A Midweek Advent Sermon on Luke 11:29-32
How do we decide good and bad, better or worse, lesser or greater? In the 21st century, we crunch the numbers and analyze the data.
Even without considering his misadventures before and after his tour of Nineveh, the data on Jonah is solid. In three days of preaching, Jonah led an entire evil city to repent of the violence in their hands. 120,000 people were saved, and many cattle. A data-driven analysis of effective preaching therefore clearly indicates a successful preaching mission. It should be noted that the Assyrians in Nineveh eventually conquered the northern kingdom of Israel some generations later anyways. Nevertheless, something great, even statistically significant, had happened in Jonah.
Similarly, the numbers for King Solomon don’t lie. He ruled over the kingdom of Israel at its apex, with lands stretching from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. He oversaw public building projects and infrastructure that left lasting imprints on the city. The altar of the temple alone was 20 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and 10 cubits high. That’s a lot of cubits! Every day, Solomon’s household had access to 30 cors of flour and 60 cors of meal, 10 fat oxen, 20 grass-raised cattle, 100 sheep, with other deer, gazelle, and waterfowl besides. Each year, Solomon received 666 talents of gold and that was just the start of his riches. Once every three years, his ships came back from Tarshish laden with gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. In his time, he “made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones.”
And let’s not forget about his wisdom. In the days before standardized testing, wisdom used to be hard to quantify. But we can compare. 1 Kings 4 tells us that Solomon was wiser than Ethan the Ezraite, and wiser than Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the children of Mahol. Solomon composed 3000 proverbs and 1005 songs. He could speak of trees, animals, birds, and reptiles. His fame earned him a visit from the Queen of Sheba, who traveled from modern-day Yemen and/or the horn of Africa, which really was the end of the earth, because past that is the ocean. The Queen had heard of Solomon’s wisdom, wealth, and leadership; after visiting him, she was amazed that she had not even heard the half of it. So how do you quantify Solomon’s wisdom? Take the wisest person you can imagine… Ethan the Ezraite, for instance... and double it. Data-driven analysis leaves no doubt of Solomon’s greatness, although again we might add this magnificence was relatively short-lived, because his idolatry displeased the Lord and his unjust labor policies—which worsened under his son Rehoboam—brought lasting divisions, idolatry, and warfare to the kingdom, culminating in the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians centuries later.
Even so, the numbers don’t lie. Jonah was an effective preacher. Solomon was quantifiably great. And yet, says Jesus to the data-hungry people of his time and ours, “see, something greater than Jonah and Solomon is here.”
That’s an intriguing claim. The data on Jesus, of course, is less convincing. For instance, here are some personnel numbers in the Gospel of Luke: twelve close male disciples, some dedicated female followers and benefactors, and at one point a team of 70 or so commissioned preachers, sent out two-by-two. Then we have the feeding of the five thousand: not a bad day’s work, but hardly Jonah’s 120,000 or Solomon’s 100 sheep per day. After this, the numbers for Jesus get even worse: parables of a lost coin, lost sheep, and lost son, the widow’s two mites, a threefold denial, two thieves, and a small band of acquaintances—including women who had followed him from Galilee—standing at a distance, watching the crucifixion of one would-be Messiah.
Jonah was a great prophet who saved lives from violence. Solomon was wise, wealthy, and powerful. What about Jesus could possibly be greater than these impressive figures? What about Jesus will the people of Nineveh and the Queen of the South rise up and testify to at the judgment? At that time, they will say, “Wake up. Your values, your data, your counting are all wrong. You’ve been using the wrong math, the wrong formulas, the wrong assumptions and you come to the wrong conclusions over and over again, and it is killing you and the people around you, whether you know it or not. Stop. Turn around. Learn to care the way that God cares.”
For a time, Jonah had opened Nineveh’s eyes to see the violence in their hands and the need to repent in dust and ashes. For a time, Solomon had shown a wisdom beyond what people had imagined and gave leadership that inspired greatness. And Jesus, in his life and ministry, certainly built upon such prophetic preaching and wise leadership. But he also rewrote the equations. He is a prophet who became sin and bears the sin of those who hear him, so that we can be free of sin. He is a priest who became the sacrifice that ends sacrifice, scapegoating, holiness projects and righteous violence. Jesus is a king who becomes a nobody, a servant, a criminal, and curse so that we can be equal citizens with each other and with him.
Who is this “greater-than” Jesus, who is and does such “greater-than” things? To answer that, I commend to you the words of our Danish friend Soren Kierkegaard, who prayed:
“Our Lord Jesus Christ was nothing, oh, remember this, Christendom.”
