"Completed Beauty" (Isaiah 65:17-25)

Sunday, November 17, 2019

          “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” says the Lord in Isaiah 65.  A new heaven?  A new, better, cleaner, earth that’s more just?  Who wouldn’t want that?

          I’ll tell you who would want and want it right now: you, the people of our church family.  Last week, the sermon was about resurrection.  At the back door as people were leaving, one worshiper stopped to tell me there were times she felt “homesick for heaven.”  Anyone who’s read Philippians knows Paul felt the same way.  Then midweek, I was talking with another church member who said to me, “I would love it if Jesus came, the sooner, the better.”

          Life can be a real struggle.  That’s why so many of us long to be close to Jesus and relieved of the daily pressures that make it hard for us to thrive.  God’s Isaiah 65 promise to make all things new in some ways is a return to the ideal of Eden before Adam and Eve disobeyed God.  New creation is this fallen world remade, made new.

          In his book Rumors of Another World, Philip Yancey paints a picture of struggle as he observes giant leatherback turtles laying their eggs on the beach in Costa Rica. 

The turtle reached down in the soft sand, one muscular flipper at a time, to scoop out and then fling the sand behind her.  As she worked her way down, each scoop required more and more effort.  The sand got wet and heavy, and she had to fling it above the rim of the hole she was digging.  Eventually she reached a depth of three feet, her body fully submerged in the sand.  Now, each fling of sand thrust her whole body to the side, and despite her best efforts much of the sand still fell back in the trench.  She scooped it up again and flung it toward the surface. 

Finally, after an hour’s hard labor, the trench satisfied her and she began to drop shiny white eggs the size of billiard balls. 

Her task completed, the leatherback clambered slowly out of the nest and began a forty-five minute process of filling it in with sand.  … Exhausted, she lumbered off, dragging herself toward the sea.  She would never see the result of her efforts.  When the 60 or so eggs hatch, the baby turtles burrow to the surface and make a mad dash to the sea, with only a third surviving the onslaught of coyotes, raccoons, and sea gulls.[i]

          Predators.  Two steps back for every three steps forward.  Limited success.  Fruit for which we labor but never actually get to touch or taste.  Talking about turtles, we could be talking about the myriad speedbumps and roadblocks that make life hard.  Should life be this hard? 

          Life is hard because of sin – my sins, yours; the sins of other people; our ancestors’ sins.  Humanity’s collective cruelty, jealousy, selfishness, and greed shows up in your life and mine in small ways, in our little cruelties, jealousies, selfish words and thoughts, and greedy deeds.  God can see that life is tough and promises something better for us. 

          I don’t know if in the new earth God promises giant leatherback turtles will struggle so mightily just to lay eggs.  I don’t know if there will be giant leatherback turtles in the new earth.  I hope there are.  Our daily struggles and pains won’t be a part of the new earth.  Walter Brueggemann writes “this promised action of [God] [in Isaiah 65] is clearly designed to overcome all that is amiss, whether what is amiss is caused by [God’s] anger, by [our disobedience], or other untamed forces of death.”[ii]  This is how God makes things right.

          Imagine the conditions to which God is responding in this vision.  Jerusalem, having been utterly defeated by the Babylonians, was a pile of rubble.  The city walls were torn down, and the temple was burned and smashed; completely destroyed.  Picture a city like Beirut after a bombing campaign or the trash-strewn underbelly of the poorest sections of the world’s most densely populated cities.  To this wretched condition God says, “I am about to create Jerusalem – the city – as a joy, and its people as a delight. … No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress” (Is. 65:18b, 19b).

          Because of disease, poverty, lack of education, and lack of access to healthcare, many places in the world have high infant mortality rates.  This is intolerable and God is more offended and heartsick by this than we are.  So, in the new earth he says, “No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days” (v.20a).  In fact all babies in new creation grow up healthy and life spans will be long.  “One who dies at a hundred” will be considered a youth.  Recall the crazy old ages of the patriarchs mentioned in the early chapters of Genesis.  Isaiah reaches back to that era. 

          Also think of places and times when people, perhaps indentured servants or coal miners or migrant pickers and farmers, work but see little to no fruit for their labor.  In unjust systems, the wealthy grow fat off the backbreaking labor of powerless peasants.  Not in the new earth.  “They shall build homes and inhabit them.  They shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit.  They shall not build and another inhabit.  They shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands” (v.21-22).

          The new heaven and new earth is a reversal of the pains plaguing humanity.  God hears every prayer.  Even the natural violence between predators and pray will cease.  “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. …They shall not hurt or destroy on God’s holy mountain” (v.25). 

