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PERICOPE STUDY
CENTER FOR THEOLOGY, LRC
The Fourth Sunday
after the Epiphany – February 1,
2004
1.
Jeremiah
was, from the start, a reluctant
prophet. He is only a youth,
he says, not possessed of age (or its wisdom), no match for either “the
nations” (the gentiles?) or the leadership of
Judah. Anathoth was fine as
a home town, but he did not see it thus far as an incubator for prophetic
utterance. And, truth told,
he was young – probably not yet twenty-five or even twenty – and
not schooled in prophecy, as some could claim. So he invoked his youth, perhaps
as modesty … perhaps as reluctance.
Amos had protested that he was no prophet or son of prophets, but
instead a shepherd and tree-trimmer (7:14) … but he did not claim
“youth” as a disqualification.
Indeed, his disclaimer was not to God but to his Samarian detractor
Amaziah, priest of Bethel, who claimed that he had no authority to preach
to them. To Amaziah, Amos was insistent: “The
LORD took me from following
the flock, and the
LORD said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.” (7:15)
To Amaziah, Amos was insistent. To God, he was simply
obedient. To Amos there was no recorded vision or theophany, simply
a directive to thunder oracles to
Israel. And thunder he
did.
2.
A
hundred years and one fatal fall of Samaria later:
Jeremiah. God would have none
of the “too-young” argument.
“Do not say, ‘I am only a
youth.’ For to all to whom
I send you, you shall go; and whatever I command you, you shall
speak.” And to make the
point directly, “the
LORD put forth his hand and
touched (Jeremiah’s) mouth.”
Last week we witnessed St. Paul struck down on the outskirts of Damascus,
prone on the ground and spoken to directly by the Risen Lord whom he was
persecuting. Today we read of
a modest Jeremiah to whom the Lord gave both the spine to speak and the words
to utter: “I have set my words in your
mouth.” And the authority
“over nations
and over
kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to
build and to plant” … that authority was itself not only challenged
but scorned and violently resisted, by hearers especially in
Jerusalem.
3.
Having
first protested as to his youth, he later protested the content of the message
he was obliged to declare – or at least he bemoaned the consequences
of such a message (see 20:10-18).
In one particularly pitiful, climactic outcry, Jeremiah even bemoans
being born: “Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow,
and spend my days in shame”? The
LORD Who knew him before He “formed (him) in the womb” was
nothing if not also patient, accustomed to failings and ragings among the
prophets, as also from the common lot of
humankind. And the Lord’s
patience prevailed: Jeremiah was
reluctant. And now and again
pitiful. But he did not turn
his back on his call to prophesy, however much he
complained. He stayed the course,
though he was thrown into a cistern and threatened as to his
life.
4.
The
proof of prophecy is in the reading of
history. St. Paul says, in I Corinthians, that “as for prophecy,
it will pass away.” True
enough. But
how it passes away is the
key: did the yield prove the
prophet correct and on target, or not?
Plenty were the false prophets and the sycophants, courtiers whose
encouraging words yielded not the word of the
Lord. But Jeremiah and his prophecy
are in the canon because the words God “put into his mouth” turned
out to be true, as to the working out of
history. Jerusalem did fall,
Isaiah’s earlier declaration not
withstanding. It was a new day,
the “great and terrible day of the Lord,” when God used Nebuchadnezzar
to bring Judah to its knees and Jerusalem to rubble.
5.
You
and I are called to proclaim, if not to
prophesy. And we live in a time where genuine discernment is
required. In the thick of the
debate, as we are, we like Jeremiah have not the advantage of
hindsight. Today we can see that those who invoked the Bible to justify
slavery were simply wrong. What
can we say of those who invoke the Bible to forbid the legitimation of homosexual
behavior? Or of those who,
conversely, claim that the Holy Spirit is “doing a new thing,”
in the movement to bless homosexual relationships and ordain practicing gay
persons? In whose mouth has
God put the words that are true?
Today it is easy to distinguish between a Jeremiah and an
Azariah. Between an Arius and
an Athanasius. Many find it
difficult to distinguish between a Gagnon and a Griswold.
6.
What
do we make of Bishop Frank Griswold (ECA) and his backing of Gene
Robinson’s election and
consecration? Said the presiding
bishop, in a recent interview: “A formal decision had been made by the
church, and I, by virtue of my role, am obliged to uphold the
decisions. If I can’t,
then I am obliged to resign.”
Role? What about
office? The office
of bishop is to uphold not the decisions of the assembly but the teaching
of the church. And if the decisions
of the assembly run against the teachings of the scripture and the church,
then he must speak and, if necessary and in protest,
resign.
7.
