Translating the Tradition

So in today’s Gospel reading, our Lord is approaching Jericho, and there’s a blind man sitting by the side of the road. He’s begging, because if you’re blind in those days, they didn’t have a lot of alternative support for you. And so the basic way that you got by was you sat and you asked people for help. And so that’s what this man was doing. He hears this large crowd going by. And he asks, “What’s happening? What’s going on?”And so they tell him that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. And he calls out. And it’s interesting. He doesn’t call out, “Jesus of Nazareth, have mercy upon me!” He says, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Now to understand what this means a little more fully, we need to back up a little bit. Jesus has just been talking to his disciples again about his death. And, once again, they really don’t get it. He’s saying, “Behold, we’re going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon, and they will scourge him and kill him, and the third day he will rise again.”So, in retrospect, for us, it’s pretty clear. But of course, as they are hearing what the prophets have to say, they’re not quite getting it, because they’re thinking, again, of a political Messiah: one who’s going to come in and sweep away the Gentiles, and restore the kingdom to Israel. And Luke really drives home the point that they don’t get it here. He says, “But they understood none of these things, this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.”In other words, they really, really didn’t get it, like, thrice over. And yet, this blind man, who can’t even see what’s going on, who has to ask people what’s happening: he recognizes who Jesus is. Even though he’s blind, he can see that this is the Messiah, the Promised One, the Son of David. And so there’s this contrast here between Jesus’ own disciples, whom he’s telling very clearly, “This is what’s going to happen,” and the blind man, who, despite his blindness, actually sees more accurately than Jesus’ disciples do. Now, those around, who are going on before, warn the blind man, “Look, look, you’re making a scene!” If there’s one thing we really don’t like, it’s any kind of scene, right? And so they tell him, “Look, shut up! Just be quiet.” But he cries out instead: he cries out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”So Jesus then stands still and commands the blind man to be brought to him. And he asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Because “have mercy on me” is actually fairly general. “In what way do you want me to have mercy on you?” And the blind man blurts out, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” Although here, actually, I prefer the ESV’s translation, “Lord, that I may recover my sight.”Because if you go all the way back—everything’s in context, layers upon layers upon layers of context—if you go all the way back to the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, in Luke Chapter 4, Jesus opens up the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he reads thereThe Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind. To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. So he begins his public ministry by reading them this passage, this prophecy, which includes, among the signs that are going to reveal that the Messiah is coming, recovery of sight for the blind. And in fact, it’s the same Greek word, ἀναβλέπω, there as this blind man is using here. In other words, the blind man understands the prophets better than the disciples do. And so he’s asking for the fulfilment of that prophecy from the one, the Messiah, the Son of David, who came to fulfil that prophecy. And, you know, it wouldn’t hurt to be able to see again, right? So Jesus says to him, “Receive your sight,” or “Recover your sight. Your faith has made you well. And immediately, he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people when they saw it, gave praise to God.” So, again, in order to fully understand the impact here, we do need to also understand the larger context. So we’ve looked at some of the context, reflected on the immediately preceding context and looked at the overarching context—I guess you could call it—of the beginning of Jesus ministry, but there is one more bit of context I want to introduce here. If you read the Gospels through—and I do recommend this. I mean, I also recommend you read the daily readings that are in the lectionary, and if you do that, you will eventually read the gospels through, but it’s also good to just pick up the Gospels and read them through, the whole thing. Maybe not at one sitting, maybe two or three, though the Gospel of Mark, you can probably manage in one sitting. But if you read them through, you’ll start to see that Luke is divided up into sections.Luke, as I’ve said before, carefully structures his narrative. He says so right from the beginning, that he wants to make an “orderly” account. And if we back up just to the beginning of this chapter, which is in the same section of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells the people a parable which is fairly relevant here. Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ”Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”So I love this parable. There’s this judge, he’s not a good judge. He doesn’t care about God. He doesn’t care what people think about him. He doesn’t really even care about doing his job, which is to implement justice. And this widow comes to him. And she’s coming to him day in and day out, saying, “Give me justice from my adversary.”But he doesn’t want to. He’s like, ah, that’d be too much trouble. I don’t want to do that. But she keeps coming, and coming, and coming, and coming. And she keeps on coming. Finally, he’s like, man, if I don’t do something, this woman’s just gonna wear me out. Fine, I’ll hear the case. I’ll give her justice against her adversary. And I love it that, in this parable, God is compared to this unjust judge—and that’s deliberate. Because Jesus says, “Hear what this unjust judge says. And shall God not avenge his own elect, who cry out day and night to him. Though he bears long with them. I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?”And one of the other themes that you find in this section, if we go a little further—I won’t go into this one in depth—but you’ll remember, of course, the parable of the talents; well, Luke has it slightly different: his is a parable of the minas. And one of the things that Luke highlights in his version of the parable is that this nobleman entrusts these minas to his servants and then he goes away because his citizens don’t want him to rule over them. And he’s away for a while and it’s eventually he comes back. And his servants, you know, report to him. But there’s this delay. And if we think about this in terms of our own experience of the presence of God, it often seems like there’s a delay. It often seems like, as we pray, as we cry out to God, asking him for this or that or the other thing, there’s a delay. And the question is, “Is that delay permanent? Does God not care?”