Faith in the meantime
Commentary
Object:
Paul Tillich suggests that human anxiety results when the imagined world we desire and the real world which is fallen (or estranged) collide before our very eyes. When the society or structures of power which we rely on reject us and diminish our human dignity, such objects of trust become an intolerable burden upon us. We then experience loneliness and despair, and we question the power if not existence of God (Tillich, pp. 64-66).
Practical examples one might observe in a community near a congregation include a family whose primary breadwinner has been transferred to another state by the employer. The family thought they could easily sell the family house and follow their loved one. Instead, the local housing market is stagnant. The teenagers really do not want to leave their familiar school system, and the family wonders if this separation is the “new normal.” The upheaval in the structures of family, home, school, and a stable paycheck have resulted in an unknown future for this family. The church then asks the spouse and children who are at home if they can be of assistance or bring them good news. Their lives are on hold. They need a “faith for in the meantime.” They might be a fertile ground for those who believe their mission to be “seeking and saving the lost” (Luke 19:10).
“Meantime” has another definition for a family in the very same neighborhood. A messy divorce has been going on for months, which is now approaching years. The legal teams on both sides of the marital conflict have dug in their heels to get the best possible settlement. This results in one delay after another for the children and both sides of the marital dispute. Again, how can the community of Christ point to a faith in the meantimes of marital conflict? This family could use the comfort of the Luke 19:10 text on seeking and saving the lost.
Both scenarios could occur in any urban, rural, or suburban context. These situations point to a time of anxiety when people believe their human dignity is being attacked. These families placed trust in the societal structures of the real estate and legal systems, only to be disappointed. Such modern challenges might be one way to approach and unpack all three of today’s texts. [Source: Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (Yale University Press, 1952)]
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Can God be trusted in the day of trouble? This is a question believers in every age who experience hurt and seemingly unanswered prayers often ponder upon. Habakkuk affirms God’s sovereign rule over the universe. God provides for his people, even though the Babylonians will shake the foundations of the symbols of faith that they have relied on and which are now being destroyed (608-598 BCE). Those symbols for God’s presence and power include the Temple, the land of Israel, and the monarch or king.
While the prophet realizes that the people have been unfaithful to God, he wonders why God uses an even more evil nation as a tool of chastening. What is the world coming to, with all of this violence upon more violence? So the prophet waits in his watchpost or watchtower for a response from the Lord. The response does eventually arrive: “Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). Later on, Paul would reapply this text in Romans 1:17, as would Martin Luther, the church reformer in 16th-century western Europe.
The faith the prophet preaches means placing one’s whole life in God’s hand, trusting in him to fulfill it despite all outward circumstances (Achtemeier, pp. 46-47). Faith is the conduit or channel God uses to transport God’s grace. Such a faith drives humans to look beyond their private universe toward the greater reality of what God is doing in the universe. It is a calling to place one’s entire identity and hopes in a God who transcends any symbols for power, including the Temple, land, and monarchy, lest they become idols (Tillich, Dynamics of Faith). Patient waiting for God’s hand to work in the historical process is the prophet’s response.
Meanwhile, evil will not live on forever. God’s will for creation, is the ultimate outcome. Faith in the meantime in Habakkuk is not worshiping false idols that disappoint humans before and after the grave. History is ongoing, so people are to live in fellowship with God and other people of faith.
Among the many points John G. Stackhouse makes in his book Can God Be Trusted?: Faith and the Challenge of Evil is that God uses these “meantimes” to help us mature in our faith. God does suffer alongside us in the form of the suffering servant in Isaiah. There is new life after every death. This is the basic gospel of the Christian church. One has to ask themselves if they trust God as much as they might trust their automobile mechanic. Has God proven to be trustworthy in the past? A particular local automotive mechanic might have a reputation of being fair, honest, and repairing motor vehicles so a family may take a long journey. Do Christians trust their God as they would their auto mechanic? This is the basic “fork in the road” question people of faith have to ask of the gods or God they trust (Stackhouse, p. 114).
