God Wins

Third Sunday of Advent  

 

            The title of this sermon is absurd for two reasons.  First “new world, where God wins,” implies an old world where God did not win.  God has always been sovereign – all powerful.  Even in the days when God’s chosen people, Israel were enslaved in Egypt, God’s power was seen as Moses worked God’s wonders.  There is no world where God doesn’t win.  It might appear to an individual that God has no power – a slave who has no hope of freedom; an abused child who sees no way out.  But God is all-powerful even there.  We don’t know why God who can stop all evil does not choose to simply do that, to eradicate all evil.  Though God does not, he can.  God is unbeatable in all places.

            The second absurdity – is the old-new dynamic.  Just as there is no place where God lacks power, there is no time when God was weak.  Human beings are weak and experience truly dark times, none darker than Jesus in Gethsemane praying that he not have to endure the torture of the cross.  But even in darkness, God is supreme.  God always has the capacity to win.  There is no time or place when God is not up to the task, whatever the task may be.  It is absurdly foolish to suppose otherwise.

            Maybe I am feeling absurdly foolish, but I stick with this title, and I invite you to join me in this new world where God wins.  Humor me.  We can be stupidly silly for a few moments because this will, without being too intense, usher us to the place in our minds where we realize how much we need God’s victory.  We have to love in order to experience God’s triumph. 

 

            God is here.  Since we began listening to the prophets on the first Sunday of Advent two weeks ago, I have said God is here and we see and feel God’s physical presence in three ways: primarily, we experience God as God, the Holy Spirit.  Next, in the church’s gathering and the church’s work of worship, evangelism, and compassion we see God’s activity.  Finally, in the word, we meet God in a transformative way.  Spirit, church, Word.  Incarnation is the theological concept that Jesus was God in human flesh.  The incarnation continues to be a reality even though Jesus has gone bodily to be with the Father until the final judgment.  He is here.

            In the Christmas season, we foster an air of anticipation.  We wait for the birth of Jesus.  We re-tell and re-experience the wonders of our savior’s birth – angel choirs, a virgin made pregnant by the Holy Spirit, shepherd witnesses, wise men visiting.  We enter the story. 

For Christ-followers this re-living of the birth is but a beginning.  Our anticipation is of his coming in glory.  At the end of time, Jesus returns, the dead are resurrected, and the living are transformed, their bodies made new.  We believe this is going to happen.  We don’t doubt it.  Advent anticipation goes beyond anticipating Jesus’ birth; it goes to our waiting for our rebirth and our resurrection. 

            I also believe Advent must be a time of anticipating and seeking the new works God does right now through the Spirit, the church, and the word.  Just because God is coming at the final judgment does not mean God is sitting on a sofa somewhere, waiting for the time to pass.  God is here, working now. 

            Are we involved with Him in His work in the world?

God allows us to choose to ignore Him.  That choice has awful consequences, but we can choose the destructive way of life without God if want to.  For those who choose to submit to God’s authority, now is the time of His rule.  Old Testament prophet Zephaniah says God is Lord and God is King.  Because of Jesus we know the Lord and King has come and is here.  But before we live presently under His rule, we have to go through an ordeal.

Zephaniah is a short book of prophecy, just three chapters.  The final chapter is good new – gospel – as wonderful a depiction of God’s activity as any in the Bible.  But we dare not begin in Zephaniah 3.

In chapter one a different tone is set and it is not good.  “The day of the Lord is near,” says the prophet, “the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter” (1:14).  Through the prophet, God speaks directly.  “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the Lord” (1:2).  And who receives such a horrible prophecy?  “I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (1:4).  For Zephaniah’s original audience, this was the worst possible fate.  To undo the covenant made with David – that was unthinkable. 

And yet, it is possible that most of those listening yawned when Zephaniah uttered this word God put in him.  Though Israel had been consumed by the mighty Assyrians, that would not affect Jerusalem.  Israel was the Northern kingdom of Jews.  Judah in the south would carry on even if their Jewish countrymen in the North were no more.  Zephaniah’s words cry judgment, but few could see the impending doom.

