Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 16
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
Sometimes peer pressure is a good thing.
Take for example, the Giving Pledge, a campaign to get billionaires to give away most of their wealth. It began when Bill Gates and Warren Buffet made the pledge, and began recruiting fellow billionaires.
And you could say their effort is a runaway success. Since 2010, the group has expanded to 139 people pledging $365 billion. Some of the names are very familiar—Elon Musk of Tesla, Michael Bloomberg who famously called you-know-who a conman while speaking to Democrats—and some of the names may be unfamiliar, like Sara Blakely, who made her fortune selling something called "shapewear." I’m not sure what that is.
Ironically, one person not on the list is JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame, who skipped the pledge but is also the first person to lose her billionaire status because she’s given away so much of her fortune. Mirroring her own story, she supports charities focused on single parents including education, employment help and childcare.
Just now, if you’re wondering if this is part of our Focus on Giving, some kind of subliminal stewardship message, it’s not. I think it speaks to the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, part of St. Luke’s middle section on money—but if you hear ‘time to give away my billions,’ so be it.
Before we look at the parable, though, we should review the rather mixed picture of rich people in the Gospels. Some, like Lydia, are presented in the best possible light. She is a wealthy merchant, and she opened her heart and home to Paul and his message, and in doing so became the first European convert to Christianity.
Others, like Simon the Magician, are presented less favorably. Simon is so impressed with the work of the disciples and their healing ministry that he offers to buy the Holy Spirit, never a good idea. Even now, whenever someone tries to purchase favour or status in the church, we call it Simony.
And we shouldn’t forget perhaps the second most famous person, the unnamed Rich Young Ruler, who appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke asking what he must do to achieve life eternal. Jesus, of course, lists some commandments, then personalized the message to say “sell all you have and give it to the poor.” The rich young ruler leaves very unhappy, and Jesus then makes his most notable statement regarding wealth: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
It seems rather definitive, without a lot of wiggle room, this so-called “hard saying’ of Jesus. Like cutting off the hand that causes you to sin, this is one of those over-the-top sayings that has prompted people to think twice about the accumulation of wealth. Modern philanthropy seems to begin around the time of the Industrial Revolution, the moment when terrible poverty and remarkable new wealth enter the popular realm. I think we can suppose that at least some of these new rich were thinking about the eye-of-the-needle and the problem of their salvation.
So we have a newly-defined problem—the rich and their salvation—and we have have another parable from Jesus. And this one is unique. First of all, Jesus doesn’t tend to name the characters in his parables—he wants them to be more general, like he could be talking about anyone. So there’s that.
Second, the pattern we’ve be talking about in parables takes a strange turn here. Recall that parables create a world, that sours, then is resolved in some way to illustrate some truth about the Kingdom. Well, the Rich Man and Lazarus takes another approach, which we’ll look at in a moment. And third, Luke creates the most seamless ‘explanatory ending’ for this parable, which I’m going to ask you to ignore.
But first, the parable begins in perhaps the most visceral style to date:
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
Hard to imagine how such a fictive universe could sour, but Jesus finds a way:
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried.
Okay, so we’re four verses in, and Jesus has already killed off everyone in the parable. I think we can say it soured. But then it sours some more:
23 In Hades, where the rich man was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
I wonder how they handle this in a children’s Bible? No time to ponder, because we’re moving on!
25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
If you’re looking for the good news in this parable, it’s time to send out a search party. Get some sniffer dogs too, and maybe a psychic, because it will take everything we’ve got to find some grace in this story. It seems like this is just a longer version of the eye-of-the-needle lesson, and you’re already thinking Monday I should call my banker. So where is the grace, the Kingdom lesson that will take us home?
Before we get there—thanks to a group of scholar’s called the Jesus Seminar—we should take a look at Luke’s seemingly seamless ending. If you read on in Luke 16 you will see that the story has a further ending, that goes from worse to worse.
The rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth, to warn the rich man’s brothers about Hades, and allow them to mend their ways. Abraham refuses, and in refusing, we hear a not-so-hidden message from Luke:
29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
What Luke is describing is the tension between the early church and the continuing synagogue, a reality long after Jesus’ death. So Luke takes the liberty to take a swipe at the Jews who opted to remain Jewish, an anti-Judaic theme that persists to this day. So we can set aside the unhelpful ending.
Back to the Jesus Seminar, wanting to help preachers struggling under the weight of going from bad to worse to worster still, we get this suggestion. The rich man isn’t in Hades because he’s rich—he’s in Hades because he’s indifferent. Look at the relieved looks out there!
Poor Lazarus, waiting for even a crumb from the rich man’s table, is the victim of indifference, starving to death right at the rich man’s front door. Having to literally step over poor Lazarus to leave his house is the great sin, not having the well-appointed doorway in the first place.
So think of it as the amendment to the amendment, those who love going to church meetings. Jesus hears the rich young ruler describe all he has done to keep the law, them amends this to say ‘yes, but you need to sell all you have and give it to the poor.’ He’s the camel to a very small needle. Then Jesus gives us the amendment to the amendment, saying ignore that most engaging metaphor about camels and needles and avoid indifference, the real sin among the rich.
So where are we in all this? Well, we’re a reasonably prosperous church. We hold all sorts of money for other people, making us look like the rich man with so many Lazarus’ at our door. And rather than give in to the temptation of indifference, we opened our doors. Twenty years of Tuesday night dinners, and now a full drop-in, and then a second location, says to me that we’ve overcome the temptation to be indifferent in the face of poverty.
Could be do better? Yes. Is our effort flawless? No. But we can’t be called indifferent—which sadly has become of the most common sins of our time.
And so we pray for an end to indifference. We pray that those who have a lot and those that have a little will see the need around them, and do what they can. We pray that they will discover the joy that comes with giving, now and always, Amen.
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 16
Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’
3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’
5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
6 “‘Nine hundred gallons[a] of olive oil,’ he replied.
“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’
7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’
“‘A thousand bushels[b] of wheat,’ he replied.
“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’
8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.
Why is Jesus always talking about money?
Well, I suppose, it’s something we can all relate to: too much or too little, we all think about money. And Jesus tends to stick to topics that his audience can understand: farming, fishing, finance. And of course, money defines our relationship with many of the people around us, from the kid who shovels the drive to the bank that was foolish enough to give us a Visa card.
So here in the heart of Luke’s gospel, we find money. Last week it was the lost sheep (worth money), the lost coin (actual money) and the lost son who had a knack for squandering money. And here we are a chapter later, and we meet the “dishonest manager” in the parable of the same name. Who is this guy?
Before we answer that question, it might be the moment to recall how parables work, and what they do. Generally, parables happen in three movements: they create a world, which sours, and is then resolved in a surprizing way. Often the resolution is meant to make us uncomfortable, or at least disrupt our usual reaction, and in doing so illustrate some aspect of God’s realm.
So parables are about the Kingdom, and this surprizing God we worship, and the extent to which we can think in worldly ways when there are higher ways waiting to be revealed—in this case, through parables. And last week may have given us the very best example: listening to the older brother you think, ‘wow, this guy has a point,’ until we’re reminded that God has other ideas about forgiveness and reconciliation—and higher ways are revealed. So, who is this guy?
You might say this is the rare parable where the world is sour from the beginning: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.” The man is confronted, asked for an accounting of his management, and given notice. But this is where it gets interesting. We get an glimpse into the interior thoughts of our manager:
‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg—I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’
So maybe this the world that sours: the manager that won’t go quietly, or won’t just provide an accounting and move on. The manager has a plan, one that might mean some sort of future in the town.
The cleverness that follows—900 becomes 450 and 1,000 becomes 800—actually belongs to a whole subset of finance, but the end result is a very strange blessing: “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.”
