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.

---

[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.

Letting Go (Ps 46)

Can you remember a time when you were faced with a home repair, and deep in your heart you knew this repair was probably beyond your capabilities, but you dug out your toolbox anyway? You approached that leak or that circuit breaker or that hole in the wall with a tool in your hand and a steel-willed determination in your heart. There was no question. You were going to fix this yourself.

And then, predictably…the problem got worse. The leak accelerated, the hole got bigger, the electricity went out.

The psalm for today, Psalm 46, contains a famous verse I’m sure everyone here knows: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10). What’s fascinating to me is that the root word for the invitation, “Be still,” is elsewhere used to describe the relaxing or dropping of the hands. “Let go” might be an appropriate translation in certain contexts. “Let go” of the tools that you’re wielding. Or “let go” of the weapons that you’re waving. “Let go” of the desperate attempt to fix something beyond your control.

For me, Psalm 46 illustrates one of the paradoxes of the gospel. Letting go is not a prelude to chaos but to care. Conversely, holding on, or “white-knuckling,” is what leads to chaos and confusion (as we hear in the psalm, where “the nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter”). The point is not that when we “let go” God will step in and do everything for us. The point is that when we “let go” and know that God is with us, we become open to a power much greater than our own. We become open to help from outside. We become open to God’s inspiration.

The same Hebrew word for “be still” or “let go” also means “weak” in other passages. Which is what I imagine most onlookers thought about Jesus when they saw him affixed to the cross. This was supposed to be Israel’s messiah? Look at him. He’s utterly helpless. He’s “weak.” But for us who follow him, Jesus does not die on the cross as a victim of fate but as victor in love. And what is his victory? In the last week of his life—when he “lets go” and prays to God, “Not my will, but thy will”—he is equipped and empowered by God to do some incredible things. He lovingly washes his disciples’ feet and teaches them that greatness is found not in domination but in service. He forgives the people who put him on the cross and mock him in his death. When he is resurrected, he repeatedly proclaims “Peace”—not once breathing bitterness or vengeance upon the ones who opposed him.

And so it is that the cross, which seems like an emblem of weakness and defeat, becomes for us a symbol of God’s love and forgiveness—and the victory that is found when we “let go.”

"I Alone..." (1 Kings 19:1-18)

Scripture: A Prophetic Showdown 

1 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

Today’s story opens amid an intense conflict between the prophet Elijah and the king and queen of Israel, Ahab and Jezebel. Ahab and Jezebel are perhaps the most notorious royal couple of ancient Israel. When Ahab becomes king of Israel, the storyteller comments, “Ahab…did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him” (1 Kings 16:30). Later, when Ahab marries Jezebel, the daughter of a Phoenician king, he begins to worship a major god of  the Phoenicians, Baal. He even builds a temple to Baal, this foreign god, in the capital city of Israel (Samaria, at the time).

As a prophet of the Lord, Elijah pronounces God’s displeasure at Ahab and Jezebel’s behavior in the shape of a great drought over Israel. The culmination of this drought is a grandly staged showdown. In the one corner is the challenger, Elijah, the prophet of the Lord; in the opposite corner are the prophets of Baal, the reigning god in the land (1 Kgs 18:20-40). They both prepare an altar for sacrifice and then wait to see upon which altar Baal or God will send fire. When the fire of the Lord falls upon Elijah’s altar, the people fall on their faces and acknowledge that the Lord is God. The scene ends rather gruesomely, as Elijah rounds up the prophets of Baal and kills them. Needless to say…I don’t see Christ anywhere in this final deed of Elijah. I can only conclude it is a symptom of a disease that has overtaken all the people, even God’s chosen prophet. The disease is thinking that right justifies might, that being on God’s side means being in control. The symptom is vengeance. Jesus clearly shows us the diseased nature of this thinking, as he repeatedly refrains from acts of vengeance, choosing instead to forgive his enemies and to pronounce peace upon the world even after the world has crucified him. That is the only way real, sustainable healing will come about.

In any case, God is faithful and will not leave a diseased people—or prophet—to rot. God insists on redemption, on healing, even here. Let’s see how.

