God’s work, God’s action, God’s economy
Readings:
Jeremiah 31.7-14, Ephesians 1.3-14, John 1.1-18
Our
Christmas celebrations are focused on what you might call narrative theology.
The telling of the story of a Saviour’s birth! And there is a story to tell.
Matthew writes, “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.
When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived
together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” (Mt 1.18) Luke
writes, “In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named
Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a
descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.” (Luke 1.5) Mark writes, “In
those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the
Jordan.” Today we move to what you might like to think of as reflective
theology given that the Gospel reading is the Johannine prologue. It is an
impressive and reflected answer to the following assumption. Given that the
narrative is true that there was a man named Jesus, who was born of a woman,
who taught, rebuked, performed miracles, cast out demons, healed the sick, and
was crucified by the Roman authorities at the instigation of the Sanhedrin what
does this life mean, if anything for us and the whole of time of creation?
Today’s
three readings taken together offer a summary of our faith and they follow an
accustomed pattern. Allow me to me
explain! We begin with the reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah. God makes a promise, memorably captured in
word pictures and it is almost too good…
“They
(the Jews scattered throughout the known world) shall come and sing aloud on
the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord,
over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the
herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never
languish again. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young
men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will
comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. I will give the priests their
fill of fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty, says the
Lord. (Jeremiah 31.12-14)
The
Gospel reading affirms that God’s promise has been fulfilled in the Word
becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us as one of us. Although there has been
darkness the darkness has not overcome the light, because the Word that has
been made flesh is from the beginning. All things are made through this Word.
This well-known and much loved passage of Scripture is referred to as John’s
prologue. It already touches on what this birth means for those who follow him.
“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become
children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of
the will of man, but of God.” (John 1.12, 13)
The
Epistle tells us what difference this fulfilled promise makes in particular to
Paul and the Christians living in Ephesus that great city of Antiquity, the
home and centre of the Artemis cult with its magnificent temple, which was
regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Paul paves the way for what
John writes in his Prologue. Paul writes, “He, the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ,
according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace
that he freely bestowed on us…” (Ephesians 1.5)
Paul,
the Apostle, speaks of adoption. John writes of men and women becoming children
of God. Jeremiah proclaims in the Lord’s name, “See, I am going to bring them
from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the
earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labour,
together; a great company, they shall return here.” (Jeremiah 31.8)
It
is refreshing on this Second Sunday of Christmas to “hear in accents loud and
clear” about God’s work, God’s action. God’s economy! Too much of Christian
faith and endeavour was and is preoccupied with one might call Victorian
morality as captured in some of our Christmas carols. It is caught up in the words
and deeds of men and women. Today’s readings tell us that what always proceeds
our response to the grace made known in the Word made flesh is God’s action, God’s
economy, God’s work of salvation. This
is the Joy to the world that we sing
of echoing some words of Isaac Watts.
Those
of you who know a little of the writings of the great Swiss theologian of the
20th century Karl Barth will undoubtedly hear his corrective of 19th
German Christian theology. His corrective was thoroughly biblical. God is the
agent. Using the grammar of language Barth firmly asserted that God is the
subject and we humans are the objects of God’s action. God’s action, as
Jeremiah needs to point out, includes the lame and the blind: the maimed, those
with blemish. We are the recipients of God’s action whatever our shortcoming,
our disability, our gender, our looks, our sense of worth, our education, our
caste not because we have earned this Zuwendung (benefit), but rather, as Paul
puts it, because of “the good pleasure
of God’s will”.
This
sort of theology reminds us of God’s majesty, his sovereignty. It reminds me of
the reading from Morning Prayer on New Year’s Eve in which we hear Jonah
complaining to God about God’s action of mercy! Jonah says, “I knew that you
are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast
love, and ready to relent from punishing.” The theology encapsulated by our
three longish readings also makes sense of that awkward sentence in the
Christmas Preface, “In him (Jesus) we see
our God made visible and so are caught up in the love of the God we cannot see.”
What we cannot see is God’s love. We can see the consequences of it, but we
can’t see it.
What
does it mean to be caught up in the love of God as the preface states? Being
caught up has something of being entangled, ensnared and trapped about it, but
surely that can’t be the meaning? How then are we to understand being caught up
in the love of God we cannot see? Perhaps it is better to think of being taken
hold of by the love we cannot see or being surprised by the love of God for us,
who are all too aware of our insignificance in the course of the millennia of
God’s creation and against the background of the cosmos. The magnitude of God’s
creation dwarfs our significance. It brings home to us our finitude, our utter
insignificance. If we have significance then it is by being taken ahold of by
God, being caught up in the love we cannot see, the love that wonderfully
created us and yet more wonderfully redeems us, uniting things both earthly and
heavenly! But of course the nature of love is to surprise us. Suddenly we find
ourselves in love and faith is born. Friendship with God and one another is
made possible through this love!
All
else, my brothers and sisters by adoption, you who are the children of God, who
know that the darkness has not overcome the light, proceeds from the backdrop
of this magnificent canvas of God’s action. Karl Barth understood this, but so
did Isaac Watts and before them Matthew, Luke, Mark, Paul and of course John. “From
his (the Word’s) fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law
indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
To
use the hope bearing word picture gifted to us by the book of the prophet
Jeremiah it is God’s action that makes us radiant like a watered garden! Now we
have reason to rejoice and dance! We truly have reason to be merry both young
and old! Mourning is turned into joy! Sorrow is turned into gladness and once, water
into wine. See what the Lord has done! Priests have their fill of fatness (!)
and people are satisfied!
Indeed
this is Joy to the world! Thanks be
to God! Let us live and proclaim the joy, which has taken hold of us in lives
dedicated in love to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen.
END
