Year C Proper 18 - September 4, 2022
Divine Wisdom
Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, Have mercy upon us. Amen.
When you read the Old Testament prophets, like Jeremiah, three things become clear: 1) Humanity is always in its own way. 2) God is scary. 3) Jesus sounds a lot like an Old Testament prophet. When you invest time in studying the prophets, those three things remain true and are related: God is scary when people are in their own way by rejecting Divine Wisdom; the prophets communicate the consequences. Jesus, the Son of God, is Divine Wisdom and shows us the truth.
Today Jesus sounds scary. He escalated the demands of discipleship from giving up fields, houses, and boats to rejecting our loved ones! I can’t imagine it. Did the Hebrew Prophet overtake the loving Messiah? Is this Old Testament God versus New Testament God? They are the same.
We need to confront this text to discover what truth of God it reveals, just as people have done for almost 3000 years with the Hebrew Prophets.
Let’s warm up with Jeremiah. God as potter. A potter controls the clay he works with and shapes it for the purpose he has in mind. If the shape is unsatisfactory, the clay is reworked. When God tells Jeremiah, “I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you,” many interpret the clay as the people. Imagining God holds us as a lump of clay at God’s mercy which is shaped, smashed, and rethrown.
Study the passage. The potter is shaping the future, not the people. Like clay, God’s promise of destruction or prosperity can be reshaped. Past transgressions can be forgiven.
The people are free to choose and their choice can change the mind of God.
The people of Judah have ignored God’s law from Moses. Temple sacrifices not only to God, but to Baal and Asherah have become the center of their worship rather than repentance and holy behavior. One consequence is an eroded spiritual strength. No longer are they a reflection of Addonai in economic justice, social compassion, and equity on the sabbath, Judah is like every other nation. King Josiah is like every other king: hungry for more land and greater wealth. He was anointed to be a Holy Shepherd to the Chosen People of God, not a monarch subjecting them to war.
The People are in their own way because they rejected God’s wisdom. The prophecy is an explanation of what is coming next with a greedy choice. If the king and leaders follow God’s wisdom, a state of gratitude and justice would lead to the prosperity of peace and stability. If King Josiah and the priests of the Temple had turned their unfaithful worship to wise discernment, God’s mercy would have overflowed.
We must study God’s word and take responsibility for our choices. Is Jesus demanding I hate my parents and family and my own life? Jesus’ harsh call is posing the question, “Are you loyal to the ensnarement of human empires or to God?” A disciple fixed on the reign of God, the way of love, a state of peace is out of favor with their family who do not follow Christ.
Think of our divisions in this moment of history.
Those who believe the Christian call is to build a human empire of domination rejects the reign of God. Are we trapped in our cultural pattern or are we free to choose Christ’s pattern of love, justice, and mercy? In God, we are free. Like the Chosen People, the Jewish people, our independence and strength comes from following Divine Wisdom: love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself (Luke 10:27).
We are not trapped like clay at the mercy of a vengeful God. We possess free will. Our mistakes can be forgiven. God invites our obedience by relationship to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It is not our parents we are to hate, but the foolish desire to dominate. Let us pray our collect for today:
Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Very Rev. Vanessa E. B. Clark+