July 29 Prospecting Week 4 Eureka!

July 29, 2012  Week 4 Prospecting

Series: Prospecting for Gold: Finding Treasure in the Bible
Anchor: Prospectors and Miners
Frame: God is full of compassion, and passionate for justice
Thread: Prospectors skits, “God Is Still Speaking” song

Luke 4:16-21

When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

‘The Spirit of God is upon me,

   who has anointed me

     to bring good news to the poor.

and has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

   and recovery of sight to the blind,

     to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of God’s favor.’
And Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

From Marcus Borg:

…God is a God of justice and compassion. The God of the Bible is full of compassion and passionate about justice. God’s passion for justice flows out of the very character of God. God cares about suffering, and the single greatest source of unnecessary human misery is unjust and oppressive cultural systems… (This) God…wills human well-being and rages against all humanly constructed systems that inflict unnecessary wounds.

God’s passion is the ground of a biblical ethic centered in justice and compassion. Both words –“justice” and “compassion” - are needed. Justice without compassion easily sounds like “just politics”; compassion without justice too easily becomes individualized and systemically acquiescent.

            For me, this is one of those hidden veins of ore that digging into the bible exposes: “The God of the Bible is full of compassion and passionate about justice.” The passage from Luke’s Gospel has Jesus announcing what his ministry is going to be all about. Jesus has just endured the temptations in the wilderness and this is the first speech put on his lips. He quotes a passage from Isaiah which proclaims good news for the poor, release for captives, restored sight, and liberation from oppression. The year of God’s favor is understood by most scholars as a reference to the jubilee, when all debts are forgiven and all family lands lost are restored. Jesus specifically chooses this passage to read and then announces that it is “fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke is telling us that this is a laundry list of the things Jesus will be concerned with. And if we understand Jesus as God’s metaphor in human terms, then this is a list of God’s priority’s too.

            And yet we live in a world where injustice all too apparent. Just today a news report came that we are headed for the highest poverty rate in the U.S. since the 1960’s. Religious intolerance is just one example of blindness that continues to be unenlightened. Again in the U.S. we incarcerate more of our own citizens that any other country on earth, and we are building more prisons. There are more definitions of oppression here and around the world than we can count. If we understand Jesus’ announcement that this passage is “fulfilled” meaning that it is accomplished, then things are in a sorry state indeed. It is all too clear that this agenda has not been accomplished. Rather, it is fulfilled because Jesus is the anointed one. The work is just beginning.

            The ore worth mining is the hope that the world can be better than it is. More than that, it is God’s passion and desire that the world transforms into a place where suffering is diminished, and life is worth living. God is full of compassion and passionate about justice. While we each find our own way of doing so, it is our call to be filled with compassion and to become passionate about justice as well.

            Last week we talked about the overburden in the bible: those many passages of violence and inhumanity which make the bible so difficult for us to deal with. But underneath all that rock and rubble lies this ore, the ore of God’s passion and compassion. This is one of the things worth all the digging and toil. This is the treasure we have been seeking (at least in part). It is a real “Eureka!” moment when we discover the character of God.

            Rob suggested that we bring back the talking rock, and I’m all for it especially if we can frame it creatively and appropriately. I have to admit that I can talk about God’s sense of justice and compassion at length, but I am working hard to put it in the frame of our mining metaphor. I think the connection is there, it just isn’t leaping out at me yet. I also think we need to find some examples of God’s compassion and justice breaking through in our world.