The Breath of God (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

Sunday, November 2, 2014

            Ezekiel, standing in a valley of bones; is there a more bizarre story in the Bible?  The story leads with this: “the hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley.”  In the Spirit of the Lord; we know we are hearing a vision, but still.  What a vision! 

            To what can we compare such a passage?

            Consider a bizarre bit from the gospel of Matthew.  It comes right at the moment Jesus dies on the cross after an agonizing day of trials, floggings, taunts, and then the pain and shame of hanging, nailed to a cross.  He breathes his last breath; then Matthew writes

⁵⁰ And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.

⁵¹ Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, ⁵² and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; ⁵³ and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

            If this actually had happened, why didn’t Mark, Luke, or John mention it?  Or Paul?  I don’t think this was an event in history.  Matthew, I believe, tapped into the same spirit of symbolism and prophetic anticipation that Ezekiel used.  He may have had Ezekiel’s “dry bones passage” in mind when he wrote these words.  We know from Ezekiel 37:1 that the prophet is in a vision.  He says as much in verse 11.  “Son of man, these bones are the house of Israel.” 

Israel will not vanish into the mists of history.  The God who chose Israel to be His chosen, special people through whom he would show himself to all humanity, the God who parted the Red Sea and enabled David to defeat Goliath – that God was still God.  That God would honor his promises to Israel, even in exile.  Even under Babylonian rule, they would be God’s people and live in blessing and relationship.  Ezekiel’s story of bones come to life is told to show Israel all is not lost and never will be.

Centuries later, Matthew taps into that unrelenting, unfailing hope in God of Israel when he writes, “The graves were opened.”  The minute Jesus, the Son of God, died death was defeated.  Matthew wrote as if those things happened in that moment.  Thus he struck with a prophetic effect similar to Ezekiel.  The specter of death that hangs over all humans was lifted for all in Christ.  When Matthew says the graves opened and the inhabitants left death behind and went into the city and testified, he meant the witness that would be given by the apostles.

Peter and John, James and Paul and the rest no longer lived with the notion that death was something to fear.  In Christ, it just is not an issue for us.  Yes, these bodies die.  Yes, in many cases, disease or sickness or tragedy precedes the death of the body and it can be painful and heartbreaking.  The apostles though, especially right after meeting the risen Lord, saw past all that death entails.  They saw into eternity. 

These bodies that die will rise again at the resurrection.  On that day, what Matthew spoke of as symbolism and saw as a future reality will actually take place.  Graves will open, bodies will reconstitute in eternal form so that the resurrected body can no longer feel pain, be injured or die.  People, who were cremated, buried, or whatever else will be brought back together and raised to everlasting life.  In resurrected bodies, all who are in Christ live as sons and daughters of God in eternal joy.  Until then, we live this life in relationships of love with God and with each other.  Even though we know we will likely experience the death of our bodies and we will go through the pains and ailments all people have, we live as people who will live forever.  Just as Ezekiel foresaw Israel’s revival as the people of God, Matthew anticipated the end of death for all who follow Christ.

I wonder how this reality lives in the mind of Daniel Ayuba.  He lives in the area of Nigeria that has been terrorized by Boko Haram, a Muslim group intent on imposing the strictest of enforcement of sharia law.[i]  Boko Haram has turned Northern Nigeria into a war zone with their deadly assaults on civilian populations including the abduction of over 200 girls earlier this year.  I think of them and wonder if I lived there, would I have any hope. 

The Israelites in exile in Babylon were fixed in despair.  Was their identity as people of God gone forever?  Had their God been defeated?  Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones becoming resurrected was God’s message that he had not gone anywhere, that his vision for his people was life, and that life was absolutely their future.

These bones are the whole house of Israel.

‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up … and bring you into the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you shall know that I am the Lord … . ¹⁴ I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.

To Israel’s despair, God promised life. 

That life came in an unexpected, new way in Jesus – God fulfilling God’s promise to Israel in the person of God’s messiah.  Jesus’ death and resurrection was the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise.  If Matthew wrote in the late first century as most scholars think, then he was writing to specific church or group of churches and the reason he formed his gospel as he did was to aid the church in their development as a missional community whose purpose was to share Jesus with the world. It was a small church that was out of favor with larger entities all around it – Roman paganism, Greek culture, and the synagogue.  Surely the church to which Matthew was writing underwent times of despair. 

The resurrection had happened, but this was more than 30 years later.  Paul was probably dead.  The first generation of Jesus – followers were old.  Would the entire movement fade and die a slow, forgettable death?  I wonder if Matthew, using prophetic anticipation, inspired by the breath, the Spirit of God, gave a resounding “No” to the despair that threatened the nascent church. 

We aren’t going to make it.  Matthew’s response?  Jesus … yielded up His spirit.  And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; ⁵³ and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.  Matthew was telling his church, “You are these who were in the grave.  You know Jesus was raised and because he was, you come into the city and testify to the life we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.

A despairing exiled community; a demoralized church; God speaks hope where it seems all hope is gone.  I mentioned Daniel Ayuba and Nigerians under the threat of violence and death at the hands of Boko Haram.  Two years ago, attackers planted a bomb near a car wash in the city of Maiduguri. He was near the explosion.  He had 80% of his body covered in shrapnel, one of his legs shattered.  He said, "I looked around me and there was fire burning, houses blown up and dead people. I kept on crying, crying for someone to come help me, but no one would come.”  His body to this day is covered with scars.  He’ll carry this pain and terror. 

