Over the years I’ve heard any number of people say they can’t reconcile the idea of a loving God with all the unfair pain and suffering in the world. They have a point. How can we say God is good and loving and then have a world so full of brokenness and pain. Some of the brokenness comes from things like natural disasters that we have no control over. Some of it comes from societal dynamics of abuse and exploitation. Regardless, life’s unfairnesses come from all over. They are hard to reconcile with a loving God. At the very least, we should be able to expect that God loving Christians would be fundamentally better than other people. But that doesn’t seem to be the case either.
That shouldn’t be news in a Lutheran
church. If you look at the early
writings of Lutheran reformers you see they’re struggling with why there’s so
much evil at work among Christians. They
conclude that the church is a mixed bag and really no better than outside
it. History proves that to be true. Plenty of virtuous people exist outside
Christianity and plenty of villains exist within it.
But I don’t want to go too far with
this and lose direction. As read Luke’s
gospel this church year. we’re going to
meet a lot of people who live good and righteous lives and have everything go
terribly wrong for them. John the
Baptist and Jesus are the two biggest examples.
And we’re going to meet good and righteous people who are rewarded by
God for their lives. Things come
together for them. They pray and they
get what they ask for. That some get and
some don’t may leave us puzzled and feeling like life is even more unfair! Luke has his purposes though.
First, let’s look at the
introduction. Luke’s gospel starts off
with a dedication by the author, “I too decided, after investigating everything
carefully from the very first, to write and orderly account for you, most
excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things
about which you have been instructed.”
Who is
Theophilus? Who is this “most excellent”
person? Most biblical scholars that I
know of say that Theophilus was the author’s patron. He was Luke’s financial benefactor. It’s no surprise that if someone is financing
your life you’re going to be flattering toward them. Theophilus is otherwise unknown though. And importantly, not all biblical scholars
take that approach.
I think it is
contrary to the theology of Luke’s gospel to butter up a wealthy person. Luke has a contemptuous view of wealth. Also, “theophilus” as a word means “friend of
God,” or “lover of God”. So, some
biblical scholars say that Theophilus is the reader, whoever that reader is –
including you. I think that
fits. Luke is a clever and playful
writer. At the very least it’s the sort
of thing he would do.
So, quite possibly
Luke is calling you, you who he’s never met, “most excellent lover of
God.” Part of the Bible is dedicated to
you! And the Bible is calling you
“most excellent”.
Now if that gives
you an inflated ego you’ve missed the point.
It is intended to be a compliment and also an affirmation. We need to take a moment to remember the
world that Luke is writing into. If the
world today seems like a mess with all sorts of unfair things going on, it was
like that – and actually worse – for Luke’s original readers. It seems most likely that this gospel was
written around the year 80. You’ll
remember that there were Jewish revolts in the 60’s and the Romans clamped down
in the year 70. They destroyed Jerusalem
completely, which of course included the temple. The Roman destruction was so complete that
archaeologists can only find fragments of the foundations of buildings.
As a religion
Judaism was in shambles. The temple was
gone. The central leadership appears to
have either fled or been killed. Several
of the sects within Judaism disappeared – either the Romans killed them or they
were too scared to continue. The Romans
also didn’t consider Christianity to be its own religion. They saw it as yet another sect of
Judaism. In some places Christians were
persecuted. In other places not. Regardless, it wasn’t safe to go around
proclaiming that you were a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. All in all, Luke’s original audience did not
feel like they were most excellent lovers of God. Their faith and the world around them were a
mess. They needed reassurance. And they needed to know that God was in
control. They needed to know that God
would bring order to the chaos.
The first person
we meet is Zechariah. Here’s a guy who
gets what he wants from God; after a time.
We are told that he is a priest.
Being a priest was not, for the most part, an occupation. Being a priest was a role you were born
into. It just meant you were of the
tribe of Levi. It appears as if there
was a rotation among the priestly tribe and they would come to serve in the
temple for a time, probably twice a year.
Once there what they did was determined by lot, which is basically
rolling dice.
Luke tells us that
not only was Zechariah a priest his wife Elizabeth was also of priestly
descent. And both Zechariah and
Elizabeth were righteous people.
In this Luke wants
his readers to see the orderliness of God’s actions. He wants his readers to see that God
remembers and honors the religious laws and those who live righteously. The whole world may appear to be going off
kilter. Not everything is fair. But God’s firmly in control.
We learn that
despite their righteousness they have been unable to have children. That would have been seen as a contradiction
in those days. With a lack of medical
knowledge most people viewed a couple’s inability to bear children as proof
that God did not like them. People would
think they must be somehow in wrong with God.
Perhaps they were publicly righteous, but they must be doing something
secretly sinful. Typically the woman
would bear the brunt of the blame. The
eventual birth of John the Baptist brought honor and dignity to Elizabeth.
The barrenness of
the Zechariah and Elizabeth as an old couple also carries a symbolic
meaning. For hundreds of years the
Jewish people had been waiting in expectation for God to act. The people’s hope is paralleled by this aging
couple hoping for the birth of a child.
In both cases the waiting had been so long that they were despairing of
it ever happening. The announcement of
the birth of John is renewed hope.
The hope is not
going to be exactly what the people had in mind, however. That goes into our sense of justice (or
injustice) from God as well. The angel’s
message says nothing about a restored kingdom of Israel. It also says nothing of the expulsion of the
non-Jews, which was another Jewish expectation.
The message is one of renewed hope, begun by repentance and ongoing
faithful living. And yet, as Luke tells
the story of John the Baptist and eventually Jesus it is a story of
surprises. Zechariah is surprised. Elizabeth is surprised. We’ll be reading about Mary, the mother of
Jesus being surprised in another week.
And we’ll be reading about King Herod too. There are some surprising things for him as
well. Herod and his ancestors had spent
decades expanding the Jerusalem temple and adding to its grandeur. It was his great monument. It was his life’s great accomplishment. Jesus predicts it will be destroyed, and so
it was.
So much for the
grand plans of human beings! We need to
remember that our greatest efforts are nothing if they aren’t connected to
God’s designs. And there’s no point
trying to convince God that your agenda is going to be of benefit to God. You just can’t make that case. It is far better to let God’s desires and
designs be what makes the plans for your life.
That is, admittedly, easier said than done.
Things don’t go
according to Zechariah’s ideas either. You’ve
heard me use him as an example of what not to do if you’re met by an
angel. If an angel tells you something
that is impossible, or near impossible, will happen, just accept it. Certainly don’t ask for proof! That will probably not go well for you. We’ll contrast him with what Mary does when
the angel announces Jesus conception to her.
What was improbable for Zechariah and Elizabeth was outright impossible
with Mary. But she just accepts.
We can sense the
themes that are going to be laid out in Luke’s gospel here at the
beginning. While yes, God will honor and
fulfill promises made long ago, they will not be fulfilled as humans thought. Also, while God respects the promises made to
the Jews and God honors their ideas of righteousness, God will also not be
overly bound by such things.
The story unfolds in the weeks to
come. For now realize that the Bible has
called us excellent lovers of God.
Whether we feel it or not God is working in and through us. Maybe we will see the results of what God is
doing through us. Maybe we won’t. But we do not loose heart. We, like Zechariah and Elizabeth, and Mary
who we will meet next week, and many others we have yet to meet in the gospel,
embark on the adventure of being a lover of God. Fairness is no guarantee. God’s faithfulness to us despite unfairness
is guaranteed.
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