The short answer to why the righteous suffer while more wicked people seem to get ahead is patient waiting. It is similar to waiting for a car to be repaired in the mechanic’s waiting room. Some people in the church may or may not be able to live with this response. In 608-598 BCE, the Babylonian army would continue its onslaughts upon the people of Judah (southern Israel). The task of the prophet and preacher in this lesson is ushering the listener from a stance of fear toward hope. This is one response to “faith in the meantime.” [Sources: Elizabeth Achtemeier, Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Nahum-Malachi. (John Knox Press, 1986); John G.Stackhouse, Can God Be Trusted?: Faith and the Challenge of Evil (InterVarsity Press, 2009); Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (Harper & Row, 1957)]
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
The big moment of reconciliation when the bad people will get their just punishment and the righteous will be rewarded was supposed to arrive, but has yet to occur. This could take the form of a company being bought out by another group with hopes that there will be a major housecleaning and high hopes in the future. But it does not work that way at all. In fact, after the merger things seem to be getting worse. It could take the form of a family member who had been abusing others but now finally faces justice, only for the rest of the family to find out they are now in more financial hardship with fewer people to work. The big “Day of the Lord” when people hoped all would be made right has not occurred as many had thought it would.
Second Thessalonians is a contested epistle in terms of whether it was written by Paul or a later disciple of the apostle. Such authorship questions do not minimize the concerns (and content of pastoral consolation) addressed in the book. That is, things are growing worse and no relief seems near or upon the horizon for the Christian church. Not only do external persecutions exist, but there are false teachers trying to exploit any weakness or ignorance by hard-working peasants who spend more than half of their day gathering food and maintaining a roof over their heads.
The Pauline author affirms a faith that “is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing” (v. 3). Remaining steadfast in faith during very difficult or mean-spirited times is affirmed. This is a time of growth as people of the crucified and risen Christ. They are a witness for believers in similarly trying situations (v. 4), and they are glorifying their God (v. 12).
How does one glorify God in difficult times? This is one path for a sermon on this text. Another path for this text could be faithful living when the time of reckoning might not arrive until after the grandchildren are adults. Does one live a faithful Christian life in hanging by their fingertips for the imminent judgment day upon the horizon, or because it is simply the response to one’s salvation in Jesus the Christ? If there were no threat of an apocalyptic day of reckoning as times seem to grow worse, would people postpone becoming disciples of Jesus as Christ and thereby follow other gods? The people in Habakkuk’s time more or less rolled those dice and came up short on that gamble. The Pauline author affirms the efforts of the faithful... even in very mean and unforgiving times when a person’s words might never leave online social networks or android cellphone snapshots. [Source: Arland J. Hultgren and Roger Aus, Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament: 1-2 Timothy, 2 Thessalonians (Augsburg Fortress, 1984)]
Luke 19:1-10
During mean or transitional times, many people come to a fork in the road as to which direction their life might be headed. Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, is at such a junction in the gospel lesson. Hardly a year goes by, either in summer Bible school or Sunday school, when this narrative unique to Luke’s gospel is not read to children. In this sense, the narrative can simply preach itself. In Luke, not all Jews, Romans, or people of power are necessarily “bad.” Zacchaeus is a case in point. He is a man of wealth for his time, but often suspected of amassing ill-gotten riches since tax collectors were free to add charges onto any taxes collected behalf of the Roman empire.
As the narrative goes, the tax collector wanted to see Jesus as he entered Jericho. He had to climb a sycamore tree due to his shortness in height. The prophet Amos was a dresser of sycamore trees (Amos 7:14). Sycamore trees had a softer wood and were used as a substitute for harder, reddish cedar wood. For Zacchaeus’ purpose, such a tree was soft and easier to climb to gain a better vantage point to view Jesus (Sakenfeld, p. 410).
Jesus responds to the short-sized tax collector by saying, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today” (v. 5). This would be one of 19 meals Jesus has in the gospel of Luke. In Luke, Jesus is criticized for being a glutton and eating with the wrong people (Powell, p. 158).
In the case of Zacchaeus, Jesus would make two responses to these waiting in the meantime. Today Jesus eats in this man’s house, and salvation has come to the tax collector’s house (vv. 5, 9). Note that Zacchaeus does not relinquish all of his riches and possessions. He seeks to make restitution and corrections for past indiscretions in monetary affairs. The tax collector reorders his life. This is one possible sermon direction from this text. That is, there are moments to examine if “faith in the meantime” gives one an opportunity to reorder one’s life in terms of past decisions and directions in which a person or community is headed. Jesus is trying to help this man restore his dignity within the Kingdom of God as well as in the immediate community in which he lives.