“Does he even exist?” is the question that we are forced to ask ourselves these days, just by virtue of the society that surrounds us, that is saying to us, “No, he doesn’t exist. You’re just dumb.”But what Jesus says here is very clear. And what Luke reinforces here, with the story of the blind man, is very clear. We should keep praying. We should keep trusting that God cares about us, far more than the unjust judge. And why? Well, one, the prophets have said this. We live in this era of the fulfilment of all that the prophets have said. And we have had signs upon signs upon signs recorded here in the Scriptures that God has not abandoned his people, Israel, and he has not abandoned us, his holy ones, whom he has called and adopted into the chosen people of God. He will never abandon us, his holy ones. But from our temporal perspective, you know, God may be acting speedily, but for us, it seems like a long delay. When is it gonna happen? When is what I am asking God for going to come to pass? When is this problem or challenge that I am encountering, going to be gone? When is he going to address it? And the answer is, keep praying. Keep praying, keep bugging God until he’s tired… no, he won’t get tired of us. But keep bugging God, just like the blind man. Keep bugging God, just like the widow bugged the unjust judge. Now, that may, at some points, involve us changing our prayer. Because, like the disciples, we don’t always see clearly. We want this. We want God to solve the problem this way, and sometimes our prayers are very specific. “Lord, this is the solution. Please give it to me.” And more specific than we probably should be. Because we may not realize—again, like the disciples, who are thinking of Jesus coming and just destroying all their physical enemies—that he has something more profound, more needful in mind. But because he came to destroy death: by embracing death, by allowing his enemies to put him to death. This is the real need that we have. This is the real source of injustice. But they didn’t get it. Like, thrice over, they didn’t get it. And again, that’s us, right? “Lord, I need this problem fixed, and I need you to fix it this way, and I need you to fix it now.” But, you know, the advantage of persisting in prayer is that you are maintaining a relationship with our Creator, with the one who can actually answer that prayer, and, as you are in relationship with someone, that actually changes you. They—the person that you are interacting with, who you are in relation with—change you, influence you. And that includes God. And so, our job really is simple. Paul puts it very simply: pray without ceasing. Be in this continual relationship with God. Do so in a way that is open to correction, open to realizing that, “Wait, I don’t understand all that God has in store for me. I don’t understand all the ways that he is in planning and intending to work here. But ultimately, I trust that he is good. I trust that he does want to avenge his elect, and is doing so, from his divine perspective, speedily.”And so I simply need to wait on him, to keep calling on him, even when people around me say, “Stop it! You’re making a scene. Stop it. You’re being an idiot.”Keep calling on him, and, above all, keep trusting him. Because he is good, because he comes to heal us. Because what he wants for us is life itself, in all its splendour, all its glory. “I have come,” Jesus says, “that you might have life, and that you might have it abundantly.” Because God loves us as his children, and wants us, with the blind man, as we receive the answers to our prayers, to glorify Him, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.Scripture readings referenced:* Luke 18:31-43* Luke 4:16-21* Luke 18:1-8* Luke 19:11-27 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com

So today, as we get ready for the great Feast of Theophany, we begin with the beginning of the gospel of Mark. And the gospel of Mark begins with prophecy. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophets, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”Actually, we spoke last Sunday about the prophets, just briefly, so today I wanted to mention a little more about the role of the prophets, because there is a bit of a misunderstanding that tends to be out there, that the prophecies and the prophets were there so that you could read them very closely and figure out, from all sorts of kind of mystical clues, what exactly God was going to do and when he was going to do it and so on and so forth. Kind of like prophetic bingo, if you will.The one problem with this kind of approach to prophecy now, as we live in the “end times”, at the end of all things, is that when you’re playing prophetic bingo, and you’re like, oh, well, hey, look, I’ve got wars. Oh, wait, I’ve got rumours of wars, and I’ve got earthquakes and floods in various places, and, and, oh, I’ve got Bingo! Because we live in the last days. And that’s precisely what the apostles, what they, what struck them as they were looking at the various prophecies. Because, this isn’t really the point of prophecy. It was to let us know ahead of time. That was the point. And God made it clear to his people, Israel, that that was the point, in the book of Isaiah that we just heard, quoted from, as well as Micah. God says to his people—and this is a pretty clear articulation of what the point of prophecy is:I have declared the former things from the beginning. They went from my mouth, and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass because I knew that you were obstinate, and your neck was an iron sinew, and your brow bronze. Even from the beginning, I have declared it to you. Before it came to pass, I proclaimed it to you, lest you should say my idol has done them, and my carved image and my moulded image have commanded them. (Isaiah 48:3-5)In essence, what we have here is God, the eternal God, the great I am, for whom all of time is spread out, not in sequence, but as all unfolded to him at the same time, telling his people, what is going to come to pass so that they will know that he is God. So that they will know that, in contrast to those idols which don’t know anything about what’s going to happen, that he knows exactly what’s going to happen. And in fact, he is the one who brings it to pass. Because he alone is the true God. And some of what he tells them is actually pretty specific. For example, a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a child, and you shall call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz (poor kid!), which means swift to the spoil and speedy to the prey. And before the child is old enough to distinguish right from wrong, the lands of the kings that you are worried about—This is a prophecy given to the king Ahaz, after he refused to ask God for a sign. God gave him a sign anyway!—that the lands of the kings that you’re worried about will be laid waste before this child is even old enough to distinguish right from wrong. So very specific timing, very specific prophecy, to let King Ahaz—who was one of those kings who was kind of wishy-washy when it came to worshipping the most high God—that God, Yahweh, the the creator of the world, was the one and only true God. And this is exactly what God has done down through the ages. He lets his people, those whom he has chosen, know what is coming, even going all the way back to Abraham. Abraham, of course, you remember at the tent of Mamre, entertains three visitors, and then, as they’re getting up and to go, the one says to him (presumably God), “Shall I not let Abraham, whom I have chosen, know what I am about to do?” Or, later on, in Moses’ day, God talks to Moses face to face as a man talks with his friend. Because what does God want? From us? He actually wants friendship with us. And what is more typical of friendship than saying, “Hey, I have a secret, I’m going to tell you.” Or, “Hey, I have a plan. Let me let you know ahead of time exactly what I’m going to do.” That’s what God does with his people. Beginning with Abraham, going down through Moses and the prophets, he calls his people, and he tells them exactly what he’s going to do, through his servants, the prophets. That’s not all he tells them, through his servants, the prophets. He also—as he is reminding his people that he is God—he also calls them to repentance. That was what all that part about your neck being like an iron sinew, was about: You stiff-necked people. You really don’t want to repent. You don’t want to bow the neck. You don’t want to bow the knee to God. You don’t want to actually change your ways, but that is precisely what you need to do. And the prophets were always calling the people to repentance, telling them that they needed to change their ways, because God was going to come and do stuff amongst them. And they should get ready for that. And that’s exactly what the last of the really great prophets, John, does. Which is why the Mark begins his gospel with characterizing John as a voice in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Because John comes preaching this gospel of repentance. Telling the people of God, they need to repent because the Messiah is coming. He’s