Romans 4:13-25, 2nd Sunday of Lent

            If you have ever attended a popular Christian conference, in the auditorium packed with 10,000 people, you may have heard the speaker say something like this.  “Let go, and let God.”  Similar sentiments like this are printed on bumper stickers and coffee mugs sold by Christian publishing companies.  You might hear the DJ on the popular Christian radio station enthusiastically make this pronouncement.  “Don’t try to control your own life.  Don’t try to determine your own destiny.  Let go, and let God.  Let God go to work in your life.”

            Let go and let God.  What the heck does that mean?  Seriously.  How do we do that?  Do we just sit on a park bench and wait until God does whatever it is God is going to do?  How?  Maybe just as important, why?  Why should we trust that God is going to do something in our lives? 

“For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith” (Romans 4:13).  Our attempt to understand the notion of releasing control of our own lives to God begins with the idea of promise.  In Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, he talks about a promise that was given to Abraham.  He assumed the members of that church would be intimately familiar with the Abraham story.  This story is found in Genesis, a portion of it in Genesis 17. 

17 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty;^[a] walk before me, and be blameless. ² And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” ³ Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, ⁴ “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. ⁵ No longer shall your name be Abram,^[b] but your name shall be Abraham;^[c] for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. ⁶ I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. ⁷ I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring^[d] after you.

¹⁵ God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. ¹⁶ I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her” (Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16).

Sarah was over 90.  The only way a child comes is through divine intervention.  Paul’s take on this story, thousands of years later, is that Abraham believed God’s promise.  That was the key, his belief.  He was old, Sarah past child-bearing years, and they were childless.  Today, a childless couple certainly may feel sad if they desire children.  That sadness is not to be minimized.  But it does not carry the social stigma it did 4000 years ago. 

In Abraham’s time, if a couple had no children, it meant something was terribly wrong.  Mostly, blame was laid on the wife, in this case, Sarah. As a family, they were failures, and had no one to carry on their family name.  The social cost to both Abraham and Sarah was enormous. 

But they were in their 90’s.  There was no reason to think anything would change.  Even so, Abraham believed God.  Paul understood this belief to be an act of faith.  Purely because he knew God and trusted God did Abraham accept this promise that made no sense.  Going through the entire Abraham story, it feels simplistic to say Abraham “let go and let God.”  Abraham did a lot of others things.  He lied.  He tried to force God’s hand by having a son with his wife’s servant.  He debated with God.  Like all of us, Abraham had feet of clay. 

Maybe that’s why Paul was so eager to link the promise with Abraham’s faith.  Why should we trust God?  Why did Abraham trust God?  Paul’s best answer is don’t focus on why Abraham trusted God.  Focus on the fact that Abraham trusted God.  “For what does the scripture say,” Paul asks in Romans 4:3.  “Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”  Reckoned?  He was credited with righteousness because he chose to believe God.  That’s faith!

Why should we believe?  Because we’ll get righteousness credited to us too? 

Let’s look at another story, one that raises the stakes in trusting God. 

This time, Jesus is speaking.  We’re in Mark chapter 8.  Jesus and the disciples are walking through the villages of a region called Caesarea Philippi.  He wants to know the buzz.  Crowds gather to hear him preach everywhere he goes, and he wants to hear what the disciples have heard people say about him.  This is a first-century version of Jesus reading his own headlines.

The disciples report that some think he is John the Baptist, while others call him Elijah or another of the prophets.  Then Jesus changes the question.  Who do you think I am?  Peter declares he is the Messiah!  Good for Peter! 

Immediately following this, Jesus teaches them that the Son of Man, himself, must be beaten, rejected, and killed.  And they stop listening.  He says the one killed will rise again after 3 days but they don’t hear that part.  When they hear Jesus predict his own suffering and death, it is too much to bear.  Just as Peter boldly proclaimed the Messiahship of Jesus, he steps in here to confront the Lord. Mark writes that Peter pulled Jesus aside and began to rebuke him.  Can you imagine?