          Philip Yancey talks about living in Colorado compared to the time he spent living in Chicago.  First he describes his wilderness home where he routinely sees all manner of animals and birds outside his window.  He has a front row seat to the pristine purity of nature.  Then he writes,

In downtown Chicago, my day proceeded very differently.  Most mornings began with a run through the park.  I saw few animals, other than squirrels and pigeons. … I saw instead winos and homeless people sleeping under newspapers and smelly blankets; prostitutes sleeping in doorways next to discarded condoms; well-dressed yuppies standing in neat lines at bus stops; foreign-born nannies pushing the carriages of those yuppies’ children; garbage collectors, janitors, street sweepers, sewer workers, and others who perform the undesirable jobs that keep a city running.[iii]

          Aesthetically, the Colorado wilderness holds more appeal than the grimy inner city streets.  But the image of God is not in the red squirrels, gray foxes, and brown bears Yancey admired from his warm home.  The image of God resides in the yuppies, nannies, prostitutes, and sewer workers.  God created nature’s most spectacular beauty to be enjoyed and admired by each of those millions of city dwellers, his image-bearers. 

          We know that out of His great, grace-filled love for us, God will eventually restore the world.  The wretched underclass will enjoy creation’s splendor.  That new creation will come at the end of history when Jesus returns and we join him in resurrection.  How does God begin now the work of ushering in His eternal kingdom?  God works through His body, the church. 

          We are the tellers of the redemption story - God in human flesh, Jesus; his tragic but necessary death on the cross, and his spring morning victory at the empty tomb; Easter!  We are God’s story-tellers.

          We are the inviters.  In Isaiah 60:3 God declares that the nations will come to Israel’s light.  The world will be drawn to the gathering of the people of God, which in our day is the church.  But for the world to know that God can be worshiped and loved and know, we need to invite. We need to tell God’s story and actively, energetically, invite people to hear our telling of it.

          We are the point of contact where a lost and dying world meets the Savior God.  Jesus’ final command to the disciples and continuing commission to us is “go and tell.”  Obeying this command, we help people see beyond the temporary world as it is to the eternal world of God’s blessing so many are currently unaware of even when they get little glimpses.  We are where the lost world meets the Savior God.

          New Testament scholar N.T. Wright thinks of it this way.  In an attic, a collector finds a faded manuscript of music written for piano.  He contacts a dealer who sees it and then contacts another expert.  They all put their heads together pondering this score, sure that what they’ve found is a previously unknown work by none other than Mozart. 

          How wonderful!  A new work by greatest composer ever.  Yet, as they study it, they realize it seems incomplete.  There are long periods of rest, and it dawns on the collectors and dealers that what they have is indeed by Mozart, but it is written for more than one instrument.  They only have the piano part.  What’s the other instrument or instruments? Cello?  Violin?  Flute?  “If those other parts could be found they would make sense of the incomplete beauty contained in the faded scribble of genius now before them.”[iv]

          When God finishes re-making the world, his earth and his heaven made new and brought together, we, his image bearers, his church, the body of Christ, will become His completed beauty.  Until that day comes, we lean toward it, pray for it, anticipate it, and invite each other and those outside the church to imagine it and find hope in it. 

          Until that day comes, we work for justice and help one another with the struggles of our day.  They are real but so too is God’s promised new creation.  It makes sense that we would long for it.  God placed that longing in us.  That longing drives us to look to God constantly and reflect his hope to the world.

          AMEN

---

[i] P. Yancey (2003).  Rumors of Another World: What on Earth are we Missing?  Zondervan (Grand Rapids), p.47-48.

[ii] W. Brueggemann ((1997).  Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy.  Fortress Press (Minneapolis), p.549.

[iii] Yancy, p.53.

[iv] N.T. Wright (2006).  Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense.  HarperOne (New York), p.39-40.

The Religion God Desires

I have heard it said, over and over by people who don’t attend church, “I am spiritual but not religious.”  In certain Christian circles, especially some evangelical expressions of the Christian faith, the mantra goes something like this.  “Christianity is about faith in Christ, not religion.”  And, a lot of famous people spout sanctimoniously this idea: “I don’t believe in organized religion.”

            Is religion a bad thing?  When you hear the word, ‘religion,’ what thoughts immediately come to mind?  Are those thoughts positive and uplifting and hopeful, or is religion something not to be trusted, something that’s dark or manipulative? 

            Here’s the Merriam-Webster online definition of ‘religion’, entry #2: “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.” I’m happy for each of us to have our response to the word ‘religion,’ but keep this in mind.  In reading the Old Testament, religion is at the center of the story.  Any time we read the word ‘sacrifice’ or ‘temple’ or ‘priest,’ we’re dealing with the very center of Israelite life.

            The Gospel of Jesus Christ stands on the life that is established in the Old Testament.  Our identity is grounded in who we are in Christ.  So, religion – Biblical religion – is at the very core of who we are if we want to be God-worshipers and Jesus-followers.  And, when the Bible talks about religion, it means religious practice.  Who we are is seen in what we do. 

