https://youtu.be/1t1jTIgVdqU

There is an old chestnut that often gets taught to Sunday School children regarding the passage we read this morning from the Gospel of Luke. When people reading this story wonder, quite naturally, who these Sadducees are, the explanation goes like this. The Sadducees were sad you see because they didn’t believe in life after death.

But there is something about that old saying that is not quite right. It implies that they didn’t believe because they were sad, because they were old spoilsports who didn’t want to believe in anything. It maybe even suggests that they were proto atheists who didn’t even believe in God.

Who were the Sadducees?

I just wanted to let you know that that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Do you want to know who the Sadducees were? They were members of the most elite and wealthiest families in that society. They had life pretty good. And far from being atheists, these families counted many priests and high priests among their numbers. They made their living serving and sacrificing to God. And, in fact, the reason why they didn’t believe in the resurrection was because they saw themselves, above all, as good Bible-believing Jews.

But here is the thing, the Bible, for them, was a very small well-defined thing. Most Jews at that time would have recognized, pretty much, the whole of the Old Testament as we know it to be scripture. But the Sadducees were far pickier. For them, only the first five books really counted as scripture – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – known as the Books of Moses.

No Resurrection in the First Five Books

And they had noticed that the notion of the resurrection just doesn’t come up in those books, like not at all. It doesn’t come up because nobody seems particularly concerned about it. People like Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses are completely focussed on this life and not on the next. God’s promises are also focussed on what happens here and now and in generations to come.

In fact, that is not just true of the first five books, it is actually true of a great deal of the Old Testament. The question of a meaningful afterlife just doesn’t come up. Oh, you can find it in a few places – the Books of Ezekiel and Daniel, for example – but those are books that were written quite late. In the oldest Hebrew literature, it is really just not there. So, in many ways the Sadducees were just trying to take the Bible seriously – something that we’re all supposed to do, right?

So Why did Everyone Else Believe?

But that doesn’t change the fact that, in the time of Jesus, the Sadducees were probably the only major Jewish group that did not believe in the resurrection. So, obviously, something had changed for most Jews by that point, but this change was not primarily based on what they were reading in their scriptures. So where did this conviction come from? Well, it turns out that I can tell you exactly where it came from. It came from a story.

Antiochus Epiphanes

About two centuries before the time of Christ, something terrible and horrible happened to the Jews living in the land of Judah. They were ruled over by the Greeks at that time. You have maybe heard of a famous fellow named Alexander the Great who conquered the world? Well, one of the places he conquered was the land of Judah.

And, generations later, the descendants of his generals still ruled over that land. And one of those rulers, Antiochus Epiphanes, was a bit of a jerk who was full of himself. And he had been having trouble with the Jews that he ruled over. And so Antiochus made a fateful decision. He decided that the problem was Jewishness itself.

Now, Antiochus did not set out, like certain other tyrants of history who shall remain nameless, to actually kill all of the Jews. His policy was not traditional genocide, but it was cultural genocide. He wanted to exterminate Jewish practices like circumcision and the Kosher diet and their strange exclusive worship of just one God. And so, he made all of that stuff illegal. But, much to his surprise, the Jews did not appreciate his policies. They resisted. And so, the king decided to up the stakes.

The Story of the Seven Brothers

And that leads us to the story that changed every Jew’s perspective on resurrection except the Sadducees. This story is told in the Second Book of Maccabees, a book that is not in our Bible but that is part of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Bible. According to this book, the king arrested an entire family of seven brothers and their mother. They were arrested on suspicion of, well, acting Jewish. And so, the king brought them before him and demanded that they eat a little bit of pork. The brothers refused.

What follows is a story so bloody and graphic that I don’t really feel as if I could tell it to you. Look it up and read it for yourself in 2 Maccabees 7 if you really want to know it, but you have been warned! In the story, the king has all seven brothers tortured to death. And the torture is particularly physical as he cuts off body parts and roasts them over the fire. And so all seven brothers die. And the woman, their mother, dies as well.

The Faith of the Brothers

But the bloody details are not what are important about the story. It is the reaction of the family that stands out. They are there because of their faith and because they do not want to betray it in the face of the king’s decree. And they are there, above all, because they trust in their God who told them to live in certain ways to save them.

And at first, this faith leads them to believe that their God will save them from what the king wants to do to them. Because the promises that they know about God are all promises for this life. That’s what they have learned from their scriptures.

But, of course, that is not what happens. One by one the brothers are painfully put to death. One by one they all watch horrified as various body parts are lopped off and thrown into the fire. And God does not save them. And so, they are left with a choice. Either God’s promises have failed, or they are going to have to understand God’s faithfulness in a new way.

A New Understanding

The terrible holocaust they are being put through convinces them that if God is truly faithful, then God’s promises must also extend beyond this present life. And if their enemies are going to destroy their bodies because they remain faithful to God, then God’s faithfulness and justice have to mean that God will give them those bodies back again.

Basically, they believed that if God had been able to create them in the first place, then surely God would be able to raise them up and create them as new bodies at the end of all things. So, the belief in the resurrection became established when people heard the story of what that family had experienced. And by the time of Jesus, it had become accepted by the great majority of Jews.

The Sadducees’ Version of the Story

And that is what makes it so hilarious when this group of Sadducees come up to Jesus one day to try and convince him that he is wrong about the resurrection, and they do it by telling him a story about seven brothers and one woman who all died. Oh, I’m sure they thought they were being clever, but I’ll bet their story went over with the crowd like a lead balloon.

Everyone in the crowd knew the story of King Antiochus and the seven brothers; everyone in the crowd believed in the resurrection because of that story. But the Sadducees thought that they had found the one weakness with that story. If only one of the brothers had been married, they argued, then for them to be raised from the dead would have broken one of the obscure laws in one of the Books of Moses because it would have meant that that one woman would be married to all of them in the afterlife.

It was a ridiculous argument of course, and I am betting that Jesus and everyone else were laughing at them as Jesus gave his answer. But do you want to know what they got wrong? They were trying to do their best to respect the scriptures as they knew them. But they forgot one key thing.

The Greater Truth

The scriptures are there to point us towards the truth. But the truth that they point to is not merely certain doctrines or laws. They point to the greater truth of who God is. And, as Jesus said to the Sadducees, who God is is the God of the living. A God whose essence is found in love and life itself.

The complete knowledge of such a God could never possibly be contained within the pages of a single book, no matter how extraordinary. Instead, the book points us to the experiences that others have had of God and to the experiences that we could potentially have. For it is only through human experience that we can come to know God, because human experience is all that we have.

So, the experience of the Jews who lived through the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanies led them to the new insight that their God was a God who would raise the righteous from the dead. In the same way, when the first Christians experienced that Jesus was still alive and with them after he had been crucified, that also taught them to trust in the God who would raise them from the dead.

When we are limited to what we find in the written word, when we allow that to dictate our experience, we will never know the fullness that God wants us to have.

The Suffering of War

On this Remembrance Sunday, we remember all those who suffered through the horrible trauma of war. We remember those who never returned. We remember those who came back broken in body and in spirit. We mourn the terrible loss and destruction that have been brought upon the earth as a result of war and we recommit ourselves to doing whatever we can to build a just and peaceful world so that no one will resort to war. I hope we can also commit ourselves to learning the lessons of wars and conflicts past. After all, as they say, those who do not learn from such histories are doomed to repeat them.

In the fires of the terrible affliction that the ancient Jews suffered under the Greeks, they discovered something important about their God. They discovered that their God was committed to them, not only for this life, but also beyond it. They learned that the God who had created them would give them new life again.

What have we Learned?

What have we learned, I wonder, as a result of the wars, police actions and peacekeeping that we have been involved in? You would hope, of course, as a result of our involvement in World War II that we might have learned something about the dangers of building a sense of nationalism out of ideals of racial purity and excluding the ones who are different. You would hope that, but sometimes looking around I do wonder if we are forgetting that lesson.

You would hope, based on our tragic experience in Afghanistan, that we would have learned something about using religion – any religion – as a tool for motivating terror and hatred. You would hope so, but I sometimes wonder what we have learned.

Growing in our Knowledge of God

But the most important lessons, I would still insist, are the lessons we learn about our God. I know there are many who learned faith in God in the midst of the trauma of conflict. I also know that there are many who learned that the image of God that they had been given was totally inadequate in the midst of such trauma. Both of those lessons are equally valid and essential.

I believe that the error that the Sadducees made was to think that they had come to the end of understanding who God was. They had a wonderful book, but the problem was that they believed that that book limited who God could be. Jesus challenged them to open up their minds to new possibilities about who God would be for them, even in the midst of the worst traumas of their lives.

But I suspect that the Sadducees were a little bit too comfortable in their lives, they had too many things going their way, so they were not open to learning something new about God. And that is kind of sad, you see.

https://youtu.be/1EtnICO3Too

That a Runner may Read it

Hespeler, 30 October 2022 © Scott McAndless – Anniversary
Habakkuk 1:1-11; 2:1-4, Psalm 119:137-144, 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12, Luke 19:1-10

The prophet Habakkuk is one of those guys who just seems to have the ability to be completely open and honest with God. He opens the book that bears his name in the Bible with a question that I think many of us could ask if we dared to be so honest. “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack, and justice never prevails.”

Habakkuk was obviously living through some pretty hard times – times when it seemed as if the very structure and conventions of society were breaking down. And I could probably spend some time going through all of the ways in which things were breaking down in his day, but I honestly don’t feel like I need to. I kind of feel like we are living through it.

Crisis Times

I constantly hear today about how some of the basic conventions of our society – the things that once held us together and allowed us to function – are no longer working for us. We see it in a growing mistrust of the basic assumptions of democratic government. I realize that this is something that probably started in the United States in the aftermath of their last Presidential elections, but it has absolutely spread to Canada and many other parts of the world.

Crisis in Confidence

Growing numbers of people everywhere have lost confidence in the security and fairness of democratic elections even though these things continue to function well. Suddenly it seems that losing candidates only need to say that the election of their opponent was unfair, without needing to offer any evidence at all, and huge groups of people will believe them. And I have to wonder how we can possibly manage to govern ourselves if people are attacking the very foundations of that system.

And it’s not just there that we see the breakdown. The whole experience with the pandemic has led to a huge loss of confidence in both public health measures and medical expertise. And I’m not even saying that this didn’t happen without some reason. In many cases, the implementation of even the best advice left a great deal to be desired. As a result, many people have felt let down and I fear that it is leading us to a place where so many people are going to mistrust all expertise in healthcare. If a sufficient number of people no longer follow sensible public health recommendations, it probably doesn’t matter what the rest of us do. We will all get caught up in the public health crises that follow.

Civility Breakdown

But it is not just in the big public issues that we see this kind of breakdown. In all kinds of ordinary interactions and discourses it certainly feels as if the very rules of civility that we took for granted no longer apply. All of a sudden, we hear people saying racist things or hateful things about women, people who don’t fit traditional gender roles and others. These are things that, just a little while ago, would have been unthinkable for people to actually say them.

