I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone [especially] for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. 1 Timothy 2:1-2
What an appropriately royalist text for a weekend such as this with the acclamation of King Charles III, begging our prayers for the established order as if those in authority were God's appointees and beyond challenge! It may be - and our Republican friends remind us - it may be that the Holy Spirit is also at work challenging the powers that be and how they are organised, which is why scripture contains elsewhere prophecy speaking truth to power. Ironically King Charles is I believe likely to speak truth to the less ceremonial powers in a constitutional monarchy namely the prime minister and her government. We shall see - but our second reading addresses the transition we are about as a nation and the need for our prayers to be redoubled. God save the King!
So far so good on the readings. The untroubling second reading from Paul’s letter to Timothy contrasts with the other two readings that are very much sent to trouble us. We all need shock treatment from time to time. It's a way of getting our attention when we're deluded or distracted. Our Lord has a gift of shocking our complacency that the scriptures hand straight on to us without spin. Take that shocking Gospel reading. Did we hear the Son of God who is truth commend dishonesty? Or that sock-it-to-them passage from Amos hitting hard at injustice?
Sometimes we're made to wake up, sit up and listen. Today's readings are shock treatment. You could argue they don't need a sermon - save in the case of the last reading, an explanation - so that my task this morning is to give some forward lines once we get our breath back from the hefty challenges they give without mincing words.
Before I go further, then, some explanation of the Gospel: The master praised the dishonest steward for his astuteness. For the children of this world are more astute in dealing with their own kind than are the children of light. And so I tell you this: use money, tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into the tents of eternity.
What did Jesus mean? Some suggestions from scholars, and I warn you, I’m going with the most shocking!
Theory 1: the point of the parable is not the steward's dishonesty, but his wise decision-making in the time of crisis. He’s an example of decisive thinking and action to save yourself which the coming of Jesus invites.
Theory 2: the steward, as a man of the world, is an example of diligence? What if we had the same diligence about God’s kingdom as we do towards our work or hobbies?
Theory 3: the steward was acting within his legal rights reducing the debts as he did. Maybe Luke 16 is a parable against excessive profits, the same kind of judgment uttered by Amos in the first Lesson (Amos 8:4-7). That’s also one of the most shocking passage in the Bible Listen to this, you who trample on the needy and try to suppress the poor people of the country… by swindling and tampering with the scales… buying up the poor for money, and the needy for a pair of sandals… The Lord swears… Never will I forget a single thing you have done.
Shocking stuff, which is why Christians have always been concerned about public finances having a bias, as God does, to the poor. There’s as much about wrong use of money as wrong use of sex in the Bible and the Church forgets that at her peril.
Theory 4 is my favourite though. It runs like this. Our Lord knew his commending of this servant for such unjust behaviour is so absurd no one would believe it. How ridiculous to commend a cheater who expects to be commended for his dishonest actions. Understood this way, Jesus is here attacking the Pharisees who made a big show of giving a little money to the poor.
I can’t imagine Jesus teaching without humour. His gift or mocking irony is so pointed it would always bring people up short, touch their hearts and loosen emotion into laughter. In this case laughter directed against those claiming to be religious who are in fact self-serving cheats.
Enough on the first and last reading – make of them what you will, however the Holy Spirit impacts you – now back again to the second half of that second reading. It shocks in a more subtle way. Today’s scripture might shock and trouble us if we’re guilty of injustice, financial dishonesty, hypocrisy, giving little to the needy or cynical rather than prayerful about the arrival of King Charles. Most shocking for me in today’s scripture are these verses reminding us of what is actually the most important thing in the world though as believers we let it slip from being most important. God our Saviour… wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth. For there is only one God, and there is only one mediator between God and humankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus, who sacrificed himself as a ransom for them all.
It is profoundly shocking that God loves us all – that God loves you and me through and through – and that knowing our need he should come among us to demonstrate it for all time in the sacrificial gift of Jesus.
God loves us all and desires all to be saved, but he knows we’re guilty of injustice, cheating, hypocrisy and narrow attitudes about the way things are. He knows our sins make us incapable of union with himself - for a holy God can have no fellowship with evil. God therefore has provided the loving remedy, giving his Son as a ransom for all.
We all need shock treatment from time to time. We need shocking out of selfish concerns and many delusions and distractions into seeing afresh the profound truth of Christianity.
The body of Christ. Amen. The blood of Christ. Amen
This morning’s scripture awakens us to human failing but it does so with a reminder of how awesome this service is. We have sin in our lives but we also have Christ in our lives, mediator between God and humankind.. himself human, who sacrificed himself a ransom for all.
There is nothing we can do – however base or despicable – that can make him love us less. There is nothing we can do – however noble or selfless – that can make him love us more.
That’s a shocking yet affirming thought and it’s the main thing of Christianity we’ve got to keep the main thing, though it means fighting off oh-so- plausible distractions! Let’s pause to see what the Holy Spirit is saying to us individually through the scripture passages and what has been said about them.
No comments:
Post a Comment