The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
August 19, 2007
The Reverend Arnold Taylor
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The good father Paul Abernathy knew what he was doing when he scheduled his vacation to avoid dealing with the Propers today. God threatens the prophets
with fire and a hammer, Jesus threatens with fire and division, and Paul says tough luck is good for you - discipline from God. All that appears to be
contrary to our understanding of the God of love.
It’s bad news if you take it literally, but good news if you understand what’s being said. Here we go:
Jeremiah, speaking for God, warned us about prophets who claim to have the Word of God, but miss the point of it, speaking as if they were God’s very
own mouthpiece. I think of Falwell and Robertson who’ve built upon each other’s very authoritative statements about God’s will and have wound up with
an oppressive Gospel claiming it to be the Word of God. I think of the Prophet Muhammad, and the use of his words by radicals to justify mayhem instead
concentrating on the caring he also championed
Jeremiah got it right when he observed, presumably from God himself/herself that there were and will be prophets, pundits all along the way, who assert
with great authority that they have the inside track on what this God expects of all of us.
Abraham wasn’t the first to do so nor the last. The Hindus predate him, then came the Tao /Buddhist/Zen/Shinto Hebrew/Christian/Roman Catholic/Protestants/700
Club/Muslim/Shiite/Shia/Taliban. On and on. The aim of each was to enable the people to dwell in peace. That’s the bottom line - the common denominator.
The trouble is that each religious understanding got to fighting with everybody else over how that peace could happen. God! Where are you when I need
you???
Read Jeremiah: “Am I not a God far off?” Far off? Wow! The passage comes to mind, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the earth.” Is God
near - or far off and out of reach?
Explanation: God is not found in the words of the prophets. Their words might point in directions and call the shots on what is, but God is not found
in them, but beyond them.
The sum of that passage is that God is not the possession of prophets but above all their pronouncements and deep into the fabric of life - yours,
mine, believers everywhere.
Recall that God said elsewhere: “I will put a new heart in you” It’s up to you to measure the words of the so-called prophets against the realities you
face. There are no hard and fast rules, but a spirit of love. It’s a call to the people to check out these authoritative voices against the mission
from on high.
Fire! Jeremiah says God’s Word is like fire, like a hammer that breaks rock into pieces. Sounds like terrible punishment if you talk about God and
don’t say the right thing (whatever that is!)
This passage translates better if the word, fire, is rendered as passion, as in setting hearts on fire. Passion! That is, zeal and persistence that can
break down the stoniest of barriers, like a hammer that breaks a rock. (Isn’t that colorful language?!) Fire! (I’m no prophet, but I do hope to light
a fire, but a different kind of fire - not a fire that destroys, but a fire that kindles love and concern one for another.)
Division. According to Luke, Jesus himself said he’d bring fire upon the earth (make that read passion) and that it would create division, which doesn’t
sound at all like a Gospel of love; but the record shows that Jesus did set hearts on fire, and that division did occur. A lot of people got burned up!
(To use a colloquial expression)
Jesus said that “in one house there will be five divided, among them father against son, and son against father.” (I can’t resist the temptation to
observe that the son was divided against his father not because of the Gospel but because, if you’ll refer to the passage in the Hebrews lesson, the
father sought to discipline his son!)
Division occurs when new thoughts collide with entrenched ones. That’s what was happening in Jesus’ day. The Hebrews were desperate to divide others
from themselves –not those who wouldn’t embrace their understandings and practices. Jesus gave them a fit about it, and they sent him across the
ultimate divide (speaking of division!)
But our reality today is that it’s contrary to the Gospel to doggedly insist upon one religious understanding over against all others as Fundamentalists
of all religious stripes seem to do, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, you name it.
More than religion involved, though. It’s more often a personal power struggle. “I’m somebody because God’s Word runs my life, and you’re nobody because
you haven’t been saved! And, “I’m speaking for God, so I’m right. Do as I say, or God’ll get you!”
The key to getting beyond the divisions we see, divisions that are at the root of the rampant warfare and poverty is to spread throughout the world
today the wisdom found in the last line of the Gospel: “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, why do you not know how to interpret
the present time?” Translation: Check out the religious understanding, whatever that might be, against the reality of this day.
We can leave the interpretation of earth and sky to Topper Shutt, the radar and weather satellites, but it’s up to us to think about the effect of
religion, what it seeks to accomplish, and how it adds up in terms of its original purpose, which in every religious persuasion is intended to promote
peace and well-being in each culture.
The drill is to find that common denominator and work on it together with others regardless of their religious persuasion.
We’re at war today throughout the world basically over religious disagreements and personal power and giving little support to those who are hungry,
sick, dispossessed, persecuted and killed - missing the bottom line, that original goal - that could bring about love and peace. We see a denying the
common goal in favor of exclusivity.
Those are the signs that I see - and I think you do, too.
