"Pointing" (John 1:19-34)

Scripture: A Holy Man, or Just a Voice

19    This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”  21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22 Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said,

               “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,

               ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’”

as the prophet Isaiah said.

There is an old tale from eastern Europe about a group of Jewish people making a pilgrimage to see a holy man. Before they leave, one of the pilgrims asks their local rabbi, “How can we know for sure that this holy man is not a fraud? How can we know that he is truly a righteous man.” The rabbi responded, “You shall know in this way: if he does not tell you what to do. But if he does tell you what to do, then beware.”

I can’t know for certain why the rabbi gives this advice, but I think he is warning his flock about leaders who are power-hungry, who want control over their followers. Wisdom is something to be shared, not something to be enforced upon others. Wisdom is a gift for others, not a means of stroking one’s own ego. “Take what you like and leave the rest,” as they say in many 12-step programs.

By all accounts, John the Baptizer was a holy man. We can see this, perhaps, in his humble disposition. “Who are you?” the religious professionals from Jerusalem ask him. His response is not to claim some greatness or some authority. Rather he freely acknowledges that he has no special credentials. He is neither the messiah, nor Elijah, nor some long-awaited prophet. He is simply a voice in the wilderness, as Isaiah had once prophesied about.

I’m reminded of what we read at the beginning of the gospel of John last week, where we learned that all creation comes into being through the Word, which is God. Which is all to say, all the goodness of life begins with a word. A voice. An invitation. Last week I suggested that the Word that is God is most like a proposal, God on bended knee. In his own way, John the Baptizer is echoing that proposal. He’s a voice echoing the Word. He’s rough around the edges, sure, and he tends to focus on the pitfalls of missing out on God’s proposal—but at the end of the day, he’s there to proclaim that God’s kingdom is coming near and everyone is invited.

Scripture: It’s Like This

24   Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, 27 the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” 28 This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

Do you remember how it felt as a child, spending a day at the river or the ocean? I remember losing track of everything in the water—time, grudges, grievances, worries…everything would recede. The water had a cleansing quality. It could wash away, at least temporarily, the many burdens I carried, the many emotional stains that plagued me. And when I was done, when I got out of the water, the return to life felt a little bit like a fresh start.

Historians speculate about baptism meant for the people who came to be baptized by John. Similar rituals were used for a variety of purposes: from conversion to the Jewish faith to purification before worship at the temple. All that we know about John’s baptism is that it was a baptism “of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”(Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3; cf. Matt 3:6, 8). In other words, it marked the moment when an individual repented (or changed his or her mind) and felt afresh the reality of God’s forgiveness.

Personally, I think John chooses the ritual of baptism because he, like God, is not content with simply being a voice. Just as God is not content remaining a word but becomes flesh and dwells among us, John must find a way to enflesh his message, to ground it in real life experience. Instead of just saying God forgives you and you can begin again, he says, “It’s like this!” And he dunks you in a river, head to toe, submitting you to a rapturous chill that sweeps away time, grievances, grudges, worries, everything.

Scripture: Bearing Witness

29   The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

The teachers and mentors from whom I have learned the most, whose wisdom I seek whenever I am conflicted or in doubt, are people like John the baptizer. They are people who do not claim to have any answers themselves but instead act as signposts or pointers. John the baptizer, who claims to be nothing more than a voice, ends up pointing to Jesus, “Look! Behold! Here is the person who changes everything.” And what’s fascinating to me, is that Jesus will actually do the same thing himself. He doesn’t drink in all the praise and honor, pointing to himself, saying, “It’s all about me.” His primary message is not about himself but about the kingdom of God. His desire is not that everyone wear his colors or carry his flag, but that everyone live the way that he is living, and he makes clear that the way he is living is simply the way that his father (God) lives. Multiple times in the gospel of John, he says, “I can do nothing on my own, nothing apart from God” (John 5:19, 30). In other words, just as John points to Jesus, Jesus points to God.

There is a word for this pointing in the Christian tradition. It is called “witness.”

Witness is not telling others what to do or think. Witness is not about winning people to your side. It is simply sharing your experience. It is simply pointing out what has worked for you.

You may have heard it said that a Christian is no more than one beggar telling another beggar where they found food. That’s what we see in John the baptizer, the first witness to Christ. “It’s like this,” he tells people, dunking them in the water to try to get across that visceral sense of cleansing and newness. “It has nothing to do with me,” he says, “but everything to do with what’s been given to me from God,” and so he points not to himself but to God.

This first Sunday of Christmas, the invitation I hear in today’s scripture is to be more like John. The temptation of religion, I think, is to confuse ourselves with God. To take God’s place rather than make space for God. To become spokespersons for God rather than honest individuals sharing our experience. What John does instead is say, “I’m just a voice. It’s like this, but don’t just take my word for it. Look over here! Behold! Come and see for yourselves.” Instead of taking God’s place, he invites folks into a space where they might encounter God themselves.

A few weeks ago, faced with a difficult experience and decision to make, I called a mentor, an older man in the faith. I shared my dilemma. He quietly asked me a series of questions, inviting me to consider how God was present in the situation and what loving thing God would have me do next. He never told me what to do. He had faith that God would do that. Reflecting on that conversation, it feels very holy to me now. I heard God. Not because my mentor spoke God’s words, but because he pointed to God. He made space for God. He bore witness to God. I hope I can do the same for others.

Prayer

Holy God,
Word made flesh,
Whose life in Jesus
Was itself an honest witness
To your undying love for us—
Inspire us to become witnesses
Who do not take your place
But instead point to you
And make space for others
To have their own encounter with you. 

In Christ, who takes away the sins of the world: Amen.

"Children of God" (John 1:1-14, 18)

Scripture: God on Bended Knee

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

For Matthew and Luke, the Christmas story begins with Joseph and Mary and angels and shepherds and “a decree…from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered” (Luke 2:1). But for the gospel of John, the Christmas story begins a lot earlier, with the sun and the moon and the stars, with the first blades of grass that ever broke through the earth, with the first creatures that ever crept and crawled and swam and flew. For Matthew and Luke, the Christmas story is confined to a time and a place. For the gospel of John, the Christmas story is cosmic. It is timeless rather than time-bound, universal rather than regional.

To put it bluntly, for John, the Christmas story is one and the same as the creation story. John begins his story using the same words that Genesis uses for its creation story: “In the beginning…” (Gen 1:1; John 1:1). But John puts his own twist on creation. While Genesis tells us the “what” of creation (light, sky, plants, animals—these are “what” God created), John takes a more poetic and spiritual perspective and tells us the “how” of creation. And the “how” is simple. Contrary to popular imagination, creation does not begin with divine magic or might. God does not wave a wand or wrestle the elements of creation into submission. Rather God uses words. “In the beginning was the Word…” (John 1:1).  Which is an extremely vulnerable way of doing something. Words alone do not have the force of compulsion. There are no guarantees that a request will meet with an appropriate response, that an invitation will be met with a willing response.

