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Epiphany 6

15 February 2004

Jeremiah 17:5-10
I Corinthians 15:12-20
Psalm 1 
Luke 6:17-26

Scholarly detectives find this section of Luke quite fascinating; they compare it with Matthew's coverage of similar material. Some of it is the same, and some of it is different, and the differences seem too deliberate to be accidental. Each one has additions and deletions the other does not have, and we have to ask why. Luke says, 'Blessed are the poor ...'; Matthew says, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit...'. We, the rich ones of the world, who live in the big houses - we move quickly to Matthew; Luke is too unsettling. Did the early Church find Luke unpalatable, so coaxed Matthew to trim the edges of the text (and so trim the God of the text)? Did the early Church put paint thinners into the brush strokes, making it easier to apply?

Luke says, 'Blessed are you who are hungry now...'. Matthew says, 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...'. Matthew's reportage is more agreeable. We stick with Luke - we who are courageous enough to voluntarily place ourselves in a context where we are likely to hear unpalatable texts which prize us out of our comfort zone and give us a chance for growth. We are like the Disciples, and every disciple since, struggling for faithfulness among the world's peoples, where the world's peoples are not always kind, or benign, or just, or fair.

However, we have a text in hand which is often at odds with the world's texts and may offer a serious challenge to the world's texts.

Only occasionally will we exercise our bilingual ability to speak the language of the world, and then the language of the text, so stack one against the other and observe the outcome.

Most often we manage the world's texts in little tolerable bits. We keep violence at bay by pinning it to Iraq, or the road toll, but violence is resident within us and in our close communities and families. We keep disease at bay by hospitalizing it, and drugging it into submission. But disease rests on our excessive consuming of junk food, and fatty rich products we think are our birthright.

We seek to patch up this broken world with tighter regulations, and more and better policing and counseling services, and identifying who to blame for the latest atrocity, be it the terrorist, or the overworked CYPS social worker doing her best at her job. The world teeters on the brink of major tragedy every day, but it won't do to privatize it and send it off for counseling, or to hospitalize it, or to give it to a Royal Commission, or to endure the grief and tragedy behind the closed doors of the home. That reduces the tragedies of human experience to private, in-house, closed off, disengaged events, all surgically removed and forgotten.

Jesus, via Luke's version, speaks another language, a new word. Jesus notices the outpouring of private anguish among the people of all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon (vs.17). That observation provoked him to proclaim to any listening disciple: 'Their poverty is your poverty; their hunger is your hunger; their weeping is your weeping. No, it won't all go away; it won't all work out, it won't all disappear into a Royal Commission or a Parliamentary Debate. The wounding hurts will remain until they are publicly recognized, and collectively borne, and co-operatively addressed.
For poverty (vs.20) is inextricably linked with someone else's richness (vs.24); hunger (v.21a) is inextricably linked with someone else's fullness (vs.25a); weeping (vs.21b) is inextricably linked with someone else's laughter (vs.25b). The world's anguished terror, and the world's excessive abundance, are all of a piece - different sides of the same coin.

Our delightful duty is to speak the language of the Gospel, and enter into a collusion with the Christ who notices the forgotten ones, and quit colluding with the forces that perpetuate poverty, hunger, and weeping. Alternatively, preach from Matthew on Sunday.

PRAYER

God, we pause at the beginning of another week,
 not knowing what the week may bring for the people of the world.

Will war continue to destroy?
Will the leaders of the western world find force their only option?
Will terror burst again with its waste of human flesh?
God, we pray for a world intent on death that you might bring it life.

How many children will be abused this week? How many women will be threatened?
How many men will be diminished by loss of job, loss of self-esteem, self-worth?
God, is it possible for you to come into focus, in families and homes,
 and draw people together around love?

How many young people will die on our roads this week?
- or die by their own hand?
- or injure themselves through body neglect or abuse of their minds?
God, is it possible you might slip alongside, and bring a life-giving focus for hope?

How many destructive arguments verging on violence
 will range in our stressed institutions this week?
How many will fiercely defend their position, their staff, their ideals?
How many will doggedly seek justice?
How many will hide evidence, and shred paper, and perjure themselves?
God, may your quality of truth and justice find resting place in heart and voice
 of those who must make these management decisions.

How many bereft and new students will move into town this week?
How many tears shed, ties stretched, friends lost and found?
God, companion these lonely ones in a strange land, we pray.

And God, how many of us will keep your love alive and going through this week?
How many of us will resurrect
 resurrection life tomorrow
 to bring hope to ourselves
  and hope to any we engage?

How many, God?

For the moment, to this we pledge our lives,  AMEN.