Jesus isn’t having it.  He says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.  For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things” (Mark 8:33).  He then lays out what he means by “divine things.” 

³⁴ [Jesus] called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,^[i] will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life” (Mark 8:34-36)? 

Abraham’s wife Sarah had a female servant, Hagar, and she had a son by Abraham.  That son was Ishmael.  Why would Abraham believe that God was going to give him a son by his wife Sarah who had never had a child in all her 90 years? 

When Jesus says, “those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  Why would the disciples and the people in the crowd believe him? Why would anyone believe that losing one’s life for the sake of the Gospel is a good thing?  Why should we trust God?

We began with a promise – the promise of a child to Abraham; the promise that giving one’s self fully to God in Christ – that is, losing one’s life for the Gospel – is a good thing; the promise that the best life we can lead is one in which we fully submit ourselves to God with Him as our Lord, our Master.  In the life of Abraham, in the journey of the disciples with Jesus, and in the theology of Paul, we see this promise come to fruition as faith is exercised by believing what God says. Faith = believe that God is telling the truth and that God’s truth is the best thing for us.

Great!  We’ve received the promise, that in Christ we have forgiveness of sins and eternal life.  We’ve exercised faith by believing that this promise is true and God can be trusted.  So, we are fully submitted to God.  We’re going to abandon control of our own lives.  We’re going to let go and let God. 

Now what? 

Paul writes in Romans 4:18 that when Abraham believed, he was “hoping against hope.”  It’s akin to jumping without a net because God said, “I’ll catch you.”  Abraham abandoned his father’s land.  He did all that God said to do.  He hurled himself off the cliff and into the open air above the Grand Canyon because he believed God would redefine his life.  He believed God would fill in that blank space where his world view had been.  He jumped and waited for God to act.

Paul lived the same way.  He followed wherever the Spirit directed him: Athens, Ephesus, Corinth.  There were also instances where Paul wanted to plant churches in certain cities, and the Spirit prevent him.  It looked different than in the days of Abraham because by the time Paul came along, the world was a very different place.  But the idea is the same.  The Spirit turned over the applecart of all Paul’s ideas about reality, and he had to wait, with a blank space – a space God began to fill in with courage, power, love, truth, purpose, and most importantly grace. 

When we stop, trust God, and then wait, it gives God space to act in our lives.  Stopping and waiting doesn’t mean we just sit inert in complete inactivity.  We worship.  We work our jobs, sometimes temporary jobs, but even in those we represent God and glorify Him in our work.  We stay connected to the church, the family of God.  But our worship, our relating, and our work are sometimes carried out in a period of a stop and wait.  That stop and wait is where we trust that God has good things in store for us. 

In a sense, in that pause, our worldview, our understanding of everything is suspended so that we may clear our minds and hearts and make space for God to step in and re-color all our ideas.

Paying even a little attention to the New Testament, we see that God began this work in Jesus.  Romans 4:25: righteousness will be credited to us who believe that God raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  A purely scientific worldview does not allow for resurrection.  Once someone dies, he stays dead.  How often is our claim to believe in the resurrection an impotent recitation that pulls no weight in how we see the world?  We say we believe it, but do we live as if we believe God is present and active?

If we don’t think God is real, present, and active, how will we ever give up our lives for the sake of the Gospel, as Jesus said in Mark 8?  And by the way, while “give up our lives,” can mean die for the kingdom in most cases it means live lives fully submitted to God.  To “give up our lives for the gospel” is to make the intentional choice to relinquish our hold on independence.  We stand before God and say, “Here is my life.  I’ll do what you say to do.  I’ll be who you tell me to be.”  The evidence of this complete submission is seen in how we carry ourselves in the normal, everyday places.  The disciple life is evident or absent in the way Christ is seen in us when we are at work, at home, and going about the daily routines of life.  It is there, where we spend the majority of our time, that we give up freedom and autonomy and voluntarily live life as God’s slaves.