There are only three things (three nouns) that the Bible identifies God with using the equation “God is this” or “God is that.” The Word (John 1:1), Spirit (John 4:24), and love (1 John 4:8). All three seem equally vulnerable, equally powerless. Yet all three reveal something crucial (and counterintuitive) about God. Namely the “how” of God (including the “how” of God’s creation). The “how” of God is love. There is no force in love, no compulsion. What we see in creation may be interpreted as a loving dialogue, a call and response, where God invites the elements of creation into their fullness—“Let there be,” “Let there be”—and the elements of creation respond willingly, rousing themselves to meet the call of love. (E.g., “Let the earth put forth vegetation,” and then moments later “the earth”—its own subject, its own player in the story—“brought forth vegetation.”) So when John says in the beginning was the “Word” (or logos), by “Word” he means something like God’s overture of love. The “Word” is akin to God’s proposal.

The Word—from which all creation emerges—the Word is God getting down on bended knee, a ring in his hand.

Scripture: A Gleam in God’s Eye

2 He [the Word] was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

Sometimes people will refer to a time before they were born and say they were just a “gleam” in their parent’s eye. Well, everything here on earth and in all creation began as just a gleam in God’s eye. John insists that everything in all creation—from birds to bears to dogs to spiders to Mother Teresa to Hitler—everything here has life because of the Word, which is to say, because God loved it and told it so.

And nothing, John says, can take that away. No number of evil deeds, no amount of disease, can change the fact that every person here bears within them the gleam of God’s eye (what some religious traditions have called the “divine spark” within us). Everything in creation echoes with God’s love. And nothing has silenced that echo yet, John says. The darkness has not overtaken the light—the gleam.

Scripture: “Yet the World Did Not Know Him”

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. (Here the gospel of John is referring to another John, namely John the Baptizer, the guy with long hair who lived in the desert and ate locusts and honey and proclaimed that the kingdom of God was coming.) 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. (John’s Christmas story started at the beginning of all creation, where “life” and “light” come into existence through the Word. But here we’re finally approaching a specific expression of the “light,” namely Jesus, whom the gospel of John calls “the true light, which enlightens everyone.” The gospel of John seems to be suggesting that the light of the Word that has shined since creation had nevertheless begun to dim or be obscured, and so Jesus came into the world as “the true light,” which is to say, the original undimmed light, an individual expression of the Word that was there in the beginning giving life and light to all.)

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

The real problem with the world is not that people are evil, but that people have forgotten that they were once a gleam in God’s eye. They have forgotten that they are unconditionally loved and accepted by God. The gospel of John says that when Jesus came into the world, proclaiming God’s love for all people (which, remember, is how creation began, with God’s loving overture to all creation), the people scratched their heads. They were confused. The timeless tragedy of our world, as true thousands of years ago as it is today, is that we are inclined to forget and even deny that we all bear the gleam of God’s eye within us, that we are all indelibly marked with God’s eternal and unconditional love. So when Jesus comes preaching something like that, we wince and shake our heads. (We need only look at how Jesus was received by the religious folks of his day. They predominantly taught that God’s love is reserved only for the righteous and socially respectably, and so they were scandalized when Jesus starts eating with tax collectors and sinners.)

Scripture: Born of God

12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God

Greg Boyle, the Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation program in the world (based out in Los Angeles), tells the story of a “homie” or former gang member, Danny, who was riding a bus home one night. Another guy on the bus was studying his sweatshirt, which read “Homeboy Industries: Jobs Not Jails.” The guy nodded to Danny and asked, “You work there? Is it any good?”

Danny responded simply, “They helped me. I’m not going back to prison.” Then he scribbled the address of Homeboy on a scrap of paper and passed it to the man, saying, “Come see us. We’ll help you.”

The man took the scrap of paper, said thank you, and got off at the next bus stop. “What happened next,” Danny later told Greg Boyle, “never happened before [in all my life]. People were staring at me, nodding and smiling at me. For the first time in my life, I felt admired.”

Greg Boyle tells this story to insist on a counterintuitive truth. People do not change because of shame or judgment or the expectations of others. Rather, people change, he says, when they are cherished.

Or as John puts it in today’s scripture, all who received Jesus and his good news of God’s love, became children of God, born of God (cf. John 1:12-13). John speaks so poetically, so metaphorically, I don’t take his words as part of some equation that outlines the mechanics of salvation, suggesting that first God deems us as some alien matter and only later waves a wand over us and deems us “children of God.” I take these words instead as a broad brush stroke, painting the cosmic arc of humankind. We came into being through God’s love, already children of God. But through fear and shame we can become so estranged, so alienated from our true nature, that we need an example, a reminder, someone to make it clear beyond a shadow of  a doubt that God loves us. We need to hear again the loving overture that God made at creation.

And so…

14 [T]he Word—this is the Word through whom all things came into being— became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.... 18 No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

The Birth of You and Me (and Everyone)

John’s cosmic Christmas story reaches not only reaches back to the beginning of time, it also reaches forward into every future. For Matthew and Luke, the Christmas story is about the birth of Jesus. But for John, the Christmas story is not only about the birth of Jesus but also about the birth of you and me (and Danny and everyone else) as children of God.

Jesus, John says, “is close to the Father’s heart” (1:18). The Greek literally says “bosom.” Jesus is close to God’s bosom. Which is to say, Jesus knows that God is hugging him. Jesus lives in God’s embrace. And that is the good news that he ultimately seeks to share with others. That God loves us too, that we are God’s children too, that God’s embrace is for us too. It is the good news that we do not need to strive after success or status or wealth or whatever else we think will secure our lives because we are already secure in God’s unconditional love and delight.

To conclude, however, I must confess. Talking about God’s love can be an awfully abstract enterprise, a sort of mind game that doesn’t always map onto our bodies and how we feel. I think about Danny on that bus. He may have heard before that God loved him, but it wasn’t until that epiphany where he actually felt (for the first time) other people’s admiration  that he caught a glimpse of what God has felt for him since the beginning of time and will feel beyond the end of time. The whole point of Jesus coming into the world, I think, is that God’s love needs to be incarnated, given flesh, again and again, here, there, everywhere, or else it will just be an idea that falls on deaf ears.

And so everywhere Jesus went, he shared with others God’s loving gaze, God’s warm embrace, the knowledge that they were children of God, and he started with the people who had received this news the least (the tax collectors and the sinners). With that in mind, I’d like to close with a poem by an ancient Persian poet, Hafiz, who invites us to acknowledge God’s love as our identity and who invites us to share God’s loving gaze with others we meet.

Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise
someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a
full moon in each eye that is
always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in
this world is
dying to
hear?

Prayer

Creator God,
Whose Word is love
…
As we prepare to receive
The baby Jesus in our embrace
In just a few days’ time,
Prepare our hearts also
To learn from him
Who lives in your embrace,
That we might know ourselves
Children of God
And that we might share this good news
With all the world. In Christ, the eternal Word: Amen.

"As with Joy at the Harvest" (Isaiah 9:1-7)

Scripture:  “The One Who Endures…”

¹ But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

Isaiah delivers this prophecy into the midst of a chaotic and troubled world. Little Judah, to whom he speaks, is just a pawn on the chessboard of nations. The king of Judah has been worried sick about his northern neighbors, Aram and Samaria, who have lately been conspiring against him. If they joined forces, surely Judah could not withstand the onslaught. But as Isaiah reveals in the previous chapter (Isaiah 8), Aram and Samaria are but small waves in the sea compared to the tsunami approaching from the east. The swelling empire of Assyria will soon engulf the entire region. The prophet Isaiah urges Judah and its king not to get sucked into this tournament of nations, not to try somehow to weasel or maneuver their way out of the coming storm, but instead to trust in God and live faithfully in God’s way. “Do not call conspiracy all that this people call conspiracy, and do not fear what it fears, or be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy” (Isa 8:13).

Isaiah suggests that the fate of his audience, the fate of Judah, will depend on where they put their trust. He makes his point vividly with a metaphor. God is a rock, he says. Either a rock of refuge, a sanctuary against the raging tide that will soon engulf the region. Or a stumbling rock, a rock over which one trips and falls before being consumed by the storm (Isa 8:14).

It is advice as wise and otherworldly for us today as it was for Judah nearly three millennia ago. Amid chaos and trouble, everyone’s trying to figure it out. Conspiracies abound and multiply. People plot against one another and vie for power. Everyone is looking for the solution, the one thing that will make everything alright, and Isaiah says it’s like walking straight into the midst of the raging storm. Don’t get sucked into the storm, he says. You can’t defeat the storm. But you can take refuge. Trusting in God and living in God’s way (which is all that’s really in our control anyway) shields us from the powerful currents of the storm and helps us to endure.

Our world thinks of salvation as victory, as defeating an enemy. But the Bible often pictures salvation as endurance. When Jesus warns of troubled times, he concludes by saying, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13). And when Paul proclaims the salvation of God’s love, he does not speak of victory or conquest. Rather he promises, “[Love] endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor 13:7-8). In a similar way, Isaiah assures his audience at the start of today’s scripture that the coming storm—and it will come; Assyria will sweep over the region soon in a terrifying way—is no match for the rock of God. “There will be no gloom for those who were in anguish,” he promises, indicating that for those who have taken refuge in the storm there will be relief. The storm will end. God’s love will not.

Scripture:  Unpredictable Harvests

² The people who walked in darkness

    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.
³ You have multiplied exultation;
    you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
    as with joy at the harvest,
    as people exult when dividing plunder.

This past fall, my brother and I signed up for a vegetable CSA arrangement (“community-supported agriculture”). There is a small Baptist seminary out on a farm in Dinwiddie County. Students there sign up not only to study the Bible but also to work the fields and experience firsthand the most common metaphor Jesus uses to describe the kingdom of God, namely sowing and harvesting.

Anyway, my brother and I quickly discovered that harvests are unpredictable. Each week we’d receive a newsletter from the seminary describing that week’s yield. One week there was a surprising abundance of Swiss chard and beets. Another week there was an apology for the poor yield of bok choi. One week there was a surplus of kohlrabi, which I’d never even heard of before—a weird, sort of alien-looking cousin of cabbage. Needless to say, this experience provided me with an exercise in culinary gymnastics, as each week I twisted and contorted recipes to accommodate the variations of that week’s harvest.

The unpredictability of the harvest brought to mind Jesus’ parable in which he says the kingdom of God is “as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how” (Mark 4:26-27). Which is to say, the kingdom of God is something for which we work and something over which we do not have control. “The speed would sprout and grow, he does not know how” is also to say that the kingdom of God is a mystery of grace, a gift that we cannot quite see coming, a provision of what we need, which may well be different from what we want.

The standout image from today’s scripture is light. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…” (Isa 9:2). Matthew quotes this scripture at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when Jesus begins to proclaim the good news, “Repent [or ‘change your mind’], for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt 4:16-17). The implication is clear. Jesus is the light shining on the people who have walked in darkness, and the kingdom of God is the new day dawning upon them. But the next image that Isaiah uses after light is harvest. “They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest” (Isa 9:3). Which suggests that this joy is not the joy of self-satisfaction or the joy of being in control. As we have seen in Jesus’ parable—“the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how”—the joy of the harvest is the joy of receiving a gift we cannot see coming. It is the joy of discovering what we need, which may well be different from what we want.

Speaking of a gift that we cannot see coming…many biblical scholars think that verses 2-7 of today’s scripture may have actually been written originally for the coronation ceremony of King Hezekiah, a king who helped Judah to steady the ship. In other words, Isaiah may be talking about a reality that he can anticipate. But many early Christ-followers, such as Matthew, reread this passage and detected within Isaiah’s words little clues that pointed beyond King Hezekiah to a harvest that Isaiah could not have even dreamed or imagined….

Scripture:  A Goodness We Couldn’t Have Seen Coming

⁴ For the yoke of their burden
    and the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor,
    you have broken as on the day of Midian.
⁵ For all the boots of the tramping warriors
    and all the garments rolled in blood
    shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
⁶ For a child has been born for us,
    a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders,
    and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ Great will be his authority,
    and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
    He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

In these verses, Isaiah envisions several things: liberation from occupying or threatening forces, the burning up of battle boots and uniforms of war, and the peaceful reign of a king who establishes justice and harmony in the land. And this vision maps reasonably well onto the reign of King Hezekiah, for whom these words may well have been written, and whom 2 Kings praises, saying, “He trusted in the Lord the God of Israel… [T]here was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him, or among those who were before him” (1 Kgs 18:5). At one point during his reign, the king of Assyria brings a huge invading force to the walls of Judah, taunting the people and threatening them with destruction. King Hezekiah seeks the counsel of the prophet Isaiah and prays to God, and then miraculously one night 185,000 Assyrian soldiers drop dead in their sleep, struck down by the angel of the Lord. Among Judah’s host of less-than-stellar kings, Hezekiah compares favorably as a faithful ruler whose reign features more peace than war.