[Preached during Wednesday Eucharist at Loehe Chapel, Wartburg Seminary;
Martin Lohrmann, Dec. 5, 2018]
How do we decide good and bad, better or worse, lesser or greater? In the 21st century, we crunch the numbers and analyze the data.
Even without considering his misadventures before and after his tour of Nineveh, the data on Jonah is solid. In three days of preaching, Jonah led an entire evil city to repent of the violence in their hands. 120,000 people were saved, and many cattle. A data-driven analysis of effective preaching therefore clearly indicates a successful preaching mission. It should be noted that the Assyrians in Nineveh eventually conquered the northern kingdom of Israel some generations later anyways. Nevertheless, something great, even statistically significant, had happened in Jonah.
Similarly, the numbers for King Solomon don’t lie. He ruled over the kingdom of Israel at its apex, with lands stretching from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. He oversaw public building projects and infrastructure that left lasting imprints on the city. The altar of the temple alone was 20 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and 10 cubits high. That’s a lot of cubits! Every day, Solomon’s household had access to 30 cors of flour and 60 cors of meal, 10 fat oxen, 20 grass-raised cattle, 100 sheep, with other deer, gazelle, and waterfowl besides. Each year, Solomon received 666 talents of gold and that was just the start of his riches. Once every three years, his ships came back from Tarshish laden with gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. In his time, he “made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones.”
And let’s not forget about his wisdom. In the days before standardized testing, wisdom used to be hard to quantify. But we can compare. 1 Kings 4 tells us that Solomon was wiser than Ethan the Ezraite, and wiser than Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the children of Mahol. Solomon composed 3000 proverbs and 1005 songs. He could speak of trees, animals, birds, and reptiles. His fame earned him a visit from the Queen of Sheba, who traveled from modern-day Yemen and/or the horn of Africa, which really was the end of the earth, because past that is the ocean. The Queen had heard of Solomon’s wisdom, wealth, and leadership; after visiting him, she was amazed that she had not even heard the half of it. So how do you quantify Solomon’s wisdom? Take the wisest person you can imagine… Ethan the Ezraite, for instance... and double it. Data-driven analysis leaves no doubt of Solomon’s greatness, although again we might add this magnificence was relatively short-lived, because his idolatry displeased the Lord and his unjust labor policies—which worsened under his son Rehoboam—brought lasting divisions, idolatry, and warfare to the kingdom, culminating in the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians centuries later.
Even so, the numbers don’t lie. Jonah was an effective preacher. Solomon was quantifiably great. And yet, says Jesus to the data-hungry people of his time and ours, “see, something greater than Jonah and Solomon is here.”
That’s an intriguing claim. The data on Jesus, of course, is less convincing. For instance, here are some personnel numbers in the Gospel of Luke: twelve close male disciples, some dedicated female followers and benefactors, and at one point a team of 70 or so commissioned preachers, sent out two-by-two. Then we have the feeding of the five thousand: not a bad day’s work, but hardly Jonah’s 120,000 or Solomon’s 100 sheep per day. After this, the numbers for Jesus get even worse: parables of a lost coin, lost sheep, and lost son, the widow’s two mites, a threefold denial, two thieves, and a small band of acquaintances—including women who had followed him from Galilee—standing at a distance, watching the crucifixion of one would-be Messiah.
Jonah was a great prophet who saved lives from violence. Solomon was wise, wealthy, and powerful. What about Jesus could possibly be greater than these impressive figures? What about Jesus will the people of Nineveh and the Queen of the South rise up and testify to at the judgment? At that time, they will say, “Wake up. Your values, your data, your counting are all wrong. You’ve been using the wrong math, the wrong formulas, the wrong assumptions and you come to the wrong conclusions over and over again, and it is killing you and the people around you, whether you know it or not. Stop. Turn around. Learn to care the way that God cares.”
For a time, Jonah had opened Nineveh’s eyes to see the violence in their hands and the need to repent in dust and ashes. For a time, Solomon had shown a wisdom beyond what people had imagined and gave leadership that inspired greatness. And Jesus, in his life and ministry, certainly built upon such prophetic preaching and wise leadership. But he also rewrote the equations. He is a prophet who became sin and bears the sin of those who hear him, so that we can be free of sin. He is a priest who became the sacrifice that ends sacrifice, scapegoating, holiness projects and righteous violence. Jesus is a king who becomes a nobody, a servant, a criminal, and curse so that we can be equal citizens with each other and with him.
Who is this “greater-than” Jesus, who is and does such “greater-than” things? To answer that, I commend to you the words of our Danish friend Soren Kierkegaard, who prayed:
“Our Lord Jesus Christ was nothing, oh, remember this, Christendom.”
[Preached during Wednesday Eucharist at Loehe Chapel, Wartburg Seminary;
Martin Lohrmann, Dec. 5, 2018]