God keeps bringing up choices
– for nations engaged in evil, slave owners living the faith, and disciples on
the journey of their lives.
In the prophetic
reading, God continues to require Jeremiah to bring an unpopular message to his
people in a turbulent time – this time at the workshop of a potter in the lower
part of town.
The
potter’s wheel, where the potter does his work, is a clever device. Two flat stones are fastened, one at the top
and one at a lower place on a vertical axle.
The lower stone is used to spin the axle by hand or foot while the upper
stone is the work space where the trained hand of the potter shapes the
spinning mound of clay. As the prophet
watches, a bowl or a jar begins to take shape on the upper stone. At some point, the intended vessel gets out
of shape or is marred and the potter wads the clay together and throws it back
on the spinning stone to start over and make a new vessel as it suits him.
Interpreters
who like to penetrate to the personal experience of a prophet suggest that
Jeremiah just happened to be watching the potter work when the insight hit him
that Israel is
in God’s hand as the clay is in the potter’s hand. At that moment, Jeremiah realized that he was
not there by accident; God had meant him to be there to get that message, and
in fact God was sending a message to Israel
by this everyday moment in the prophet’s life.
“‛Can I not do with you, O house
of Israel , just
as this potter has done?’ says the Lord” (verse 6, NRSV ).
The first
basic insight about God as potter leads to a broader generalization about God
as judge of nations and kingdoms (verses 7-10). Nations are always moving on their destined
courses. Some become corrupt and evil
and are headed for disaster, a plucking up or breaking down (verse 7 – see Jeremiah
1:10 ), which is
equivalent to the potter wadding up the clay to start over. Other nations are humanitarian and just, and
are destined to prosper, to be built up and planted (verse 9).
However,
the destiny of either nation may be reversed. The rotten may actually reform (even the
mighty tyrant Assyria, according to the Jonah story), and the benefactor may
become a tyrant and an oppressor, in which case God will “repent” of his
previous verdict and establish a new destiny for either nation.
Jeremiah
lived his entire life in a time when the destinies of many nations were rising
and falling with dizzying speed. The
prophetic word made clear to him that this swirl of historical changes was
still an arena in which God worked out ultimate justice for the peoples.
But the final
insight of the visit to the potter was a return to the present reality in Judah
and Jerusalem . Jeremiah realized that Judah ’s
present destiny was one of alienation and destruction. The prophetic word is good news only if a
great reversal can be made, a serious turning away from the present
course. God’s word to Judah, Jeremiah
realized, is, “I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan
against you. Turn now, all of you from
your evil way …” (verse 11).
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18. [Read all of verses 1-18.]
The Psalm
reading [as the Lectionary gives it] is two sections from that profound meditation on God’s knowing,
Psalm 139.
Very
appropriate to Jeremiah is the confession that God’s scrutiny is inescapable.
Even before
a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in,
behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such
knowledge is too wonderful for me,
it is so high that I cannon attain
it. (Verses 4-6, NRSV.)
[The first stanza, verses 1-6, is
God’s knowing me. The second stanza,
verses 7-12, insists there is nowhere to go to escape God’s knowledge.]
The third stanza (verses 13-18) is
depth analysis. It speculates in awe on
the mysteries of embryology and human birth.
Such thoughts are appropriate to a Jeremiah who heard that he was called
to be a prophet before he was conceived, or before he was delivered at birth
(Jeremiah 1:5).
This psalm’s wonderment at the
miracle in the womb is very personal. It
is the speaker’s own growth as embryo that expresses God’s incomprehensible art
and mysterious power.
As the destinies of the nations
are known to God, so is the utterly personal being of this one who is born – and
now speaks.
This Sunday is the one chance in
the three-year cycle of the Lectionary for hearers to benefit from the little Letter
to Philemon. This is an entirely
personal letter from the apostle Paul, and scarcely anyone questions that it is
really his writing.
Paul is writing to a well-to-do
householder in the city of Colossae ,
a medium-sized city in the Lycus River
valley a hundred miles east of Ephesus
in Asia Minor .
Paul apparently converted Philemon to faith in Jesus Christ, commenting
that Philemon owes Paul “even your own self” (verse 19), and speaking of
himself as being in a position to give commands to Philemon, if such were
needed (verse 8).
