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DonateOctober 24, 2004 |
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Joel 2:23-32
Psalm 65 or Psalm 84:1-7
Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
Luke 18:9-14
The Jeremiah and Joel texts are the peoples’ confessions of sin and
requests for deliverance, even arguing their case with God. The texts
involve lament and grief over their behavior with respect to God, their
ruptured relationship. The poetic piling up of words of sadness and
despair can become overwhelming, cascading images of failure, a steady
beat of hopelessness.
It seems so repetitive that it leaves the reader with the feeling that
hopelessness will define the day. There is a small logical movement in
each text, though subtle and easy to miss, that holds the key to hope. It
is the recognition that God is in their midst, which is fully expressed in
the Joel text. This is a hope in spite of all that has gone wrong between
the people and God. The word “yet” says it all. “Yet thou, O Lord,
art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not.”
Jer. 14:9b This often comes after long experience of feeling
abandoned by God. The idea that God dwells with the people, in the midst
of them, is a strong theme in many parts of the Bible. One of the
most striking narratives that makes the point is in Exodus and the divine
planning with Moses that goes into building the Tabernacle. The purpose of
the Tabernacle is so God can live in the midst of the encampment and go
with the people, guiding them, being present with them, and not on some
mountaintop. For God to dwell in the midst of life is a powerful
expression of hope. It is the ultimate form of well being: to be in right
relation with the Creator.
The Luke text is a cautionary tale of what attitude toward God not to
have. Next to the prophetic texts, the self righteous religious man
highlights the ultimate form of idolatry, which is worship of self. The
image of him standing proudly before God, exalting himself as so far
superior to the sinner, is astounding. It displays the difference between
self worship and worship of the Creator, which is at the heart of the
Bible’s analysis of the human condition.
There is a sense in all the texts that the voice of the
narrator/writer/speaker expresses life in the middle of things: the
sinfulness and rupture of the relationship in the past, and the forward
looking hope that wants God’s presence and love to return and endure.
The poetic voice of the text is our voice, speaking from the midst of our
lives, asking God to be present here, too. There is a feeling of tension
between the pull of the past and all the wreckage and heartache that is
remembered in divine absence, and the hope of a future of peace, wholeness
and divine presence. God’s faithful endurance in the covenant, in spite
of the dismissive behavior of human beings toward the covenant, is what
will bring everything back into balance.
The initiative has to
come from God. The vision of hope is vague, especially as expressed by
Joel or Jeremiah or 2 Timothy. But God doesn’t have some detailed
endpoint toward which the Divine hand is guiding creation. Instead,
God’s power is at work in the unfolding of everything, moment by
moment--in the midst. God’s attention is on the moment with an eye
toward bringing harmony and beauty out of all the experiences of the
creatures. Process theology takes seriously the biblical idea that God,
instead of being outside the process of life, is in the midst of
life, working to lure all of creation toward harmony and beauty ultimately
in God’s own experience.
Preaching the Texts:
If I were preaching on these texts, I might choose a hymn which expresses
the heart of the poetic voice, which is a hope for God’s faithfulness
even when spoken in the midst of a place of wreckage. Most of the texts
are devoted to a poetic expression of this tension. The final resting
place will ultimately be in God. I would use the hymn, “Great Is Thy
Faithfulness” (replace “my Father” with “Creator”) as a poetic
text that draws all the Biblical texts together. God’s faithfulness,
God’s endurance, is a fundamental theme running throughout the Bible.
The suggested hymn expresses this simple hope so powerfully, that, after
preaching from these texts on the theme of God’s faithfulness, the hymn
can be powerfully and meaningfully sung by the congregation. What a
wonderful moment!
In preparation for that moment, the nature of covenant between Creator and
creation could be drawn out and the dynamics of the brokeness of the
primary relationship between Creator and creation would give voice to the
sense of brokenness we all experience in our personal lives and in the
world. The darkness of the experienced despair issues in a bright hope for
repair.
The Rev. Rick Marshall has been pastor at the Brea Congregational Church, UCC, in Brea, California for 24 years. He also served on the Advisory Council of the Process and Faith Program at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. To purchase books written by Rev. Marshall and other lectionary contributors, please go to Flux Books
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