THE Old Testament/Hebrew Bible reading reminds me of a fun word that is overdue a revival: “jeremiad”. It means a long series of dreary complaints. Not that we are short of words for whingeing: i the course of a lifetime we get many a dollop of the prophet Jeremiah — but does the word “jeremiad” fit them?
This is our faith as many perceive it: long-winded and depressing. But, when I hear the cry of God’s people, “You, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; do not forsake us!” I believe that such a prayer will be answered, because it comes from a place of truth. For today at least, Jeremiah does not utter a jeremiad, but rather affirms his hope for a future lived in God.
It is tempting to linger over the arresting image of God as a weary traveller — perhaps feeling as we might when crawling along a traffic-laden motorway — or as a stupefied weakling. And this is although the land through which God travels is in fact his own, and the fullness of his might may at any moment descend on the enemies of God’s people. The tired traveller and the weedy weakling were such shocking images for God that some early commentators applied them to Israel instead.
When we turn to Paul in 2 Timothy, we are surprised again. The predominant image is that of a mighty hero, reinforced by rhetoric (artistic phrasing): “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” This is no trick of the translator. It is there in the Greek, too: a series of verbs, each at the end of its clause for emphasis, and each one in the perfect tense. That is the tense of fulfilment: the clue is in the name “perfect”, which in Latin means something brought to completion. It is the same tense as Jesus used on the cross for his dying words, “It is accomplished” (John 19.30).
Heroic language demands heroic action. In Ancient Greece, heroes were powerful men of action: physically commanding, courageous, dedicated to protecting and increasing their glory and honour. But Paul maps the language of heroism on to a courage that co-exists with weakness, to show how God overturns human preconceptions. It is a proof-text for Paul’s wisdom that “whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (a fine biblical paradox: 2 Corinthians 12.10).
Paul is describing his impending death. In a second striking image, he calls himself a “libation”. This refers to a type of offering made to God or a god or gods, in which wine, or grain, or perfume is poured out. Unlike the ritual sacrifice of an animal, it needed no special expertise; so it was a way for ordinary people in their domestic sphere to connect with the divine. By likening himself to something inanimate, Paul underlines that he is not resisting. Rather, he refers to himself in the passive, the grammatical voice of suffering, in which we let things be done to us instead of doing them ourselves, as heroes would.
Paul is surely thinking of a wine-offering; for this would model his death on the sacrificial death of Jesus (as Stephen also did, Acts 7.59). Paul is a willing victim, as his Lord was before him; but he is also more than a victim. The victima, or sacrificial animal, goes to its death in ignorance of its impending fate. But the Christian, Paul’s example shows us, goes to death willingly, co-operating faithfully, trustingly, in the mysterious purposes of God.
By the time we get to the Gospel reading, scripture has already stretched our minds to embrace ways of thinking about God and humankind which do not necessarily come naturally. This is not one of those Sundays when the Gospel resolves a theological problem raised by the preceding lections: instead, all three subvert our expectations. Luke prepares us for this with a remark that shows what he thought Jesus’s message was: “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”
In the Gospel parable, the person we expect to be righteous — the Pharisee — turns out to be anything but, while the self-knowledge and humility of the tax-collector are reckoned to him as righteousness. First impressions are not always right.
