RCL Readings Sunday 19 September 2010
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Psalm 79:1-9
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13

This coming Sunday's readings are a real challenge to comment upon! The Old Testament readings and the Epistle all have something to say about prayer, so let’s start with them. Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 and Psalm 79:1-9 come out of the anguish of identifying with God’s faithless people. Because of their faithlessness they have brought about a situation of alienation and isolation such that the ‘enemies’ of God seem to triumph and mock the people of God. God’s prophet and the psalmist cry out to God from the midst of this terrible place that God’s people find themselves in as a result of their own faithlessness. God is not disinterested, the cry of the prophet and the psalmist is an echo of God’s own heart! What might we learn and how might we pray in the light of these two passages?

Faithlessness leads to a sense of alienation and isolation so how might we be more faithful, not to our own preconceived ideas of God, but to God’s self-revelation in Christ? Integrity of belief, attitude and action is called for – a revealing test is to ask ourselves “what would others think we believed if all they had to go on was what they saw and heard in us?”

Secondly, neither Jeremiah nor the psalmist abandoned love for the people of God despite their faithlessness. That’s not easy! It is easy to abandon them and look elsewhere for a more faithful people. I am reminded of Moses after the people’s sin and rebellion in making the golden calf when he pleads with God for their forgiveness and concludes “if you will only forgive their sin – but if not blot me out of the book that you have written” (Exodus 32:32). To pray for God’s people is to share God’s pain for his people and to cry out in hope and longing.

1 Timothy 2:1-7 casts the net wide for the subjects of our prayers, prayer should be “made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions” and the aim of such prayer should be “peaceable life in all godliness and dignity”. Such wide ranging prayer seems a daunting task, so in order not to be totally paralysed by the task, each day pick two stories from the news – one focused on an individual or group of people and the other on a leader or group of leaders and pray for them.

The Gospel is a real tricky one this week. Luke 16:1-13 has caused the commentators endless headaches and debates and having wrestled with it I’m still puzzled! Was the manager guilty of corruption or mismanagement? Was the owner praising dodgy practice or being incredibly generous (as the father towards the younger son in the previous parable)? Was the halving of other people’s debts done at the owner’s expense (therefore criminal) or the commission of the manager (therefore generosity but motivated by self-interest)? Is verse 9 ironic? True friendship involves community, commonality and equality, not indebtedness. This passage would make an interesting discussion for a Bible study group but what are we to pray for in the light of it? I suggest we pray for business and business practice; for owners, managers and employees; for customers and consumers; for fair trade; and, picking up a phrase from the Timothy reading, pray for “peaceable life in all godliness and dignity” for all wherever on the line from owner to customer they sit.