Ronald Reagan rekindled
hope in a world of fear by:
- Force of personality
- Smile
- Conviction he was right, and represented right
- FAITH in God and BELIEF in humanity's goodness
- Was willing to break boundaries, to demand that walls (especially
the Berlin Wall, but also walls in relationships, come down)
How willing are we to break down boundaries? To challenge cultural
practices that increase the distance between rich and poor in
the world, in our country, in our community? How willing are
we, as people of faith, to speak the truth in love to one another?
To take the steps necessary to see that everyone is truly welcome
in God's world, and has access to the basics needed for
life?
Ronald Reagan was known as the Great Communicator — he knew how to use
words, how just the right word spoken at just the right time and in just the
right way could sway an audience, could literally, in his case, change the
course of human history. Now mind you, I didn't agree with all of Reagan's
decisions — but I have admiration for much that he did, for who he was,
and I wouldn't want to have been in his shoes.
The power of the Word is also evident in the lessons for today. God had given
Naboth's vineyard to his family forever — and the Israelites believed
that a word, even the word of a human, much less the word of God, once spoken,
took on a life of it's own, and continued in force forever.
That's behind the prohibition on cursing, and the exhortation to blessing.
Words, for evil or for good, have power. Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words can never hurt me — is simply not true. I learned that as a
child, I taught it to my children — but I will not teach it to my grandchildren,
because now I know that words CAN hurt, sometimes more deeply and with longer
effect that sticks and stones. Words can wound for life, and leave scars that
are so deep they can't be seen but still restrict one's life and
ability to experience the abundance that God has promised.
Both passages today speak of situations that come about because of words spoken.
Naboth was killed because of false accusation that he had "cursed God
and the king" — something so abhorrent that it could only be handled,
changed, by the murder of the speaker. It was thus a powerful accusation that
Jezebel leveled against Naboth, and it resulted in Ahab getting access to the
land that he wanted.
Land that he wanted, but had no right to have. It belonged to Naboth and
his family, past, present, and future — like the power of a word spoken,
the gifts of God are also forever, in perpetuity, eternal. There may be temporary
setbacks, there may be evil that happens, but the gifts and promises of God
will eventually come out, will never be withdrawn by God. You can't challenge
God and come out on top.
And so while Ahab and and his outsider-wife Jezebel may have won the battle,
they definitely lost the war!
The unnamed woman in the story from Luke was also from outside the inner circle.
At that time, men and only men held power. And even men shared table fellowship,
ate meals only with their social peers. Women and children ate later — if
at all. It was a different time, a different culture. Ahab and Simon knew the
requirements of their religion, and of the culture. They held positions of
power, yet chose to act in ways that were, at best, disrespectful. The good
news of God's love can come to us from the acts and decisions and words
of powerful men — but it did not in these lessons.
Instead, we see hope in the actions of women — one a positive example,
and one negative. The woman in Luke humbled herself, and put service and showing
her love of Jesus above all else in her life. Jezebel tried to go against the
law and love of God, and our hope lies in the evidence that such actions are
not, at least ultimately, successful.
The "sinner" woman in this story is often identified — without
any direct Scriptural basis, by the way — with Mary Magdalene. All we
are told is that she was known as a sinner, and that she made a spectacle of
her love for Jesus. As one who had "lived a sinful life" she was
most likely poor, quite possibly a widow, and perhaps had been reduced to prostitution
in order to survive. We don't know the details, and so our minds — and
the minds of Bible scholars — leap to fill in the gaps.
If indeed she was poor and a widow, she had little in her life that was cause
for hope. There was little reason to think that a relative would take her in
at that point — if such was going to happen, it would have occurred at
the time of her widowhood, not after she was publicly shamed. And the job options
available to her were extremely limited — so she would have been someone
without hope.
Jesus offers hope when there is no hope. Light at the end of the tunnel. A
smile when you need one. All these can be gifts of grace, given and received.
The Psalmist (Psalm 39:5) reminds us that sorrow may lasts for a night, but
joy comes in the morning. Morning may literally be the light of day, but perhaps
just as important it can be the "morning" of renewed, rekindled
hope, when we can once again see past the present into the possibility of a
changed future.
The sinner woman, whatever her name, must have been in the streets and heard
Jesus speak and teach, must have heard and accepted his offer of forgiveness
and renewal for sinners. She did not ask for him when she entered the room,
but merely approached Jesus, washing his dirty feet with her tears, using her
long hair to wipe the grime away, and anointing his head and body with precious
oil. She knew herself to be forgiven, to have been granted a new lease on life,
a new start, even if her social situation had not changed. She had a new life,
inside, and so she responded in great love.
She had it right, where we often get it backwards. We think people need to
show remorse, be sorry, confess to us or to God, before forgiveness can happen.
Even more devastating, we often think that WE need to meet some impossible
set of standards before God will forgive us for what we have done.
Forgiveness comes first. God's love comes first. God's love that
has no beginning, and has no end, and never stops yearning and reaching out
to us. Our culture tells us how we are to behave toward one another, and sometimes
we follow that, and sometimes as people of faith, like Ronald Reagan, we need
to challenge the expectations of the culture. Our faith also tells us how we
are to behave — toward God, toward the earth, toward one another, toward
ourselves — and though we get it wrong more often than we get it right,
we are to keep trying.
Forgiveness has nothing to do with guilt, and everything to do with restoration
of life and the renewal of hope. The love of God is endless, and in the bright
light, heat and humidity of an Illinois summer or the cold isolating darkness
of being isolated by pain or despair — God's love is constant.
Hold on through the night, and reach out to those around you who need to have
hope rekindled. It may only take a spark to get a fire going — but it
DOES take a spark. Pass it on!
To God be the glory!
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