            I am going to paraphrase the thoughts of Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann as he demonstrates how the words of the prophets tie together justice and religion.[i] This connection is one of the primary ways our Sunday morning church practice connects directly with our Monday-Saturday lives.  We think of church giving us a foundation for morals, but the Bible consistently shows greater concern for justice in society than an individual’s morality.  If we intend to live out a Biblical Christianity, we will be driven by a hunger for a right relationship with God and for justice for all people. 

            Referring to the prophet Jeremiah, 22:15-16, Brueggemann writes that caring for the poor is the same as knowing God.  “He judged the cause of the needy … is this not to know me?” Jeremiah asks.[ii]  Later Brueggemann writes, religion was supposed to be the way people entered into relationship with God.  That’s what religion was supposed to be.  However, by the time Hosea came along, religion had become the place where God was disregarded.

            That’s the situation at the beginning of Hosea chapter 6.  The nation and the temple and the religion centers in the north had all turned away from God.  The poor were exploited.  Sexual sin ran rampant.  Hypocrisy was at its worst.  Priests and rich and powerful people would come to worship on the Sabbath and then live with no reverence for God or love for people the rest of the week.

            What kind of faith do we have if we are in church once a week but then the realities of God have no voice in our lives the rest of the time?  This is a fundamental question. 

            At the beginning of Hosea 6, the people are in a desperate state.  Because the people turned away from God and did not trust in God, God allowed invading armies to threaten and ultimately overrun the nation.  Hosea’s prophecy comes shortly before this catastrophe, but the storm clouds loom.  And so, in desperation, the people say, “Come, let us return to the Lord.”

            Go through those opening verse, Hosea 6:1-3.  The people are sorry for their sins, kind of.  They’re more fearful of the consequences of God’s anger than they are remorseful for how they have hurt God and exploited the neediest people in society.  We ended last week with the close of chapter 5 where God said he would rot them as maggots and rip them apart as lions.  Shuddering, they respond with this overture of sorrowful repentance.

            Their words state great faith in what God will do. 

            “Come, let us return to the Lord.  … He will heal us.  He will revive us; on the third day, he will raise us up, that we may live before him.  … His appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth” (6:1-3). 

            It’s all true.  God does receive us when we turn from evil.  God does desire a deep and lasting relationship of love with us.  The opening of Hosea 6 is absolutely right, except it is premature.  God knows the heart, and what He sees in this repentance, is words, not changed hearts.

            Be careful about what you wish for; you might get it.  If today we want the salvation God has to offer, we have to be willing to turn to Him completely.  Chapter 7 expands on how much God can see the rebellion that continues to lurk in the hearts of his people even after these earnest words of repentance. 

He addresses Ephraim in chapter 7, verse 8.  Ephraim was one of the sons of Joseph.  One of the ways of referring to Israel was by referring to specific tribes among the twelve tribes, and Joseph’s tribes were divided into half-tribes named for his sons Manasseh and Ephraim.  We you read references to Ephraim in the prophets, think of the most favored among God’s people.

In Hosea 7:8, describing Ephraim’s weak faith and wavering commitment even as Ephraim repents of rebellion against God, God says, “Ephraim is a cake not turned.”  In other words, Ephraim is half-baked.  Any time the community of faith tries to represent God without working for justice, we demonstrated a half-baked faith.  God has no place for it.  In the opening of Hosea 6, the people beg to be reconciled to God, and it will come, but it won’t be easy.

God responds “What shall I do with you Ephraim?”  What shall I do with you Judah?  Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early” (6:4).  God receives our confessions.  Lord, I am sorry for all the nasty words I said, the bad choices I’ve made, mean things I’ve done, and the hateful thought I have in my head.  I am really sorry Lord.  We say that and God hears and loves us, but God can see us too.  God sees us going right back to all of our sins the minute we finish confessing.  The Lord of the Universe, the creator of all that exists, throws His divine hands up in utter exasperation!  “What am I going to do with you,” God ask furiously. 

In the Bible God displays a full range of emotions.  The middle chapters of Hosea are not the most comfortable place in the Bible to sit.  However, we need to see God here so we know how much our actions, our sins, affect the God who loves and saves us.  We need to know the depths God goes to forgive us and make us new.  And, as we will see, there is a word of life-changing hope right in the middle of God’s angry outburst.

But, first the outburst.  Hosea 7:12-13: “As they go, I will cast my net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the air; I will discipline them.  … Woe to them for they have strayed from me!  Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!  I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me.”

Hosea doesn’t end with God’s anger.  God will forgive his people for their sins.  His love never fails.  God will make a new day.  Ultimately, God restores all of creation in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  But there is some hurt along the way.

