SIXTH
SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY Year C February 13, 2022
A plaque on my wall reads; “Those who
leave everything in God’s hand, will eventually see God’s hand in everything”. It is there because I need to be reminded to
place things in God’s hands. Honestly,
I’m a little too inclined to try to fix things myself and not naturally
inclined to trust God. I strongly
suspect I am not alone – but learning to trust God is vital. Our life depends on it, because it was a lack
of trust that caused Adam and Eve to disobey God. It is the original sin.
This is why our reading from Jeremiah
can rightfully declare that those who do not trust in God, but who only trust
in mere mortals, are cursed. Trusting in
mere mortals is to choose ourselves instead of God.
I love the imagery from Jeremiah that
follows, about the tree that is planted near the river, with roots that run
deep. When the drought comes it doesn’t
fear… it stands strong throughout. The
implication is that we need to be firmly established in God so that when the
drought comes, and it certainly does, we can stand firm.
Now, we all read these things and
acknowledge the truth of it, but we might not think too much about the drought,
what it is and how it impacts, so today, lets pause for a short reflection on the
drought.
The drought is the time when friends
are not there to support us. The drought
is when we have neglected our spirit and not spent time in prayer or scripture
or had fellowship with the people of God.
The drought is also when our pain is so great that we can’t hear God’s
voice. In times of drought, we need God
more than ever, but in times like these we might turn away from faith, our
spirit withering much like a shrub planted in the desert. A shrub in the desert has shallow roots…. And
that shallowness is not necessarily their own fault, but could well be because
we, the church, have not adequately supported, nurtured or watered.
Last week’s reading from Corinthians
told us what Saint Paul was passing on as of first importance about our faith;
that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried and that he rose from the
dead and appeared to eye witnesses. This
is the message that we too must pass on.
This is the message that waters our soul and feeds our spirit, but do we
ourselves truly and fully accept it?
Does our life reveal the truth of our faith? Do we forgive & love others as Jesus
commanded?
In the letter of Saint Paul to the
Corinthians there are harsh, but important words. 1 Corinthians 15:19 “If
for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be
pitied.” I have known of people who
were Christians and they converted, one to Judaism and one to Muslim. It
baffles me. How could they forsake such
good news, unless they never truly grasped the divinity and all-embracing love of
Christ. In accepting Jesus as a good man and nothing else, we effectively put our
trust in mere mortals. We remain
spiritually cut off from God because we haven’t accepted Jesus’ sacrifice for
our sins. We would, in this hypothetical
case, of all people be most pitied.
Those Corinthians, to whom Paul wrote were
authentically Christian. They fully proclaimed
that Christ died and rose, but they were a little soft on the proclamation
about the resurrection of the dead. In
essence, they were giving credibility to other beliefs. They were whittling away at the message of
salvation.
In all we do and say, we reveal to
others the truth of what we really believe, and the truth of what we don’t believe.
Many years ago, I often played piano
and sang for funerals. I actually enjoyed
playing for the funerals of strangers, as I would come to feel as if I knew the
person through the eulogies, and I would do my best to give a fitting tribute
by my music.
On one occasion, the very tiny funeral
of a little known, elderly gentleman, there must have been some problems with
the sound system and I remember the Minister saying to me, “don’t worry about
it, the person you are playing for won’t complain.”
I’m not sure of the exact words, but I
distinctly remember the impression. It
seemed abundantly clear to me that the Minister did not believe that the person
was alive in any form. For me, I
certainly treated what I did as if that person was watching from heaven and it
shocked me that a Minister would be so dismissive and faithless.
What we do and what we say, shows other
people what we truly believe or not, and it is all too easy to compromise and
go with the popular belief of the day.
If we should Compromise as a church, or
fail to declare the message fully, or, perhaps most importantly, fail to exude
the love of God, we are potentially stunting the growth of our people, not
allowing them to send down deep roots so that God’s children become firmly
established in the kingdom of God. We
need to be sure of our faith and stand firm.