If I lived in Nigeria, how could I hope?  I live in the comfort of middle class America and I feel powerless and despondent when I read the stories or think about the violence in Syria.  This event was not the first time he experience heartache due to Boko Haram violence.  At one point he asks as I am sure most Nigerians ask, “What is wrong with these people?”  When life conspires to break us whether by exile or persecution or terrorism or in our own very real disappointments and losses, it seems natural to ask, what is wrong with this?  I find myself in my personal frustrations pounding the table asking, what it wrong here?  And yet, Mr. Ayuba had this to say, his final quote in the CNN article.   "It was God that saved me. He kept me alive on purpose, and I ask God every day to [reveal] that purpose to me," he said.  He felt the breath of God.

That is the source of our hope. The Old Testament uses the same word for breath, spirit, and wind.[ii]  One of the passages that uses this word with great frequency is today’s reading, Ezekiel 37.  Maybe it is tempting to go through and try to discern each use.  “Well here, it means wind, like the wind in the trees.”  “And in this case it means, breath, like a person’s breathing.”  “But in this other instance, it refers to God’s Spirit.”  Such an exercise has its place, but in understanding how we have life from God and what that means, it is better to allow the definitions to flow together into an understanding and experience of God at work.

The breath of God hovered over the chaos even before God began creating (Genesis 1:1).  This breath was God’s Spirit that carried Ezekiel to the valley and showed him the vision.  Within the vision, after the bones rattled and reassembled and took on flesh and stood, they were still not alive.  Not until animating breath of God filled them did they become who God intended them to become. 

That same wind/spirit/breath visited Mary.  She became pregnant by the Holy Spirit and she gave birth to the son of God, God in the flesh.  At the end of John’s Gospel, the resurrected Jesus breathes on the disciples and they receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22) for the purpose of continuing the work of announcing the Kingdom and calling dying people to life.  At the end of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus sends those same disciples to baptize people in the name of the Spirit (Matthew 20:19).

In Genesis, in Ezekiel, in Matthew, in John, in your life, in mine, and in the world today, life comes when we have the breath of God in us.  I want to spend time this morning in deep prayer, thinking about resurrection, about the hope that we have, and about being filled with God’s Spirit.  Perhaps when you hear words like discouragement and despair you immediate think of your own life.  You are going through a difficult time or you fear that is coming.  If that is so, as we sing this last song, I invite you to come, kneel at the steps, and pray.  There is no shame here.  This is a place of healing.  There is no need to holdback or hide your fears or try to pretend you are not discouraged.  Come.  Come and pour it out before the God who brings the dead to life.  Please.  Let yourself be freed from the pressure to pretend all is well.  Come before God.

Perhaps you are not in a rough patch but you know someone who is.  Someone you know, someone you love is in the throes of depression.  Come to steps, to the cross, to Christ on behalf of that person.  Pour your heart before God, the giver of the Spirit, on behalf of another.  This is intercession and I am asking you to come and intercede for someone. 

Or, maybe you are like me.  Your own life is pretty good, but you feel the burden over what’s happening in Nigeria or in Syria or in some place right here in North Carolina were a group of people are suffering to the point of despair.  Come before Jesus, our Lord and Savior.  Come on behalf of the group under siege, the people God has placed on your heart.  Come and ask the God who animates dry bones to give life to this people you carry in your heart

We move from sermon into prayer right now.  You have heard this invitation.  Together we have walked in stories from the Bible, stories of God bringing life.  Our best response is worship and prayer.  Come.

AMEN

Conclusion

-         Invite people to bring their discouragement to the steps, to the cross, to Christ

---

[i] http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/23/world/africa/nigeria-boko-haram-victim/

[ii] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=39

God, the Good Shepherd

God, The Good Shepherd (Ezekiel 34:11-16)

            I have mentioned this before, but I bring it up again because I continue to find the question tricky.  What is God’s job?  Steven Colbert posed the question to his guest, a Catholic clergyman, and the priest responded, “God’s job is to sustain the universe.”  I thought it was brilliant. 

            It though a very general way of answering the question, and general works in the setting of a talk show, especially a comedy show like the Colbert Report.  But when you and I are living our very real, day-to-day lives, what answer to that question will help us?  What knowledge of God will inspire us to push ourselves through the challenges we face?  What reality about God will carry us when we can push ourselves no farther?  The specifics of the priest’s general observation that God is the great Sustainer are varied and go in countless directions.  We find one thread of God’s sustenance, God’s upholding of everything, in these words of the Prophet Ezekiel which we have read.

            To get to this, I look to another passage, one familiar to some readers, Psalm 23, and I compare Psalm 23 to opening verses of Ezekiel 34.  In Psalm 23, between the years 1000 and 930 BC,[i] David who was a shepherd sang about the ways God took care of him in the midst of trying circumstances.  God often, not always, but very often works through people.  This includes God working through his chosen people Israel.  Ezekiel 34 opens with prophetic condemnation of Israel’s leaders who failed to lead the nation to trust in God’s provision in the face of difficult times. 

            Ezekiel fires off his prophecy.  “You shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves!  Should not the shepherds feed the sheep?  You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep.  You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them” (34:2-4).