Some scholars have suggested this text to a response to the rich ruler in Luke 18:25-26 who refused to renounce all of his wealth and follow Jesus, with the often-quoted verse “ ‘Indeed it is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter into the Kingdom of God.’ Then those who heard it said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ ” The Zacchaeus account suggests that people with money have other avenues besides dissolving their entire fortunes and/or accumulated wealth (Carroll, p. 374).
Second, in this text is Jesus’ mission statement in verse 10: “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” This verse can be made an interpretative lens for the whole lesson, as well as for other parts of Luke’s gospel during other weeks in the lectionary. Seeking and saving the lost does include the despised tax collector. It can also mean the critics of Jesus (v. 7). Possibly it might include the other guests at the table of Zacchaeus who are having family and financial troubles. [Sources: John T. Carroll, The New Testament Library: Luke (Westminster John Knox Press, 2012); Mark Allan Powell, Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey (Baker Academic, 2009); Katharine Sakenfeld, editor, “Sycamore,” in New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 5 (Abingdon Press, 2009)]
Application
Seeking out and saving the lost might be at the top of the list for any Christian congregation in difficult or transitional times. It is the basic core value of Luke-Acts. This is the week to ask questions such as “Who are we seeking to share the good news with, and where are they located?” Are there any Zacchaeus-type disliked people whom the community ignores? Also, is the church willing to accept the criticisms of eating with the wrong people? All of today’s texts suggest that neither the second coming nor any sort of “rapture” is about to arrive in the near future. Practicing faith in the meantime could have a time or quantity dimension to it in terms of long-term ministry. Also, it could have a qualitative dimension in terms of “mean,” as in difficult to negotiate and vicious attacks on the character of all people. Had Zacchaeus said something on social media or a YouTube video, would he be accepted within our congregations who are called to “seek and save the lost”?
As applied in the opening illustrations, how are churches equipping saints to deal with having their lives put on hold either by a tight economic market or people who are very spiteful and will stop at nothing to fulfill their own selfish desires? Do we trust our God as much as we trust our dentist, auto mechanic, or the hospital where we get a colonoscopy, cauterization, or blood tests?
Alternative Application
One interesting idea might be to juxtapose the passage in Luke 19 regarding Zacchaeus’ use of wealth with that of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 (a text that rarely sees the light of day within the lectionary). There is a good way and a bad way to manage wealth in the eyes of the Luke-Acts community of faith.
Practical examples one might observe in a community near a congregation include a family whose primary breadwinner has been transferred to another state by the employer. The family thought they could easily sell the family house and follow their loved one. Instead, the local housing market is stagnant. The teenagers really do not want to leave their familiar school system, and the family wonders if this separation is the “new normal.” The upheaval in the structures of family, home, school, and a stable paycheck have resulted in an unknown future for this family. The church then asks the spouse and children who are at home if they can be of assistance or bring them good news. Their lives are on hold. They need a “faith for in the meantime.” They might be a fertile ground for those who believe their mission to be “seeking and saving the lost” (Luke 19:10).
“Meantime” has another definition for a family in the very same neighborhood. A messy divorce has been going on for months, which is now approaching years. The legal teams on both sides of the marital conflict have dug in their heels to get the best possible settlement. This results in one delay after another for the children and both sides of the marital dispute. Again, how can the community of Christ point to a faith in the meantimes of marital conflict? This family could use the comfort of the Luke 19:10 text on seeking and saving the lost.
Both scenarios could occur in any urban, rural, or suburban context. These situations point to a time of anxiety when people believe their human dignity is being attacked. These families placed trust in the societal structures of the real estate and legal systems, only to be disappointed. Such modern challenges might be one way to approach and unpack all three of today’s texts. [Source: Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (Yale University Press, 1952)]
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Can God be trusted in the day of trouble? This is a question believers in every age who experience hurt and seemingly unanswered prayers often ponder upon. Habakkuk affirms God’s sovereign rule over the universe. God provides for his people, even though the Babylonians will shake the foundations of the symbols of faith that they have relied on and which are now being destroyed (608-598 BCE). Those symbols for God’s presence and power include the Temple, the land of Israel, and the monarch or king.
While the prophet realizes that the people have been unfaithful to God, he wonders why God uses an even more evil nation as a tool of chastening. What is the world coming to, with all of this violence upon more violence? So the prophet waits in his watchpost or watchtower for a response from the Lord. The response does eventually arrive: “Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). Later on, Paul would reapply this text in Romans 1:17, as would Martin Luther, the church reformer in 16th-century western Europe.
