Proper 24C (OT29)
509: October 16, 2022
VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS: DIANN BAILEY
TIMES
VOICE - 5:10
GOSPEL - 8:50
HEBREW BIBLE - 24:15
346: October 20, 2019
Voice in the Wilderness: Renee Roederer, @Renee_Roederer, Smuggling Grace Blog
Psalmist: Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, Psalmimmersion.com, @pomopsalmist, Patreon
189: October 16, 2016
Voice in the Wilderness: Scott Maderer, Christianstewardshipcoaching.com, @stewardcoaching
Featured Musician: The River’s Voice (Richard Bruxvoort Colligan and his wife Trish), “Forgiveness Waltz” from their album Seven Year Kiss, Patreon, Riversvoice.com
Psalmist: Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, Psalmimmersion.com, @pomopsalmist, Patreon
Luke 18:1-8
Initial Thoughts
I hate this story.
Surface lesson: Eventually God will get annoyed with your complaining and help. Maybe, so just keep complaining and maybe you’ll wear God down.
Meda Stamper, Working Preacher: “The parable of the widow’s persistence is introduced as a parable about prayer and not losing heart, then moves into a story about justice, and ends with a question about faith.”
Bible Study
Literary Context
An extended answer to the question found in Luke 17:20 “Pharisees asked Jesus when God’s kingdom was coming.” and he replied “God’s kingdom isn’t coming with signs that are easily noticed. Nor will people say ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ Don’t you see? God’s Kingdom is already among you.”
Jesus then tells the disciples of the coming trouble, and the mysterious nature of the coming of the Son of Man.
“This story then, comes as a word of encouragement after a fairly long lesson about the difficulties that lie ahead.” (Meda Stamper, Working Preacher)
The Story
Reason for the story: “The need to pray continuously and not to be discouraged.
Widow: No social standing. Nothing to back her but her own persistence. We know nothing of the petition or the case, but it can easily be assumed that this is a financial matter with a male family member. In this case, she would have no recourse. This is why the Scriptures remind us over and over to care for the widow - because they are powerless.
Luke also uses widows as prophets - speaking God’s truth to power
“But in addition to being vulnerable, widows also appear as prophetic, active, and faithful; certainly the widow who gives her last coins is not only vulnerable but also a model of faithful generosity. The first widow of the Gospel is Anna (2:37), a prophet, who spreads the good news of Jesus’ birth. Jesus in his inaugural sermon at Nazareth mentions the widow of Zarephath (4:25-6), who feeds Elijah from her meager supplies in a famine and whose son is returned to life by the prophet, an act Jesus replays in the raising of the only son of the widow of Nain (7:12).” (Meda Stamper, Working Preacher)
Compared to the people crying out for help
Judge: Unjust. Only in it for self-interest. “one with power who does not “fear God or respect humanity” is one who has no sense of accountability for serving justice rather than one’s own self-interests.” (Left Behind and Loving It)
Compared to God, who will eventually answer
Lesson: Remain faithful and persistent in calling to God for help.
Problematic: Is this how God really works?
Lia Scholl in The Hardest Question: “Unfortunately, though, this passage is often interpreted to mean that we should petition God for the things we want. And that if we annoy God enough, we’ll receive whatever it is. So there’s the rich pastor pestering God for more riches. There’s the young woman worrying God for a lover or spouse. There’s the cancer sufferer insisting on God’s intervention and healing.
“So, if I wear God down, will God fix everything?
And if not, how does this interpretation work through our congregations? If you believe that if you just ask enough, God will make you rich, what does your poverty say? If you believe that if you just ask enough, God will give you the desires of your heart, what happens when your heart is broken? And if you believe that God will heal your body if you only ask enough times, what happens as your body wastes away?”
“Won’t God provide justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he be slow to help them? I tell you, he will give them justice quickly.” (v. 7)
“Then will God not produce the vindication of his elect who cry out to him day and night, even bearing patiently with them?” (Left Behind and Loving It)
Instead of two separate questions, D Mark Davis makes the greek “kai” the word ‘even,’ which creates a different tone to the interpretation.