            Ezekiel speaks 400 years after David wrote his shepherd poems in the wilderness of Israel.  David could not see what would become of the nation.  It is quite possible that when he first imagined the words that eventually became what we now call the 23^rd Psalm, he did not even know he would become Israel’s king.  Surely the poem went through many versions in his own singing of it.  Verses 5-6 make more sense from the lips of a king than a shepherd.  But however removed, David was from Ezekiel and even more from us, there is a constant that draws him and the prophet and you and me together.  God is watching over us with a big picture perspective that takes into account the experience of every human being simultaneously.   At the same time, God is with each person individually.

            We just read Ezekiel’s condemnation of the leaders of the Israel, the king and the leaders in the temple.  In summation, they neglected the needy of society as they used their privilege to advance their own wealth and well-being.  There can be no more damning words of someone with privilege than to say they who already have everything take what little the poor have.  They who are strong load the backs of the lower class with taxes, high prices, endless work on back-breaking tasks.  This can apply in numerous ways in countless situations, but the principle is someone in power using that power to exploit someone without power.  Think of what’s happening in Hong Kong right now, or the imposed conformity in North Korea of the past 65 years.

            In Ezekiel’s day, God’s nation, the people of Israel in the southern Kingdom of Judah, had survived intact during the terrifying Assyrian empire.  Then, a new power arose, Babylon.  With Egypt to her east and Babylon advancing, why did Judah fail to stand?  Ezekiel’s prophecy, time and time again, declares that the exile imposed by Babylon was permitted by God not because of Babylon’s might but because of Israel and Judah’s sin.  In chapter 34, Ezekiel specifically cites the leaders of Israel for failing to care for the nation. 

            In contrast to their self-serving, heavy-handed leadership, David tells of how God does thing.  The leaders scattered Israel and did not seek the lost.  They left the lost out in the cold to whatever hazards the wilds would present.  David said that God as a shepherd led him to green pastures and still waters.  When all David had in the wilderness to rely upon were his wits, his staff, and prayer, he never felt safer.  He could feel that he was in God’s hands.  There was no lion or enemy warrior that could pose a credible threat.  God held him.

            It was not always easy.  He says in the Psalm, “I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”  But he does not stop there.  He does not die in that shadow.  He walks through and without fear because God is with him.  This is the extent of faith that David declares.  He’s not trying to teach it.  He does not offer four steps so that if you follow these you too can have a David-type faith.  He simply sings.  I walk through the valley … and I fear no evil.  Nothing could happen that was scarier or mightier or as powerful as the God who held him.

            In verse 4, Ezekiel rattles off a succession of specific failures.  “You did not strengthen, you did not heal, you did not bind wounded limbs, you did not gather the distracted, you did not seek the lost.”  Leadership comes with responsibility which is magnified 100 fold when your leadership is in God’s name.  In God’s name leaders are to point people to God.  Those falling under Ezekiel’s condemnation may indeed have spoken God’s name and recited temple prayers and led sacrifices in worship and done it all quite eloquently.  But their actions involved gathering all the food, property and money for themselves.  When they came across the broken, the broke them even more.

            David saw God in the Shepherd’s role do the opposite.  He said of God, “He restores my soul.  He leads me in paths of righteousness.”  He restores my soul.  Because of this, David could conclude him poem by saying, “Goodness and mercy will follow me and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

            The God who protected David in this way was still in business 400 years later.  When Ezekiel blurted out his seething invectives, it was not God’s way of stomping Israel into the grave.  God had not stopped being the good shepherd.  All the divine anger leading up to Ezekiel 34, anger at Judah and at foreign nations that deal in exploitation and injustice, came to a head in Ezekiel 34:11.  God’s demand for justice would not blot out God’s mercy. 

            As I again read the promise that comes in these verses take this to heart.  Just as the good shepherd of Psalm 23 was still a good shepherd 100’s of years later for Ezekiel, that same good shepherd came to walk in the skin of the sheep when God became a human himself in Jesus of Nazareth.  The God of David and of Ezekiel, the God who walk the dusty roads of Nazareth in human skin and died on a Roman cross, is as much a good shepherd today as God ever was.  Ezekiel spoke and wrote his prophecy at the beginning of the 6^th century BC.  The words, breathed into his heart by the Holy Spirit, still speak today.

¹¹ For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.¹² As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. ¹³ I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. ¹⁴ I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵ I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. ¹⁶ I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.

            In Jesus, God has extended the invitation originally given to Israel.  All who come to Jesus acknowledging sin and complete need for God’s forgiveness and leadership will be received, forgiven, made new, and adopted as a son or daughter of God.  Jesus welcomes every person who comes in genuine repentance and sorrow for sin by.

            Once we are we in Christ, we are his church, and much of the work God does in the world today is done through the church.  We are not in the same position as the leaders of Israel in Ezekiel’s day.  The world is clearly a different place.  But we do have a calling to tell the world about Jesus, to invite the world into God’s Kingdom, and to show God’s goodness by using all our talents to do things God promises in  Ezekiel’s prophecy. 

            God says, “I will seek, I will rescue, I will bring my people together, I will feed them with good pasture.  I will bind up the wounded and heal the sick.  I will give justice, peace, and rest.”  We are beneficiaries.  As we have received these things from God, we are made new and then we are called to do these very things – seek, rescue, feed, heal.  We are commissioned by the word and empowered by the Spirit to be bringers of justice, peace, and rest.   

What’s God job?  God does many things.  Included is God’s provision.  This is no denial that we go through tough times and followers will face trials and difficulties, but never alone.  The good shepherd never leaves us alone. 

