Winners and losers
Commentary
Woody Guthrie, whose ballads reflected the plight of the poor, voiced in one of his songs an enigma of this world. "O the gambling man is rich and the working man is poor, and I ain't got no home in this world anymore." There is the puzzle simply stated. The gambler would attribute his winnings to know-how and luck. Given an extended winning streak know-how would get the credit. As an old gambler in the song by John Schulz which Kenny Rogers popularized said, "If you're gonna play the game, boy, you gotta learn to play it right." That knowledge includes knowing when to fold, walk away, or run away. According to the old gambler knowing the secret of success is everything, "because every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser."
Life seems to be a lot like that: some win, some lose. Woody Guthrie couldn't figure that kind of caprice. The folks for whom he wrote his ballads, the poor who literally lost their homes in the Oklahoma dust bowl, couldn't figure it either. Many of them were praying folks who read the Bible. The promise articulated in Jeremiah 5:7-10 wasn't working out in their case. They were the ones in the parched land.
The conventional wisdom of the old gambler that winning is a matter of know-how still lingers. "Heaven helps those who help themselves." There is the subtle pride that pats itself on the back and births the kind of piety that discerns in material success the blessing of God. There is something wrong with the losers. But by whose dictum? Jesus, in his sermon on the plain, pulled the rug out from under conventional wisdom and the spurious and harsh piety it breeds. The real winners, rich or poor, are those liberated by and for the reign of God.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Verses five through eight are remarkable coming from a prophet who in the depths of anger and despair cursed the day he was born and accused God of being a deceitful brook (Jeremiah 20:13-18, 15:18). Verses nine and ten are a fragment of his soliloquies which are scattered throughout the book. (See this column for Epiphany 4.) They reveal that acting in trust requires struggle and courage.
Verses five through eight remind us of Psalm 1, but there is a significant difference. Jeremiah's psalm contains no cheap promise. The one who trusts in God is not spared the drought. The promise is one of sustenance in the midst of difficulty. Deep rootage is the key. The important taproot of a tree suggests itself as a metaphor of the role of the deepened relationship with God in our lives.
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
It is refreshing to come across readings from 1 Corinthians 15 in a season other than Easter. It is regrettable that many hymnals lump so many of the hymns that celebrate the resurrection under the heading of Easter. Every Sunday, after all, is a little Easter.
It is difficult to know the specifics of the problem in the Corinthian congregation which evoked this extended commentary from Paul. But we do know something about the fear of death and the flight from death in our culture. We also know about the doubts and fears that worshippers carry with them to church. There was abroad in the congregation at Corinth a lot of esoteric and muddled thinking just as there is today. It behooves us to preach the resurrection and our unique Christian understanding about our human destiny under God.
1 Corinthians 15 is not an easy chapter to expound. We have to brood over Paul's mythic language and seek to discern the affirmations at its heart. We are used to thinking about individual life after death rather than on the grand canvass that Paul uses. His theme is human destiny under God. We are bound together with our sisters and brothers in this human drama. We will all stand before God together so we had better reach out to one another now.
Luke 6:17-26
Matthew's Sermon on the Mount becomes in Luke's gospel the Sermon on the Plain. The association with Moses is inescapable (Exodus 34:29-32). Having made powerful enemies, called disciples, and attracted a following, Jesus addresses the disciples in the hearing of all the people, the whole congregation. This is Luke's way of presenting these words of Jesus as Dominical commands for the whole church in history.
Jesus opens his sermon with shock statements that challenge the way conventional wisdom then and now rates winners and losers. By blessing the poor, the hungry and the oppressed he declares that this is not the will of God. He liberates the poor from the diagnoses and definitions of arrogant affluence in league with bogus theology. History is open to creative initiatives to elevate people and advance the reign of God.
Having made powerful enemies by healing on the Sabbath the man with a withered hand, Jesus tells the disciples and all of us who are part of the movement that opposition goes with the territory. We will not win every skirmish. But then, there are some struggles that have to be undertaken even though for the time being you are on the losing side. Hillaire Belloc was a noted Catholic layman in England. One observer of his life had this to say: "I felt sorry for Mr. Belloc for he had nailed some of his colors to the wrong mast, but I feel sorrier for myself and my generation for we have no colors of any sort to nail to any mast."
