, peace, joy, and love into and for the world? Because they, the lowly and poor, had little to lose and everything to gain.

These are the bravest. And each of them was sent by divine summons to go and be in the world in a new way: a way trusting God, a way following Christ, a way empowered by the divine Spirit of God.

The baby is delivered. The mother is exhausted. Step-dad, too. The angels and the host of heaven have announced, glorified, and sang. The shepherds have heard and have found. But the work of Christmas is just beginning… because the baby of Christmas, Jesus the Christ, is born in our hearts tonight and now we become the brave ones called and sent.

“The Work of Christmas” —by Howard Thurman
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart.

Tonight, we are, along with the Shepherds, along with Joseph, and along with Mary, being sent to do something brave: to dare to have hope, dare to work for peace, dare to rejoice, and dare to love. And we can dare to do such things because this daring comes with nothing to lose, and everything to gain. It is by our faith in Christ, the humble, vulnerable infant born this night, that we can dare because he has gone before us and promises to be with us every step of the way. Immanuel, Immanuel, has ransomed captive Israel.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Gonzalez, Luke, 33. “A census had sinister implications. It was not just counting people in order to see how many they were, and what population trends were. In ancient times, and long thereafter, a census was in fact an inventory of all the wealth of a region—its people its animals, and its crops—so that the government would be able to tax people to the maximum. A census usually announced greater poverty and exploitation. It was as welcome among the subjects of the Roman Empire as undocumented immigrants in industrialized nations welcome a census today.”

[iii] Gonzalez, Luke, 33. “As usual, oppression is not a merely political matter, the concern only of those directly involved in politics. It also reaches the everyday lives of people, as is seen in the very fact that Jospeh and Mary have to travel to Bethlehem even though she is about to give birth.”

[iv] Gonzalez, Luke, 33. “The setting is rather that of people living under an oppressive regime. The mention of August and Quirinius—as earlier the mention of Herod—is political charged. For a period before the advent of the Roman Empire, the Jews had been struggling against Syrian domination. Now their land was ruled from Syria by a governor appointed by Rome. Whatever the actual chronology may have been, the political structure is clear: the Jews have a puppet government under Syrian and Roman power.”

[v] Cardenal, Solentiname, 24. “‘[Christ] was the greatest revolutionary, because being God he identified with the poor and he came down from heaven to become a member of the lower class and he gave his life for us all. The way I see it, we all ought to struggle like that for other people and be like him. Get together and be brave.’”

[vi] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 23. “[Jesus] was born into a humanity divided and dominated by crime in order to unite us and to change the order of things. And that’s where we are.”

[vii] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 33. “This is not a mellow. Bucolic story about some shepherds tending their sheep with little or no care beyond the possibility of a wandering wolf. That is not the setting in which Luke presents the story.”

[viii] Gonzalez, Luke, 33-34. The shepherds, “they live out in the fields, suffer all kinds of deprivations and even dangers, in order to protect their flocks. But the census threatens a new danger, a wolf more dangerous than any four-legged beast, a wolf that will probably decimate their flocks, and whom they cannot fight, for it is too powerful. It is not difficult to imagine what would be the talk of such shepherds as they sought to remain awake through the night.”

[ix] Gonzalez, Luke, 34. “…the setting itself was one of fear and oppression.”

[x] Gonzalez, Luke, 34. “One of the ways in which the ‘little people’ mange to survive under oppressive regimes is not to call attention to themselves. They seek to go on with their lives unnoticed by the powerful, who could easily crush them. Now these shepherds are literally in the lime-light and an obviously powerful personage confronts them.”

[xi] Cardenal, Solentiname, 26. “Felipe: ‘The angel came to them because they were working men, and I find this is very important for us. Because they were poor little people who were working. They were watching over their sheep which is like taking care of cattle today. They were workers, laborers, poor people. The angle of God could have gone to the king’s palace and said to him: ‘The Savior has been born.’ But the angel didn’t go where the king was but where the poor people were, which means that this message is not for the big shots but for the poor little guys, which means the oppressed, which means us.’”

[xii] Gonzalez, Luke, 34. “It is in that scene, perhaps silent, but not as peaceful as we tend to depict it, that an angel suddenly appears before the shepherds, and they are terrified. Their fear is not surprising.”

[xiii] Gonzalez, Luke, 35. “An encounter with God’s power and might leads to awe and terror, but then God’s gracious word produces joy and comfort.”

[xiv] Gonzalez, Luke, 36. “The title, ‘Savior’ (sōtēr) was employed in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible that Luke used) to refer both to God and to those whom God sense to liberate Israel. In the Hebrew scriptures, the function of such liberators in either purely religious nor purely political.”

[xv] Gonzalez, Luke, 36. “The ‘saviors’ in the Hebrew Scriptures liberate Israel from its political oppressors so that the people may be free to serve and obey God…Thus when the angel announces Jesus as ‘Savior,’ his declaration has both political and religious overtones. The child who had been born will free the people from bondage—bondage both to their sins and to their oppressors.”

[xvi] Cardenal, Solentiname, 26. Thomas Peña “‘The way I see it is that those guys who were watching over their sheep heard good news. There they were just like us here, and they heard good news.’”

[xvii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 28. “I: ‘That’s right. At this very moment you are receiving the same news form the angel that the shepherds received.’”

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“Salvation will come”

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

It’s mid-November, and we’re coming to the close of our liturgical year. It’s been a long year. Our socio-political landscape is marked by tumult and chaos, no matter what voting party you ascribe to. The ups and downs, the wins and losses, the intermingling of hope and despair are exhausting. We’re tossed about on the waves caused by those who tromp about leaving bodies in the wake, those who have more power, more money, more authority, more status than we do; we’re left wondering if we, the ones being represented, actually matter in this battle for who has the most toys (read: money, weapons, prestige, etc.). It’s hard to feel the ground under our feet when truth feels downright elusive; anyone else feel more and more skepticism toward anyone claiming to tell the truth? A diet of chaos and tumult with a big glass of skepticism never nourishes and always depletes. Humans are not meant to run on fumes for so long.

I don’t know about you, but I’m existentially and physically fatigued.

And that’s not even including our own personal lives and the things that have come and gone. Over the course of a year, we gain a lot, that is true. However, over the course of a year, we lose a lot, too. Some of us have lost family members, partners, and friends, acquaintances and colleagues. Whether to the cold hands of death or the firey fingers of derisive and divisive ideologies demanding cult-like adoration and adherence, there are people who were in our lives at the start of the year who are no longer darkening our doorways. Sadness, sorrow, grief, and regret are pretty wretched snacks; none of which actually satisfy our hunger and only leave a really bad, lingering aftertaste.