One exception was King Josiah, a righteous man who served in a dynasty of idolaters.  Josiah the King enacted the greatest religious reform movement in the Old Testament.  He was a monarch set on turning the hearts of the people away from sin and back to God.  The reforms of Josiah were great … while they lasted.  But then the kings following him did not accept the religious component of their calling.  They wanted to be rich, powerful kings.  They did not want to be servants, not even servants of God.  So Zephaniah’s prophecy of “Day of the Lord” and of doom was ignored and Josiah’s reforms did not hold.

Zephaniah chapter 2 continues the prophetic word of judgment and catastrophe, but in this second round, the foreign nations surrounding Judah are the objects of the prophecy.  God condemns his own people in their sin.  He also condemns other nations when they rebel against God.  Of the Assyrian capital Nineveh Zephaniah says, “Ah, soiled, defiled, oppressing city!  … It has not trusted in the Lord; it has not drawn near to its God” (3:1).

Zephaniah chapters 1 and 2: these words from the prophet who descended from the line of David are shocking if we listen and we should listen because, in truth, we are that soiled, defiled city.  When we sin, we turn away from God.  We say essentially that God’s ways are optional for us and God’s rule has no authority in our lives.  Soiled.  Defiled.  Our nation feels the sting; our church, imperfect as it is, recoils knowing we have places of sin.  And as individuals, each one of us hears God’s truth, the judgment of sin, and we know we are guilty. We have the filth of sin clinging to us. 

This is a crisis because the wage of sin is death.  Romans 6:23 in the New Testament is easy to understand.  Our sins lead to death and our death is necessary.   When life is going well for us, this is hard to see.  People own their own homes, pay their taxes and give money to charity.  People stay married and enjoy relationships with their children.  It is hard to how our sins are killing us and destroying the world God has created.

This is why it was important for us to start saying that when we anticipate Jesus coming in the season of Advent, we anticipate him coming today, in this hour.  In Spirit, in church, and in the Word, He is here.  God is here to show us.  We don’t see how bad our sin is, what a reeking odor it is in God’s nose.  So Jesus shows us.  When things are going well, we don’t realize the world is dying.  Every sin you or I commit is a repeat of Adam and Eve falling from Paradise, cut off from God. 

Sins happen in society and in the lives of individuals.  Sin is seen in our deed, but sin is really a heart in rebellion against God.  Zephaniah chapters 1 & 2 show God’s frustration and we cannot appreciate the Gospel of Zephaniah 3, if we don’t hear the judgment that comes before it. 

“Jesus Christ is risen!”  That Easter cry comes at the end of the Gospel story.  We cannot begin at the end of the story.  We cannot start out on Easter Sunday. 

The virgin birth; the nativity scene – these images are thoroughly Christian and for many people the only sample of the Christianity they get all year.  We celebrate these familiar details, but we cannot remain at the beginning of the story.  We cannot stay in Christmas and we cannot start on Easter.  In our Advent anticipating, we visit the manger and we worship in wonder at the newborn, baby Jesus.  Then we go with Him through his life.  We have to go to the cross where we see our sins in their fullness.  Our Advent anticipation, the coming of God, is an anticipation of death.  Only those who die are born again.  And only those who are born again enter the eternal kingdom of God.

That entering begins when we come to faith.  Christians, often thinking of a future heavenly eternity, miss that this new birth in Christ, means we begin living under His rule long before the end.  We begin living under his rule when we turn away from the world and turn ourselves completely to Him.  We spend our lives as disciples serving God in the world, calling the lost into His kingdom, and stepping toward and into His perfect eternity.

In this life we see what Zephaniah described – the actions of the victorious God.  Look at Zephaniah 3:14-20.  The winning God is a present God.  The prophet says, “The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst” (Zephaniah 3:15c).

