Out of Season

Sermons in Ordinary Time

Luke Timothy Johnson

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781666719918, 9781666719925
• eBook ISBN: 9781666719932
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

A selection of homilies and sermons preached in "Ordinary Time" that focus on the texts of the lectionary and the demands of Christian life. Some are short talks delivered in the context of the monastery, some are sermons delivered to students of theology, some are presentations to congregations scattered across the US, and some are sermons preached at ritual moments of transition.

SERMONS TO SCATTERED ASSEMBLIES

GOD IS AN OPEN QUESTION25

Exodus 17:8–13

Second Timothy 3:14–17

Luke 18:1–8

My brothers and sisters in Christ, we come here week after week when our friends are asleep or reading the Sunday paper. We don’t come expecting to be distracted or entertained. We come because we expect to hear a word different from our own.

We are all too familiar with our own words. They fill our heads and spill out of our mouths and make walls of noise around our fear of silence. That’s our word. We know it. We expect no life from it.

No, we come together to hear God’s word.

We do this because we are well aware of how broken and piecemeal our own lives and language are.

Most of the time we really don’t know what we are doing. We’re happy to find we are still putting one foot in front of another.

We may suspect that there is some meaning to all the odd and random moments of our days and weeks and all-too-short years. We have heard there is some meaning to it all, but we can’t get at it with our own words. Our speech is too muddled and confused. Our lives are too split and broken.

So, we come here, even on a gray and drizzly morning like this one, when it would seem better to stay in bed or toast our feet at a fire. We come to hear a word which will shape our own speech, to find a pattern to the everyday madness of our lives, to allow ourselves for a moment to be silent and listen, expecting—what?

We expect first of all what we hear in this reading from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy, that because this word is inspired by God it will be for us, as it was for Timothy, profitable; it will train us in righteousness, complete us, equip us for every good work. We expect from this word our “instruction in salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.”

In short, we expect from the word we hear more than our own words can supply; we expect a meaning to our madness, a strength to support our weakness, an answer to our questions.

With such high expectations, we cannot but be disappointed at times like today when the word of Scripture seems as confused as our own. We listen attentively. We do not hear a smooth and satisfying answer to our questions but a larger question in return, perhaps a hard question, perhaps one we do not want to hear.

We start off well enough in the first reading from Exodus. It presents a stirring assurance. Moses holds aloft the staff and—we understand—commands God’s presence among the troops of the Israelites against the Midianites. So long as Moses’ arms hold up, the Lord fights for Israel. This, we think, is how religion should work. This, we imagine, is how prayer should operate. How straightforward. How rewarding. How much like what we want God to be. How much, in fact, like our own word does this word seem.

And therefore, perhaps, a bit suspicious. Have we met a Moses lately? Do we have such a staff? Do our arms reach into heaven and command the Lord’s assistance, so that all the many enemies we fight every day (our sloth, deadly boredom, envy, pain, fear, and confusion)—do these flee from us because the mighty warrior, the Lord, is on our side? Perhaps for you. Not for me.

So, I hear this word from long ago, this tale of Moses and the staff, as a lesson for my instruction. It tells me: God is real and powerful to help. God does respond to prayer.

But I cannot hear it completely, for I am no Moses, have no staff and sometimes not even a prayer. And so I doubt: is God real in the way the story says? Is this really how faith works? If I don’t have a magic stick, if my arms don’t shake the clouds and make them rain prosperity and peace for those I love, is this because I lack faith or because God lacks faithfulness? Is God’s word here a deceiving word? Or am I a self-deceiving hearer?

With some sense of relief, then, we turn to Jesus’ parable in Luke 18:1–8. Doesn’t Jesus speak clearly in these stories of his about the nature of God’s kingdom? Are not his words healing? Do they not cut through the fictions and fantasies of the old dispensation and state with calm authority the will of his Father?

Such is our expectation, and indeed, the evangelist introduces the parable with this helpful note: “He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” Surely, then, we will now hear a validation for prayer that comes closer to our own experience than Moses on the mountain and the slaughtered hordes below.

What does Jesus teach us about the rewards of constant prayer? He tells us a rather odd story about a widow and a judge. We recognize the situation: poor old woman, uncaring bureaucrat. Familiar territory to anyone who has met a magistrate or dealt with the DMV. How does the story run? The bureaucrat attends to the woman’s lawsuit even though he is not in the least interested, because she wears him down.