I don’t know about you, but I think I really need an intervention, a divine intervention, a good-news intervention. I need a light to pierce this darkness threatening to consume me, you, us, God’s beloved. I need to be interrupted and divorced from the dominant narratives of fear and anger. I need to be relocated in something new, something firm, something that is steady when everything else is rocky. I need a divine “normal” when nothing is normal anymore.

Isaiah 65:17-25

For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.

Isaiah’s words are a warm comfort to the parched soul. Ancient words to a people eager to know God is still their God; a need to know that they’re still seen by their God, that they’re still heard by the God who led them out of captivity in Egypt into the liberation of the reign of God. Through Isaiah, God proclaims that what was will be eclipsed by a new thing God will do in both heaven and on earth; the world will be changed when God shows up.[i]

I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

Isaiah declares to the people that God’s joy and delight will be with God’s people. Not only will God take delight and have joy in God’s people, God’s joy and delight will be with and among the people; they, the children of God, will have access to and participate in that divine joy and delight. Weeping and distress will be no more. Isaiah’s comments about death highlight that life will be lived to the fullest, celebrated with joy and delight, with mercy and grace, by faith and love. For the one who dies when it is time to die will be the one who has lived well and has been alive all their days and those days will be many. They will also be the one who die in God’s delight and joy and will be taken further into God’s delight and joy; those who survive will celebrate such a one, for there will be no need to mourn.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord–
and their descendants as well.

Isaiahs’ imagery turns to the work of the people when God shows up, and the reign of God takes over. It will no longer be toil; it will be work that’s pleasing not only to God’s eye but to the eye of the one who works. What Isaiah is describing here is a lack of exploitation of the laborer; the fruit of their hands will be the product of their own work, and they will enjoy it.[ii] Children will not be born into systems that steal human dignity, reducing them to things that toil to make others rich and some even richer. Isaiah’s words also point to a satisfaction and satiation. There’s an emphasis on a distribution of satisfaction in the work of their hand and a feeling satiated is hinted at. It’s not about grain silos and treasury vaults to store up for one’s self and keeping it from others. Rather, it’s about everyone receiving what they need all the days of their life, each day blessed by God. And even further, it’s about letting the surplus go to those who lack. All are cared for; none go hungry, thirsty, naked, or unhoused.

Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent– its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

God’s people wonder if they’re heard, and they are heard; God’s people wonder if they’re seen, and they are seen. God not only sees them and hears them, God’s presence, Isaiah prophecies, will be so close to them that even before they pray their prayers will be answered.[iii] The people of God will be seen and heard intimately and vulnerably because God will be accessible by all who are seeking God.[iv] Isaiah tells the people, “Salvation will come…”[v] God comes for God’s people, the curse from long ago will be undone, the exile of recent will be terminated forever. Prey and predator will lie down together, they will stop hunting and being hunted, anger and fear will depart; the new heavens and the new earth will even be a place of refuge for animal-kind. But not for the serpent who is, according to Isaiah, reduced to eating dust; while the world, humanity and animal kind will feel relief from the burden of the curse in God, the serpent will bear it out as was long ago promised by God,[vi]

The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you among all animals
and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.[vii]

Conclusion

Isaiah tells Israel, “salvation comes,” and it will. Isaiah tells Israel, “God comes,” and God will. Isaiah tells Israel, “help comes,” and it will. Because their God is a God of the people, of the humble people who are at their wits end, hanging from the very bottom of the rope, the ones ready to give up. As Isaiah says elsewhere, “a bruised reed [Abba God] will not break, and a dimly burning wick [Abba God] will not quench; [Abba God] will faithfully bring forth justice.”[viii]

We are not abandoned, forsaken, or alone. We are not ungrounded, destabilized, or uprooted. We are not consumed by grief, sorrow, or despair. We are not ignored, dismissed, or forgotten. Isaiah’s words to Israel become words to us today, where we are and as we are. Beloved, God comes; Beloved, salvation comes; Beloved, help comes. For, behold, Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us will be born to us, to identify with us, to dwell with us, to be God close to us, and he will be the light that pierces the darkness forever.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[i] Benjamin D. Sommer, The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 913. “This passage recalls the initial prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah in its exuberant tone and literary style, but the nature of the prediction goes beyond those found in chs. 40-48: The world itself will be transformed in the new age that God brings.”

[ii] Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah: A Commentary, The Old Testament Library (Louisville: WJK, 2001), 538. “The imagery of joy and absence of weeping is set in contrast to the sorrow through which the community of faith has come. The planting of vineyards and the enjoying of its fruits is simply the converse of Israel’s experience of exploration and conquest.”

[iii] Sommer, “Isaiah,” 913. “In 51.9-11 and chs 63-64, the people wondered whether God listens to their prayers. God answers this question here: In the future, God will answer prayers before the people even utter them.”

[iv] Childs, Isaiah, 538. “Verse 24 once again repeats the theme of chapter 65 of God’s utter accessibility in his calling and answering those who seek his presence.”

[v] Abraham K. Heschel, The Prophets, (New York: JPS, 1962), 158.

[vi] Childs, Isaiah, 538. “The line ‘dust will be the serpent’s food’ is a play on Gen. 3:14, which describes the curse of the serpent at the Fall.”

[vii] Genesis 3:14

[viii] Isaiah 42:3

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The Perfect among the Imperfect

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

Our lives are filled with incongruity and dissonance. What should be, isn’t; what is, shouldn’t be. Daily we experience discrepancies in what we thought we’d get done and what we did get done. Sometimes those discrepancies are okay because we were able to do more than we expected; at other times, those incongruities make us feel like we’ve failed to live up to our self-idealized potential. We find ourselves saying one thing and then doing another. We make vows to ourselves, only to break them the next moment. Finding personal alignment between our outer and inner natures seems to be the hardest thing to do; I’m not surprised that, as a discipline of our discipleship, aligning ourselves is a daily deed, a process always in process.

Sometimes, though, the incongruity and dissonance aren’t relegated to our own personal experience in the world but lives outside of us in the world. We see things that shouldn’t be and things could be. We see things that are and the way it should be. We want to do something to rectify the discrepancy between what we see and we want to see, but then we freeze because we realize we cannot rectify the issue in the way we imagine we should. So, rather than try we quit before we’ve even started. Our hearts burn with desire, but the flesh is bogged down with woulds and coulds and shoulds. If I had x, I would… If I had y, I could… I should… but I won’t because … and on and on the excuses go forever letting our minds off the hook of even trying. We seem to be plagued by the idea of perfectionism that plagues humanity. Perfectionism is not always doing everything perfect but believing that when one does something it has to be perfect and, thus, if it can’t be done perfectly than why try…I might as well quit now. In this space, nothing ever gets done, our dreams whither, and our desire fizzles out.