Anyone who has gone through addiction recovery knows this.  It’s hard to be free from an addiction.  Help is needed.  Often, there are relapses, where the cravings seem more powerful than the love of God, and the addict falls back into deadly patterns.  It takes years, painful years, to break free.  The same can be said when sin comes in relationships.  One person hurts another and trust is broken.  Then comes confession, heartbreaking, genuine tears, and forgiveness.  But even after forgiveness, trust is hard to re-establish.  It’s worth going through the pain because the alternative is to stay in the sin or remain in the addiction.  But, the Bible doesn’t sugarcoat anything.  Reconciliation with God and with people is difficult, lifelong work. 

            How do we as a church exist as a religion in the best sense of the word?  Using Brueggemann’s description of Old Testament religion, how do become the vehicle that carries people into a right relationship with God, a relationship of love, grace, and trust?  Remember, he quoted Jeremiah 22: when we care for the needy, we know God.  In the New Testament, we read that Jesus says that when we feed the hungry and house the homeless, we are doing it for him (Matthew 25).  And in the book of James, “religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.  Care for orphans and widows is work we do all week long, throughout our lives.

            The justice words that call God’s church to dedicate itself to helping people are the essence of Hosea 6:6.  God says, “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”  Sacrifice, burnt offering; this is the procedure of religion and it’s important.  In our context, it would be like the offering, the hymns, the communion; all the things we do in our worship service.  Steadfast love is who we are – agents of God’s compassion.  Knowledge of God?  Brueggemann has already pointed out from his lifelong study of the Old Testament prophets that knowledge of God comes as we work for justice and help the poor, and Jeremiah and Jesus and James and 1000 Bible passages underscore this truth.  

            When we sponsor a child or volunteer with the dental bus or volunteer our time to tutor students or give sacrificially in order to supports missions or advocate for racial justice, we live out the religion God desires.  And we hold the key to our own well-being.  Our happiness comes when our relationship with God is right.  Our relationship with God is right when our religion is true.  Our religion is true when we work for justice. 

            We need not recoil at the idea of religion.  We simply need to live our faith, our religion, all the time, not just on Sundays.  And when we repent of sin, we go into it knowing sin is painful and God is angry.  Repentance is hard work and only takes hold when we have a change of heart.  But God’s love is deeper than his anger.  We’ll see that in future weeks as we continue through Hosea. 

For now, as we come into our time of prayer, fix your gaze on the cross of Christ.  If for you, today is a day of repentance and confession, come to Him.  He will receive you in love.

If for you, this is a time to recommit yourself to serving the poor and working for justice in the name of Jesus as an expression of his Gospel, make the commitment to do that.  And ask the Lord to show you what that will look like in your life.

AMEN

---

[i] W. Brueggemann (1997), Theology of the Old Testament, Fortress Press (Minneapolis), p. 613, 644, 677-678.  Brueggemann frequently refers to Israel religion as the ‘cult.’  This is a loaded word as people in our church have come out of oppressive, manipulative cults.  So in place ‘cult,’ I will refer to Israelite religion.

[ii] Brueggemann, 613.

A Song for the Road (Psalm 23)

Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 22, 2017

            The 23^rd Psalm is commonly read at the funerals.  It might be the passage I have read more than any other in funeral and memorial services.  This makes sense.  It is an incredibly comforting poem and when people are grieving, they need comfort. 

            Psalm 23 is such a favorite that artists have used it as a part of their photos and paintings.  There is a serene nature scene; maybe a field of wildflowers; or the waves at twilight, when all the colors are soft, relaxing.  The words of the Psalm are gently superimposed over the idyllic picture, which is then framed and carefully arranged on the mantel.  An aura of calm falls over the room.

            There’s something quite beautiful about this.  Every time a guest in your homes pauses to take in that picture, they are reading scripture. 

            However, I think Psalm 23 has more power than as a comfort or as a decoration.  Those uses are fine, but it might time to get Psalm 23 off the mantel piece.  It has something to say to people when they are away from home; when they are on the move in the world.  It is time to turn to Psalm 23 in places other than the funeral parlor because it really speaks to people who are alive and facing life as it is in the world in which we live. 

            To say, “Life is a journey,” sounds cliché, but for followers of Jesus the journey is much more than a saying that goes on coffee mugs.  We have a mandate to spread out over the earth.  This mission is from God and dates back to the time of Noah.  Right after the flood and Noah and his family came off the ark onto dry ground, God promised to never again destroy the world in this way.  The next thing God says after this promise is “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1).  In order to fill the earth, we have to travel to every part of it and make our mark there.

