"You cannot serve God and wealth". What does this mean for those of us who live in the so-called "First World" at a time when starvation is the norm for millions of people around the world? What does this mean for those of us professing faith in the same Jesus, quoted by Matthew, who are being seduced by so-called 'prosperity preaching'?
Recently, Jim Wallis, writing for the Sojourner's Magazine, highlighted the following slogan: "Love God? Then end poverty!" Is this what we are being asked to consider as we read this Gospel? Are we being challenged to leave worrying about economics to God? Is is okay to STOP worrying about Darfur or Ethiopia or....?
Easy to cease worrying when we've eaten today and there is bread for tomorrow also. Easy to soar like the birds of the air when we have a roof over our heads that will still be there tomorrow and grain grows like gold in our rain-refreshed fields. Easy to consider the beauty of the lilies of the field when the cothes on our backs are adequate for the conditions of our lives.
It's too easy to beat ourselves up for not trusting God to provide and it's just as easy to expect God to do all the providing - not only for us, but also for those pesky neighbours who have to live through earthquakes and revolutions and cyclones and dictators and famine and drought.
We are being invited to consider the extra-ordinary truth that our worldly goods are irrelevant in God's economic system. The treasure of the world: power, status, fame, possessions, real estate: NONE of thes will make us rich in God's economic system in the New Heaven and New Earth. When we worry about our individual possessions and wealth, losing sight of how that which makes us rich may make another poor, we are in danger of not heeding Jesus' words. "I", an individual, cannot be rich while others around the globe starve. "I" cannot have 'enough' when crops are grown to appease our hunger for bio-fuels to fill our vehicles rather than the empty stomachs of so many hungry children.
It is impossible to love our neighbour if we don't share with them. Its is impossible to love ourselves if we feel our integrity eroded each time we hear news' broadcasts. We cannot serve God and wealth - and we need to be paying attention to those birds and lilies and wheat-crops and people: really considering them.
Let us pray: O God, we cry out to you for your consideration. There are so many people who do not eat or drink. Crops are used for fuel not food. People and birds of the air are starving and dying. The lilies of the field are covered by roads and concrete, distracting us from the essential beauty of your creation. We pray you, consider the plight of your suffering people. When one hurts, make another strong to bring healing. When one starves, send someone with a loaf or fish to share. Open our eyes to the needs of the world that we may participate in your righteousness in our age. With Jesus we pray. Amen
Jenny: 2008 - responding to Isaiah and Matthew
EDEN
The serpent coils again;
The slow smooth encircling of deceit
And like Eve, I am easily seduced.
How seeming sweet, this apple’s subtle promise
To be as God herself –
Perfect in love and grace;
That you might look on me and see the
face of Love.
But this fruit is hollow
And bitter to the taste….
And the serpent coils again.
This garden is tainted now
And I too want to hide in nakedness and shame.
How much easier to wear the face of God
Than to stand naked before that face
And know myself
Truly loved.
Copyright: R. Penny, 2005 used with permission
Sometimes it is easier to serve from a place of strength than to allow ourselves to be in the position of vulnerability where we acknowledge our own need to be loved and served by others. As we stand before the mirror of God’s love, what masks or coverings might we need to remove so that we can know and be fully known?
God, you have searched me and known me,
inside and out.
You accept me.
You cover me with dignity and grace.
Help me to rest in the knowledge that I wear the imprint of your face
and have no need to create you in my own image.
BROKEN IMAGE
The face of God is shattered.
Twisted and disfigured,
So grotesque now
That I cannot recall the image
it once bore.
This was once a face of beauty
But now it lies
in broken pieces,
Beauty and ugliness so confused
That I no longer recognise their
differences
Or know which to believe.
What kind of God is this
Who allows
such frail and faulty imaging?
Who will not rise in self defence
When goodness is reflected
as the face
of hate and evil?
I don’t know how to sift these broken pieces,
Afraid to touch them, lest their
sharp edges cut me
till I bleed
And yet I long to see this face I knew
And search for it in shadows
And faint whispers,
waiting for that moment of
light
When I will say
“Oh, yes! I know you well!”
copyright: R. Penny, 2005 used with permission
Where do I look to find reflections of the character of God?
Searching God, you call us to mountain tops, you seek us in wilderness
You surprise us in unexpected moments, in unexpected people.
When we are fragmented, torn asunder by the stresses of our lives,
Reach into the midst of us that we may experience your tender touch of grace.
Ps 95; Ezekiel 17:1-7; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42
As water becomes an increasingly scarce commodity in our land and in our world, our God-stories about water seem more significant than ever. Allow yourself to hear, really hear, the trickle or torrent of “Living Water”. Dive into the lakes and seas of Scripture and swim against the tide of knowledge and fact into the deep, dazzling sea of faith. Tread water with God-people and God-stories as we live in an insensible and fragmented world.
Go to the well with Jesus and meet who you need to meet there. Look around. Why is the well deserted? Who but a madman would be there in the heat of the noon-day sun! and who but a madman would begin a conversation that changed his life and the life of the woman he risked knowing?
Sharing water, sharing lives, and in the midst, the Messiah is known and recognized. The woman who is unknowable is the herald of the good news that the Messiah is in the midst. What does it take for us to risk sharing our lives that we may be as Living Water? Who offers us a story of Living Water that invites us to drink deep, to follow faithfully, to love long?
From the earliest of times, metaphors were known and understood as amphoras, vessels able to carry deep meaning, too hard to explain in simple words. When the writer of John’s Gospel leads us into the life of the Samaritan woman, at Jacob’s well, showing us Jesus who knows and understands, do we need to read beyond the words into the message for that time so that the message of hope for our time may surface beyond time and change our lives today?
Living Water,
Hope for all the world,
Call us to dive into the pool of your healing love.
Encourage us to drink deeply from the Source of your being
That we may know and be known
That we may love and be loved.