on his way now, and he is going to appear amongst them.John makes it very clear that he is not the Messiah. He is not himself the promised one of Israel. He’s simply a messenger, a voice, preparing the way for him. And he says, at the end of the passage today, that he’s not even worthy to stoop and unloose his sandals, because while John baptizes with water, the one coming will baptize with the Holy Spirit. And this, therefore, is why, when the apostles have been trained up by our Lord, and he’s divulged to him his whole heart—all that is on his heart—he has told them that he has not hidden anything from them. He himself says to them the reason that he has told them what’s going to happen. Because of course you remember, Jesus, hmm… rather like God, tells his disciples, what is going to happen.And they don’t like what they are hearing, right? He tells he tells them that he’s going to go down to Jerusalem, and they’re going to take him, and they’re going to crucify him. Peter then says, “Lord, these things must not be.” And Jesus, who has just told him, as Peter has just confessed, “that you are the Christ the Son of God,” that he’s blessed and that flesh and blood has not revealed this to him, but his Father in heaven, now turns to Peter and says, “Get behind me, Satan!” Right? They don’t want to hear what he’s telling them, but he is telling them this. Why? He says, “I have told you now, before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe.” Almost like what we just heard in Isaiah chapter 48, about how God works with prophecy, telling them that he’s telling them this before it comes to pass, so that they may know he is God. And Jesus goes further. He says, Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, and that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:13-17)Again, if we think about the whole point of the prophets—or even further back than that, the law and the prophets, because the prophets were always calling the people back to the law of God—what was the point of that teaching? What was the point of that proclamation? What was the point of that prophecy? It was to call God’s people to metanoia, to a change of mind that would enable them to love one another, to be defined by love for one another. So that they could be the friends of God. And here Jesus, as he fulfils all of the prophecies, as he brings to pass and sets in motion all of what God has planned for us as his people, he tells his disciples, I have not hidden anything from you. I no longer call you servants. I call you my friends. Because a servant doesn’t know what his master wants. He just gets orders, like, go, do this, do that. A servant doesn’t get to say, “Uh, why?” The master will just say, “What? No, you’re my servant. Just go do it. I don’t need to have to explain everything to you.” But Jesus says, no, you’re not servants. You are my friends, if you do what I command.And so this culmination of all the teachings, culmination of all the prophecies, that the apostles saw in their day, where it’s not merely a virgin bringing forth a child, but a virgin, who has never known a man, bringing forth a child, the fulfilment of the prophecy in the grandest, most complete terms possible, reveals to us exactly what God is calling us to become: his people, his friends.And as we begin with repentance, and as we continue in repentance, allowing God to change our minds, to reform us into the image in which he created us at the very beginning, as we enter into the waters of baptism, uniting ourselves with Christ in his death, his burial, and his resurrection, we’re uniting ourselves to the God who united himself to us, so that he might call us his friends. And all he asks of us, all of the prophets have ever asked of us, is that we love him, and we love one another, that we might be the ones that he has created us to be: his friends, to his glory—the glory of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.Scripture readings referenced:* Mark 1:1-8* Isaiah 7:10-8:4; 48:3-5* John 14:29; 15:13-17 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com

Today’s homily was (for me) relatively short, so, rather than posting the transcript here (the automated version of which is already readily available), I want instead to add an addendum: “the sermon after the sermon,” as I like to call it.In both this parable and in our Lord’s rejoinder immediately preceding it, those to be invited to the feast are “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” and even random strangers who happen to be passing by who are compelled to come in. We can and should understand this initially in its literal sense: when we give a banquet we should invite those in need, who cannot possibly repay us. But we can also see in this—especially those of us who are converts to the faith—ourselves: those who were poor in spirit, helpless, unaware of the true nature of reality, who have been compelled to come in by the grace of God at work in our lives and have found ourselves the recipients of a heavenly banquet we did not anticipate receiving. Now joyful, illumined, and satiated, our response should be one of deep gratitude and adoration and praise towards our unexpected benefactor, along with a desire to complete what is, in the parable, the unfinished work of filling the banquet hall with other beneficiaries who may well be as unaware of their spiritual needs as we were.Our motive and our modus operandi should not be to “compel them to come in” in any physically coercive sense, but rather to so reveal the splendour of what they are missing out on that they can’t help but be as moved by the invitation and the experience as we have been. Because the benefit of being illumined, of being healed by the joy of the heavenly banquet is simply something too good to keep to ourselves!Scripture Readings Referenced:* Luke 13:22-17:10, with a focus on today’s reading, Luke 14:16-24 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com

So on this joyous day of Raissa’s baptism, we have a fairly solemn Gospel reading, in which our Lord tells a parable of a certain rich man, who had lots of stuff—like too much stuff, so he didn’t have enough space for all his stuff. And he thought, “Okay, well, I need more space for all my stuff. And so I’m going to tear down my current barns and build bigger ones so I have all my stuff laid up for many years, and then I will say to my soul: soul, you have stuff laid up for many years, eat, drink, and be merry.” And then God says to him, “You fool. Today, this very day, your soul will be required of you. And then whose will all those things be, which you have stored? All that stuff. Whose will it be?”So as I say, it’s a solemn parable, but it’s actually, in many respects, very appropriate, given that, in baptism, you’ll notice, the child is stripped of everything, and goes into the water, and is immersed into the water, naked, and bereft of all stuff: has no stuff at all. Because that’s us. That is our ultimate destination. Nothing will enter the kingdom of God of all those things that we have accumulated in this life. Except, by the grace of God, us. So Jesus is telling this parable in a certain context. He’s telling the parable in the context of a family argument. Someone from the crowd comes up to Jesus and says, “Rabbi, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” And Jesus responds, “Man, who made me a judge or arbiter over you?” And then he says, quite specifically, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”And that’s the beginning of this parable that we just considered, the reason that Jesus says this parable in the first place. But it’s interesting that if you look a little further back in this in Luke’s Gospel, Luke actually sets up another family feud. And this one should be pretty familiar to us, particularly at this season of the year, when we are celebrating a Marian feast, because this is one of the Gospel readings that we hear, every feast, where we celebrate something about Mary. “And it happened,” it says, “as they went, that Jesus entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha, welcomed him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to