And, sure, maybe people were thinking those kinds of things all along and just didn’t dare to say them. But I’ve got to ask the question what does it mean for our society when the inhibitions that once stood in the way of people actually saying them are no longer there?

And maybe this is just me, but I am rather concerned about the impact of all of this on the Christian Church. I’m not just talking about all of the ways in which the church seems to be declining as a recognized institution in society, though I guess that is part of it. What disturbs me more, however, is how some of the worst tendencies we see at work in society are being so thoroughly associated with certain brands of Christianity.

What is a Christian?

What I mean is this. Not all that long ago, if you asked people in general what a Christian was, you would have gotten answers like that a Christian was someone who went to church fairly regularly, who at least tried to act morally and ethically. They may have even said that Christians were people who tried to take care of the less fortunate.

You want to know what kinds of answers you get to that question today? People are much more likely to reply that Christians are people who are anti-immigration, who have animosity towards LGBTQ people, who are perhaps even white nationalists. In fact, in some recent American studies, there was a stronger association between voting Republican and being a Christian than there was between going to church and being a Christian.

Working in Reverse

The association between these things has gotten so strong that it seems to have started to work in reverse. Some people look at themselves and say, “Look, here I am. I am against immigration, I don’t much like LGBTQ people and think that white people really ought to be in charge, hey, I must be a Christian even though I never go to church or read the Bible. That is what the understanding of Christianity has become in many circles.

Now, please understand me that I’m not saying that that is what Christianity is or that all Christians think like that. That is anything but true. No, it is just that a certain very intolerant expression of Christianity has become very successful at representing itself to the world as the only legitimate kind of Christianity. And I find that very disheartening.

Habakkuk Demands an Answer

So, these, for me, are the signs that the structures and conventions of society are breaking down under pressure. You might point at different indications, and that is fine. But the feeling that these things are breaking down is very pervasive these days. I feel very much in tune with Habakkuk and what he is saying. But the wonderful thing about Habakkuk is that he doesn’t just dare to talk about what he sees going wrong with the world, he actually demands to know what God is going to do about it. And God answers.

God’s answer comes in the form of a vision that Habakkuk receives. Habakkuk is assured that God is at work in some of the disturbing things that are happening in the world. God says, “I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own. They are a feared and dreaded people; They are a law to themselves and promote their own honour.”

Does God Endorse War?

Now, let me reassure you that that does not mean that God endorses or enjoys the terrible things that are associated with war and invasion in this world. God does not endorse the incursions of the Babylonians any more than God today endorses the incursions of Russia into Ukraine.

No, what the prophet is saying is that God is at work even in the terrible things that sometimes take place in this world. God doesn’t endorse the violence and terror of war, but God is able to bring goodness and hope even out of the worst of all situations. So the message of this part of the prophecy is that we should not lose hope even when things look bleak.

But Habakkuk wants to know more than just what God might be doing. “I will stand at my watchpost and station myself on the rampart;” Habakkuk says, “I will keep watch to see what he will say to me and what he will answer concerning my complaint.” Like I said, I like this guy. He wants to know what God wants him to do in the midst of all this and amazingly he gets an answer.

God’s Answer

This is what God tells the prophet: “Then the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.”

Now, there are two parts to this answer. The second part is essentially a command to not lose hope and wait upon the Lord. “If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.”

And honestly, holding onto our hope and expectation of God during times when it feels as if everything is falling apart is a very difficult thing to do. It is so much easier to give into cynicism, to throw up our hands and conclude that the evil forces at work in our world are going to win and so we might as well just go along with them. It seems easier to give in to the hatred, the selfishness and the xenophobia that is overtaking our world. But God tells Habakkuk and all of us to hold on.

Write the Vision

But the first part of God’s answer to Habakkuk also matters because it tells us what we can do while we wait on God. “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.” And I will admit that that instruction made my mind race. I had images of us setting up huge billboards on the side of our church building that would proclaim our vision in letters so large that not only runners but even street racers and motorcycle clubs driving at top speed would have not a choice but to read it.

There is something about how he puts that that speaks to me. He talks about creating a vision that is so clear and compelling that even somebody who is running past you – someone who was moving about as fast as anyone ever moved in that world at that time – will totally understand exactly what you care about and what you stand for.

How Good are we at This?

And I am not sure how good the church is at doing that today. Are we so clear about our vision that somebody running by at their fastest could capture it? What would such a brief and clear statement be today? I suspect that many of us, if we were asked to summarize in a few words what it meant for us to be followers of Christ, might come up with a few platitudes and maybe some good intentions, but would we really be able to communicate what we stand for?

Jesus was a Jew

There was a German preacher, for example, who, in the midst of the worst anti-Semitism of the Second World War, proclaimed that the whole Christian Gospel could be summed up in just one phrase: Jesus was a Jew.

Now, of course, under normal circumstances, that would hardly be a good summary of the gospel. But in those circumstances, when the German Church was not only supporting the rounding up and murdering of millions of Jews but also actively purging the church itself of all traces of Jewish origins and influence, it was a bold statement that immediately communicated what living for Christ meant at that moment in time. It was four words that could totally communicate what a believer stood for even if you only saw them when you were running by at top speed.

What Message Does that Today?

That is not the specific message, but it is the kind of message that the church needs to be offering today. In a world where many are defining their faith in terms of who they hate, we need to boldly say that we do not hate. In a world where many assume that Christians are simply people who are intolerant, we need to not be afraid to loudly proclaim our tolerance. We are no longer living in a world where we can just put out a few vaguely positive sentiments and expect that people will admire us for it. It is time for us to write our vision of a better world, of inclusion and hope and love even for the outsiders on a tablet so large and so clear that a runner may read it.

What that specific message might be, I want to leave that to your imagination for a bit. In fact, I would encourage you to write down just a few words on the papers I have distributed today or send me a text or an email. Make it as simple as “Jesus was a Jew” or “God’s love includes Immigrants” or whatever it might be. What is the vision for a better world that we could proclaim so clearly that a runner could read it?

https://youtu.be/8VwxyvKrM18

Hespeler, 23 October 2022 © Scott McAndless
Joel 2:23-32, Psalm 65, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18, Luke 18:9-14 (click to read)

Jesus once told a parable about two men who went to the temple to pray, a Pharisee and a tax collector. And anyone who has ever heard that parable has adopted an automatic dislike for the Pharisee. The thing about the prayer of the Pharisee that really gets to us is that at least half of it is not really a prayer. It is simply a man who is talking himself up. “I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”

We all know that anyone who, half the time, can only talk about themselves and what wonderful things they do is absolutely insufferable. That’s the kind of person you avoid at a cocktail party. So I’m pretty sure that, when he included this in the man’s prayer, Jesus was indicating that we are not supposed to like this guy. And, of course, he also lets us know that God is really not all that much interested in listening to him either because the end of the parable implies that God was not impressed with his prayer.

The Actual Prayer

But all of that part where he’s talking about himself, is not really what you would call a prayer, not any more than a situation where someone is just talking about themselves is what you would call a conversation. No, the actual prayerful content comes before that. It is a prayer of thanksgiving, which is normally seen as a really good thing, right? But here is that actual prayer of thanksgiving: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.” And then he goes on to list all of the objectionable kinds of people that he is not like.

And that is the prayer I would like to focus on today. In telling this parable, Jesus gives us all the signs and indications that we are not supposed to like this guy or what he prays. Most of us wouldn’t really think of that as an appropriate prayer. But I’ll tell you something – it is a prayer that I hear all the time.

The Fundamental Prayer of our Time

Oh, people don’t pray it in so many words, but if you listen to what they are saying, you can often find that prayer in the background of it. In fact, when I think of it, I would say that that Pharisee’s prayer is the fundamental prayer of our time and perhaps of any time. When you know what you are listening for, you hear it everywhere. And, as Jesus strongly suggested in this parable, it is not a very helpful prayer.

For example, one of the major crises we are seeing in our society right at this moment is a housing crisis. More people do not have adequate shelter in our society today than we have seen in a very long time. And it is especially disturbing because it has become so visible. Major cities all across this country, including our own, of course, have large homeless encampments, many right out where everyone can see them.

Talking about People without Shelter

As a result, the subject of this crisis tends to come up a lot. People are talking about it over coffee or beer. And you know what I hear people saying? I hear people saying, “Oh, that’s just people who don’t want to work.” I hear people saying, “People live in encampments like that because they choose to.”

And do you know what people who talk like that are really saying? It is a prayer. They are saying, “God, I thank you that I am not like those other people.” Because, when people look at those who do not have adequate shelter, that is all they see because that is all they are looking for. They only see how such people are unlike them. And so long as that is all they see, that makes them feel very safe because it makes them feel like they will not find themselves in the same situation. So, a person looks at themselves and says, “Well, I’ve always been willing to work, and I don’t want to end up homeless, so obviously such an outcome will never befall me.” Or, in other words, “God, I thank you that I am not like them.”

The Overdose Crisis

Of course, the housing crisis is only one of the areas where we react like that. There is an overdose crisis that has been plaguing our cities for about ten years now. This has led to thousands of deaths and near deaths from fentanyl and carfentanyl, pain medications of extraordinary potency. So that is also a topic that often comes up for discussion and I can also tell you what kind of comments you will hear when it comes up. Folks talk about how some people just don’t have any control these days, how people of a certain ethnic group or age group are only interested in indulging themselves and that’s why they get hooked on these drugs.

And people will especially talk about how they never got hooked on tobacco or alcohol or any illicit substance. Or, if they ever were, they’ll talk about how they got off them through their own sheer willpower. And do you know what they are saying when they say such things? That’s right, they are praying, “God, I thank you that I am not like those other people.” They are only interested in how such people are unlike them and cannot see any similarities because they do not look for them.

It’s Just Not True

Here’s what I find particularly objectionable about that prayer. (I suspect that Jesus may have had the same problem with it.) When we pray like that, we are being thankful for something that is simply not true. The people who struggle, whether it be with drug addiction or lack of shelter, whether it be of unemployment or broken relationships or any number of other issues that are plaguing our society today, they are always much more like us than we want to see and so we don’t see it. We don’t see it because we don’t look for it.

Now, looking at the crisis in shelter, I would not say that it is never true that people end up in such a situation because they have a problem with employment. Nor would I suggest that there aren’t some people in shelters or encampments because they have, in some sense, chosen to be there. But I will push us all to consider that the problem is definitely much more complex than that.

More Complicated

Just ask, for example, somebody who is complaining that unhoused people just don’t want to work whether they would hire somebody who had no fixed address and no reliable transportation to get to work. I suspect the answer to that question would be no. So it’s got to be more complex than just a simple desire not to work.

And if some people choose to be unhoused, which some may do, do we ask what other option they might have had? What if the only other option is to be in a relationship where they are abused? What if they know that they are susceptible to addiction and the only living situation available to them means that they will be constantly exposed to drugs? Can you not see where it might be a better choice to be unhoused when those kinds of things are your only other options?

But most of all, any of us who observe the housing crisis from afar likely got into the housing market at a very different time than what people are dealing with today. The prices we were able to pay and the equity that we were able to build up have made us feel much more secure, but do we really think that if we did not have those advantages or if we were just starting out today with housing prices as they are that we would end up all that differently?