The only reason we would do this is that we trust that being a slave to God is better than anything else.   “Let go and let God.”  It has a catchy ring to it, as slogans go.  To actually do it, to actually let go of control is monumental.  Do we trust God enough to do it?

That’s an unfair question.  There’s rarely a time that we can measure how much we trust God.  So, here is what I propose.  Identify one area of life where you’ve been in control, keeping God at bay.  Pick one thing.  Parenting.  Exercise & diet.  Your temper.  Your marriage.  Your money.  This morning, pick one thing in your life. 

Write it down.  Text it to yourself.  Mark it as a calendar reminder so that you get alerts a couple of times a week between now and Easter Sunday.  Starting today, this Second Sunday of Lent, you’re going to hand control of this one thing over to God.

 “Letting go” does not mean going inert.  If parenting is your thing, you still feed your kids and try to help them have success and joy.  But you do that in a state of constant prayer.  Your parenting is done with less worry, almost the point of no worry, and with more attention set on God-with-you, as your parent your children.  That’s just one example.  Whatever is the one thing which you are handing over to God, you continue in that one thing, but now, God is in it with you, all the time.  Prayer is part of it, all the time.

We’re going to gather at the place where we are all recipients of the bread of life, the communion table.  We take the bread and cup, remembering Jesus’ suffering and shed blood.  We come as sinners – sinners who are now forgiven and made new.  Our sins are gone and in their place is the righteousness of Christ.

As you come up the aisle to the table, come preparing to meet Jesus.  Come with that one thing in hand, that thing in your life you’re going to give over to God’s control.  As you take the bread and cup, hand it go God.  In doing so, you create space in your life, space for God to go to work.  Trust Him.  He raised Jesus from the dead.  He’s got new things in store for you.  Can’t you wait to see what they are?

AMEN

The God Jonah Thought he Knew (Jonah 3:1-10)

This morning, we look at God – God’s character. 

Our presidential election ended in a result that shocked a lot of people.  Donald Trump had less total votes than Hillary Clinton, but he got the needed number of electoral votes.  By the standards of our system, he is our next president.  Some voters are very happy, others are quite upset.  Many didn’t like either candidate, would have been unsatisfied either way, and are kind of glad the whole thing is over.

All three types of voters are among us.   If you find yourself elated because your candidate won, please be humble, and sensitive with your brothers and sisters in Christ who feel differently than you.  They are hurting and this is church.  Here, our unity is in our identity in Christ.  We build one another up and bear with one another in love.  If your candidate lost and you feel angry, express it, but with dignity.  Respect those voted against your candidate because they are your brothers and sisters in Christ.  Again, we are the church, the body of Christ.  There is a place for thoughtful criticism and for expressing frustration.  We do all of it in love and work through our feelings in prayer, together.

As a church body and as individual Christ followers, we turn to 1 Timothy 2:1 which says,

“I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, ² for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. ³ This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 

            The word of God insists that we pray for “all in high positons.”  We will pray for the well-being and effective governance of President-Elect Donald Trump.  We will, out of our reverence for Christ, respect the office.  I have been voting in presidential elections since 1988.  In my voting life, I have voted Democrat, Republican, third party, and write-in.  At times I have deeply admired the occupant of the oval office.  At other times, I have harbored disdain for the person with the title President of the United States.  As Christians, we will respect the office.  As a people obedient to the dictates of scripture, we will pray for President Trump.  As followers of Jesus who turn the other cheek and pray for those who persecute us – we are called to love all people. 

It is our responsibility as citizens in a democracy to use our voice to advocate for justice, equal opportunity, and compassion for the least of these.  We can, and at time must, oppose the very government we respect and uphold in prayer.  But our opposition is to be peaceful, modeled after the example of our Master, Jesus.  We speak truth to power and we know our purpose is to be witnesses who point the world to the salvation we have in Jesus. 

