"Lenten Justice" (Zechariah 7:1-14)

First Sunday of Lent, February 21, 2021

 watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3iTC7PjH28

            Lent begins today.  Lent is the season of 40 days leading to Easter.  Moses and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, learning to trust God and live under God’s law.  Of the exodus community, only Joshua and Caleb entered the Promised Land.  All others died in while wandering and their offspring made up the chosen people of God.  Sin was rooted out during the 40 years.  At the beginning of the Gospels, Jesus fasted in the wilderness for 40 days.  He resisted the devil’s temptations and did not sin.  He who was without sin, God’s only Son, died for us. 

Thus, for 40 days during Lent, we commit to spiritual disciplines designed to help us turn away from sin, turn toward God, receive forgiveness, and acknowledge our dependence upon God.  Disciplines are things we do to condition ourselves.  We fast, journal, pray, confess, practice periods of silence, and commit to other disciplines in order to present ourselves to God, contrite, and grateful for his grace.

Zechariah, who we’ve read these past three weeks, contributes to our Lenten worship, but we need to understand one important way he fits in God’s big picture and to do that we have turn back to the law and then forward to the Gospels.

The law of Moses, the Torah, is given in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, as the people move throughout the Sinai Peninsula.  Then the law is restated in Deuteronomy.  ‘Deutero’ means ‘second,’ and ‘nomos’ means law.  Deuteronomy is a second rendering of the law.  Moses does not repeat every word he said in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.  He restates it.  In Deuteronomy, the people are no longer on the move.  That generation has died off, and their children will settle the land.  So Moses restates law as it is fitting for that next generation.

This restating, not repeating, happens throughout the writings the Psalm and the prophets.  They reach back to the law and the later prophets allude to the earlier ones, but do so in a way appropriate and needed in their context.  Jesus does the same.  His “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew is similar to his “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke, but he changes things up in those different settings.  So too do the Gospels writers change up how they write Jesus’ story based on the needs of their readers.

The foundation of God’s word remains consistent from law to prophets to Gospel.  Leviticus 19:2: God speaks through Moses to the people; “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.”  This is restated in Deuteronomy 14:2a: “You are a people holy to the Lord your God.”  Jesus has holiness in mind in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, in Matthew 5, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill.  For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (5:17-18).  Holiness is God’s standard.

When Haggai and Zechariah prophesy to the people who have come out of exile, they don’t give a new law.  They call the people back to the law that the nation had violated for the centuries leading up to the exile.  God is a “start-over” God.  After the flood, with Noah’s family, God started over.  After using the Babylonian exile to punish His people for generational, systemic rejection of his will and his way, God started over, through the preaching of Haggai and Zechariah, and the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest. 

A cornerstone of the ethical system that guided the people in how to be holy is compassion for the neediest in society.  Again, we see this in Leviticus, restated in Deuteronomy, and then re-emphasized by Jesus.  Leviticus 19, “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.  You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien.”  Why?  Because, God says, “I am the Lord” (19:9-12).

In several places, Deuteronomy re-asserts this emphasis on kindness to those who need kindness.  Chapter 24 is an example.  “You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether Israelites or aliens.  … You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them; otherwise, they might cry out to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt” (24:14-15).  Did you catch that?  In disputes of justice between the haves and the have-nots, God is not impartial.  God is on the side of the poor.  If that makes you uncomfortable, take it up with Deuteronomy.

If you don’t like Deuteronomy’s answer and want to appeal to a higher court, take it with Jesus.  Throughout the Gospels and especially the Gospel of Luke, he teaches and enacts mercy for the poor and those at society’s margins.  He makes a place in his circle for those rejected by the temple and the king’s court and, today, some churches.  “Blessed are you who are poor,” he says, “for yours is the kingdom of God. … Woe to you who are rich … and full … for you will be hungry; … you will mourn and weep” (6:20-26).  I’ve been criticized for preaching too much ‘social justice’ and not enough ‘gospel.’  This morning, I have just read straight from the law, the prophets, and the gospels.  Social justice is the Gospel; critics can take their complaints straight to the source.

Zechariah’s instruction to rebuild the temple helps the people to once again “be holy” as God commanded them to be.  In chapter 7, the prophet highlights God’s emphasis on social justice.  A delegation made up of Israelites who stayed in Israel during the exile and of Israelites who returned from Babylon approach the prophet.  In verse 3, they ask, if should they continue to practice fasting and lament as they have been doing for years. 

It would be like us having a prophet present and asking, should we keep on observing spiritual disciplines as we have for so many years.  Now that exile was over and work on the new temple had started and communal life in Jerusalem has begun anew, should they carry on the same religious disciplines?  In a few months, we might ask, now that most people have received vaccines and cases are way down and things are opening, what do we do?  What do we do now?  That’s essentially what this delegation in Zechariah 7 asked and their question pertained specifically to spiritual practices. 