I’m going to let that awkward ending just hang there for a moment while I share everything Wikipedia taught me this morning about write-offs, charge-offs, bad debt, strategic default, and debt restructuring. Actually, we don’t have time, except to say that there is nothing unusual about what transpired between the manager and the debtors. If a debt is considered uncollectible it’s written-off, recorded as an expense, and (these days) allowable as a tax deduction. Everybody wins!
Now just before I go back to the strange blessing—the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly—I want to point out the little “A” in your bulletin. Rather than read all of what is typically included in the Parable of the Dishonest Manager, I decided to simplify things by refining the ‘cut’ of the passage. Those reading in your pew Bibles will have noticed that Luke tries four ways to make sense of this parable, evidence enough that he should have quit while he was ahead. He suggests the meaning may be:
Worldly people are more shrew that we are.
Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself.
Whoever can be trusted with little can be trusted with larger amounts.
No one can serve two masters—you cannot serve God and mammon.
The last one is quite true. And it likely deserves it’s own parable, or it’s own chapter even. But it’s not really the point of the parable. I have no doubt that Jesus said it—likely over and over—but the dishonest manager is not a God and mammon story, since he gets a blessing for being shrewd with mammon. So we keep looking.
We keep looking and I think we find that the clues are in the telling, which makes sense, since parables are puzzles, and Jesus loves puzzles.
And while we’re looking, it might be time for little Greek. So a clue, hiding in the first verse: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.” The verb for wasting (διασκορπίζων) is the same verb we had last week translated as ‘squandered.’ So the manager is doing the very same thing the lost son was doing last week, squandering his master’s money—maybe too many office parties or three-martini lunches. Whatever it was, it creates a link to that earlier squanderer.
So having made the link to that other squanderer, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is ‘what kind of pass with this guy get?’ or ‘how will he be forgiven, since the last squanderer just got the fatted calf.’ Maybe the parable is meant to begin with the expectation of grace, and the souring is the realization that he just might get what he deserves.
In other words, this is really the parable of the lost son, part two. Even as Jesus begins, we think ‘wait, I know this guy.’ He’s the lost son, maybe a few years later, doing the very same things: squandering someone else’s fortune, plotting a way back, inviting our condemnation, and getting grace he doesn’t deserve.
This time it’s not a young man off in the world wasting his father’s money, it’s a more mature wastrel, managing a business this time, but clearly up to the same kind of tricks. And as the story unfolds, we are cast as the older brothers, watching these financial machinations take place and assuming it will come to no good.
We’re the one’s this time who scratch our heads at this guy’s moxie, seeing a situation that seems to be going from bad-to-worse, more money disappearing, more money squandered, and in the end we get this: “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” God does it again, drawing us in, feeding us with a bit of righteous indignation, then forgiving the underserving just to make a point.
Just to bring us back to today, I want to share a modern parable, this time with John Oliver in the role of the dishonest manager. Oliver used to be on The Daily Show and now host his own show, cleverly called Last Week Tonight. Oliver is a Brit in America, and has the wonderful ability to point out what’s absurd about the US without getting deported—so far.
Earlier this year he highlighted the cost of healthcare in the US, particularly the medical debt that people carry after an illness—debt that can take years to pay off. So he created a fake company, and “bought” some bad debt from a large financial institution, the kind of institution that deals in debt to give other large corporations tax breaks. Typically the people who buy this bad debt will then do everything they can to collect, assuming the risk and then strong-arming the people in debt.
For $60,000, John Oliver’s fake company bought $15,000,000 worth of medical debt, and then forgave it. Just forgave it. He wanted to highlight the scandal of a healthcare system that lands countless people in debt, and did it in the shrewdest way possible. Through forgiveness. And maybe he wanted to confront the older brothers who say “a debt is a debt, it doesn’t matter how it came about. Either way, there is nothing quite as shocking as forgiveness, and it can change everything.
May God continue to shock with forgiveness, now and always, Amen.
