| First
Reading | Psalm | Epistle | Gospel |
| Jeremiah
17:5-10 | 1 | 1
Corinthians 15:12-20 | Luke
6:17-26 |
It
is called
the “left behind series.” Published as videos and inexpensive paperback
books, they all follow the same plot line. God suddenly calls the so-called good
people up to heaven, and everybody else is left behind. There are scenes of families
traveling on planes and suddenly discovering their children are missing, having
been taken up to heaven. Or scenes of massive chain- reaction accidents on the
Long Island Expressway caused by some drivers being beamed up and their vehicles
running out of control. Scenes concentrate on showing the distress and tribulation
of those having to cope with the result of people suddenly vanishing and machinery
left unattended. Now
I suppose it could be argued that the threat of such distress serves as a warning
to change one’s ways, and certainly prophets through the ages have pronounced
warnings of judgments against the injustice of their societies. Yet I suggest
these stories are more like a sweet icing of empty calories on an old stale cake.
The prophets were directly warning their own people, themselves included. These
stories set apart and divide people into saved and damned, with the authors and
those who agree with them clearly in the saved category. However, if we look beyond
the icing of the left behind warnings, the message perhaps unwittingly shows how
cruel and capricious such a divine act would be and certainly makes clear the
perversity of any power behind it. Presumably this would be a God only a terrorist
would worship and it is far removed from the Gospel, yet it fits right into the
fears of our society. In the fifties, it was fictional aliens from outer space
that seemed to threaten the earth. A half-century later we all too well know the
terror is real when fellow humans on this planet wreck surprise havoc. When the
enemy is discovered to live among us, panic and recrimination often reign and
anyone different from ourselves is viewed with great suspicion. There is a profound
feeling of helplessness and loss of safety. It is sad, but no wonder that absolute
control and certainty become worshipped as a God and this God of ultimate power
is, in effect, made into a terrorist to fight terror.
The
Gospel passage for this morning is known as the beatitudes and is found in both
Matthew and Luke. In the Gospel of Matthew it is called the Sermon on the Mount,
for Jesus gives it on top of a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. From it Jesus
becomes the new Moses who reveals the Gospel, the news of the new covenant, just
as Moses revealed the law to Israel from Mount Sinai.
In
the Gospel of Luke, however, Jesus is on a plain, level with the people and teaches
from among the crowd. Luke emphasizes that people from North and South, Jewish
and gentile villages, suffering all sorts of illness and disorders were all there
together to receive a word of healing.
Jesus
taught the people on the plain, not by a list of hypothetical examples or rules
of do's and don’ts. Jesus introduced the Gospel by describing how God's
vision of living was different from what they knew in the world.
God
intends a distribution of resources where everyone will be adequately clothed
and sheltered. Those who take God's vision seriously are blessed with the understanding
that their own personal accomplishments and material goods will never provide
complete security and total satisfaction as long as others are in desperate straights.
God intends a society where no children go hungry. The blessed are those who realize
that they themselves can never totally enjoy the perfect meal as long as there
are children somewhere starving. God intends a world where no one suffers from
the wounds of war, or from the ostracism of Aids or the loneliness of infirmity.
The blessed know that they can never take good health and personal well being
for granted, and cannot help but be concerned and feel regret for those who do
not have it. Conversely those who are just focused on their own happiness and
comfort and are totally satisfied with the way things are, who sweep injustice
and cruelty entirely out of their thoughts, will not benefit from a vision of
God's wonderful intentions for creation. Those, whose own laughter drowns out
all empathy for the sorrow of others, won't even recognize a single sign of God’s
grace.
It
is clear from the Gospel that God does not wish to leave behind anyone. The Gospel
seeks to open our hearts to compassion, not to close them. If the so-called rapture
of popular left behind pulp-fiction occurred, the Gospel would hold that, God
would not leave earth. God would be with those parents searching for their children,
God would be with those injured along the highway. God would be with the survivors
of tragedy, and not putting distance between them. In effect, God would be on
the plain, among people from Tyre and Sidon, and all Judea, healing every sort
of troubled mind.
I
would like to share with you a joke, and again I emphasize it is a joke, not orthodoxy.
