Making Choices!

The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
February 11, 2001

By
The Rev. Ann M. Smith

Based on Jeremiah 17:5-10; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 & Luke 6:17-26

There is a common thread throughout the readings for today. They offer us two distinct choices. In the Old Testament lesson Jeremiah pictures two possible relationships with God. The first is to trust in yourself. We hear in advertising slogans. Something like "give yourself the credit you deserve" might sum it up. Many look on life that way. The problem is that it takes the credit away from God. People who are self-centred in that way are not even able to recognize the needs of others; their minds become so tied up in themselves. They have no relationship with God. Their soul becomes a kind of desert, a wasteland.

How different that is from the second possibility – trusting in the Lord. Jeremiah pictures a deep and nurturing relationship with God in which our trust and our wills are absorbed into God's. It is possible although quite unique for such a relationship to exist in human terms. We see it sometimes in marriages or deep friendships. Jeremiah calls us to strive for that kind of intimacy with God.

The New Testament reading offers us a very clear faith choice. Either we believe in the resurrection or we do not believe in the Christian faith. Paul did not come to know Jesus during his earthly ministry. His coming to faith was a meeting with the risen Lord. His conversion on the Damascus road brought him face to face with the risen Christ. There are many doctrines of the Christian faith that we can ignore. But faith in the resurrection is basic to our beliefs. We are Christians because we, in whatever way we want to express it, have experienced the risen Lord in our lives. Like Paul, we have met Christ face to face. We know the presence of God at work in our lives.

The gospel is about making a choice between the world's standards and God's. In these sayings, the beatitudes, Jesus challenges the standards of society. He proclaims an alternate moral universe where all values are reversed. The tables are turned. Our affluence is shown to be poverty. Poverty is incredibly rich.

Such a reversal should be deeply disturbing to us for we live in an affluent society. Not that we always recognize the wealth with which we are blessed! I received an interesting email this week that gives a proper perspective on our position in the world scheme of things. Philip Harter, a medical doctor at Stanford University worked out the following statistics. Think of the earth as a village of one hundred people. Our village would consist of the following groups of people.

Where do we fit in to the global village? For most of us poverty is not a part of our experience. We may not be wealthy by Canadian standards, but we do not know hunger. We live in our own homes in relative comfort. We live in freedom. We expect a high standard of living. We may complain about it but we have one of the best health care systems in the world. We can read. We have access to education.

Perhaps we should visit and experience real poverty. There are people in this church who could take us to their homelands and show us poverty that is almost inconceivable to us. I know it shocked me to see people living on the outskirts of Kingston in Jamaica in houses hammered out of tin cans, built on the edge of a garbage dump. And by world standards that was probably not so terrible. We cannot help but recognize that comparatively speaking we are rich in the material things of life. We are reasonably content. We are generally respected. Indeed, we travel first class on this spaceship called earth while the masses of people travel in steerage.

Are we to understand from the gospel that we are to be condemned for that? Our loving God accepts us as we are – even well fed. But God holds us accountable. Wherever there is high achievement, comfort, success, self-satisfaction, there are demands on us to share. We cannot think of our material wealth as our possessions. They are gifts received. We are accountable for their responsible use.

We are accountable to invest what we can to help alleviate the tragic differences between those who have and those who do not. It means a commitment to incorporate repentance and social justice with our primary mission to proclaim God's love through Christ. It means looking after, not only the ongoing needs of our parish, but reaching out to those in need, having outreach programs that help to alleviate suffering.

I believe also that it means seeking as Jeremiah suggests a deeper intimacy with God. For it is our relationship with God that will give us that sense of accountability. "They shall be like a tree planted by water," Jeremiah says, "sending out its roots by the stream." What might it mean to us to send down roots to God's stream of living water? What could give us fullness of life so that our leaves never dry up?

It happens when we begin to realize that God is the ultimate source of grace in our lives. It happens through our prayer life and in our worship as we begin to recognize the power of God at work in our lives. We begin to accept that God is present with us even in times of difficulty.

It certainly means living as Paul points out to us, as an Easter people. It means living out our lives in faith. Christ's resurrection raises us to a new level of being where we are nourished and blessed, where we know and respond to God's call and where we are good stewards of the faith. It enables us to live out the gospel message that calls us to love neighbour as self, and to share the good things that God has provided. Faith in the risen Christ is the key to confident, victorious living. The Resurrection is an empowering event that enables us to live as God intends us to live.

It is important for us to understand our call during this Epiphany season. It is important as we meet for our annual vestry, as we set our goals for the future of this congregation. It is important as we set personal priorities about how we use our wealth. The realization that we are relatively rich when compared to billions of people throughout the world should not translate into feelings of guilt; it should transform our lives into honest and realistic endeavours to share our lives and wealth with those in need.