TIME WILL TELL

October 17, 2010
Pentecost 21
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Luke 18:1-8

(prayer)

The scripture readings from the Hebrew Bible since the Labour Day weekend have helped us hear the story of the Babylonian Exile.

In the early 6th century BCE, the southern Hebrew kingdom of Judah was conquered by an Empire across the eastern wildernesses. Jehoiachin was the new king of Judah; Ezekiel was a priest in the temple; Jeremiah was a renowned prophet living in Jerusalem at the time.

The Babylonians began by gain control of the countryside: forcing people off their land or at the very least plundering their produce and livestock. Then, in a calculated way, some of the key political and religious leaders were forced to leave Judah and travel to Babylon where they would have to live as refugees. Ezekiel and King Jehoiachin were among those exiles. The temple was pillaged of its riches.

The Babylonian ruler, Nebuchadnezzar, appointed Jehoiachin’s uncle (known as Zedekiah) as a puppet king in Judah. Jeremiah, the prophet, remained among the people still in Jerusalem and he spoke his mind about what he saw as the evil of Zedekiah’s reign and the hope he held out for the people in exile.

Over the next decade or so, Judah became part of the Babylonian empire in practice if not in name. In a series of waves, more Judean people were exiled to Babylon (artisans, smiths and those able to fight in Babylon’s armies). Eventually, Zedekiah tried to regain power and autonomy for himself, but the Babylonians were having none of that, so they laid siege to Jerusalem until the people were starved out.

The nation of Hebrew was erased from the map during the 11th year of King Zedekiah’s reign. The grand temple built by King Solomon and much of the city’s other buildings, were burned to the ground; the once protective city walls were torn down.

Zedekiah was captured. For his treason to Babylon, he was forced to watch the execution of his sons before his eyes were put out and he, too, along with all of the remaining population of Jerusalem were sent into exile.

//

Two weeks ago, we sang along with the exiles in songs of lament and anger for what had happened to them.

Last week, we read a letter written by Jeremiah addressed to the first waves of exiles in Babylon. This was during those years of Zedekiah’s puppet leadership. The message was that the people were not to give up, but that they were make lives for themselves in Babylon. They were to let ‘that place’ be their home; they were to plant crops and raise families, so that the people of Judah would survive, even as the land of Judah was occupied.

Today, we heard Jeremiah’s hope. The days are surely coming... when the lands of Judah and Israel will again be planted by Hebrew people. I love the poetry Jeremiah uses here. It is not just wheat and flax that will be grown, but the seeds of humans and animals will also take root in the land.

The old language of covenant is used in a renewed way. Jeremiah makes reference to the liberation of the exodus during Moses’ time when the law took written form on tablets from the rock of Horeb, the holy mountain of the Sinai. But in these days that are surely coming, the law would be written anew, not on stones or paper, but engraved within the very hearts of the people.

They will be contracted to God at the level of feeling and emotion. The very essence of who the people were would be inseparable from a life consistent with God’s Torah. No one would have to preach or prophesy, because everyone (from the greatest to the least) would already know what they need to know.

Jeremiah was not speaking of a short-term hope – he was envisioning the long view. The day is not here, yet, but the days are surely coming; so stay alive (physically, emotionally, theologically) during this exile, because restoration and renewal are on their way.

Time will tell, Jeremiah was saying. A persistent, stubborn forward looking faith was needed.

//

Move ahead 600 years and Jesus teaches about persistence as well. The widow versus the judge: it is a mismatch - a man and a woman (an obvious legal and practical difference); a respected leader with power and a lonely widow dependant on the generosity of others to survive. Jesus doesn’t say so directly, but we can assume that the woman’s case was valid and just, but that her low station in life was bogging down her case.

But she is persistent and will not let the judge ignore her. He does rule in her favour, but openly admits that it has more to do with her nagging persistence than the merits of her case.

The parable is part of some teaching on prayer. The message seems to be if an unjust judge is affected by persistent demands for justice, how much more can we expect from God who is the most just of all judges. Jesus teaches that God does hear the people’s cries for justice and will respond justly and quickly: the delay will not be long. Time will tell.

If the parable ended there, I admit that I would not be very comfortable with it. I do not finding myself among those who believe that we have a vending-machine kind of God. If we plug in the right amount of quarters and loonies and press the right buttons at the right times, God will automatically give us what we want.