Note that at the end of the 1 Timothy reading it says, “God desires everyone to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”  See the relevance of this idea – that God wants everyone to know the truth – to Jonah’s experience in Nineveh in Jonah chapter 3.  I pray that we can take this verse, 1 Timothy 2:4 (God’s desire for all to be saved), and we can hold that up to Jonah and God in Nineveh, and in doing this we will see God’s character.   We see who God is. I pray that focusing on God’s character will relieve us of any painful post-election hangover.  Keeping our minds on God’s identity and God’s character, we remember who we are in Christ.  The Kingdom of God is bigger than the United States, and the advance of the Kingdom of God is unthreatened by American presidential elections.

            Jonah chapter 3 begins the same way chapter 1 began.  God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh with a prophecy of doom.  We remember that Jonah at first ran away, was swallowed by a whale, prayed from the whale’s belly, and was then upchucked up onto the shore by the whale.  We previously mentioned that it is not completely clear why Jonah fled God at first.  Jeremiah also prophesied God’s wrath and hated doing so and suffered for it.  No one wants to be the bearer of bad news.

            When the call comes in chapter 3, Jonah goes as God instructs him.  He thinks he is going to see the city destroyed.  He will later claim that he knew all along that God would spare Nineveh, but I don’t buy it.  In chapter 4:5, we find Jonah sitting and waiting to see what will happen.    He said, “40 days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’  Jonah sits on the outskirts of the city, watching, waiting for the violent overthrow he’s predicted based on what God told him.

            Jonah believes he is like the prophet Nahum.  Listen to what God had Nahum say when he was called to prophesy against Nineveh.

“An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh. 

² A jealous and avenging God is the Lord, the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and rages against his enemies” (1:1b-2).

“Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away.  ‘Halt!  Halt! But no one turns back’” (2:8).

“I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will let nations look on your nakedness and kingdoms on your shame” (3:5).

            Nahum didn’t just preach wrath.  He preached humiliation.  On another Sunday, we might even call into question’s God’s ethics – at the least the ethics of the God we meet in Nahum.  Today Jonah is our focus.  He thought he was like Nahum, a preacher of a wrath that was inevitable.   He told Nineveh she was going to burn, and then sat on a hill to watch it happen. 

We can’t see what all of Jonah’s thoughts were, but he was unhappy with God’s show of compassion.  He wanted the prophecy he delivered to come true.  He had benefited from God’s compassion and forgiveness when he was rescued from the stomach of the whale.  He did not think that compassion would extend to the Ninevites. 

            As I imagined Jonah and God in Nineveh and things not going as Jonah thought they would, the story of Abraham and Sodom and Gomorra came to mind.  That is found in Genesis 18.

            There God, appearing as three men, promises Abraham and barren, post-menopausal Sarah they would have a son.  Sarah laughs off such a promise but God is committed to it and acknowledges but does not punish her laughter.   After Sarah laughs, God appears to have an interior conversation.  It is clear there is one God, but somehow this one God, appearing as trinity, is able to converse within God’s own self.  Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?  No, for I have chosen him” (18:18-19a).

            That thing that God is about to do is inspect two cities – Sodom and Gomorrah.  God will assess just how wicked those cities are.  Abraham already knows it is not good.  Destruction is inevitable, as Jonah said it would be centuries later for another wicked city, Nineveh.  So Abraham does what the great people of faith have done from time immemorial.  He challenges God.

            He asks God, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked” (Genesis 18:23)?  Abraham suggests that if 50 righteous people were found in the wicked cities, God’s own character would not allow such a thing. It is a stroke of boldness, to tell God almighty that He is bound by his own character.  “Far be that from you!”  Declares Abraham (18:25).  God does not chide his chosen one.  Rather, he agrees to Abraham’s terms.  If 50 righteous people are found, God will not overturn Sodom and Gomorrah. 