Scripture: Elijah’s Great Sadness

2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them (that is, one of the prophets that Elijah killed) by this time tomorrow.” (Here we can clearly see that vengeance begets vengeance.) 3 Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.

4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”

If you had seen Elijah a couple of chapters earlier, this desperate man in the wilderness would be almost unrecognizable. Earlier, Elijah was bold and confident, unafraid to speak God’s truth in the face of violent tyrants, undaunted by a life of subsistence amid a crippling drought in the land. But here, now, the same man is wracked with fear, consumed with self-doubt, even wishing to die. In modern psychological terms, we might say that Elijah suffers from an onset of depression. If so, his example would serve as a healthy reminder that all of us, even a man of God such as Elijah, are subject to debilitating feelings of great sadness and insecurity. We can do all the right things and still find ourselves in not just a funk, but a deep, seemingly inescapable pit.

5 Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. 7 The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.”

In this tender scene, we can see God caring for Elijah in a gentle manner that acknowledges his woundedness and offers the first steps toward healing. Feelings of great sadness and self-doubt lead many people to stop caring for themselves in the even the most basic of ways. Sleep, food, drink…these things are neglected (or overdone). But God’s angel patiently ensures a healthy regimen of all three for Elijah. It’s back to basics. Sleep. Food. Drink. You are worthy of care.

Perhaps even more important, however, are the angel’s final words: “Or the journey will be too much for you.” This potentially daunting phrase is also charged with purpose, a key ingredient to abundant life. Earlier Elijah had despaired of having any purpose left; he had discounted himself, “I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kgs 19:4). But the angel insists that Elijah is not done, not finished. There is a journey ahead. God needs him. God believes in him.

The same may be said of each and every one of us. God needs you. God believes in you.

Scripture: The Divider

8 He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. (Forty days and nights in the wilderness. Does that remind you of anyone else? Before Elijah, of course, there were the Hebrew people who spent forty years in the wilderness. After Elijah, there is Jesus, who begins his ministry only after he has spent forty days in the wilderness. The common thread among these three stories is that the wilderness is a place of divine encounter and transformation. We wait to see how Elijah will be transformed.) 9 At that place he came to a cave and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

“What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kgs 19:9). Again and again in scripture, we find God asking people simple questions of self-reflection. “Where are you?” God asks Adam and Eve. “Where is your brother?” God asks Cain. “Where are you going?” God asks Hagar as she flees into the wilderness. God does not ask these questions for the sake of learning information but rather for the sake of inviting us to be honest with ourselves—honest enough that we might recognize our limits and our need.

Notice how Elijah answers by listing all his achievements and blaming everyone else. “I alone am left,” he laments, giving voice to the isolation that drives all of us deeper into despair. In my opinion, “I alone am left” is at the very root of Elijah’s sadness and despair.

The word “devil” derives from the Greek word diabolos, which can be translated as “to divide” or “to separate.” Which suggests the underlying motivation of the devil. It is not about a battle of good versus evil. It is not about getting people to do bad things. The devil is the Divider. The Isolator. The devil’s underlying motivation has to do with a sense of a separation from God and others. The devil bears and generates an attitude of isolation that drives us into despair and diseased thinking.

We might notice a contrast between Elijah in the wilderness and Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus repeatedly anchors himself in the sense of God’s abiding presence. He roots himself in the divine affirmation that he heard at his baptism, “You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” Instead of living in despair, he lives in the glow of God’s tender smile. This is not to fault Elijah or to condemn him for being sad or depressed. (I truly believe Jesus himself may have felt a similar way, much later in his ministry, in the garden where he sweat blood and wept before God.) I only make the contrast to suggest the difference between disease and health. The point is not to say to Elijah, “Just trust in God, and you’ll feel better,” but instead to suggest that healing is sometimes a wilderness journey and it takes time and grace and the help of others to even perceive God’s presence and begin to trust again. Which is just we see in the next few verses….

Scripture: Seven Thousand Others…

11 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” (For those who are interested, this scene closely resembles a scene in Exodus where Moses appears to have been granted a glimpse of God’s backside.) Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

This is the verse that is famously translated in the King James and elsewhere as “a still, small voice.” The Hebrew words and syntax render the phrase open to different translations, conferring on this verse a very appropriate sense of mystery. Whatever exactly is being said, we gather that Elijah encounters God not in some magic climactic moment (“the kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed”—Luke 17:20) but in an utterly still, quiet moment of honesty.