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 15
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
If you see a coin on the ground, do you stop to pick it up?
Or do you discriminate, stooping only to get the higher change, quarters and up? I guess it depends on your circumstances, your willingness to roll change, or just the state of your back. Ponder that as I take you back in time to 2007, in lovely Watertown, NY.
We have a common road trip saying, which goes some like this: “Remind me to fill up with some that that cheap Yankee gas.” Then later: “Better stop soon, if you want some of that cheap Yankee gas.” And so it goes.
On this particular day, filling the car with cheap Yankee gas, I look down and notice that I’m surrounded by loose change. It’s all over the ground, and no one seems to be stooping to pick it up. I continue to fill up with that cheap Yankee gas.
Heading in to pay, a guy is just leaving the store and casts his change on the ground. Okay, this is strange. As I pay for my cheap Yankee gas I ask the clerk: “There seems to be a lot of change on the ground out there. Is that normal? Do you pick it up?”
“Oh yeah,” he says, “at the end of every shift—we do okay.”
Back in the car I said “something strange is happening. Not sure what, but something strange.”
Now remember the date—2007. Months before the sub-prime crisis, the housing bubble, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, European contagion, the global financial crisis, the sovereign-debt crisis, and everything else that falls under the name ‘the Great Recession.’ Coins strewn on the ground. People literally throwing their money away.
Let’s call it the Parable of the Tossed Coin. Or the Parable of the Careless Consumer. Or the Parable on the Brink of Disaster. Whatever we call it, it’s the polar opposite of the Parable of the Lost Coin.
The Lost Coin. The Lost Coin is actually part of the trilogy of parables—Lost Sheep, Lost Coin and Lost Son. What we most often refer to as the Prodigal Son is also known as the Parable of the Lost Son, just to complete the set. So Luke 15 is about seeking the lost. One chapter, three units, one theme.
As usual, the scene is set by grumblers. “This man,” the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law say, “welcomes sinners and eats with them.” This is all the invitation Jesus needs. Believing that nothing defeats the grumblers like a good parable, he gives them three.
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.” Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the open country and search until the find that little lost sheep? And finding it, would you put that sheep over your shoulders and carry it home, asking others to rejoice with you? Then the moral:
“I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
Then the lost coin, lighting a lamp, sweeping the house, calling others to rejoice, then the moral:
“In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
It’s all rather easy, parable-moral-repeat. Except the Lost Son has no moral, and that should be a clue. You will recall the idea of scribal enthusiasm, or scribal exuberance, that led editors and scribes to tack a moral on to the end of various parables and stories, seemingly to enlighten the reader or ensure that we take just the right meaning away. Scholars will tell you to be wary of morals and tidy endings, and look again. So we look again.
The Lost Son has no moral, only a good story as God intended—literally. The lost son asks his father for his inheritance in advance, half the family farm, and (as the King James says) “wasted his substance with riotous living.” Well, riotous living leaves him broke, and the first and most pressing clue is the urge to eat the pigs food, as he is reduced to real labour. He resolves to head home and seek his father’s forgiveness. If he has to be a farm hand, he thinks, he might was well do it at home.
And this, of course, leads to that famous scene, again best recorded in the KJV: “Bring hither the fatted calf,” the father says, “and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.”
And in this parable-without-a-moral we get the older brother’s response, in my opinion, one of the most emotionally honest passages in scripture (and he also provides the definition for riotous living):
‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
But the father is unrepentant in his desire to forgive: “But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
No moral, only forgiveness that defies all reason. So let’s go back to the first two “lost” parables and do a little Q&A. Imagine you are in the audience as Jesus shares these parables for the first time and imagine your response.
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.”
“Okay.”
“Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”
“No, because that sounds careless, Jesus. That make no sense at all from a risk-management perspective.”
“And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home.”
“Ah, no. Sheep stink—even first century people knew that.”
“Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’
“Again, Jesus, no. That would make me look like an idiot, wearing a sheep as a shawl and bragging about neglecting 99% or my flock.”
I think you get the picture in parable one. How about parable two?
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?
“Maybe, if the rent’s due, or she’s a neat freak.”
“And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’
“Again, no. One, friends likely don’t care, or they will label her careless or even boastful—‘hey, look at me, ten coins.’”
So while it is certainly true that there is more joy in heaven over finding the lost—especially compared to ninety-nine percent of religious people who frequently forget they need to repent—the lost parables seem to about something else altogether.
The lost parables are all about what’s reasonable. What would you do in these situations? In law they talk about the reasonable person, or the reasonable third person—what would they do? Apparently the Brits say “The man on the Clapham omnibus.” Don’t ask me why.
Answering all those questions, the most common answer is ‘no’—I won’t leave ninety-nine valuable animals for the careless one, I won’t lose sleep over one lousy coin, I won’t embrace the kid who just squandered half my net worth. For most of us, except these sainted parable dwellers, the answer is no, no, no.
But remember, the father is unrepentant in his desire to forgive. And there’s no moral here, only forgiveness that defies all reason. No reasonable person, not even the man on the Clapham omnibus would be so foolish as to ignore logic, and reason—and the justified anger of everyone on that farm—to redeem the lost. Only God.
There are actually two ‘lost son’ stories, the one in this chapter and the one at the end of the story.
Then he told them this parable: “Suppose each of you has disavowed me (it’s the sensible thing to do) having answered ‘no’ to they question ‘do you know him.’ And suppose I was lifted high on a tree—becoming obedient unto death—even death on a cross. And suppose that just before the moment all was lost—I was lost—I had the opportunity to speak, to say the words that would define me. What would I say?
Forgive them.
May we love the God who is unreasonably forgiving, seeking the lost, saving, redeeming at measureless cost. Amen.
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 18
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
11 “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’
Sometimes things can only go from bad to worse.
Take, for example, the great fire of London. Today is the 350th anniversary of what is considered the worse day of the four-day disaster, the day that saw the destruction of Old St. Paul’s, and the day the fire escaped the “The City” as the walled section is called, and moved further west beyond the River Fleet.
The fire started two days earlier, on Pudding Lane, not far from London Bridge. It began in a bakery, likely the result of an untended fire. And following our theme of bad-to-worse, the fire spread quickly. It had been a dry summer, and as neighbouring houses caught fire, parish constables determined that a firebreak would be needed to save the surrounding area.
The Lord Mayor was summoned, and as the only one with the authority to demolish houses in an emergency, the way forward seemed obvious. Until, that is, various householders objected. Everyone knew that pulling down houses was one of the most effective ways to stop a fire—each parish had fire hooks for this purpose—but the Lord Mayor hesitated. At this moment he famously said that a maiden could put it out herself (I think you can guess the method). So the fire took hold.
On day two the fire spread west, consuming the commercial heart of the city, prompting a chaotic evacuation of the city. It was on day two that the famous diarist Samuel Pepys send his long-suffering wife and his gold out of the city. His diary was also sent away, while other prized possessions (including parmesan cheese) were buried in the yard.
Day three was truly the bad-to-worse day, with the imposing stone cathedral undone by the wooded scaffolding recently erected to allow for repairs. It is said that lead from the roof flowed down the street like a river, and all the goods moved to the seemingly indestructible building were destroyed that day. The fire was over by day four, owing mostly to a drop in the wind. In all, 13,200 houses were destroyed, 87 parish churches and the commercial heart of the capital.
Remarkably, only six deaths were recorded, though some modern historians question this number. And the city was rebuilt. Even as the ruins smouldered, Christoper Wren and others presented a plan to the King that would remake the disorganized city of the Middle Ages into a modern planned city akin to Paris after Haussmann. It was not to be. A recently restored monarchy understood the importance of English property rights and didn’t want to overstep.