The faith the prophet preaches means placing one’s whole life in God’s hand, trusting in him to fulfill it despite all outward circumstances (Achtemeier, pp. 46-47). Faith is the conduit or channel God uses to transport God’s grace. Such a faith drives humans to look beyond their private universe toward the greater reality of what God is doing in the universe. It is a calling to place one’s entire identity and hopes in a God who transcends any symbols for power, including the Temple, land, and monarchy, lest they become idols (Tillich, Dynamics of Faith). Patient waiting for God’s hand to work in the historical process is the prophet’s response.
Meanwhile, evil will not live on forever. God’s will for creation, is the ultimate outcome. Faith in the meantime in Habakkuk is not worshiping false idols that disappoint humans before and after the grave. History is ongoing, so people are to live in fellowship with God and other people of faith.
Among the many points John G. Stackhouse makes in his book Can God Be Trusted?: Faith and the Challenge of Evil is that God uses these “meantimes” to help us mature in our faith. God does suffer alongside us in the form of the suffering servant in Isaiah. There is new life after every death. This is the basic gospel of the Christian church. One has to ask themselves if they trust God as much as they might trust their automobile mechanic. Has God proven to be trustworthy in the past? A particular local automotive mechanic might have a reputation of being fair, honest, and repairing motor vehicles so a family may take a long journey. Do Christians trust their God as they would their auto mechanic? This is the basic “fork in the road” question people of faith have to ask of the gods or God they trust (Stackhouse, p. 114).
The short answer to why the righteous suffer while more wicked people seem to get ahead is patient waiting. It is similar to waiting for a car to be repaired in the mechanic’s waiting room. Some people in the church may or may not be able to live with this response. In 608-598 BCE, the Babylonian army would continue its onslaughts upon the people of Judah (southern Israel). The task of the prophet and preacher in this lesson is ushering the listener from a stance of fear toward hope. This is one response to “faith in the meantime.” [Sources: Elizabeth Achtemeier, Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Nahum-Malachi. (John Knox Press, 1986); John G.Stackhouse, Can God Be Trusted?: Faith and the Challenge of Evil (InterVarsity Press, 2009); Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (Harper & Row, 1957)]
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
The big moment of reconciliation when the bad people will get their just punishment and the righteous will be rewarded was supposed to arrive, but has yet to occur. This could take the form of a company being bought out by another group with hopes that there will be a major housecleaning and high hopes in the future. But it does not work that way at all. In fact, after the merger things seem to be getting worse. It could take the form of a family member who had been abusing others but now finally faces justice, only for the rest of the family to find out they are now in more financial hardship with fewer people to work. The big “Day of the Lord” when people hoped all would be made right has not occurred as many had thought it would.
Second Thessalonians is a contested epistle in terms of whether it was written by Paul or a later disciple of the apostle. Such authorship questions do not minimize the concerns (and content of pastoral consolation) addressed in the book. That is, things are growing worse and no relief seems near or upon the horizon for the Christian church. Not only do external persecutions exist, but there are false teachers trying to exploit any weakness or ignorance by hard-working peasants who spend more than half of their day gathering food and maintaining a roof over their heads.
The Pauline author affirms a faith that “is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing” (v. 3). Remaining steadfast in faith during very difficult or mean-spirited times is affirmed. This is a time of growth as people of the crucified and risen Christ. They are a witness for believers in similarly trying situations (v. 4), and they are glorifying their God (v. 12).
How does one glorify God in difficult times? This is one path for a sermon on this text. Another path for this text could be faithful living when the time of reckoning might not arrive until after the grandchildren are adults. Does one live a faithful Christian life in hanging by their fingertips for the imminent judgment day upon the horizon, or because it is simply the response to one’s salvation in Jesus the Christ? If there were no threat of an apocalyptic day of reckoning as times seem to grow worse, would people postpone becoming disciples of Jesus as Christ and thereby follow other gods? The people in Habakkuk’s time more or less rolled those dice and came up short on that gamble. The Pauline author affirms the efforts of the faithful... even in very mean and unforgiving times when a person’s words might never leave online social networks or android cellphone snapshots. [Source: Arland J. Hultgren and Roger Aus, Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament: 1-2 Timothy, 2 Thessalonians (Augsburg Fortress, 1984)]
Luke 19:1-10
During mean or transitional times, many people come to a fork in the road as to which direction their life might be headed. Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, is at such a junction in the gospel lesson. Hardly a year goes by, either in summer Bible school or Sunday school, when this narrative unique to Luke’s gospel is not read to children. In this sense, the narrative can simply preach itself. In Luke, not all Jews, Romans, or people of power are necessarily “bad.” Zacchaeus is a case in point. He is a man of wealth for his time, but often suspected of amassing ill-gotten riches since tax collectors were free to add charges onto any taxes collected behalf of the Roman empire.