13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 14 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” (Same question as before. Same answer as before. Healing takes time. God does not give up; God is patient.)

15 Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. 16 Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel, and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. 17 Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill, and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. 18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

God’s instructions to Elijah are, on the surface, very practical. Do this. Then do that. Then do this. But these pragmatic directives bear within them a treasure of grace. Two things in particular. First is the sense of purpose. As God hinted at before, there is a journey still ahead of Elijah. God needs him. God believes in him.

But second—and this is so easy to miss—God reveals to Elijah that, contrary to his repeated laments, he is not alone. There “seven thousand [others] in Israel” whose “knees…have not bowed to Baal” (1 Kgs 19:8). God counters Elijah’s “I alone am left” with, “No, you’re not! There are 7,000 others with you.” Against the whispered accusations of the devil, the great divider and isolator, God assures Elijah that he is not alone.

“One Christian…”

Today is All Saints Sunday. Saints are not perfect people who have done big things. They are people like you and me who happen to reveal God’s perfect love—usually in the little things, in glimpses we catch here and there.

When we lose a personal saint in our lives—a loved one in our family, a dear friend—it can feel like wandering in the wilderness. We might encounter a sadness or even depression such as Elijah encountered.

What I gather from today’s story is that such an experience is not the sign of a deficient faith but is in fact divine. God is with us in the wilderness, showing us the most tender care. Here, make sure you sleep. Here, make sure you eat. Here, make sure you drink something. And here, I need you to get up and keep walking—I believe in you! There is something I need you to do!

The process of healing from any loss or any disease is rarely straightforward. In the Hebrew mindset, forty signified something like a season. Forty years in the wilderness meant a season in the life of a people—that is, a generation. Forty days means a season within an individual’s lifetime. Grief takes a season. Healing takes a season. Some seasons are longer than others.

And what threatens our healing more than anything is what we hear in Elijah’s lament, “I alone…” That is the voice of the great Divider, the great Isolator, the one who leads us deeper into despair and disease. There is a saying that was popular among the early followers of Christ: “One Christian is no Christian.”[1]

It is good for us to be together today. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Heb 12:1), yes—including our loved ones who have passed in the last year. But just as importantly, we are surrounded by living saints. By each other. Fellow Christ-followers who share our sorrows and our joys, who keep us company on the journey as we heal and grow together.

Prayer

Tender God,
Who meets us in the wilderness
With great attention and care—
When we feel alone
In our sadness, in our disease, in whatever ails us
…
Turn our eyes
To the companions you have given us,
Faithfully given in the past, faithfully given in the present,
That we might be strengthen in love. In Christ, who gathers us into your one family: Amen.

 

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[1] J. D. Walt, “Unus Christianus—Nullus Christianus: One Christian—No Christian,” https://seedbed.com/unus-christianus-nullus-christianus-one-christian-no-christian/, accessed October 27, 2025.

"The Temple of the Lord" (1 Kings 5:1-5; 8:1-6, 10-13)

Scripture: A False Foundation

1   Now King Hiram of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father; for Hiram had always been a friend to David. ² Solomon sent word to Hiram, saying, ³ “You know that my father David could not build a house for the name of the LORD his God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until the LORD put them under the soles of his feet.  ⁴ But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune. ⁵ So I intend to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD said to my father David, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.’

I’m going to be a bit blunt, a bit provocative, just for the sake of making a point: Solomon’s legendary temple is built on a faulty foundation. It is built on a lie.

When Solomon informs his father’s friend, King Hiram of Tyre, that he will build a temple for God, he justifies his plan by explaining that his father, David, had his hands full with warfare and enemies. David did not have the time to build it. “But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side,” Solomon says; “there is neither adversary nor misfortune” (1 Kgs 5:4). But if we revisit 2 Samuel 7, just after David has defeated the Philistines and the ark of the covenant has arrived in Jerusalem, we learn, “The king [David] was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him” (2 Sam 7:1). It is precisely at that moment—when David has rest from his enemies—that he decides to build a temple for God. (Like father, like son.) This moment has apparently slipped from Solomon’s mind; he has conveniently forgotten that, actually, David had had rest on every side just like him. But even more importantly, Solomon seems to have forgotten the response that David receives from God: “Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’” (2 Sam 7:5-7). In other words, God points out to David that God has never asked for a temple. God doesn’t need a house.

