What can we say September 18? 15th after Pentecost

  BTW, check out my Good Questions/No Easy Answers series - biweekly emails, weekly podcasts and videos!

   Jeremiah 8:18-9:1. I preached on this last go round; felt pretty good about it. Jeremiah, who’s never struck me as a joyful kind of guy, sadly announced “My joy is gone.” What was joy back in the Iron Age anyhow? His joy has deserted him, his heart is sick – but (for clergy feeling like this) notice his call has not been withdrawn!

   We sing “There is a balm in Gilead.” Jeremiah’s thought is different. Yes, Gilead has its balms, that region known for producing healing ointments – but they are of no use, as Israel’s illness is far too deep, eluding earth’s best medicines. Notice Jeremiah doesn’t ask God to alleviate his sorrow or dry his tears. He yearns for more tears. Do we clergy and do our people ever wish we wept more over those things that break God’s heart?

   If you do not know Maggie Ross’s The Fountain and the Furnace, I commend it to you as one of the wisest, most provocative and profound books on life with God and ministry ever. Here is just a small sample of what she says about weeping: “God baptizes us with tears. God loves creation enough to weep over it. As the divine breath still moves over the salted water of creation, so with tears Mercy bathes and mothers us into new life with her life. It is strange that we have repudiated our tears… We have lost the understanding that the salt of tears is the savor of life. We need to recover our understanding of the life-flood of tears, God’s and ours, that mothers the fire of our life.”

   1 Timothy 2:1-7. Preaching could devote itself properly to the idea that we pray “for kings.” Most people either grouse about the President (or other ruler/leader types) – or mindlessly fawn over him. What if we expended these energies in prayer for the one in power? The prayer itself is dicey, as it’s not a blessing of or divine endorsement of the powerful. Luke Timothy Johnson is helpful: “The prayer for rulers is the Jewish and Christian way of combining a refusal to acknowledge earthly princes as divine and the duties of good citizens of the world.” He claims there is “an implicit critique of any claims they might put forward concerning their absolute authority” when we place them in God’s hands.

   Verse 4 requires some pondering: Paul prays, yearns for, and believes in the possibility of all being saved. Christians have their gnostic tendencies, wanting to feel they are among the elect, while others (even fellow-Christians!) will be consigned to perdition. David Bentley Hart has a relatively new book out: That All Shall Be Saved, in which he explores the long-held belief by many of our greatest theologians through history that none will be lost. The preacher would need to process and communicate such an idea with delicate care.

   Perhaps we can always remind our people of the wideness to God’s mercy – and Hans Urs von Balthasar’s incontrovertible wisdom: we can and must at least hope that everyone will be saved. I’m not the judge, but if I love, and rank God’s love and power highly enough, I will never settle for believing that Yes, these guys are doomed and that’s fine with me. We yearn for, we hope for the salvation of each and every person.

   Luke 16:1-13. Commentators thrash against the curious constraints of this text, showing off their creativity on a text where Jesus praises a crooked dude – and I’m never impressed or settled enough with anything said to craft a sermon around it. Hard to beat Justo González’s humorous remark: “It is not uncommon to see on our church windows portrayals of a father receiving a son who has strayed or of a sower spreading seed, or of a Samaritan helping the man by the roadside. But I have never seen a window depicting a man with a sly look, saying to another ‘Falsify the bill.’” Jesus always surprises us… and if you have an angle into this quirky text, let me know.

****

   Check out my book on preaching - not how to preach, but how to continue preaching: The Beauty of the Word: the Challenge and Wonder of Preaching.