Saturday, January 29, 2022

Proper 4 Epiphany (c)

St. Paul’s

Bible & Newspaper

Back in the distant past -- like the first part of the 20th century -- there was an important theologian by the name of Karl Barth. 1 He was quoted in 1966 by time magazine.

“Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.” (Time Magazine, May 1, 1966.)

Many people have referred to that quote and it has been interpreted in different ways. What it has meant to me is something like what James wrote about in the New Testament, and we heard it not too long ago, that “Faith without Works Is Dead”

2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?

Some have used Barth’s words to mean that the Bible and the newspaper are of equal authority. It doesn't mean that to me at all.

Like James statement about faith and works, what it means to me is that unless the gospel speaks to the world that we live in it is little better than the noise of incessant emails and media that fills so much of our lives. What the media feeds us, at least seems to feed me, is often disturbing and unsettling.

As I reflected on the scripture passages for today, I asked myself, “What’s going on right now in the life of our congregation? What challenges us at this moment? I came up with things like:

  • impassioned desire to return to in-person worship
  • what is this with having such cold weather every weekend?
  • Divisions in our society continue to be felt and reflected in our churches.
  • the danger from global warming seems frightening and even apocalyptic.

If we were to let Scripture interpret the news, what would it look like?

Is there a way in which the light of Christian faith could help us to understand what's going on in the world around us? How could we let the light shine from Scripture to the world?

When we encounter God in Scripture, when we hear the spirit speaking to us through the scripture, when we let the gospel touch us, even change us, what will the news that surrounds us look like? Will we understand more perfectly? The Scripture we read has lasted through many generations. It is not bound by geography, politics, geo-political movements, pandemics and plagues, wars and disasters. It has lasted through all of them. Surely it has some wisdom, some grace, some power, to change us for the better.

If we let it surely it can show us how to love -- how to respond to what’s going on around us -- not with anger and fear but with grace and love.

“Perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18)

Jeremiah chosen from birth

The first passage we heard from today was from the beginning of the prophet Jeremiah. It recounts his call to be a prophet for the Lord God, stretching back from before he was even born.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

If we hear that as something that happened to some great figure in some ancient time it has very little impact on us. If, however, that text speaks to each one of us about the particular impact that each one of us can have in the world around us, the world itself could be moved.

In last weeks readings, Paul spoke of the different gifts that God has given to each of us as God has called us to particular vocations. Some are called prophets to be sure and some teachers, some homemakers, some handymen and the list goes on to be long enough to fill the phonebook -- if you remember what that is.

There's a well-known story from the last century about a man walking down the beach and throwing back into the waves each starfish that he comes across. He is criticized on the basis that his little gestures can do little to affect the life of all the star fish in the sea. The man responds by saying that indeed he can't impact anything so large is that, but he has made a difference in the life of that one starfish.

None of us can change the world. Each of us can change something in the world around us.

Every time I read or hear the first chapter of Jeremiah, I painfully identify with his objection to God’s appointment, saying, “I don’t know what to say, I’m only a boy.” I remember poignantly my own feelings when I was ordained at the age of 32. I was expected to minister amongst the congregation made up mostly of people older than I was. And they addressed me as “father”, and I thought, “This is crazy.”

Now I am old and what I feel is, “But Lord, I’m just an old man. What could I possibly contribute?”

God’s message is: Don’t be afraid, I’m with you.

Love chapter (Paul)

If that isn't powerful enough, we hear another even more powerful and direct message from the 13th chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. The love chapter. We hear words that are almost as familiar as the nativity narratives of Christmas. Paul attempting to put down in a few words what the whole point of our lives as Christians is all about.

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

I think, “Who am I to try to take the measure of this passage? Who am I to try to understand it so as to share it with others? Am I better at love now than I was 50 years ago? Have the years I have lived prepared me to know what love is sufficiently to say anything about it?”

Like Jeremiah I ask, “Who am I?”

Paul is speaking with a boldness and presumption that is almost beyond our imagining. He has been there and he knows of what he speaks.

Speaking in tongues? Done that, he says. Speaking in words of prophecy? Done that. Given up everything for the sake of those he serves? Done that. “Without love it is all worth nothing,” he says, because he knows it in his bones.

But when it comes down to it, I wonder if anything less than what Paul describes in the scripture today will illuminate anything about that long list of what the world presents us? All of us are so adept at discerning what is wrong with the news that reaches us each day. We can register a prescription for what ought to be in place of what we see around us.

Is there anything except for a radical love that makes any sense when put against the reality in which we live? My hunch is probably not. It leaves us in the presence of God and humbly paying attention to what Paul offers us.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

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Notes

  1. Note: # On Barth, the Bible and the Newspaper | sinibaldo.wordpress.com↩

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