Through his prophet God responds to a question with a question, a penetrating question.  When you fasted, was it really for me (v.5)?  Does God need us to fast?  When you feasted, wasn’t that for yourselves (v.6)?  Much like us, the ancient Israelites found the communal feasting easier and more enjoyable than the communal fasting.  In answering these questions, God connects the importance of worship at special times with the everyday necessity of justice for the poor, widow, and orphan.  Both the prophets Amos and Isaiah reject the ritual of fasting when the worshipping community neglected the poor. 

Zechariah alludes to this disconnect and failure by the people in verses 11-14.  When we neglect the poor, God refuses to hear us.  The call to justice, voiced by the prophets, is a call that comes from the Spirit.  To ignore it is to ignore God and God won’t be ignored.  God won’t hear our prayers or empower us in our practice of spiritual disciplines if we neglect the things God values.

The threat of God’s anger only becomes punishment and a break in the relationship with God if the people revert back to the selfish ways that cut them off from God before the exile.  There is an opportunity for hope in verse 9.  The temple is being built, the community is being restored, and in the tradition of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Amos and Isaiah and Ezekiel and to be later taken up by Jesus, Zechariah re-issues the call to justice.  Verse 9: “Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, or the poor.”  

Just as the building of the temple sets worship at the center of community life in Zechariah 1-6, this response, tying the post-exile community to the teachings of Moses and the previous prophets sets justice for the poor as a top ethical principle for the people of God.  Jesus does the same in his practices and in his teaching.  And the call to holiness and the prioritizing of care for the poor are central for us, a community of his followers. 

Fasting, confession, prayer, journaling – I support all of these as spiritual disciplines for you to undertake during Lent.  I propose that working for social justice and a concrete commitment for how you will show compassion to the poor must be regular, not an occasional, part of a disciple’s life.  We commit to advocate for and care for the neediest in our society, and like Zechariah, we find our place in the tradition of God’s people.  If, on the other hand, we try to practice a faith that’s strictly individualistic and utterly separated from loving our neighbor and helping people who need help, then we’re living a lie, proclaiming a faith that’s not Biblical, and God says in Zechariah 7, he will not hear us. 

It’s Lent, time to appreciate the grace God has shown us in Jesus.  We cannot live in harmony with God or neighbor apart from him.  So, take up disciplines, practices that will turn your mind, body, and heart fully to Jesus.  Make sure care for underprivileged, underserved, and disadvantaged is included in your Lenten practice. 

AMEN 

Ash Wednesday - 2021

 

Watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIkXDJOckJA

Ash Wednesday – COVID-19

Hillside Church – February 17, 2021

Streamed Worship Service

 

 

            Welcome to the Hillside Church Ash Wednesday for 2021.  We’re coming to you from Culbreth Road in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 

            There are many Baptist churches that only loosely follow the liturgical calendar, don’t make much of the season Lent, and do not have an Ash Wednesday worship service.

            In our Baptist congregation, we do observe Advent, Lent, holy week, Pentecost, and other high points marking the liturgical year, but, true to our Baptist sense of independence, we don’t feel bound by tradition.  We appreciate and honor tradition, we see the value in it, but, when necessary, we deviate from tradition. 

            Ash Wednesday is an example.  I have had colleagues I respect insist that on Ash Wednesday, using the ash of the previous year’s burned Palm Sunday palms you must impose ashes on the forehead of each worshiper as you say “From dust you are and to dust you shall return.”  The phrase is a quote, Genesis 3:19, words of the curse after Adam and Eve had sinned.  The reason I disagree with my esteemed colleagues who insist that this ritual with these words are what makes Ash Wednesday Ash Wednesday is theological.

            The coming of Christ undoes the devastating effects of the fall (Adam and Even’s eating of forbidden fruit).  Our sin, which renders us dust, has been nailed to the cross.  The resurrection of Jesus assures that we will not return to dust.  As he rose, so will we.  We are resurrection people, new creations, bound for eternal life in the kingdom of God. 

            So, why bother with Ash Wednesday at all? 

            While we are bound for resurrection, we’re not there yet.  We’re in the world, reaching for new creation, celebrating the in-breaking of the Kingdom, but we live as new creations while serving God in a fallen world that, because of sin, is bound for destruction.  We exist in the overlap between fall and salvation.

            By worshiping on Ash Wednesday, we acknowledge our own sin, our need for forgiveness, and our need for change.  This is a time of spiritual renewal.  This is a time to identify what in our thinking, in our way of life, and in our outlook prevents us from growing closer to God in Christ and makes it difficult for us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  Once we’ve identified those areas in which we need to grow or change, then we commit to spiritual practices and disciplines that will help us see with new eyes.  Fasting, confession, numerous forms of prayer, are examples of disciplines believers undertake to help them put their focus on their relationship with God in Christ. 

            The ashes call to mind the way we see people throughout the Bible express remorse and repentance.  They would heap ashes on their heads, mess up their hair, and wear coarse sack cloth.  All these rituals of repentance functioned to signal that this person was trying to turn from sin and turn back to God.  When we impose the cross in ash on the foreheads of worshipers in our modern context, we’re trying to turn from sin and turn back to God. 

