At Home in the Story (Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 1:67-77)

As Christians with an evangelical bent, we feel called to scripture.  The Bible is special, unlike any other writing.  With tools of analysis we read critically, probing, questioning, and framing.  As we do this, we hold our sense that the Bible is God’s holy word and will stand up to our scrutinizing. 

            The Bible stories speak in the real world historical situations from which them come, but the stories also reveals the Bible as transcendent, speaking beyond the historical circumstances of the original writing. 

            With this in mind, how do we Christian, Easter people live in the Old Testament?  How do we find a home there?

For instance, how can we live in Jeremiah’s prophecy? We don’t understand exile.  We don’t know what it is like to see our nation fall into slavery. 

Moses led the ancient Israelites out of slavery, performed wonders from God along the way, and led them to the land Promised by God.  David led the nation into the city of peace, Jerusalem.  That city became Zion, the city of God. 

However, God’s people worshiped statues and idols.  God’s people dishonored the poor.  So God handed them over to foreign powers: Philistines, then Assyrians, and finally, Babylon. 

To the Babylonians, Jerusalem was not the city of God.   It was the capital of a backwater colony that was easily overrun. God’s chosen people, became slaves.

How do we feel the story?  Exile is not our experience.  Where is our connection?  How do we find a home in this story?  We have been told this is the word of God and in Jesus we are included among the people of God.  Through his prophet, God said, “I will fulfill the promise I made.  … I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up from David.”  What does that mean?  Did Jeremiah know that in the next part of the story there would be a virgin birth in a stable?  Did he see the cross coming?  Or the resurrection?  No.

How do we find the home we know is in the Old Testament but seems distant?  I suggest we pay attention to what the prophet tells us about this God who is our God.  Jeremiah says God promises that something better is on the horizon. 

God’s people had been utterly defeated by a large, powerful empire, the Babylonians.  In that situation of abject humiliation, God reassures His people that He sees them.  God is in control even in the horror of exile, and God will bring a new day through a future descendant of David.  When the Promised One comes, the people will experience the new thing God is inevitably going to do.  Jeremiah does not know what God will do.  But he knows God is going to do something. 

Insight into God’s character connects us to Jeremiah.  God is a God of promise.  God is present.  God is a God who acts.  We can relate to the words, but, what does it allmean?  What exactly has been promised?  What is it, specifically, that God does?

In Luke’s gospel we meet the elderly priest Zechariah. His wife has already gone through menopause.  They have no children.  Then an angel tells Zechariah they are to have a son. 

No one around them says this is it!  This is that Righteous Branch, that descendant of David that Jeremiah described!  No one says that.  Zechariah doubts the angel’s message, and who can blame him?  But the angel silences him. For 9 months, the priest cannot speak. 

Finally the miracle baby comes and Zechariah’s speech is restored and so too is his spiritual insight.  He remembers that God made a promise and that God was and is active in the life of his people.  A miracle pregnancy and a 9 month imposition of silence were effective reminders.  When Zechariah opened his mouth, he had a lot to say. 

Someone asked, what will become of the miracle son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, the baby named John?

⁶⁷ Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:

⁶⁸ “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
    for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
⁶⁹ He has raised up a mighty savior^[a] for us
    in the house of his servant David,
⁷⁰ as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
⁷¹     that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
⁷² Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
    and has remembered his holy covenant,
⁷³ the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
    to grant us ⁷⁴ that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear, ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness
    before him all our days.
⁷⁶ And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
    for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
⁷⁷ to give knowledge of salvation to his people
    by the forgiveness of their sins.

Interestingly, the priest Zechariah answers a question about his own son, with a prophecy about someone else – Jesus.  What of your son, Zechariah?  He answers that God is about to change the world through ‘Yeshua,’ Jesus, the one named ‘salvation.’ 

Finally, after 8 stanzas of praising God’s action in the coming one, only then does he speak not about but to his own son, John.  “You, my child, will be the prophet of the most high who will give knowledge of salvation and forgiveness to God’s people.”

Zechariah knows things Jeremiah did not know.  We know things he did not know.  We know much that the disciples did not know.  Before we read about the cross, we know the story ends in resurrection.  We know Jesus will go to be with the Father and will send His Holy Spirit.  We have the completed Bible.

Because of this are we more at home in the entire story, Jeremiah and Luke included?  The crucifixion and resurrection happened almost 2000 years ago.  The Second Coming, when Jesus makes things right in the world as he brings our final rescue from sin and death is in some uncertain future time that will come long after our earthly lives have ended.  Yes, God is present in the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit is elusive.  Yes, God is at work in His church.  But the church is so full imperfect people that the messes we create make it hard to see God when we are together. 