Why then did Matthew and other Christ-followers read Isaiah’s words and apply them to Jesus instead of the historical king for whom they were most likely written? Well, I can’t help but notice that Matthew quotes Isaiah’s prophecy (today’s scripture) just before Jesus’ sermon on the mount, and specifically before the beatitudes where Jesus delivers what you might call a manifesto for God’s kingdom, a vision of where God’s blessing is. And it’s not where you’d expect. God’s blessing is not in power but in poverty of spirit. It’s not in success but in mourning and meekness. It’s not in satisfaction but in hunger and thirst for righteousness. It’s not in the security of a surplus but in living simply and mercifully. It’s not in taking power but making peace.

These words of Jesus are like dynamite. They explode our expectations…and yet we stand transfixed by them, unable to shake the feeling that perhaps they are truer than anything we’d previously thought. They point to the kind of goodness you couldn’t possibly have seen coming. This is not the goodness that we wanted but the goodness we didn’t even know we needed. Which is perhaps to say, this surprising kingdom of Jesus has us all rejoicing as with joy at the harvest. Is it a coincidence that when Jesus gets to the end of this counterintuitive, upside-down manifesto of God’s kingdom, he says, “Rejoice, and be glad…” (Matt 5:12)?

While much of the world around us gets sucked into the storm of rival parties and competing nations, into the fear and dread and conspiracies and plans of people looking for the one thing that will make everything alright, Isaiah invites us instead to put our trust in God and live in God’s way (which is all that’s really in our control anyway). We cannot foresee the future. Even Isaiah, I think, couldn’t have imagined a savior like Jesus, who was born as humbly as he was, who died a death as shameful as he did. But Isaiah foresaw joy. Because he knew that God always provides, and that like a harvest, God’s provision often confounds our expectations, providing not what we want…but what we didn’t even know we needed.

Prayer

Gracious God,
Our refuge in the storm,
Whose love endures and outlasts
All that would do us harm—
May our trust in you
And our willingness to repent and change our mind
Prepare us to recognize your strange grace
In a harvest that confounds our expectations,
And to rejoice and be glad.
In Christ, full of surprising blessings: Amen.

The Peace of the Spirit (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

Scripture:  The Peace of a Graveyard

1 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.

Today’s scripture opens amid the eerie silence of what is essentially a graveyard. “Very dry” bones mean the battle has long since finished, the scavenging birds and hyenas have long since consumed their carrion, and the bones that remain have sat for days in the sun, drying out, most likely becoming bleached in the process.

The Romans had a saying: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” What a tragic contradiction. The only way to achieve peace…is through violence? Yet this logic has prevailed in our world for thousands of years. We see it in the creation stories of Babylon and Rome and other ancient societies, where the world begins with a bloody conflict. We see it in the founding stories of many nations, which begin with a bloody war of independence. “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

In today’s scripture, we see this tragic peace. For the victors of battle, there is the peace of being in control once more, the peace of being able to call the shots. But for the conquered, there is also peace. It is the peace of a graveyard. The eerie calm that we see in that valley of dry bones. The Israelites to whom these bones belonged had fallen to the Babylonians. At one time, those Israelites had been filled with hope and fear, anxiety and adrenaline. But now their bones are silent, still, at rest. At peace.

Scripture: A Disturbance of the “Peace”

3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath—in the Hebrew, this word can also mean “spirit”— to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath—or spirit—in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded, and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.

Just to be clear about what’s happening here…God is a “disturber of the peace.” God is disturbing “the peace of the graveyard.” What was previously silent and still is now filled with a noisy rattling as the bones of the deceased, the bones that had long lain at rest, become animated once more.

8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath—or spirit—in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath—or spirit—came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

God’s disturbance of the peace culminates with God’s breath. God’s spirit. Which points to a curious correspondence.

When Jesus sits with his closest followers around a table on the night before his crucifixion, he reassures them that when he is gone, they will not be alone. God will send them the Holy Spirit. And with this promise of God’s Spirit, Jesus then says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives” (John 14:27). Which is to say: God’s peace is different from the world’s peace. God’s peace disturbs the world’s peace, exposes it for what it really is—and what it really is, is not life but death.

The world’s peace is secured (or inflicted) through fighting. Let me put it plainly: the world’s peace is control. (When the Romans said, “If you want peace, get ready for war,” what they really meant was, “If you want control, get ready for war.”) For the people in control, this peace means security and getting their way. It is the peace of pleasant, preferable conditions. For the victims, this peace means resignation—or death. For the victims, this is the peace of giving up, of resigning yourself bitterly to your unfavorable lot.

For both the people in control and also the victims, the world’s peace means death. Because control kills the things that make for life. Choice. Possibility. Unexpected variables. Love.

When my nephew gets too good at a game on his tablet, when he wins all the time, he becomes bored with it. His eyes grow dull, his smile slackens, his face begins to look a little like a zombie. He is in complete control. And he is bored, almost lifeless. Whatever spirit usually fills him with enthusiasm and exuberance—that spirit is stifled. Similarly, when the game is impossible, when it has conquered him, when he loses all the time, he becomes bored with it. His face deadens into its zombie-like appearance as his spirit is again stifled.

Scripture: The Peace We Desire

11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”

Here we see the difference of God’s peace.

The world’s peace (control) invariably drains us of spirit. But God’s peace is the opposite. We know God’s peace when we are filled with God’s spirit.

The world’s peace (control) is predicated upon an absence. The absence of conflict or difficulty. But God’s peace is about a presence. The presence of God with us. And as we see in Jesus, God’s spirit  does not preclude conflict or difficulty. Rather it enables us to respond to those situations not in the way of the world (fighting for control or resigning helplessly) but in the way of God (loving our enemy, blessing those who curse us, praying for those who persecute us).

This Advent, it may be worth pondering what kind of peace we desire. Is it a Hallmark, everyone’s-happy kind of peace? A Thomas Kinkade, still-life kind of peace? (Still-life…) Is it an absence-of-conflict kind of peace? If it is, does that mean we need to prepare for war. (“If you want peace…”)

Or maybe, as we ponder what the peace of our world really means, we might come to desire God’s peace instead. A noisy, rattling, coming-to-life kind of peace. A peace that endures conflict with love and longs for God’s spirit to thrive in every heart.

The writer Frederick Buechner, as he reflects on war, points out that the same dynamics operate regularly in our personal lives. We all wage wars, he says, “to gain control, to get the upper hand, to have the last word, to get our way, fought not with weapons or even [words], but with silences and tones of voice and all the ways we know of fighting with each other.”[1] He remembers in particular one summer when his sixteen-year-old daughter had the dream of working with manatees at a wildlife organization in Florida. The idea unnerved Buechner as a father, but he knew better than simply to say “no.” Instead, he says, he found a hundred other ways to suggest that maybe this was not a good idea. What about the dangers of travel for a single young woman? What about living so far away from the help of her family? And so on… Then one day, as he was sitting in the living room, he overheard his daughter on the phone in the kitchen. She had called the manatee people and was telling them that she had decided not to work there that summer. Then she trudged sadly into the living room and sat down next to her father and lay her head on his shoulder.

