Sept. 18, 2016
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Luke 16:1-13
Today’s scriptures leave us either utterly depressed or utterly confused. First, there is Jeremiah, known as the weeping prophet. “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.” There’s deep sadness in this passage, there’s compassion, and anger, and a sense that it is too late for salvation. There’s empathy: “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt.” And, there’s grief: “O that my eyes were a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people.”
It isn’t clear who is talking. Is it Jeremiah or is it God? Most scholars would suggest that it is both. It is God speaking through Jeremiah and it is Jeremiah speaking for God and to God and to all the people. The cause for the lament is multifaceted as well. Jeremiah knows that that there is impending invasion from the north, which will likely devastate Judah and God’s poor people. There’s idolatry and the peoples’ repeated forsaking of God for lesser substitutes. And, there’s cheap religion. The people are satisfied with rules and the offering of their sacrifices, but their lives don’t change; they don’t know God; they care nothing for justice; they care only for themselves. Their state is lamentable; they are lost, and it grieves God’s heart.
If the theme seems depressing for this time of renewed attendance and excitement over the launching of programs and ministries in the life of the church, the passage from Luke doesn’t offer a very appealing alternative. In the context of reprimanding the Pharisees for their own lostness, their own pointless posturing in the name of religion, Jesus tells this story of a savvy manager who saves his hide by cutting deals with those who are in debt to the owner of the business so that when he’s fired at least he’ll have some friends to fall back on. We expect Jesus to criticize the guy, but instead he seems to praise him and then encourage the faithful to follow his example. “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” Dishonest wealth? Isn’t there enough of that going around? Isn’t that the cause of such pain and suffering in so many of God’s people?
In Luke, before Jesus is born, Mary sings a song that the Church has called, “The Magnificat.” She says, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant… He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Before he’s born Mary tells us all in song that he’s come to turn the world upside down. His coming has pit God’s ways against the world’s ways, God’s kingdom against the kingdoms of the world.
In his most famous sermon early on in the Gospel Jesus says as much. “Blessed are the poor.” “Blessed are you who hunger now.” “Blessed are you who weep now.” The God who is “that power than which no greater power can be conceived” is most interested in the powerless. The anointed one of God the almighty has come to show not what we might call power, but rather, compassion. If you are a woman, if you are less-than-pious, if you are a tax collector, if you are poor, or sick, or oppressed, you are the ones for whom and to whom Jesus comes in the gospel of Luke.
This is a Messiah that did not meet the expectations of the powerful. This is a God Incarnate whose ways and priorities did not fit into the mold of the established social, political, and religious structures of the day. And this is the context for the story that Christ tells today. As I see it the key to understanding his story lies in verse 8: “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”
It’s the clashing of two radically different ways that he highlights here. There are the “children of this age” and there are the “children of light.” There are the ways of this world and then there are the ways of the kingdom. There is the priority of having power and there’s the priority of giving power to those who don’t have it. There is the God of self that so persistently seduces us to devote all our energies to it and there is the God of eternity that calls us to die to self in order to live to something better.
Jesus isn’t pleased with the Pharisees. He sees them as being “children of this age,” protecting the establishment at the expense of the powerless, protecting their own self-interest behind the shield of righteousness. And so, he ends his parable with words that our pericope didn’t include, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.”
The children of this age have become very good, he says, at living according to the ways of this age. They are very good at worshiping their own self-interests. Here’s the point to the children of light: be as savvy, be as cunning, be as proficient in the ways of the light as those of this world are at the ways of this world. Those of you who know God, those of you who love God, be as determined and as committed to the upside down ways of God as they are to the ways of this selfish age.
At lectionary group we discussed the Luke passage at length and having shared some of these thoughts we then read the Jeremiah passage. “The harvest is past, the summer has ended, yet we aren’t saved… Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then have my people not been restored to health?” My friend responded, “You know, when my focus is all about me, when my life is all about me, my spiritual life becomes a wasteland.” And, I think that about sums the message Jeremiah is sending. When our lives are focused on the God of self, the God of Christ grieves and mourns, and we find ourselves lost and incapable of finding the God our souls really crave.
“Make friends,” Jesus says, “by dishonest wealth.” That line confused me for a while, but then it struck me. Dishonest wealth to Children of the light is upside down wealth. It’s wealth that makes no sense to a world of self. Dishonest wealth for children of the light is like having an abundance of love, not because you’ve somehow convinced others to give it to you, but because you have given so much love away. It is like being rich with a sense of freedom and peace not because you are financially secure but because you’ve discovered the grace to forgive. It’s like being strong not because you are powerful but because you have cultivated the ability to trust in God’s power. It is like being great not because you have impressed so many, but because you have blessed and served so many.
This is wealth that the world doesn’t know enough to hold onto. But, for those with eyes to see, for those who are of the light, it is right there for us to spend and spend well.