But when the Human One comes, will he find faithfulness on earth? (v. 8)
I say to you that he will produce vindication to them in quickness. When the son of humanity has come will he find faith in the earth? (Left Behind and Loving It)
“Another way to read this parable: The demand for justice is often wearying and seems futile, because the powers that be often act with impunity – as if there is no moral order to the universe and as if there is no respect that one ought to have for humanity. However, persistence can be effective even in advocating for justice. Unlike those powers that be, God vindicates swiftly and suffers long with the elect who cry out to him day and night. “ (Left Behind and Loving It)
Prayer Quoters
"When the consequences of belief are worldly goods, such as health, fixing on these turns religion into a service station for self-gratification and churches into health clubs. This is the opposite of religion's role, which is to decenter the ego, not pander to its desires.” - Huston Smith, Why Religion Matters.
“‘A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone,’ we sing, echoing the psalmist. The God of Isaiah reminds us, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways" (55:8). It is hard, however, to take the long view when we are praying our hearts out, bruising our hands with our continual pounding on heaven's door.” Kimberly Bracken Long - Feasting on the Word:Year C, Volume 4: Season After Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ).
Prayer life is not about comfort or fulfilling a “wish list,” it is seeking God’s justice, and placing self into world to bring it about.
"All we know in the life of prayer is asking, seeking, knocking and waiting, trust sometimes fainting, sometimes growing angry." - Craddock, Interpretation: Luke.
“Only after you have knocked at the door until your knuckles bleed and have still received no answer do you begin to understand what prayer is about.”- source unknown, quoted by Cradoock and others
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” Theodore Parker 1857
sidenote - This is a popular quote these days, and it is usually attributed to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he did write it and say it, but according to Quote Investigator, he was quoting Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, who first used the phrase in an 1857 sermon against slavery.
Thoughts and Questions
Barbara Lundblad (“Nevertheless She Persisted” sermon from Festival of Homiletics 2019- Is it a parable about prayer-justice or faith?
Yes.
If we pray without working for justice our prayers are empty
If we work for justice without prayer we will think it all depends on us
If we pray and work for justice without faith, we will fall to despair when justice isn't done
Prayer and justice and faith- what Jesus had joined together, let no one set asunder.
This isn’t a story about God. It is a story about us. We have a problem with the story when we interpret it as the way that God treats us. Instead, it is a reminder of how we should relate to God.
What if the parable isn’t about God as the Judge. It is a reminder that the judge is actually pretty common. The unjust judge is the way of the world - we are to model our prayer AND action in the world after the widow. And God will be patient with us. The “coming of the Son of Man” is the time when the persistence is rewarded and justice prevails.
Framed in light of Jesus’ previous remark that “God’s Kingdom is already among you,” this parable is about our faithfulness to persevere. It is about seeing God’s justice being enacted all around, even if it is not yet fulfilled. We are to be the widow maintaining the voice of the prophet - not to God, but to the unjust rulers of the day. The question is not if God is hearing us or if God will eventually be worn down. The question is, will we still be doing the work of justice when we are needed?
What do we do with the maddeningly long arc of justice?
Jesus asks a tough question at the end, one that leads to tough introspection. Will he find the faithful? Have we been persistent? Are we just waiting for God to do the work, or are we being dogged in our pursuit of justice?
Do we pray expecting results or do we pray to build the relationship and fortify our spirits for the journey toward God’s Kingdom?
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Initial Thoughts
Last reading in Jeremiah (until Christ the King)
Can you read this and not hear it through a Christian lens? Is it possible? Should we even try?
Clearly on the mind of the biographers of Jesus as they wrote about his passion and the last supper.
Clearly on the mind of those that divided the Bible into two halves labeled “old” and “new.”
No way that Jeremiah was predicting that the “old covenant” was somehow scrapped, or that that God was starting over.
No way that Jesus thought the same either.
Bible Study
Jeremiah’s Book of Comfort (chapters 30-33)
Focus on God’s saving intent for those in exile
Prophet’s Purpose
Reiteration of Jeremiah 1:9-10 (cf.31:28): Then the LORD stretched out his hand, touched my mouth, and said to me, "I'm putting my words in your mouth. This very day I appoint you over nations and empires, to dig up and pull down, to destroy and demolish, to build and plant."