            This is a special day for our church. Today we enter into partnership with Pastor Lucio Moreno and Iglesia del Amor de Dios (the Love-of-God Church).  HillSong joins our efforts to other English-speaking congregations throughout our town and area in pointing the world toward the Good Shepherd God.  And Iglesia del Amor de Dios under Pastor Moreno’s leadership will join with us and with the other Spanish-speaking churches around to point the world toward our loving God.

            With God working through us, people will be drawn from the dangers of the wilderness of sin, disappointment, grief and loss into his love.  And together, in Spanish and English, we can truly say.

La bondad y el amor me seguirán
  todos los días de mi vida;
y en la casa del Señor

  habitaré para siempre.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us
All the days of our lives;
And we will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.

AMEN

---

[i] Gottwald, Norman (1985).  The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, p.601-602.

Review of "Evolving" by Steve Davis

Evolving by Steve Davis is one of the most refreshing books I have read in a while.  Steve’s approach is confessional and apologetic.  He tells his own story as a Christian and an educated, thinking person.  In doing so, he give an excellent rationale for why Christians can confess the truths found in the Bible and at the same time be sensible in dealing with the findings of geology, physics, biology, and other sciences.  More than common sense, the truly confessing Christian can celebrate science as a means by Christians come to read God’s “other book” or “second book.”

The “two books” mentality for me is the most helpful element of Davis’ book.  Of course one book from God is the Bible.  The other is creation, or nature.  In some works the two terms, creation and nature are set in opposition.  One is either a naturalist or a confessing Christian, but the two worldviews are inherently at odds.  Davis show that the book of nature is a way God reveals God’s self to humankind.  The idea of two books with nature being one of those books stands on Paul’s assertion that people unfamiliar with the scriptures of Israel can know God by observing creation (Romans 1:19-20).

Alister McGrath and the late John Polkinghorne both point to nature in their own writings in which they celebrate nature (including evolution as God’s means of creation) along with confessing Christ.  I have read much of their works and at times struggled to fully understand what they were saying.  Both are theologians who started as scientists and then came to theological writing later in their careers.  Davis’ detailing of his own story helped me make sense of the portions of McGrath and Polkinghorne I previously found confusing or difficult.  Maybe that is my strongest commendation for Davis.  In telling his own story, he’s illuminated mine. 

I do offer this caution in Davis’ work.  The reader is stepping into the middle of a conversation – one Davis is having with himself and with every teacher of fundamentalist, literalist Christianity who has ever influenced him (and continues to try).  He is breaking out of a shell, a specific mode of thinking.  He undergoes a worldview shift and this can be quite dramatic.  Frequently, a page or two after he communicates a thought, he elaborates his thinking including some further development of ideas.  But I wonder is some of what Davis writes comes in “insider language.”

And this leads to my disclaimer.  Steve Davis and I are both evangelical Christians.  We come from the same “tribe” within Christianity.  He is also my personal friend.  His background is more conservative than my own, but the differences are not that dramatic.  I understand his lingo.  I am not saying his terminology is inaccessible to readers who are not evangelical Christians.  I am saying I don’t know.  I often run into this myself.  When I am talking to someone who does have a background reading evangelical literature and hearing evangelical speech, I have to stop myself.  I have to ask if they are hearing what I mean in the words I say.  I truly am not accusing Davis of being too insider-evangelical in his work. 

I am saying he starts in the middle of a conversation.  His style is easy and light yet he deals with a serious topic that has the potential to alter how a lot of evangelicals understand the Bible and God.  I read along, nodded in agreement; paused to consider the implications for my own faith, and often found myself laughing out loud (Steve has that effect).  I just had a few moments where I wondered if people who don’t live in the evangelical Christian world would get the joke.

That said, evangelical Christians are the primary audience for this book.  I agree with Steve that it would be great if scientists read this and respected that not all theists are in opposition to the work of science.  In fact, true loving the Lord with “all the mind” requires the Christ follower to seek God and seek knowledge.  That’s what Davis is doing here.  I hope evangelical Christians, even those predisposed to reject evolution, will read his book with an open mind.

And read with an open heart.  Steve Davis is sharing his own story.  His goal is not to convince you of anything.  He’s saying “this is my journey.”  Go with him on it.  To be invited into someone’s story is a gift and Davis shares this gift with any who will read his book which is whimsical, smart, and helpful. 

I recommend “Evolving” to pastors, church goers, especially to seminarians, and to anyone who wants follow Jesus by reading both the books God has given us.  It is not weighed down with difficult technical language, and it will free you as a reader to go on your own journey wherever it may lead.  Davis and I are both confident that if you read both books, you will grow in faith, you will have a relevant faith, and you will see God. 

Coffee Colored Faith

In our church this past Sunday, a man gave the children’s sermon.  It was about obedience.  He wanted to show how obedience to God’s ways fills and flavors one’s life so that life lived in obedience to God is better, more wonderful than a life of disobedience.

He used three images.  He showed the children pictures.

First, he used a carrot.  What happens when you boil a carrot in water?  It gets soft and mushy.  Do we want to be soft and mushy on the inside, no form, nothing to stand on?  Of course not!

Next, he used an egg as his example.  What happens when an egg is boiled?  Inside it hardens.  And our apart from the ways of God our hearts harden until we have no heart left and are nothing more than stone inside.