            This mandate to spread over the earth is repeated by Jesus when he meets with his disciples after the resurrection.  The command to Noah was an act of re-creation.  Jesus inaugurates new creation.  He tells the disciples and this message is conveyed from them through the centuries of the church to us.  This is from Jesus to us.  “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

            Following Christ, we have a sense that we are headed somewhere and our movement has purpose.  This is true for people who spend their entire lives in the same small town as well as for people who live many different places in their lifetime.  Jesus declares we will be his witnesses.  We will give our testimony about who we know Jesus to be – Savior, Lord, Comforter, Guide, Leader.  We will share this testimony “as we go,” as we move through life.  This is for all Christians. 

            Psalm 23 is a word of encouragement for us as we go.  Note the promises and declarations and what these word imply.

            Because the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  Who says, “I shall not want?”  Or, “all my needs will be met;” who takes the creative initiative to put that phrase in a song about God?  That singer has a fear that his needs might not be met.  He has to look to God and declare his confidence in God’s provision.  Maybe you are in a life situation where your job provides the paycheck that provides the food, the shelter and clothing, the insurance – all of life’s needs.  But you also have needs only God can meet.  This is as true for the affluent as it is for those who struggle.  Do you believe will those specific needs?  Can God be trusted?  That’s the song’s declaration.  Because God guides me, all my needs will be met.[i] 

            The Lord is my shepherd.  I am terrified that I will be filled with emptiness, an unsatisfied hunger, but no, I rebuke that terror.  The Lord is my Shepherd.  I shall not want.

            He makes me lie down in green pastures.  I look around me, at my life, at the world.  I see dead places.  Aleppo, Syria; a humanitarian hunger crisis in South Sudan; reduction of help for the poor as policies change in our own government.  We see barrenness.  No!  God sees all God’s children.  He sees us and gives us rest in lush, green pastures. 

He leads me beside still waters and restores my soul.  Why do I need my soul restored?  Because I get so weary.  My own failures weigh on me.  My worries settle heavy on my shoulders and I stoop.  No.  God is with me and leads me to refreshing waters, lifting my burden off me.  God leads me on right paths.

Who sings this song people know so well, these words we hang on the wall in picture frames?  People who fear the looming darkness; people who feel the shadow of death as it swallows the light of life. 

We – followers of Jesus – encounter all these things: uncertainty, worry, threats, failures.  Following Jesus does not remove us from the life’s toughest obstacles and grayest days and longest nights.  We experience these depths, but when we are in Christ, we do not go through these trials alone.  The declaration of this Psalm is that the promise of God’s presence can be believed and will help us.  God can be trusted.  God is, as Jesus says in the Great Commission, with us always, everywhere, for our good.

            In the middle of the Psalm, the singer switches from praise about God, to praise to God.  “The Lord is my shepherd.  He leads me beside still waters.”  And then in verse 5, it is “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”  No longer does the singer talk about God, but rather to God.

            What’s more, notice what else is present in the midst of this Psalm of comfort.  The enemy!  If I didn’t talk about the Psalm, if I wasn’t setting this up, but just mentioned Psalm 23 among a group of seasoned church goers; and then, after mentioning it, asked what feelings the mention of the Psalm evoked, what might these lifelong Christians say?  “Psalm 23.”  What comes to mind?  Peaceful.  Comfort.  Well-being.  Rest. 

            Now, picture your enemy.  Who is in your mind’s eye?  A neighbor with whom you’ve had a property dispute?  It’s sad when that’s who comes to mind when we think of enemies, but it is true.  Some of our most consistently negative interactions are with neighbors; or family members; maybe an overbearing boss.  Maybe, your opponent is someone prejudiced against you.  It could be that “enemy” represents someone who tries to bully you.  I have even seen situtions where members of a church were opposed to each other.  When I say, ‘enemy,’ do you see someone related to you?

            Some people might say, ‘extremists,’ or ‘terrorists.’  I don’t think that’s realistic.  Do you realize how slim is the likelihood you’ll ever encounter a violent terrorist?  It’s highly, highly unlikely.  If I say, “picture your enemy,” and you have in mind a terrorist you saw on the news last night, then you’re dodging the question.  With whom do you have direct conflict?  Who do you believe has intentionally made your life hard?  When you picture that person, you don’t think, ‘peaceful.’  Comfort.  Well-being.  Rest.  You think, ‘I need to be on my guard.  My adversary is near.  It is not safe.’

            The Psalmist sings of a table, a meal, a banquet.  The feast can only come in a place and time of safety and yet in this song, our cherished 23^rd Psalm, the festive dinner is in the presence of our enemies.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. How can this be?  When God is present, the situation changes! 

            The light of our savior spills over erasing the shadows that threaten.  We are in want?  No, our shepherd provides.  The storm clouds rumble?  No, our Lord leads us beside calm waters and green pastures.  The darkness opens its bottomless chasm?  No, our God gives light and walks with us and we are on safe ground.  Our enemy is here!  To arms!  No.  Our Savior sets the table.  Not, ‘to arms,’ but rather, to supper!  And when we know our God through His coming – through Jesus, crucified and resurrected – then we see our enemy transformed.  We see ourselves transformed.  He who was the enemy has a new heart as do we.  That relationship, which was a battleground, now, in Christ, is part of the new creation.

