The Promised Salvation
Pentecost 10, August 17, 2025
Jeremiah 23:23-29
Psalm 82
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56
It is not difficult to figure out the theme of today’s lessons from the Bible: judgment. Though it is an interesting choice for the psalm today, Psalm 82 tells us that God sits in divine council of the gods and holds judgment. In the theology of the Israelites this statement seems out of character. They, as we do, confess that there is only one God. So how can God sit in judgment of other gods? Was the psalmist speaking metaphorically? Was he thinking about those material things that take us away from God like money, desire, power and prestige? We really cannot give a definite answer to these questions. Jesus does give us a clue about this. In John’s gospel (10:34) Jesus quotes verse six of this psalm, clearly interpreting the gods in the text to be the Israelites. This is most likely the way the Israelites interpreted this text – that the reference to gods was about them and their own sin and wickedness. Without a change in their hearts, the psalmist writes, they will be judged harshly.
Jeremiah is writing about God’s judgment as well. It is not the whole people of God that he is speaking to, it is the false prophets. Those prophets were telling the people what they wanted to hear, not the truth. This is in part because these prophets made a living by their prophecies and people tended to reward prophets who gave rosy pictures of the future and did not listen to prophets who warned of pending doom. What is interesting here is that God does not tell them to stop telling their dreams, their false prophecies. What he does say is that the people ought to be able to tell the difference between true and false prophecy as the difference between wheat and straw implying that the people can tell the difference but choose not to. For God’s word is like fire and a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces.
Jesus reiterates this statement by telling us that he came to bring that fire to earth. He then goes on to tell us that if you thought that Jesus’ coming was to be easy you thought wrong, for his work will bring division. However, we do need to be a bit cautious here. Luke seems to be assembling texts that were originally said by Jesus at different times. Luke seems to have assembled these sayings of Jesus in this way to give comfort to the members of his community who were experiencing division in their families after they became Christians, and helping them to understand their families’ blindness to Jesus.
Not all of our texts are about judgment. Hebrews is about the opposite: faith. This whole list was people of the Old Testament and from the time when the Jews were persecuted by their Greek rulers. Our writer reminds us that they did not know the promise that we have been given and they still struggled to answer God’s call to be God’s people. Now, if they could answer God’s call without knowing the reward that Christ has given us, answering Jesus' call to “pick up our cross and follow him” should be easy. For now you don’t need to do certain things or follow the law to be accepted by God. Jesus did all the hard work for you by his death upon the cross. Now you no longer have to live your life the way God desires you to – you get to. You no longer are bound by sin and death. Now you are set free to be God’s people, able to live your life by sharing God’s love with those in need by sharing yourselves, your time, and your possessions. Gifted with faith, answer Jesus’ call and follow him where he leads you.