Buechner indicates that his heart was broken. He had won the war. But he saw also that he had broken his daughter’s spirit. What a cheap, hollow peace it was. In the end, he was not happy. Neither was his daughter.

The Hebrew word for peace, “shalom,” connotes wholeness, fullness, everything in proper relationship, everything in harmony. And so there is a sense in which none of us will have peace until all of us have peace, for we are all connected. The Advent season with all its social encounters and frictions becomes for us a perfect place to practice being a peacemaker, which is what our heavenly father and mother is (for Jesus says peacemakers are to be called children of God). And what we read in today’s prophecy from Ezekiel (and in Jesus’ words about God’s peace) suggests that that being a peacemaker is not about winning wars and being in control but rather about surrendering and receiving God’s inspiration (God’s spirit) to live otherwise.

Prayer

Faithful God,
Whose way of peace
Is our rightful heritage
As your children
…
Sometimes we cling so tightly
To expectations and desires
That we might rob ourselves and others
Of your spirit of love—and your peace.
Loosen our grip on life,
That we might receive
The peace of your Spirit;
In Christ, for whose coming we pray always: Amen.

---

[1] Frederick Buechner, The Remarkable Ordinary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 109-110. 

Whatever the Result (Daniel 3:1, 4-7, 8-27)

Scripture: “A Golden Statue”

1   King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue whose height was sixty cubits and whose width was six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. … [And a] herald proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, 5 that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. 6 Whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.”

Today’s story—of King Nebuchadnezzar and the Hebrews Shadrah, Meshach, and Abednego—is a familiar story, but it is also a distant one. I imagine the last week or two for you has involved setting up a Christmas tree or putting up seasonal decorations to make your home feel a bit warmer and more welcoming. I imagine in the weeks to come you’ll be gathering with friends and loved ones for dinners and parties. I imagine that if you haven’t already secured gifts for your loved ones, you’ll be frantically searching Amazon or the aisles of a local store. All of which is to say, we personally are far, far away from the darkness and danger that threaten Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego face while living in the land of their captors. 

Or are we? As Nebuchadnezzar constructs his golden statue, I invite you to consider some of the more prominent monuments and landmarks in our own time and place. Consider the iconic Hollywood sign, that to this day symbolizes fame and stardom and the dream of being seen and admired. Or consider Wall Street, the hallowed temple of the dollar. Or consider the Washington Monument, an icon fashioned in the style of an Egyptian obelisk, a timeless marker of strength and success. 

Now, it’s true—there are no edicts that compel us to literally bow down before these monuments on the pain of death. But think about a person who lives without any regard for fame, money, or might, and you’ll be thinking about a small fry, a nobody, a zero. You’ll be thinking about someone who’s as good as dead to much of the world around them.

So as we continue with this familiar story, perhaps consider that there are “golden statues” around us today—idols of worship—that demand our attention, even as we prepare for a most holy occasion.

Scripture: From Yahweh to Nebo

8   Accordingly, at this time certain Chaldeans came forward and denounced the Jews. 9 They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever! 10 You, O king, have made a decree, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, shall fall down and worship the golden statue, 11 and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire. 12 There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These pay no heed to you, O King. They do not serve your gods and they do not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”

Before we go any further, it may help to know that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are not the original names of these three Hebrew men. They are Babylonian names that have been given to them in an attempt to erase their cultural identity, including their faith. For example, Abednego’s original name is Azariah, which means “the Lord [Yahweh] is my help.” But an official of Nebuchadnezzar gives him a new name, Abednego, which means “the servant of Nebo,” a Babylonian God. This new name erases Azariah’s link with Yahweh, the Lord, and instead asserts that he is the servant of a Babylonian god.

So even before Nebuchadnezzar commands the three men to bow down to his statue, they have already endured pressure to change, to renounce their God and his way. But that pressure is about to increase dramatically now that they have openly defied the king.

Scripture: “We Are Seeds”

13   Then Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought in; so they brought those men before the king. 14 Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods and you do not worship the golden statue that I have set up? 15 Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble to fall down and worship the statue that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?”

16   Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. 17 If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us.  18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”

On the first Sunday of Advent, we light the Hope candle. Hope is a familiar word; we use it all the time. But typically when we say “hope” we actually mean “expect” or “desire.” In other words, when we say “hope,” we have a particular result in mind, a specific outcome that we expect or desire. This popular concept of hope fits well with the popular concept of Christmas. Children may “hope” for certain gifts. Adults may “hope” for their family or siblings to keep the peace at Christmas dinner. Some of us may “hope” for a white Christmas. 

In recovery circles, you’ll sometimes hear that “expectations are just resentments waiting to happen.” That applies equally to this popular concept of “hope,” such as in the saying, “It’s the hope that kills you.” In other words, it’s the expectation for one thing that leaves you so devastated when that one thing does not happen.

So what is “hope” if not just expectation or desire? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego give us a beautiful example, showcasing hope in all its risk and glory. I don’t know if you caught it, but when Nebuchadnezzar challenges them, saying, “Who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do not respond, “Our God will deliver us.” In fact, they have no assurances for their own personal safety. Their decision is not based on the expectation or desire for a particular result. “If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us…let him deliver us,” they say. Let’s sit for just a minute with that first word “if.” There’s a lot hanging on that “if.” Life and death, to be precise. And that “if” also reveals something about these three men’s faith. Namely, their faith is not in a God of power. If their faith were in a God of power, then surely there would be no “if.” God would have the power to save them, no question. But apparently power is not the priority of their God, and not the priority of their faith.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego appear to have put their faith in something different. I have to believe that they’ve put their faith in the God who is Love. And love, we learn, does not control or conquer or win. Love actually suffers and dies. We see this most clearly in Jesus Christ. But we also see in Jesus Christ that even as love dies, it is raised anew. It lives. It endures. As Paul sings, “[Love] endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor 13:7-8)

For Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, hope is not the expectation that things will turn out one way or another. That is a feeble hope, a hope “for” something, a hope sure to fail, sure to breed despair and resentment. Their hope is heartier. It is a whatever-the-results hope. Their hope is not “for” an outcome but “in” a Love that never ends.

Throughout history, there is a folk saying that appears in various contexts of resistance, which goes something like this. “They crushed us into the ground. But what they didn’t know is that we are seeds.” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not hope for survival as much as they hoped in God’s love, which endures forever, which never ends. Either way—live or die—they would be seeds.