Who Gets Addicted?

And when it comes to addiction, you would absolutely be amazed to see the statistics about who got caught up in the latest overdose crisis. They are not marginalized people in the majority. The statistics indicate that that crisis cut across every demographic of society equally – wealth, race, age and gender. They are just like you, and they are just like me. And, in many cases, the addiction crisis is also how many people who are just like you ended up without shelter because the two crises are connected.

No, when we look at it all openly and honestly, we do have to come to terms with the simple truth that we may not be as unlike the people who struggle with these things as we thought. But of course, we cling to the idea that they aren’t like us because the alternative, frankly, is terrifying. But that makes the prayer, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people,” not just a bad prayer but a delusional one.

What Should we Pray?

But that leaves us with the question: what should we then pray? The realities of this life being what they are, the hard truth is that any one of us could find ourselves dealing with the same kinds of disasters that happen to others. Any one of us could lose our shelter or our wealth or our health as a result of some random conglomerate of disasters or unforeseen events. We can’t exempt ourselves by saying that such things only happen to people who aren’t like us. That is why the Pharisee’s prayer is so unwise. But we need a prayer, for otherwise where can we find hope and comfort?

The Tax Collector’s Prayer

So let us turn instead to the prayer of the tax collector. Jesus tells us that he went up to pray that day too. And we should not forget that the people in the audience listening to Jesus were very much predisposed to hate the tax collector. He was exactly the kind of person that everyone else was happy not to be like. He was a collaborator who worked with the foreign occupying government. Think, for example, of a Ukrainian working with the Russians in the territory they occupy today. That’s how people saw him.

And yet Jesus tells us that he prayed and not only that he prayed but that God was disposed to listen to him. Perhaps it helped that his prayer was simple: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

But let me tell you something about that prayer. It was brief and humble, but that was not what made it so acceptable to God. I believe that God appreciated its honesty. But its honesty was not found in the notion that this man was somehow worse than everyone else because of who he was. It was honest because it is true of all of us.

Where to Find Comfort

I know that we like to insulate ourselves from all of the bad things that could potentially happen to us in this world by thinking that we are somehow better than everyone else to whom such things befall. That is why we pray like the Pharisee. But since we are all much more alike than we dare to think, we cannot take comfort in our own righteousness. Where do we find comfort then? Only in God’s mercy and in God’s grace. Finding comfort in how we are unlike those who suffer is a fool’s errand. Finding comfort in God’s grace is the source of true and lasting peace.

The End of the Parable

Jesus famously ended his parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector by saying this about the tax collector, “I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other.” And I know how people often read that. We seem to have learned to read all of God’s promises exclusively in terms of what happens to us after we die. And so I know that many hear Jesus saying that the tax collector got to go to heaven and the Pharisee didn’t.

But I actually think that Jesus was saying something much more important than that. You see, what happens to us after we die, that doesn’t depend on us just following certain formulas or even on us praying certain prayers. That depends entirely on God’s grace. And when the Bible says that we are saved by grace through faith, what it is actually saying is that we need to trust in God’s grace. That is always a wise thing to do. In the gracious hands of God is the safest place you will ever be.

Getting Through the Trials of Life

So, Jesus wasn’t making a pronouncement about who would get into heaven and who wouldn’t. He was talking about the kind of prayer that you can pray that will actually assist you to make your way through the various trials of this life. The prayer of the Pharisee might make you feel safe by fooling you into thinking that bad things only happen to people who aren’t like you. But the prayer of the tax collector helps you to face up to the very real and dark side of life in this world, and it lets you know that you need not face it alone – you have a God of grace who loves you as you are and who will be with you.

https://youtu.be/Znav4MHS2mc

Hespeler, 9 October 2022 © Scott McAndless – Thanksgiving Sunday
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7, Psalm 66:1-12, 2 Timothy 2:8-15, Luke 17:11-19 (Click to read)

I was a Samaritan – a Samaritan who lived in a narrow strip of land that was a kind of cultural no man’s land that ran along the border between Galilee and Samaria. Most of the people who lived there were Judeans who had been brought in to displace us centuries ago. But my family had somehow managed to remain there.

And, surrounded by a sea of Jewish people, we did what we could to hold onto our Samaritan culture and faith. We worshiped the God of Israel in our own way on Mount Gerizim. We followed our own laws according to our own scriptures that we also believed came to us from Moses.

A Despised People

But the Judeans didn’t care about any of that. They despised us, called us infidels and accused us of strange practices. They would not speak to us, and they certainly wouldn’t do things like share meals with us. So, I was pretty much used to being considered an outcast by most of the people I met from my youth.

And then you start to hypercorrect. You go out of your way to be deferential and polite to the people who are constantly criticizing you. You are always saying please and thank you and praising people who have done little more than be slightly civil to you. It can be exhausting. And worst of all, no matter how much you do it, you know that you will never belong. That was the life I was used to. And then things got so much worse.

Doubly Outcast

One day my entire world fell apart. I woke up to discover strange blotches on my skin. They itched and they burned and nothing I could do would make them go away. My family looked upon me with horror and cried out that I was a leper.

Once that had been settled, everybody knew what came next. Before the sun had set, I had been expelled from my home and the small Samaritan village where we lived. From now on, everyone who saw me would recoil with fear. Anyone who approached me, I was required to call out to them, to announce that I was unclean and that they must shun me. I was expected to live outside of all society. If I was lucky, I might be able to stay alive by begging, but, honestly, few people seemed to care whether I lived or died.

A New Community

And then, there was a miracle of sorts. I wandered around a fair bit in those days and, in my wandering, I passed through the outskirts of one of the larger towns in the region. People like me tended to congregate in the graveyards and garbage dumps that surrounded such places. And that was where I came upon the others. There were nine of them – men and women, old and young. Each one was suffering from a skin condition of some sort. Somehow, in the common experience of being cast out, they had discovered that the things that had once divided them – differences in wealth, status, age and even gender – no longer mattered nearly as much. Abandoned by everyone else, they had found a community with each other.

But even as I looked at them, it seemed to me impossible that there could be a place in such a group for me. They all had one thing, apart from their disease, in common. They were all Judeans and that had to be more important than any bond they might feel because of their shared condition. I felt certain that my Samaritaness was one thing that they would be simply unable to overlook. So, I turned and prepared to go on my way.

But they called out to me. When I explained who I was and where I came from, they said that it didn’t matter. They had all been rejected by the people around them. None of them belonged anywhere. But, in that situation, they had all found something. They had found each other, and they now had a community. If I was willing, there was a place in it even for a Samaritan like me. And so I joined them.

The Healer from Nazareth

One day several weeks later, one of our group came back to wake the rest early in the morning as we slept on the outskirts of a village. He had been restless and unable to sleep as his hives had been particularly bothering him of late. He rose in the early darkness and went down to the well hoping that he could bathe his sores before anyone came out of town to chase him away.

But the space around the well was not empty as he had hoped. Several men had gathered there early and were preparing for their day as they talked excitedly among themselves. The leper drew as near as he dared, hiding behind bushes so as not to be seen. And so, he had heard what it was they were so excited about.

“It is the healer,” he announced to us. “It is that man from Nazareth who has been seen everywhere in recent months performing wonders and miraculous healings. It is said that he is going to pass through this region this very day. My friends, we have to speak to him. They say he is compassionate and caring even to people like us. I believe that if anyone can make us clean, it is him.”

Not all of us shared the same enthusiasm as our brother leper. I myself felt particularly doubtful. Oh, I did not doubt that such a man could do something for people in our situation, but a lifetime of people refusing to do anything for me because of who I was had left me skeptical that he would. But we had all formed a pact. Where one went, we all went together. And I was not about to break the only solidarity I had ever found in my life. We decided that we would go and beg this man for help before he entered the nearby village.

Jesus’ Strange Response

And so we found him. As he approached the village, we began to call out together, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” It was the last thing we would ever do in unison. He looked up and he saw us. And when he did, he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

Now, you’re probably wondering, like I did, what that was supposed to mean. To my ear it almost sounded as if he was brushing us off. According to the Jewish law, after all, it fell to the priests to examine anyone who claimed that their skin condition had healed up and determine whether it was true or not. So, was Jesus simply saying that it wasn’t up to him to say whether we were clean or not – that there was nothing that he could do?

So it seemed to me. And I was hardly even disappointed as I turned away with the others. But, before we had gone very far at all, something began to happen. One by one, my fellow lepers began to shout out. One declared that his itching had stopped. Another said that the scales on her arms had fallen away, and the skin underneath looked pink and smooth. Soon the truth was inescapable to all of us – it seemed, somehow, that we were clean!

Excluded Again

As they realized this, all of the others began to speak together about what they were to do next. What Jesus had said was true. They needed to be seen by a priest before they could return to their families and villages and resume their lives. They began to talk excitedly together about making the trip all the way to Jerusalem.

But as soon as they began to speak practically about their journey, I felt a familiar sinking feeling in my stomach. My skin might have felt like that of a newborn baby, but I felt as if I was dying inside. For, as they spoke of the journey, they simply took it for granted that they would not take the shortest route because that would mean passing through Samaria and no good Judean would ever think of associating with Samaritans.

They didn’t even realize that they were doing it. All of a sudden, now that the one thing that the ten of us had had in common was gone, it was as if I no longer existed. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter. I mean, there was no way that I could go with them to see a Judean priest in Jerusalem anyways. I would not have been welcome there. But I will tell you something. It really hurt and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alone than I did as I watched them head off on their journey without even realizing that they had left me behind. I looked around and wondered what I was supposed to do now.

The Leper Returns

Just a few minutes after Jesus enters the village – even as the local crowd is beginning to form – everyone is surprised to see a man run through the gate shouting praise to God at the top of his voice. As he approaches Jesus, he throws himself to the ground in an extreme display of gratitude. It is one of the lepers who had accosted Jesus earlier.

And when Jesus sees him, he cannot help but ask the obvious question. “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Because it is plain to everyone at this point what it is that sets this man apart from his fellows other than his gratitude. They can tell that he is a Samaritan. Don’t ask me how. Bigots always find a way. And once the bigoted mode of thinking has been engaged, you can know absolutely that people are going to find some way to complain about how the outsider group behaves.

Judgement

So, they look at this individual who is an outsider for two reasons. He is a leper and he is a Samaritan. And they note that he is the only one out of his group of lepers who has done what they consider to be the right thing and said thank you to Jesus. But, of course, they are not about to praise a Samaritan for doing the right thing, that goes against all logic of bigotry. And so, they choose, instead, to target the other outsider group: lepers.

“Ah, isn’t that typical. These lepers are constantly bothering us with their needs and disrupting our lives with their sickness and uncleanness. And here somebody does something nice for them and out of ten, only one can even bother to come back and say thank you.”

Jesus’ Response

But I would just like you to note that Jesus’ response to this man was a little bit different. First of all, Jesus did not even remark that he was the only one to say thank you. I’m not sure that Jesus really cared about being thanked. What he did notice, however, was that this one, the outsider, the Samaritan, was the only one who knew how to give proper glory to God. And when he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well,” he was definitely doing more than brushing him off.