Much of Jeremiah’s focus has been the first 4 verbs: dig up, pull down, destroy and demolish
Focus now changes from destruction to cultivation - building and planting
The days are surely coming
Promise for a coming change
Not a promise of when the change will come
Donald Musser - “The eschaton is not just any future; it is a future of hope and meaning, brimming with promise.”, Feasting on the Word:Year C, Volume 4: Season After Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ).
“Says the LORD”
Message of Hope is from God
God is still speaking to God’s people- even in the midst of despair
God’s justice (judgment) does not mean an end of relationship
“New” Covenant
Unconditional (similar to Genesis 9)
No requirement of repentance or agreement- this is happening whether you like it or not
Everlasting (Jeremiah 50:5)
Rooted not in the creation of a nation, but in the forgiveness of God
Like Genesis 9- this covenant is made in full realization of how awful and unfaithful people can be- God still chooses to be in relationship with us.
Written in our hearts- not in stone
The law is transformed not into something we follow, but who we are
Focus on relationship, not the law
Faithful living is how we are the people of God, not how do we follow the law
HOWEVER - the law is there to help us be faithful to God
A Forgetful God?
Not a command to forgive and forget- rather God is not a “grudge-holding God”
Time of reconciliation in which we do not hold the past against one another
Literary Context
Jeremiah begins with coming disaster, spans three invasions which resulted in destruction of Temple and exile. Also reaches well into exile period, and offers a way for people to survive, and ends with an open-ended future where hope may remain.
R.E. Clements, in Interpretation: Jeremiah casts serious doubt on this passage being authentic Jeremiah. “The promise is couched in the elevated language and style of the homiletical prose which marks much of the editorial and developmental material in the book” (p. 190).
In the middle of section known as “The Scroll of Comfort” 30:1-33:26.
Comfort in the midst of devastation
Stories of restoration, pointing to a future where the devastation has ended.
“It is as if, for a moment, the solemn tone of Jeremiah disappears. A closer look, however, reveals that despair and hardship have shaped the background for the words of comfort. Even images of restoration draw heavily on painful memories of the past… God grants a war-torn and exiled community a future when none seems possible.” Notes from The Common English Study Bible, p. 1257 OT).
The old and the new
The covenant may be new, but the Torah remains.
There is a new relationship, but the standards of God’s will remain.
The newness is about refreshing and renewal, not disposal.
The new, or re-newed covenant is new in the way it will be known kept by humanity, not in what is expected or willed by God.
“The assertion of a new, ‘keepable’ covenant in the place of one nullified and broken makes a claim for God’s own resolve and deep yearning for a covenant that overrides the painful truth of nullification. Thus, the decree of a new covenant is an act of God’s inexplicable mercy and graciousness.” (Walter Brueggemann, Texts for Preaching, Year B, p. 231)
The new covenant is not new participants. The covenant is made explicit in the houses of Israel and Judah.
Cannot use this as supersessionist theology.
God’s covenant is with the community, which itself will be renewed
Reunion of Israel and Judah a part of the newness, which is also old.
Nature of the relationship
God’s initiative alone
The covenant does not follow an act of contrition or repentance.
Renewal of covenant is entirely God’s action. There is no initiative of humanity, nor are there conditions.
Sins are forgiven and forgotten as a way to make things new.
“I will be their God and they will be my people” is an important reminder of the relationship, especially in midst of context that makes that very difficult to believe.
Written on hearts
Revelation is not held in the hands of a few
No dominant class, experts, or knowers of secret knowledge.
Knowing the Lord is analogous to knowing the Torah. Cannot know God apart from the Law.
Closely resembles Deuteronomy 6:6 (The Shema), which can help build the bridge to Jesus, who also connected his ministry to The Shema.
Thoughts and Questions
What makes up the new, and what remains of the old? This is a compelling question that the Church must continue to ask, and one that every church must engage. The essence of this passage is an ongoing relationship with God. The relationship itself is not what’s new, but the way we relate to God that is forever changing and being renewed.
The Prophetic Voice is often focused on tearing down and demolishing systems of oppression and injustice. Do we claim the prophetic voice which calls us to build and plant for the future?