And this present God is “… a warrior who gives victory” (3:17a-b).  What else?

Zephaniah 3:15, first stanza of the verse: “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you” (3:15a).  We know Jesus accomplishes this on the cross. 

The second stanza of Zephaniah 3:15.  “He has turned away your enemies” (3:15b).  Jesus accomplishes this in the most creative of ways.  He teaches us to love our enemies so they are no longer enemies.  The victorious warrior God defeats hate with grace, forgiveness, mercy, and love.

What else?

Zephaniah 3:19, second stanza: “I [God] will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.  At that time I will bring you home, at that time when I gather you” (Zephaniah 3:19b-20a).  God saves, gathers, and changes.  God changes our shame into praise.  Think of when Jesus gave sight to the blind and raised Lazarus from the dead.  That story is a foretaste of the resurrection we will all share because we do go through Good Friday, we do leave the cross and head to the empty tomb.  Jesus did conquer death and invites us to new, eternal life, lived as His followers, sons and daughters of God.

I appreciate your willingness to walk in my absurdity with me.  By now I am sure you know how we get to that new world, the place where God wins. We have to die.  Walter Brueggemann, commenting on the prophetic imagination of Jesus, says that the life and teaching and death and resurrection of Jesus is “the death sentence upon those who live fully and comfortably in this age” (Prophetic Imagination, p.104).  That is us until we see Jesus who is here.  He makes us uncomfortable with the worldliness around us.  At that point, we are ready for new life. 

So then, what are we supposed to do with what we’ve heard?  I think what we are supposed to do is open our hearts, which means we  we commit to unfiltered honesty with God.  We share our warts, our skeletons in the closet, and everything else.

Also, we are to see the world differently.  We respect the voices of authority – government, family, culture.  But, all those things, potent as they are, fall in line we meet God in the Spirit, in His church, and in the Word.  In that meeting, we give ourselves to Him and live under His rule. 

Christmas is almost here.  Watch and see what God is up to.  Under His rule, there is forgiveness, salvation, and enemies turn into brothers and sisters. 

AMEN

God Purifies

            Is everyone comfortable?  I don’t ask because this is going to be a long sermon.  This will be about the usual length.  But, the question of comfort is important here.  I invite you to think about how comfortable you are here, right now?  And in your life – relationships, station in life, living space.  Are we comfortable?  We’ll come back to this.

December, 2010: an unemployed Tunisian man tries selling vegetables to make ends meet. The police seize his cart.  His poverty and powerlessness are too much.  He sets his own body on fire.  The Arab spring is launched!  Has it really been two years?  Tunisia – Yemen – Egypt – Libya – and now Syria; also in that time three decades of civil war led to the birth of a new nation, South Sudan.  It’s been a time of war, violence, and death.  But at some level we respect people asserting their right to freedom and democracy.  I think of the musical, Les Miserables, which depicted Victor Hugo’s novel about the French Revolution. 

                        “Do you hear the people sing, singing the songs of angry men? 

It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again. 

When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums

there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes.

Will you give all you can give so that our banner may advance?

Some will fall and some will live, will you stand up and take your chance?

The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France.”

 

            From 500 BC to the birth of Christ, it was not an age of rebellion, but an age of empire – empires that stretched over much of the geography that has experienced revolutionary movements these past two years.  The Assyrians and then the Persians and Medes, and then the Greeks and the Ptolemies and Selucids and finally the Romans – these great empires dominated the world.  Egypt rose in these times, rivaling Babylon.  Caught in the middle of the wars of these historic heavyweights was this little country that claimed they were God’s chosen and their God was the only God.  Abraham, Moses, David – the great heroes of Israel’s history were fading into the distant past by 500 BC.  Israel was not even a nation, but rather was a vassal state – controlled, exiled, and allowed to return at the whim of monarchs who lived 100’s of miles away from Jerusalem. 

