Getting the Last Word

No, this isn’t about marriage — but guess what.   If you think you can get in the Last Word with God, you’ve got things a bit askew….to put it mildly.   Readings for this Sunday upcoming are sort of like parables, that is, they tell a moralistic story.   I like to picture what’s being described as a way of entering into the scene.  Join me?

The Old Testament portion is most of Chapter 21 of the First Book of Kings.  We’re still following Elijah in his relentless crusade to drive idolatry from Israel, especially going up against vapid King Ahab and his conniving Queen Jezebel.  One Naboth owned a vineyard which was in the family since the resettlement of Canaan; he wouldn’t sell it to Ahab, who wanted a cucumber patch.   Ahab went home to pout; Jezebel wasn’t put off so easily.  To make a long story shorter, she had false charges of blasphemy brought against Naboth, and he was stoned to death.  “Grow your cucumbers, dear,” she told the King.   BUT Elijah found Ahab in his new plot, and told him, “in the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up YOUR blood.” ( v,19 )  Nice folks.

Well, Paul’s writing to the Galatians 2:15-21) isn’t really a Parable.  But I can paint a picture in my mind when he says “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (v.20)  In my picture, I see a transparent, shadowy figure of Paul enclosing a quite firm image of Jesus.  This combination certainly makes me think about my ethics as I carry about such a Divine Presence…

Luke tells stories so well!   Here in chapter 7 of his Gospel account we see Jesus at a formal dinner when a Woman of the Streets barges in weeping, bathing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair.  Simon, the host, is appalled; but Jesus forgives her sins.  This, again, is God’s Last Word:  :”forgiveness” goes beyond her errors to restore her into the synagogue, the community, and the culture.  The Old is gone, the New has come!

Elijah delivers God’s Last Word to Ahab as a reminder that his immoral living will catch up to him soon.  Paul says that God’s Last Word is constantly unfolding within him, changing and re-forming him.  And Jesus announces to the outcast woman of shady background that her life has re-started from this moment on, a loving Last Word from God.

A long-lived refrigerator magnet in our house was a styrene “peanut” caterpillar with inked eyes and segments.  Around the cardboard circle to which he was glued was the motto, “Please be patient:  God isn’t through with me yet”

God Bless Us, Every One                  H   B    King