He was recognizing that he was different from the others, that he couldn’t go off and show himself to a priest in Jerusalem. And so, Jesus gave him an extraordinary gift, Jesus stood in the place of the priest and declared him clean right there. But more than clean, he declared him acceptable, whole and included and that was something that that man had rarely experienced in his life.

How we Talk about Thanksgiving

This is Thanksgiving Day, and it is, in many ways a celebration of the act of Thanksgiving. Bringing an attitude of gratefulness to our lives is a very good thing. It can help to change so much about our approach to life in positive ways. And we do have much to be thankful for.

But I’ve got to tell you something. Many of the discussions I hear about thankfulness these days are not quite as affirming as that. Most of the time, when I hear people talk about thankfulness, they are complaining. They are complaining about how certain people are not thankful in the ways that they think they should be.

The groups that people complain about vary, of course. Sometimes it’s young people who don’t say thank you in the right way. Sometimes it is people in society who are receiving some sort of help or assistance. Sometimes it is certain racial groups or minority groups who people criticize for complaining about how they have been treated. So often our discussion about thankfulness is all about how we think that certain people just aren’t good enough at it.

More than Thankful

And I think that this story in the gospel can help us to unpack that a bit. It is a story of a double outsider – a leper who also happens to be a Samaritan. And people have tended to turn it into a reason to complain about people who are not sufficiently thankful. I’m convinced Jesus didn’t see that man that way. Jesus simply celebrated him for who he was and how he gave praise to God.

The thankfulness that that man exercised; Jesus didn’t need it. It was only for the benefit of the man who experienced gratitude. I hope you can celebrate gratitude yourself this Thanksgiving. But if you encounter people whose gratitude is not exactly what you expected or not expressed in the way you are accustomed to, that really has nothing to do with you. It might be their loss. But if you choose to treat people like Jesus did, take them as they are and celebrate whatever they have to offer, I think you can experience something wonderful both for yourself and for them this Thanksgiving.

https://youtu.be/m51CepqMGaU

Hespeler, 2 October 2022 © Scott McAndless – Baptism, Communion
Judges 16:4-22, Psalm 37:1-9, 2 Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10 (click to read)

Matthew and Venessa, you have shared a lovely gift with us today. You have invited us, as a church, into this very important and significant celebration of your family. Most of all, you have shared your beautiful daughter with us and introduced her into the life of this church. She is a beautiful girl, and she has a beautiful name.

I was a little bit curious about her name, Delilah, and just how popular the name has become over the last decade or so. Did you know, for example, that back in the 1980s and ‘90s the name Delilah was very rarely chosen for girls and that remained true right up until about 2007. Then it suddenly boomed in 2008. I’ll get to why that happened in a bit, first I want to acknowledge why it didn’t take off any sooner.

Delilah is a biblical name. It is also a very beautiful name that means delicate and so seems rather fitting for a little girl. But it was unpopular for a long time. And I’ll tell you why; it suffered from the bad girls of the Bible syndrome. Like a few other women in the Bible – women like Jezebel or Salome – she may have had a beautiful name, but it was overtaken by some of the disturbing events of her life.

Delilah’s Bad Rap

Delilah is credited, in the Book of Judges, with getting the Israelite hero, Samson, captured by his enemies, the Philistines. But it is not just the capture that made her infamous, it was the way that she pulled it off. The traditional understanding was that she used her feminine wiles on him which made her almost the perfect example of the extremely sexist (and I would say offensive) trope of the beautiful woman who tempts good men down evil paths.

So, I guess, parents hesitated to name their daughters Delilah because they didn’t want them to turn out to be that kind of woman which is pretty silly. First of all, the name you give your child does not predetermine what kind of person they will turn out to be. But, even more importantly, it was based on a sexist stereotype of a woman rather than the actual woman who appears in the Bible.

Samson and Delilah

So, let me tell you a few things about the biblical Delilah. We are told, first of all, that Samson “fell in love” with her. And, sure, that sounds very nice and romantic, doesn’t it? Sounds like the beginning of a love story. That is until you take a quick look at Samson’s story up until this point. He has already been married once. It was to a woman who he saw one day and said to his father, and I quote, “Get her for me, because she pleases me.” (Judges 14:3) And then he threw a tantrum until he got what he wanted.

So, this tells me that Samson is not really a man who has a mature attitude towards women. He apparently thinks of them as pretty playthings that he wants to possess. And we certainly see that play out in his first marriage when he loses interest in his wife and abandons her, at least until it is convenient for him to go and look for her again.

So that is Samson’s history with women. You will perhaps forgive me if I am a little doubtful about his deep and abiding feelings towards Delilah when he “falls in love with her.” But worse, that is all that we are told about Samson and Delilah’s relationship. That he fell in love with her. Whether she felt the same or whether she just felt as if she had no choice but to give in to this big strong guy who had a tendency to throw tantrums, we are not told.

But my impression is that there was not really a mature, mutually loving and affirming relationship between these two people. Delilah appears, above all, to have been pushed into what is not a particularly healthy relationship.

Delilah and the Philistines

And then, of course, Delilah gets manipulated by the Philistines to discover the secret of Samson’s incredible strength so that they can capture him. Again, there is no indication that this is something that Delilah wants to do. At one point, they do offer her money to betray Samson, but it mostly seems to me that they are putting her in a position where she just can’t say no to them. They are threatening her, or maybe threatening those who are dear to her.

So really, the impression I get of Delilah in the Bible is of a woman who is deprived of choice and agency in her own life. She has Samson take possession of her without consulting her desires. She has the Philistines using her whether she wants to be used or not. And I can’t help but wonder how differently her story might have turned out if she had been allowed to be in touch with what she wanted and needed as an individual. I certainly don’t believe that she was fated to go down a bad path just because of her name.

Name Popularized

So, I hope you understand a little better why Delilah was not a popular name up until 2007, even if I think the reasons for that were a little bit silly. So, if people stayed away from the name up until that year because of scripture, what changed at that time? We know exactly what happened. In 2007, a song by the American rock band Plain White T’s hit the top of the pop charts. A certain number of months later, thousands of girls were given the name Delilah. The song was called “Hey There Delilah.”

So is that it? It just took a really popular song to turn the fortunes of a name around? Well, I think there was a little more to it than that. I know that I usually interpret scriptures in these sermons that I do, not the text of popular songs. But I’m inclined to make an exception today. In many ways, I feel as if that song did not just popularize the name Delilah. There’s a sense in which it redeemed it.

Another Silly Love Song

You might make the mistake of thinking that the song is what Paul McCartney would call just another silly love song. But I say there is more to it than that. It is a song that a boyfriend sings to his girlfriend, Delilah, when the two of them are separated because she is pursuing her studies on the other side of the country. It is sweet and sentimental, but it is also more than that.

In many ways, the fictional relationship in this song is the antithesis of the relationship between Samson and Delilah. The young man singing the song obviously misses his girlfriend and would like to be with her. He says so several times. But he also shows a deep understanding that both of them are in the midst of pursuing their own goals and becoming the people they are meant to be. In other words, Delilah is not there merely to please him or to be the object of his love.

There is a real sense in which they are both there to bring the best out of each other. As the singer puts it at one point, “We’ll have it good. We’ll have the life we knew we would. My word is good.”

Empowering Delilah

So, I see the Delilah of the song as having something that the Delilah of the Bible never really had. She got the opportunity to define her own life and she had at least one person in her life who was supporting her in that even at great emotional cost. And I cannot help but wonder how the biblical Delilah’s story might have been so differently if she had just been given that kind of support rather than having a bunch of people around her telling her exactly what she was supposed to do and who she was supposed to be.

And that is why it is so good to be here today and to celebrate what we are celebrating. I do not know what the future course of Delilah’s life is going to be. Nobody does. She has many choices ahead of her that will define who she is and what she accomplishes. That is exciting. And we are here today as the people who love her, her family and her church, because we want to do our very best to make sure that she sets a good course in her life. We want her to be the kind of strong person who can stand against those who would use her like the Philistines and Samson used Delilah. But how can we do that?

A Prayer for Delilah

I would say that my prayer for you, Delilah, would be that you would have the spirit that is spoken of in our reading this morning from Second Timothy: “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” That is what you need, what we all need, in order for you to become the best person you are meant to be and not simply the person that everybody else thinks you are supposed to be.

But the question remains, how can we make sure that somebody has that kind of spirit? How can we make sure they don’t fall into the trap of just conforming to everyone else’s expectations of them? Well, the exemplar of that in our reading from the letter this morning is Timothy, the one to whom the letter is addressed. This is what the writer says about Timothy: “I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.”

And that makes it pretty clear, doesn’t it? One of the things that helped Timothy to avoid a spirit of cowardice and develop instead a spirit of love, power and self-discipline was the incredible support and love and acceptance he received from extraordinary people in his life like Lois and Eunice.

Extraordinary Support

Now, Delilah, I do not know all of the members of your extended family. But I do know your mother and your father, and I know some of your grandparents. I know that these are people who love you with a fierce love and are absolutely devoted to accepting you for who you are and giving you the space and the power to become the person that God made you to be. I know that, while you will face your own unique challenges and you will have your own unique capacities, that they will be there to love you and support you in who you are and who you become. That is exciting. I am also excited that they have invited this church to be a part of all of that and that we will do all we can to support you in similar ways.

Delilah, the best and most exciting part of this celebration today is that we get to watch you become the incredible person God has created you to be. You are not merely someone to be possessed by somebody else, even somebody who falls in love with you. You are not somebody to be manipulated by others for their own ends. You are going to build your own personhood and accomplishments with the help of these incredibly supportive people, your church and your God. That is what we get to celebrate today. And if I’m going to end with a promise, it’s going to have to be this one:

Delilah I can promise you
That by the time we get through
The world will never ever be the same
And you’re to blame.

https://youtu.be/Kta3QptVfzU

The Cousin the No One Talks About

Hespeler, 25 September 2022 © Scott McAndless
Jeremiah 32:1-15, Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31 (click to read)

Every family seems to have at least one member that everyone else just struggles with. I’m not just talking about those members who hold different political positions from the majority or who happen to believe weird theories about vaccines or international cabals of child traffickers. I mean, family is family, and the truth of the matter is that we don’t all have to believe all of the same things in order to get along and love one another.

No, I am talking about the kind of family member who just has a way of taking all of that too far – who just refuses to talk about anything but their strange theories, even when it is clear that everyone else is doing their best to change the subject so as to not start an argument. I’m talking about the person who floods everyone else’s social media with photos and quotes from dubious sources and who is very quick to say that anyone who disagrees is an idiot or a sheep. That can be a little bit much.

Family and Divisive Times

And so, what do we do in that situation? These are divisive times when people everywhere seem to be at odds with each other, but the very last thing we want to do is see that division creep into our families. So, we don’t really want to cut ourselves off from those family members completely. Sure, we might choose to block them on Twitter or Facebook because we just can’t deal with their issues on a daily basis, but we won’t cut all ties.

