Embracing Uselessness
(Free Version) Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost- Lamentations 1:1-6; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10
Find this week’s readings here. This week, in our “Deep Dive,” we engage the work of N.T. Wright, Glenn Packiam, Esau McCaulley, Dante Stewart, Stanley Hauerwas, Augustine, Robert Farrar Capon, Lesslie Newbigin, and others. We look at more background on the texts as well as the importance of Lamenting, the power of shame, and embracing our uselessness.
Each of our readings today point to the source of our trust and the necessity of trusting God with places of weakness and pain. In Lamentations, the city has been destroyed and hope seems nowhere to be found. Timothy seems to struggle with fear and shame, while Paul encourages him, all the while dealing with his own position of cultural shame. Jesus tells his disciples that they do not need to worry about how much faith they have, but that they have it, that their focus is on God, rather than themselves.
The book of Lamentations is just that, a cry of lament. Our reading (Lamentations 1:1-6) begins by setting out the parameters for the book: Jerusalem and her temple have been destroyed, her people have been taken into exile; her friends deserted her for which her enemies mocked her. Their identity as God’s people is called into question. Lament is such an important Christian practice as we name our pain before God. The beautiful reality is that God enters our pain with us, and he too is the great Lamenter. Hope comes not in avoiding such expressions, but through them.
Paul reminds Timothy (2 Timothy 1:1-14) of his story and also of the spirit which God has given him. He does not need to be afraid for God has given him a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. He is to guard himself against shame, an obstacle which it seems Paul too may be facing as he writes from a defeated place—Roman prison. It is God who saved, and he did so through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This will always look to the world like failure and will tempt us toward being ashamed. But the gospel leads to an upside-down kind of life. Paul says that he suffers because of the good news. God has done away with death, the final tool in shame’s toolbox. Therefore, we do not need to fear death nor shame.
In our gospel reading (Luke 17:5-10), the disciples have just been told by Jesus to forgive sins repeatedly (vs. 3-4). They rightly acknowledge that this will require more of them than they have. So, they ask for more faith. But, Jesus shows, this is the wrong request. They do not need more faith. They simply need to know the source of their faith. It is God who can accomplish great things, including giving us what we need to forgive. In the story of the slave and the master, Jesus shows that we cannot earn our way to God’s table by good works. Those are simple matters of obedience and God is not dependent on us for anything. The way of the kingdom requires that we embrace our own “uselessness,” our dependence on God. Elsewhere we see that Jesus breaks the roles of slave and master altogether; and, when he returns, he chooses to serve those who wait for him (12:37).