Sixth Sunday After Epiphany C

Week of February 7, 2022 | Sunday, February 13, 2022

Luke 6:17-26

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!” (vs. 22).

Jesus claims all this animosity directed toward preachers of Jesus Christ provides occasions for us to rejoice, leap for joy, and expect our reward in heaven (vs. 23). I have a hard time agreeing with Jesus that receiving the animosity of the people to whom I, and others, have been sent as a cause for celebration. What convinces me, though, is the truth of Mary’s Magnificat. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is socially disruptive, politically disruptive, and institutionally disruptive. Christians, and especially pastors are not inspired or motivated to social activism but instead deliver Jesus as disruption itself. This disruption, though, is not the end in itself but the death of sin as it comes through the devil, the world, and our sinful selves. After such death, we are established within creation itself as the arena where we wait… wait for the coming day of Jesus Christ… and while we wait we have the opportunity to occupy ourselves with the care of our neighbors and the creation.

Prayers from one who covets this world’s admiration and not its animosity…

Lord, you have promised that I can expect good things from your fatherly hands, yet your definition of good does not always accord with my definition of good, so I must trust you. Even as I am hated, excluded, reviled, and spurned, I must trust you. In that trust, give me eyes to see the occasions of joy, celebration, and reward. Father, in your goodness, amen.

Lord, you have promised that I can expect good things from your fatherly hands. But here I am, cast out because the people to whom I was sent desired words that scratched their itching ears… wanted signs, wonders, and miracles rather than the humility of your Word preached to them… looked for a holy man to send them on quests for their own righteousness instead of receiving Jesus’ righteousness… re-establish my trust in you with a promise from your Word. Father, in your goodness, amen.

Lord, you have promised that I can expect good things from your fatherly hands. I look around, however, and I see not goodness but betrayal: family turned against me, rejecting your Word that I preach, but embracing the vices of this world… I look around and livelihoods are destroyed by catastrophic illness, meteorological and geological disasters, and the human destructiveness of riots and lawlessness. Where is the promised good, O Lord? Lead me to trust in you once more. Father, in your goodness, amen.

Lord, you have promised that I can expect good things from your fatherly hands, yet the hands you use to deliver those good things are ever so fickle. My neighbors inconsistently and impudently succeed or fail in their provision of the daily bread necessary to supply my life. How can I ever trust them? So set Jesus Christ and his forgiveness in my heart that I may forgive my neighbors though their failures are life-threatening to me. Father, in your goodness, amen.

Lord, you have promised that I can expect good things from your fatherly hands. Where is my preacher? Where is she who will hand over Christ, him crucified, and him alone to be the life of this dead sinner? Where is she who delivers the Bread of Life come down from heaven? Do not let me languish, Lord, in a famine of your Word. Father in your goodness, amen.

Lord, you have promised that I can expect good things from your fatherly hands. Let me find that goodness in the Institute of Lutheran Theology and may it continue to raise up preachers of Jesus Christ, him crucified, and him alone. Father, in your goodness, amen.

Lord, you have promised that I can expect good things from your fatherly hands. If it must be that the day of Jesus Christ coming in his glory is delayed beyond tomorrow, then continue to restore my faith and refill my hope day-to-day as your mercies are renewed every morning through the hearing of your Word. Father in your goodness, amen.