I get that his illustrations are not all that sophisticated, but this was a children’s sermon with kids as young as pre-school age.  They got the point.  And with his third example, I got an even better blessing, one I am sure he did not intend but would be happy with nonetheless.

He showed a picture of a coffee bean.  When that is ground and boiled, it turns water into wonderful, delicious coffee.  First, the man who gave this demonstration is my friend and I did not know he is coffee drinker.  Maybe he’s not.  Maybe he described so beautifully for the sake of the illustration.  I am a total coffee drinker.  I think it is a wonderful invention, brought the world by Ethiopia, by the way! 

So, as a coffee-lover, I loved that he likened the wonders of a life of obedience to God to water that has been turned into coffee (which I would take over wine any day).  But there was, for me, a deeper blessing.  Here is my family.

Notice, my children are vanilla, milk chocolate and dark chocolate.

Now think about colors and the images they usually convey.  When someone is in a dark mood, is that a good thing?  Is a black mark on your record something you want?  Do we yearn for dark times?  Is the phrase “black as night” accompanied by happy butterfly music?  So often “dark” and “black” conjure up negative thoughts.  Other colors are used to arouse happiness, joy, or peace.

What does that mean for people who are categorized as “black”?  Africa in some circles is called the “dark” continent.  By the way, that is about as ignorant as it gets.  Travel to Ethiopia and you’ll be blizted by vibrant color, especially red, green, and yellow!

When my friend did his children’s sermon, the negative were the hard white egg and the mushy orange carrot.  That was life without God’s word.

The good life, the delicious life is the coffee-darkened life.  As that deep blackness of coffee permeates the colorless, flavorless water, excitement, goodness, energy, and joy seep in just life is invigorated when it is filled to the brim with the ways of God.  I didn’t realize until I heard that simple children’s sermon how I yearned for something that connected dark colors (the colors of my children’s skin) with something wonderful. 

I thank my friend for giving me this delicious, beautiful metaphor I can hold onto in order to celebrate my Lord and my kids. 

Metaphors aside, I think I’ll celebrate right now with a snack of buttered steamed carrots, a salted hard-boiled egg, piping hot black coffee, and clear ice water.  

Repentance: A Disciple’s Way of Life (Ezekiel 33:7-11)

I was scheduled to preach this coming Sunday on Ezekiel 33:7-11, but I have spent the week sick.  I am very thankful for my associate pastor Heather for filling in on 3 days notice.  

Here is a message I did from this passage in 2008.  

Sunday, September 14, 2008

            Billy Graham wrote a book called How to be Born Again.  What a straight forward title from a man who has spent his life telling the simple truth in a direct manner.  In this book, Rev. Graham tells us about Joe.

Joe was brought up in Bronx Ghetto. … The streets of New York had been his home since [birth].  Gang warfare, knife fighting, stealing and lying were simply a way of life.  He was … a drug user and an accomplished thief.

Joe, however, went to a meeting at which Akbar Haqq, [a Billy Graham Association] evangelist was speaking.  Before the evening was over, Joe had given his life to Christ.  The day after his conversion, one of his buddies was trying to induce Joe to go with him to get drugs and Joe didn’t want to be bothered.  The friend pulled a knife and threatened to cut Joe.  Joe was much quicker and he got the better of his friend, stabbing him many times.  His friend was in the hospital for two weeks.

Joe [had accepted Christ, but he] had no Christian background to fall back on, and he had many ups and downs in his spiritual life.

            Is there a common thread between you and I and Joe?  I haven’t met gang members here at our church.  Of course there is drug use, violence, and crime in Chapel Hill, but I have not run into many people like Joe.  I have though met a lot of people in our town and in our church that go through ups and downs in the spiritual life.  No matter how dedicated we are to prayer, to worship, to Bible study, and to Christian service, we have high points and low points and many days where we are somewhere in between.  There is no solution to that.  Discipleship is a journey.  What we can see in Joe’s life and in the words of the prophet Ezekiel and in other stories we’ll hear this morning is that repentance has to be a critical part of the disciple’s journey.  Repentance is more than something we just do when we initially confess our sins and accept Jesus.  Repentance is more something we just do when we know we have committed sins or lived in a season of spiritual dryness or in a season of decadence or sinfulness.  Repentance is a crucial, consistent element in the disciple life.

            I read about a young German girl in the 19^th century who was giving a piano concert in her town.  She was not famous, but she wanted people to come, so she fudged her resume.  She said she was a student of the famous composer, Franz Liszt.  She had never met him or studied piano under him, but this was a great way to generate a crowd until she learned that the day of the concert, Franz Liszt would be in town.

            In her embarrassment, she dealt with what she had done.  She didn’t try to hide.  She didn’t hope the whole thing would blow over.  She went to Franz Liszt when he arrived and confessed all.  He said to her, “You made a mistake.  We all make mistakes.  What you need to do is repent and I believe you have.  Now, I want you to sit down and play what you will be playing in the concert.”  She did.  He corrected a few of her mistakes.  Then he said, “Now you can truly say I have been your teacher.  Proceed with your concert.  Your teacher will play the final number.”  And he did.[i]

            As this pianist found redemption from a kind hearted master in Franz Liszt, the New York street-tough turned Christian, Joe, found redemption through the faithful witness of Akbar Haqq and Billy and Ruth Graham.  Joe was led to Jesus when he heard Billy Graham’s associate present the Gospel.  However, just because Joe accepted Christ does not mean he was instantly a perfect disciple.  Like the 19^th century small town German girl, Joe made mistakes even after he was saved.  He made a lot of mistakes.