            Today’s world lives in a season of Spring that is bloody and new and 2 years after the dramatic beginning is still going on.  The Biblical world was a time of empire and for the Jews, a time of powerlessness.  They went where they were told.  They were possessions of masters who lorded over them.  We are not a part of this Arab spring.  We watch from a distance.  We went through that in 1776.  We are not slaves.  The Biblical context is not ours.  What’s our story?

            There is poverty here and hunger, and it is bad.  A worse problem for us, including for the poor among us, is obesity.  Some people don’t eat enough.  Many more don’t eat the right foods.  Obesity and diabetes are killing us.  The children we care for in Ethiopia and the children Laura visits in Ukraine would happily take many of the things we complain about.  The Tunisian guy who burned himself to death would trade his poverty for ours.  The poor among us struggle but not to the point of revolution.  We’re a middle class nation whose frustration is that our middle class life is not comfortable enough. 

            Our story is a story of comfort and stability.  Are you comfortable?  I am much of the time.  Is God happy with our comfort, or is God about to disrupt our lives with some difficulty?

            In writing about Old Testament Prophets, Gerhard von Rad describes an encounter the Prophet Amos has with a priest.  Amos lives in the 8^th century BC and forecasts the judgment that is coming on Israel.  The priest, tied to the establishment, tells the king that the land is not able to bear the words of the prophet (7:9).  Von Rad notes that this priest recognized that prophets are dangerous, especially to kings, people who are comfortable.  I read that and thought of my own comfort.  I wondered out loud, are the prophets still dangerous?  Your individual life may be assaulted, unsettled, and uncomfortable.  But overall, we are in a place of stability, safety (terrorist attacks scare us but only actually hit an infinitesimally small percentage of us) and a place of comfort.   Are the words of the prophets dangerous to us?  That depends.  Are we listening?

            God says, “I am sending a messenger” (Malachi 3:1).  ‘Malachi’ literally means ‘messenger.’  New Testament writers were aware of Malachi the Messenger’s “messenger talk.”  They remembered how he wrote that a messenger would make a path for the Lord’s anointed, the Messiah.  In Luke 1 we read, “He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.”  Previously the people had turned away from God and away from faith, but after this one comes, they will turn back.  “With the Spirit and power of Elijah he will go before [the Lord] to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous” (Luke 1:16-17).  John the Baptist was the Elijah described by Malachi.

            Was John dangerous?  King Herod thought so.  He locked John up.  He cut off his head.  Then when Jesus, King Herod laid awake at night worrying that John was back from the grave.  A prophet speaks God’s word with such inspired power that the word still infuses fear into the wicked and hope into the downtrodden long after the prophet has exited stage left. 

Is Malachi dangerous?  In our comfortable chairs, are we listening?

            Seeing the might of God in God’s coming, Malachi asked, “who can endure the day of his coming?  Who can stand when he appears” (Mal. 3:2)?

            The first time Jesus came his blood, running down a cross, horrified his followers.  They fled, they wept, and they crumpled in heaps on the ground.  None could stand.  Then he was resurrected.  When the angels announced it, Roman soldiers fell to the ground so overcome with dread they were like dead men.  Jesus’s followers at his feet to lay hold of him.  Who could endure his coming?  Who could stand? 

            At his second coming, Paul writes that there will be a trumpet blast from an archangel and the dead will rise right out of their graves.  The living will be caught up with Jesus in the air (1 Thessalonians 4).  All will be judged according to their works (Rev. 20:12).  Revelation says the kings of the earth will call on rocks and mountains saying, “Fall on us and hide us” (6:17).  Who can endure the 2^nd coming? 

            But wait!  Neither is our problem.  That first coming with things like virgin births and angel choirs, and crucifixions and resurrections – that happened 2000 years ago.  How forceful is that, really, when we can reduce it to a ceramic nativity scene we put on the mantle and a silver cross we wear jewelry.  That’s an old story, a good one, but not one that’s dangerous to us. 