We will still make a point of inviting them for Thanksgiving or Christmas even though we know things may get uncomfortable. We will include them in the family discussions about what is going to happen to the old family homestead when Mom and Dad eventually pass on. We don’t write them out of any wills because, well, family is still family, and we are willing to tolerate a bit of discomfort in order to stand up for that.

Hanamel’s Cousin

So, can you imagine the person that I’m describing here. If you don’t have somebody like that in your own family, chances are but you know somebody who does. It seems to have become a very common experience. Well, I want you to understand this morning that, for Hanamel, the son of Shallum, his cousin Jeremiah was that person in the family. Nobody in the family liked Jeremiah.

Do you want to know how bad relations were between Jeremiah and that extended family? The whole family had lived in the town of Anathoth in Judah for as long as anyone could remember. As is the way in many a small town, just about everyone who lived in Anathoth was related to everybody else by blood or by marriage.

Jeremiah had grown up in Anathoth, had become a man there. But he didn’t turn out like most people who lived there. He began to have visions and insights. He had an extraordinary ability to not only see what people were doing wrong, but also to foresee the dreadful consequences of their actions. Above all, he had absolutely no hesitations about sharing such insights.

Jeremiah was Annoying

So, Jeremiah started going around and pointing out to his friends and relations what they were doing wrong. He didn’t care if someone was his elder or if they had been in their position for years and were highly respected. It was just not in his nature to hold back.

And the most annoying part was that he was often right. People were getting things wrong. But being right didn’t make things better. Jeremiah could never be gracious about it; he was too self-righteousness. So, people generally ended up hating him all the more. To say that things got very strained in Anathoth would be a gross understatement.

When Jeremiah Left Town

Let’s just put it this way, Jeremiah left Anathoth because nobody wanted him there anymore. And, yes, he went from there to Jerusalem, the big city. He went on to bigger things and to have a bigger impact and to find a lot more people to hate him. But he also did not leave on good terms. There were a whole lot of hurt feelings in his wake.

As he left town, Jeremiah said, “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the people of Anathoth who seek your life and say, ‘You shall not prophesy in the name of the Lord, or you will die by our hand’— therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: I am going to punish them; the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine, and not even a remnant shall be left of them. For I will bring disaster upon the people of Anathoth, the year of their punishment.” (Jeremiah 11:21-23)

When that is the last thing you say to your family and the people you grow up with, there really is no coming back from that.

Jeremiah in Jerusalem

Of course, his friends and family in Anathoth were hardly the last people that Jeremiah rubbed the wrong way. As time went by, he managed to offend just about everyone in Jerusalem as well. He particularly clashed with the kings who ruled in the city, especially the latest, King Zedekiah. When Zedekiah’s nephew had rebelled against Babylonian overlordship, Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon had come and deposed him, elevating Zedekiah to take his place.

Zedekiah should have supported Nebuchadrezzar in return. But, pushed by the anti-Babylon faction in the city, he had followed his nephew’s foolishness and stopped paying taxes, rebelling against the powerful king. It was pure, unadulterated stupidity. And Jeremiah was not the kind of man to stand idly by while this kind of thing was going on.

New Enemies for the Prophet

Jeremiah condemned the king and everyone who had supported this doomed rebellion against Babylon. He proclaimed that he spoke for the Lord and declared that such a course would doom the entire nation to destruction.

Nobody, least of all the king, wanted to hear any of it. In fact, as tensions with Babylon rose, more and more people started calling Jeremiah a traitor and a foreign agent. He was barred from speaking in the temple. Once they even threw him into a deep cistern. Lately he had been placed under arrest in the court of the king’s guard.

The worst part, as usual, was that Jeremiah was right. Things went badly very quickly. The Babylonian army came. They invaded the land of Judah, laid waste to towns and villages everywhere including Anathoth, by the way. And they put Jerusalem under siege. At this point nobody needed prophetic powers to know that the city would fall, the kingdom was doomed. But being right didn’t endear Jeremiah to anyone, especially as he was the kind of guy who never hesitated to say, “I told you so.”

Hanamel’s Decision

When Hanamel went to see his cousin Jeremiah, he was not looking forward to the visit. Sure, they had grown up together, but, after everything that had happened, they hadn’t spoken in years.

He especially wasn’t looking forward to it because of why he was going. He was going because Jeremiah had been right all along. As he had prophesized so many years ago, their shared hometown of Anathoth was suffering from a disaster.

The Babylonian invaders on their way to Jerusalem had, almost as an afterthought, destroyed the entire countryside. Anathoth was in ruins. There was nothing left there for Hanamel and his family and they had fled to Jerusalem with many others before the city was put under siege.

Why he Needed to See Jeremiah

They had, like many other refugees in those days, decided to escape and go to Egypt. But in order to make it there, Hanamel needed to raise some cash. His decision to sell a piece of land that had been in his family for generations was an act of desperation. I mean, who would want to buy a field that was occupied by the enemy? But desperation was their only course of action at this point.

According to the ancient laws of Israel, lands were supposed to remain in the extended family forever. So, before he even tried to sell it to anyone else, Hanamel had to offer it to his last living male relative. Yup: Jeremiah.

A Dreaded Interview

Hanamel made his way into the king’s palace where his cousin was under arrest in the court of the guard with a sinking feeling. He had replayed the conversation he was expecting many times in his head. He fully expected Jeremiah to laugh in his face, to tell him that he should have listened to him all those years ago and left Anathoth too. He expected Jeremiah to make him feel like an idiot for thinking he could get anything at all for a now worthless piece of property.

Hanamel braced himself to hear the inevitable words of his cousin, “I hate to say it, but I told you so.” He didn’t want to put himself through such an ordeal but, you know, family is family.

Jeremiah’s Prophetic Performance Art

I find it fascinating that we are told this story in the Book of Jeremiah from one point of view. We get Jeremiah’s side of the story. And Jeremiah, the prophet, only tells us that the reason why he choses to do what seems to everyone to be a foolish thing and actually buy Hanamel’s field and pay what it would be worth in ordinary times is because God tells him to.

Jeremiah, as a prophet and a natural showman, makes a big deal of doing the purchase in public and then taking the unusual step of preserving both copies of the deed to the land in an earthenware jar so that they will last.

This all makes a clear prophetic point. Even if Jeremiah is right and the whole country will be destroyed, God will not completely forget God’s people. There will be a return. People will again possess the land. They will just need to wait a really long time – like a deed preserved in an earthenware jar.

That was the prophetic performance that was inspired by God. But just because Jeremiah did that because it was what God wanted him to declare, doesn’t mean that it was his only motivation. I’d like to think that there was also a personal dimension – you know, cousin to cousin.

How it Went

The guards let Hanamel into Jeremiah’s cell. When they heard why he was there, they decided to permit his visit because it might be a laugh to see his disappointment. But when he entered, nothing went as Hanamel expected. Jeremiah embraced him immediately – seemed genuinely pleased to see him.

“God told me that you were going to come,” Jeremiah said matter-of-factly. “I would be so pleased to buy your field.”

Hanamel was so taken aback that he began to apologize. All of the positive things he had rehearsed saying about the field went out of his head and he actually began explaining how worthless it was now.

Reconciliation

But Jeremiah just waved all of his objections away. He would hear none of it. I’m going to give you seventeen shekels of silver and I don’t want to hear another word about it. And I know that I’m doing this because God wants me to say something to the whole people at this moment when everything seems so dark, but I am glad that the message that I have to give allows me to do something that will do some good for you and your family.

I’m not going to say that I was right. I’m not going to say I told you so because now, now that the worst that I feared is coming to pass, I have finally realized that there are things that are more important than being right – things like hope and family and the people we love.

Families Divided

We find ourselves living, it seems, in very divisive times. Everything, from politics and public health policy to electric vehicles and wind turbines, seems to be an excuse for people to line up on opposing sides of the issues and start fighting. But it is one thing for such issues to divide us on a political level, it is quite another to see them disrupting some of the most important relationships in people’s lives. When families start to fall apart because they can no longer abide one another because of differing opinions, that is devastating on a very personal level.

There seems to be no question that Jeremiah was that kind of divisive figure in his own day. His prophecies and pronouncements definitely had a way of setting people at odds with each other. But what he did when he decided to buy his cousin’s field was a definite break from the way that he usually operated. For the nation, he offered an unusual message of hope, even if it was a hope that was a long way off.

Never Too Late

But I am also struck by how that act of hope was an act of mending broken relationships with his family. I am pretty sure that Hanamel had given up a long time before on any hope of being reconciled with his cousin. But maybe this story can stand as a reminder that, no matter how much water has flowed under the bridge, it is never too late. We should never give up on those people. I’m wondering, even if you were right in the dispute that you had with someone you care about, what might you be able to do to bring about reconciliation that previously seemed impossible?

Watch the Youtube version here: https://youtu.be/2U4g5WlUjgE

Hespeler, September 18, 2022 © Scott McAndless
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1, Psalm 79:1-9, 1 Timothy 2:1-7, Luke 16:1-13

The parable of Jesus that we read this morning from the Gospel of Luke is one that has troubled many readers down through the centuries. How many people have read this parable, put it down and said, “Why on earth is Jesus praising the manager in this story who starts out being merely incompetent at his job and then goes on to apparently swindle his master on behalf of his master’s clients by forgiving their debts to him?”

Not only is it strange to think that Jesus would have praised a man for doing such a thing, he even says that the master himself, the man who was swindled, praised him too. “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” Who praises a robber for robbing them shrewdly?

Luke is Struggling too

And it seems as if the author of this gospel has about as much trouble with the parable as we do. He tries, as he often does, to sum up the parable with a kind of moralistic lesson. He just throws out a bunch of morals for this strange story that may sound pious but don’t make much sense. He finally ends up by saying this: “If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?” I mean, what does that even mean?

So, what I think has happened is this. Luke received this parable. It was handed down to him by Christian tradition and he felt certain that Jesus had told it. So, he felt he had to include it in his gospel. But he didn’t really get it, possibly because he didn’t adequately understand the cultural context in which Jesus told the parable.

Making Sense of it

But, if that is what happened, we are even further removed from that context than the author. So, what hope could we possibly have of making sense of this very disturbing parable? Well, perhaps some recent events have brought us a little bit closer to that ancient cultural context. So, maybe, if we just play around with Jesus’ story a little bit, we might find that it makes more sense than we originally thought. Would it make more sense if Jesus told the parable with these modern characters that we can relate to?

The Chief Executive

Once upon a time there was a very powerful and rich country that decided to hire somebody to be the manager of all their affairs. He was the chief executive, the president if you like. Now, they didn’t choose this man because they loved absolutely everything about his policies and his past work history. There were some issues. But he just seemed like the better option when compared to the man who had held the office before him, so they decided to give him a chance.

A Rocky Start

But this president’s time in office was pretty rocky almost from the start. And a year or maybe a year and a half into his tenure, many in the country were beginning to feel as if their affairs were being mismanaged. I won’t go into all of the things that were going wrong, but let’s just say that inflation was out of control, businesses were unable to get workers, a terrible virus continued to cause death and sickness, forest fires raged and hurricanes threatened.

