First Reading: Jeremiah 17:5-8
5Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. 6He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 7Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 8He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
Psalm 1
1Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful! 2Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and they meditate on his law day and night. 3They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; everything they do shall prosper. 4It is not so with the wicked; they are like chaff which the wind blows away. 5Therefore the wicked shall not stand upright when judgment comes, nor the sinner in the council of the righteous. 6For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked is doomed.
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:1-20
1Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you — unless you believed in vain. 3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.] 12Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Gospel: Luke 6:17-26
17{Jesus} came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 18who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all. 20And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. 22Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. 24But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. 26Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”
The Junk Underneath
The town of Kotzebue, Alaska sits, like many northern Arctic villages, on the edge of the Bering Sea. Because of its geographic location, the ground on which the community sits is frozen tundra. And because the permafrost in areas north of the Brooks Range can run as much as 2000 feet deep, an activity like burying the dead is a real challenge. Sanitation landfills in these remote areas are unheard of. Garbage trucks don’t come to haul off the kind of refuse we leave curbside here in the “lower 48.” Instead, non-biodegradable items like broken washing machines, junked cars, old toilets, and tires are left on the property until they can be hauled away or sold for scrap.
Tourists who visit Kotzebue in the summer are amazed at the debris they see in people’s yards. They often wonder, how could anyone live like that? What most visitors don’t realize is, that for nine months of the year, Kotzebue sits under a blanket of snow that covers the garbage. During those long frozen months, the town is a winter wonderland of pure white landscapes. So, one’s impression of Kotzebue would depend on the time of year they visit. There’s nine months of beauty and three months when the junk underneath reveals itself. I’ll bet each of us can think of people we know who are just like this. In most situations, we’re impressed with their maturity, their grace, their style. In other, less guarded situations, all the junk hiding underneath comes out.
The reality is, you can have a well-dressed businessman, a pillar of his church and community, who goes home at night, and is abusive to his wife and neglectful of his kids. Then there’s the cheerful woman, who is surprisingly more knowledgeable than most about the Bible, but when given the chance, she slanders many of the people in her own church with unjustified criticism and backbiting. You have the talented newcomer, tall and seemingly gracious, but when he opens his mouth all kinds of negative remarks about people of color and the poor comes out. Or there’s the salesman who appears to be wholesome and a devoted family member by day, but at night, when they’re on the road, alone in a strange hotel room, is unfaithful to their spouse. On the surface, a good many people glisten with possibilities, but underneath, what you find is junk. In a sense, this is the human condition. Mark Twain once said, “No man, deep down in the privacy of his own heart, has any considerable respect for himself!”
Martin Luther once declared, “When a man like me comes to know the plague of his own heart, he is not only miserable, he is absolute misery himself.” Scottish preacher Samuel Rutherford, once said, “When I look at my sinfulness, my salvation is to me my Savior’s greatest miracle.” And St. Paul in Romans was clear, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” All these men are speaking of the human condition. For the majority, they’re fortunate, they’re able to keep the junk under control. They’re able to keep it pressed down. Subdued. However, when the junk does come to the surface, generally speaking, it isn’t a pretty sight. There was a news report some years back out of Hominy, Oklahoma.
It was December and inmate Bernard Crawford escaped from prison. He escaped by diving into the back of the truck of a farmer. This farmer had come to the prison to collect food scraps for pig slop. Bernard covered himself in the wet garbage and rode undetected for about a half-hour. At that point the combination of the smell and the cold temperature got to him, forcing him to jump out, where he was spotted by a motorist, who notified police. Many will comfort themselves that they can handle a little bit of pig slop in their lives. It’s only when it overwhelms them that it’s a problem. Kate Campbell is singer-songwriter born in the northwest corner of Mississippi.
Kate grew up in the ‘60s as the daughter of a Baptist pastor who loved the Deep South, even though he didn’t share his neighbors’ deep prejudices. Kate likes the South as well and loves to collect and tell stories. Among her favorite things about the South are the road signs and the store signs she sees. She found one that said: “Jesus and tomatoes coming soon!” Another she saw was at a fishing shack that bragged: “We have 10,000 lures.” She took that fishing shack sign and wrote a gospel song called “10,000 Lures.”
The chorus of 10,000 Lures goes: “There’s vices and voodoo always enticing you, from the day that you’re born ‘til the day you leave this world, the devil’s got a line for you for sure, and 10,000 lures.” One of the verses goes like this: “He knows every weakness, knows just when to strike, you know he was an angel once and he knows what you like, for you it might be money, for me it might be fame, better cover up your ears now, when he whispers your name.”
The basic message Kate Campbell is sharing in song is, each of us has a point of weakness, a flaw in our foundation, and the junk underneath the snow that on occasion, in an unguarded moment, comes to the surface. But when it comes to the surface, it causes us and those we around us pain. “He knows every weakness, knows just when to strike, you know he was an angel once and he knows what you like, for you it might be money, for me it might be fame, better cover up your ears now, when he whispers your name.” In the book, A Hunger for God, the author states, “The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison, but apple pie.
