Uprooting, Planting, and the Things that Remain
(Free Version) Readings for the 4th Sunday After Epiphany- Jeremiah 1:4-10; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30
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All of our readings this week are about good words that are hard to receive. Each reading reveals the ways that we say we want healing, liberation and redemption and yet we are often oriented in the opposite direction.
Our Jeremiah reading (Jeremiah 1:4-10) begins with God, the One who is before all things, the One who knows everything before it can be known. This God calls a prophet. Though Jeremiah cites his youth as a reason why he should not be able to speak the words of God, his youth does not disqualify him; for God always works in the midst of human weakness.
The words God gives for Jeremiah to speak will be difficult words for God’s people to hear. Jeremiah’s calling will be treacherous and lonely. There will be a lot of deconstructing: tearing down, destroying, and overthrowing. Yet, we are to remember that this is good news as it is only after the walls are torn down and the weeds are pulled that the work of building and planting can begin.
Our 1 Corinthians reading (1 Corinthians 13:1-13) will be familiar to many of us. This too is good news—the good news of God’s love. Yet, Paul’s argument for the centrality of God’s love is not as rosy as we often think. The reason Paul makes such a strong argument is because many in the church in Corinth (and many in our time and place) have turned to counterfeits for love. We often prefer gifting to love. Likewise, we prefer service to love. Both gifting and service are wonderful. Each are signs of God’s future world. But, without love, these signs are merely flapping in the wind. They do no good.
Gifting, service, and everything else for that matter, must be rooted in God’s love. Why? Because love (as revealed in Jesus) is the only really true thing. In God’s new world, the signs will become obsolete. There are only three things that will last into God’s new world: faith (allegiance to Jesus), hope (rooted anticipation), and love (God’s giving of God’s self). Faith and hope each point to love.
In our gospel reading (Luke 4:21-30), Jesus speaks good news which is not well-received. In Jesus, the calling of Israel is being fulfilled once and for all. Good news is being proclaimed to the poor, liberation to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind. As was promised to Abraham, this blessing will extend outside the boundaries of Israel. It is good news for the whole world. But it is not received as good news by the people of Jesus’ hometown. They drive him from the synagogue, from the town, and almost off a cliff.
Many of us would say that we want the kind of world which Jesus describes. We want good news for everyone. But so often our self-interest and prejudice gets in the way. Yes, we want good news, but we often want to limit it to ourselves. Often, we can get so entangled in our faulty identities, philosophies, and ideologies that, when the real good news comes, the “for everybody” good news, the only good news that is true all the way through, we react violently against it.
What is the good news? His love never fails.