Jeremiah 23: 1 – 6 / Psalm 23 / Ephesians 2: 11 – 22 / Mark 6: 24 – 30, 36 - 43
This is the homily given at St. James Lutheran Church (ELCA), York, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 21, 2024 by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“SHEPHERDING”
(Homily
texts: Jeremiah 23:1 – 6 & Mark 6:24 – 30, 36 - 43)
Some
years ago, there was a wonderful movie series called “Back to the Future”. The
premise of the three movies in the series was that an eccentric inventor
(played by Christopher Lloyd) had invented a time travel machine. His young
acquaintance (played by Michal J. Fox) was the one who often made use of the
invention, traveling back in time to various places, and also traveling
forward.
If
we could make use of such a time travel machine, what would we discover about
daily life in the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry? What would we discover about
people’s daily existence? What would we discover about their walk with God in
that time, 2,000 years ago?
Our
findings might surprise us a bit. Some of
the information we might glean might shock us. Although we don’t know
all the details of life in the Holy Land, then under Roman occupation, we can
glean quite a lot of information.
Let’s
begin then, with people’s daily lives.
One
thing that is sure to strike us is that, for most ordinary people, life – each
and every day – was a struggle. Food supplies were dependent on the results of
the crops and their yields. So what we call “food insecurity” today was
probably a fairly common situation. For another, Roman taxes were high, and the
graft and corruption that the Romans tolerated in the collection of taxes made
the situation worse. (Think of the account of the chief tax collector,
Zacchaeus, in Luke 19:1 – 10). Life was short, perhaps 35 to 40 years at best
for most people. Death was common, and medical care was next to nonexistent.
(Consider the story of the women who had suffered from internal bleeding for
twelve years – an account we heard a couple of week ago – as proof of the lack
of cures for various conditions.)[1] There were few occasions for celebrations…weddings would have been an
exception, for marriages carried with them the possibility that a new
generation would come into being.
And
what of people’s walk with God, their faith life and practice?
Here,
too, some attitudes and practices would strike us as being strange. Some might
shock us.
A
chief concern in people’s relationship with God was the question of who was
clean, and who was unclean. This concern encompassed people’s physical health,
as well as their behaviors. For example, if a person had a bleeding wound or
condition (as the woman who had suffered from internal bleeding for twelve
years, cited above), they would not have been able to come to the Temple in
Jerusalem to perform the appointed rites and sacrifices that the Law of Moses
required. They were outsiders, excluded from the congregation of the faithful.
At the Temple, priests would station themselves by the doors to screen out
those who could not come in. The list was long: Those with limps, those with
skin conditions and diseases (can you imagine what would happen if I stationed
myself by the door this morning, asking if those who entered if they had any
bleeding wounds, or assistance in walking, or a skin rash?) The motivation for
allowing only the most-healthy was to present – in God’s presence – only the
best and the most perfect.
But
the attitude of the spiritual leaders of the people (the priests, the scribes
and the Pharisees) only added to the burdens on the people. These leaders were
proud of their status in the scheme of things, proud to walk through the
marketplaces in their long robes, proud of the broad fringes on their prayer
shawls, proud to be greeted by their titles. They looked down on this itinerant
preacher Jesus, because He hung around with unclean people (tax collectors and
others), and He touched unclean, unhealthy people (thereby making Himself also
unclean and unhealthy). One gets the impression that these leaders believed
that God didn’t have soap strong enough to clean up these outcasts. And, they
felt sure, God didn’t have enough soap to clean up this person Jesus.
Moreover,
the prevailing attitudes were that if a person was sickly, or was poor, it was
due to God’s judgment for some unseen violation of God’s laws. Conversely, if a
person was healthy or wealthy, or both, the belief was that that person must be
the recipient of God’s favor and goodness, a direct result of that person’s
faithful observance of the Law of Moses’ requirements.
If
we think about it, this situation is an awful imbalance in what God’s people
had received in their own Holy Scriptures. For there, we read about God’s
holiness, God’s righteousness, God’s hatred of sin and wrongdoing. Bur we also
read about God’s merciful nature, God’s willingness to forgive, God’s desire to
love.
It’s
as if God’s people, led by the attitudes of their leadership, had focused on
one of God’s natures, God’s holiness and righteousness, but they forgot about –
or neglected - God’s merciful, loving and forgiving nature.
No
wonder, then, that Jesus laments that the people are like “sheep without a
shepherd”, for their leadership failed to care for – and to educate the people
in their care – about God’s dual natures. They were using one of God’s natures
to suppress and to oppress God’s people.
Alas,
this abandonment of duty by the leaders in Jesus’ time wasn’t the first time
that God’s people had been so poorly led or cared for. The prophet Jeremiah,
working some six centuries before Jesus’ birth, had to deal with similar
problems.
Down
through time, keeping a good balance between God’s merciful and loving nature,
and God’s holy and righteous nature, has been a challenge. It was a challenge
in Jesus’ day, and it’s been a challenge for the Church, as well.
Consider
that, in the second century, a person named Marcion claimed that God simply
wanted to give His people good things. God was – in Marcion’s estimation – a
great, big Sugar Daddy.[2] Marcion rejected all of the ideas that God was a holy God who demanded holiness
of the people who claimed His name. In
time, the Church would reject Marcion’s ideas as being heretical.
Fast forward, now, to the time of the Reformation
in the sixteenth century.
Here, we find the Church emphasizing God’s
judgment. An individual named Tetzel went around Germany, portraying the
torments of hell and God’s eternal judgment on unrepentant sinners. In graphic
fashion. “Buy indulgences”, Tetzel proclaimed, “and your relatives will be
spared the torments of hell and God’s judgment”.
Of course, Martin Luther and other Reformers
recognized an imbalance in this understanding of God, and they worked against
it. Their legacy is a gift to Christians everywhere, the understanding that God
is a holy and righteous God, but also a loving and merciful one.
As a result of Martin Luther’s struggle to accept
the reality that God can forgive, because God wants to forgive those who are
forthright in admitting their shortcomings, the understanding that Law and
Grace is a wonderful way to understand God’s essential nature. Such a
proclamation has been a wonderful gift from Lutherans to Christianity as a
whole and to the whole world.
What are we – as followers of Jesus Christ – to do
with the challenge of maintaining a proper balance in our understanding of
God’s dual natures? How might we proclaim to the watching world that the God
who loves us is also a holy and righteous God, a God who demands that those who
claim His Name are to strive for holiness themselves?
For one thing, it’s best to introduce people to God
and God to people by emphasizing that God’s nature is one of love. To do so
means that we will adopt Jesus’ approach as He dealt with the “unclean” people
of His day.
For another, we shouldn’t neglect the fact that God
wants to bring each and every one of us into a holy, upright and godly life.
The Holy Spirit’s role here in critical. The Church’s task is to create the
conditions where this can occur. Transformation into the image of God’s
righteousness and holiness might, for some, be a lengthy process. We should be
ready for the long haul.
Finally, we must realize that God’s desires for us
mean that not everything is permissible, not every belief or behavior is
acceptable, not every idea is holy or noble. There are limits that God sets for
His people to follow.
So, come Holy Spirit, assist us as we strive to
proclaim God’s nature with accuracy and with humility.
AMEN.
[1] Mark 5:24 - 34
[2] Marcion also rejected most of the Scriptures of the New Testament, all those except some of St. Paul’s letters and a portion of Luke’s gospel account. He accepted only those things that he approved of.