his word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Jesus and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.’”It may not be as big a deal as, “Lord, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,” but this is what happens in families. We get annoyed with one another. Martha is really busy cooking up a storm, and Mary’s just sitting there. Doing nothing. And so, Martha asked Jesus to intervene on her behalf. And Jesus answers and says to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”Now we read this at Marian feasts not because the early Christians were really confused, thinking that anybody who has the name Mary must be the same person. They knew that this was a different Mary. But it’s interesting that this also isn’t the end of the reading. It is the end of the reading right here, but we actually skip ahead. In Luke’s Gospel, just a few verses later, when someone bursts out to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you in the breast that nursed you,” Jesus responds, “Say rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it.” And we glom these two things together, because this describes the Church’s experience of Mary, the mother of God. And you can see this, even in Luke’s gospel, when, at the very beginning, when all these various things are happening to Mary and to her son, and what does it say? “Mary heard all these things, and treasured them in her heart.” So, the reminder, then, that we begin with today is this reminder of death. Death is coming for us all, even from our very beginning of our life. And we have to, then, think very seriously about what we prioritize in our life. And Mary gives us the clue as to what it is that we actually need to prioritize. What is the one thing that is needful, which will not be taken away from her? And that is, simply put, adoration. And here, again, it’s very appropriate that we have a baptism of an infant. Because if there’s one thing that an infant, a child, knows how to do, It’s to adore its mother. With the mother, the infant is at peace. With the mother, the infant is untroubled, and able to relax, and actually just enjoy life. Take the infant away from its mother, and you notice that sometimes they’re a little bit crotchedy and fidgety, and not quite comfortable. But give the infant back to the mother, and all of a sudden, it’s quiet. It’s calm. It’s at peace And this is the essence of adoration. But it also comes with something else, because one thing that the infant is doing, even at this point, is learning. And in order to learn, you simply have to do one thing: listen attentively. And that, of course, is what Mary is doing. She’s listening attentively at the feet of Jesus. That is the essence of her adoration. That is the essence of what is this act of worship that she is engaged in: that listening attentively at the foot of him who is her ultimate protector, at the foot of God incarnate. But there’s one more thing that is there, because, of course, as I said, we conclude the Gospel reading with, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it.” This means two things. One, we, as we hear the word of God, we should treasure it in our hearts, as Mary did all the things that happened to her and Jesus. We should treasure in our hearts the experience of God that we have in our own lives, as we experience his goodness, his grace, his mercy, in all sorts of different ways. Ah, but more than that: that, then, should shape how we act. Shape how we are. Shape how we speak. Because the essence of adoration is love, and the natural response of love is action, action that is focussed on the beloved, whether that be simply sitting and listening attentively, or putting into practice that which you have heard from the beloved. And the motivation has to be love. Because, ultimately, that is the essence of what we will take with us in our journey through life into eternity. Because we can’t take anything with us. Except ourselves, and, by virtue of ourselves, by virtue of the soul being eternal, the relationships that we have, with God and with one another. That’s why the two commandments are summed up as, “Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and all your mind, and all your strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.” Because this is the basis of our own journey through life into eternity. This is the basis of everything that we have, from here on, into eternity. This is the basis of everything that we will be, from now into eternity. That love that we have for God, that love that we have for one another, that adoration, that joy in the presence of the other. This is the one thing that is needful, and, by God’s grace, it will not be taken away from us, to his glory: the glory of the God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto to ages of ages.Scripture readings cited:* Luke 12:13-21* Luke 10:38-42; 11:27-28 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com

So in today’s gospel reading, we get two stories for the price of one. And these intertwined stories actually are the culmination of this particular section of the Gospel of Luke, which begins with the centurion asking Jesus to heal his servant. One of the things that runs throughout this section of the Gospel of Luke is the question, who is this man Jesus? Who is he? And as we look at this section as a whole, and in particular, at this culminating pair of stories, we begin to see exactly who he is. So, Jesus has just gotten back from healing the Gadarene demoniac. Everybody’s really happy to see him back. And in particular, a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, is ecstatic because his daughter is dying. And now he really needs Jesus to come and heal her. And so Jesus does, or at least he starts to try to do so. But, like everywhere he went—and you will remember from another story in this section, the raising of the widow’s son, the widow of Nain—Jesus is accompanied by a crowd. And the crowd is pressing on him from all sides. So his progress is excruciatingly slow as he’s making his way to Jairus’ house. And then it stops altogether as Jesus stops in the middle of this crowd, which is pressing on him from all sides and says, “Who touched me?”Now, we know the story. But there’s another story in this section which has to do with someone touching Jesus. If we go back to the central story in this section, Jesus was invited to the house of a Pharisee named Simon, and he was sitting at table, and as he’s sitting at table, eating with Simon, the Pharisee, and the company of a whole bunch of exalted guests, a woman comes off the street. A woman of the street comes off the street, and sets herself up behind Jesus, and is really making a scene. She’s weeping, and her tears are falling on Jesus’ feet, and she’s bending down and drying off his feet with her hair, and she’s anointing his feet with fragrant ointments. And the host of the feast, Simon, who must be more than a little annoyed by this point at this scene that’s developing, is thinking to himself, If this person was really a prophet, he’d know exactly who touched the kind of person who just touched him. And he’d tell her, “Get out of here. What are you doing? This is terrible. Go away!”Now, Jesus sees Simon’s heart, and he sees the woman’s heart, and he knows that there is an obvious communication gap here. How does he bridge it? And so, as always, he tells a story. “Simon, I have something to say to you.”“Say it, Master.”