And the second coming is so unknown, we don’t consider it a possibility in our lives.  The actions of Bible-believing people in our context today do not show them to be people who think Jesus is coming back in their lifetimes.  They might say they think He is, but their lives say something else.  So the second coming story is for later, and is not dangerous now.  We are enjoying this comfortable spot between the comings and goings of God.  God is welcome here if He will quietly take his place and not disturb us.

            Malachi gives us reasons to listen to stories about the coming of God.  We should listen with invested attention.  The Lord comes as a refiner, refining with fire.  When Malachi said this, he was specifically talking about God’s refining of the priests in the temple in Jerusalem.  But we read in the New Testament, “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1^st Peter 2:9).  Malachi’s talk of God the refiner is for us – we are the ones refined. 

The Lord comes a fuller, scrubbing with soap that won’t stop cleansing us until all impurities are gone, says Malachi.  Is there anything in our comfort that might not jive with God’s radical call on us to be his people, spreading the Gospel of His Kingdom in the world?  He will come in Spirit and Truth and he will rub us raw until all the filth is off and it will hurt. 

Jesus adds that he cuts away the unfruitful branches in our lives.  But what if we love some of those unfruitful branches?  No, no, Jesus, I’ll follow you.  But don’t cut this out of my life.  This addiction.  This extravagance.  This bit I know is sinful but I love it.  Don’t prune.  I’ll be a disciple most of the time.  Jesus, the Lord who refines with fire and scrubs with harsh fuller’s soap, cuts with the sharp two-edged blade that is the word of God (John 15:2).  Burning; scrubbing; cutting; this is what God does among his followers who are comfortable.  This is the work of the Holy Spirit, the word of God, and the church in that time between comings.

Who can endure His coming, the prophet asks?  Our days of comfort are numbered. 

What could be more dangerous than listening to the prophet Malachi?  How about not listening?  It’s short little book at the end of the Old Testament.  Nobody ever reads it.  And it makes me uncomfortable.  We’ll skip it and jump to angels and wise men and nativity scenes in Matthew and Luke.

In refining, scrubbing, and pruning, God helps us become who He made us to be in the first place.  Paul tells the Philippians to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.  They’re saved in that they have trusted Jesus.  But he wants them to give themselves fully to God.  Paul has read Malachi.  He says this with fear and trembling. He knew God was a refiner. 

As dangerous as it is to listen, it is far more dangerous to ignore Malachi.  When God refines, he is purifying us and sometimes it hurts, a lot.  Sometimes the walk with God feels better than any emotions or titillating sensation we can conceive.  It is high and low all at once.  But to ignore is to be cut-off.

If we listen now, we are purified.  If we ignore now, at the judgment, we are punished.  I am not convinced that God imposes eternal damnation.  I just think God counts up our ledger at the judgment, finds us thoroughly sinful, and because we have rejected him and his prophets and Jesus, then he turns us out.  I really believe all the word pictures of Hell in the Bible are metaphors depicting eternity cut off from God.  I think actually spending eternity knowing one will never ever be able to be in relationship with God is worse than unquenchable fire, than outer darkness, and worse than weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. 

We listen to Malachi and the entire witness of scripture now, and at the last judgment, when accounts are settled, Jesus takes us and says, “I’ll stand for these people.  HillSong church?  I know them.  Their entire record is on me.”  God looks at Jesus, looks at us, smiles, and says, “Welcome my children, enter into the joy of your master.”  By the way, that’s Heaven.  It is not some pearly-gate, gold-streeted place.  Those metaphors try to picture the emotions we’ll have when God looks us in the eye and says, “Welcome, my child.  Enter my joy.”

But what of today?  All that burning, scouring, and cutting doesn’t very pleasant.  Often it is not.  It is though, necessary.  And in the process, God gives us complete grace.  We receive it and pass it on.  God shows us what love is.  We live in it and give it.  We become changed which really means we return to the image of God in which we were made.  Our sins have dirtied that image.  He cleans us.  We submit to Him in Word and Spirit, and we cannot stand, but He picks us up. 