An unfortunate reading of this passage can result in an assumption that more prayer will force God to act in our behalf. My mind and my experience has seen and reflected on miraculous turns of events that have be enveloped in attitudes of prayer. I can’t say that prayer makes no difference. I have simply seen too many times when prayers have not forced God to do what I (or others) want to have happen. I just can’t believe that it is as simple as putting together a jigsaw puzzle of piety.

In the 1993 movie Shadowlands, Anthony Hopkins playing CS Lewis says: “I don’t pray to change God. I pray because I have to. I pray because I can’t help myself. Prayer doesn’t change God. It changes me.” That seems to be closer to what makes sense to me.

Fortunately we are not forced to interpret this passage to mean that we can make God do what we want simply by praying long and hard enough: Luke has that final summary teaching of Jesus at the end of the passage to make us think that the message is really about faith, not about how to prayer or how often. It’s one of those cliff-hanger [what do you think?] questions.

“And yet… when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth.”

It is faith that is to be persistent. Can people believe that God cares, even when we don’t get the instant responses we expect to our prayers? Do we have the will to keep that kind of faith?

//

In the context of the whole parable, perhaps we are being invited to have faith enough so that justice will prevail. We are being invited to consider that that the very essence of God is justice and compassion and ‘we’ are called to be agents of the love and fairness shown in and through Jesus.

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Wouldn’t this world be a much better place if people of faith approached our relationships with others with unwavering compassion and a sense of fairness for all? We would not allow systems of greed to acquire wealth on the backs of the weak or misfortunate. We would be persistent in our efforts to ensure that each person was valued for who they were: a beloved child of God – that discrimination in all of its obvious and subtle forms would be challenged and named as un-holy and unacceptable.

It’s not like the voices for justice have been silent. And we have witnessed steady progress; particularly within the last 100 years. In our part of the world, we have seen virtually attempt to limit equality turned upside down bringing us a real taste of that old Christian hope that within the loving community Jesus strove for, there is no distinction between people. Paul, in his letter to the Galations, spoke in the language of the obvious divisions of the mid-first century and say there was no longer male or female, no longer slave or free, jew nor greek. The spirit of that hope has kept voices of justice crying to ensure that other divisions, like that of race or religion or sexual orientation or nationality are not used to deny people the equality and dignity we all have earned and deserve as children of God.

We have witnessed progress and change. Ant yet our persistence is still required. The rash of recent suicides of young gay youth has to remind us that justice is not only about changing laws but changing attitudes. Bullying and teasing and taunting seldom draw much attention until something tragic happens. And so we need to have the persistence of Jesus’ parable-widow; we need to keep up the pressure until it is no longer acceptable to treat someone with less than the full God given dignity we all deserve.

There is a lot of work to do. Within our global family, besides obvious examples of racism and homophobia, in too many corners of our globe, women are treated as sub-human, less than property; slavery even still exists as people are forced into indentured service. Some of these practices are rooted old cultural and religious traditions. Those roots are deep for some people – the kind of progressive dignity I am preaching about sounds too radical for them.

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Can we believe that the big changes in attitude which are needed are possible?

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find [that kind of] faith on the earth?”

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Being a disciple of Jesus, being a person of God is not a one-time event. It is a progressive calling, an on-going, dynamic vocation. Clearly, we have not found the ability to change the world in an instant; we have not discovered the undeniable mountain moving faith. But mountains can move – maybe if it is one bolder at a time.

The exiles needed to ‘settle’ for Babylon and a hope that a restoration to Judah would come. The Biblical history tells us that it was seven decades before that began to happen. Only the youngest of original exiles, would have been able to see the entire time of captivity from start to finish and return to Judah as the most senior of elders.

Time exists beyond any one of us and it endures any one life. But faith can transcend time, when hope is heart-felt and passed on.

We all made promises of that kind of faith with Claire and her family this morning [baptism].

In just a couple of weeks it will be November 1st: All Saints’ Day – the day set aside on the Christian calendar to honour all of the faithful people who have helped us get where we now are. We are recipients of wonderful blessings from those who have journeyed the road of faith before us. And we have new roads to traverse that will further benefit humankind and the world we all share.

‘Time will tell’ if that kind of faith can be found on the earth.

Let us pray:

Patient God;

Prepare us to do what you call us to do. When we are faint of heart and our faith grows dim, enlighten us with hope and perseverance, so that we never give up on your vision of justice. Amen.



#675VU “Will Your Anchor Hold?”