And so, the polls put the president on notice that he was bound to lose power. The people would overwhelmingly vote for his opponents in the upcoming midterm elections and things were definitely not looking good for his own re-election down the road.

A Plan

And so, the president said to himself, “What will I do now that my country is taking the position away from me? I am getting a little bit old, Jack. I am no longer strong enough to dig ditches, and my voice and elocution is not good enough to make money narrating documentaries on Netflix.

“So, I have decided to do something that will make people love me and maybe even welcome me back into their homes and hearts again.”

And so, this is what he began to do. He called in one by one the people in the country who had gone to school and who had large debts that they owed as a result.

$30k to $120k

One woman[1] came in and she said, “I went to school to get a professional degree. To do that, I needed to borrow about $30,000. But I now owe almost $120,000 due to compounding high interest and income-based repayment programs that only drove my principal higher and higher even when I never missed a payment. I’ve paid a fair amount over the years that has done nothing to decrease my balance.

“I have been a hard-working professional all my adult life. The government has collected far more in taxes (which I’ve paid cheerfully) than the cost of my education, yet still, I owe four times what I borrowed.

“I was 17 years old when I entered the student loan program as a college freshman,” she continued. “I had no experience with lending. I thought I was doing the right thing by attending college and trying to lift myself out of generational poverty. Instead, I wound up further in debt, with death or permanent disability being the only way I’ll ever get out of it.”

$25k to $35k

Another student came in and told the president a story in terms of very simple and succinct numbers. “My original debt, when I first graduated, was $25,170.50. In the 21 years since I have graduated, I have repaid $45,650.19. Today, thanks to the wonders of compound interest, I still owe $34,713.11 on that same loan.”

Writing Down Less

The stories went on and on. The numbers varied, of course. Some were large, some were relatively small, but in so many cases the debts that these people still carried had had a huge negative impact on their lives. And so, the president went to the first person and said, “Here, take your account and where it says that you owe 120,000, write down 60,000 instead.” And to the second he said, “Where it says that you owe 35,000, write down 25.”

And so, he went from one debtor to the next providing relief that was maybe not huge and maybe not sufficient in every case, but at least it made some difference in each person’s life.

The Reaction

And what was the reaction when the president did these things? Well, there is no doubt that the reactions were mixed. There were certainly some who said that it was not enough. That it was too little to really help some who needed it most. Others complained that to offer such forgiveness was completely unfair and unjust to those who, in previous times, had managed to pay off their own debts with hard work.

But there were certainly some for whom this began to change their perspective on what had seemed to them to be a failed presidency. Some even began to praise the president, or, at the very least, they had to admit that he was a much more shrewd politician then they had perhaps given him credit for.

A Story to Stir Our Thoughts

I assume that many of you have followed the discussion about the forgiveness of student debt in the United States. It has been all over the news and connects to some similar issues in Canada. But I wanted to tell this story of recent developments around the issue in the United States for a very particular reason this morning.

It is not because I want to make a political point or endorse a political position. I do have my own political beliefs about the forgiveness of student debt, but I’m not here to push them. I just wanted to bring it up because it seems to be an issue that everybody has opinions on.

Varied Opinions

And there are wildly different opinions. Some will declare the forgiveness of such debts to be terrible and unjust while others will say the same thing about the debts themselves. This is actually not very surprising because we are talking about a load of debt that, collectively, is so large that it affects the entire economy. Student debt is totally connected to the inflation crisis, the housing crisis and the employment crisis. These are things that affect us all.

And so, if you hear me tell a story about a president forgiving debts to students in our present context, everyone immediately knows exactly what I’m talking about. Not only that, they also immediately have strong opinions about it.

The Reaction Jesus was Looking for

And I wanted you to understand that, when Jesus told the story about a manager who was forgiving debts that were owed to his master, the reaction would have been almost exactly the same. They all would have known immediately exactly what he was talking about. And they all would have had their strong but various opinions about it as well because Jesus told this story in a very similar situation.

A Debt Crisis

Galilee at that time had a debt crisis. It wasn’t a student debt crisis; it was spread throughout society. People everywhere were being crushed by their debts. They were losing their family homesteads, being pushed into homelessness, begging, marginal labour and even slavery.

This was also complicated because, according to the ancient laws of Israel, debt was actually illegal. The laws of Moses were quite clear, lending at interest was simply not permitted. And yet, in Palestine in Roman times, it was found everywhere. How could that be? Well, when money is involved, it seems that people are infinitely creative. So here is what they did.

How Things Worked

When someone was in a desperate state and needed to borrow, say, eighty bushels of wheat, they would go to rich people and beg for their help. And the wealthy would help, but, as is often typical, they also wanted to know what was in it for them. They wanted interest, but they couldn’t legally demand it.

So here was what would happen. When the manager wrote down the debt, he wouldn’t write, “I owe you eighty bushels plus 25% interest.” No, that would be illegal! No, instead the manager would write down, “I owe you 100 bushels,” even though the poor person only received eighty. There would be no mention of interest, no paper trail so nobody broke the law, right? Only the manager, the master and the debtor knew what had really happened.

Vulnerable Rich People

Except, of course, that everyone knew exactly what was going on. They just couldn’t prove it because there was no paperwork. But Jesus told this parable to illustrate the vulnerabilities of rich people in this system. Basically, their managers had all the dirt they needed to bring them down. So, when a manager falls out with his master, all he has to do is go around to all of the people who owe his master and rewrite the records of what they owe.

The Shrewdness of the Manager

Everyone who heard this parable would have understood that this was what was going on. The manager wasn’t robbing the master of anything but the illegal interest that he had charged. And the best part, of course, was that the master couldn’t do a thing about it. To punish his crooked manager, he would have to admit that he was charging interest which was illegal. So, he really had no choice. He actually had to praise him.

And I can just imagine the press conference. “Uh, I would just like to thank my blessed manager for, um, uncovering the egregious and totally unintentional errors in my financial records and restating the correct amounts that these people owe me. I will be eternally grateful to him.”

So, really, everyone who was listening to Jesus tell this parable would have understood exactly what it was about. They would have understood that it was about forgiving interest on debts. They would have understood exactly how the shrewd manager managed to get away with it.

What Jesus was Doing

So, why did Jesus tell them this story? Was he trying to press them to take a certain position on the forgiveness of debts and what it could do? Possibly. But he may have also just been trying to tap into all of the conflicting thoughts and ideas and opinions that were swirling around at that time. Jesus told his parables, above all, to be provocative, to make people think about the things that they had been trying to avoid thinking about.

That’s why I think that, maybe, what Jesus is looking for us to do right now is not necessarily to embrace any particular party’s policy on the issue of debt, but he is asking us to think and think carefully about what we do with the debts we make people carry. He wants us to think creatively about what we can do about the burdens and the harm that they can cause. He is pushing us to at least think about what we can do to address a huge problem that affects us all.

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[1] These are based on real stories found at studentdebtcrisis.org

https://youtu.be/CKfqRhnq4tM

Hespeler, 11 September 2022 © Scott McAndless
Exodus 32:7-14, Psalm 51:1-10, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-10

There are a couple of things that are deeply disturbing about our reading this morning from the Book of Exodus. The first is kind of obvious. We have the image of a God who has just saved a people from lives of slavery and hardship and made them God’s own people. And yet we see this same God choosing to devote the whole lot of them to genocidal destruction. “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.” God says to Moses, “Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.”

Why God is Angry

And I realize, of course, that the people of Israel have definitely messed up at this point of the story. God has set before them, in the form of a commandment, the requirement that they must have no other gods before Yahweh. And yet they have created an idol and declared that they trust more in this idol to save them than in the God who has brought them out of Egypt.

So, it is definitely not as if they have done nothing to deserve God’s anger with them. But you have got to at least wonder whether the punishment – complete annihilation – fits the crime. Is total destruction justified?

An Extreme Reaction?

Could you imagine any authority figure whose temper was so severe that, if someone showed them a little bit of defiance or failed to follow an instruction, their outbursts of rage killed people? I think that if we saw anyone responding to disobedience in that way, we would find it to be not just unacceptable but criminal. And yet this is the reaction that we see in God.

Stories About People Struggling to Understand their Experiences

But remember what these stories are there to do in the Bible. These are stories that were written by people who were struggling to come to terms with their experiences of God. They were people who had lived through all kinds of troubling circumstances and yet came out of them with the conviction that, somehow, their God had been with them as they passed through those difficult times.

And, pretty clearly, this story was told by people who were disappointed with themselves. They knew that they had failed, that they had not lived up to what God expected of them and they believed they were coming face to face with the consequences.

When these Stories were Created

Most of these stories of the wandering of the people of Israel in the wilderness actually came to be written down while the people of Israel were coming to terms with their defeat and exile by the Babylonian Empire. They were asking themselves why God had allowed such a terrible thing to happen to them and had concluded that it was because they had failed to live up to God’s expectations.

Since they had decided that they must have deserved all of the bad things that had happened to them, it made sense to tell a story about a God who was angry with them because that was the only way they could make sense of the things that they were living through.

We All Want to Make Sense of Tragedy

That is actually something that we all do. Today is the anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001. How much energy has been spent in the last twenty-one years trying to make sense of that disaster and why it happened?

We all have a deep need to make sense of the tragedies that we have experienced. Accepting that we may be somehow to blame for it is one of the ways that we do that. Strangely, this can actually be a comforting thought. I mean, it doesn’t feel good, of course, to blame yourself, but at least it feels better than the alternative which is to think that tragedy just happens for no reason at all. That seems frighteningly chaotic.

Finding Comfort in an Angry God

This story was told by the people of Israel when they were at a particularly vulnerable moment. Bad things had happened to them, and they needed to understand why. Recognizing their own failure, they needed the image of a God who could not only be angry with them, but who could also be so angry as to consider wiping them out entirely.

They found this to be a comforting image of God because what was the alternative? The alternative was a God who had let such terrible things happen to them out of neglect or disinterest. And so, yes, they did find something oddly comforting in this story because it at least showed that God cared.

But please understand that this does not mean that that was therefore a complete and entirely correct image of God. It was just people trying to make sense of what they were experiencing of God at that moment. That is always a work in progress.

This is a Common Reaction to Difficulty

They are also not the only ones to do this kind of thing as they seek to come to terms with God. I am sure that many of you have known people who have lived through some terrible tragedies in their lives. Perhaps they have come out of abuse or addiction. Maybe they have made some deeply troubling choices that led them into dark paths or maybe they have been deeply damaged by others.

I have noticed that, in the initial phase as they try to heal from that kind of hurt and create some sense of order and morality in their life, it is not uncommon for people to embrace an image of a God who is rigid, inflexible and who has a sense of justice that is hard to satisfy. There is, in such an image of God, something that is deeply helpful to people who are trying to heal in that kind of circumstance.

At the same time, that does not mean that they should remain with that one image of God ever after. In fact, if they are going to mature spiritually, their understanding of God will necessarily change as they do so.

Moses Talks him Out of it

Which brings us to the second troubling thing about this story in Exodus. When God tells Moses that God intends to destroy the people, Moses talks God out of it.