Scripture: A Fixed Dwelling for a God Who Has None

1   Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral houses of the Israelites, before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion. ² All the people of Israel assembled to King Solomon at the festival in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month.

The “festival” in Ethanim, the seventh month, is none other than the “Feast of Tabernacles” or “Booths,” a festival that celebrated God’s faithfulness to Israel in the wilderness. It would become tradition to build makeshift dwellings of branches and leaves, as a remembrance of the way the Israelites lived in the wilderness and how God was with them wherever they went, always providing for them. It is an intriguing coincidence to me that King Solomon’s stationary temple would be inaugurated on the anniversary of the festival that remembers a God and a people on the move. It seems as if the irony has passed right over Solomon’s head. On the very day that he has fixed a dwelling for God, the people are remembering a God who had no fixed dwelling, who journeyed with them wherever they went in the wilderness.

A little bit earlier, in 1 Kings 6, the word of the Lord comes to Solomon, saying, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, obey my ordinances, and keep all my commandments…I will dwell among the children of Israel” (1 Kings 6:11-13). I can’t help but wonder if there is a gentle rebuke here in God’s expression. God does not promise to dwell in the house Solomon is building. In fact, God’s promise has nothing to do with the temple. Rather, “I will dwell among the children of Israel” (1 Kgs 6:13). Just as God has reminded David, so God reminds Solomon. He doesn’t need a house. He needs a people who will walk in his way, who will be a blessing to the families of the earth and bear witness to a better way (cf. Gen 12:3; Ex 19:5-6).

Scripture: Divine Disruption

³ And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests carried the ark. ⁴ So they brought up the ark of the LORD, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the priests and the Levites brought them up. ⁵ King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who had assembled before him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered. ⁶ Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. … ¹⁰ And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, ¹¹ so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.

When I read these verses, I imagine the priests who have assembled with great pomp and circumstance, suddenly skittering about and scattering out of the temple, chased out by the expanding cloud of God’s glory. It is a telling turn of events. Yes, God is present, just as Solomon would surely have advertised. But here at the inauguration of the temple, amid all the careful religious choreography, God disrupts and disorders the proceedings. Just when the people want to start worship, God stops it. God puts a stop to the show.

¹²             Then Solomon said,

               “The LORD has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.

¹³             I have built you an exalted house,

                              a place for you to dwell in forever.”

As the dark cloud of God’s glory bursts forth from the temple, Solomon acknowledges that God had said God would “dwell in thick darkness” (1 Kgs 8:12). Curiously, however, Solomon continues, and with either great hubris or great ignorance he declares his contradictory intention. The key here, if you’re reading verses 12 and 13, is the word “dwell,” which appears first in where God says God will dwell, and then second in where Solomon says God will dwell. God had said God would “dwell” in thick darkness (and even Solomon acknowledges this), but Solomon insists God will “dwell…forever” in this exalted house he has built.

For Everything to Be Holy, First Something Has to Be Holy

Growing up, I remember going to church on Christmas Eve. I remember singing in the children’s choir, then later the youth choir. I remember how the sermon was a lot shorter, which I liked. And I remember how the pastor’s words seemed a little bit more sacred, somehow. Maybe because they were less his own thoughts and more a simple recitation of our Christmas faith—that God is with us, no matter the terrors or misery that encroach on our world. I remember walking to the front of the sanctuary to take communion, bumping elbows, a part of everyone around me. I remember holding a candle and singing “Silent Night” and then walking out into the dark chill of night feeling strangely warmed.

I am so grateful for those memories and how they have shaped me. And I share them now before I say anything else just to acknowledge that buildings—such as the church building that I went to Christmas Eve service at as a child, such as Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem—are not bad or wrong or wicked. Not at all. When Israel began wandering in the wilderness, God gave Moses instructions for building a portable tabernacle to symbolize God’s presence amid the people. The basic idea seemed to have been this: Everything in God’s creation is holy, but—in order for everything to be holy, first something has to be holy. That is, as humans, we always have to start somewhere. We have to be able to distinguish holiness in one place, before our eyes can be opened to see it other places too.