            Abraham is just getting started.  He asks, would God spare the city if 45 righteous are found?  Yes, for 45 righteous people, Sodom and Gomorrah will stand.  Abraham continues, whittling away at God’s resolve.  Forty, O Lordy, would you spare it for 40?  It reads like a Dr. Suess book.  For 30?  Yes, for 30, the cities will be spared.  Abraham take the number all the way down to 10.  God meets Abraham right where he is in his anxiety over the annihilation of two cities.  God accepts Abraham’s logic, tenacity, and confrontation. 

            The stories are eerily similar.  A man of God stands outside a city about to be razed to the ground by divine fire.  Abraham begs for the city to be spared if there is any way to spare.  God agrees.  But there is no way, and Sodom and Gomorrah are not spared.  They are eliminated by fire and sulfur that rain from heaven. 

            Jonah, like Abraham, stands outside a city.  Unlike Abraham, Jonah does not ask for mercy for the Ninevites.  Maybe he remembered the Sodom and Gomorrah story and thought he was going to see a repeat performance.  Instead the opposite happens.  God had promised Abraham he would spare Sodom and Gomorrah if even 10 righteous people were found there.  No righteous people are found in Nineveh.  But the wicked hear the message of the prophet and repent.

            First, the people hear Jonah, and they believe that he does represent God and is speaking truth.  God is going to destroy them (Jonah 3:4).  Upon hearing this, the people lead the way by putting on sackcloth.  The businessmen and shop owners going into a time of mourning and grief – grief over their own wickedness.  The farmers and the peasants and the homemakers.  Everyone all over Nineveh.  It is a movement – a movement of shame and sorrow. 

            Next, word of what’s happening makes its way to the palace.  The King gets off his throne and acknowledge that while he may indeed be king of Nineveh, he is not the all-powerful one.  He removes his royal robes and follows the lead of his subjects.  He repents of his sins.  He puts on sack cloth and pours ashes on his head. 

            Finally, that king makes a proclamation.  The nation will add fasting to their mourning in ashes.  He even takes the risky move of imposing the fast upon the livestock and children.  Everyone is to go without eating in a period of fasting.  Everyone is acknowledge and to grieve sin.  Everyone is to pray.  In a time of national crisis when the survival of the kingdom is at stake, the Ninevites believe the reluctant Jewish prophet Jonah and beg for mercy from God.  They accept that they are deserving of death.  They never doubt the authority or truth of Jonah.  They simply say, “Who knows?  God may relent and change his mind” (3:9).

            In that most curious of verses, Jonah 3:10, we see the character of God.  “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.”

            The book of Jonah is in our Bible to show us a different side of the God Jonah thought he knew.  A lot of people felt as Jonah did that a prophecy of doom would be followed by a fulfillment – Sodom and Gomorrah style.  Many ancient readers of Jonah who anticipated wrath forgot something God said to Abraham so many years earlier.  God told Abraham his descendants would “become a great and mighty nation, and all nations of the earth would be blessed by him” (Genesis 18:18).  Here Nineveh, deserving of wrath, is blessed by that God of Abraham.  Instead of wrath, Nineveh gets mercy and a second chance to live faithful, decent lives of justice and compassion. 

            Instead of seeing the God he expected, Jonah found a very different God.  First, he was rescued from a death in the seas; rescued in spite of his disobedience.  Then, Nineveh received mercy instead of punishment.  What will our country see in the God we actually meet in Jonah?

            If we are scared or at least unsteady based on what happened this week, we see that God is the one with the power to destroy nations, but also the one with the heart to forgive repentant sinners.  We can as a body and as individuals repent of sin.  Knowing God through the crucified, resurrected Christ, we know we will be forgiven.  We know we have new life and hope – hope for today.

            If we are confident in our own identity in Christ, then we are the messengers of today who, like Abraham, can appeal to God on behalf of others, and like Jesus can invite people to repentance and to the heart of the God who will welcome them into His Kingdom.   Abraham was the patriarch and Jonah was a prophet.  We are witness who inherit the testimonies of both men and the Gospel from Jesus.  We share that Gospel by creating space in which we welcome, shelter, and encourage scared people. 