Scripture: The Real Miracle

In one sense, this hope gives Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego victory, regardless of what happens next. Nebuchadnezzar sees that his empire-building project is destined for failure as long as there are people like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And so…

19  …Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that his face was distorted. He ordered the furnace heated up seven times more than was customary, 20 and ordered some of the strongest guards in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire. 21 So the men were bound, still wearing their tunics, their trousers, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the furnace of blazing fire. 22 Because the king’s command was urgent and the furnace was so overheated, the raging flames killed the men who lifted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 23 But the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound, into the furnace of blazing fire.

24   Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up quickly. He said to his counselors, “Was it not three men that we threw bound into the fire?” They answered the king, “True, O king.” 25 He replied, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the fourth has the appearance of a god.” 26 Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and said, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!” So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. 27 And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men; the hair of their heads was not singed, their tunics were not harmed, and not even the smell of fire came from them. 

Today’s scripture reads a little bit like a folktale. Just as the story of Jonah contains some exaggerations and artistic license for the sake of making its point, so too today’s story. That’s not to say that today’s story did not really happen, but rather to say that the point of the story is deeper than the events themselves. 

When Nebuchadnezzar sees that “the fire had not had any power over the bodies” of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, he does not simply see a miracle of physics, the inexplicable phenomenon of flammable substances not being engulfed in flame. The real miracle he sees is hope. The real miracle he sees does not happen in the flames but moments before the flame, when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego declare that whatever happens, they will only serve the God who is Love. That is the true moment when “the fire [does not have] any power” over their bodies. That is the moment when we see what their real hope is. It’s not for personal survival, but in God’s love.

Hope in a Season of Expectation

None of us face a blazing furnace this Advent. Or the immediate compulsion to bow down to some literal statue. But our world is not so far removed from this story. We live in a land of idols, such as Hollywood, Wall Street, the Capitol, each one demanding that we bow down, each one promising happiness in some hoped-for result: fame, money, power. 

When I lived in England, I attended for some time a little Anglican church that had a robust student ministry for the two universities nearby. Each Christmas, I was astounded as families in the church filled the fellowship hall and prepared a Christmas dinner for all the international students who could not go home and for anyone else who did not have family in the area. 

Looking back at that event, I see hope triumphant over the idols of our world. I see folks who chose not to bow down to the pressures and enticements of the world around them. Instead they trusted in God’s love and live accordingly, showing God’s hospitality and generosity to the stranger and the lonely. I don’t share this story to suggest we all need to do what that little church did. I share it, rather, as an invitation to ask this question: what does it look like to hope in a season that is filled with expectation?  

Advent hope is not about getting a particular result. It is about trusting and living in God’s love, whatever the result. The danger of expectation is that it narrows our vision, so that we might actually miss God when God arrives. By making room in their hearts for the stranger and the lonely, the church hosts actually made room in their hearts for Christ. Their hope in God’s love opened their hearts to receive Christ.

Prayer

O God who is our hope,
Whose love endures all things
And never ends—
Inspire us by the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
To relinquish the desire for results
And trust instead in your love
Which is redeeming all things
…
May we all fall to the ground
As seeds of your love.
In Christ, whom we hope to welcome: Amen.

"Seek Their Peace" (Jer 29:1, 4-14)

Scripture: A Prophetic Showdown between Expectation and Acceptance

1 These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

After Babylon had conquered Judah, looted and destroyed the Temple, and taken its population captive, carrying them into exile in Babylon, some Israelites still held out hope that their expulsion would be short-lived.

Right before today’s scripture, there is something of a prophetic showdown between Jeremiah and another prophet named Hananiah (cf. Jer 27-28). Jeremiah had fashioned an ox yoke and put it on himself, prophesying that the people of Judah would now live in bondage under Nebuchadnezzar for a long season. His message was not divine retribution but simply a call to acceptance. His point was not that God had abandoned the people but that exile was a reality now that would not quickly go away. Yes, the exile happened because Judah had previously abandoned the Lord, but this was not some divine tit for tat—"you leave me, I’ll leave you.” Exile was just the natural consequence of Judah’s waywardness and social dissolution. Their society had crumbled, and now they would live in captivity in Babylon for a long season (70 years, to be exact).

But against Jeremiah there rose a rival prophet named Hananiah. I imagine Hananiah was a darling of the people because he gave voice to the popular hope that the people’s Babylonian exile would be brief. In a dramatic confrontation with Jeremiah, he breaks the yoke that Jeremiah had fashioned for himself, and he declares that God will soon break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar and that within two years the people will return to their homeland. I imagine the crowd cheers as they see Jeremiah’s yoke broken, that they go wild as they see Hananiah triumphantly proclaim an imminent restoration to their homeland. Against Jeremiah’s cry to accept this new reality, they choose to cling to Hananiah’s expectations of triumph. They choose expectation over acceptance.

But around half a year later, Hananiah dies. Immediately after his death, Jeremiah writes the words that we read today.

Scripture: “Their Peace Is Your Peace”

4 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.

To summarize these instructions in a few words: Make yourselves at home. Even though the language is different and you’re a second-class citizen and people look at you funny…live as though this is your home.

Now, at this point in Jeremiah’s instructions, the audience may have in their mind the creation of an Israelite enclave, a sort of Israelite island amid the chaotic sea of Babylon. They may be thinking, “Let’s circle the wagons as best we can and make do among ourselves. We’ll have each other’s back.” But Jeremiah continues….

7 But seek the welfare of the city—literally the “shalom” of the city, which can also be translated “peace of the city”—where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare—in its peace you will find your peace. 8 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you (like Hananiah from before) deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the LORD.

If thus far Jeremiah’s audience had been planning to live in an isolationist manner, an Israelite-first manner, only doing business with fellow Israelites, avoiding the Babylonians at all cost—then Jeremiah’s words here present quite a challenge. In an invitation that seems awfully prescient of Jesus’ own invitation to love our enemies, Jeremiah effectively says, “Seek the peace of the enemy among whom you live, and pray for them. Their peace is your peace” (29:7).

Welcoming Others “Home” into God’s Kingdom

Recent events in our own world have raised yet again the question of the Jewish people’s place in our world. Some people look upon Jewish folks with suspicion if not outright fear or even hate. It is an age-old discrimination that the Jewish people have faced for thousands of years. And the reason for this discrimination is unique. It is not because the Jewish people plan revolution or actively threaten the standing governments in the nations they reside. It is simply because their loyalty to a nation or kingdom cannot be taken for granted—because their first loyalty is to God. As a Christ-follower, I’m envious of this trait. Christians all over the world have readily swallowed the kool-aid of their own nations, have happily identified themselves as German Christians  or Russian Christians or American Christians, as though those two words and sets of loyalties bear no contradiction.