            We can only enter life hoping for radical transformation when we live by faith and live in complete trust in God and dependence on God.  We commit to a life in which we are dependent and we trust that God will provide what we need.  God will make sure our bodily needs are met.  God will be the one who gives our lives meaning.  God, and not some other thing, will be our source of joy.  We believe we will have happiness because we trust that God is here and God is good and that is enough.

            Walter Brueggemann hits this point forcefully.  He’s writing about the relationship ancient Israel had with her land.  Israel only came into the land when God performed wonders to force Egypt to free the Israelite slaves.  Then God opened the Red Sea.  Then God gave the wandering Israelites the ability to take the land.

            Centuries later, Israel had forgotten God and God allowed the people to fall into exile in Babylon.  However, that would not last.  God would bring His people back to the land.  This time it happened when God touched the heart of the Persian monarch and he permitted the people to return. 

In both Egyptian slavery and Babylonian exile, the people desperately wanted to return to the land, but that could only happen by an act of God.  We can only hope God will act if we trust God.  Many of the people then and now stopped doing that.  Brueggemann writes, “God’s people always want to settle for something short of promises, because promises being fulfilled remind Israel how vulnerable it is, how exposed it is, and how precarious it all is.  Promiseless existence is safer.  The Bible knows promises are always kept in the midst of threats.”[ii]

When we take Psalm 23 off the mantel and out of the frame and see it as a song of promise then we find ourselves in the exact position of ancient Israel.  We are vulnerable to heartbreak.  We can lose our faith if life gets too hard.  We are exposed to evil because sin has run amuck in the world.  Our lives are precarious and it seems awfully risky to bank on the idea that 2000 years ago a Jewish peasant really was God in the flesh, defeated death by dying, and brings hope because he rose from death and promised we will too.  Furthermore, he promised that he would be with us in the form of an ever-present Spirit that opens the way for each one of us to have a personal relationship with God. 

That’s all crazy.  That’s what ungirds our life, gives us hope, inspires our songs, and fills us with happiness and joy?  Seriously?  Yes, because it is true.  Israel was on a pilgrimage to the land and we are on a pilgrimage too.  In this season of Lent, in worship we journey toward the cross.  This is a journey of worship.  We walk with Jesus to his destiny and our salvation.

In our life beyond Lent, we are sent out to bear witness, and we’re sent everywhere.  Every place we go, every grocery story, friend’s kitchen table, bar stool, plane ride, unfamiliar hotel, and distant shore is for us the “ends of the earth.”  In these places we tell the story of the ages.  Jesus is Lord.  His coming is the coming of the Kingdom of God. And, people have life in his name, abundant life.  But even in this scattering to Jerusalem, to all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth where we give our testimony, even in this “going out” we have a destination. 

We are headed to dwell in the house of the Lord our whole life long.  In resurrection, our lives have no end. 

As we move toward this destination, we hit bumps in the road.  Our feet get snagged.  We lose our way.  But when it gets hard, when we think we can’t go on, when we lose confidence in our own stories, and when we are ready to completely give up, God is with us.  This song, Psalm 23 is a reminder that God goes before us, God walks with us, and God holds us in His hands.  When things on the journey get tough, Psalm 23 is our song for the road. 

AMEN

---

[i] The observations in these paragraphs come from Craig Broyles (1999), New International Bible Commentary: Psalms, vol. 11 Hendrikson Publishers (Peabody, MA), p.123.

[ii] Walter Brueggemann (1977), The Land, Fortress Press (Philadelphia), p.68.

God, the Maker of Worlds (Psalm 16)

Sunday, February 5, 2017

            In the Fantastic Four super hero comic books, one of the enemies of the Fantastic Four is Galactus, an alien so large, he travels through the universe consuming planets.  When they made the Fantastic Four into movies, in one of the films, another alien, the Silver Surfer, came to earth to warn us of Galactus’ approach and intention of eating our planet, and all of us.  The Surfer told the Fantastic Four, “It is called Galactus, ‘Destroyer of worlds.’”

            What kind of Greek trip am on that I would read Psalm 16 and think of Marvel comics and the Fantastic Four?  It’s not the first thought I had in my reading of Psalm 16.  In fact, I’ve been reading that Psalm over and over for almost a month now.  I’ll get to that in a bit, but first, what about that?  What about Psalm 16 and Galactus and the ‘Destroyer of worlds?’