            Either scared or confident, you can put your trust in God this morning.  Things may seem chaotic, but he is with us, always.  He is with us, we are his, and we can be agents of positive change.  Giving mercy, speaking real hope, and helping people meet Jesus is a good place to start.

AMEN

Who is Like our God (Psalm 113)

Psalm 113

Psalms 113-118 were ordained by the prophets and Torah scholars to be recited as a unit on special holy days. These are ‘Hallel’ Psalms.  According to tradition, as the reader reads the Psalm, when he or she comes to a command to praise the Lord, the gathered worshipers respond “Hallelujah!”  We will read the first of these Hallel Psalms with the congregation responding “Hallelujah!  Amen!”  This will be the primary text for today’s sermon.

Leader: Praise the Lord!
Praise, O servants of the Lord;
    praise the name of the Lord.

Congregation: Hallelujah!  Amen!

² Blessed be the name of the Lord
    from this time on and forevermore.
³ From the rising of the sun to its setting
    the name of the Lord is to be praised.

Congregation: Hallelujah!  Amen!

⁴ The Lord is high above all nations,
    and his glory above the heavens.

⁵ Who is like the Lord our God,
    who is seated on high,
⁶ who looks far down
    on the heavens and the earth?

Congregation: Hallelujah!  Amen!

⁷ He raises the poor from the dust,
    and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
⁸ to make them sit with princes,
    with the princes of his people.

Congregation: Hallelujah!  Amen!

⁹ He gives the barren woman a home,
    making her the joyous mother of children.
Praise the Lord!

Congregation: Hallelujah!  Amen!

Who is Like Our God?  (Psalm 113)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, September 18, 2016

            Last week, we remembered the terrorist attacks of 9-11-2001, looking at them from the perspective of the prophet Jeremiah.  Jeremiah saw God through it all.  Take the emotions, the intensity, the horror of that day; take all of it and imagine it as a still photograph. 

Now, fast forward to 2016.  Maybe the still photograph is of police cars and ambulances outside an Orlando night club.  Maybe it is of Syrian refugees standing waste deep in the surf as they desperately try to get their children onto the impossibly overcrowded boat headed to Greece.  Maybe the photo is of people protesting by taking a knee during the playing of our national anthem.  Others around them glare and gesture angrily. 

            Any of these images could serve as testimony of the pain, the chaos, and the fracturing of society today, September 18^th, 2016.  When Jeremiah sees that picture, he sees something else in the background.  Whatever photo you would choose, Jeremiah looks at your photo and sees someone; God is over the entire picture.  Beyond our picture, there is God.  There is far more going than we can see.  God is in the middle of it alongside those who are angry, those who hurt, and those who suffer.  God is with them. 

            The singer in Psalm 113 asks the question.  “Who is like our God?”  If Jeremiah is right and if we see what he sees, then God is in the middle of everything that happens.  God is never absent.  God is in the thick of it in the worst of places.  God does not cause agony, despair, and madness.  God comforts and helps people who suffer because of the chaos caused by other people - those who have rejected God. 

Who is the God who stays with us no matter what we do?

Who is our God who comforts us when all has gone wrong?

Who is our God who delivers us life everlasting?  Psalm 113 is a Hallel Psalm, a Hallelujah Psalm.  This Psalm shows us this God who is like no other. 

Together, we read the Psalm and raised our own “Hallelujah’s.” God is worthy of ours praise. 

As we went through the Psalm, did you notice the connection?  “Who is like our Lord, seated on high?”  “He raises the poor from the dust; and lifts the needed from the ash heap to make them sit with princes.  … He gives the barren woman a home” and gives her joy.”  How do we get from the Lord of entire universe sitting on high to the poor who are in the dust?[i]

Independence Day was a movie with awesome visuals.  An alien race came to earth in ships that were as massive as our planets’ largest cities.  These ships hovered over New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles, London.  The most important people on the planet – presidents, generals, prime ministers scrambled to respond to the arrival of aliens.  Clearly these aliens were more advanced than us, so the most powerful among humans must be the first of us to respond to their arrival.