In our Gospel reading we have, what
some would identify as the famous sermon on the mount – except it isn’t. This is Luke’s Gospel and where as in
Matthew’s Gospel it is a very similar story and portrays Jesus preaching on the
mountain, this story is set on the plain.
Jesus is clearly described as standing on a level place. The fact that it is from a level place,
implies that Jesus came down to the people, bringing the glory of God down to
the broken.
Luke 6:19 tells us that all in the
crowd were trying to touch Jesus, and power came out from him and healed all
of them. Last week we read about the
glory of God from the vision of Isaiah and how just the hem of God filled the
whole temple and that the glory of God fills the whole earth. A spiritual reality of which we are mostly
unaware, and a reminder to realize that God is bigger than, and beyond our
finite imaginings.
Jesus brings the glory of God to broken
people. He came down to them in an act
of love and compassion, and power came out from him and healed all of them. Our God is love and our God is powerful.
What follows are four blessings and
four woes. Most important for today’s
message is 6:22-23 "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they
exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for
surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to
the prophets.”
This is a message about being
absolutely sure of our faith and not compromising for the sake of
popularity. This is a message about
knowing God’s love, glory and greatness and trusting him above all. We find the corresponding woe a little later,
in 6:26 "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their
ancestors did to the false prophets."
Back when the Israelites were in
slavery in Egypt we read in Exodus 12:36 NIV “The
LORD had made the Egyptians favourably disposed toward the people, and they
gave them what they asked for….”
There are certainly times when
Christians have been looked upon highly.
The people of God are meant to be a blessing to the community, but this
should happen because of our value for the dignity of life, our fruit of the
Spirit manifest as love, and our integrity to stand firm in the truth of God regardless
of temptation to compromise, because our message is GOOD. Our message is the truth. Our message, and our God is powerful. Woe to us if people speak well of us because
we water down the message of Christ and limit the glory of God.
The vision of Isaiah showed us that we
can’t limit God to our own image and that if the mere hem of his robe fills the
whole temple and His glory fills the whole earth, then God is bigger and beyond
our image. When we compromise on God’s
truth to fit in with our comfort, woe to us. We are making God into our own
image.
In today’s society the Christian is not
popular. Recently our Prime Minister
came under fire about that Christian school’s code of conduct. We need to pray for our Prime Minister. He is in a very tough place and a place of
great responsibility - and I don’t mean because he is answerable to the whole
of Australia, but because he is answerable to God and it is so very easy to say
the wrong thing to keep people happy. Woe
to us if we compromise the truth of the Gospel.
I feel like I need to really emphasis
this because we are in a time of figurative drought. We are in a time of desert where it seems as
if all the elements are against us – Woe to us if we compromise the truth of
the Gospel. Woe to us if we deny that Jesus
came and died for our sins… Woe to us if we deny that he was buried and woe to
us if we deny that he rose from the dead.
Woe to us if we fail to acknowledge that Jesus, after he rose, appeared
to the apostles.
But blessed are we, if stand strong,
like that tree by the river. And blessed
are we, if we encourage others by declaring the truth and Good News of the
death and resurrection of Christ.
Our world is a desert where the
elements are against us, but those elements contain people who don’t know how
to trust in anyone but themselves and they are cursed, because they don’t know
the love of God.
Some of those people are afraid to trust God
because they are so hurting, grief-stricken and misled by mis-information about
God. They are also a people so full of despair that they can not even see the
relief that God brings and we need to have compassion enough to bear the
notoriety to continue to speak the absolute Good News.
In the light of eternity, it doesn’t
matter that people speak badly of us.
With our roots deeply watered and fed by God himself, who loves us
completely, we can stand firm through the drought, knowing we have been able to
bring the life, love and the truth of God to a world so in need. A world that Christ died to save. Woe to us if we should deny the fullness of
the message of salvation thus allowing his sacrifice for any single person to
be in vain.
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