While we might feel that perfectionism is a noble trait, indicative of someone who tries to excel and do well, it’s rather a sign that we are convinced that we don’t need God in the things we do (whether small or big). It’s a symptom of our autonomy that convinces us we need no help at all. And in this state we miss that God meets us directly in the process of working through and with the dissonance and incongruities.

Haggai 1:15b-2:9

The book of Haggai is made up of four divine reports given to the people of Judah still awaiting the rebuilding of the second temple and the restoration of Jerusalem and Judah.[2] In 539 BCE, God’s people had been liberated from the rule of Babylon by Cyrus II the king of Persia.[3] In 538 BCE, Cyrus II declared to the people that God had commanded him to rebuild the temple and (thus) restore Jerusalem.[4] The people to whom Haggai speak have been waiting for the temple to be rebuilt for 18 years (it’s now 520 BCE); they have seen Cyrus’s rule be handed over to Darius I.[5] In the absence of action, Haggai comes to exhort the Judeans to rebuild the temple and to consider[6] what a fitting location for God’s presence is.[7] (vv.1:15-2:1).

What type of encouragement is the prophet Haggai to bring to God’s people? Through Haggai, God exhorts God’s people not to be consumed by fear and continue to cling to the promises God has made. God exhorts them to faith even when everything seems to be going in the wrong direction. In the prompting of the divine Spirit, Haggai says to both the leader and high priest of Judah as well as the remnant of the people,[8]

Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says God; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says God; work, for I am with you, says God of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. (vv.3-5)

What is the fear that is plaguing the people? Why does God swoop in to comfort these afflicted few? Because they are troubled by the dissonance between what they want to do—build a grand and wonderful temple, fit for a king—and what they can do—not that.[9] These few being addressed by Haggai have neither wealth nor power, neither strength nor might to build the second temple like the first one was built, planned by David and completed by David’s son, Solomon. At that time, Israel and Judah were at a high of power and presence and could provide such splendor for their God;[10] here, in 520 BCE, those who are left are but a meager group of people comprising a poor province of Persia.[11]

What God intends to do through Haggai is to not only exhort the people toward comfort but to also exhort them to depend on God and God alone to make God’s dwelling rich and kingly. Haggai tells us more,

For thus says God of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says God of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says God of hosts. The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says God of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says God of hosts (vv.6-9)

God will dwell with the faithful who love God in whatever temple they can build. God by God’s self, by God’s own power and might, will make that humble house a castle fit for a king. It is not up to the people to expend energy and resources they don’t have; rather, they are to do what they can and God will show up because God is already among them. This God in whom the people believe, whom they follow and trust, and whose promises are the very life breath of their existence (corporately and individually) is the same God who flung the stars, the moon, and the sun into the sky when there was yet nothing. It is this same God who will shake the nations and will cause all the wealth of these nations to flow into God’s domain.[12] In other words, God will—through the people and their humility and solidarity—be glorified; God will glorify God’s self through God’s people even in their meek and humble estate. And maybe even especially because of their meek and humble estate. In other, other words, the people should build from faith working itself out in love and not be concerned with silver or gold because God will take care of God’s own glory because God can and God will. [13]

Conclusion

Haggai’s words to a people long ago are words to us, today. Haggai addresses the incongruity and dissonance in our lives[14] and exhorts and encourages us to do what we can, as we can, in any way, shape, or form we can.

This isn’t about “God helping those who help themselves.” It’s about God being and dwelling among those who depend on God from day to day to day. According to Haggai, being the wealthiest, strongest, most powerful, or mightiest person isn’t a sure-fire way to bring God glory. Rather, according to Haggai, it’s about the humility of knowing our own human limits and what we can and cannot do and being faithful in the things we can do which is a faithfulness to God. In this humble action, God meets us because God is with those who are dependent on God, those who are doing what they can to bring God glory in the world. It’s not about having fancy ministries or flashy events for God, it’s about walking humble with God, loving righteousness and mercy, and seeking divine justice in the world for the wellbeing of the neighbor.

And, for us Christians, it’s about our dependence on the one who died for us, the one who loved us so much that he shrugged off his mighty and powerful status and became like us. We get lost in our desires to bring God glory according to the standards of the kingdom of humanity. We forget that Jesus came to show us a humbler and simpler way of dependence on God who always shows up, even in the presence of death.

Beloved, we do not need to be perfect to bring God glory; we just need to be who we are as we are, leaning on our beloved, Christ, and watch as the Holy Spirit works through us. Therein is God glorified, there in is perfect done.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[2] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1243. The four reports, altogether, “address the restoration of the Temple, Judah, and Jerusalem in the Persian period.”

[3] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 1243. “The rebellion of Judah against the Babylonian empire led to the fall of Jerusalem (586 BCE),  the destruction of the Temple, a severe decrease in population due to death and deportation, and the end of monarchy in Judah. The Babylonian empire fell at the hands of a Persian dynasty (the Achaemenid dynasty) in 539. As a result, the Babylonian province of Judah became the Persian or Achaemenid province of Yehud. According to 2 Chronicles 36.22-23, the Persian conqueror of Babylon, Cyrus II (reigned 559-530) issued a proclamation in his first year after the conquest of Babylon (538) that stated, ‘The Lord, God of Heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has commanded me to build Him a Temple in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of his entire people, may the Lord be with him, and let him go up [to Jerusalem, to build the Temple]’ (cf. Ezra 1. 1-4).”

[4] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1243. See quote in fn 3.”

[5] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1243. Book is made of four reports all related to Haggai and occur in the second year of Darius (520) and “specifically, the first day of the sixth month, the twenty-first day of the seventh month, and the twenty -fourth day of the ninth month.”

[6] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1244. “The divine message reported here does not deal with the construction of the temple per se, but with the question of whether the new Temple is an appropriate Temple for the Lord.”

[7] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1243. “The book of Haggai is set about eighteen years later, in the second year of Persian king Darius I, that is, 520 BCE, and clearly implies that the Temple was still not rebuilt at that time. The book contains reports of theologically based exhortation to undertake the work of reconstruction and discusses the central role of the Temple in the life of the community.”

[8] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1244. “The divine message here is addressed to both the two leaders and all the people. It is set on the 21st of Tishri, about a month since the leaders and the people took action, and in the last day of a festival, Sukkot.”

[9] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1244. “…it was the Lord who answered these questions and legitimized the readership’s Temple. Still the text recognizes the incongruity and maintains that in the future it will be rectified. At that time the wealth of the world would flow to the house of the Lor d of all (vv. 7-8).”

[10] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1244. “Can this temple be appropriate? May they expect such a temple to be pleasing to the Lord, even if it has not received the type of legitimating sign seen at the completion of the first Temple (1 kings 8.10-11)? Would the Lord be with them in such a case?”