That’s a Hollywood movie that cashes in on our thirst for spectacular special effects and our tolerance for bad acting.  But what if God – the only God – showed up in an over-the-top visual fashion so that everyone on earth truly was shocked and awed?  If we were to meet that God, wouldn’t it be the president of the United States or the leaders of the nations on the UN Security Council at the front of the line to shake God’s hand?

Not in Psalm 113.  Unnoticed God moves past the white house, past the Pentagon, past where millionaires live.  God keeps stepping, past middle class neighborhoods, past working class communities, past farm houses, past the decent apartment complexes.  God finally stops where the poorest of people are – those barely surviving, wallowing in the dust. 

We sing Hallelujah because we think we can at least see how mighty, big, and awesome God is.  We praise God because God is so impressive.  But as Psalm 113 moves from stanza to stanza, we see the impressive God sitting down beside people who are stuck at the bottom.  Who is this God we worship?

Walter Bruggemann sees this God as he tracks the journey of the ancient Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land.[ii]  Israel had been enslaved in brutal conditions, doing the hard labor in the construction of the pyramids in Egypt.  They baked in the desert sun and collapsed under the whip of the Egyptian taskmaster.  Then Moses, under the power of God, led the people into the Sinai wilderness.

There they were an entire nation on foot moving through wastelands.  In their thirst and hunger, they despaired.  They longed to go back to Egypt, back to slavery. At least in slavery, they were fed. 

Who is our God? 

God responded by giving manna – bread from heaven.  God poured out water from the rock.  God heard their hungry cries and broad birds to eat – quail.  They had plenty; never too much, never not enough.  They thought the Egyptians were the source of food.  If they could settle down and build cities and plant gardens and pasture herds and flocks then the land would be the source of food and stability. 

We think America’s military and our local police department and fire department and hospital  is our source of security and safety and freedom.  Our soldiers and marines and sailors and airmen, members of the coast guard, our officer and firefighters – they are all courageous, worthy our respect and our support.  The should receive our appreciation and our love.  But they are not the source that gives what we need.  That’s God.  In Israel’s history, the wilderness was where they were closest to God.  All their needs were met by God’s touch.  They lived in completel reliance upon God. 

From a human standpoint, could any situation be more desperate?  Five hundred thousand people in the desert with no food and water: we call that a humanitarian crisis.  For God, it was an answer to a question.  Who is this God we worship?  He is Provider.  Who is like our God?  No one. 

Who is our source?  Who meets our needs?  Our employer?  Our parents?  Our government? 

Do you remember the story of Hagar in Genesis 16 and Genesis 21?  Abraham was told by God he would be the father of a great nation.  But when the promise came, Abraham was a very old man, his wife Sarah was very old, past childbearing years, and they had no children.  He had no children, but God said he would be the patriarch of a great nation.  Abraham did not trust that God was his source.  He thought natural procreation and childbearing, in other words the natural biological process, was his source.  So he and Sarah came up with a plan.  Their slave, Hagar, would be the surrogate mother. 

Abraham went into Hagar and she had a son, Ishmael.  That wasn’t God’s plan.  God was not the source of that plan.  All that did was bring tension between Abraham and Sarah, Sarah and Hagar, and between Ishmael and Isaac.  Despite what Abraham thought, God is the source and when he said barren Sarah have a son, she did. When we ignore God and try to work things out with our wits and power, we interfere with the picture God is painting.  We should contribute to the flourishing of the people around us, but in concert with what God’s doing and in recognition that we need God.  Abraham and Sarah ended up sending Hagar and her child out to the wilds of the desert.  Relying on themselves, the plan backfired.

God is the source of every blessing, of fulfillment, and of every good thing.  And this God was with Hagar when she was cast out.