            When Billy Graham came to NY to do an evangelism crusade, he learned of Joe’s story.  Ruth Graham met Joe and urged him to come to the worship services and he did.  A friendship formed between this evangelist’s wife from NC and this tough-guy turned believer.  On one occasion, Joe, frantic, called Mrs. Graham.  She by now knew him well enough to ask, “What have you done now, Joe?”

            He responded that he had robbed a filling station.  “Why would you do that,” she asked. Here is his response.

Well, it’s like this.  I have this buddy.  He really needed money, but he had never robbed a filling station before.  I had, so I just thought it was my Christian duty to help him.

She told Joe, he had to repay all the money.  He was shocked and hurt at what she said.  She asked if he had stolen anything else.  He looked at her strangely.  Everything he owned was stolen.  Through much guidance and love from the Grahams and their associates in NY, Joe did return all the things he had that were stolen.  He grew in faith and eventually went on to graduate from Columbia Bible College.  He has given his testimony at many Billy Graham Association evangelism events.  He presents himself as the ultimate example that no one is a hopeless case.[ii] 

            Joe’s journey has not been easy.  It was not easy for the young girl in Germany to confess her sin to Franz Lizst.  Repenting – turning away from sin and toward the truth – is difficult work.  It is work that must be a regular part of the life of any person who would follow Jesus.

            You and I sin.  We say mean things to people we love.  We look at others and we judge them to be less than us.  Maybe we look down on people in certain profession.  Maybe we have latent prejudice toward people of certain ethnic backgrounds.  This is uncomfortable to face because we know that all people of all races are beloved in God’s eyes.  We know from scripture that we are not to judge or despise anyone.  But when we look honestly into our hearts, we know we do.  We may try not to.  But those feelings are in there and they come either bluntly or subtly in our words and in our actions.  It may not be a judgmental attitude.  It may not be a deep seeded prejudice.  Maybe the sins that keep recurring are related to rage, excess, greed, or omission.  That’s one on which Jesus hit the Pharisees pretty hard.  We know what God wants us to do and who God wants us to help, but we don’t help because we don’t want to.  That is sin as grievous to God as theft or adultery or even murder.  To us, it’s that not that bad.  But to God, it is someone taking the name ‘disciple of Jesus Christ’ and then acting by the world’s values instead of kingdom values.  This is not being said to beat us up.  We simply have to be honest and specific in acknowledging that sin is a reality in our lives. 

            God doesn’t want to punish us for our sins.  It’s not His preference.  Ezekiel, writing in chapter 33, has spent much time and exhausted many words in calling out the disregard for God of the people of God.  They’ve sinned and Ezekiel has pointed it out.  It can’t be missed.  They’re sitting as slaves in exile.  Ezekiel is set in Babylon in a time after invading armies have ravaged the land God promised to Abraham.  The temple has been destroyed.  Sin and the results of sin, the brokenness and utter defeat are apparent.  And yet, after all he has said and written, God tells Ezekiel to write this.  “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn back from their wicked ways and live” (33:11b).

            When someone goes out and drinks and then drives, God doesn’t want that person to get in an accident and live as a paraplegic for the rest of his life; or to live with the guilt of knowing he killed someone while driving under the influence.  When two friends speak words in anger and the result is the end of the friendship, God doesn’t want them to each live in pain and loss and bitterness.  The language God tells Ezekiel to use is oath language.  “As I live,” God says.  He’s making a pledge to people.  The almighty isn’t obligated to do that, but He does it to get through to us.  He promises the depths of the diving heart, he doesn’t want us to hurt from our sins.  Sometimes we will even though God doesn’t want that.  But, there is a way to cope with our sins and even grow past them.

            Turn!  We must honestly face the sins in our life.  We must confess them.  We must turn from those sins and the lifestyle that ends in making mistakes and hurting others and ourselves.  We turn away from that life and those bad choices, and we turn to God.  Five times in the NRSV translation of Ezekiel 33:7-11, God implores his wayward people to turn.  We, because of Christ, are counted among the people of God.  In verse 11, he pleads with us.  “Turn back; turn back from your evil ways.  Why will you die?”

            Sin leads to death and destruction.  As long as we live in sin and with sin clinging to us, our souls are in decay.  Death lurks in the corners and even hovers over us.  But God asks, why?  Why accept such a spiritually dark, depressing existence.  Turn to me and live.  Jesus said the type of life we have when we follow Him and obey the Father.  He offers right now abundant life, joy-filled life, exciting life.  There is though work involved.  One aspect of the work of a disciple is regular repentance.  Regularly we examine ourselves, identify where our hearts are oriented toward values of the world, and we turn.  We turn from sin, to God.  This is not easy work, but it is necessary work. 

            The journey of Israel, God’s chosen people, from Abraham to Joseph to slavery in Egypt to Moses and exodus, and Moses and law to monarchy and the golden days of David and Solomon to slavery again, this time exile in Babylon is a study in the hard work of repentance.  At times, leaders like David and Solomon and Hezekiah and Josiah did things to call the people to God.  They shined as His people, chosen to represent Him in the world.  But as soon as the nation seemed to get it together and start to move toward holiness, human values instead of heavenly values would begin to take over the corporate mindset.  Israel would fall into the worship of statues, idols representing foreign gods.  Israel would look to strong foreign nations for security instead of putting her trust in God.  By the time Ezekiel came along, it seemed all was lost.  They weren’t even in Israel anymore.  They were the property of their Babylonian conquerors. 