We asked Jeremiah is what do you mean?  How can we be at home in your words?  Now, we ask Luke and Zechariah, what does it matter?  Between the resurrection, 2000 years ago, and the Second Coming, 2000 or so years from now, what good is the story today? What is my part in it and why would is it good news with all that’s happening in the world right now?

Each week of Advent this year, we are singing verses from the hymn “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.”  Jesus is anticipated, born to set people free and release us from sin, and Jesus gives rest.  It’s there in the words.  We sing it.  Jesus is the hope of all the earth and the joy of every longing heart.  And every heart is a longing heart. 

Yet, this sense of distance persists.  We read the Bible and read it some more, we go through worship every year, and somehow it feels beautiful for the season, but just that.  How can this story go from being just another feature of December something more?  I know God is in the story and is inviting me in, but there are times I feel more lost the more I read and more distant, the more familiar it becomes.

This week, I went to UNC hospital several days in a row visiting various HillSong folks.  One day when I pulled in to the parking deck, I had a parking strategy in mind.  I knew which entrance I needed and I was visualizing where I thought I’d find a good spot for my car.  As I was doing this, I was surprised to find a spot on the first level.  I never get spots there.  But here it was.  So I left the car there and went in.

I was in there a long time.  When I came out, I had a sinking feeling.  I could not remember where I parked.  I the parking strategy that filled my mind when I had first arrived hours earlier.  The memory of where I actually left the car, on the first level where I never park, was gone.    

So I walked all through level two, and did not find my car.  I thought it was there, but I tried level three.  I walked every row; no car.  Doubt crept in.  I didn’t park on level four, did I?  That’s under construction.  I would have remembered that.  So, hurriedly glanced down a few rows of level one, but I knew my car wasn’t there.

So I kept searching.  I knew what I was seeking was in this parking garage. My feet ached from walking.  Relief was in that building.  The home we need is in the Bible –words of hope, peace, and love and truth.  All we need to thrive in the face of the struggles of our day has been revealed in God’s word, both Testaments.

After an hour of wandering through UNC hospital’s parking deck, I called my wife.  She drove over with H__ and M__.  As they came through the entry gate on level one, H__ said, “I see Daddy’s car.”  Candy called me and said, “Tell me exactly where you are and just stay right there.”  I got in the van and M__ said, “Dad, why couldn’t find your car?”

Sometimes even in church, even in the pages of the Bible, it can be hard to find our home.  Everything need and long for is before us, but there is background noise and we are so vulnerable to sin, we miss seeing God even though God is right here. 

It helps me to remember that the Bible is the ongoing story of God.  Jeremiah, lives in one part.  The days of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection are part of that story.  God interacts with human beings in each part. 

As we saw from Jeremiah, God is the promise-giver.  The priest Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, shows that God is the promise-keeper.  Jesus on the cross and at the empty tomb brings the best news; the promise is a promise of eternal life.  We can count on it.

We can also count on God involving himself in our daily lives.  God’s story is not paused between the end of book of Revelation and the Second Coming.  God’s story is going on right now.  We are actors in it.  The stuff of our lives matters to God. 

I was focused on this idea that I am in God’s story throughout that silly hour when I wandered around the parking deck.  I thought, “I don’t know when I’ll find my car, but God is doing something and that fills me with hope.  And I need to be responsive to God in my life.”

Recently in a project I am organizing, I have asked God to bring additional people.  Numerous times, I just asked for people.  And God has done it! But then, I looked at the people God brought I said, “Not them, God.  I meant other people.”  God said to me, “You never needed people for this because you had me.  I didn’t give you these specific people because you needed them.  I gave you these specific people because your heart won’t be right until you see the beauty in these individuals that I see.” 

This happened because these individuals along with me are in God’s story.  You are too. 

At the Lord’s Supper table, Jesus keeps us in the story.  “Do this,” he said, “eat this bread and drink this cup in remembrance of me.”  Communion centers us.  We live stories than God’s.  We can find our home in other places.  The discipline of communion brings us back to God.

We come to the table at Jesus’ invitation.  He invites all who have received forgiveness and come into life in His name.  Of course receiving forgiveness implies we need forgiveness.  We come as admitted sinners, owning our brokenness.

At this table, we remember who we were, but also who we are.  We eat the body of Christ.  We, the forgiven ones, are filled with Him.  We drink the cup and are filled with eternal life because Jesus shed his blood.  Jesus, who died and rose, left his Holy Spirit to live in us and among us.  At the table, we encounter God and He revives us as He shows us our place in His story.  We can face the things of life, the good and the bad because God is here and we are His.  In Him, we find our home. 