Who
is he serving? The church, with
its “diverse center, people of different perspectives but with a …
willingness to recognize in one another the presence of Christ … even
though there are divergent points of
view”? Is he not rather
serving God, whose revelation is in the prophets and the
apostles? Is there no
“limit” to diversity? Is
it only the presence of Christ that Christians may discern in one
another? St. Paul discerned
in the Galatians a “different gospel,” and scored them for being
so misled. Surely Griswold is
aware that there can be “divergent points of view” within the church
that are not “of the Lord”!
8.
He
is banking on the “unique calling” of the American Episcopal Church:
“the diverse center … the reality of multiple, passionately held
opinions” that is “our great gift.” Griswold, like other leaders
of “mainline protestant” churches, says that he is “frustrated
that issues of sexuality overshadow all others … the near-obsession
with sex … comes from the other
side.” He finds it
“interesting that sexuality overrides notions of the divine nature of
Christ, the Trinity, the
sacraments.”[1] The “near
obsession” stems from the challenge to the doctrine of humanity (“male
and female created He them”) and the doctrine of marriage (“for
this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife,
and they twain shall become one
flesh”). If there were
a challenge to the Trinity, or to the divine nature of Christ, or to the
sacraments, then those who are faithful to the scriptures and teachings of
the church would be obliged to do as Athanasius, and Leo, and Luther …
and defend the Trinity, the genuine divinity and genuine humanity of Christ,
and the Real Presence of the Lord in and under the
elements. What is at stake is
the religious, legal and cultural legitimation of behavior that the Bible
nowhere endorses and at every turn
forbids. Or
condemns. Or
both.
9.
That
Jeremiah should be reluctant to prophesy … I can
understand. To be a prophet
with the message of a Jeremiah is to be
persecuted. Or at least
“marginalized.” But,
one must recall Peter and John before the Sanhedrin: We must obey God rather
than man. Proclamation, like
prophecy, will be known as to its truth “in the fullness of
time.” I should rather rely upon the revealed Word of God and
the teachings of the church than on the “penumbra” to the command
to love, as invoked by those who discern in the homosex advocacy the Holy
Spirit doing “a new thing.”
10.
To
the Corinthians quarreling over the relative privileged status of
“spiritual gifts,” Paul has offered a listing of those gifts indicative
to the faith, related to their membership in the body of Christ: “Now
you are the body of Christ and individually members of
it. And God has appointed in
the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers
of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds
of tongues. Are all apostles?
Are all prophets? Are
all teachers? Do all work
miracles? Do all possess gifts
of healing? Do all speak with
tongues? Do all
interpret? But earnestly desire the higher
gifts.”
11.
Those
are the gifts indicative. In
the famous 13th chapter, he proceeds to the
normative gift of the Holy Spirit,
without which it would well be doubtful that one can claim membership in
the baptismal family. It is,
he famously says, “a still more excellent
way.” To speak in tongues
is but a “noisy gong or clanging cymbal” without
agaph. To
have prophetic powers or understand all mysteries is nothing without
agaph. “If I have faith (not so shabby a gift, that!) such
as to remove mountains, and have not
agaph, I am
nothing.” Prophecies pass
away, tongues cease, knowledge passes
away. Because they are
imperfect. Because they are
the stuff of childhood as compared to adulthood, which puts away “childish
ways.” Though we now still
only see “through a mirror dimly,” in God’s time we shall
see face to face. In the meantime
“faith, hope,
agaph abide, these three; but
the greatest of these is
agaph.
12.
There
was a time, in the not-too-distant past, when pastors needed to clarify the
distinction between
agaph and
eros,
or
storgh, or
filia … with
agaph
understood as God’s great love for the unlovely: while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. Love
underserved. Persistent love that is not merited by the beloved, and
cannot be so merited. As the
sainted Benjamin Bedenbaugh used to put it, at Southern Seminary: “Love
undisturbed by the misbehavior of the
beloved.” This articulation
was necessarily prominent in a religious culture still too tied to keeping
the law as the basis of merit before God.
13.
No
more. In today’s climate
of celebrating tolerance and diversity,
agaph is more likely to be invoked as rationale for
including into the fellowship of faith behaviors the scriptures plainly
forbid. This kind of
“love ethic” fails
to take into account St. John’s brilliant complement to St. Paul:
“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and
he in God. So we know and believe
the love God has for us. God
is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in
him….There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear…We
love, because he first loved us.
If any one says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother he
is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot
love God whom he has not seen. And
this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his
brother also. Every one who
believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and every one who loves
the parent loves the child. By
this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey
his commandments.
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And
his commandments are not burdensome. (I John 4:15 –
5:3)
14.
The
disengagement of “love of God and fellow man” from “keeping
His commandments” is not new.
From the scriptures we know that it is as old as
Eden. In the present day, certain
of God’s commandments are relegated to “cultural prejudices of
ancient people,” as for instance by those of God’s people who advocate
legitimation of gay “marriage” and ordination of non-abstinent
homosexual men and women.
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his
commandments.” In such a way is
agaph best understood, in our time.
JLY – 01.27.04
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