The ungrateful and wicked
Day 473, Thursday, Nov. 27
Luke Chapter 6 – 7:17
One of the characters in the TV show, The Chosen, describes Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount by saying “Everything is reversed.”
That’s a pretty good description: Blessed are you who are poor—woe to you who are rich. Blessed are you who hunger—woe to you who are well fed. Blessed are those who weep—woe to you who laugh.
One of the hardest-to-digest parts of the sermon, though, is the teaching to love your enemies. Jesus spends quite a bit of time on the topic; he is serious about it.
In 6:35-36 we read, “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, as your Father is merciful.”
After reading the prophets with their foreshadowing of judgment and suffering we might be excused for wondering how God can be described as being kind and merciful to the ungrateful and wicked, until we remember that we are included in that description. We are the ungrateful and wicked.
The teachings about judgment and suffering are not so much about God punishing people who are bad, as much as they are about allowing people to make their own decision—God does not force anything on those who choose to reject him: even kindness and mercy.
But to those who will receive his kindness and mercy he offers it freely, even to the ungrateful and wicked.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Thursday meditation

Psalms 34:1-10
I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will glory in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together.
I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.
Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

Prayer focus
God, grant us refuge in you, even though we have in our time been among the ungrateful and wicked.