14 January 2011

14 January 2011

Psalm 16, 17; Isa. 42:1-17; Eph. 3:1-13; Mark 2:13-22

The first part of the passage from Isaiah is very familiar to us as we know it well as the main reading we have concerning Messiah in our liturgical worship. The promise is of one who will establish justice. We are told, “He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth…” Has justice been established in the earth? That it has not is plain to all and so what does it mean that he will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established it? It would seem that at least a portion of the work of the church, the body of Christ on earth, is to continue to labor for justice. I know that the concept has been co-opted but it is also incumbent on the church to prayerfully consider what justice truly means as it is a key component in nearly all Old Testament prophecy. We need to talk about justice because God cares deeply about it and Jesus, although he didn’t speak directly about the concept, certainly did justice and taught about what it would mean (see the Sermon on the Mount and the woes He pronounced particularly in Matthew’s Gospel.)

Jesus comes to signal the coming of the kingdom of God. It doesn’t look like they thought it would look. When Jesus calls Matthew the tax collector He introduces a dilemma and the scribes seize on it immediately, asking not Jesus, but the disciples why He eats with tax collectors and sinners. Do you think they have any idea how to answer that question at this early time in their life together? Do you think some of them were asking the same question? They likely didn’t think they were signing up for life with tax collectors and were probably wondering whether they had acted perhaps a bit rashly. Jesus is opening the kingdom to those who will respond in faith and obedience and in Matthew He apparently saw something the world, particularly the Jewish world, did not, and Matthew responded just like these others who we know from John 1 were seeking after Messiah. Jesus’ lifestyle was 180 degrees different from John the Baptist. Where John fasted and abstained from wine and banquets, Jesus was at the center of things. His response to their query was that when the bridegroom was present fasting would be out of the question. A bold statement of self-identity.

Paul’s mission to the Gentiles was certainly unpopular among the Jews and here he says that this mission was God’s intention and plan from the beginning. The extension of the kingdom to tax collectors was one thing, the Jews were coming home from their sins, but to extend it to Gentiles was another matter. All his life Paul had been taught to think of others as “them.” Everything the man thought or believed about the world and God’s relationship to it changed in Jesus. He saw that God’s concept of justice wasn’t limited to the covenant relationship with Israel, Jesus’ sacrifice made it possible for all to enter into covenant with the living God. It was his duty and his joy to proclaim it in spite of opposition. Justice is established by Jesus opening a way for all to be born of the Spirit, awakened to real life to seek after the coming of the kingdom of God, His will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the LORD, "You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you."

I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.