As the narrative goes, the tax collector wanted to see Jesus as he entered Jericho. He had to climb a sycamore tree due to his shortness in height. The prophet Amos was a dresser of sycamore trees (Amos 7:14). Sycamore trees had a softer wood and were used as a substitute for harder, reddish cedar wood. For Zacchaeus’ purpose, such a tree was soft and easier to climb to gain a better vantage point to view Jesus (Sakenfeld, p. 410).
Jesus responds to the short-sized tax collector by saying, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today” (v. 5). This would be one of 19 meals Jesus has in the gospel of Luke. In Luke, Jesus is criticized for being a glutton and eating with the wrong people (Powell, p. 158).
In the case of Zacchaeus, Jesus would make two responses to these waiting in the meantime. Today Jesus eats in this man’s house, and salvation has come to the tax collector’s house (vv. 5, 9). Note that Zacchaeus does not relinquish all of his riches and possessions. He seeks to make restitution and corrections for past indiscretions in monetary affairs. The tax collector reorders his life. This is one possible sermon direction from this text. That is, there are moments to examine if “faith in the meantime” gives one an opportunity to reorder one’s life in terms of past decisions and directions in which a person or community is headed. Jesus is trying to help this man restore his dignity within the Kingdom of God as well as in the immediate community in which he lives.
Some scholars have suggested this text to a response to the rich ruler in Luke 18:25-26 who refused to renounce all of his wealth and follow Jesus, with the often-quoted verse “ ‘Indeed it is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter into the Kingdom of God.’ Then those who heard it said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ ” The Zacchaeus account suggests that people with money have other avenues besides dissolving their entire fortunes and/or accumulated wealth (Carroll, p. 374).
Second, in this text is Jesus’ mission statement in verse 10: “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” This verse can be made an interpretative lens for the whole lesson, as well as for other parts of Luke’s gospel during other weeks in the lectionary. Seeking and saving the lost does include the despised tax collector. It can also mean the critics of Jesus (v. 7). Possibly it might include the other guests at the table of Zacchaeus who are having family and financial troubles. [Sources: John T. Carroll, The New Testament Library: Luke (Westminster John Knox Press, 2012); Mark Allan Powell, Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey (Baker Academic, 2009); Katharine Sakenfeld, editor, “Sycamore,” in New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 5 (Abingdon Press, 2009)]
Application
Seeking out and saving the lost might be at the top of the list for any Christian congregation in difficult or transitional times. It is the basic core value of Luke-Acts. This is the week to ask questions such as “Who are we seeking to share the good news with, and where are they located?” Are there any Zacchaeus-type disliked people whom the community ignores? Also, is the church willing to accept the criticisms of eating with the wrong people? All of today’s texts suggest that neither the second coming nor any sort of “rapture” is about to arrive in the near future. Practicing faith in the meantime could have a time or quantity dimension to it in terms of long-term ministry. Also, it could have a qualitative dimension in terms of “mean,” as in difficult to negotiate and vicious attacks on the character of all people. Had Zacchaeus said something on social media or a YouTube video, would he be accepted within our congregations who are called to “seek and save the lost”?
As applied in the opening illustrations, how are churches equipping saints to deal with having their lives put on hold either by a tight economic market or people who are very spiteful and will stop at nothing to fulfill their own selfish desires? Do we trust our God as much as we trust our dentist, auto mechanic, or the hospital where we get a colonoscopy, cauterization, or blood tests?
Alternative Application
One interesting idea might be to juxtapose the passage in Luke 19 regarding Zacchaeus’ use of wealth with that of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 (a text that rarely sees the light of day within the lectionary). There is a good way and a bad way to manage wealth in the eyes of the Luke-Acts community of faith.