“It’s not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but the endless nibbling at the table of the world. It’s not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night . . . The deadliest appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. When these replace an appetite for God, the creeping alure of sin and idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.” The world’s teaching of blessing and woes is the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches us. In our Old Testament reading for today, the prophet Jeremiah addresses this very issue by pointing to two kinds of people, the cursed and the blessed.
I believe that Jeremiah was paraphrasing king David from our Psalm this morning when he describes the cursed: “Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”
Jeremiah continues, by again taking his inspiration from Psalm 1, in how he describes the blessed: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” One lesson we need to learn from this passage is that the difference between the cursed and the blessed is internal; it has nothing to do with external circumstances. Where a person places their faith and hope determines whether they are blessed or cursed.
Another takeaway from this passage is that we need to be careful of how we determine that a person is cursed or blessed by the outward or visible signs. For example, we cannot simply look at the kind of house a person lives in or the kind of job they have. You cannot tell by the clothing they wear or the car someone drives. This is what the world teaches: judge people by their external circumstances. “Those poor people,” we might say as we pass by a dilapidated dwelling or a rusted-out old car. We must be careful. Remember what Jesus taught the disciples in Luke’s retelling of the Beatitudes?
In our gospel reading for this morning, Jesus, sitting on a level place, taught the disciples, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
Then like king David and Jeremiah, Jesus flips the world’s script: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” Jesus’ sermon on the blessings and woes is a passage we’ve all heard many times, but what does Jesus want us to learn?
On Tuesday as the other pastors and I were discussing our readings, I began to think of how I could paraphrase this passage. This is what I came up with: Happy are those who are unburdened by the possessions of this world, for their hope lies in the Lord our God. Happy are those who are hungry now for the word of God and have a desire to do God’s will, they will be satisfied. Happy are those who weep because of the effect that sin has on this world and on the ungodly, your laments and prayers are heard, and God will turn your sorry into joy. Happy are those who, because of their witness for Christ, are shunned, slandered, criticized, even despised, remember how these people idolized those who taught falsely? Keep in mind that your reward in heaven will be great.
Jesus in several places in the Bible reminds us that the world’s definition of blessing and woes are, in most cases, the exact opposite of what Jesus taught. We will hear even more of this in our gospel reading for next Sunday. The world teaches us to hate, despise and seek retribution against our enemies. But Jesus again flips the script on that as well: “love your enemies, [He says], and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:35-38). Jesus wants us to see life differently.
The world wants us to look at the façade, on the surface alone, to ignore the junk and the faulty foundation that lies beneath the surface. Jesus wants us to see beyond the bonds that the things of this world ties us down with and understand God’s definition of blessings and curses. The world tells us to look at an aged simple structure and see a poor person’s shack with a yard full of weeds. Jesus wants us to look at the same house and see a historic structure; a home filled with history, a structure built with skill and love and a yard filled with the beauty of a flower garden. Jesus is teaching us that whether we’re blessed or cursed has to do with the basic orientation of our lives.
Jeremiah describes the cursed as trusting in mere mortals. That is, if the meaning and value of life has to do with our toys and accomplishments, then we’re like a shrub in the desert. Sure, we can buy insurance to protect our health, we can strive diligently to stay on the right path and protect our reputation, but if we only trust in the people and tools this world can provide, sooner or later we’re going to come across an obstacle that we won’t be able to move. However, if our trust is in God, we will be able to plant deep roots in the Living Water Jesus provides and we will yield an abundance of fruit for God’s kingdom, even in the most extreme circumstances. It’s a matter of orientation. The real question has to do with what our life is built on and our commitment to God.
Some years ago, a radio station invited people to call in and tell them the first thing they had said that morning when they awoke. The third caller would win a cash prize. One guy said, “Do I smell coffee burning?” Another one said, “Oh no, I’m late for work.” A woman confessed that her first words were, “Honey, did I remember to put the dog out last night?” and you could hear a muffled curse in the background and a man growling, “No, you didn’t.”
One morning, the station phone rang, and the perky DJ said, “Good morning, this is FM 106. You’re on the air. What was the first thing you said when you rolled out of bed this morning?” A voice with a Bronx accent replied, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The caller was reciting the Shema, the passage from Deuteronomy 6:4. The radio host didn’t know how to handle it. You see, he was looking for the junk and instead encountered a jewel. There was a moment of embarrassed silence, then the announcer said, “Sorry, wrong number,” and cut to a commercial.
How do we start our day? Is it with a moan about how difficult life is or with a prayer of thanksgiving that God has given us a new day? Whether we’re blessed or cursed is a matter of orientation. The real question has to do with our commitment to God. What we need is to orient our desires and values to be in alignment with God’s will and purpose for our lives. When we do, our foundation will be built on the solid rock that is Jesus who teaches us the true definition of what it is to be blessed.
Amen
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