The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

JOEL 2:23-32: This ancient prophecy, set in some indeterminate time after the exile in Babylon and the restoration of the people of Judah, consists of a sermon preached to the people of Judah. In the sermon God and the prophet take turns in addressing the assembled people. The first word of Yahweh in the sermon comes in verses 21 and 22, which are not found in our lection. In our passage, both God and the prophet alternate in promising deliverance to the people of Judah. In verse 30 the mood of God changes. Having promised to put his spirit upon all flesh, God then goes back to a theme enunciated in the first verses of chapter 2 and announces that the day of the Lord is darkness and not light, destruction and not deliverance. Suddenly the prophet ends the sermon in a surprising way: he announces that all who call upon the name of the LORD shall be delivered.

The first words spoken in this text call upon the people to rejoice. After a long drought, perhaps years in length, and after recurrent waves of locusts have attacked Judah's food supply, the Lord is about to give abundant rain so that the crops will grow again. The early rain will come, when the crops are sown in October and November. The latter rain will water the ground in the spring, just before the grain will be harvested. God, who sent the locusts to destroy the crops, now sends the rains to restore them.

The Prophet: 23: "Be glad, O sons of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD, your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.

Yahweh agrees with this assessment. He adds that not only will the people have grain in abundance; the trees and vines also will blossom so that the vats will overflow with wine and oil. Everything that has been destroyed by the swarms of locusts will be restored.

Yahweh: 24: "The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. 25: I will restore to you the years which the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.

Confidently the prophet underscores Yahweh's words, and he adds that once more the people shall praise the name of the Lord. So confident is the prophet in God's graciousness that he says the people will never again be put to shame.

Prophet 26: "You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

Yahweh then promises to restore the covenant to Judah (and Israel), and the promise is delivered in words that are certain to recall the words Yahweh spoke from the mountain in the wilderness when he first entered into covenant with Israel: "I am in the midst of Israel, and I, the LORD, am your God and there is none else." Yahweh then repeats the very words the prophet had spoken to the people: "my people shall never again be put to shame."

Yahweh 27: You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the LORD, am your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

Yahweh extends his promise. His spirit will come not only to the men of the covenanted community, but their sons and daughters also will prophecy. Even menservants and maidservants, persons totally outside the community, will receive this spirit. Old men will dream dreams, young men will see visions.

28: "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29: Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

This covenant will be restored in the same climate in which it was given. God recalls that when he first gave covenant to Israel it was a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness covering the mountain. When the covenant is restored to Israel, it will come on a day like that first day.

30: "And I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31: The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.

"Deliverance" was the theme of the first giving of the covenant, and it is the theme now. Once more God is about to redeem the people. Among those who escape will be some who call upon the name of the Lord; and when they call upon the Lord, God brings them light not darkness, deliverance not destruction.

Prophet 32: And it shall come to pass that all who call upon the name of the LORD shall be delivered; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.

This sermon resounded through the ages until it resonated in the experience of Simon Peter on the day of Pentecost. On that astounding day a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and tongues as of fire rested on each person in the house. The people began to speak in other languages, as the spirit gave them utterance. Peter interpreted this in terms of the prophecy of Joel. I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29: Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my spirit. . . . It shall come to pass that all who call upon the name of the LORD shall be delivered. Then Peter equated the name of the Lord with the name of Jesus Christ: Whoever calls upon his name shall be saved.

PSALM 65: Most important in this psalm is its lengthy description of what God does for the people. I will simply list these without comment and then conclude with a few general remarks about the psalm.

God hears prayers

God forgives our transgressions

God brings deliverance

God established the mountains

God stills the roaring of the seas

God stills the tumult of the peoples

God makes our outgoings in the morning and evening events of joy

God waters the earth

God crowns each year with bounty

These latter activities of God make him the competitor of the baals of Canaan; Israel claims for its God what the Canaanites claim for baal. In the central verses of the psalm God is portrayed as the creator of the mountains and the seas and the one to whom all the peoples must give allegiance. In the opening verses, God is the one to whom all the peoples come when they are aware that in their sin they need forgiveness and deliverance.

To such a God, says the psalmist, praise is due and vows of commitment shall be performed.

LUKE 18:9-14: The point of some of the parables of Jesus is not to find a point in them but to internalize the story so well that when we need it, it will come to us. Such is the point of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. We need to internalize it so well that when we pray, this story will come into our minds, and we will reflect upon its meaning for our lives.