It is actually something a great Bible scholar said about the Psalms and what Israel was doing when they sang the Psalms in worship and what God did through the Psalms in the heart of Israel and in us when we worship through reading, praying, singing, and most importantly believing the Psalms.  In his brief commentary Abiding Astonishment, Walter Brueggemann wrote the Psalms “intend … to unmake, deconstruct, and unmask … worlds which seduce and endanger Israel.”[i]

In this sense then, the real God, not the Marvel Comics Galactus, is the ‘Destroyer of Worlds.’  God destroys worlds – threats, ideologies, lies, false theologies, idolatries, fears, seductions.  The Psalms reiterate again and again that God is faithful and is Almighty.  No threat will come to Israel that possesses more power than God.  Foreign invaders like Egypt and Assyria and Babylon and Rome will hurt Israel, but only because God permits it.  And those injuries always come in conjunction with Israel turning away from God, turning to false God, trusting in unwise alliances, and exploiting the poor.  Unfaithfulness and exploitation always, always accompany the arrival of a foreign power in Israel’s history.

God is never off the scene.  God sometimes moves to the background to allow Israel to live with the pain that comes with her sins.  But God is always present to destroy the invader and ideological and political worlds that threaten God’s order.  God is a destroyer of worlds. 

What’s true of what God does for and in Israel is also true for the rest of human society.  First through the creation mandate to scatter over the earth, then through the priestly mandate to Israel to be a Holy nation that draws lost and sinful humanity back to God, then through Israel’s prophets who imagine a future in which all kingdoms of the earth find their fulfillment in the worship of God, and finally in the Great Commission to make all of the world followers of Jesus, the words of the Psalms ring true for the church.  God is a destroyer of worlds, the forces that would seduce, threaten, and ultimately kill the church. 

What are some of those forces?  What draws our attention away from the Gospel?  What tries to tell us who we are, when we know our identities are based on who we are in Christ? 

Some voices insist we must advocate on behalf of refugees.  Their lives are fluttering in the wind and we in the wealthy west must open our hearts and our arms and homes.  It’s matter of valuing lives.  Yet, the same voices will not permit space for the unborn when the conversation switches to crisis pregnancies or unwanted pregnancies.  Then, we can’t talk about the baby’s life, only the woman’s choice.

Some voices insist that we get very specific in damning certain sins, like homosexuality.  We must declare it an evil that threatens our way of life.  And this insistence ignores completely the way Jesus welcomed people – all people, and gave extra love to those who needed most, people rejected in society.  The voices insisting this righteous condemnation ignores the truth that the Holy Spirit is leading the church to love all people and welcome all people.

Conversely, there are voices that are just as loud that demand that all relationships be affirmed by the church.  A Christian baker or photographer sees his work as a kind of ministry.  But then these voices tell him, he has to serve a same-sex wedding.  His reading of scripture tells him that’s against God’s will.  Those voices aren’t interested in his reading of scripture.  He either has to go against what he thinks God is telling him in the Bible and bake the cake for the same-sex marriage; or he has to give up the business he loves and believes is a ministry. 

What forces draw our attention away from who God tells us who we are in Christ?

Some voices insists that our primary identity involves the country of our citizenship, instead of our belief that we are subjects in an eternal kingdom.  As citizens our top concern should be for border security.  We know our calling to go out; ‘go into the all world baptizing and making disciples.’  It’s hard to remember our call when so many voices vie for our attention and compete to tell us who we are.

I’ve done a very rough run through of just some of the issues that have dominated the headlines in the past couple of years, right up to today.  I believe we have a call from God to care for all lives – refugees, the unborn, persecuted persons in other countries, disadvantaged persons in our own community.  We are called to love these individuals and help them know Jesus as their Savior and thrive as his disciples.  We are called to love and welcome people who are confused about their own sexuality or who openly claim a sexual identity that is outside the parameters of what’s allowed in scripture.  The church must be in the mercy-giving business.  If condemnation is to come, let it come directly from God to the individual.  We’re to be mercy, love, and grace-givers.  And because theology is so complicated, I think we have to create space for people to have different beliefs on issues, but still feel at home among us.

The grand issue is calling.  We are called to the cross – to confess and then leave our sins there.  We are call to receive forgiveness and new life.  All these issues and many I have not mentioned turn into idolatries that seduce and endanger us.  God is the destroyer of the worlds that would come about if we forfeited our unity in Christ for the sake of commitment to issues instead of commitment to Him as Lord.  We’re not to be an issue-driven church.  We’re to be a Kingdom-driven church.  We love refugees and speak for the unborn, and we love and welcome straight people and gay people because love is a core Kingdom value intrinsic to who we are. 

Through the Psalms, through the church, through the work of the Holy Spirit in the world, God destroys some worlds to make room for the world God is constructing, creating.  There’s one line that has daily drawn me back to Psalm 16.  “In your presence, there is fullness of joy.” 