What can we do about it? Fear not, for behold! I bring you tidings of great joy.
Check this out: We’re also surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.
Jesus got people to thinking about caring instead of following rules, and it produced a cloud of witnesses for that style of life. He had a
precedent for that when God said to an earlier congregation: “I care not about your solemn assemblies and burnt offerings, but let justice roll
down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”
Jesus lived in a society that was rather intent upon everybody living life the way they saw it: solemn assemblies, lighting candles in a specific
way, commemorating ancient hardships, bearded men wearing hats in the worship services, women off in the back room, if at all, and it got him in
trouble; but He was a prophet who got the Word right - and it caused division instead of cooperation on the bottom line and they killed him for
it; but others carried the baton beyond that.
Martin Luther was one of those who created division, and it was long overdue to correct Papal abuses.
So-called “holy men” during the Inquisition saw fit to murder those who did not scrupulously follow the laws they’d invented. - Sort of an ultimate
division!
Thomas Cranmer and Henry VIII created division, regardless of the merits of it, and it was good. It reduced papal tyranny - and, incidentally,
spawned Anglicans and us.
Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony cut through some barriers to equality for women - a division of concept, but in tune with the proclamation of
Jesus that all of us are children of God - equal, and should be treated that way.
I recall one prophet in our day who boldly declared, “I have a dream!” There was a lot of division involved in that pronouncement, but it was a
dream prompted by the words and love of Jesus, not Martin Luther King, Jr. A dream in which boys and girls of all colors could go to school
together, ride together on the bus, sit at table together. Some strides have been made in that direction in spite of divisions that still exist.
These witnesses measured the realities of this day by the Word of God on high instead of by the so-called prophets of this day, and stuck out their
necks for the sake of that Word from God on high and barriers were broken down like a sledge hammer breaking rocks.
There are thousands more witnesses - a great cloud of daring dividers, whose aim was to fulfill the task set before us by Jesus Christ - one at a
time, with their own time and talent, hammering away at the resistance, whose aim was to bring folks together, a call to get back to that common
denominator - the bottom line of love and caring one for another.
Then, too, we’ve got Paul Abernathy, speaking of witnesses, whose aim is to get us together and to work on the poverty issue, and eradicate
injustice. Bless his heart!
The job Jesus set before us has a long way to go, and must begin with our concentration not on the Holy Eucharist and whether the candles are lit
properly or whether women wear hats in church; but on our challenge to work with anybody who will work on that bottom line of love and caring,
regardless of what religious persuasion moves them to do so.
So, as the writer of the letter called Hebrews put it, “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer
and perfecter of our faith.”
Finally, discipline. The writer says “The Lord disciplines those whom he loves, even as a father disciplines his son.” Bad figure of speech!
I know fathers who discipline too severely - to the point of abuse, and some who don’t discipline at all - which is another kind of abuse. Hard luck
befalls. What do we do about it? That car wreck that I had a few years ago while on my way to minister to a dying man was not discipline sent from
God. I had the wreck because I fell asleep at the wheel. God didn’t put me to sleep. I overestimated my capacity to keep on keeping on for God’s sake.
It’s not the Lord who does the disciplining, sending us hardships to test our resolve, making it hard to do kind things and take social action to
improve the lot of hurting souls.
It’s not the Lord who sent an earthquake to Peru or that airplane into the Tower in New York. It’s not the Lord who funnels off benevolent money
into private pockets. It’s not the Lord who powers the war machines, even though the radical Muslims, for instance, feel they’re doing the will of
God – Allah. It’s not the Lord who sets one religious entity against another. Greedy, power hungry people do that, and our job is to do all we can
in the Name of Jesus Christ, in league with people of like mind toward the bottom line of love to lead everyone in the direction of peace, and loving
consideration one for another - persistently!
When hardship comes along, our call is to stick with the Gospel of love and concern and trust that our adjustment will be an authentic expression
of what Jesus would commend. That takes endurance - and faith that in time our sacrifices will make a difference.
Sure, we’re wedded to a system of worship that’s gathered around the Holy Table; but in this place everybody is welcome there; and if anyone is
disinclined, there’s no suggestion that they’re going to go to hell.
We feel that this is only one way out of many to connect with the holy and that this Eucharistic connection’s main purpose is to prepare us to go forth
and do justice, feed the hungry, clothe the shabby, visit the sick, and love the sinner. In that enterprise there ought to be, as Paul put it to the
Galatians, “neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male not female; for you are all one (in the love of Christ Jesus)” no matter what
path is taken to get to that love.
When that God from on high descends to the human heart and sets it on fire with concern for others moving that human heart to benevolent ministry to
others, glory goes not to the prophets, but to God on High, to Jesus who tipped us off about this, and to the Holy Spirit, that indwelling of God that
enables us to run with perseverance the race that is set before us until the rocks are busted divisions cease, and we are one in the expression of love.