[11] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1244. “The underlying issue is the plain incongruity between the expected glory of the house of a king who is sovereign over all and the absolute lack of splendor or a relatively small temple of a minor, poor province (cf. Ezra 3.12-13).”

[12] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1244. “Here the text assumes common, ancient Near Eastern concepts, namely that the wealth of a dominion should flow to the house of the ruler of the dominion, and that the manifestation of the glory of a king relates to the wealth flowing to him form the different nations and places under his dominion.”

[13] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1244. “The expression silver is Mine and gold is Mine was taken by the Rabbis as teaching that gaining silver or gold is not an appropriate goal for mortals. Instead they stressed that Torah and good deeds are such goals.”

[14] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Haggai,” 1244.

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No Place with What Was

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

We get accustomed to the way things are. At times it feels like we’re in a groove; at others, it feels like we’re in a rut; in both there’s comfort. This comfort is built on knowing what’s coming, being able to predict what each day will look like. Our calendars and task-lists look the same from week to week, even when there’s a surprise event added or something expected subtracted. There’s a real comfort in the familiarity of the day to day.

One of the problems of this familiarity and comfort is that it can blind us to the new. A bigger problem is when this familiarity and comfort causes us to reject the new. When you have a system down, a routine established, it can be hard to see and receive something new, something disruptive, something that slices through that (either beloved or dreaded) monotony. To maintain our comfort, to keep moving in that groove, embedding down another layer of that rut, we will shut down and run from anything new that is trying to intervene because we see it as a threat. The something new will send our nervous systems into a frazzled state, propelling us to lurch and lunge backward to what was. Rather than finding ourselves curious (yet cautious) and intrigued (though skeptical), we raise our defenses against that which is breaking in and, In the meantime, try our best to swim back to comfortable and familiar shores.

However, God isn’t back there. God is ahead in the something new.

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Jeremiah exhorts the Judeans in exile to look forward. What was is going to be overthrown, pulled down, uprooted, destroyed; it has no place with what is to come in God coming to God’s people.[2] And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord (v28). Jeremiah promises God’s people that God will be close to them, so close that their tendencies to toward evil will become tendencies to good. All that was will be destroyed; God beckons Judah and Israel to look to the rising of the sun of a new day and onto new terrain, to build and plant anew.

Jeremiah then promises that retribution will fall on the one who sins. In those days they shall no longer say: “‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,’” (v29). No longer, says God, will one person’s sins be the downfall of the group; accountability will be placed on each person’s shoulders. But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. The Judeans and Israelites are to look forward to the day that will come where only the guilty one will be punished rather than the group at the expense of the guilty one.[3] The accountability here becomes personal and individual; future exile is being excluded. Why? Because God will be closer than ever before.

Jeremiah then proclaims the coming of a new covenant and indicates there will be a break with the old one. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they…(v32). Something new is coming that will render each person responsible and dependent in their relationship with God. God does not say that the law of Moses (the one given in Exodus after the liberation from Egypt) will go away, but that God will put that law in each of their hearts.[4] But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people (v33). Keeping in mind that the law of Moses is a self-revelation of God, Jeremiah promises a time when God will be revealed in the heart of each of God’s people.[5] Thus God’s people will not be able to run or hide from God; they will—individually and corporately—know God intimately, being yoked to him by faith and love.

Jeremiah then says, No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more (v34). Jeremiah brings it back full circle to the comment above where every individual is held accountable for their own sins. Not only will each person be held responsible, but each person will be dependent on God’s mercy and forgiveness. Here, God is declaring that there is nothing that will divorce God from God’s people. Absolutely nothing. God is also indicating that there will be a time where sacrifices will no longer need to be made save the sacrifice of ourselves by faith working out in love. This is the basis of the new covenant that God promises to make with God’s people. And it is an everlasting covenant; one that no one can take away or break because it is being written on the heart of each person of Israel and Judah.[6] As God has been ever faithful in the promise to and covenant with Israel and Judah,[7] now Judah and Israel, by the indwelling spirit of God,[8] will be the ones who also keep the covenant and cling to the promise of God: I will be your God and you will be my people and we will be one. 

Conclusion

God desires to do new things. We desire to go backwards, to cling to what was, to grasp at the sand of shores we are most familiar with. But God’s love propels God toward us even as we are desperate to go back to what was. Even as we are actively swimming away from the current of God’s momentum forward, God yolks God’s self to us, so desperately in love with us as God is. God promises Judah and Israel that they will have God’s spirit with them, forever, in their hearts, that God’s self-revelation will be written on their hearts forever sealing their union; and nothing can pluck one of God’s people from God’s hand of promise.

For us, as Christians, this being sealed as God’s own is done through the life and work, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. For us, this passage from Jeremiah points to the new covenant that comes in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. This new covenant is defined by faith, faith that clings to the promises of God, accounting to God that which is God’s: truthfulness and trustworthiness. In and by faith, the law of God—to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbors in the same—is written on our hearts. Our hearts become circumcised; formerly calcified, our hearts by faith, beat with a vim and vigor, signs of robust new creation and new life empowered by the Holy Spirit, signs of our representative incarnational presence, those who carry God with them in their heart and spirit.

We, ourselves, are new creations, born anew every morning by faith and God’s mercy. Therefore, we have no place with what was, the way back is barred, the comforting and familiar shores are forbidden to us. Daily, by faith and God’s mercy, we enter a divine journey into the new, faith whisking us into the dark clinging only to the light of the promise fulfilled in Christ. The new is nothing to run from, turn a blind eye toward, or reject; it is in the new and unfamiliar that the familiar and known voice of our God in Christ Jesus calls us. We are called to move forward into new life in union God, dependent on God’s mercy and forgiveness, leaning on our beloved, Christ, and comforted by the Comforter, even in the wake of chaos and unfamiliar. We are God’s people, and God is our God, forever.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[2] Marvin A. Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 990. “The prophet’s depiction of the future employs the verbs uproot, pull down, overthrow, destroy, build, and plant from his call narrative in 1.10 to portray both the punishments and the restoration of the people.”

[3] Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” 990. Proverb quoted, “…to illustrate his view that only the guilty should be punished for their own sins…” it is future oriented for Jeremiah.

[4] Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” 991. Promise of New Covenant, “…here it refers to the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian exile and the reconstruction of the Temple. According to this passage, it is not the content of the new covenant which will be different, but how it is learned.”

[5] Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” 991. “God places the Teaching, i.e., the Torah, in the inmost being or heart of the people so that the covenant cannot be broken again. This idea is developed in later Lurianic kabbalah, which maintains that all persons have a divine spark within. Since it is so inscribed, there will be no need for the Torah to be taught.”

