Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 Psalm 119:137-144
2 Thessalonians 1:1-5 (6-10) 11-12 Luke 19:1-10
Lectionary Link
The Bible is a book of presentation of human exemplars in various life situations and the life of those exemplars are assessed vis a vis how the various assessors regarded their relationship to the divine.
Our appointed readings provide us with a variety of exemplars. The first being the prophet Habakkuk who understood himself to be a seeming helpless oracle in times of distress and trouble for him and his people. The troubles were so pronounced and so out of his control, he could only know himself as being a watchman, a spectator looking for the purpose and meaning that might arise from his dire situation.
And this is true to the human experience which comes to every human in life; the situation of needing courage to accept the things that one cannot change. And what is the active response during the event of required courage? What am I learning from this for myself and the community of people with whom I dwell? How can I live better and how can this experience of distress create grooves of ministering empathy for people who will face loss in the future and need someone to sit with them in a sensitive befriending presence?
The Psalmists were poetic exemplars who provided hymnody in poetic form for the community to express their woes and to express joy and support for their highest community values. And one of the highest values for the Psalmist of the 119th Psalm is the supreme place of justice in the life of the community. The entire purpose of the law and the precepts was to teach the approximation of justice in human living. The Psalmist is a communal teacher of the singular importance of justice, and as an example for us, we should let our lives wax as poetic as possible with lives of lived justice.
The stated writers of Second Thessalonians were Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy who were companions and leaders in the Pauline communities. As leaders, the example that they provided for their community was giving encouragement and positive reinforcement to the people of their churches. There is a difference between manipulative flattery and the mentoring art of helping people be better through words of encouragement, and words of appreciation. Letting people know how important they are to you comes from the maturity of egoless leadership. When people are freed from the narcissistic or childish tendency of needing praise and able to wield words of encouragement in the genuine mentoring of students and people with less experience, we can find the examples of what good leadership is.
The last example provided from our readings today is the example of Zacchaeus as he came under the influence of Jesus Christ. Zacchaeus is the example of someone caught in dilemma of identity. He was a tax collector for the Romans, but he was also Jewish. He really had no accepted status from either community. He was used by the Romans to collect taxes from his fellow Jews, and therefore despised by his fellows for being a "sell-out" to the oppressors. The message of Jesus was that everyone needed to be on the path of transformation, no matter what their personal circumstances were. Jesus is presented as the example of the one who did not pre-judge others because of their circumstance; rather he saw every person as sheer potential for becoming better, and so he was the one who offered Zacchaeus and everyone to take new steps on the path of transformation.
What have we learned from our biblical exemplars in our appointed readings? First, sometimes we might be like Habakkuk and caught between a rock and a hard place, and we must merely watch, and learn, and survive the experience of loss so that we might become more sensitive companion mentors of the bereaved.
From the Psalmist, we learn that we are called to be poets in praise of the supreme value of justice for ourselves and our community. We are to live justice, sing justice, teach justice as our way of life.
From the witness attributed to Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, we are to be leaders in providing encouraging mentorship to those who need to assisted in their life towards excellence. To be mature in leadership means that we have known a high degree of inner esteem such that we have an abundance of good will and good words to dispense to those who need providential words to help them progress in the spiritual growth.
Finally, we need to learn from Zacchaeus in his encounter with Jesus, that no situation is helpless from the offer of personal transformation. We need to rise above the stereotypes that others have about us or that we may have internalized ourselves and accept the fact that though not perfect, we are always already, perfectible.
Jesus, is the supreme human exemplar of God inviting everyone, everywhere to continually surpass ourselves in excellence, because the image of God on our lives means that we always already have the hope gene within us for perfectibility. Jesus Christ is the witness to God's continual welcoming lure and empowerment for all to be on the path of transformation in human excellence. Amen.
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