AMEN

God Can Be Trusted

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Advent 1

            Think back to September 11, 2001, and the previous decade.  In this 10-20 year period, the perceived threat to American safety has been terrorist attacks.  When I was growing up, we worried about threats from Communist Soviet Union.  But, if you were born after 1980, you really have never known life under the specter of communism.  You have lived in a time where the American fear is fear of an attack by a radical terrorist group – usually a Muslim group.  This fear has made it hard for Christ-followers to love our Muslim neighbors.  Jesus said the greatest command is to love God and neighbor.  We have trouble loving our Muslim neighbors; we struggle in even knowing how to relate to them at all.

            Watch TV or listen to the radio or go on the internet or go to your mailbox.  Or read a magazine.  All year we are bombarded with advertisements for cars, cell phones, clothing, and numerous other products.  That’s yearlong.  The advertising explodes around Christmas.  It seems the American way is to buy stuff, and often on credit.  We have trouble with delayed gratification.   We don’t know how to be happy without stuff.  We struggle with saving our money and thinking of our money as a tool for advancing God’s kingdom.  Ironically, after the purchases, many of which are very expensive, we forget about what we bought.  The importance of the item was much higher when we did not have it.  Now, in our possession, it certainly does not seem to be worth as much as we spent.

            Recall this past election.  We have a two-party system that demands that we support one candidate blindly and demonize the other.  Americans seem incapable of saying, “I agree with Bill Republican on these issues and disagree on these others.  I am with Sandy Democrat here, but not on this other issue.”  Our two-party system has demolished critical thinking when it comes to voting.  We cannot conceive of a third party gaining traction.  We refuse to listen to one another in political conversations.  We struggle with creativity.  We do not make space for new ideas in the political realm.

            I love our country, but we have some problems.  Of these, I have identified three that I think are uniquely American and in the readings from the prophets for this season of Advent, we have a word from God that speaks directly to these problems and to us as God’s people. 

            Walter Brueggeman says “The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us” (The Prophetic Imagination, 1970, p.13).  Put more simply, it is the prophet’s job to show how God’s way is different than the world’s way.  It is the prophet’s job to use whatever means necessary to direct God’s people away from the path of the world and to the path of God. 

            The phrase “the world” refers to many places.  It is a different set of problems depending on where in the world you live.  If we dealt with the scriptures from the prophets during the Christmas season and we were in China, we would have one set of issues to talk about.  If we were in Greece, a place of tremendous economic struggle, the conversation would be different than in Syria, a nation racked by war.  We will deal with what we face daily in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Christmas 2012.

            We struggle with loving our neighbors; especially, our Muslim neighbors.

We struggle with greed.  We don’t know how to live without excessive luxuries and we don’t know how to find satisfaction without buying stuff.

We struggle with an utter lack of creativity in our politics.  This leads to a divided nation with a self-serving government that does not serve the people even though we are in many ways the greatest democracy.  Our democracy is in danger of replacing our greatness with destructive conflict.

The prophets we read in the Bible have something to say to each struggle.

Slides 1

            With an eye on Christmas, rejoicing in the birth of Jesus, God in the flesh, and anticipating his coming at the end of time, we look to the prophets of the Old Testament.  Jeremiah lived in the 6^th century BC.  Jeremiah’s thought was inspired by God to such an extent that his writings contained layers of meaning.  He spoke truth to the Kings of Judah.  At the same time his words anticipated the coming of Jesus even if Jeremiah didn’t know that was how fulfillment would come. 

Jeremiah’s speech, appropriate in the 6^th century BC and in the life of Jesus in the 1^st century AD, still speaks because his words are word of God. Even though Jesus lived, died, rose again, and ascended to be bodily with God, he is still here, still speaking.  When we read the prophets in the light of Christmas, and our reading is Holy Spirit-inspired, then the Spirit-filled church is the incarnation of God in the world.  The church which reads scripture and walks with the Holy Spirit is the presence of God, pointing the way to God’s activity today.  Here and now!

Slides 2-3

            In Advent we will read the prophets prayerfully.  We will see God at work among us.  We look back at ancient words to learn what God is doing right now.

Advent 1, December 2 – Jeremiah 33:14-16, “God Fulfills His Promises”

Advent 2, December 9 – Malachi 3:1-4, “God Comes in Glory and Judgment”

Advent 3, December 16 – Zephaniah 3:14-20, “God Wins”

Advent 4, December 23 – Micah 5:2-5a, “God Provides”

Christmas Eve, December 24, – Luke 2:11, “God Saves”

            In Jeremiah’s day, the problems were syncretistic religion.  The priests and kings of Judah thought they could be God’s people, but worship other gods, false gods in order to curry favor with powerful neighboring nations and empires.  It would be as if, knowing Jesus is God, we denied his divinity in writings published by our church so that we could have credibility in certain academic circles.  We would be denying what we know to be true and claiming as truth what we know is false.  We’d be doing God a disservice just so we could be found acceptable in the eyes of humans and human institutions. 