[6] Rabbi Dr. H. Freedman, Jeremiah: with Hebrew text and English Translation, ed. Rev. Dr. A Cohen. Soncino Books of the Bible. 6th Impression (London: Soncino Press, 1970), 211. “God will make a new covenant with Israel which, unlike the old, will be permanent, because it will be inscribed on their hearts. There is nothing here to suggest that the new covenant would differ in nature form the old. No new revelation is intended, nor was it needed. The prophet only makes the assertion that unlike the past, Israel will henceforth remain faithful to God, while He in turn will never reject him.”

[7] Freedman, Jeremiah, 212. “The implication is that God will be what He has always been in His relationship to Isreal; they, on the other hand, will now likewise permanently acknowledge Him and be His people. Permanence is the essence of the new covenant.”

[8] Freedman, Jeremiah, 211. “I will no longer be something external to them, but so deeply ingrained in their consciousness as to be part of them. This, indeed, is the aim of all religious teaching.”

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Theodidacti by Prayer

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

“Thoughts and prayers.” Any day of the week, on any social media website you will see people sending “thoughts and prayers” into tragic situations—either global or local. The sentiment is kind and hints at “emotional solidarity.” As our world becomes increasingly more violent—violence seeming to be our primary form of communication—the sending of “thoughts and prayers” increases. What else can we do but say: hey, I’m praying for and thinking about you during this time. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Until there is. Typing (and speaking) “thoughts and prayer” to those who are suffering and grieving makes us feel like we’ve done something. To some extent, we have; we spoke to and someone’s pain. And even though that dopamine surge feels good, it doesn’t do anything for their pain, and it certainly doesn’t do anything to address the issue. Now, to be gentle here, many of us feel like we can’t do much to overhaul a violent, polarized, and death dealing atmosphere and landscape. Many of us may feel that God needs to step in and set it all straight. Some may feel that our socio-political activity has nothing to do with our faith and so, to be faithful, we opt out of action and lean in to prayer.

Is everything really that helpless and hopeless? I don’t think so. Without jettisoning our orientation toward “thoughts and prayers” we can (maybe!) see that our prayers and thoughts are just the beginning of our socio-political activity in the world to make this place better for our neighbor who is grieving because they have experienced its trauma firsthand. In other words, when we shift our perspective and see prayer as our first step and not our last (ditch) effort, we might find a way to push our activity beyond uttering “thoughts and prayers” and living it in the world to the wellbeing of the neighbor and to the glory of God.

1 Timothy 2:1-7

In Paul’s first letter to Timothy,[2] he begins with an exhortation to prayer (in all its forms), Therefore, first of all things I urge petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings to be made on behalf of all people, on behalf of kings and all the ones being in authority so that we might pass time with a quiet and peaceable life in all piety and respectability (v1-2). Paul centers the life of prayer within the life of the believer. Why is this important[3] for Paul? A few reasons.

First, Paul understands that both Timothy and his flock will come under pressure not only from the opposition of the false teachers in Ephesus (who are antagonistic to Paul’s mission[4]), but that they will also come under fire by the local culture who will demand conformity to its status quo.[5] For Paul, prayer—the whole kit and kaboodle—will help to ground the believers and form and shape their lives, strengthening and uniting them together against these oppositional forces.

Second, the church, for Paul, is to be both missiological and present in their community (despite the opposition). Rather than being compliant to the surrounding socio-political realities by either playing nice through their “thoughts and prayers” for those others in their society[6] or living quietly off the radar bringing no attention to themselves by being good and obedient citizens,[7] Paul sees prayer as a feature of their corporate and private life of worship that will position these believers in the world by bringing the gospel in word and deed and serving their society by means of living out the gospel and it’s law of love.[8] This includes praying for all people; thus the believers cannot pick and choose subjecting themselves to an insular mindset.[9]

Third, prayer is to promote and provoke the believer in conformity to God’s will (which happens in the event of prayer) to be those who are Christ’s representatives and who participate in God’s mission in the world.[10] This means that as they pray for others and (especially) the rulers and those in authority they are praying for a specific outcome that will align with God’s mission in the world in which they participate. This is more than just nice thoughts and kind prayers for these leaders, it’s requesting God’s intervention by power of the Holy Spirit to change the hearts of these leaders and authorities.[11] The believers are to pray that their leaders are able to bring forth such a quiet and peaceable life, respectable and able to be godly; this is not that the believers are to live quietly while falling in with the demands of society and its leaders,[12] it’s about their being able to live according to the ethics of the reign of God within the kingdom of humanity with an eye to overhaul it where needed.[13],[14] This form of prayer, resulting in robust space to participate in God’s mission in the world to the glory of God and the well-being of the neighbor, is vital for the life and praxis of the church in the world and conforms to God’s will for the church’s life and praxis in the world.[15] This is doing church.

And fourth, thanksgiving helps to form those who recall God’s wonderful work in the world and in this way they find their hope in what God will do, giving assurance to their prayers that the God to whom they pray in the name of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit is the same God who is oriented toward love, life, and liberation, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.[16]

Paul then affirms, This is good and acceptable in the presence of God our savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come into the knowledge of truth (vv3-4). Through prayer and thanksgiving, the believers become formed to the will and mission of God. In this way they can go into the world as Christ’s representatives and bring Christ (thus God) to those in their society.[17] Prayer is so closely linked to God’s mission of salvation that we can see that it’s crucial to the believer’s discipleship formation and causation. Through the humble posture of prayer, the will of the one who prays is conformed to the will of the one to whom they pray. As believers pray for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, they are also praying for their will not to be done and to be replaced with God’s will so that they can be active participants in God’s reign coming and God’s name being hallowed. As the believers in Ephesus are conformed to God’s will and move out and work in the world, God’s mission of salvation goes forward in and through them and truth (real truth) is knowable.

Paul then says, For God [is] one, and one mediator [between] God and humanity the person Christ Jesus, the one who gave himself [as a] ransom on behalf of all people, a testimony for the due season, into which I, I was placed [as a] herald and apostle—I speak the truth, I do not lie—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth (vv5-7). According to Paul, all have access to God because God is one,[18] and this one God has a mediator who is Jesus Christ through whom all have access to God.[19] Jesus Christ is the one who liberated (all!) humanity from death by means of his death and resurrection. This is the good news and the very thing believers not only believe but through which they are conformed to God’s will and mission in the world. For Paul, the church is responsible[20] to this person, Jesus Christ, who identified with humanity in its plight; it is also for this person they are to be his representatives in the world and the foundation of their faith and love for God and for others.

