Trusting for the New World
(Free Version) Readings for the 6th Sunday After Epiphany- Jeremiah 17:5-10; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26
Our readings this week challenge us to reflect on what it is that we trust. If you are wanting a deeper look at the readings each week, I encourage you to subscribe to one of our paid versions. In our “Deep Dive” subscription this week, we engage the work of Augustine, Justin Martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mary Chilton Callaway, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., N.T. Wright and more.
The prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 17:5-10) reminds us that mortal things will fail and trusting in them will only lead to disaster. What do we trust? Are we clinging on to our own own power, our own ability to overcome, to fix, to control? Do we trust primarily in our own ability to achieve whatever it is that we believe that we need to achieve?
To trust in mortal things is really idolatry, to put our life in the hands of things which do not ultimately satisfy. They are like shrubs in a desert where fruit is not possible. But everyday, this is subtly what we are taught to do. We trust ourselves. We trust our work. We trust money. The reason why we turn to substances, to co-dependent relationships, to unhealthy habits is because we are looking to something which does not satisfy.
Trusting in God does not lead to worldly happiness. Rather, it is process of being planted. Yet, in the times when the heat comes and drought approaches, we can trust that we will bear fruit that lasts.
Because God is good, we know that we can trust him to search our minds and hearts, to find the bad as well as the good. It stings to know that the broken, sinful corners of our heart have been “found out,” but this is always good news. Why? Because God is fully good and fully loving. Only as we trust in him (and not mortal things) can we be made whole.
In our Corinthians reading (1 Corinthians 15:12-20) Paul compels the church to trust in resurrection. Every people and generation are and will be tempted to leave it aside, to include Jesus as one of many good teachers who was on to something, but ultimately failed as he died a martyrs death. Every people group in every time and place will struggle with the reality of resurrection.
Yet, for Paul, if we do not have resurrection, we have nothing. If we actually believe that sin’s power has been broken, we have been forgiven, death no longer has the final word, it will change the way that we look at the world and at each other.
Jesus compels us to see a new world (Luke 6:17-26), which has been inaugurated in him. Jesus invites us into his dream which has unfolded and is unfolding before our eyes. When we step into this new world, we will no longer cozy up to corrupt systems. We will not try to “get mine,” and trample each other in the process. We will not let our bottom line or bank account balance or our Instagram likes define us. Instead, we will be drawn, like Jesus, to the marginalized as we see his face in them.
May we have faith in the Lord. May we have hope of resurrection. May we live in God’s new world of love.