The best is yet to come

 

There’s a couple of verses from the book of the Prophet Jeremiah that sound to me more like something from the Book of Wisdom or Proverbs.  They interrupt a foretelling of punishment and exile for the sins of the people.  Right in the middle of that, are placed some reflections about what is worth putting trust in and what is not [Jeremiah 17:5-8].

Two images from nature are employed to focus the contrast.  The “cursed” person who trusts in “flesh” or exclusively in other “human beings” and so not in the Lord, are like a barren bush.  Fruitlessly that bush is planted in what cannot nourish or sustain.

That person is contrasted with the one who does put trust in the Lord.  That person is a tree planted near a stream.  That tree fears not the rejection of weather and drought but yields fruit in all seasons.

These verses remind the people of Israel that their foretold punishment is a result of not trusting in the God of their creation.  They’ve become like the barren bush in a desert of fruitlessness. The prophet is telling them that they’re going to receive what they deserve.

I also read Luke’s version of the Beatitudes today, sometimes referred to as “the Sermon on the Plains” [Luke 6:17-26].  This passage is very similar to the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew’s Gospel [Matthew 5:1-12], although the number of Beatitudes differs, and Luke’s Gospel includes “woes”.  A lot of scripture scholars believe that these are two accounts of the same event.  So here in Luke’s Gospel, as in Jeremiah, we have a contrast of attitudes and consequences.

Luke pictures Jesus as speaking directly to His disciples and not primarily to the crowds.  He presents Jesus also as speaking of a “now” reality of their attitude towards possessions of four kinds.  The spirituality of Luke’s presentation of Jesus is living free from the falsely personal identity which comes from wealth, self-satisfaction, relational possessiveness and personal adulation or popularity.  More simply, whom or what do we trust for life’s meaning and happiness?

It's said that there are two groups of people in this world; those who eat the filling in an Oreo cookie first and those who don’t (I’m in the former group, BTW).  In a sense, that’s the call of Jesus to those who wish to travel life’s road with Him.  With Luke’s portrayal of Jesus, there’s always a choice, always an invitation.  The gestures, the words are an offer to invest in the “then” or “later” instead of ingesting and digesting in the “now.”  As good as the having and holding onto now is, the trusting in what comes after is promised to be better.

In keeping with the spirit of Jeremiah, we can say that the person who takes the “now” train trusts that it really leads to blessed happiness. That person trusts that only other persons, only material things, only personal popularity is worth the living.  Those who take the “later” train have an attitude towards all other human beings, other material things, personal esteem as very good and gifts from God which lead to God.  Those persons love the gifts, reverence them, but don’t make gods of them.  By their attitude towards themselves and all else, they’re saying that the Giver is not yet done giving and the best is yet to come, but later.

Jesus isn’t a hunch we play.  Jesus is the Word of God calling each one of us to decide how we will relate with life.  There’s no doubt that there’s something within us that wants it all and now and forever, or for at least until we can find something better.  That’s common sense, but we’re invited to have an uncommon sense.  We’re to be unusual about how we answer our natural self-centered drives.  They’re not bad in themselves, but they can lead us to the barren desert of self-production.  What we get isn’t a curse but what we deserve, our hollow selves.

Poverty, of all sorts, is not directly a blessing.  The attitude of knowing where all things and persons come from and what are their meanings, is the blessed attitude which Jesus offers those who desire to follow Him more closely.

Take it or leave it, for later.