Conclusion

[21]Dorothee Sölle’s and Fulbert Steffensky write, in Not Just Yes & Amen, “[God] stands on the side of life and especially on the side of those to whom life in its wholeness is denied and who do not reach the point of real living. He is not on the side of the rulers, the powerful, the rich, the affluent, the victorious. God takes sides with those who need him. He sides with the victims.”[22] Where God sides is the location—the starting point, the continuing point, and the end point—of Christian existence and praxis in the world toward the neighbor to the glory and in the will of God. Thus, Christians are exhorted by their life of Christ and by their own faith to dare to move beyond the deafening silence of “thoughts and prayers,” extend their voices and hands beyond the heartless “yes and amen,” and lay claim to the long dormant divine “No!” This is done not by the believer’s own strength or alone, but by and in the strength of Christ and in the witness of the community witnessing to Christ in the world.

In Romans 13:14, Paul exhorts his audience to “to put on [as clothes] the Lord Jesus Christ and do not allow the flesh provision toward inordinate desires.” Christians are to clothe themselves in Christ, to shed the cloaks and covers of the kingdom of humanity, to shrug off the mythologies of power and privilege peddled by church clerics and state councils aimed toward inoculating Christians against active participation in the world as Christ for the well-being and benefit of the neighbor. To put on Christ is to participate in Christ’s life in this world now as Christ did in his own witness to the love and will of God more than 2000 years ago. This exhortation is echoed in Philippians 2:5, “Let the same mind be in you that is in Christ Jesus…” The believer is to be clothed in and have the same mind as Christ. The inner and outer person is to be aligned to the image of Christ who witnessed to God’s life affirming and liberative love in the world for the oppressed, for the victims. To be as Christ, to be formed—inwardly and outwardly—to the image of Christ comes with comfort and liberty in God by faith, but it also comes with a great burden to be as Christ to the neighbor. As theodidacti[23] through prayer, Christians are summoned to hear the silent cry and to respond by joining the divine revolution of life, love, and liberation for the beloved. Beloved, we pray first, and then we act for the wellbeing of the neighbor and to the glory of God.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[2] I’m using traditional language for the author of this letter so I can just keep it simple for the audience. I am aware of the debates of authorship and dating.

[3] Towner, Timothy, 165. “If the church has discerned the mandate character of this letter, it understands that Timothy’s task is to ensure that these instructions be implemented.”

[4] Philip Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, TNICNT, ed. Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 162. “The context throughout will continue to be that of false teaching and opposition to the Pauline missions.”

[5] Towner, Timothy, 162. “…the church will often still feel the presence of opponents and their teaching activities, and the latter will come up for specific treatment in several place…the local culture is also exerting pressure on community life in a way that causes Paul to intervene forcefully.”

[6] Towner, Timothy, 163. Misconception 1 needing to be addressed, “…the church has often understood the text to lay down a broad commission to pray for all people and for government leaders without really stipulating what direction such prayer ought to take. But the real concern, as close attention to the argument wills how, is for the prayer that supports the church’s universal mission to the world. That is, Paul urges Timothy to instruct the Ephesian church to reengage in an activity it had apparently been neglecting—prayer in support Paul’s own mandate to take the gospel to the whole world.”

[7] Towner, Timothy, 163. Misconception 2: “Dibelius saw this text as introducing the new shape that Christian existence took following the departure of the apostles and as a result of the disappointment over the delay of Christ’s return. In his estimation, prayer for all and for those in authority sought the goal of the quiet and peaceful life—that is, a Christian existence characterized by outward behavior conforming to secular notions of ‘good citizenship.’”

[8] Towner, Timothy, 163. Solution:  in Romans 23 (and 1 Peter 2) “There Paul lays down a theology of the church-world dialectical reality in which the church is to find itself in a position of missiological service to society.”

[9] Towner, Timothy, 167. For all people, “to counter a tendency toward insular thinking in the Ephesian Church brought on by an elitist outlook or theology.”

[10] Towner, Timothy, 165. “The theological interests and the universal theme reveal that the prayer practice Paul sought to reinstate in Ephesus had the evangelistic mission to the Gentiles as its target.”

[11] Towner, Timothy, 1623-164 “In our text with its specific evangelistic focus, it may be argued that the church’s commitment to acknowledge the secular power structure and society’s expectations is to be expressed in its payer for salvation and effective political leadership.”

[12] Towner, Timothy, 169. “The two terms (‘quiet and peaceful’) that initially describe this life express the Hellenistic ideal (conveyed variously) of a tranquil life free form the hassles of a turbulent society It is obvious enough that Paul envisions the state with God’ help, as being capable of ensuring the conditions that would make such a life possible.”

[13] Towner, Timothy, 169. “The next phrase, ‘in all godliness and holiness,’ describes this life’s character and observable shape. …Yet when the theological reshaping of these concepts is taken into account, it becomes clear that Paul had others aims—namely, to express the theology of a dynamic Christian ethics by means of the language of the day. This technique would of course ensure intelligibility. But Paul almost certainly intended also to reinvent the language and subvert alternative claims about the nature and source of godliness associated with politics and religious cults in the empire.”

[14] Towner, Timothy, 170. “Prayer for the tranquil setting is prayer for an ideal set of social circumstances in which Christians might give unfettered expression to their faith in observable living. This distinction allows us to place the second prayer (for leaders) into the missiological grid of the passage: the church is to pray for the salvation of ‘all,’ and it participates in that mission by making God present in society in its genuine expression of the new life for all to see.”

[15] Towner, Timothy, 177. “Thus Paul explains that prayer for the salvation of all people, and specific prayer for the effectiveness of the civic powers, conforms to the will of God. It is not simply an optional church practice that pleases God, but a practice as integral to the church’s life with God as was sacrifice in the time before Christ.”

[16] Towner, Timothy, 167. “…thanksgiving not only bolstered confidence by focusing reflection on God’s past responsiveness to petition, but also was an expression of confidence in anticipation of God’s future response…”

[17] Towner, Timothy, 179. “In the Ephesian context of false teaching Paul emphasize that salvation and adherence to the apostolic message are inseparable. God’s will is that all people will commit themselves in faith to the truth about Christ.”

[18] Towner, Timothy, 180.

[19] Towner, Timothy, 180.

[20] Towner, Timothy, 183. “Paul invites the church of Ephesus to view its own location within God’s redemptive story and its responsibilities in relation to the appearance of this ‘human.’”

[21] This portion is taken from my unpublished dissertation (University of Aberdeen, 2024), Leaving Heaven Behind: Paradoxical Identity as the Anchor of Dorothee Sölle’s Theology of Political Resistance.

[22] Soelle and Steffensky, Not Just Yes & Amen, 82.