Moses does this by saying. “Don’t you have a reputation to maintain? Here you have saved this people from the Egyptians and made them your own. If you destroy them now, the Egyptians are going to have a field day! They will make fun of your failure to follow through. And what’s more, what of all the promises you made to these people's ancestors? Won’t that reflect badly on you if you break your solemn promises?” And so, God is persuaded, one might almost say shamed, into changing God’s mind.

How Can God Repent?

And that has caused a certain amount of consternation for many Bible readers. “Isn’t God…. God?” They may ask. “So how can the mind of the eternal, unchanging and immutable God be changed?” They might even appeal to scripture itself. After all, does it not say in Numbers 23:19, “God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind. Has he promised, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”

This story in Genesis is even more troubling in some older translations that translate the concluding verse, quite correctly, as “And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.” Somehow the word repent, though it essentially means the same thing, feels even more uncomfortable when applied to God!

A Difficult Question

People have long struggled with this part of the story for that very reason. It seems to be saying something about God that is deeply troubling. Some people have tried to explain it away by saying that God never really intended to destroy the people, that he was only testing Moses.

But I don’t think that such an explanation takes this scripture seriously. I think that this story is saying something important about the nature of God and to explain that meaning away is to rob it of that power.

People Struggling to Understand their God

Remember how I said that this story functioned for the people who told it? It is a story that people told because they were struggling to come to terms with a terrible tragedy that they had lived through, and they were wondering where their God had been in it. They made sense of that by embracing a view of a God filled with righteous anger who would justly destroy his people for their failures and shortcomings.

Such a view can be comforting when you have lived through a trauma. But that’s not the best place to end your spiritual journey, it really is just the beginning of a process of understanding God.

Surprised by Grace

So, what we also see happening in this passage is a people who have been surprised by God’s mercy and grace. They have experienced tragedy which has brought them into a recognition of their failure to themselves and to their God.

But, just as they have recognized that they may be worthy of destruction, they have also recognized that God has not destroyed them, that there may yet be a path to redemption and hope for them. And the best way for them to make sense of that is to see that God had every right to wipe them away because of their failures, but that God thought better of it.

God’s Unchanging Commitment

This story is not actually about the changeability of God. There is actually something that is deeply unchanging about God in this story because the reason why God ultimately changes God’s mind is because of God’s longstanding commitments to this people.

To act out the wrath of a moment would be to forget the long-standing covenant that God has made with them, promising to be their God and claiming them as God’s people. No, this is not about God changing but rather about God defaulting to God’s truer self and deeper commitments.

It is the People’s Understanding that Changes

It is not really God who changes in this story, it is the people who see their understanding of God change and grow. Once they were living in the Promised Land and they maybe took God’s faithfulness to them for granted. But then they lost the Promised Land which confronted them with the reality of their own failures to live up to the commitments they had made.

Thus was born in them the fear of a vengeful and angry God who wanted to wipe them away. It was, perhaps, a helpful thing for them to believe in that moment of trauma.

But their journey of discovery of who God did not end there. For there, in the land of exile, they met a God who had not forgotten the covenant and whose commitment to them as a people would remain firm despite their failures. In the moment of their greatest fear, they met a God of grace. And it may have been disconcerting and distressing to have to shift their understanding of God in that moment, but it also greatly deepened their experience and understanding of their God.

Are We Worthy of Consequences?

We might be able to learn a great deal from the people who told this story. We too seem to be living in an era when we are coming to terms with our own failure as a people. We are waking up to the uncomfortable truth, for example, that we have not cared for the earth that God has given to us because we have not learned how to live upon it in a sustainable way.

And the sad truth is that we are now living with the consequences of those failures. Extreme weather events, massive forest fires, floods and famines and at least some of the diseases that have been plaguing us are consequences of some of the ways in which we have failed to live well upon this earth. And some are beginning to wonder, to fear, that we might well be wiped from the face of the earth as a consequence of our failure.

The ancient Israelites gathered up those kinds of fears and personified them in the form of an angry God facing off with Moses on Mount Sinai. We, as modern people, may not turn it into that kind of story, but the fear of consequence that we are living with is nevertheless quite real.

Continue Struggling to Understand God

It is a good thing that we are coming to terms with our own failures as a collective human race.  And if we are reacting to that with fear in guilt driven action, that might be the start of something better. But I’m not sure that’s the end of the spiritual journey we are supposed to be on right now. I hope you don’t just stay with the image of an angry God who is ready to wipe us out. Our spiritual journey of discovery has only begun.

I hope you hold on and continue to argue with God – like Moses argued with God on the mountain – because there is another, deeper truth about who God is. God is more than just an angry God intent on punishment. Jesus came to introduce us to a God of compassion and sympathy – a God who understands what it is to be human. Press on, despite the challenges, to know that God. In the very nature of that God is great comfort and actually the best hope that we have for a faithful future.

https://youtu.be/Tn_t4rkjXC8

Hespeler, 4 September 2022 © Scott McAndless
Jeremiah 18:1-11, Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18, Philemon 1:1-21, Luke 14:25-33

The letter of Paul to Philemon is unique in the New Testament. It is the shortest of the letters of Paul, but other things set it apart too. While the others are addressed to entire churches and all are focused on the matters of church life, this one is really only focused on one individual, on Philemon, and it is seeking to resolve a personal matter between the two of them – a matter of property.

The Letter About Onesimus

Philemon, who was a leader of the church that met in his home, was also a relatively prosperous man. The measure of prosperity, in that ancient world, was defined by one thing: the ownership of slaves. A poor person in ancient Rome was someone who couldn’t even afford a single slave so Philemon, apparently, must have owned several. One of them was named Onesimus.

Does it surprise you that an early Christian leader was also a slave owner? It probably shouldn’t. The idea that good Christians could own slaves is taken for granted in much of the New Testament. When the topic comes up, New Testament writers never condemn the practice, though they do advocate for good and fair treatment of slaves.

Was Philemon at Least a Good Master?

But at least Philemon must have been a good master – one who treated his slaves well, right? You might hope so, but Onesimus doesn’t seem to have thought so because he ran away.

Onesimus, by fleeing, became a thief and an outlaw. He also became stolen property. So, I can’t imagine that he did it lightly. He must have had a good reason to run. Being a slave of Philemon couldn’t have been a great experience. Though he was a church leader, that apparently did not mean that Philemon lived out Christian ideals in every relationship in his life. Sadly, he is hardly the last church leader to have had that particular problem.

Paul and Onesimus

The occasion of the letter is that Paul has become acquainted with this fugitive slave. In fact, Onesimus has become a convert to faith in Jesus under Paul’s influence. But, now that he knows he is stolen property, Paul has a legal obligation to send Onesimus back to his owner. What we have in our Bibles is a copy of the letter that he writes and places in Onesimus’ hand to give to Philemon on his return.

In this letter, Paul pulls out every trick he can possibly think of to persuade Philemon to grant Onesimus his freedom when he returns. And the mere fact that Paul puts so much pressure on him suggests that Philemon needed a lot of persuasion.

That is where the attention is usually placed when people read this letter, on Paul’s persuasion. But I have always wondered about Onesimus. Even if the title of this letter is, according to tradition, the letter to Philemon, it is the letter about Onesimus. The mere fact that this letter made it into our Bibles tells us something about God’s priorities. So, who was Onesimus?

Born a Slave

When he was born to a female slave in Philemon’s household, his mother, who was a Judean by birth, wanted to call him Simon. It was a common name in her family. But Philemon wouldn’t hear of it. He preferred it if his slaves didn’t have too strong a sense of personal identity and he didn’t like for them to feel a strong attachment to their ethnic heritage either. He wanted them to see themselves as belonging primarily to the household and he wanted them to understand that their value was found in one thing only: their utility to him. So long as they were helpful and beneficial to him, fine, but the moment they weren’t, they became disposable.

So, Philemon looked at the little baby that his mother wanted to call Simon and he said no. No, this one would be called Onesimus. It was not a name, not really. It was an adjective. It meant “useful.” Anytime anyone used it for the rest of his life, Onesimus would be reminded that there was only one thing that gave him any value or meaning. He was there to be useful.

Being Useful

Onesimus never allowed to forget it. As soon as he was old enough to contribute, in any way, to the household or the comfort of his owners, that became the entire purpose of his being. As paterfamilias, Philemon had the power of life and death over every member of his household. He certainly had the right to employ corporal punishment for any reason. I’m not saying that Onesimus was constantly beaten. It was just that he was never allowed to forget that beatings were possible.

But more than the fear of punishment, he grew to resent the narrow definition of his value of which he was reminded every time he heard his name. He couldn’t help but wonder if there was more worth in him than whatever usefulness his master found.

Some Things Change for Philemon

One day, something changed in Philemon. He encountered a traveling preacher named Paul and became a believer in someone called Christ Jesus – a man who Paul said had been raised from the dead and who reigned in heaven at the right hand of power.

Coming to believe in Christ and becoming part of the church didn’t really make much difference to Philemon’s treatment of Onesimus though. When someone has been conditioned all their life to think of a slave as little more than a useful object, it is not a pattern of thinking that is easily changed.

Onesimus was glad, he supposed, that his master had found something that gave a sense of meaning and purpose to his life, but where was there anything like that for Onesimus? He was so convinced that there was something more for him, something beyond mere usefulness to his master, that he simply couldn’t bear it anymore. He saw his opportunity and he took it. Onesimus ran for freedom.

Life on the Run

Once he was free of the household, there was something exhilarating about being responsible for the course of his own life. He could scarcely believe that he didn’t need to be useful to anybody and yet he still existed. But, at the same time, the life of a fugitive slave was filled with many pitfalls. It was not easy to find work. Who would hire a man who had to constantly keep on the move, who was always looking over his shoulder?

Onesimus quickly found that he had to resort to petty theft just to survive. That is how he came to be caught while thieving and, while the authorities were trying to figure out where he properly belonged (for Onesimus was not about to tell them where he had come from) he was placed in detention.

Imagine his surprise when he found himself incarcerated alongside the very man of whom his master had not ceased to speak ever since he had first met him. There, right beside him, sat Paul of Tarsus. And, to tell the truth, Onesimus was not particularly impressed with the man at first. What he had heard from his master had led him to believe that Paul was just like everybody else, that he had won Philemon over by flattering him for his wealth and his ownership of so many other human beings. But, as he came to know Paul, he started to realize how wrong that initial impression was.

A New Creation in Christ

Over the following days and then weeks, Onesimus learned a great deal about the Jesus that Paul preached. One thing stood out to him. Paul taught him that, when Jesus was raised from the dead, he transformed the previous structure of this world. In particular, Paul said that if anyone was in Christ Jesus, that person became a completely new creation. Everything old had passed away; all had been made completely new.

Even more stunning, as far as Onesimus was concerned, was the church that Paul said had been created because of Christ. It was, he said, like a body in which every member could play a vital role. He also said that when all were one in Christ, there was no longer Jew or Greek, there was no longer slave or free, there was no longer male and female. The more Onesimus heard about this church, the more he felt as if it could be, for him, a place where he could find himself, where he could truly belong. Onesimus began to look to this Christ Jesus to save him.