I look to God and say it over and I over.  I sit down to pray and begin with silence.  I try to shut out the noise of the latest rally or protest, the latest outcry or accusation that leaps off the new website.  I get my mind as quiet as I can before God, praying for the Spirit to fill the void.  After a minute or two, I then begin filling the quiet with that phrase, “In your presence, there is fullness of joy.”  I need to remember that God is present and what it means because God is present.

Reaching for that palpable sense of God’s presence, I then proceed into prayer and Bible reading and then into the day.  This yearning for God to be present and make sense of the world that seems to be devolving toward chaos is what led me to the whole idea of the ice berg.  If you haven’t been here, I’ve proposed that our mission in worship has been to seek more and more of God the way we might see more and more of the iceberg beneath the surface of the water.

This not escapism, an attempt to pretend the world’s problems don’t exist.  They do and we Christians must be a witness in the midst of the conversation.  But whether it is the refugee crisis, the abortion question, the conversation over sexual ethics, or something else, we do not come it as people of a particular stance.  We see as if we are standing in the Kingdom already.  We see it in the light of who God is.  Saying that, I do not give an answer as to what view the church holds in any specific case.  Rather, I insist that we who are in Christ view each issue through a prism of love, grace, and mercy. 

The debates over each of these issues that have produced such division turns the issues themselves into idolatries, but we will not be seduced into walking to our own destruction.  We are followers of Jesus who know God is present and thus we keep our attention on him.  We look to the Holy Spirit to know how to think, act, and speak.  And we keep looking back to the Spirit knowing the Spirit is dynamic, always on the move, leading us onto new paths. 

The Psalm itself gives markers both of God’s presence and of who we are because God is present.  In these markers we see the worlds God destroys.  We also see what God makes – a world of beautiful relationships; a world run by love.

The first marker is verse 2 – “I say to the Lord, you are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”  A few weeks ago, I came across a quote that is going to be part of my self-understanding going forward.  My life makes no sense apart from God.  Either I do good and help people because I yield to God love in me and allow God to direct my life, or I rebel against God’s love and thus I live selfishly.  Either way, the only way to understand a Christ-follower is in terms of his or her relationship with God.  Similarly, the only good in our lives is the good God brings into our lives.  Other pleasures will turn out to be relatively harmless forgeries or life-destroying seductions.  We are aligned with God when we can truly say the good in our lives comes from him.

The second marker is verse 5 – “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.”  Originally this may have be sung by Levites or referred to Levites.  In ancient Israel they were the one group not allotted land.  They were assigned to oversee worship, so their food and their provision was mandated in the commandments.  When society was obedient, they provided; thus, God was their portion.

The verse speaks to us to remind us that in addition to giving us all that is good in our lives, God meets our needs.  It’s basic to the Lord’s Prayer.  “Give us this day, our daily bread.”  Through the disappointments and triumphs, life’s wins and losses, God is always present.  God works in our pleasure and our pain, always making us new and preparing us for the eternal Kingdom.

That leads to the third marker of God’s world-making in Psalm 16 and it comes in verses 10-11.  “You, O God, do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the Pit.  You show me the path of life.  In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”  God gives us good things and our lives make no sense apart from him.  God is our portion, provider of all we need.  And, God’s future for us is rescue from death; rescue to eternal life.

The word Sheol and the concept of the pit are both Old Testament descriptions of death and separation from God.  The idea I’ve been trying to present is that God rescues us by destroying divisions and temptations that separate us from Him.  God destroys those worlds without him in our lives that would arise as we follow those temptations.  Where verse 10 says God does not let His faithful one fall into the Pit, we see a Messianic prediction.  God will rescue the Messiah and we believe that rescue comes when the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is resurrected.

First Corinthians 15 says Jesus is the “last Adam,” the “life-giving Spirit.”  As he was resurrected, so will we be.  As his disciples, we have resurrection and eternal life ahead of us.  It’s all promised in this Psalm: all the good in our lives, all our needs met, and rescue from death.  “In God’s presence, there truly is fullness of joy.”

So, we unite in God.  Plenty of ideas and movements, forces of evil afoot and on the move, are jockeying to divide us and destroy us.  The Holy Spirit is drawing us together in Christ because that’s what God does.  We’ve talked about how God is big and relational.  We’ve talked about how God goes out His way for poor and downtrodden people.  We’ve talked about God loves riches and powerful people and they can see that when they see their own brokenness.  Today we see that God is a maker of worlds.  God prepare us for life in a world where love what drives relationships.  We can be active in this world, helping people, participating in causes, and raising our voices.  But whatever we do, our eyes are on God and we step out at God’s prompting, as God clears the path ahead.

AMEN

---

[i] W. Brueggemann (1991), Abiding Astonishment: Psalms, Modernity, and the Making of History, Westminster/John Knox Press (Louisville), p.26.