The warning to the rich is used by Luke as in-house admonition to affluent members of the church who were being seduced by the values of the surrounding culture to find their security in material possessions. They are told that "they have received their consolation." In other words, that is all they have to console them, the things money can buy. Luke throughout the gospel reports teachings and parables of Jesus that make this point over and over again.
There is certainly a sermon seed in the words, "Woe to you when all speak well of you." Popularity and adulation is not a sign of either pastoral or congregational success.
Life seems to be a lot like that: some win, some lose. Woody Guthrie couldn't figure that kind of caprice. The folks for whom he wrote his ballads, the poor who literally lost their homes in the Oklahoma dust bowl, couldn't figure it either. Many of them were praying folks who read the Bible. The promise articulated in Jeremiah 5:7-10 wasn't working out in their case. They were the ones in the parched land.
The conventional wisdom of the old gambler that winning is a matter of know-how still lingers. "Heaven helps those who help themselves." There is the subtle pride that pats itself on the back and births the kind of piety that discerns in material success the blessing of God. There is something wrong with the losers. But by whose dictum? Jesus, in his sermon on the plain, pulled the rug out from under conventional wisdom and the spurious and harsh piety it breeds. The real winners, rich or poor, are those liberated by and for the reign of God.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Verses five through eight are remarkable coming from a prophet who in the depths of anger and despair cursed the day he was born and accused God of being a deceitful brook (Jeremiah 20:13-18, 15:18). Verses nine and ten are a fragment of his soliloquies which are scattered throughout the book. (See this column for Epiphany 4.) They reveal that acting in trust requires struggle and courage.
Verses five through eight remind us of Psalm 1, but there is a significant difference. Jeremiah's psalm contains no cheap promise. The one who trusts in God is not spared the drought. The promise is one of sustenance in the midst of difficulty. Deep rootage is the key. The important taproot of a tree suggests itself as a metaphor of the role of the deepened relationship with God in our lives.
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
It is refreshing to come across readings from 1 Corinthians 15 in a season other than Easter. It is regrettable that many hymnals lump so many of the hymns that celebrate the resurrection under the heading of Easter. Every Sunday, after all, is a little Easter.
It is difficult to know the specifics of the problem in the Corinthian congregation which evoked this extended commentary from Paul. But we do know something about the fear of death and the flight from death in our culture. We also know about the doubts and fears that worshippers carry with them to church. There was abroad in the congregation at Corinth a lot of esoteric and muddled thinking just as there is today. It behooves us to preach the resurrection and our unique Christian understanding about our human destiny under God.
1 Corinthians 15 is not an easy chapter to expound. We have to brood over Paul's mythic language and seek to discern the affirmations at its heart. We are used to thinking about individual life after death rather than on the grand canvass that Paul uses. His theme is human destiny under God. We are bound together with our sisters and brothers in this human drama. We will all stand before God together so we had better reach out to one another now.
Luke 6:17-26
Matthew's Sermon on the Mount becomes in Luke's gospel the Sermon on the Plain. The association with Moses is inescapable (Exodus 34:29-32). Having made powerful enemies, called disciples, and attracted a following, Jesus addresses the disciples in the hearing of all the people, the whole congregation. This is Luke's way of presenting these words of Jesus as Dominical commands for the whole church in history.
Jesus opens his sermon with shock statements that challenge the way conventional wisdom then and now rates winners and losers. By blessing the poor, the hungry and the oppressed he declares that this is not the will of God. He liberates the poor from the diagnoses and definitions of arrogant affluence in league with bogus theology. History is open to creative initiatives to elevate people and advance the reign of God.
Having made powerful enemies by healing on the Sabbath the man with a withered hand, Jesus tells the disciples and all of us who are part of the movement that opposition goes with the territory. We will not win every skirmish. But then, there are some struggles that have to be undertaken even though for the time being you are on the losing side. Hillaire Belloc was a noted Catholic layman in England. One observer of his life had this to say: "I felt sorry for Mr. Belloc for he had nailed some of his colors to the wrong mast, but I feel sorrier for myself and my generation for we have no colors of any sort to nail to any mast."
The warning to the rich is used by Luke as in-house admonition to affluent members of the church who were being seduced by the values of the surrounding culture to find their security in material possessions. They are told that "they have received their consolation." In other words, that is all they have to console them, the things money can buy. Luke throughout the gospel reports teachings and parables of Jesus that make this point over and over again.
There is certainly a sermon seed in the words, "Woe to you when all speak well of you." Popularity and adulation is not a sign of either pastoral or congregational success.