Now, scholars of late first temple Judaism (you know who you are) will immediately see the parallel between the great fire of London and the terrible events of 586 BCE. The destruction of Solomon’s temple, at the hands of the Babylonians, had and has the same effect on Judaism and those who follow the prophetic tradition. Like the city of London, the Jerusalem temple was the nation’s centre, and it’s destruction cast a long shadow.
But that would be jumping ahead. Today we remain in that “late first temple” period, the period that belongs to the prophet Jeremiah. And the passage we heard moments ago is an import hinge moment, when we begin to understand what is truly at stake as the story of Judah unfolds.
It starts gently enough. You might say it has an inspirational quality to it, taking a simple image and suggesting that personal transformation is possible. The trip down to the potter’s house, if we ended our reading at verse six, has all the elements of a little therapy.
So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.
This kind of renewal, reshaped by a potter-God into something more acceptable, can only be a positive. Even as the scope of the reshaping extends to Israel, it still seems rather benign. We can shape up, the nation can shape up, all guided by the crafty hands of the potter.
But then things begin to turn. The potter-God will announce what may happen to the disobedient nation—“uprooted, torn down and destroyed"—and wait for a response. If the nation turns away from evil, in the sight of the Lord, then God will relent. And, of course, the opposite is true. If a nation is planted, and does evil in the sight of the Lord, then “I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.” It sounds bad, and it is, but then comes the worse:
11 “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’
None of this made Jeremiah very popular. Before today’s passage there are already threats against his life, and later he will be beaten. Perhaps worse he considers himself a laughingstock, and an object of public scorn. Yet the burden of prophecy remains, “a fire in his bones” that cannot be suppressed.
Despite this, Jeremiah will live to witness the destruction of the great temple, and the exile that will follow, and the dislocation that becomes a central theme of religious life. The peril of the unheeded warning will become a key theme in the life of Israel, and in our own tradition. It will become the focus of those who make repentance a personal endeavour, and it will continue to animate the common life of believers.
But since our theme is bad to worse, we should talk about the weather. August was the hottest August ever recorded in Toronto, and that’s just here. 2016 is on track to the hottest year ever recorded, with a 1.3 degree increase from pre-industrial times. We are already seeing extreme weather events, with floods and fires becoming our new reality. If there was ever a moment when we need an old-timey “repent or suffer the consequences,” this is it. And it won’t be the work of an angry God, just our continued carelessness.
So now that I’ve taken you on this bad-to-worse journey, where is the hope? We need hope, if only to see a way forward in the midst of disobedience and great peril.
Both London and Jerusalem were rebuilt. Scanning the skyline of London, all the gherkins, shards and walkie-talkies (recent buildings) only serve to underline the triumph of St. Paul’s, the most beautiful church in the world. Rooting around the ruins of old St. Paul’s, Wren identified the spot that would be beneath the great dome. Calling out to a lad nearby, seeking a stone to make the spot, the child returned with a grave stone that said RESURGAM, meaning “I shall rise again.” It is the motto of the cathedral.
In the same manner, Jerusalem was rebuilt. And when the walls were completed, and it came time to rededicate the city to the Lord, it fell to Ezra and his companions to read the word and interpret it for the people. The people cried out when they heard it, but Ezra insisted they stop their crying. Instead, they were instructed to live their lives and remember to care for the needy.
It was the great Walter Brueggemann who said “the text heard and interpreted offers the community a particular identity and vocation in the world.” Just as Jesus promised “resurgam—I shall rise again” (Mt 27.63) and the disciples spread this word to the corners of the earth, the Israelites took Ezra at his word and returned to God. The word heard and interpreted allows us to live new lives, to transform ourselves and turn away from the potential disasters that surround us.
The rebuilt city is the counter-theme to the idea of bad-to-worse. Renewing our confidence in God, turning anew to God’s way, caring for the vulnerable (including the earth itself), these are the hallmarks of the rebuilt city. May God strengthen us for this work, and guide us on the way. Amen.