Wait a minute! Let’s parse the story: if we are to understand the poor widow as us, then the unjust judge must be God. Is this what we want to learn about God? Is this the same God Jesus told us about, before whom no flowers die, and no sparrows fall to earth, and no hairs grow, without his care? Is God, then, a mean old magistrate who has to be irritated into a response?

Maybe. But the point is not whether he cares. Jesus tells us, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says.” He will vindicate. The story does not tell us how. The story does not tell us whether it was done gently. The story does not tell us the widow was vindicated in exactly the way she wanted. Only that it was done. God does respond to prayer.

But here precisely is the problem. It is God who responds to prayer. Irritating God into a response means that we have opened ourselves to the One about whom the Letter to the Hebrews remarks, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31).

We do not possess a marvelous wand with which to control events. Prayer is not magic. God is not a vending machine. When we ask him to enter our lives, God might—no, probably will—come in and kick down the walls, scattering the neatly arranged furniture of our own ideas and plans, even our idea of who God is, even our plan of how to love him. God is like the man from the appliance store who busts down our door with an oversized refrigerator and says, “You the one who wanted this vindication delivered?”

That is why Jesus concludes with a question: “Will the Son of Man find faith on earth?” It is an open question, one that each of us must answer in our lives. Jesus knew, I think, that we would much rather have a God whom we could control by our prayers, like Moses with his magic staff. We would ask, God would give—in the manner and measure of our request: we want that burger with the works, but skip the mayo. But Jesus tells us, God is not like that. If you truly want a living God, you must get used to dealing with a God who answers in his own way, who seeks only to vindicate you, not to please and delight you at the same time.

Maybe this is why we don’t pray with faith. Maybe we don’t keep kicking at God’s door because we have learned Jesus’ lesson. God might awake, rise with his mighty arm, and vindicate his elect, and speedily. But we may not really want it on his terms.

So, we leave these words this morning not with an answer but a question, a hard question put to our lives. But then, we have grown used to that.

25. First Presbyterian Church, Bedford, Indiana, 1983.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND POLITICAL CHOICES26

Isaiah 25:1–10

Matthew 22:1–14

My sisters and brothers in Christ, the presidential campaign swirling around us has challenged those calling themselves Christians to reconsider some difficult questions. This campaign has focused to perhaps an unprecedented degree on the personal religious beliefs of the candidates and how they might translate their convictions into public policy across a spectrum of social issues, the most notorious being abortion, disarmament, school prayer, and social welfare programs.

During debates over these issues, various statements have been made concerning the relationship between religion and public morality. And it is certainly appropriate for us to ask: What is the connection between one’s Christian commitment and one’s attitude toward social structures and programs? Or, to use much more traditional language, what is the relationship between the kingdom of God and the social order? This is a perennial problem, which must be resolved again and again, always provisionally, by every generation.

Thinking it through is not made any easier by the simplistic and one-sided answers given by the politicians themselves.

From one side, we are informed that the kingdom of God is all about care and compassion for the weak ones in our society. Certainly—inarguably—that is an element in God’s rule. But when such dispositions toward the weak are identified with specific governmental programs, one rightly hesitates.

From the other side, similarly, we hear the confident assertion that the kingdom of God consists in keeping traditional moral codes and in recognizing God’s claim over individual lives. This too is surely right. But do such convictions translate immediately into legislative programs banning abortion or mandating prayer in public schools?

The political climate, in short, is far more conducive to spouting slogans than to careful thinking. It is an atmosphere which encourages the reduction of God’s rule to an ideology. In such an atmosphere, it is harder, but also the more necessary, for Christians to give hard and deliberate thought to this critical issue of the relationship between the kingdom of God and the social order.

Following our natural Christian inclination, we turn to the Scriptures for guidance, but we find little that is helpful in any obvious way. The main reason is simple enough. The New Testament writings simply do not add...

Table of contents

• TITLE PAGE
• INTRODUCTION
• MONASTIC HOMILIES
• SERMONS FOR SEMINARIANS
• SERMONS TO SCATTERED ASSEMBLIES
• WORDS AT RITUAL MOMENTS