Thursday in the Third Week

Jeremiah 7:23-28; Psalm 95:6-11; Luke 11:14-23

There’s not a lot of comfort in today’s readings.  We hear about people who did not, would not listen - to the prophets, to Jesus.  They will plot to kill Jeremiah rather than listen; they will eventually kill Jesus rather than turn.  And we have to ask, are we those people?

I wonder what it was like for Jesus to enter this arena, with the history of the prophets before him.  What is it like to feel compelled to speak to people, knowing they will not hear; to heal people, only to be accused of being in league with demons; to forgive, only to be condemned?

Up to now it’s been lovely.  Jesus has been teaching and healing, and the disciples have been proclaiming the good news.  But now the contest is heating up.  The powers are getting threatened.  Now they start to accuse him, to distort his work.  The battle lines (and a battle is being waged here) are being drawn and made clear.  “Whoever is not with me is against me.”

By showing what he can do, Jesus naturally shows us what we are made of.  Again, it’s not a threat: it’s a statement of truth.  We show what we believe and what matters to us by how we live.  And in Jesus’ saying here, there’s no middle ground.  There’s no “cultural Christianity” here, no “good enough” or “just getting by”; no “how much do I have to do to pass the course?”  There’s with him or against him.  Ouch.

I’m intrigued by the final phrase in this Gospel: “whoever does not gather with me scatters.”  The image of harvest is central to Jesus’ message, but most of the time I can put myself in the place of the seed rather than the harvester.  I can forget that I am called not only to receive the message of healing and transformation, but to spread it and gather others.  And if I don’t - what exactly is it to scatter?  Is it perhaps I, myself, who scatter?  Who is scattered, dispersed, blown away by a good breeze?  

Yes.  When I don’t align with the good news, I am weakened.  The hell I enter is not so much fire and brimstone as fog, perpetual twilight, meaninglessness, isolation.  Bit by bit I wither.  

Gather me, Jesus.  Give me the grace to gather with you.  Give me the strength to stand with you today.  Heal me and bring me to voice, as you did for the one here.   Teach me your song, even to the cross.  Amen.