The king of Judah, a descendant of King David, practiced idolatry for political reasons.  Jeremiah called him on it.  The king and his priests, trusted in political alliances instead of trusting in God.  Jeremiah called them on it.  In fact, Jeremiah was past the point of warning.  These sins had persisted for generations.  Jeremiah did not say, “You better stop, or else?”  The “or else” was at hand.  Judah would cease to be a nation and fall into exile.  It was inevitable.  Nothing could stop it.

However, the story of Jeremiah is not just one of a man announcing doom.  That was a job of the prophets.  But Jeremiah also was given a message of hope.  The story of Judah and of Israel would not end with the Jews being lost in history.  In fact, hope for all peoples would come from the Jews. 

Jeremiah, speaking God’s words, said, “The days are surely coming when I will fulfill the promise I made. … At that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall extend justice and righteousness in the land.  In those days, Judah will be saved. … And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘the Lord is our righteousness.’”

Three times, righteousness – a righteous branch … he shall extend righteousness in the land … the Lord is our righteousness.  What does this mean?  How does this show God working in our world here and now? 

Righteousness is a very churchy, preachy-sounding word.  In terms of morals, it indicates the right thing to do.  Our American slant on this involves hard work, honesty, and fairness.  Everyone should have a chance and when given the chance, we work hard.  We do things the right way. 

This ethic of hard work and honesty is a part of Biblical righteousness.  So too is how we relate.  We want to be in relationships of peace and harmony and cooperation with family – parents, spouses, siblings.  We want good relationships with friends in church, people in our neighborhoods, and people we meet in business and the marketplace. 

Finally, in addition to morals and relationships, righteousness involves our standards.  How do we determine if we are doing things the way we should, living the way we should?  What is the standard by which we evaluate ourselves?  In righteousness, as Jeremiah means the term, we measure ourselves by the word of God.  For Christ followers, his life and teaching, especially in Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount, is our standard.  Morals and work ethic, relationship, and self-evaluation based on Biblical teaching – this is our understanding of righteousness or God’s way. 

Jeremiah promises that one will come who brings this righteousness.  Christians believe that one is Jesus – the baby born in Bethlehem.  He is God in flesh and when we put our trust in him, receive complete forgiveness from him, and give our lives to Him, we become his church.  In our gathering in His name us the word is read, God is worshiped, and people are empowered by the Holy Spirit that begins the work and presence of God in the world today. 

In greed, in conflict, and in politically-motivated division, righteousness is not possible.  Conflict is not going away.  Fear of terrorism replaced fear of communism; if somehow terrorism was eliminated, some other fear would rise up.  Greed is not going away.  Our system of capitalism provides an expression of greed, but we know greed has threatened humanity’s safety and peace long before capitalism became a prominent economic possibility.  And political division is not going away.  In my own assessment of American culture, political division appears to be more damaging than ever. 

It is at this depressing point that we remember the prophet’s task.  Jeremiah and Micah and the rest speak today to evoke an alternative reality – a different way than the way of the world around us.  We Christ followers participate in our culture, but the American way in its damaged form is not our way.  Our way is God’s way.  Jeremiah assured us God’s way, the way of righteousness, will be present in the world and will be available.

He didn’t know it, but the perfect enactment of his promise was seen in Jesus.  Jesus demonstrated the perfect balance of honesty and compassion; of work and Sabbath rest.  Jesus showed unfiltered, unconditional love.  His relationships were pure.  Jesus brought people together instead of dividing. 

He did all these things; He is also doing these things when his church spreads his love in the world.  When we are filled by the word and the Spirit, we refuse to objectify our Muslim neighbors or any others. Instead, we love them.  Whether they ever turn to Jesus or not, we love sacrificially and generously.  Jesus is at work when his church does his bidding in the world.

We reject greed and materialism knowing that lasting joy does not come from buying stuff but from living in the love of God.  Sure, we participate in the tradition of gift-giving.  But even in that, we find creative ways of turning the holidays so that they are opportunities for love and generosity instead of reasons to be greedy and self-indulgent. 

Finally we shout a firm “No!” to politics of division.  We refuse to self-identify as ‘republican,’ or ‘democrat.’  We are identified by our relationship with Jesus.  We will not allow the damning, soul-crushing methods of our two-party system to entice us into entering the fray.  Some of us may have vote Democrat and always will.  Others vote Republican.  But, because Jesus is acting in us, we refuse to speak evil of the other party and we honestly pray for their well-being.

God is in the world when we show radical neighbor love, work for peace, and rely on God for our happiness instead of the acquisition of stuff. In this incarnational reality, the world sees Jesus active today, and knows that God indeed, as Jeremiah said, will full all his promises.  His justice will prevail.  Righteousness is possible because God has come. 

This is the prophetic word.  God can be trusted.

AMEN