The story hardly needs retelling. A Pharisee and a tax collector, or toll collector as the case may be, have both come up to the Temple of God in the Holy City of Jerusalem. They have come to pray.

The prayer of the Pharisee is one of thanksgiving. He boldly approaches the altar of God and prays ostentatiously. His stance of prayer is to come before God, look up to heaven, and open his arms widely. The Pharisee murmurs his prayer in an undertone so that others cannot hear the words, but they can tell that he is praying. He thanks God that he is not like other men, and he lists the sins of many. He even adds that he thanks God that he is not like that tax collector standing over there, who by definition is a sinner and not a righteous man. He prides himself in fasting twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, whereas the law provides only that he fast once a year on the Day of Atonement. He tithes everything he possesses. This too takes him beyond the commandments of the law. Wheat, new wine, and oil would already have been tithed by the producer. Hence this was a signal act of voluntary self-denial on the part of the Pharisee; to his personal offering he added an economic offering. His prayer is full of ego: "I am not like other people, I fast, I give."

Jesus may not have been exaggerating the Pharisaic attitude at all. A prayer very similar to this has come down to us from the first century A.D. in the Talmud: "I thank thee, O Lord, my God, that thou hast given me my lot with those who sit in the seat of learning, and not with those who sit at the street-corners; for I am early to work, and they are early to work; I am early to work on the words of the Torah, and they are early to work on things of no moment. I weary myself, and they weary themselves; I weary myself and profit thereby, while they weary themselves to no profit. I run and they run; I run towards the life of the Age to Come, and they run towards the well or the pit" {b.Ber. 28b). From the point of view of the Pharisee, what fault can be found with his prayer?

If the Pharisee asks nothing of God, the tax collector boasts nothing before God. Tax collectors were despised by every Jewish person. The public thought of them as no better than robbers. Worse than that, because they collected taxes for Rome, they were considered collaborators with the hated Roman government. They possessed no civic rights, they were shunned by all respectable persons. This tax collector stood far off from the altar. He did not look up into heaven. He beat his arms against his breast, a feminine and not a masculine act in those days. He said only, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." To repent of his sin would be costly to him. For him repentance involves, not only the abandonment of his sinful way of life, his vocation of tax collecting, but also the restitution of his fraudulent gains plus an added fifth. How can he know everyone with whom he has had dealings, so that he can pay reparations to them? His situation is hopeless.

Yet, said Jesus, this man went home "justified," as one whom God has forgiven. This is the one place in the Gospels in which the verb dikaioun, justified, is used in the sense in which Paul generally uses it. The tax collector is forgiven, and the Pharisee is not. God, said Jesus, will humble the proud and exalt the humble.

Dare we bring this parable with us when we come to God in prayer? The tax collector had said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." He was quoting the 51st Psalm. The same psalm goes on to say, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (v. 19). God is like this, said Jesus. God welcomes the despairing, hopeless sinner and rejects the self-righteous. God is the God of the despairing, and for the brokenhearted God's mercy is boundless.

SECOND TIMOTHY 4:6-8, 16-18: This last of our passages from the Second Letter to Timothy most probably is autobiographical, coming either from a conversation with Paul that was remembered by the author of the letter or from a letter that Paul had written. Many scholars do not believe that Paul wrote all of First and Second Timothy, and I am among them. But the letters contain material that most certainly came from the hand and mind of Paul, and these verses are among them.

Paul begins by seeing himself as a sacrifice offered by a priest to God. "I am already on the point of being sacrificed," he writes, "the time of my departure is at hand." Then he refers to an athletic image; he often viewed the Christian life in athletic terms. "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." At the end of every athletic encounter there is a judgment given; Paul says, "I will receive the crown." The crown he has in mind is the "crown of righteousness," which the Lord will award him when the boxing match is over or the race is won. This crown will not only be given to Paul but to all those who have "loved his appearing." Does Paul refer to the coming of Christ in some future time, or is he talking of his "appearing on this earth" as a human being? He may have either alternative in mind.

In the concluding verses, 16-18, Paul seems to believe that his closest companions have deserted him. But the Lord has not. Paul may be alone, but he is never lonely. Human companions may desert him, but the Lord? Never! "The Lord stood by me and gave me strength to proclaim his word to the Gentiles." Paul associates himself with Daniel and his friends: "I was rescued from the lion's mouth." That rescue means that God will continue to rescue him: "The Lord will rescue me from every evil and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen."

Would that every one who faces such struggle and death have such confidence in the Lord!