Standing in His power, we discover there are no limits our world can impose.  The age of empire, the Spring of rebellion, the comfort of middle class security – we realize all of this is shadow and reality is the Kingdom Jesus envisioned.  In Christ, we live in the Kingdom even as spend time waiting for the final consummation. 

Yes the purifying messenger’s words are still dangerous but after we are knocked down, we are made new and we walk in the light.  We see beauty and deal in love.  And before we know it we are the ones sharing the words, preaching the dangerous message so that others may be saved from their comfort and save for life with God.

AMEN

Disrupted Christmas

Disrupted Christmas (Malachi 3:1-4)

Sunday, December 9, 2012 – Advent 2

 

            My family moved from our home in Clawson, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, to Roanoke, Virginia.  That was 1982.  I was 12 years old.  Every year after, we made multiple trips back to Michigan to see family.  If we only made one trip in a year to Michigan, it was Christmas time.  We stayed at the home of my mom’s mother.  She lived in a declining neighborhood in Detroit: Seven Mile Road, just a mile from Eight Mile made famous by Eminem. 

On Christmas Eve, all of us, including my grandmother, traveled from Detroit out to Clawson to my dad’s parents.  After the party we headed back to Detroit for bed and then to wake up and share gifts on Christmas morning.  One year when we did that, we got back to Grandma Biscomb’s house and discovered burglars had come.  They were gone by the time we returned. 

Their damage had been done.  All our presents were opened and many had been taken.  Other items, small ones, were also stolen from Grandma’s house.  That was a disruption to our normal Christmas routine. 

This Advent season, we anticipate Christmas by hearing from the prophets, and my hope, no my prayer is that our Christmas, yours and mine, will be disrupted!  We will hear the fury of the prophets and the feel the power of God in this words, and we will be shocked.  Disrupted?  Having burglars steal the Christmas presents is nothing like the disruption of God invading our lives, disrupting our comfort, confronting our sin, and calling us to repentance and holiness. 

Scholar Gerhard von Rad noted a time in history when prophets were seen for how dangerous they were (The Message of the Prophets, p.68). Do we realize how dangerous the prophets were and still are?  Prodded by this question and hearing this disquieting prayer – that God would disrupt our lives this Christmas – we turn to Malachi, the final book in the Old Testament.  He asks, “Who can endure the day of God’s coming?  Who can stand when he appears” (3:2a)?  Go through the Bible for the answer to that second question.  From Ezekial to the Roman guards at Jesus’ tomb to John on the Island of Patmos, every time God or an angel of God appears in glorified form before a man, the man crumbles to the ground and lies prone, trembling, until the diving being invites the man to stand.  Who can stand?  None.  But it means more than that.

We read Malachi with Christian eyes.  We believe Jesus was the one who came and will come again.  Malachi literally means “Messenger.” This is only Old Testament prophet who speaks of a messenger preparing the way of the Lord.  This passage is quoted in New Testament texts that tell about the prophetic ministry of John the Baptist, the one who came ahead of Jesus.  Both Matthew and Luke in their gospels intentionally reach to Malachi’s messenger prophecy and refer to John as the Elijah of his day, speaking God’s word that God is coming in the flesh. 

Now, two thousand years have passed.  The Jesus story is history, not news.  Yet, the incarnation – by this we mean Jesus coming as God in human form – continues to do new things today, just as Malachi’s prophecy continues to be dangerous as it was when first spoken and written.  Jesus came.  And from New Testament writings we know Jesus will come back and bring history to an end. And Jesus will judge all people when he comes.  The Day of Judgment; the Second Coming; it all points to Jesus coming in the future.  He came in the past and will come again.  But I contend that Malachi’s word has force right now – in the time in between.

Who can endure his coming?  Who can stand?

