February 15, 2004; The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C
The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector
As I read the passages from Jeremiah and Luke for this morning, I was overwhelmed by the sense of God and Jesus “giving hell” to certain people. When you put them all together it describes people who are confident, self-sufficient, have a good reputation, earn a decent living, have food on the table, and enjoy life. Perhaps the readings for this morning bothered me because these are the characteristics that describe me. Yet I don’t believe that I am cursed. What makes the difference?
The words that the LORD spoke in the time of Jeremiah were rather harsh. The message is that we are either cursed or we are blessed. There was no in between, there was no being partially blessed, that is blessed in one part of your life, like with good health, while living in poverty. Either we trust in God and live under his grace (the state of being blessed) or we do not trust in God, trusting rather in ourselves and the world in which we live.
The image of that scrawny shrub in the desert that does not survive really drives home what it means to be cursed. There is a sense of loneliness and despair as it faces each day under the scorching heat of the sun with its roots unable to find any water in the hard dry soil. It is unable to sustain itself very long, eventually dying and just disintegrating into nothing.
In stark contrast is the tree growing by the water which flourishes and bears fruit. Certainly as we would say, this tree is blessed. Its roots have grown deep and wide in the moist soil, it is able to withstand the scorching heat of the sun, and even though it might not survive a terrible storm or disease, the life that it has is much more enjoyable than that poor scrawny shrub in the desert.
The message from Jeremiah is fairly simple. There is a difference between being rooted in this world and the life that we presently have, which as we all know does come to an end and results in the molecular breakdown of our body to an organic state, and being rooted in God, enriched by his living waters and beneficiaries of his blessings.
Several years ago I was waiting for a parishioner who had had a stroke to finish his therapy at a local hospital so that I could visit with him. As I sat in the lounge just outside the therapy department I became involved in a discussion with several people about what determines how well people are able to recover form a crippling disease or accident. The group was made up of a middle aged man in a wheel chair, family members of several of the patients in the therapy program, and one of the therapists. We have all heard of stories about how faith makes a difference in how well people recover from an illness or accident, but it is something different to actually hear it from those people. Several of them talked about how the faith of their spouse or parent made a difference in their struggle to recover. The therapist talked about the difference that he had noticed in the patients he worked with and the fact that those whom he knew had faith did indeed recover better. He said that they entered therapy with a more positive attitude and outlook on life, even when they would have to live for the rest of their lives with a handicap. But I was far more interested in the man in the wheelchair as he described, that without faith in Jesus Christ, he would have given up some time ago. During the times when he had lost hope of ever walking again, he was able to draw upon his faith not only to sustain him, but to help lift him up out of his depression.
“I am blessed.” “Woe is me.” Such different perspectives on what happens to us in life. What makes the difference? It is easy to say, if you have faith in God it will make all of the difference, yet we all know that sickness and tragedy can happen to us, Christians, just as easily as it can to anybody else. And we can slip into the pits of despair and hopelessness just as easily as those who do not believe in God. So we are not exempt from the trials and tribulations of life. And we do not have all the answers, like why is this happening to me. The one answer we do have though is that it is not God who is dispensing curses upon us. Curses, if you will, occur when we turn away from God, separating ourselves from his love and caring for us.
This is what happened to Judas when he betrayed Jesus. He turned away, rejecting God’s Son, and brought a curse upon himself. While Judas is an extreme example, it does illustrate what can happen when we abandon God. We become like that scrawny shrub, unable to thrive when the heat is on, unable to find fulfillment and a sense of purpose, and unable to true find happiness. I say this because there is only so much that we can do to control what happens to us. When our faith in is ourselves and the things that we have accumulated in life, we have no other source to draw strength from when we fail.
The readings this morning challenge all who hear them to ask the question. Do we really need God? Jesus talked about those who were poor, hungry, weeping, hated, excluded, and reviled – being blessed by God. Why did he say that? Because they are the people who desperately need God. They have no other hope. They have no power to change what is happening to them. It is only through the outstretched hand of Jesus that they have any hope of being lifted up and accepted.
Blessing and curse, blessing and woes. The readings from Jeremiah and Luke this morning do not necessarily cast off as hopeless those who are confident, self-sufficient, have a good reputation, earn a decent living or are rich, and enjoy life. However if these things hinder or keep us from a intimate relationship with God through Jesus Christ then they are a curse upon us.
May we turn are hearts to God, putting our faith and trust in him, who sustains use with living water in this life, so that we may be raised with Christ from the dead and inhabit God’s eternal kingdom.