“There were two people. One owed 500 denari, and the other 50. And the master forgave both the debts. Now, which of the people, do you think, is gonna love him more? The one who owed 500, or the one who owed 50?” And Simon answers, “Well, I guess the one who owed him more money would love him more, right?”And Jesus says, “You’ve answered me rightly. I came into your house, and you did not anoint my head with oil, yet this woman has anointed my feet. You gave me no kiss of greeting, and yet she has not ceased to kiss my feet. I tell you, this woman, who loves much, her sins are forgiven.” And then we get one of the many questions in this section: “Who is this man who forgives sins?”And so this story that we’re in the middle of now, with the woman who has the flow of blood, who’s actually touched Jesus, the hem of Jesus’ garment. And Jesus knows this: He knows exactly who is touching him. Because he is a prophet, and more than a prophet. And as he stops now, he stopped for a reason. He stopped for her. He stopped for her and for her salvation. And, of course, the disciples are all confused. “Master. People are pressing against you on all sides. Why do you ask who touched you? There’s lots of people touching you.”And he says, “No, I felt power go out from me.” And so this woman then comes forward finally, and tells them, in the presence of all of them, how she touched his garment, and she was healed. And it turns out that she’s had a flow of blood that has made her unclean for twelve years. And Luke can’t help commenting, as a physician, that she spent all her livelihood on physicians, trying to get them to help her. And none of them have been able to help her. And now all she did was reach out, touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, and she’s healed. And Jesus says to her, “Daughter, be of good cheer. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” There’s another interesting parallel here: immediately after the story of Simon, Luke makes a comment, kind of out of the blue, that there’s lots of people, and, in particular, lots of women that Jesus has helped. And that they have contributed to his and the apostles’ livelihood. They are the ones who are sponsoring Jesus and the apostles, making it possible for them to travel around. And so what we have here, as Jesus has deliberately stopped the entire procession—brought it to a milling halt—is not simply a healing. It’s not simply that Jesus wants to get credit for this healing. It’s that there’s more that needs to be done here. There’s more that needs to be done for the woman. Because she has been, for twelve years, an outcast from Jewish society. She’s been unclean. Everybody knows that. It’s probably why she snuck up behind Jesus and touched his robe without telling anybody. But our Lord is not simply here to heal people. Our Lord is here to heal relationships. And so, as he gets her to tell her story, not only do people realize who he is, realize he knows exactly who is touching him, realize ultimately that he has the power to forgive sins—but she is restored to fellowship in the community. Everybody knows the story. Everybody knows that she’s been healed. And her livelihood, which has been, unfortunately, diverted to these physicians who are completely unable to heal her, can now be used to the glory of God. While he’s still standing, someone comes from the ruler of the synagogue’s house. and says to the ruler, “Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher. There’s no need for him to come over. There’s no point anymore.” But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, “Do not be afraid, only believe and she will be made well.” And there’s an interesting contrast here between this and the beginning story, where the elders of the Jews encourage Jesus to come and to heal the centurion’s servant, even though the centurion is obviously not a Jew. “He loves our nation,” they say. “He’s even built us a synagogue.” And the centurion, of course, after asking Jesus to come and heal his servant, has second thoughts and he tells Jesus, “No, don’t come. I’m not worthy that you should enter under the roof of my house.” This is a note of honour, in the one point, of understanding of the Jewish custom that to go into the house of a Gentile would make you unclean. But more than that, he says, “I’m not worthy for you to come. I didn’t even think myself worthy to come to you, but say the word, and my servant will be healed, for I am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” And when Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at the centurion and turned around and said to the crowd that followed him, “I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel.” There’s an interesting corollary here, as well, in that just before Jesus goes and heals the demon-possessed man, he and his disciples get into the boat. Jesus is tired, he falls asleep, and a big storm blows up, and the disciples get all panicky and are scared, and wake Jesus up, saying, “Master, don’t you care that we’re perishing here?”And he arose and he rebuked the wind and the raging of the water, and they ceased. And there was a calm. He turns to them, and he says to them, “Where is your faith?”And they were afraid, and marvelled, saying to one another, “Who can this be? He commands even the winds and the waters and they obey him.”And so, Jesus, who he is, is being made manifest. All he has to do, as the centurion knows full well, and his disciples don’t, is speak the word. And it will happen. It will come to pass. The centurion’s servant is healed. And the disciples, they just don’t get it. Even after seeing the great miracle of the calming of the storm, they’re still asking, “Who is he? Who can this be? He commands even the wind and the water. And they obey him.” But now, Jairus’ daughter is dead. There’s no need to go to his house. And yet Jesus says, when he hears it, “Do not be afraid, only believe, and she will be made well.” And he continues on. And he comes to the house. And they’re all weeping and wailing, and he doesn’t let anyone go in, except for Peter, James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl, and he tells everybody that, “Don’t worry, she’s just asleep,” and then they all laugh at him. They know she’s dead. But this is really interesting. Because, again, just after the middle of this section, Jesus starts telling stories. I mean, he’s told a story to Simon, but now he really starts telling stories, as we heard Father Lawrence speak last week about the parable of the sower. He tells the parable of the sower. And then he tells some more stories. But he tells his disciples in particular, that to them is given the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but not to everybody else, that hearing they may not hear, and so that they won’t understand yet. They’re not ready to understand. But the disciples are ready. So try and understand here. Try and follow. And at the end of this session, when he’s telling these parables, his mother and his brothers are trying to come to him, but they can’t, because of the crowds. And Jesus is told, “Hey, you maybe should stop teaching here, and come, you know, be with your mother and brothers.” And instead of stopping teaching, instead of stopping telling all these stories, he says, “My mother and my brother are those who hear the word of God, and keep it.” Of course, if you’ve read the Gospel of Luke, you know, that’s exactly what Mary is doing. Not so much his brothers. But definitely Mary. But he’s pointing out that this family, that he is establishing here on Earth, by his stories, by who he is, is made up of those who hear the word of God, and keep it. So now Jesus is with Peter, and James, and John, his inner circle of disciples, and with the mother and father of the girl—he sent everybody else out—and he takes the little girl by the hand and calls, saying, “Little girl, arise.” And her spirit returned. And she arose immediately. And he commanded that she be given something to eat. Her parents were astonished, and he charged them to tell no one what had happened. So here, we have, instead of the miracle that was obtained in secret but forcibly published abroad, we have the opposite. We have something where everybody kind of knows what’s happened. But Jesus is doing his best to keep this a secret, for now. Why? Because this is the very heart of what he has come to do. This is the very heart of the Gospel, of the good news, but people are not ready for this yet, because they don’t understand what this really is, what’s really about to happen with Christ himself, dying, and rising from the dead, that we may all join him in that. And so at this point, the secret is given only to the parents, and to Peter, James, and John. But now the secret’s out. Now we know. We know