6th Sunday after Epiphany
Jeremiah warns us that “the heart is devious above all else; it is perverse” (17:9). Hearts can be dwelling places of self-centeredness, prejudice, and brokenness. Martin Luther made a “distinction between two kinds of love: amor Dei and amor hominis”—that is, God’s love and human love (p. 369). Human love works only for its own gain. God’s love, however, “seeks not its own good but others’ deepest needs. . . . [it is] true love, born of the cross, [that] moves toward the direction where it shares with others” (p. 370). In the word and the sacraments we are united to Christ in faith and receive his own heart.
A fundamental decision is placed before us this day: Will we choose the way of blessing or the way of woe? The death and resurrection of Jesus is the pivot on which the decision turns. To be in Christ means that we get planted by streams of water and are rooted among those who thirst for God’s reign. The mystery of our faith points the path to life: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
The metaphors of the fruitful trees or the chaff make it easy for Christians either to over stress active discipleship, as if salvation requires radically altered behavior, or to spiritualize such language, as if one’s interior feelings are all that matter. Can both be equally true?