Malachi gives the answers.  “The day is coming  the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch” (4:1).  Aside from the fact that in every instance in scripture where there’s a divine-human encounter, the human is overwhelmed to the point that he falls face down without thought of doing anything else, Malachi makes clear arrogant persons and evil doers will be judged, found guilty, and condemned.  Just as one receiving his verdict of a life sentence is crushed even before it begins, one who meets God and is convicted of sin dies inside and that internal death is painful and violent. 

And yet, says Malachi, “those who revered the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the Lord and thought on his name.¹⁷They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them.¹⁸Then once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him” (3:16-18).  Different people have a different experience on the day of His coming.  The righteous are overwhelmed and maybe convicted, but ultimately ushered into the joy of God because what makes them righteous is not their conduct.  The righteous as sinful as are those condemned.  But, they’ve trusted in Jesus.  They are forgiven even though sinful behaviors are not immediately ceased. 

Who can endure his coming?  Who can stand? 

“Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.⁶For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.

⁷Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ ⁸Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, “How are we robbing you?” In your tithes and offerings! ⁹You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you” (3:5-9)!”

            Do you participate in exploitation?  Watch out!  Do you dabble in witchcraft or occult?  God is coming – the real God.  Anyone give allegiance to things, relationships, institutions when that allegiance belongs to God?  In God’s eyes, that is spiritual adultery and it will be judged.  That is what the coming of God brings.  Are we lazy or stingy with our tithes – the money we devote to God’s kingdom?  God calls that robbery.  We think of robbery as taking something that’s not ours.  God extends the definition, according to Malachi.  Robbery is holding on to what we ought to give. 

            Indeed, who can stand when He comes?

            And yet, Malachi, the messenger, finally says, “for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.³And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

⁴Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.⁵Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.⁶He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse” (4:2-5).

At the coming of God, some are cursed, some promised hope.  Which message is for us?  Mostly, we are middle class – affluent.  People in the dominant culture like their lives, generally speaking.  And even if they experience individual unhappiness or personal discontent, they love the idea that the dominant culture is theirs and they will not tolerate threats to it.  Jesus is a threat because He won’t fit into the place assigned to Him by the dominant culture.

Middle class Americans have to understand that we benefit from being members of the dominant culture.  This leaves us with a real tension.  Will we live at Jesus’ pleasure?  Or will we try to make Jesus fit into our lives on our terms, where it is good for us?  Who can stand at His coming?  My prayer is he comes right now, in the Spirit, into each of our lives in such a disruptive way, that every table is overturned and when things are finally rearranged in our lives, we look to the center and see that life only works when it revolves around the one who fulfilled Malachi’s prophecy.

Here’s a follow-up on the Christmas we had at my grandmother’s house when the burglars broke in while we were out.  I don’t remember all the details.  This is around 27 years ago.  What I do remember are the feelings.

First, it was kind of freaky.  Someone had been in the house.  Someone came in uninvited.  There was this weird are they still here, still around sense of things.  Would they come back?  It was uneasy.  My indomitable grandmother, 100% English, would never leave that house.  There was that break in.  A few years later she was mugged.  But she refused to leave until finally cancer forced her to spend her final months in Roanoke with my mom.  I don’t know how she stayed.  I was unnerved.

Second, I felt violated.  I am sure from my mom and maybe from Grandma, there were tears.  I don’t remember exactly.  Strangers with dishonorable intentions had gone through our personal things.   Something was taken, something more than just possessions.

Third, and this is most important, I remember another emotion, one I cannot easily name.  Our family came together.  There was Grandma’s iron will.  There was my mom’s constant care for her three children.  And there was my Dad’s determination that his family would have a happy Christmas.  I remember us joining our hearts.  We wouldn’t have said it this way at the time, but though the criminals disrupted our Christmas, they could not steal our joy.  And in fact, we did imagine this.  How desperately difficult must your life be that you are out robbing people on Christmas Eve?  Led by my faithful parents, we did feel compassion for the thieves.