The Prophetic voice must contain a message of hope, not solely judgment
What is the time right now? A time to dig up and destroy (in preparation for Nov 8) or a time to build and plant (for Nov 9 and beyond)?
This passage has MASSIVE ramifications for those who hold to original sin. If we cannot be blamed for the sins of the previous generation(s) and are responsible from this moment on, then we cannot be held responsible for original sin. If however, we are each individually responsible to be faithful to God and neighbor, then salvation is not about overcoming original sin, but rather on how we remain in relationship with God.
How often do you and your church remember this eternal covenant?
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Initial Thoughts
A whole sermon could center on 2 Timothy 16-17 “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, to that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”
What is meant by “scripture” in this passage? Certainly not this letter. Probably not most of the New Testament. And even what parts of the Hebrew Bible could be contested at this point.
“The process of canonization of the Hebrew Bible was still happening as this was written. According to The Sacred Page blog:
“With the numerous Jewish groups arose diverse conceptions regarding the Hebrew “canon.” The Sadducees appear to have accepted no books outside of the Torah.[14] The Pharisees accepted a broader authoritative collection.[15] Jews in the Diaspora also had a broader list of sacred books.[16] Likewise, the Essenes and those who lived at Qumran seem to have had their own set of authoritative writings.[17] After the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it became especially clear that there was no normative Jewish canon in second Temple Judaism. “
“For a long time it was believed that the Hebrew Bible was closed at the end of the first century C. E. It was believed that a group of Rabbis made an official binding decision at a gathering known as “the Council of Jamnia.” Today, however, it is largely recognized that there is virtually no evidence that such a “council” ever occurred. While some Rabbis may have gathered in Jamnia at the end of the first century C. E. to discuss the status of some disputed books such as Ecclesiastes or Song of Songs, they most certainly did not make any binding decisions about the canon.[29] This is apparent in the fact that rabbinic debate over the canon continued to rage on until 200 C.E.”
What is meant by “inspired” in this passage?
Greek word “theopnuestos” apparently invented by this writer.
Roughly can be translated to “God-breathed,” but it is not an easy process to get there.
This is a great article about the complicated etymology of this word.
Even if it is simply God-breathed, what does that mean?
How are artists and creatives inspired? Does God take the hand holding the paint brush and move it? I think a preacher can be moved here to speak eloquently of the inspiration of creative people. Is there a holy moment where the skill and experience of the artist meets some spiritual place of truth and beauty to create art? Inspiration can take many forms, but it is very different from inerrant or dictated.
Verse 17 important. What is Scripture for?
“so that the person who belongs to God can be equipped to do everything that is good.”
If the Scripture is not provoking us to do good, then you’re using it wrong.
Bible Study
Context of this passage:
3:1-13 paint a bleak picture of the current situation.
Difficult to discern if this is a bleak situation in the broad sense of current culture or if it is a specific problem with individuals.
The warnings against false teachers and wicked people can be easily manipulated.
Clearly everyone who disagrees with me is a wicked false teacher.
Reading this can help “close the ranks” or build silos or echo chambers, or whatever metaphor you want to use about only surrounding yourself with people you agree with.
Social media exacerbates this problem.
Paul connects his own persecutions - and history of persecution to false teachers, then leads into this warning for Timothy
3:14-17
In the midst of false teachers, hold onto what is good.
Hold onto the right teaching that you have been given.
4:1-5
Encouragement
“Itching ears” are those who just want to hear what will comfort them.
The Gospel is not always popular. In fact, if it is, we should be suspicious.
Thoughts and Questions
The nature of Scripture is an important topic, and this is a chance to dive into it. However you define “Scripture” and however you read “God breathed,” it is important to keep v. 17 with v. 16.
What does your denomination say about the Bible?
The United Methodist Articles of Religion: Of the Sufficiency of of Scripture: “The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”
What does your church say about the Bible? Does your church website mention this?
Thanks to our Psalms correspondent, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan (psalmimmersion.com,@pomopsalmist). Thank you to Scott Fletcher for our voice bumpers, Dick Dale and the Del Tones for our Theme music (“Miserlou”), Nicolai Heidlas (“Sunday Morning”,"Real Ride"and“Summertime”) and Bryan Odeen for our closing music.