[23] Martin Luther, Freedom of a Christian

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Sinner isn’t a Four Letter Word

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

The word “sin” and “sinners” carries a heavy load. It’s weaponized in a way to force people to be feel shame about their existence as fleshy human creatures. It’s incorrectly used doctrinally and theologically to spiritually abuse people stripping them of their inherent dignity and worth. It’s strapped with the burden of condemning people, pushing them beyond God’s limits and reach until they “reform” their ways because they are too “bad” or (worse) “evil”, that they need to become “good enough” first for God to accept them. And, in the Protestant tradition, “sinner” and “totally depraved” go hand in hand incorrectly making it seem like you are just a total pile of nothing-all-that-nice (to put it g-rated).

For all these reasons, over the past many years progressive churches have jettisoned the word and (even) the idea. I get it. When a concept/word becomes toxic and triggering, it’s best to find another way to speak of the thing or idea the word is signifying. So, to move away from the fundamentalist, American Evangelical notion of “sin” and “sinner,” progressive churches such as our own found different and lighter ways to speak about our human condition and plight—that we are turned in on ourselves. I will be honest with you, I know I am hesitant to use it because of my own experience (spiritually and theologically) with a heavy emphasis on human “depravity” and the resulting condemnation. Both “sin” and “sinner” are such loaded terms; isn’t it just better to avoid them?

The problem is that our entire biblical witness of God’s activity in the world and for God’s beloved, the people, is kind of hinged on these words. I don’t mean that God is wringing God’s knuckles over our sin, sinning and being sinners, while tromping about heaven angry as h-e-doublehockeystics. Rather, what I mean is that the biblical witness tells us—from beginning to end—that in spite of our sin and being sinners God desires to be so close that God will take on our human nature and become one of us to the point that God will die and become deeply identified with us in our human plight and condition of “sin.” Without speaking of sin, which (plainly translated) is the action of missing the mark (no matter how well intended the attempt was, to miss the mark is to go astray, to mishear), then God’s humble advent into our world and lives is not such a great story. To identify as a sinner is to be able to identify as a creature who can’t and doesn’t get it right often and yet finds themselves addressed and accompanied, loved and accepted by God. To identify as a sinner is to posture oneself humbly in the world accepting your creaturely (i.e. non-God, non-divine) status, to confess your dependence on mercy and grace from God and others, and to come empty handed into God’s lap and find yourself receiving absolutely everything without condition or charge and then to love others—by showing them mercy and grace—in the exact same way.

1 Timothy 1:12-17

Paul[2] writes to Timothy,[3] I have gratitude toward Jesus Christ our lord, the one who empowered me, because he regarded me faithful and placed [me] into [his] service, [even though] I was being a blasphemer and persecutor and violent man… (v12-13a). Paul positions himself honestly before Christ and to Timothy.[4] And even though Paul is contending with opposition coming at Timothy, he’s humbly authenticating his call not through big words and deeds but by highlighting his worst.[5] Through a posture of gratitude toward Christ[6] for what Christ has done with and in him,[7],[8] Paul cannot forget where he started: a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a “violent man” or a man with “rude arrogance” or “boastful pride.” In this way, he resists those who come against him with their boasting in themselves and their grand works, positioning themselves as better than everyone else; those who boast in themselves and in their own deeds so to elevate themselves over others are, for Paul, the ones to be wary of. Why? Because they place all the credit at their own feet.[9] What does Paul do? Paul Places all the credit at the pierced feet of his Savior and God.[10] But I was shown mercy, Paul writes, because I acted ignorantly in disbelief, yet the grace of our lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus (vv13b-14). Out the window goes boasting in himself: he acted ignorantly because he didn’t have faith—what he thought was right and true was exposed (by the light of Christ) to be wrong and false—and yet(!) Christ displayed both mercy and grace that abounded exceedingly with the divine gift of faith and love that will define his life and service.[11] His conversion, this pivot point in his life, was all because of Christ’s action toward him in mercy and grace,[12] not because of anything he did, thought, or said.[13] Paul’s presentation of himself is nlike those who boast in themselves and forsake the gospel and Jesus’s mercy and love[14] and are forced to resort to previous forms of godliness that bring condemnation rather than liberation.[15] For Paul, you know who follows Christ when you see where they place the credit for their life, love, and liberation.[16],[17],[18]

To back up his claim and to encourage Timothy to accept what he’s confessing,[19] Paul writes, The saying [is] faithful and worthy of all approval, ‘Christ Jesus came into the cosmos to save sinners/those who miss the mark,’ of whom I, I am chief, but for this very reason I was shown mercy so that Christ Jesus might show in me first the utmost longsuffering —as an example to the ones who are about to believe in him toward eternal [his] life (vv15-16). Paul emphasizes his depravity in a way that would make many of us run to sooth him; but that’s not what Paul intends. He’s not depressed. He’s not expressing false humility. He’s, literally, calling a thing what it is, calling himself who he was and who he is now. In doing this Paul exposes the inner (and outer!) liberation he’s experienced in Christ. And this is to become the paradigm for others because this is, according to Paul, what Christ actually does through the proclamation of the Gospel that is heard in the heart and mind by faith.[20] Through Paul, Jesus Christ has demonstrated his long-suffering patience with us.[21] So, if for Paul then, yes!, absolutely for for each of us.[22] Paul’s honest self-reflection and humility bring us to the same location and posture;[23],[24] considering all that Paul did, can’t we also be a little bit (more?) honest about ourselves? For Paul, thus for us, because of what Christ has done and will do for us, there’s no need to hide behind facades of perfect and awesome or paint over all our actions—even when they are quite bad—with “good” and “right.” We can be wrong and maybe even bad and that’s okay even if it hurts, because God loves us in and through Christ and nothing will get in the way of that. Now to the eternal kingdom, incorruptible, invisible, God only, honor and glory forever and ever. Amen (v17).

Conclusion

So, we don’t need to be afraid of our “sin” and being a “sinner.” Here’s two reasons why:

  1. Jesus—literally—came to save sinners, those who are not well, who need help, who do not hit the mark, who trip and fall, who wound others and are wounded by others, who find themselves trapped in deeply problematic systemic issues (being both captive and complicit), those who grumble when it’s time for church or Sunday Education, who drive too fast or too slow, who aren’t perfect at school or think that by being perfect at school they’ll earn all the love, and those who are just truly and wonderfully way too hooman for their own good. Jesus literally came for us sinners, and if we can’t acknowledge that (honestly and personally) then we miss out on all that Christ has to offer (mercy, grace, longsuffering patience) and that means we are stuck in our indifference, death, and captivity. Being a sinner doesn’t mean you aren’t loved by God; according to Paul, to know you are a sinner is to know the love of God deeply and profoundly.
  2. By acknowledging our sin and that we are sinners, we have a story to tell to others of a God who is so loving that even at our worst God so loved us first.[25] We have a story to tell of a God who came to us when we were dead set in our ways of ignorance thinking we were right when we were terribly wrong. We have a story to share that not only positions us alongside our neighbor in humble and equal status, but a significant way to identify with them in their fear, pain, anger, and oppression. And right now, looking around, I see a world that is divided through and through because of the fractured human tendency to need to be right so to be good so to be loved and accepted, who are afraid to be wrong, who are angry at change and chaos. And what the world needs now is not more adamancy that this way is the right way or even ridiculous arguments about who is truly moral and who isn’t. What the world needs now is more people who, like Paul, can stand in the posture of humility and self-awareness and can dare to call a thing what it is even when it comes to themselves, people who can readily say “I don’t know”, those who aren’t afraid to listen to others with whom they disagree, those who can sit in the discomfort of chaos while knowing it’s bad and that God is in it with us, those who find their hope in Christ, those who can speak a substantial word into the swirling hurricane of empty words. Beloved, because of Christ’s work toward and in you, the world needs you in your honesty and humility; never forget that.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[2] I’m using tradition language for the author of this letter so I can just keep it simple for the audience. I am aware of the debates of authorship and dating.

[3] The precious things about both the two letters to Timothy and the one letter to Titus is that these are personal letters to persons and not churches. For all practical purposes, we shouldn’t be reading them, mining them for ways to condemn each other through biased eisegesis and baseless proof texting. We are peeking in on a relationship and as those who are peeking in, we are *not* addressed. Rather, we are the audience witnessing such a dialogue as if we had front row seats to a play. So, as we listen, we see Paul, the great and magnificent Paul, at his most humble. As he encourages Timothy in his service of the gospel, Paul tends to Timothy delicately and kindly, and (mostly) through his own personal narrative about his life and walk with Christ.

[4] Philip Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, TNICNT, ed. Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 134. “We discover not only that his gospel is the paradigm of sound teaching, but also that his own experience of coming to faith provides a blueprint for measuring the authenticity of any who would oppose him.”

[5] Towner, Timothy, 134. Verses 12-16 form a tightly knit unit. “Paul blends personal history with salvation history in a way that sets him as an apostle squarely into God’s plan. His calling to be an apostle is authenticated, and his own experience of mercy and salvation become the paradigm for all believers.”

[6] Towner, Timothy, 136. “Gratitude is the dominant and opening note of this testimony…”

[7] Towner, Timothy, 134. “This section corresponds to the thanksgiving sections of other letters The present needs created by opposition to Paul’s authority, message, and mission determine the selfward turn of Paul’s gratitude.”

[8] Towner, Timothy, 138. “…[Paul] is probably much more intent on attributing his calling to Christ than he is of making trustworthiness the condition of appointment.”

[9] Towner, Timothy, 141. “in contrast to Paul, who sinned before coming to faith in Christ, the false teachers are portrayed as believers (or those who profess to believe) who by their sin have rejected their faith…”

[10] Towner, Timothy, 138. “There, as here, the issue is of Paul’s teaching a correct view of things, and the condition of being ‘trustworthy’ (the same ‘faith’ word that occurs here) is linked to the Lord’s mercy…”

[11] Towner, Timothy, 142. “…the phrase defines Christian existence by bringing together the fundamental act of God in Christ that begins the relationship, the ongoing present mystery of union with Christ (in the Spirit), and the sense of new and renewed status that results. In other words, the phrase expresses a dynamic existence that is eschatological, relational, and existential.”

[12] Towner, Timothy, 141. Not only mercy, but grace expands, “‘Grace’ overwhelmed his sin. ‘Grace’…refers to God’s kind intention toward humanity.”

[13] Towner, Timothy, 139. Ethic device “it supplies a contrast between two ways to life with the focus on the Christ-event as the moment of change.”

[14] Towner, Timothy, 142-143. Opponents have departed from faith and love, thus “Paul employs this phrase as n identity tag of authentic believe in the apostolic gospel, and that in doing so he excludes those who reject his gospel and supply another (legalistic and Torah-based) standard of godliness.”

[15] Towner, Timothy, 143. “In Paul’s thinking, the direction taken by the opponents back into Torah and Torah speculation is retrograde. Not only does it nullify ‘faith’ as the basis for salvation and holy living …but also in terms of salvation history it marks a retrograde step.”

[16] Towner, Timothy, 138. “Paul is not arguing that Christ foresaw that in spite of his sin Paul would prove himself faithful; rather, the sense here is of the potency of divine calling to achieve certain results in human lives. As Paul reflects on the process, his argument is that his ministry to this point has demonstrated the effectiveness of Christ’s choice in appointing him apostle to the Gentiles.”

[17] Towner, Timothy, 139. “This personalizing of the eschatological transformation will serve two purposes. It prepares the way for Paul’s presentation of himself as the pattern of salvation….It also links his conversion To God’s plan to reach the Gentiles.”

[18] Towner, Timothy, 141. “Authentic Christian existence bears unmistakable marks…and Paul’s personal experience of grace bears testimony to that reality.”

[19] Towner, Timothy, 143. “Its stable form….however, suggests it is either widely known or will be perfectly understood. Its purpose is to authenticate Paul’s immediate expression of the gospel as apostolic and to be accepted as true. … the expansion ‘that deserves full acceptance’ emphasizes the need for hearers to make an appropriate rational response to embrace and esteem what is said and to act accordingly.”

[20] Towner, Timothy, 151. “…If Christ can reach and enlighten the zealous persecutor, he can reach others who hear the gospel, and this need not exclude Paul’s opponents if they repent.”

[21] Towner, Timothy, 148. “But with an immediate shift of actors, form Paul to Christ, the perspective on the human dilemma shifts under the new christological lens. From this new vantage point Paul’s experience becomes a (salvation-historical) spectacle, a ‘display of the immensity of Christ’s patience.’”

[22] Towner, Timothy, 149. “…the converted Paul was a living illustration of divine patience.”

[23] Towner, Timothy, 149. “The purpose of Christ’s display in Paul was to provide an ‘example [pattern, model] for those who would believe on him [Christ] and receive eternal life.’”

[24] Towner, Timothy, 151. “Thus the apostle is as an example or illustration. His experience of Christ’s immense patience, his conversion, and knowledge of his gospel form the pattern for those to whom his mission reaches.”

[25] Towner, Timothy, 154. “But built into the gospel message, rooted as it is in the OT promise to bring the whole world, is the centrifugal thrust that reaches beyond the church. We today are invited to view the Pauline ‘pattern’ and to replicate it. Our own experiences of conversion and calling contain promises for those around us who do not yet know Christ’s mercy. Yet they will come to know it only if the gospel is communicated meaning fully to them—if we resist our own tendencies to become absorbed in what we already have instead of reaching out with what others need to have.”

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