My prayer for the people of HillSong – those who come every week and those who come one time – is that we get knocked to the floor.  I pray God would deliver a roundhouse right that KO’s us.  “Who can endure the day of His coming?”  Malachi asks.  Not us. 

I pray the disrupting God who came in human skin – Jesus, and who comes again – Jesus returning, will come right now in Spirit.  I pray the Spirit will come in force and I pray that we realize that when we pray in this way, it is arresting.  It is scary. 

It is also good news – the best news.  The God who blows us away with His Holiness makes us new with His grace.  The God the messenger heralded pours new wine in and the only way we can hold it is if he re-creates us; makes us new, new wine skins to Hold his sweet new wine. 

In process of knocking us to the floor with His coming, we remember our descent down under the waters of our baptism.  And we remember what happens next.  Dead in sin, we are raised to new life in Jesus Christ.  Marantha!  Come Lord Jesus.

When He comes, we are made new.  Nothing ever looks the same again because we look with new eyes.  We look through Gospel-tinted lenses.  We see the world more clearly – ourselves, those around us, and God.  And so, I pray.  Oh God, come disrupt our lives this Christmas.  O great refiner, great cleanser, O Holy God, come and do your work on each of us.

AMEN

An Alternate Story

 

            Recently in a sermon, I quoted Walter Brueggemann who said that the prophet’s job is to evoke a perception that is an alternative to the perception and consciousness of the dominant culture.  This assumes that the prophet truly speaks for God and the dominant culture is not consciously, intentionally seeking God.

            Both assumptions are true in Chapel Hill, NC, 2012-2013.  Christ-followers in this context are not prophets per se.  The prophet is one visited by God in a unique way that is not repeatable.  But the prophets’ words are repeatable.  They have been written down and in conjunction with the Gospel they help the believer today to do the work we are called to: the work of evangelism. 

            Christ-followers are called by Jesus to tell of the salvation He offers.  In doing this, we invite people to become his disciples.  The idea of an alternate story is a great approach in evangelism.  Rather than convey the message that we think all people are fallen and lost in sin, we come as caring, compassionate listeners who enter lovingly into the pain and messes in people’s lives.  This approach doesn’t minimize the reality that all people are fallen, lost sinners.  They certainly are.  We all are.  But, while sin is reality, it doesn’t have to be our entry point with people.

            Most people already know they’ve messed up in big ways.  They don’t need a Christian or preacher coming as an evangelist rubbing their noses in their sin.  They already know sin stinks.  They already know they need something.  Most of the time, they aren’t sure what.  When we come in love and sit with them in their pain and offer a listening ear, they know we are safe.  This takes time, but it is worth it.

            After small talk, after time is invested, after relationship moves from surface level stuff like weather and sports to deeper emotional topics, then we are ready to talk at a spiritual level.  And even then, we do well to show the patience of listening until it is clear that our friend will want to hear from us.  When we have “permission” to share, that’s when we offer an alternate narrative.

            We explain that Jesus is full of compassion and offers forgiveness and unconditional love.  We lay out a life story for the other that involves the specifics of their life, but lived in the light and love of Jesus.  It is a different story than the one their sins tell.  And they can choose it.  They have the power to continue suffering from the pain they are in or they can choose the alternate story Jesus is writing.

            This clearly is a milder tone than the one of the Old Testament prophets.  But again, we are not called to be Old Testament prophets.  We have a similar task – to help others find an alternate story to the one they are living.  We are to guide people from the selfishness of consumerism and the impatience of an immediate gratification world to the lasting joy and redeeming forgiveness of God’s story.  Prophets shout this message.  Prophet use odd symbolism and sometimes looming darkness to write God’s alternative story.  We know the resurrection-ending to the grand narrative.  Our task is to evoke, but to do it creatively and gently.  We help people discover the story. 

            In this, we are not prophets, but we are aligned with the Biblical prophets.  More importantly, we are aligned with God’s purposes.  We are doing His work in Jesus’ name.

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