But what we see here in Jeremiah is that the difference, the holiness, the set-apartness of God’s people is not ultimately the threat that the world perceives it to be. God’s people do not so much stand against the kingdoms of the world but for the people in those kingdoms. “Their peace is your peace,” Jeremiah declares, meaning that in the end there is no “us” and “them.” In God’s eye, there is only “us.”

Wherever God’s people live, they are called to make their home. To be clear, Jeremiah is not calling for the Israelites to acculturate, to become Babylonian themselves, to make Babylon great. Babylon, as we will learn momentarily, is still destined for its own downfall, as all the kingdoms of this world are (including the kingdom of the nation in which we live). Jeremiah is not calling for the Israelites to become Babylonians but rather for them to welcome the people in Babylon “home” into God’s kingdom. Indeed the prophets’ vision is ultimately for a dissolution of nations into God’s one kingdom, as we hear in proclamations such as Isaiah’s: “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord…that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’” (Isa 2:2-3).

Scripture: “Like Lambs amid Wolves”

10   For thus says the LORD: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me, says the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

You are likely familiar with these verses of hope. “Surely I know the plans…” (Jer 29:11). One of my seminary professors delighted in reminding us students that we should be careful of reciting these words too glibly from the pulpit, with too much self-assurance, that we should not let them be adopted into an easy spirituality of “Because I’m a Christian, everything’s going to be okay.” Because, as he pointed out, the context for these words of hope is actually an unimaginably difficult scenario. The promise of restoration is delivered primarily to a generation who will never see it (“only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed…”). Even so, that doesn’t mean these words aren’t hopeful. It’s just their hope isn’t borne of selfish expectation but of faithful acceptance.

Acceptance of what? That God’s people are always on the move. That home is not a place but a way of life—whether they’re living in Babylon or returning to their “homeland.” In one sense, there is a certain incongruity or oddity in the fact that God calls the Israelites to make their homes in Babylon and grow their families there, only to yank them out seventy years later. It’s like planting something and then only when its roots begin to spread, pulling it up to plant it somewhere else. But this incongruity or oddity makes sense when we begin to see God’s kingdom not as a place but a way of life that is meant to be lived and modeled and shared wherever God’s people live.

When Jesus sends out the seventy-two to proclaim the good news, he says, “Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals” (Luke 10:3-4). In other words, travel light; you’ll be on the move. And live “like lambs” amid the “wolves” of this world, until—as the prophet Isaiah foretold—the wolves are so changed by your way that they decide to live like you, peacefully lying down by your side (cf. 11:6).

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that the church “is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state,” hitting upon a distinction as old as the one we see in Jeremiah. God’s people do not bear loyalty to one land or another, but to God and to living in God’s way wherever they are.

Today is Christ the King Sunday. And perhaps it is fitting that we find ourselves with the people of God in a foreign land. In the land of their enemy. Because Christ is not crowned king by conquest, by planting a flag in the soil, by playing a triumphant anthem.

A part of me finds it curious that we even have Christ the King Sunday, considering there is a passage in scripture where the people try to make Jesus king and he runs away, refusing the honor (cf. John 6). Jesus does not want to be king, at least not the kind of king our world wants. Jesus doesn’t want packed auditoriums with people praising his name once a week. He doesn’t want soundbites on the television, with people talking a big talk in his name. They already have their reward, he says. He wants not wolves but lambs, people who humbly live in his way all the time, especially the little moments, the moments when no one is looking. Like when people cook food for someone who is grieving, or build a ramp for someone who is injured, or write a card to someone who needs encouragement. Like when people make a phone call or visit to someone who is lonely in the hospital or confined to their home, or make a craft filled with joy and inspiration, or tell stories of good news (whether from scripture or our own lives), or sing beautiful songs that break our hearts open.

Jesus doesn’t want a crown, he wants God’s kingdom come on earth.

So today, on Christ the king Sunday, maybe we can talk about Christ’s coronation not in terms of a high ceremony but in terms of how we live. Christ is “crowned king” when we live like he did. When we love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us. When we turn the other cheek, embrace the excluded, and show mercy to all. When we live simply, serve others, and live in gratitude. Which is all to say—going back to Jeremiah’s vision—when we seek the peace of the place where we are; when we live like “lambs amid wolves,” after the example of our lord, whom John of Patmos calls “the lamb that was slain [now] standing [in the midst of the throne].”

Prayer 

Loving Christ,
Who is our lord,
We marvel still
At your way of mercy
…
Grant us courage
To live as peaceful ambassadors of your kingdom
Amid the kingdoms of the world,
That we might share with others
The joy of being at home with you.
Amen.

"Like Water" (Amos 1:1-2; 5:14-15, 21-24)

Scripture: “The Lord Roars”

1   The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa—a town in the southern kingdom, called Judah—which he saw concerning Israel—that is, the northern kingdom, which split off from Judah when King Solomon died—in the days of King Uzziah of Judah and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

The prophetic book of Amos opens with a subtle reminder that the people of Israel are already torn asunder, divided into two kingdoms. Amos hails from the southern kingdom of Judah, but he has wandered north to deliver a prophecy to the renegade northern kingdom (known as Samaria or Israel). You might recall that earlier David had united the tribes of Israel and established the capital at Jerusalem. But it took only two generations for everything to fall apart. After his son Solomon died, the northern tribes revolted, complaining about the “heavy yoke” placed on them by King Solomon in his reign (cf. 1 Kings 12). If you’ll recall, Solomon’s reign was characterized by extravagance. He built a world-renowned temple for God as well as a palace for himself that was four times the size of that temple. To accomplish these feats, he employed forced labor and exacted heavy taxes. All of this to say, by the time Amos makes his prophecy, there are already many fractures among the people, originating in the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the helpless.

While the gap initially fractures the people into a north-south division, we see in Amos that the fractures multiply and run deep in both northern and southern kingdoms—although today the focus is on the north.

2             And he (Amos) said:

               The LORD roars from Zion,

                              and utters his voice from Jerusalem;

               the pastures of the shepherds wither,

                              and the top of Carmel dries up.

Amos begins his prophecy in an ominous way: “The Lord roars”… (Amos 1:2).  Just as in English, the word for “roar” (za’ag) evokes the thunderous growl of a predator, specifically lion. Amos follows up on this metaphor several times. In chapter 3, he asks a rhetorical question, “Does a lion roar in the forest, when it has no prey?” (Amos 3:4). In other words, God’s roar is no empty threat. This bark is followed by a substantial bite. Just verses later, he asks, “The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:8).

Why is God roaring like a lion? In a word, the haves are afflicting the have-nots. Some of this is outright corruption, like cheating the people who have no support, and some of this is just plain greed, accumulating more and more at the expense of those who have less and less. “They…trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth,” Amos explains, “and push the afflicted out of the way” (Amos 2:7).