who Jesus is. When John the Baptist’s disciples came and asked him, Are you the one who was promised, or should we be looking for another? He tells them, “Go, see what you have, tell John what you have seen: the blind receive their sight, the prophecies are fulfilled. I am the one.” And he makes this plain to us by dying on the cross and himself rising from the dead so that we may be healed. But not simply so that we may be healed. Because, you know, all the people that Jesus healed, they died. Even the people that Jesus raised from the dead. They died. So there’s something more going on here than mere healing. And again, what does Jesus do at the end of this story? After having raised this girl from the dead, he tells her parents, “Get her something to eat.” Why? Because that’s what parents do. They get their children something to eat. Over and over and over and over again. But he’s restoring the relationship. Because that’s what sin, that’s what suffering, that’s what sickness, that’s what death does. It disrupts, it destroys human relationships. It cuts us off from one another. It is, in fact, the representation of what is happening to us as we are drifting away from the words of God—the Word of God, which holds us in existence by which he spoke the worlds into existence, by which he sustains the world, in their existence, by which he gives us life. As we drift away from the word of God, we become sick. We enter in, ultimately, to death, but more than that, our relationships with one another and our relationship with God himself is destroyed, is disrupted. But it does not have to be that way. This is not necessarily the end. It doesn’t have to end in sickness, in suffering, in death. It does not have to end in sin that disrupts and destroys those relationships. Because Christ has come, Christ has come and has spoken the word of authority to us, to the world, saying that, “You can be healed. Your relationship with God and with your fellow man can be restored. You, too, can not only enter into death, as you must do, but enter into life, as is necessary for you to be truly the children of God, to be truly who you were made to be.” And so we see exactly who he is. He is God himself, become one of us, that he might unite us to himself in his loving kindness, in his tender mercy, in his love for us. By calling us to repentance, by calling us away from the sin and the suffering and the death that is the system of this world, by calling us into the life that he has prepared for us and that he is revealing to us as his disciples. What was secret is now made plain. Christ is risen, and the graves are opened! Christ is risen, not one remains in the tomb!And we are invited. Through repentance, through uniting ourselves to him, through touching the hem of his garment, through grasping his hand, even as we are dead, and being raised up, we are invited to enter into the joy that he’s prepared for us unto the age of ages. Amen.Scripture readings referenced:* Luke 7-8Note: As is often the case when I am preaching on the Gospel of Luke, I am deeply indebted to Dr. David Gooding’s According to Luke. Dr. Gooding’s brilliant scholarship and deep devotion delayed my conversion to Orthodox Christianity for a few years and, while I would now have to respectfully disagree with some of his more “Brethren” interpretations of the Scriptures, to this day I consider his analysis of how Luke structures his Gospel second to none. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com

If our starting point for love as Christians is “love your enemies”, and if our ending point is “love one another as I have loved you”, and if this is supposed to be what characterizes us as Jesus followers, this love should be the defining feature of our church.Note: The inside joke at the beginning of this homily is comes from something I have long said to my parishioners. Based what St. Jerome said about St. John the Theologian, I have always said that I want my last sermon on St. John’s to be simply, “Little children, love one another.” So, immediately after saying this at the beginning of my homily today, I turned around and made as though to go back into the altar… then, obviously, continued for a little while longer.Here is the story about St. John, from St. Jerome’s Commentary on Galatians 6:10:The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, “Little children, love one another.” The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, “Teacher, why do you always say this?” He replied with a line worthy of John: “Because it is the Lord’s commandment and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.”If we do love one another as Christ showed us how to love, in this self-sacrificial way which does not compromise the truth, which looks for the best in the other, which believes the best in the other—because as Paul says, love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things—and if that characterizes us, then, and only then, are we truly the children of God.Scripture references cited:* Luke 6:27-38 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com

Of all the 12 great feasts of the church—or 17 great feasts, or 17 ranked feasts if you’re following Father Alexander Rentel—this is probably one of the most political. This feast, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, commemorates the finding of the cross by the Empress Helen, mother of Constantine, and also the recovery of the cross when it was captured by the Persians, and then the emperor Heraclius conquered them and brought the cross back to Jerusalem. So there’s a lot of politics involved here. I want us to consider where that comes from and where we go with it.The most important thing that we need to start with is, of course, the origin of the feast. But to get at the origin of the feast and the significance of this particular event for Christians, you have to understand the cross. That’s one of the reasons why we just heard a summary version from the Gospel of John about Jesus’ crucifixion. If you don’t understand the cross and what it means and what it represented for centuries up until that point, then you’re not going to get the significance of what happened at that moment.The cross was, of course, the great instrument of torture and death by which the Romans struck fear into the hearts of their enemies. It was one of the most horrifying, torturous, and excruciating ways that man has ever devised for his fellow man to put him to death. When you are crucified on the cross, it’s a long and agonizing, torturous ordeal just to die, because, of course, embedded in the heart of every human being by God himself is the desire to live, is that instinct to preserve life. As you’re hanging on the cross, you start to suffocate because your arms are stretched out and you have to push yourself up to take the next agonized breath, and then you let yourself down because you can’t sustain that. It’s just a long ordeal. People survived on the cross for entire days before they finally passed away in agony, naked, and hung up there for everyone to see what would happen to Rome’s enemies and to tremble. So it was a horrifying and a very political symbol.Imagine now, this is centuries’ worth of the experience of being in the Roman Empire. This is what has been the instrument of torture and death for everybody—except the Christians. For Christians, of course, this now takes on a new meaning. This takes on a new resonance because the cross, this instrument of torture, fear, death, and oppression, becomes for the Christians, because of what Jesus accomplishes on the cross, because of not only his death but his resurrection, it becomes a symbol of God’s power over death, of God’s mercy as he reaches out to us, of God’s love as he embraces us. He stretches out his hands in the person of his Son to embrace us and the whole world by offering us his mercy.The other aspect of the Christian experience up until that point, when the Empress Helen found the precious cross, was one of torture and death. If you hang around here on Saturday evenings, you’ll hear the reading of the lives of the saints, and you’ll hear over and over