Yet God forgave the past.  Through Ezekiel God told them the past is in the past.  God implored them to turn back and live.  How could they live the faith and the identity of God’s chosen while wallowing in servitude?  God would take care of things.  Their only concern was to faithfully turn back.  Repent and turn once again to God and He would lovingly accept them.

This is a story with two sides, whether we are talking about ancient Israelites or the present day church.  On our side is the burden of repentance.  God give gives us free will.  He will not force us to turn to Him.  We must choose.  If we choose to reject God we will continually suffer the painful consequences of our sins and we face eternal destruction, eternal death.  God’s side of the story is grace.  If we turn back to Him, he forgives all and gives us abundant life and the promise of eternal life. 

As we said, ‘the turning back’ is not as easy as it sounds.  Last weekend, Candy and I watched a comedy – Failure to Launch.  It’s a silly movie with some good laughs.   The 3 poignant moments of the movie are when the different characters have to apologize for the devious and cruel ways they have treated each other.  Each apology is accepted and ends in a warm embrace.  In real life, apologies are not so easy or feel-good.  Sometimes pain lingers. 

Doug Wendel, writing in Discipleship Journal, explains,

Blaming someone else is not repentance. Crying is not repentance. Even feeling sorry for people who've been hurt by our sin is not necessarily repentance. True repentance is the inner focus of my heart on my own sin—realizing the pain and separation I have caused in a situation, feeling sorry about my wrong actions and attitudes, and being willing to turn away from my sin. It is [to quote Jesus in Matthew 7] recognizing and dealing with the plank in my own eye before trying to remove the speck in my brother's eye.[iii]

Furthermore, Wendel points out that the New Testament word used for repentance literally means to change one’s focus or purpose.  Our purpose, in doing the work of repentance, becomes receiving God’s grace and extending to those who have sinned against us.

            I find it helpful to look to Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline for further help on this.  Foster’s book is a prescription for applying the classic disciplines of the disciple life in our 21^st century American lives.  The purpose of performing disciplines is to do things we are able to do in order to accomplish – holiness – we cannot accomplish on our own power.  The example is of the amateur weightlifter who wants to bench press 300 lbs.  When he starts, he cannot.  He can’t even do 150 lbs more than twice.  But he can do that twice, and so he does three times a week for a year.  By the end of that year, it’s not 150 lbs, it’s 175.  And he’s not doing it 2 times, he’s doing it 8.  The discipline of something he could do, lift 150 lbs, helped him accomplish something he could not – 300 lbs.  In spiritual discipline we do things like confess, worship, study, fast, and pray in order to become like Christ. This is work, lifelong work.

            I am suggesting here that repentance be a part of our spiritual discipline.  Foster does not include a chapter on repentance as a discipline in his book, but he does include a chapter on confession.[iv] In that chapter, he writes of his own experience.  He was pastoring his first church and he felt he was missing something.  Something of the power of God was absent in his life.  He couldn’t figure out why.  He knew there were spiritual resources available for facing the challenges of living the disciple life that seemed beyond his reach. 

            So, he devoted a day to prayer.  He got three pieces of paper, each representing an era of his life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood.  In silent prayer, he asked God to reveal anything that needed forgiveness or healing.  As things came up, he wrote them down.  He was careful not to analyze or judge himself or anyone else.  He trusted that God would reveal what he needed to confess or be healed of.  When this time of prayer was up, he had three pages representing those three seasons of life. 

            With paper in hand he went to a trusted brother in Christ.  He read it all, slowly, painfully, confessing his life.  He finished and went to take the paper and leave, but his friend, took the paper from his hand.  He watched as his friend ripped the history of his sins to shreds and dropped them into the trash.  He knew he was forgiven.  Then his friend laid hands on him and the power of that prayer has always lived in the heart of Richard Foster. 

            What I have described is the practice of confession.  How does that relate to repentance?  Initially, Richard Foster had to turn to God and that led him to remember his sins.  Writing them, confessing them, and receiving forgiveness was all a part of the work of turning away from sin.  Recall the story of Joe, the tough guy-turned-disciple.  Part of his repentance was doing what Richard Foster did.  He confessed. Part of it was following Ruth Graham’s advice.  He repaid the money he had stolen.  Part of it was working with Graham association to tell his story.  And in Joe’s life and I suspect in Richard Foster’s life this work of turning and confession, making amends and telling the story has had to be repeated not for already forgiven sins, but for newly committed ones.  Add to this the young German girl who had to face the one her lie affected and we start to get a picture of repentance. 

(1)           We acknowledge the sin.

(2)           We turn from it.

(3)           We turn to God and confess.

(4)           We repair relationships with people who have been hurt by our sins.

Consider two examples from the New Testament.  Jesus told a parable of two sons.  The younger asked for inheritance he would receive when his father was death even though he wasn’t.  The father could have thrown the son empty handed out at this insult.  Instead he gave the cocky young man what he asked for.  The son went into the world and spent it all on prostitutes, booze, parties, and anything else that would bring a cheap thrill.  When it was all gone and he was starving, he returned to his father hoping to be hired as a worker.  His father received him with love and celebrated his homecoming.