We might remember the boy Jesus in the temple, how he called it “my father’s house” (Luke 2:49). Certainly he seems to have learned about God’s holiness there. We might remember how the early church in Jerusalem is described as “spen[ding] much time together in the temple” (Acts 2:46). For them, it was a place to gather and to acknowledge God’s holiness.

An Evolution—Or, a Return: From Building to Body

As the boy Jesus grew up, though, he began to talk about the temple differently. During the years of his ministry, he said (according to John), “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” referring first to the building and then to his body (John 2:19-21). Paul would later unpack what Jesus was saying here, writing to the Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”—and here the “you” is plural, which means that the church as the body of Christ has become “God’s temple” (1 Cor 3:16).

What we see in Jesus and his early followers, then, is an evolution in the understanding of God’s temple. It moves from being a building to being a body. The holy presence of God that people may have first recognized in the building (whether it was at a temple feast with many sacrifices or at a Christmas eve service in a brick chapel), they later realize is meant to be with them twenty-four-seven.

But maybe this is less an evolution in understanding and more a return to the ancient, original understanding that we catch glimpses of in today’s scripture, where God makes abundantly clear that no building will contain him. Rather, as God tells Solomon, God’s dwelling place will be “among [the people]” (cf. 1 Kings 6:13). It won’t be in a predictable, containable structure, but in an untamable spirit, a cloud of glory, a holiness that the people may express in the flesh, a holiness that they may express not just in the temple but outside it and even in foreign lands (such as Babylon).

Just before Moses dies, he tells all the people of Israel to choose God’s way of life, and he puts it this way: “[T]he word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe” (Deut 30:14). From the beginning, God’s Word has been looking for a home, not in a building but in bodies. Not in a house but in our hearts. God’s mission has always been one and the same. The God who is Love wants to take flesh. To bear witness. To be an example. To spread. To be contagious. The God who is Love does not want to be contained but embodied.

I have a friend named Jay. He’s not particularly eloquent. He doesn’t always have the right words to say. Sometimes he misses social cues. But whenever I’m around him, I feel a certain loosening in my body, like I can relax, like I can be myself. I’ve come to realize that Jay is steadfast. When you are around him, he is with you. He is not trying to make a point or get something or have the last word. It doesn’t matter what you’ve said or done, or haven’t said or haven’t done—he’s with you all the same.

I’ve come to realize that, for me, in a small but real way, Jay embodies our God of Love. The space around him feels holy, sacred. And when I leave Jay, something always seems to have rubbed off on me. I carry the calm, steady peace of our encounter with me.

The God who is Love does not want to be contained in a building but embodied in people, in people like Jay, in people like you and me—so that all the families of the earth might know the God who is Love.

Prayer

Uncontainable God,
Whose love outlasts and exceeds
Every altar we have built:
We are grateful
For all the places
We have encountered your holiness.
…
Inspire us today
To know ourselves
Not as a church who meets in a building,
Nor as Christians defined by holy places or times,
But as the body of Christ
Giving expression to your love,
Wherever we go:
In Christ, who abides in us, and we in him: Amen.

Beyond Our Best Thinking (1 Sam 16:1-13)

Scripture: Israel’s and Saul’s Best Thinking

1   The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel.

Just to refresh our memory of the story, Saul is the first king of Israel. He’s a real dreamboat, according to the storyteller, who describes him in this way: “There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he; he stood head and shoulders above everyone else” (1 Sam 9:2). Technically, God had designated Saul as king. But if we remember the backstory—how Israel had demanded a king so that they could be like the other nations and how God saw this as a rejection but decided to leave Israel to its own devices, to let them have what they want—if we take all of that into account, it’s not a great leap to interpret that God had selected precisely the kind of king Israel had desired. In other words, “You want a king? I’ll give you the best king you could think of, a real eyeful, a political schemer and dreamer.” Because that’s what Israel got. King Saul is ever mindful of appearances, of what we might call the “optics” of things. He is charming and calculating, always doing what will garner him the favor of the people. But it is precisely his calculations to win the people’s favor, that earn him God’s stern disapproval. He violates God’s commands for the sake of appearances, for the sake of keeping people on his side. He thinks he knows better. He thinks he can play loose with the way of God in order to achieve victory with his fellow man. Just like the people who wanted a king thought they knew better. Just like they thought they could play loose with God’s covenant to consolidate their place among the nations. But for Saul’s violations, God rejects Saul as king.