The culmination of Amos’ lion metaphor paints a gruesome end for the prosperous people of Israel. “Thus says the Lord,” Amos declares, “As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who live in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and part of a bed” (Amos 3:12). In one grisly analogy, Amos lays into the people’s greed and their exploitation of the poor, offering them a miserable consolation. If there is any rescue, it will be as vain as a shepherd rescuing a lamb’s leg from the lion’s mouth. The only remainder of their possessions will be the corner of a couch or the leg of a bed. The roaring lion will not miss his target.

Scripture: “Hate Evil and Love Good…”

And yet…Amos does not prophesy doom indiscriminately. He holds out hope that those who follow in God’s way will receive God’s grace even amid the unavoidable devastation that is to come.

14           Seek good and not evil,

                              that you may live;

               and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you,

                              just as you have said.

15           Hate evil and love good,

                              and establish justice in the gate;

               it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts,

                              will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Last week, I was talking with Donna Lewis about our scripture, and she shared that one of these verses was among the first that she learned as a girl at church: “Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate” (Amos 5:15). Who among us wouldn’t say, “Amen!” to that? Who among most people in our nation, in our world, even non-religious people, wouldn’t say, “Amen!” to that? “Hate evil and love good”—that’s about as basic a moral code as you can get. “Establish justice”—who doesn’t want justice?

The only problem is this: What’s evil? What’s good? What does justice look like? How many people do you know who would say, “Yeah, I prefer evil. That’s my team.”^[1] The truth is, we all think “good” is whatever we are or aspire to. Everyone thinks they are, generally speaking, good and loving, while their opponents are evil and hateful. The most obvious division along these lines in our nation is Democrats and Republicans. Christians in both camps presume that the policies they espouse are an attempt at “hat[ing] evil and lov[ing] good and establish[ing] justice in the gate” (Amos 5:15).

I wonder, though, if both camps don’t presume a little too much. Jesus never envisioned the kingdom of God established by the sword of Caesar. He did not envision the kingdom of God being established by a kingdom of this world, which always relies on the force of its law, whether that force is backed by swords or guns. Rather, he talks about the kingdom of God as a seed that grows through the provision of incalculable grace; as a gift that is received with childlike trust; as a treasure that is perceived as already being in our midst. In other words, the goodness of God—the kingdom of God—is not achieved by force but only ever received with wonder. The kingdom of God is not about policies that require swords or guns to back them up; the kingdom of God does not come about by the weapons of Satan, the Thief and Destroyer. The kingdom of God does not come about by our control but by God’s care.

All of this to say, when we hear Amos’ call to “hate evil and love good,” it may be helpful to hear not a stump speech but rather an invitation to live differently than the groups that make stump speeches, the groups that play according to the rules of the world, resorting to the weapons of Satan. It may be helpful to hear an invitation to live in the kingdom of Christ, whose justice looks very different from the judgments of our world.

Scripture: Living Water

21           I hate, I despise your festivals,

                              and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

22          Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

                              I will not accept them;

               and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals

                              I will not look upon.

23           Take away from me the noise of your songs;

                              I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

24          But let justice roll down like waters,

                              and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

When my brother started seminary down in Waco, Texas, he served as a student minister at a local church. One of the deacons offered to give him a tour of the town to get him more acquainted with the community. He drove him through some of the lower-income neighborhoods, pointing out where some of the students lived side-by-side with others who had never had much to begin with. Then they moved to the other part of town. As the deacon drove slowly down a road lined with stately houses and perfectly manicured gardens, he remarked in his brusque, Texan manner: “This here’s the richest street in town.” After a pause, he added: “And also the saddest.”  Nearly every  house on the street had an unhappy story: domestic violence, alcoholism, drugs, infidelity, and suicide. No doubt many of these residents attended their local church. That’s just what you do in Waco, Texas, especially when you’re a prominent member of society. But apparently no amount of piety could reverse the destructive patterns of these lives.

This final portion of today’s scripture contains Amos’ most famous line: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (Amos 5:24). Because so much of Amos is a thunderous critique of the wealthy elite in Israel who care more about their income than they do about their neighbor, I have in the past interpreted this image of justice-carrying waters to be something equally thunderous, like a roaring waterfall. I have envisioned a cataclysmic event, like a flood. But when I pay closer attention to Amos’ image, I realize his vision of justice is not thunderous at all. The consequences of Israel’s destructive behavior are calamitous, for sure, and Amos spends much of his time describing those. But his description of justice is rolling water and an everflowing stream. Which is precisely in keeping with a prominent Old Testament metaphor, namely that living with God is like being planted near a stream of water. “They shall be like a tree planted by water,” the prophet Jeremiah says of those who trust in the Lord, “sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jer 17:18).

In this context, I hear Amos’ cry for justice less as a thunderous call for consequences—those will be coming, like it or not—and more as a plea for the people to return to the source of life. If that street in Waco, Texas has anything to say, it’s that the wealthy elite, the oppressive “haves,” are not only making life worse for the “have-nots” but for themselves too. It’s like they’re thirsty but they’re drinking salt water! And so Amos cries, “Let the fresh, living water of God flow here again.”

I’m reminded of Jesus, who says, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,” and then moments later, “‘Out of [the heart of the one who trusts in me] shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38). What quenches our thirst in Jesus becomes what quenches the thirst of the world. The justice we find in Jesus becomes the justice we share with the world. And the scandal of Jesus is that justice looks so different from what we’ve come to expect. The Jewish and Roman authorities wouldn’t have had a problem with Jesus if he had just preached following the law and being a good citizen. The problem was Jesus preaches things like forgiveness for enemies. (Spoiler: We can’t win a fight, much less a war, when we’re forgiving our enemies.) The problem was Jesus preaches things like gentleness and humility. (Spoiler: We’re not going to climb that ladder or get ahead of others if we’re moving with tender care for all of those around you.) The problem was Jesus preaches things like giving what we have to meet the needs of others and living simply ourselves, trusting in God’s daily bread. (Spoiler: We’re not going to have the security of a surplus if we’re living simply and generously.) All these things that Jesus preaches are problems for the world, and yet he proclaims that they are God’s kingdom, God’s justice, a world in which all are cared for. A world in which every thirst is quenched.

“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream,” Amos cries. And then in living color, Jesus shows us just what this looks like.

Prayer

Holy God,
Whose love is living water
To our thirsty souls—
While the world around us
Strives for more control over others,
We seek instead your kingdom,
Where care is shown for everyone.
…
Teach us what is good and just
Through the example of Christ,
That we might give flesh
To your holy difference.
In Christ, our lord and savior: Amen.

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[1] There may be a few eccentrics out there who say this, but even they have a reason for saying this. That is, they have a rationale that justifies their decisions, which in a roundabout way makes them “right” and “good” in their own eyes.