Abraham and Sarah’s action of rejecting her robbed her of her humanity.  Hagar, you and your child are nothing, and nothing is easily discarded.  No, God responds.  As Hagar gave in to a wilderness death – death by heatstroke, starvation, and dehydration, God declared no to the forces that would rob her of her humanity.  Psalm 113, in showing why God is worthy of our ‘Hallelujah’s,’ says that God gives the barren woman a home.

Hagar had a son, but she turned away from him, too heartbroken to watch her child die (Gen. 21:16).  Barren?  No, she wasn’t barren, but she had accepted labels affixed to her.  You are nothing.  She accepted that.  You are a lost cause.  She accepted that.  How many people in our society are so broken, they accept that all they will ever be is broken?  How many here accept labels like mediocre, failure, worthless, or stupid, or something worse?  We have asked, ‘Who is our source?’  Here is a second question.  Who shapes our lives?

God heard Ishmael’s cry and said, “Do not be afraid, Hagar.”  She is alone in the wilderness forced to watch her child die.  Do not be afraid (Gen. 21:17).  She accepted the label ‘nothing,’ but God calls her by name.  God promises her a future.  Abraham and Sarah imposed an identity on her, but now God comes and Hagar finds that the most blessed place she can be is in the desert with nothing.  It is there that God comes to her.  Who is this one we call our God?  Hagar calls Him El-Roi, the God who sees (Gen. 16:13). 

Who shapes my life?  The voices of society?  A man my age, with education, should be earning so much money by now, I am told.  Advertising tells me I should be driving a certain type of car by this stage in my life.  A friend from college makes 1000’s of dollars more than me and cannot understand why I won’t travel with him on a vacation he knows I cannot afford.  Salary; professional success; comparisons; are these the things that determine who I am?  

What if I am right where I need to be because God had called me here and in answer to God’s call, I am forced to depend on God?  We should all strive to be responsible with finances.  We should be grateful for what we have (and I try to be grateful).  I recognize how good I have it.  But what if the reason you or I have it good our accomplishments, but rather our need?  In place of deepest need and greatest weakness, we meet God.  Nothing compares to walking hand-in-hand with God?  This is true whether today is the best of the best days or the worst of the worst. 

Who shapes my life?

Who is my source?

Who is this God that we worship? 

We move from “seated on high” in Psalm 113:5-6 to “raises the poor,” “lifts the needy,” and “gives the woman a home,” in verses 7-9.  Rich, filled, and secure, we can’t see our need for God and our praise may be heartfelt, but it falls short.  We meet God when we align with the needy by seeing and acknowledging our own need.  Aligning with the poor is recognition that we are just as poot.  Unless go to the wilderness and wander with Israel, unless we see how small and dependent we are, we can’t know God. 

Who is our God – the God who is bigger than history, the God who hovers over us, the God whose shadow makes insignificant institutions of power – who is this God?  This is the God who sees, the God who is our source, and the God who shapes our lives.  No one else tells us who we are.  Only God.

As we prepare to sing, I invite you to respond to the God who is our source and who shapes our lives.  Pray in silence.  Ask God to reveal your need.  Maybe you have a good job and are financially OK.  Still, in your life as in the life of all people there is poverty.  There is deep, deep need.  It could be relational.  It could be emotional.  It could be spiritual.  Maybe for some it is material.  Ask God to show you your deepest need. 

In silence we all pray and ask God to show us our deep need for Him.  You may come and kneel at the steps as you pray.  We’ll have people at the front and back if you’d like someone to pray with you.  After a few moments, we’ll sing, but you may keep praying as long as you need to.  Don’t let the moment pass. Whether you kneel at the steps, pray in your seat, or come to pray with one of us, turn to God.  Ask God to lead you to the desert, to wander to with Israel, to sit with Hagar, to sing the Hallel Psalm with the community.  Ask God to bring to that place, because that is where you will meet God.

AMEN

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[i] Elmer Martens (1981).  God’s Design: A Focus on Old Testament Theology, Baker House Books (Grand Rapids), p.163.

[ii] Walter Brueggemann (1977).  The Land.  Fortress Press (Philadelphia), p.25, 31, 33, 34.