            This year, with social distancing still needed, we will not do a traditional Ash Wednesday worship.  Instead, we come to you virtually.  We encourage you to adopt disciplines of confession and repentance to which you will commit from now until Easter Sunday, April 4.

            From our youth group, I have with me M__, E__, I__, J__, and H__.  They will do our scripture reading.  Some of these verses are traditional Ash Wednesday passages.  Some are readings I have selected.  After they have read, I’ll offer a few comments about the call of God to us that is specific to this time, 2021, pandemic, Lent.

 

Readings

Psalm 51:1-4  - M__

Psalm 51:9-13  - E__

2 Corinthians 5:20-21  - I__

Matthew 18:21-22  - J__

Zechariah 3:1:-5 - H__

 

            Confession, repentance, and forgiveness are themes found in every reading we’ve just heard.  Moreover, a fresh start, the chance to begin again, is a natural outflow from repentance and forgiveness.  At Hillside, we’ve begun 2021, imagining starting life anew, post-pandemic and post-election. 

            Discord and disagreement over politics, racial injustice, and over how we as a society should respond to COVID-19 has deeply divided American culture.  As followers of Jesus, what can we say in this time fraught with anger and violence?  I think we can be voices of calm, grace, and peace.  Now that vaccines are here and the election is over, we can invite our neighbors and friends to come together and start again. 

            Starting again is a theme in the words of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.  They prophesied about the same time, both calling the nation to return to God and rebuild life with worship as the organizing activity for a community founded on faith in God. 

            In Zechariah, the Satan stands to accuse Joshua the high priest.  The priesthood was one of many institutions in ancient Israelite life that had become badly corrupted.  The Satan would have recited all the ways the priesthood led the people to rebel against God, but the Lord immediately silenced the Satan. 

            The people’s sins had been punished, forgiven, and were no longer an obstacle blocking the way between the people and God.  God shut the Satan up and then declared a new message.  “The Lord has chosen Jerusalem” (3:2).

            Joshua was dressed in filthy rags, indicating the degradation sin had brought upon God’s people.  The angel took these clothes dripped in decay and exchanged them for sparkling new clothes, representing the washing and the new beginning.  He once again was acceptable as a priest and the people were once again chosen by God.  In the high priest Joshua’s change of clothing, we see how complete is God’s forgiveness of us. 

            Our sins are washed away and when God looks at us, he sees the holiness and righteousness of Christ.  We are made new.  Colossians 3 calls to mind this image from Zechariah 3 of Joshua changing clothes.  Verse 9, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”  And also Colossians 3:12, “As God’s chosen ones, beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”

            What spiritual disciplines can you undertake from now until Easter to remind yourself that your sins don’t define you.  You’ve been made new in Christ.  How can you and I remember to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

            I think we pray every day.  Read the Bible every day.  Be specific in striving to embody these values in the relationships of our every day life: with a friend; with a boss; with the person in your Zoom call; with a son or a sister or a neighbor.  Approach these relationships with the idea of Christ in you coming through.  Don’t dwell on how you’d react to the other.  How would Christ love him or her?  Be a conduit for the love of Christ.

            And, when we fail, because we do, remember, we are forgiven.  Stay connected to the Holy Spirit through constant thought prayers.  Let God’s power be at work in you. 

            From here until Easter, it’s a journey.  We hope you’ll take it with us.  We pray you’ll see God at work in your life. 

            We close with this blessing from Revelation chapter 1:

Grace and peace to you from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen.

Revelation 1:4-6

"Those Who Stand by the Lord" (Zechariah 4:1-14; Revelation 11:1-13)

 

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlHw4r-Jf6c

Sunday, February 14, 2021

 

            Is there really a God?  I’m a Christian, a pastor, and if you’re listening, you probably know I am giving a Sunday morning sermon.  My belief that there really is a God should be assumed, right?  But, how can I convince the skeptic that God is real?  I can’t.  The very nature of God and of belief is faith.  While evidence and convincing arguments might bolster one’s faith, at the heart of the matter, one chooses to believe, or not.  What’s the tipping point on belief or unbelief? 

I suggest that there is no more convincing testimony that God is real and involved in human affairs than the very existence of Christianity and of Judaism.  How many people today practice the religion of the ancient Romans or Greeks, or the Persians or Egyptians?  These were mighty empires, and yet moderns regard their religious practices as superstitions that don’t hold up in the scientific age. 

            Judaism, on the other hand, is faithfully practiced by millions today, and Christianity has 2 billion adherents worldwide.   With inauspicious beginnings where the original believers were ruthlessly persecuted, these faiths thrived as other religious practices have been relegated to the dustbins of history.  How?

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).  It’s got to be the most quoted verse in Zechariah.  It’s the core message.  Christians are not smarter than everyone else, nor are we richer, stronger, better positioned, better looking, or more connected.  Our success comes not by might nor by power but we thrive when we rely on the Spirit.

