🦁 Epiphany 6-2
Readings: Psalm 50:1-6; 1 Kings 14:1-18; 1 Timothy 1:12-20.
Reflection
Good morning. This is Tim Tribble, broadcasting from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 50 verses 1 to 6 First Kings. Chapter 14, verses 1 to 18 and first Timothy, Chapter one verses 12 to 20.
So today's reading from First Kings, we have a continuation of the story of the splitting of Israel. So we've got Solomon Jeroboam now Jeroboam Psalm didn't do right and again, not following the covenant that God made with Abraham. And so they continue on with the splitting of Israel. And this is just, you know, one of the things a comment like I heard years ago from a priest friend of mine as we were talking about the plight of Israel and the history of the Israelites. And, you know, they were enslaved here, enslaved. They're taken over triumphant, wandered the desert for 40 years, you know, the whole Gentile for a generation before they got into the promised land, never left Egypt. They're always complaining about something. And the manna from heaven wasn't enough. The water, all these things that they never really fully trusted God. And that takes a lot. And that is very difficult to do. And it's human nature. And one of the big things you can take away from reading the Old Testament and the history of the Jewish people is this is human nature in action. This is the way we are. And we this is what God's trying to help us with. And, you know, we make the covenants and things and how to be more, more Christlike and live a better life. But we we you know, I do this, too. I'm believe me, I, I'm not the greatest person on the face of the earth. But again, we we have a tendency to not do what God wants us to do. We got to I want my own twist on it. I got mine, but I want this shiny object over there. And it just. It just does not work out well for us. And our reading. David Maginnis, my favorite book of the Bible. No, it was not named after me first. Timothy is the first letter that Paul wrote to his the apostle Timothy, to whom he was one of his mentor is Paul was his mentor.
And this section is titled Christ Jesus Came to Save Sinners. And this is Paul. And this is something that this strikes me very hard and is very meaningful to me. So Paul starts, I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus, our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formally I was a blasphemer persecutor and insolent opponent I. But I received mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.
Those you don't know the history of Paul. Paul was formerly known as Saul essay. You know Saul held the coats of the people who stoned Stephen, the one of the apostles who was the first martyr. The church stoned him to death. Paul held their coats. He was thirsty. He was one of these guys who run around. You know, you think of him as the the thought police type thing, making sure everybody was, you know, you make sure you're following all the rules, had nothing to do with honoring God or anything like that. It was all about the law and the rules. And then on the way he was traveling on the road to Damascus, the glory of the Lord came down, blinded him, and he had what I call the Saul de Paul moment. He got to Damascus. His sight was restored. He believed and went on to become one of the two. We always think of Peter and Paul as the two founders of the church.
Was Is Paul telling Timothy his story and how God forgave him? And in the end, military service, you know, we all know about post-traumatic stress. But there is another type of injury known as moral injury, not as well known, but this is where in the military we also have a first responders where you're put in a situation where you have to do something that goes against your moral code and there are people who come back.
Mine was from my time as a medic. We do something called triage. That's the official term. The nickname we had for was playing God and playing God. When I roll up on the scene and there's more than one patient, well, guess what? I get to pick who goes first, who gets treated first, and that treatment is based on my judgment, using a court. You know, when we had standards to apply that apply my judgment to the standards of triage going, which one of you is most savable? And if you were deemed the hardest to save, you went to the end of the line because you were just expected that we wouldn't be able to save you.
Very, very difficult because especially as a medic, we want to save everybody. That's our job. That's what we do. You know, the para rescue, this we do so others may live, which has kind of also they started it. Now it's kind of become the mantra of military medicine in all the branches of this we do. So others may live. We make those sacrifices. We do things that we want. Other people to live. We want the others to live. And when you have to make these decisions and choices, you got to know yourself. You know, nobody's going to forgive me for that. I'm you know, you wind up in this place spiritually where you feel or other people make you feel because you did this while you horrible, you know, you're like, well, so God forgives all of us for everything, period. That's just the way it is. And it's there is this there's this thing that very hard for people to wrap their heads around. Has Hitler in heaven? Did God forgive Hitler for what he did? And in reading and interpreting the Bible, God forgives everyone for everything. That's a real tough one because it's hard for us as human beings to wrap our heads around it. And we believe that you can do something so bad that nobody can forgive it. Well, no body, no human being may be able to forgive it, but God will. God loves all of us, and he wants nothing but the best for us. And that's something when we deal with moral injury, who we talk about is in whatever your faith tradition is, whatever denomination of the church that you're the Christian church you're in, we God forgives you, you're and there is hope and solace in faith in Christ because he came down and died on the cross for everyone. So everyone in his everyone is everyone. Amen.