To summarize these proceedings, then: Israel’s best thinking—and Saul’s best thinking—have resulted in a real mess.

Scripture: Looking on Appearances

Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” 2 Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” (In the scene that immediately precedes today’s scripture, Samuel informed Saul that God had rejected him as king. Samuel is understandably worried what Saul will think if he hears that his prophet, Samuel, is carrying around a horn of oil. It was in just such a manner that Samuel had earlier anointed him. If he suspects that Samuel is already anointing his successor, there’s no telling what he might do.)

And the LORD said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ (In other words, God is giving Samuel a little cover here. God is saying, “Prepare a worship service, complete with sacrifice. You can do the anointing bit quietly in the service, and only the people who need to know what’s happening will know.”) 3 Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” 4 Samuel did what the LORD commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” (By now, Samuel has acquired a bit of a reputation as a prophet and a judge. Why else would he come to a little, no-name town like Bethlehem unless he was on God’s business? The people are afraid that perhaps this is a disciplinary visit, that he comes with a rebuke from God.) 5 He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD (in other words, “I’ve come only to worship with you”); sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

6   When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’S anointed is now before the LORD.”  7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature (we might hear echoes here of Saul, glowingly described as head and shoulders above the rest, the most handsome man in Israel), because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

This verse is almost literally at the center of the book of 1 Samuel, which is perhaps no coincidence, because it certainly seems to be the central point of the book. God sees things differently than we do. We look on the appearance of things, God looks on the heart.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” we’ll sometimes say, acknowledging the all-too-human tendency to do just that, to judge by appearance. I think it’s worth pausing a moment to explore this tendency. Why do we judge by appearance? What’s the motivation? It seems to me that we take appearances as signs or visual shortcuts that show us the end of things. A tall, muscular man, head and shoulders above everyone else, signifies strength and victory. Dark, heavy clouds in the sky signify rain. We look on the appearance of things so that we can make better calculations and stay in control of the situation. In one sense, looking on the appearance of things is proto-scientific (or at least pseudo-scientific). It is an endeavor to discern the mechanics of things so that we might better position ourselves for a favorable result. If I had to summarize the motivation of judging appearances, I would say that, in a word, it is control. It is a function of our best thinking in the moment, which is seeking the best possible result.

And we learn here in this central, pivotal verse that God doesn’t think like this. God is not calculating toward the best possible result. (As we will discover in Christ, God’s concern is not results, but the way, not winning, but witness. The scandal of our faith is this: God’s victory comes not in battle, but on a cross, where we see God’s way of love most clearly.)

Scripture: Relinquishing Our Best Thinking

8 Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.” 10 Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen any of these.” 11 Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?”

In my reading, this is the turning point of the story, the crucial moment. God has made the selection process a collaborative effort. God will designate the next king, but only when the next king is presented. In other words, if Samuel and Jesse had stopped right here and thrown up their hands, saying, “Well, we’ve reviewed all the candidates, all the best possibilities we could think of. What more can we do?”—then God would have been at a loss. It reminds me of when Jesus is unable to heal those people who do not believe. In a similar way, God is unable to make a choice when people do not allow for that choice. Happily, in this case, the prophet Samuel knows that God does not calculate in the way that humans do. Samuel knows that God’s will is beyond our best thinking. And so he asks Jesse if there’s possibly another son.

And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” (Perhaps this description of the young boy David is meant to indicate something about his heart, that is, his attitude and disposition. He has stayed behind with the flock while his family has gone off to see what all the fuss is about with the visit of the prophet Samuel. He is faithfully carrying out his work, even though there’s little or no reward.) And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” 12 He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. (Whereas Saul had what we might call noble or regal good looks, the figure of a natural leader, David has what we might call boyishly good looks. He’s sweet or adorable but does not bear the imposing profile of a warrior.) The LORD said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward.