Zechariah 4:6, again and again finds its way into Christian devotionals, as a slogan on Christian coffee mugs, t-shirts, and stationary, and as a lyric in Christian songs.  Yet though we often quote this verse, we Christians just as often forget the source, chapter 4 of the brilliant post-exile prophet, Zechariah.    When we pay closer attention to what God was saying through the prophet in the original setting as well as the way later prophets lived out Zechariah’s vision, the message will move from slogan to deep truth that forms us as disciples.

Zechariah prophesied from about 520-505 BC.  The people of God had returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon and were tasked by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah with rebuilding the temple.  In the fourth of his seven night visions, recorded in chapter 4, Zechariah sees a golden lampstand with seven lamps on it.  This would have evoked memories of the menorahs, the seven-stemmed lamp from the tabernacle that we read about in Exodus and the golden menorahs Solomon set in the original temple. 

As is often the case in the Bible, the number seven has significance.  In the Anchor Bible Scholars Carol and Eric Meyers render verse 2, “I see a lampstand all of gold with its bowl on top!  There are seven lamps on it, each of the seven with the seven spouts, for the lamps which are on top of it” (p.227).  Most translations don’t repeat the number ‘7’ three times, but it is repeated that way in the original language.  Seven stems, each with seven wicks: that’s 49 points of light.  The Meyers believe this is important.

The most logical connection in Old Testament literature is the seven cycles of seven years: 49 years leading to the Jubilee year, reported in Deuteronomy 15.  During Jubilee, all debts are forgiven, all slaves freed, and everyone gets to begin again.  The Meyers believed Zechariah wanted to evoke this idea of forgiveness, renewal, and a fresh start when he shared his vision with the community that had to do the work of rebuilding. 

Jubilee was about restoration, rest, and liberation.  When Zechariah wrote his prophecy, the land and the city had rested for 70 years, the period of exile.  But when Persian Emperor Cyrus sent the people home, they were liberated.  The were free to once again live as God’s people and their first work, signaling their faithfulness to God, would be the restoration of the temple: liberation, rest, and restoration.

Zechariah also indicated who would lead with his image of two olive trees in verse 3 and picked up again in verse 11.  The olive trees each stand beside the lampstand.  They are servants of the Lord standing by to enact His will.  The Meyers believe the trees are roles.  In Zechariahs day, the governor Zerubbabel and the priest Joshua would fill these roles, and later on an ultimate fulfillment would come.

Olive trees could live as long as 1000 years; they produced fruit even in drought.  Their weakness was a condition by which they hollowed out and were made susceptible to fires, but as it hollows, its roots produces young shoots, which eventually grow up to replace the tree.

The olive tree for the exile community called to mind durability, endurance, righteousness, beauty, and continuity.  There would not be a time when God did not have faithful witnesses standing by in service to Him.  From Abraham to Moses to Samuel to Zerubbabel and Joshua to future generations, the community of faith stood to serve the Lord and bear witness to His goodness and holiness in the world.  So, in the face of the great empires – Babylon, Persia, and others that would come after, Zechariah states, “not by might, nor by power, but by God’s spirit do we carry on.”

How did the God-worshipers understand Zechariah’s visions in their own time?  John, a disciple of Jesus, who served the Lord in Ephesus around 95 AD, was sentenced by the Romans to exile.  Because of his refusal to bow before the deity of Caesar and his insistence that Jesus and only Jesus is Lord, he was banished to the island of Patmos where he received a vision from the Lord.

In portions of his description of that vision, he reached back to Zechariah and used the prophet’s imagery to paint his own word pictures.  Specifically, just as Zechariah had, John refers to olive trees.  God tells John, “I will grant my two witnesses authority to prophesy. … These [witnesses] are two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth” (11:3, 4).   

Both in Zechariah’s restoration community and in John’s revelation community, olive trees represent the witnesses who stand by the Lord, ready to do his will and speak his word.  In the case of Revelation, the witnesses were killed for their testimony (11:7), then resurrected (11:11-12), and then avenged by God (11:13). 

How do these images of faithful witness inform us of God’s intent in the world?  Understanding what God is doing, how can we look to Zechariah and Revelation and ourselves be equipped to serve our Lord in our time and place?

In Revelation, God clearly says the authority the olive tress possessed was given to them, and when they resurrected, God breathed the breath of life into them.  In Zechariah, the olive trees stay right beside the lampstand.  They remain connected to the Lord. 

Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit says the Lord; for this beautiful word to form faith, Zechariah could not trust in God and appeal to Persia.  John could not follow Jesus and appease the authorities of Rome.  There had to come a point when the prophets said, ‘God is Lord,’ and ‘you, empire, emperor, Caesar, are not.’  We heard last week in our reading of Zechariah 1:14, God is jealous for his people.  God demanded a relationship so exclusive, his true followers would embrace execution rather than deny their faith in him or put their faith in anything else.  When you’re willing to die for saying ‘Jesus is Lord,’ not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit contains a lot more meaning than when it’s written in pretty letters on a colorful t-shirt.