Father and Son

The more Onesimus remained with Paul, the more he saw him not only as a teacher and preacher, but also as a father – the father he had never had and the father that Philemon had certainly never been to him. And, as that bond was formed, something very strange began to happen. He started to feel a deep desire to be useful to Paul – to serve him in ways that would allow him to pursue the important work he was doing.

I am not sure you understand how significant such a thing was to one such as Onesimus. For him, his usefulness had always been his only currency – the only thing he could offer to justify his existence. It was an obligation, an imperative. And so, he had always experienced it as something that drained him of energy and of identity. But now, with Paul who treated him like a son and did not require that he be useful in order to be loved, Onesimus felt filled with the desire to be useful to Paul in whatever ways he could. Even in the menial tasks he performed, tasks that had once only irritated him, he found a sense of meaning and of purpose because he offered them freely.

The Letter

Onesimus came to feel that there should be nothing that he could hide from Paul, and so he did reveal to him what his status was. Paul actually laughed when he discovered that he knew Onesimus’ master. He was also pleased because he knew that Philemon would really have no choice but to give to Onesimus his freedom, at least if Paul asked with the right degree of pressure.

There was really no choice. Now that all was revealed, Paul would have to send Onesimus back to his master. But Onesimus was in the room when Paul dictated the letter. The words that Paul said would remain with him always. As he carried the letter with him on the way to his old household, he repeated the words again and again to himself.

What Paul Wrote

“I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment.Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed usefulboth to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”

As he clutched the letter close to his heart, Onesimus felt certain that everything would be well.

Slavery and Early Christianity

There are some uncomfortable things about the attitude of early Christians towards slavery. We would like to think that they would be against slavery because of what they had learned from Jesus. But the practice of slavery was so deeply entrenched into every aspect of society that most Christians simply couldn’t imagine going on without it. What we mostly find in the New Testament, therefore, are passages that just take for granted that slavery will continue to exist but put forward measures that will at least make it a little bit less cruel and that will create a certain amount of mutual respect between masters and slaves, at least within the church.

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, says something that is very provocative about life inside the church. “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) There is also another similar statement in Colossians 3:11.

Internal Practice of the Church

And this does seem to reflect an attitude that was common in the early church. There is evidence that people who were slaves did hold important leadership positions in the church, as did women. But, at the same time, it seems clear that this attitude towards slaves, and probably women too, only applied inside the dynamics of the church. As soon as you left the meeting, you became a slave again and your life once again belonged to your master, who may have called you a brother or sister and even acknowledged your leadership moments before.

So, the early church did begin the work of changing attitudes towards slavery in its practice. But it did not confront the institution, at least not outside of the church. And that’s what makes the letter to Philemon so significant. Here we do see Paul looking at Onesimus and seeing more than just a slave. Paul is keenly aware that Onesimus’ name means useful. It was a common name for slaves. Paul makes reference to this meaning several times in his letter. But he does it in a way that looks beyond Onesimus’ utility to his master.

How we See People Matters

Paul sees Onesimus as a true person in every sense of the word and that, my friends is the beginning of revolutionary change. In fact, I would suggest that Paul’s decision to see Onesimus as being more than useful, to see him as a multifaceted person, contains the roots of the eventual destruction of the institution of slavery. The world changes when the people we saw as categories we learn to see as people.

And I know that we see ourselves today as well beyond the scourge of slavery. In many ways we are and that is a very good thing. But I will tell you that I am often disturbed by the way we talk about people in our modern economy. We have a great tendency to judge people according to their productivity. That is to say, we judge them based on whether they are useful – whether they are Onesimus – to the economy or not. And whenever we fall into that kind of thinking, whenever we see usefulness as the only thing that matters, we may be heading down a dangerous road.

I would also add this. I think many of us tend to see our own value only in terms of our usefulness to others. Onesimus discovered his value beyond simple usefulness, I believe that God wants you to discover your true value in the same way.

https://youtu.be/bu54mi0DB-k

Hespeler, 31 July 2022 © Scott McAndless
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23, Psalm 49:1-12, Colossians 3:1-11, Luke 12:13-21

You have heard, I imagine, the proverb that goes like this: “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” It is a saying that is usually credited to Benjamin Franklin, who did indeed include it in a book that he wrote, but he was probably not the first to say it.

The proverb has remained popular because it just seems like good common sense. If you wake up early, work hard all day and don’t stay up all night in partying and frivolous pursuits, it promises, you will be rewarded, over time, with security and prosperity.

Capitalism’s Promise

It is, in many ways, the promise that we are given in our modern capitalistic society – which is likely something that Benjamin Franklin also had in mind. We set up our free market, free enterprise system with the hope and expectation that it will create an environment where, if people work hard and apply themselves, they should be able to prosper. It is, in many ways, a wonderful promise.

Very Ancient Idea

But, as I say, it is not a promise that began with Franklin. The fact of the matter is that the Bible, and particularly the Book of Proverbs, is full of very similar promises.

Here are just a few: “A wicked person earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.” (Proverbs 11:18) “Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labour.” (Proverbs 12:24) “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” (Proverbs 13:4) “In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.” Proverbs 14:23 “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” (Proverbs 16:3)

So we have the same promise given in the Bible as is often made in our society. You work hard and you work smart, and you will be rewarded. And, since it is in the Bible, these Proverbs also add a certain moral promise to the idea. There is something virtuous about hard work and so the material reward that we are supposed to receive is a divine reward.

Looking from the Other Side

But there is also another side to all of this. If, as all of these proverbs state, we can be certain that virtue and hard work will always be rewarded with success and wealth, would that not also mean that we can assume, based on someone’s situation in life, that we know how they got there. That is to say, if we see someone who is healthy, wealthy and wise, can we not assume that they must be early to bed and early to rise hard-working types? If we see someone who is richly supplied, well then, they must have been diligent, right? Any one of these Proverbs we can take and turn around and assume, based on that, that somebody must have deserved their good fortune.

And, yes, that would also mean that if someone is poor or disadvantaged or has just never managed to get anywhere, well, that surely must be because they are lazy, unwise and foolish, right? The logic seems to be quite inescapable.

When the Proverbs fail

And here is where we see that there might be a certain problem with this kind of proverbial thinking. What do we do when things don’t turn out that way, when good hard-working folk just don’t manage to get ahead because of circumstances beyond their control? And what if it really doesn’t seem as if the extraordinarily wealthy are more righteous and hard working than anyone else? What if, in fact, they turn out to be like that man in Jesus’ parable this morning, selfish and self-centred greedy jerks? What then?

It is a question that many seem to be struggling with in these times. You may have heard of some of the unrest that is taking place in the labour market these days. You have certainly noticed, I would imagine, the stories of restaurants and other enterprises that seem to be constantly complaining about how they can’t find anybody willing to work these days. Many businesses are severely understaffed and seem to be unable to find anyone willing to accept the jobs they are offering.

Turning Down Low-Wage Work

What you may not have heard about, however, is the other side of that problem. If you listen in the right ways and in the right places, you can hear the stories of the people who are not taking those jobs. And they will tell you why. They will tell you that they have been doing that kind of low-wage work for years, but, in all that time, it hasn’t mattered how hard they have worked. They have been going early to bed and early to rise, but it has not resulted in them getting any healthier or wealthier. And so now they are getting wise.

They are saying that they can no longer afford to live in the cities where they are employed to serve the people who live there. They can no longer afford to live elsewhere because they would have to travel to the city, and they can’t afford that. They are wise enough to calculate that if they moved to the place where the work is and took that low wage job, they would simply fall further and further behind financially as time went by. The promise of the proverbs seems to be broken. It’s enough to make you think that maybe we need to throw out the proverbs altogether.

Qoheleth Understands

But if you think that all of that is just a frustration of modern life, and maybe especially of younger generations today, you might have another think coming. There is an ancient biblical author who completely understands all of that. We are not quite sure what his name was. He calls himself Qoheleth, which is left like that in some translations and in others translated to something like “the teacher.” He also identifies himself as a king from the House of David, but that may just be a literary device, not necessarily an indication that he was a real king.

Certainly, the things that he writes about are not the struggles of kings who are trying to manage the rule of a country. They are the struggles of ordinary people who are just trying to hold on and make it in a world that doesn’t really seem to care whether they work hard or not, they just can’t get ahead.

Whoever he is, Qoheleth has obviously read the Book of Proverbs and has heard the promise that, if you work hard and apply yourself you will get ahead, and he has taken up his pen to say, “Hey, wait a minute, it just doesn’t always work out like that.”

Man, this is Vanity!

“Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” And, when he says that, I imagine him much like a modern millennial who looks at the system they are inheriting – a system where they graduate from school with a massive debt, get a job that offers them no security and finds that it is financially impossible for them to ever own a home. What do they say? They say, “Man, this is a load of… vanity!” And I know they don’t use the word vanity there, but that is maybe the closest word I could use in church.

And here I see Qoheleth echoing the sentiments of so many in the world today who have gotten so very tired of working for prosperity that never quite seems to arrive. “What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.” You work and you work and you work and instead of getting ahead all you get is behind on your sleep. It does sound very much like something that somebody might write today.

Both Messages in the Bible

And I really just wanted to highlight that we get both of these messages from the Bible. I know that there are lots of people who think that they can turn to the Bible and get an absolute, unchanging nugget of truth that they can hold onto forever. And the truth that we get from The Book of Proverbs would be a wonderful truth to hold onto. If you could know for sure that you deserved all of the good things that came to you and if you could be sure that people who experience misfortune deserve that, man, that would put us all at ease for so many of these anxieties that we carry around with us.

But biblical truth doesn’t work like that. It is not that you can just pull out one text and say you have the perfect answer. What we are actually challenged to do is to find the truth in the tension between these two texts. We have to live with the truth proclaimed in Proverbs that everything happens because everyone gets what they deserve. And we have to live with the truth in Ecclesiastes that everything that happens is, well, vanity of vanities.

Jesus Works Out the Tension

And how you work out that tension is something that we all have to figure out for ourselves. And I do find it kind of interesting that we seem to see Jesus working it out in that parable we read this morning from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus worked it out, as he usually did, by turning it into a story. “The land of a rich man produced abundantly,” he said.

Here is a man who has experienced great prosperity. According to The Book of Proverbs, we should know why he is so fortunate. Obviously, he must be good and righteous and must have worked hard to deserve such prosperity. And, sure, maybe that is how things should work out. But Jesus is clearly telling a story that is grounded in real life. And he sees that, precisely because this man thinks he deserves all of his good fortune and therefore intends to rest upon it, all of that will be proven to be vanity of vanities.

What do I think that means? I think it is true that each one of us owes it to ourselves in this world to do our best. To work hard, to live the best life possible and to be good to others. It is good that we should hope to be rewarded for such things.

But the reality is that things don’t always work out that way. What Jesus seems to be saying with this parable is that our greatest danger is to fall into thinking that the blessings we have received are given to us by anything but grace. So long as we begin to rely upon them, instead of on the one who is the ultimate giver, we will not find any meaning in any of it, not over the long term. We will also very easily fall into judging people unjustly when they don’t succeed. And that “is vanity and a great evil.”