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Pentecost 20

October 17 2004

Jeremiah 31: 27-34

Psalm 119: 97-104

Timothy3:14-4:5

Luke 18: 1-8

Jeremiah 31: 27-34: The theme of restoration continues - the exiles are not only to seek the welfare of the city and nation in which they have been forced to live, they are to believe that God is with them, that memories of failures from the past will give way to anticipation as God begins to do a new thing in their midst, drawing them into a future which is different from the past. The covenant between God and God’s chosen people is to be renewed - the tablets of stone and its commandments [Exodus 21] will be replaced by laws which will be written on the hearts and minds of all the people, which will become part of their very being and identity! We are familiar with the inner workings of the Holy Spirit as God draws us into lives of compassion, forgiveness, freedom and a new ability to give and receive love. This is one of the passages that feeds into the Pentecost experience of the earliest church - the very term ‘New Testament’ comes from here and verses 33 and 34 are referred to or quoted by the writers of Mark, Corinthians and Hebrews.

Psalm 119: 97-104: This is part of the longest psalm in our bible – 22 ‘acrostic poems’, each line of which starts with the appropriate letter of the Hebrew alphabet, are joined to give the 176 verse psalm. [This, incidentally, is information which I would not share in a sermon as it contributes nothing of value!!] The psalm contains hardly a verse which does not refer to God’s ‘word’ or ‘law’ expressed in terms such as ‘ordinances’, ‘statutes’, ‘precepts’, ‘testimonies’, ‘commandments’, ‘decrees’ and so on. The word or law of God which comes to us through the Spirit, the bible, worship, and our interactions with people, is ‘written on our hearts’ [Jeremiah 31.33] and leads us to participate in gracious community living. The psalmist rejoices in the way God’s word has moulded his life, enabling him to cope with trauma and tragedy. Our passage points to the need to spend time in prayer and to meditate actively on scripture.

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5: Timothy has grown up with the scriptures and his life has been moulded by them as he has read, meditated, interpreted and applied their truths to his day to day living. Verse 16 has often been used -erroneously I believe - to assert the infallibility of the bible. But the ‘sacred writings’, the ‘scripture’, used by Timothy and the early church, was not our bible [the canon of which was not finalised until two or three hundred years later]. It was the ‘Old Testament’ plus other intertestamental books which cannot be fully identified which did not make it into our bible. This verse and those around it are not about the nature of scripture, but about its usefulness. Timothy is urged to immerse himself in scripture, allow it to mould his motives and understanding, and then go out to fearlessly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Chris t.

Luke 18: 1-8: Another parable which can be hard to understand unless it is recognised that Jesus is using the principle of ‘from light to heavy’ or ‘how much more!’ ‘The woman is in an apparently hopeless position. She is a woman in a man’s world, a widow without money or powerful friends. The judge cannot be appealed to out of duty to God, and no human being can make him ashamed of any evil act he may perpetrate on the innocent. Yet this woman not only gets a hearing but has the case settled in her favour... The main thrust is clearly persistence in prayer. If this woman’s needs are met, how much more the needs of the pious who pray not to a harsh judge but to a loving Father. However discouraged and hopeless their situation may seem to be, it is not as bad as that of this widow. They can rest assured that their petitions are heard and acted upon. When fear grips the heart the believer is challenged to pray, and to pray continuously in the face of all discouragements with the full confidence that God will act in his [or her] best interests.’ [Kenneth Bailey, 1983, ‘Through Peasant Eyes’ p136].

Jesus encouraged his listeners to open their hearts to God and to persist in prayer, believing that the God who is love will work in their situation to bring justice with mercy - the essence of our Chris tian life is a relationship of trust and hope in God.

Directions for Preaching:

1. One of the key issues is our day is ‘the nature of God’ - as I have got older I have preached more and more often on the God who is love, who is not all powerful but who walks and suffers with his people and his world. A way into this theme would be through the passage from Jeremiah – ‘I will write [my law] on their hearts’ and ‘they will all know me.’
2. Another key issue is the way we use the bible; ‘bibliority’, it seems to me, is becoming a problem in our church. In our confusing world in which random acts of violence rather than acts of love are headlined and fear rules, it is tempting to raise the bible to the status of God and so to try and find security in an inerrant bible. It would be a useful exercise to unpack 2 Timothy 3:16 and to reflect on what being ‘inspired by God’ means.
3. The nature of prayer is always an important issue which can come out of our gospel reading - there was a time when I seemed to have a ministry of healing in which I prayed for people and they were healed, but then there have been other occasions [like the death of my own wife] when prayer for healing seemed not to be answered or even appropriate. A God who is all loving [and therefore not all powerful] answers prayer often by giving us the inner resources to cope with the journey through suffering. When we emerge we are wiser and pastorally more sensitive toward other people.