The only way to rebuild a temple or accept persecution is if we absolutely believe God is real and can be trusted.  In our world, in our time, what threatens to reduce God in our mind’s eye.  I think our society is fine with you or me saying we think God is real and few people really care if call God ‘Savior,’ ‘Master,’ ‘Lord,’ or anything else.  We can say anything as long as we keep God in his place.

We are olive trees standing by the Lord when we insist that the value of Jesus – forgiveness, grace, mercy, love, hope, generosity, gentleness, kindness – define us.  These values have to be ultimate for us, dictating our choices about money, relationships, and how we spend our time and what we think about what we watch, read, hear, and say.  When we bring our full-bodied faith in God into the most secular and profane places, we are standing by the Lord.  Furthermore, oriented toward God, we are insisting that God is real, God is here, and we belong to Him. 

This intense witness will turn some people off and they’ll think we’re “Jesus-freaks” or overly zealous.  Fine.  Others, people who see their own need and recognize how lost they are without God will experience our kindness, generosity, and welcome, and they’ll want some of that.  They’ll see us standing by the Lord and they’ll want to stand by Him too.  That’s when we smile and tell them they can.  And we tell all about how to receive Jesus and walk with Him. 

AMEN

"Return" (Zechariah 1:1-17)

 

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJMCSvMKLms&t=11s

Sunday, February 7, 2021

 

            Who are we? Who will we be?  Beloved movie heroes entertain us for 2-3 hours, trying to answer these questions.  Elsa in Frozen; who will she become, now that everyone knows she has super powers?  Luke Skywalker in Star Wars; will he ever become a Jedi Knight?  If he does, what then?  Steve Rogers in the Avengers; once the skinny weakling takes the super-soldier serum, what then?  What does he become? 

            As much as I love these stories, I find your more interesting because, (1) I can see you and talk to you.  You’re real!  And, (2) you don’t have super-soldier serum, you can’t shoot icicles out of your hands, and you can’t control force.  What you have going for you is the Holy Spirit!  I want to hear your story once the Holy Spirit enters your life.

            I want to find out who you are when you are ‘in Christ.’  I want to find out who the church will become.  The pandemic has rattled the church’s sense of itself.  Potlucks; bedside hospital visits; raucous laughter shared around the front hall coffee pot before the worship service; laying hands on someone being commissioned or ordained; embracing a friend; these things make the church and we can’t hardly do any of them.  Thanks, COVID-19. 

            What’s more, our church had just changed our name to “Hillside.” At the end of 2019.  We were coming out of two years of bumpy transition.  We were in the process of rediscovering our identity before COVID came along!  Does that mean we were ahead of every other church that had to deal with re-evaluating itself in light of COVID?  Or did it mean we were set back a year in the work we were doing to once again hear and answer God’s call.  I think it’s a little of both.

            More and more people are vaccinated each day.  The end is coming and when it does, we’ll have to be ready to understand our identity so we can be God’s witnesses here, drawing people in our town to Jesus.  But really, we have to begin that work before the pandemic ends.  Right now, today, we are called to be witnesses who tell what we have seen and experienced in following Jesus Christ.

            I had us begin 2021 in Haggai and now in Zechariah because these prophets spoke the word of the Lord to the covenant community in Jerusalem after the exile.  Exile had diminished them, displaced them, and broken them.  None of that changed the call.  Israel was to be God’s chosen people through whom the entire world would know and worship and serve the only true God. 

Exile had been the means by which God had punished his people for failing to answer that call and live his way.  When we get to Haggai and Zechariah, we find that the exile is over.  It’s time to start over, rebuild, and once again turn to the Lord and then draw the world to the Lord.  These prophets speak God’s word to a rebuilding people.

We are a rebuilding people.  The “who” question is an identity question.  Zechariah is not part of the answer to the “who” question.  Zechariah is a guide.  Listening to his truth, it sinks in.  We are the answer to the “who” question.  Who is this story about?  It’s about God as God is revealed in a rebuilding congregation, Hillside Church, emerging from years of transition and seemingly endless months of social distancing.  Who will we become as God’s people in Chapel Hill?

In this story, we are the “who”. God’s church.  What about the “what” and the “how”?

Who will Hillside Church be when we live into the identity God gives us?  “What” is the next question.  What needs to happen for us to be ready to live into our God-given identity as a people? The prophet Zechariah tells us in chapter 1.

“Return to me,” says the Lord of hosts in verse 3.  Zechariah warns the people not to repeat the mistakes of their parents, the exile generation.  God invited them to return, but they continued in their rebellion.  Now, they were gone. God’s word remained.  And so, the invitation is once again given.  “Return to me” (1:3).   

Zechariah writes in verse 6 that the people repented.  They turned away from injustice. They turned away from the worship of idols, false gods.  They turned away from sin and turned to God.  In their broken state, they accepted God’s justice, including the punishment.  With exile over, they were ready to return to God.