and over again just how many of them were tortured and died for the faith. Jesus himself prepares his disciples for this. Just before the bit that we read, he says to his disciples, If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet, because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake, because they do not know him who sent me. And he goes on to say, “If they’ve done this to me, they will do even worse to you.”And again, that prophecy was fulfilled. His disciples, generation upon generation, were tortured and suffered and died for the gospel. But the strange thing was that no matter what the Romans did, they couldn’t seem to stamp this Christianity out. In fact, it was really weird. Christians would go singing to their deaths. The people looking on would be inspired by this, and some of them would stand up and say, “I too want to be a Christian.” This is obviously the best-case scenario. There were also horrible worst-case scenarios where people who professed to be Christians were taken and left the faith at the very last minute because they couldn’t face the suffering and the death that was in store for them.But Jesus is clear, and the apostles are clear, that those who persevere to the end will be saved. You need to be ready to die for what you believe. If it is the truth, if it is indeed the source of eternal life, you need to be ready to lay down your life no matter what torture comes, and persevere in that until the end, because the only thing worth living for, and therefore the only thing worth dying for, is the Truth—the truth that at the heart of the universe is a God of love.So, after generation upon generation of suffering, torture, and death at the hands of the authorities, at the hands of those who ran the empire in which they lived, all of a sudden you had this emperor who came along and first proclaimed an edict of toleration and then began to show his favor to the church. Then his mother came to the Holy Land, seeking out the places that Jesus had walked, and been born, and died, and raised again. She even commissioned one of the first archaeological digs as she learned that this cross had been buried, but people knew where it was. And they took the cross out from where it had lain and found it to be life-giving. They raised it up. She raises it up. The mother of the emperor of Rome raises up the cross and honors it. This could only be a miracle. This could only be the hand of God at work. This could only be the fulfillment of prophecy. And so, the Christians rejoiced and continued rejoicing every year over this amazing work of God.I’ve said often that I feel like we are living in a time that’s maybe parallel to those early years in the Roman Empire. Admittedly, it’s probably kind of hyperbolic. Most of us are not getting killed and tortured for what we believe. It happens. It happens quite frequently over in Egypt, and occasionally we face something like this here. But this should not be a surprise to us. As Jesus said, he has chosen us out of the world. If we were of the world, then the world would love us, but we’ve come out of this world system into the light of the Gospel, and therefore we are considered a threat: potentially hateful, obviously wrong, and dangerous to the existing order of things. And so, yeah, it’s not surprising that they would not like us very much. We should not be surprised.That being said, if we are going to suffer for the sake of the Gospel, we have to be very careful about how we do that. Yeah, sure, it would be great to live in a time when the country was at least theoretically Christian again. We had a time like that: it was problematic, but our laws were kind of informed by the Christian faith, and most of the people considered themselves Christians, at least nominally, and went to church occasionally. That was nice. That was great. We’re not there now, and it would be nice if that came back. But really, we have to think about how is it to come back? We have to be very careful about how we think about that.When Jesus was before Pilate, what does he say? When Pilate asks him, “Are you a king?” Jesus says to him, “Well, you said it.” But then he goes on to say, “But my kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would take up arms and fight for me.” And Pilate knows this stuff. There’s all sorts of insurrection. That’s why Pilate gets sent to this horrible backwater, and he’s not happy to be there, because there are all these insurrections. The Jews keep rebelling, and some guy named Theudas not too long ago rose up with 400 men and was put down in this bloody revolt. This happens over and over again. So when Jesus is saying this, it’s not some kind of abstract concept. No, no, this is exactly what’s happening. But he says, “My followers are not like this. This is not what we do because the kingdom that we belong to is not of this world.”And so, as we celebrate the cross, as we, at the end of this service, fall down in adoration before it, singing, “Before your cross we bow down in worship, and your holy resurrection we glorify,” we need to remember a couple of things. The first thing is when Christ calls us to follow him, what does he call us to do? To take up our cross daily and follow him. What does that mean? Well, it means we have to be ready to die, of course. But it also means that the way that we are living is the way of the cross, is the way that Jesus manifested himself and his love to us on the cross. We do not live, we cannot live for ourselves any longer. We must die to ourselves on a daily basis.So, as we prostrate before the cross, if that’s going to mean anything, that means we have to be like the one who is up on the cross, praying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Caring for those whom he saw at the foot of the cross: he sees his mother and says to the disciple whom he loves, “Behold your mother,” and says to his mother, “Behold your son,” making sure that she would be taken care of. Even in that extremity of death, our Lord was looking out for others. If we are to be his true disciples, we must do the same. And if we are to manifest what he manifested on the cross, we must manifest love even to—especially to—those who seem to be our enemy, because the way that God works: the way that he works salvation in the midst of the earth, is to make us, formerly his enemies, his friends.This is what he calls us to do, so that if, by God’s grace, we have the blessing to be actual martyrs one day, we will be prepared and we will have prepared ourselves and our hearts by being defined so entirely by love for others, so entirely by self-sacrificial service toward others, that those who are putting us to death can find no just cause to do so, can find nothing bad to say about us that is true. This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. This is what it means to take up our cross daily and follow him. This is what it means as we bow down before the cross of Christ and worship, making it the centre of our life, making it the way that we live and die to the glory of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.Scripture readings referenced:* John 15:18-21* John 19:6-11, 13-20, 25-28, 30-35 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com