At this point the older brother got really mad.  He couldn’t understand the grace his father gave.  He considered his rebellious younger brother dead.  He judged him and he hated him.  He hated him for his wildness, and he hated that the father forgave.[v]  I have heard a lot of believers say, “I can really identify with that older brother.  What the father did wasn’t fair.”  Keep the older brother in mind.

Jesus also told a parable about a landowner hiring day laborers to harvest in his vineyard.  He went early, 6AM, and hired those who were looking for work.  He went again at 9Am and found more who needed employment, so he hired them too.  He did the same at noon, at 3PM, and again at 5PM.  The last group hired only worked for an hour. 

When it came time to pay, he paid everyone equally – an acceptable wage for a day’s work.  The workers hired at 6AM were quite upset.  The pay was fair for a day’s labor, but it wasn’t fair that those who were hired after them received that pay.  Instead of being grateful for what they got, they grumbled at what someone else got.  I have heard many Christians over the years say, “I can really identify with those workers hired early.  They had a legitimate gripe.  It wasn’t fair.”

The older brother and the workers hired early were more upset about the grace someone else received than the grace they received.  Too many people who claim to follow Jesus, get caught up in thinking that faith is theirs because they deserve it or they earned.  They’ve gone to church for 30 years.  They’ve tithed.  They’ve served in ministries.  They deserve the grace God gives.  People who come wandering in after a life of sin and get saved don’t deserve the same grace of God.  Doesn’t this sound ridiculous?  This is the spoiled fruit of neglecting repentance.  This is what happens when people look at murderers and drug dealers and porn-addicts.  People in church look at those who commit more obvious transgression and say, “Well, I am not that bad.  I don’t need to repent.”  We all need to repent.  Repentance is a disciple’s way of life. 

As Jesus followers, we don’t begrudge the grace of others.  We are so happy that we are forgiven we rejoice in the grace of others.  If we are in the role of the older brother, we join the party and celebrate the prodigal’s return.  We don’t get angry at the celebration thrown for him.  We help plan it.  We don’t rub his nose in his mistakes.  We embrace him in his new life.

Rick Warren asked John McCain and Barak Obama each about their greatest moral failings.  McCain confessed responsibility at the failure of his first marriage.  Obama confessed drug use and other aberrant behavior in his teens.  If I was asked that question – about my greatest moral failure – I could say honestly, I have never committed adultery or fornication.  I have never used an illegal drug.  I am not as bad as those guys.  In doing this, it might be tempting to take on air of moral superiority.  If that happened, it would be damning to my walk with Jesus.  I’d become a Pharisee who stood in the way of his work of leading people into the kingdom of God.  My safeguard against such arrogance is practicing repentance as a normal part of my life.  It’s something we should all work on. 

(1)           We acknowledge the sin.

(2)           We turn from it.

(3)           We turn to God and confess.

(4)           We repair relationships with people who have been hurt by our sins.

Right now, begin picturing what repentance would look like in your own life.  What sins do you need to turn away from?  What things do you need to bring to God?  What relationships do you need to approach with a new heart, a disciple’s heart? Imagine right now how you are going to do the work of repentance in this upcoming week.  Plan how this will become a part of your spiritual practice, your exercise of spiritual disciplines.  Five times in Ezekiel 33:7-11, God emphatically tells the prophet to tell the people to turn away from wickedness and turn to God.  This is repentance; changing one’s purpose, direction, and focus.

Zenji Abe, a native Japanese man, lived in Tokyo most of his life.  However, on December 7^th, every year he made a trip to Hawaii.  Why?  He had to visit Pearl Harbor on that day.  Why? He was one of the pilots of those Japanese planes that bombed the US navy and brought the United States into the war.  He recalls in detail his own horror at what he saw that day.  He was a part of the second wave of attack.  When he arrived, he said he could see “indistinct, black anti-aircraft bursts, flashes of exploding shells and tracers flying all [over the place].”[vi] Abe barreled his fighter jet down on the USS Raleigh.  His bomb hit his target and he almost passed out from the dive and then delivery. 

Abe counts himself fortunate to have survived WWII.  He did not talk much about his experiences until 1991 when he was invited to Hawaii to speak at a commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the attack.  After that, he returned each year.  Through his annual meetings with Americans who also survived the war and specifically December 7, 1941, Abe has developed friendships with those who were his enemies.  Every year on the 7^th, he places a rose on the memorial wall that lists the names of the Americans who died. 

Abe is not going back each year to receive again forgiveness from America.  It was war and he has long since been forgiven.  He goes back to continue to do the work of reconciliation, respectful remembering, and future friendship building.  His effort is a good model for us.  Once we are forgiven, our sins are gone.  What’s left for the disciple is to repent of future sins and to do the work of reconciliation and relationship building with God and with people.  In our walk with Jesus this week, let us hear Ezekiel’s word.  There’s no need to live a living death.  Let us turn to the Lord and live the abundant life.

AMEN

---

[i] I got this story from the illustrations list in the E-sword library.

[ii] Graham, Billy (1977).  How to Be Born Again, Guideposts (Carmel, NY), p, 80-82.

[iii] Wendel, Doug, “True Repentance,” Discipleship Journal, online archives.

[iv] Foster, Richard (1978).  Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (HarperSanFrancisco), ch.10. p.143-157.

[v] Luke 15:11-32.

[vi] Wenger, J. Michael (December 3, 2006).  The News and Observer, 1D, 5D.