After this initial call to repentance and report that the people answered by repenting, Zechariah shares the first of his seven “night visions.”  At night, in a grove of myrtle trees, he sees a man astride a horse, and behind them several horses of different color, typical colors for horses. 

These horses act as God’s emissaries patrolling the earth.  The vision depicts for the prophet what he and we already know.  God can see the entire earth.  He is all-seeing and all-knowing.  The angel reports in Zechariah 1:11 that all is calm, the earth is at peace.

How can this be so?  How we say “all is well” when God’s temple is a pile of rubble and God’s people live as exiles?  Thus, the angel, not the prophet, confronts God asking accusingly, “How Long, O Lord” will you withhold mercy” (1:12)?  We can relate.  We know people refuse to wear masks, gather in close quarters, and ignore good pandemic behavior.  We know part of the reason this contagion has persisted and dogged us as it has is that people don’t do what is necessary to curb it.  Still, like Zechariah’s angel in chapter 1, we look to heaven, shake our fists, and through our tears bellow out, “How long will this go on, O Lord?” 

Zechariah 1:13 shows God as an understanding counselor, a patient therapist.  It says the “Lord replied with gracious and comforting words to the angel.”  In this same chapter, God is angry and God is understanding.  Both are true because God is perfect love. In verse 16, God says, “I have returned to Jerusalem with compassion.” 

Human suffering breaks God’s heart, even when we bring the suffering on ourselves.  God’s compassion is always for us.  As Jesus says in Luke 15, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (15:10b).  God wants us to be free of the pain sin imposes and God offers us that freedom.  We need to turn to Him.  We turn from the sin, acknowledge our absolute need, and turn to God.

Thus the “who” – our identity is defined by the “what”; what we do.  We see understand that we can only live dependent on God.  We turn away from putting our faith in people, things, dreams, and systems.  We turn from that and we turn to God.  The “what” is our need for His grace, for the Spirit’s empowerment, for forgiveness, and energy to start again. 

What about the “how?”  Who?  What?  How?  How do we begin living into the identity God has given to us? 

This part of the story is God’s work.  God says, in Zechariah 1:16, “I have returned, with compassion.”  More than once in Haggai God says, I will be with you.  The Gospel of Matthew ends with Jesus’ promise to his disciples (and to us), “I am with you always to the end of the age” (28:20).  In Revelation, we know that at the end of the age, Jesus returns, we are resurrected, and we live forever with him in our resurrection bodies.  The presence of God ties this all together. 

Just as Zechariah prophesied the temple building in Jerusalem, 515BC, we will build Jesus’ church right here in Chapel Hill.  God is with us, so we can do it.  We can encourage each other, feed the hungry, share good news, love all who come, and grow our family because God is here, filling us with His empowering spirit. 

Furthermore, in Zechariah 1:17, God declares, “My cities shall again overflow with prosperity.”  We will flourish as God’s church because we stand in our need, as a broken people who have been healed by love, a dead people born again, a repentant people made new.  It’s the story of God and us – us returning to the God who loves us.  That repentance is our act of acknowledgement and faith.  And the story ends in joy and peace because God is present.

At the communion table, we take a necessary step in the story.  We come to the table as we are.  We don’t put on a false front, no facades.  We don’t hide behind masks of respectability, false presentations of our best selves.  We wear our warts, pimples, scars, wrinkles and dried tears.  This is us.  We come name what we have lost.  We hold out our mistakes.  We have in mind those we have hurt either by our actions or our failure to act. 

On our way to the communion table, a table welcoming all, we stop at the cross.  There we lay down everything – our entire story.  When Zechariah says “return,” this is the repentance we ought to have in mind.  All are welcome, but we can’t get to the table without a stop at the cross.  We meet Jesus at the cross, and he guides us to take our seat at the table where we gather with brothers and sisters, a family, united by God’s love. 

Take your place.  Bring your story.  Open your heart to God.  Receive the grace and forgiveness he gives.  And the prosperity.  He makes us new.  Even as wrong as things seem in the world, he makes things right.

AMEN

Kingdom Expansion (Zechariah 2)

 

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyfoa47QzRU

 

            After four Sundays in a short, rarely-visited book, Haggai, today we turn to his back-of-the Old Testament neighbor, Zechariah.  We don’t visit these prophets often, but don’t overlook them.  They sit right there in our Bibles. There’s nothing minor about these prophets. We linger in the Psalms, make seasonal stops in Isaiah, pay Jeremiah short visits every couple of years, and then quickly, skip to where we feel at home, the gospels.  God speaks through Haggai and Zechariah.    To have a robust, Biblical faith, we need pay attention.

             We also need to resist the urge to read Jesus back into the prophets.  We believe the Old Testament points to him.  He is the second person of the trinity, God in human skin.  Remember though, Zechariah didn’t know Jesus.  Zechariah didn’t know his prophecy’s ultimate fulfillment would come when God in human flesh was crucified on a Roman cross.  Zechariah wouldn’t have imagined the Messiah dying that way or even that God would inhabit a human body.  Zechariah probably didn’t know Rome.  Enter the story Zechariah is telling.  Follow that story. 