Forgiveness is hard. It’s not just hard for us—it has been a human problem all the way back. Today’s gospel reading was occasioned by a conversation about forgiveness. Peter says to Jesus just before he tells this parable, “Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother? Seven times?” Wow, he’s doing well, right? Not just once, but seven times. And Jesus, of course, responds, “No, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” And I don’t think he means work out the math and keep track. Then he tells this parable.This parable is, I think, one of the greatest tools in our spiritual arsenal for figuring out how to forgive. I do want to make one comment, though, about the nature of the story. In the parable, it’s a king, but we all know who the king is supposed to represent. And yet, of course, at the very end of the parable the king delivers the servant over to the torturers until every last cent of what he owes is paid. He seems like a pretty strict guy.It’s actually kind of interesting. If you look through the parables Jesus tells, when a character represents God, it’s not infrequent that God comes off as pretty strict, harsh, and even scary. Think about the parable of the talents, where the servant hides his master’s talent. What does he say to him? “Lord, I knew that you were a hard man, reaping where you have not sown.” Or take the parable of the unjust judge. If you’re tracking who God is in that parable, he would be the unjust judge. I sometimes wonder if Jesus is having a bit of fun with us, because as human beings our biggest struggle is that we tend to think of God as harsh, unjust, maybe even terrifying—if he exists at all. Some might even prefer he didn’t exist, because that would feel easier.It could also simply be that the Jews of the time had a very strong sense—drilled into them over many generations—of God’s power, justice, and even arbitrariness. Yet they also held a deep understanding of his goodness. Perhaps Jesus was playing with that tension. But whatever the case, the king in this parable wants to settle accounts, and he has a servant brought forward who owes him ten thousand talents. That’s obviously an ancient measurement we don’t use anymore. For perspective, one commentary notes that in 4 BC the total taxes collected in Judea, Samaria, and Idumea combined was six hundred talents. So this is a debt on the level of a nation-state.There is simply no way the servant could pay it back. Yet he falls at his master’s feet and says, “Be patient with me and I will pay you all.” It’s absurd—he never could. And so he’s in danger of being sold into slavery with his wife and children. But the king forgives him. This is the real revelation of God’s character. If Jesus is playing with our assumptions about God, we tend to assume that God is not only big and scary and perhaps kind of arbitrary, but also unforgiving. He has this law that he wants us to keep. And we have a debt according to that law, and we must pay it off no matter what. We'll be sold into slavery or thrown into prison or handed over to the torturers.But what does the king do here? He forgives his servant the entire debt—all ten thousand talents.So the servant goes away presumably very happy—like he dodged a bullet. But then he finds a fellow servant who owes him one hundred denarii. For context, one denarius was a day’s wage, so this was significant—maybe equivalent to about $10,000 today. His fellow servant begs him (and this is sounding familiar…), “Be patient with me and I will pay you.” Now, this is a debt that he could actually pay: it's within human ability to pay something like this. It might be a stretch, and it might take a while, but it would be something that he could do. But the forgiven servant refuses, demanding payment, and throws him into prison.Now this is where I usually point out—and I will point it out again—this is the biggest and most important weapon in our arsenal as we struggle with forgiveness. Because we can look at this and just see how stupid it is—how irrational and how dumb this servant is, what an ungrateful wretch he is. And, as soon as we manage to get to that realization (which hopefully isn't too hard), we need to then turn that inward and look at ourselves.Have we gotten angry with somebody?Have we got a grudge against somebody?Has somebody hurt us?It might be a very significant hurt, one that would take a very long time to repay, even if there was a willingness to repay.But how often is our response exactly like that servant's response?But today I want to go on and note there are other people in this parable. And that's actually kind of significant. Because, you know, it's not usually just God and me and the guy who was offended. All sin takes place in a context. And generally speaking, it's in the context of a community, in a context of relationships. There are other people who are involved.And one of the things I've often said is how dangerous it is to take offense on another person's behalf. This is really dangerous. Don't do it! That person on whose behalf you are taking offence might end up forgiving the person who has done them the wrong. And then you still are hanging on to the other person’s hurt for dear life, while the person who has been hurt is now fine, having forgiven. They're reconciled and you're left stewing.So, it's interesting to see, given this context of relationship, that there are fellow servants involved here. And the fellow servants hear about this incident. They've heard about both incidents, actually. They've heard about the generosity and the forgiveness of the king and how this person's been forgiven this completely unrepayable debt. And they also heard about this, what the servant then did to its fellow servant.And what do they do?Do they go and they tell everybody about it and gossip and maybe even go up and confront the servant?No, they don't do any of that.It's actually kind of interesting because that is our tendency if we're honest, right?We want to set things right. We want to make sure everybody knows what was wrong. That they shouldn't do that.But, that's actually not what they do.They go to the king, and they tell the king about it.And then the king deals with it, with the very harshness that we actually have come to expect.This, I think, is our greatest tool for forgiveness. Forgiveness is a process. It’s hard. It takes time, patience, and energy—like paying off a huge debt. But it’s also important to get the channels of communication right. Where do we go when we see wrongdoing, injustice, or sin? We go to the King. Tell him about it. He will deal with it.And as I say, I think Jesus is having a bit of fun here with our understanding—or, perhaps I should say, misunderstanding of God. I mean, how do we understand God?His ways are higher than our ways. He is the one who governs the entire universe. There's no way we can understand really what his goodness is like.We can come to some understanding of God through analogies, but when we start to evaluate God's righteousness or his goodness according to what a human being should do, we're just not qualified to judge him in his divine goodness.But we should know that already. He's the creator and sustainer of the entire universe. Of course, he's beyond us. And the laws of the universe—even the spiritual laws that he has laid down—are immutable, and, in that sense, they tend to be pretty harsh.But the good news is that the ultimate revelation that we have of his character is that he forgives.Yes, he will also make sure that justice is done. That is important too. Because otherwise, we end up trying to take justice into our own hands and become a whole bunch of vigilantes running around hurting and killing one another. And that is not a good scene.That's why God says, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord,” as the Apostle Paul quotes in Romans chapter 12.So, leave judgment in the hands of the one who is qualified to judge the universe because he is the one who created and maintains it and who knows the secrets of men's hearts.And when you see injustice, when you see wrongdoing being done, when you see sin that is maybe not being done against you, cry out to him.He will do something about it.But also, and again I want to bring us back to this tool in our toolbox.Remember, as we fall down before him, as the chief of sinners, saying ,“Be patient with me and I will pay you everything” to the King of the universe:* He is patient.* He is loving.* And he extends that love and mercy to us.And the only expectation really that he has of us is that we then turn around and extend what we have freely received and freely give that same love and mercy to those around us, that our actions in this matter, that our forgiveness in this matter, that our love in this matter may mirror his.That we might be to his glory, the glory of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. Now and ever unto ages of ages. Amen.Scripture readings referenced:* Matthew 17:14-23* Romans 12:19-21 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com