“My Best Thinking Got Me Here”

In 1930, the British economist and philosopher John Maynard Keynes, one of the best minds of his day, famously predicted that because of technological advances, in a hundred years’ time the average work week would be about 15 hours. Well, we’ve got five years to go before we reach the centennial of Keynes’ prediction, but I’d say the odds aren’t looking too good. Not because technology hasn’t advanced. In fact, I’d imagine that technology has advanced in ways that Keynes couldn’t even begin to imagine. But even with the leaps and bounds we’ve made in electronics and travel and robotics and automated machinery, we’re nowhere closer to the chimeric fifteen-hour work week. Why is that, I wonder?

There is a saying in Twelve-Step recovery that I think applies equally well to our spiritual life. “My best thinking got me here,” someone will say. It could be a world-renowned surgeon, a wealthy businessman, a published professor, someone whom others esteem as a great mind or thinker. And yet that same person with their brilliant mind fell victim to an inescapable addiction. Not despite their best thinking. But precisely because of it. “My best thinking got me here” is a way of confessing that I cannot think my way out of here, because my thinking is what got me here.

Think back to our advances in technology, all of which were the result of some brilliant minds. And yet look around at our world, at how frenzied we still are, how rushed, how hurried, how there are never enough hours in the week. What happened? I’m tempted to say, “Our best thinking got us here.” In other words, the same willful, resolute spirit that has pushed our thinking to the limits, to search endlessly for ways to improve our lives, has also kept our nose to the grindstone even as advances have been made. The same voice that says, “More, more, more,” and keeps technology advancing at a breakneck speed, says “more, more, more” to our hearts, always ramping up expectations and the desire to use our newfound power for previously unimagined gains. There is a sense in which our relationship with technology (and we might say the same about our relationship with money or politics) has become an addiction. The very thing that propels us forward keeps us enslaved. There never will be a fifteen-hour work week, as long as we follow our “best thinking.”

When God says to Samuel, “The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7), the invitation or challenge that I hear is not to somehow develop sharper, more intuitive sight, or deeper, more sophisticated thinking. I don’t think scripture is inviting us to be able to see what God sees. I think, rather, that the invitation is to relinquish our best thinking. Which means, more specifically, to relinquish our focus on results, our tendency to judge by appearances and all the available data so that we might calculate the most favorable result. What concerns God is not that we achieve the right end—because as we have seen countless times, the right end can be pursued by horrible, ungodly means. (One could argue that was Saul’s problem, who wanted what was good for himself and Israel, but whose obsession with results led him to live in a less than faithful way.) What concerns God is not the ends but the means, not the results, but the way. We see this exemplified in Christ, who identifies himself as “the Way”—and who died on the cross, a horrible end, a terrible result, and yet it was the very embodiment of God’s love and forgiveness, the very way we know just how much God cares for us.

For me to relinquish my best thinking and my fixation on results, means that instead of trying to think my way out of a situation, I am content to live God’s way in any situation. That’s what God desires from God’s people, not that they be winners or conquerors, but that they be witnesses to God’s better way. When Samuel is selecting a king, God is not looking for an individual who stands head and shoulders above the rest, who will secure results by hook or crook; God is looking for an individual who will bear faithful witness to God’s way, who will live with God’s same shepherd-like care for others. (That David regularly fails on this front does not negate God’s judgment but shows us the fallibility of all of us—especially when we, like David in his weaker moments, decide to take matters into our own hands.)

In the case of Israel, their best thinking got them into a terrible mess with King Saul, who was handsome and charming and an astute politician, and precisely because of this cared more about appearances than about bearing faithful witness to God’s way. But what we see in today’s scripture, I think—and certainly throughout the broad arc of Israel’s story—is that there is no mess too great for God. There’s never a point beyond which we cannot stop and relinquish our best thinking. There’s never a point beyond which we cannot choose instead to live one step at a time in the gentle and humble way of our God, whom we know in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer

Incomprehensible God,
Whose power is not might and muscle,
Or calculation and cunning,
Whose power is, rather,
A Love that does not make sense,
A Love that surpasses all limits—
Grant us the grace
To relinquish our best thinking
…
That we might receive in its place
What is even better:
Your love guiding us to live
In a loving way.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.