            In Zechariah 2, the prophet, has a vision of a man about to measure Jerusalem.  Then an angel approaches the angel who has been Zechariah’s guide.  The prophet watches the angels confer.  That’s on my bucket list: ascend Mount Kilimanjaro, see a Kodiak in the wild, and listen in as two angels talk. 

            The second angel tells Zechariah’s guiding angel Jerusalem is too big for walls.  The only wall around Jerusalem, a wall of fire provided by God, provides unlimited opportunity for growth in all directions.  Expansion of the city is anticipated and expected.  Before addressing this idea of the Kingdom of God expanding, we need to understand the way the power dynamic the moves the action in Israel’s story and in ours.

            The northern kingdom of God’s people, Israel, had been defeated and deported because Assyria was more powerful than them.  Assyria was overthrown by Babylon because the Babylonians had grown more powerful than Assyria.  Then, the Babylonians overpowered the southern kingdom, Judah, and took many from there to exile in Babylon.

            When Zechariah comes on the scene why are these exiles able, after 70 years, to go back to Judah?  It’s not because while in exile they attained the power to make this move!  Another empire, Persia, overpowered Babylon and permitted the Jewish people to return.  In power dynamics, the one holding the power permits the weaker one to do things, or, with their power, withholds permission. 

            Zechariah, in the tradition of the prophets, firmly believes that all has happened because God allowed it.  However powerful Assyria, Babylon, or Persia might appear, real power belongs to the Sovereign Lord.  The Israelites held tightly to this belief in spite of the appearance of their own impotence.  “The Nations” could only overpower God’s people if the all-powerful God permitted such a thing.

            How we perceive power plays into how we see the world and live in it.  Are we stuck in this seemingly never-ending condition of social-distancing because of the merciless, unfeeling power of the virus?  Or, are we dealing with curfews and mask mandates because our state and federal government is over-reaching, inappropriately extending its power to control our lives? 

            Or, do we take a different tack?  We’re not staying at home and wearing masks because the virus is too powerful and malevolent, nor are we committed to social-distancing protocols because the government is so oppressive.  We’re claiming our own power.  We choose to be good neighbors and good citizens and cooperate in the fight against a pandemic.  In living as we do, we’re exercising our own power to make choices! 

            One of the key themes in Zechariah has to do with how we, Zechariah’s readers, understand power.  As we enter God’s word, we accept our own powerlessness.  Naked and broken is the only way to stand before God.  Confessing our sins, our mistakes, and our weaknesses, we come hoping God will be merciful. 

            The people of Israel found themselves in such a defeated state when they dragged themselves into Jerusalem in 520 BC.  To these returnees, God said in Zechariah 2:10, “Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion!  For I will come and dwell in your midst.”  God calls Israel “the apple of my eye” (v.8).  In their fragile condition, God received them with love, welcome, and grace.

            On the other hand, God spoke a different word to the plundering nations, who did what bullies do, use power to take what’s not theirs.  To Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and every empire down through history, God says, “I am going to raise my hand against them, and they shall become plunder for their own slaves” (2:9).

            A century ago, Britain’s reign as world superpower ended.    Thirty years ago, Russia made the same exit from center stage.  Like China and Japan, these great nations are still regional powers, but today, “superpower” is a title fit for only one people on earth: The United States of America. 

            Zechariah’s story should give American readers pause.  I have heard some megachurch pastors brag about America’s might and in some twisted fashion try to tie faith in Jesus, a crucified Jewish peasant, with American exceptionalism.  In the Bible, empires run afoul of God’s purposes.  Every time.  God has no interest in our chest-thumping.  Exposed, broken, and confessing: that’s how we approach God. 

            Zechariah spoke God’s condemnation of the nations in 2:6-9.  However, after promising to be present with his chosen people Israel in the newly constructed temple, God then makes this promise.  “Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord.”  They come seeking.  Twice the angel says, “Then you will know the Lord has sent me.”  First, he says it when the bullying superpowers are judged and humbled by God.  That humbling confirms God’s truth.  Second, when humbled nations make pilgrimage to seek the God of Israel, and are welcomed, that also signals that God’s truth has been spoken.

            Back in verse 4, the angel said, “run!”  The angel was urgent in declaring this would be a city without walls except for those provided by God.  The city needed to be able to continue to grow in every direction. 

            In the final vision of the entire Bible, a picture of God’s final victory and the salvation of all things, a new Jerusalem is imagined.  Describing the heavenly city, John of Patmos, in Revelation 21, draws on images from Zechariah 2.  To describe what he saw, John says, “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.  And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light. … The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of earth will bring their glory into it.  Its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there.  People will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations” (Revelation 21:22-26).

            We live between what God hinted at in Zechariah and the final picture revealed to John.  Both show God’s power used to express God’s love.  How do we bring these prophetic portraits together? 

