God announces the coming of His servant and, it seems to
contradict what one would expect of such a servant. This one will be quiet and gentle, not
drawing attention to Himself by shouting but by simply being and doing. If you read those first four verses again
what you will notice is that the ministry of this servant is aimed at one
thing, bringing forth justice. Justice
is a difficult term to define isn’t it?
The passage tells us of bruised reeds and faintly burning wicks and so
we have some idea of what it refers to, those whose life hangs by a thread,
whose hope is nearly gone. Most of the
things in my own life that I think of when I think of justice don’t qualify
under such a definition, they are simply things that I wish were different,
things that are unfair but my life and hope doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t,
depend on them. Sometimes our prisons
are of our own making and we need to set ourselves free from the bondage of our
disappointments by getting outside ourselves and recognizing how good our lives
really are. There are those who cannot
do this for themselves and they are the ones for whom we are called to seek
justice, the ones to whom Jesus was sent, the ones He healed, the ones truly
without hope. Look around you today and
see all the reasons you have to rejoice and to have hope and let go of those
things that hold you back from experiencing the joy of God’s lovingkindness to
you. Then, turn and see if you can bring
hope and justice to those around you.
Jesus says that when the bridegroom is among his friends
there is feasting and rejoicing. That is
why, even in Lent, worship is meant to be a joyous occasion, celebrating the
goodness but also the presence of God among us.
It should be a time to sing His praises and to remember His promise to
be with us when we gather in His Name.
When Jesus called Matthew/Levi as a disciple He created the possibility
for tension in the group. A tax
collector as a disciple would certainly have raised eyebrows and here, at the
dinner Matthew throws to celebrate his call, the scribes and Pharisees voice
what was surely on the minds of the disciples themselves, “What are you doing
eating with tax collectors and other scum?”
Jesus provides the answer the disciples likely could not have come up with,
that these people are sinners but isn’t the goal to heal the sick rather than
celebrate the well? He is the great
physician and it was necessary to go among the sick both in body and spirit if
He were to heal. The same is true with
us yet we often expect them to come to us rather than going to them.
At one time Paul was confident of two things, his own
righteousness and therefore right relationship with God, and that God didn’t
care about the Gentiles unless they came to Him. What he found on the road to
Damascus is that what he knew wasn’t exactly right, that he had missed true
righteousness and in fact hated it to the point of persecuting it. Then, he found that God’s love was for all
those created in His image, and went to the Gentiles on mission. Paul’s attitude towards the Gentiles would
have been similar to the attitude we see in the Gospel lesson of the scribes
and Pharisees towards the tax collectors.
For Paul to associate with the Gentiles and consider them fellow heirs
of the kingdom required a complete change in worldview. The church he formerly persecuted he now sees
as the vehicle through which “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made
known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Justice is now a concept for the whole world,
not just those in the club.
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