This letter also is about an
either / or, a choice between two ways.
Here, however, Paul addresses a rather delicate situation, and
Paul speaks somewhat obliquely and indirectly, not saying everything he has in
mind. Instead, he prompts Philemon to
catch the drift and make the decisions Paul is hoping for.
The letter goes to Philemon
accompanying the slave Onesimus (the Greek name means “Useful,” see the
word-play in verse 11). Apparently
Onesimus ran away from the Philemon household, and may have stolen enough money
to make good his escape to a larger city.
(Paul, in verse 18, is perhaps offering to repay what was stolen.) In that city – possibly Rome ,
more likely Ephesus – the fugitive
slave ran into Paul and his circle and ended up being converted to faith in
Jesus also, which has changed his life and made Paul his father in the faith
(verse 10).
Now the time has come to reconcile
old grievances, to send Onesimus back to his master in Colossae ,
and trust to Philemon to do the right thing in relation to this new brother in
the faith. Paul emphasizes that how
Philemon receives Onesimus is Philemon’s choice, but Paul is confident Philemon
will make good decisions (verses 14 and 21).
Paul does not come out and say, Why don’t you both forgive Onesimus and
make him a free man, but what Paul expected is pretty clear.
The fact that this minor personal
letter survived, and was preserved in Christian circles for some decades before
Paul’s letters were collected, suggests that Philemon did the right thing, and
was well remembered for it – perhaps especially by Onesimus himself!
The Letter to Philemon suggests a
meditation on self-interest related to faith-based action. (Faith-based organizations are constantly
asking people to take actions that may not seem to be in their own
self-interest but are for the sake of a greater justice.)
Onesimus, a useful man who escaped
from slavery, is being asked – expected – to go back to his master with every
likelihood that he will serve as a slave again, perhaps for the rest of his
life. Why is he willing to do that? Philemon, who was probably wronged, not only
by the loss of his slave but also by the loss of money stolen, is being asked
to ignore the past losses, indulge in no punishment, but accept the fugitive as
a brother in the faith – and probably to emancipate him also.
In Philemon’s case, it may be that
the way of grace and faith was also the way of enlightened self-interest. The quality of life in the larger household
of faith far exceeded what either Philemon or Onesimus had before. That is the perspective Paul has on it.
Luke
14:25-33.
If Jeremiah had to speak words
people didn’t want to hear, the Gospel reading presents an even worse case for
Jesus.
The reading begins with a “hard”
saying about the cost of discipleship.
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and
children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my
disciple” (verse 26, NRSV ).
So much for “family values”!
Whether the saying is thought to
be from Jesus himself or from later embattled and persecuted followers who were
sure he would have said this, it anticipates violent domestic friction caused
by the call to follow Jesus. In the
first and second generations, followers of Jesus encountered intense hostility
in some situations, hostility that divided Judean families into bitter
opponents. Following Jesus was taking a
course that could lead to death, represented by the cross.
An indication that this “hate” language
was unacceptable to some early Christians is seen in the parallel saying in
Matthew, where the language is toned down.
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me …”
(Matthew 10:37 ). Even in Matthew, however, this hard saying is
linked with the saying, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot
be my disciple” (Luke 14:27 // Matthew
10:38 ),
which is not that much easier than the “hate” statement.
The rest of the passage urges that
one be very clear about the cost of this choice. Making the choice to become a Jesus disciple
should be a deliberate thing. Jesus
illustrates from worldly wisdom. The
construction contractor will “first sit down and estimate the cost” (verse
28). The king contemplating aggressive
war will “sit down first and consider whether he is able …” (verse 31).
The final punch line is put in
terms of money. “So therefore if you do
not give up all your possessions, you cannot become my disciple” (verse 33,
modified here to fit Greek word order, which has verse 33 parallel to verse
27).
This hard saying of Jesus is a
sobering and painful word to contemplate in a prosperous and possession-filled
land. In times or places where Jesus
followers are (currently) excluded from privileges, denied livelihoods, and
even outlawed, the cost of discipleship is not only a choice between good and
bad but between life and death.
The Lord of Israel
and of Jesus can present us with real “crises” (Greek for “decision,”
“judgment”), whether the promised land seems near or far off.
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