            We declare that all power and authority belong to God.  We believe this. We say it out loud.  We mean it.  In this declaration, we recognize our own vulnerability and we see all claims of power for the caricatures they are. 

            We name God’s power.  We also confess our sins and our desperate need for the love and new life only God can give.  Why in verse 11 did Yahweh, the Lord, accept “many nations?” Because they did not come expressing their might. They came in humility, offering gifts, bowing before the God of Israel.  Similarly, we who name God’s might, also name our need and come humbly, worshiping him. 

            Of course, in one short message I cannot cite every way we might live faithfully in this time we find ourselves between the nervously hopeful days of Zechariah and the picture of God’s final triumph we see in Revelation.  However, in addition to verbal testimony and confession, one more faith expression we must note in the here and now.  We must announce and demonstrate God’s I’ve halove. 

            True faith for the prophets was always tied to justice.  Justice, in God’s eyes, is the love that allows people to thrive; in other words, it is abundance, shalom.  When you donate to the “Helping Hand” ministry, you know your gift help someone pay their rent and get closer to shalom.  When we pray for each other, assuring each person his or her concerns are shared by the church family, we help the one prayed for take a step toward the abundance of shalom.

            Note, it’s not about wealth.  It is life lived in peace, safety, and right relationships with God and neighbor.  We live faithfully in the time between the resurrection and the second coming by proclaiming, confessing, and promoting right relationships and the abundance Jesus promises in the Gospel.

            This expanding Kingdom of God overtakes the shadow of decay and death cast over humanity since sin entered the world.  It’s not about counting converts or reporting how many weekend services were so packed-out people had to be turned away at the door.  It’s about living in right relationship with God and neighbor.

            The rebuilding of the temple in Zechariah signals this expansion of God’s people.  We do too, when we live faithfully.  We’ve heard how to do just that.  Now, we must respond.  You can choose how do this in the way you promote the Gospel and approach relationships with people you see every day.   Take a moment now to ask God to help you respond faithfully to his grace.

AMEN

Work for Justice

 

2-1-2021

            Justice is a Biblical value, one of the highest Biblical values.  Leviticus 24:22, Deuteronomy 15:29, Isaiah 58:6-7, Amos 5:21-24, and Amos 8:4-6 are just a handful of the hundreds of Old Testament verses commanding that the people of God maintain justice and take care of the poor and vulnerable.  Taking care of the most vulnerable members of the community is always tied to maintaining justice. 

When the wealthy bask in their affluence while indifferently ignoring the poor, they act unjustly and fall under God’s condemnation.  It’s not enough to avoid dishonesty and graft.  We aren’t righteous because we avoid wrong behavior.  We are right in God’s eyes when we care about what God cares about.  The New Testament is even more adamant about God’s call to his people to take care of the poor and advocate for victims of injustice.

Black History Month, February, is a good reminder to the church that we have to be out front in working for justice.  We make the declaration “Black Lives Matter” because our country’s political and legal systems as well as our social institutions have too often heavily favored white people and treated black and brown peoples with contempt and outright prejudice.  To work for Biblical justice is to see this reality, denounce it, and work for equity and healing.

This is why we try to help the poor of all racial backgrounds.  When people go hungry and can’t pay their rent and lack adequate healthcare, it’s unjust.  A place to live, clothes to wear, food to eat, and access to doctors and dentists are basic human needs.  Where some people go without these things, there is injustice, and disciples of Jesus must actively work to combat injustice.

The endgame in this is shalom, the Biblical vision of all people living in right relationships with God and with neighbor.  Shalom can only be had when people have peace, feel safe, and are full.  Zechariah 3:10 puts it this way, “On that day, says the Lord, you shall invite each other to come under your vine and fig tree.”  Similarly, Micah 4:4 says, “They shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make they afraid.”  Fighting for justice leads to people everywhere freely experiencing shalom.

            How can you work to uplift your neighbors that they might live in right relationships with God and with each other?  You could donate to Hillside Church’s “Helping Hands” ministry.  You could volunteer when we host the Dental Bus (June 5, 2021).  You could volunteer at the food pantry (first, third, and fifth Saturdays each month).

            You could also be part of the partnership we will be entering with Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (Chapel Hill, Rosemary Street).  Holy Trinity and Hillside will be entering a relationship of dialogue around the idea of “Racial Manners.”  How can white, black, and brown people live together in relationships of harmony and safety?  First in Zoom meetings and then, when appropriate in in-person meetings, we’re going to sit with our brothers and sisters from Holy Trinity and have in-depth, from the heart discussions about how can black, brown, and white people can relate well, as good neighbors.  Chris Faison (PhD, Johns Hopkins) will be our facilitator. 

            Work for justice and promote your neighbor’s shalom.  Whether you volunteer in one of the ministries listed above, join our “racial manners” discussion group, or find some other platform in which to invest yourself, follow the prophets’ lead and work for justice.