Robbing the House of the Strong Man

Posted by Chris on June 26, 2005 under Sermons

When we hear the story of Jesus calling the Twelve we may be tempted to hear it as though we are hearing a sacred chant or see it through the gilded lens of holy history. But we are not hearing it as Mark want s us to hear it. What may be lost on us is assortment and diversity of this crew. They are not Rabbis or Priests. They are not even prophets, and some of the prophets were a bit unconventional. The Twelve are rather average as individuals. They represent all types in Israel, with the exception of the elites. They are fishermen from the north. Tax-collectors from the big city. Rebel resistance fighters, like Simon the Zealot, and those who have invested in the Roman invasion, like Matthew the tax-collector. Some of them are even half-breeds from states that are not commonly accepted as part of Israel. The list sounds like a rap sheet in that many of the Twelve go by assumed names . . . Simon, aka Rocky. James and John Bar-Zebedee, aka the Sons of Thunder. Levi aka Matthew. Some of their names may not be their given names. Thomas means "the Twin." Bartholomew mean Son of Thalamai.

I urge us to listen again to the calling of the Twelve and the following teaching of Jesus in all of it earthiness. Listen for the details that Mark wants us to hear. Listen for the way he paints the raw reality of the situation. Listen to Jesus’ teaching to those who accept him and those who do not.

Read Mark 3:13-35
Afterward Jesus went up on a mountain and called the ones he wanted to go with him. And they came to him. Then he selected twelve of them to be his regular companions, calling them apostles. He sent them out to preach, and he gave them authority to cast out demons. These are the names of the twelve he chose: Simon (he renamed him Peter), James and John (the sons of Zebedee, but Jesus named them “Sons of Thunder”), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him).
When Jesus returned home, the crowds began to gather again, and soon he and his disciples couldn’t even find time to eat. When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him home with them. “He’s out of his mind,” they said. But the teachers of religious law who had arrived from Jerusalem said, “He’s possessed by Beelzeboul, the prince of demons. That’s where he gets the power to cast out demons.” Jesus called them over and said to them by way of illustration, “How can Satan cast out Satan? A kingdom at war with itself will collapse. A home divided against itself is doomed. And if Satan is fighting against himself, how can he stand? He would never survive. Let me illustrate this: You can’t enter a strong man’s house and rob him without first tying him up. Only then can his house be plundered! “I assure you that any sin can be forgiven, including blasphemy; but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. It is an eternal sin.” He told them this because they were saying he had an evil spirit.
Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived at the house where he was teaching. They stood outside and sent word for him to come out and talk with them. There was a crowd around Jesus, and someone said, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” Jesus replied, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Then he looked at those around him and said, “These are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus Went Home

What does Jesus’ family say about him? They are anxious and concerned for his well-being. He is out of his mind – they say. He is associating with an odd assortment of people. Some of them are known instigators. He must be out of his mind because he is going up against a system that will surely destroy him. He isn’t making sense.

What do the scribes say about Jesus? They acknowledge his power, but they reinterpret it. They say that the source of his power is the devil. He has power over evil because he is one of them.

Jesus’ response to the scribes: Why? Why would evil work against itself? Why would Satan oppose himself? The powers of evil are malicious, but they are not stupid. If you work against yourself then you will lose your power. Evil wouldn’t make the mistake of being divided. It makes more sense to say that there is a power greater than evil. It makes more sense to say that Jesus is involved in an assault on the stronghold of the strongman. It makes more sense that the days of the strong man are over and Jesus has come to rip him out of his little spider hole. It makes more sense that Jesus wants what the strong man has taken and he is here to establish God’s authority and take back the people and the spiritual territory that the strong man has captured.

Jesus is preparing for an assault. He intends to invade the house of the strongman and plunder it. The strong man is the evil one and it will take one strong enough to tie him up. Jesus is that one – the one that John the Baptist spoke about – one more powerful than me who is coming after me. The treasures that Jesus intends to take out of the strong man’s house are the strong man’s captives. Those who have been enslaved by the power of evil, darkness, and sickness. Jesus is setting them free by God’s authority. This is what it means to be "fishers of men" – to rescue people from the depth of darkness.

A house divided against itself cannot stand

Jesus’ family is divided against Jesus. Jesus is actually making more sense than they are. He’s not the one out of his mind. They are out of their minds with worry and fear.

The scribes are divided against Jesus. Jesus understands the truth much better than they do. Despite their learning and their experience they refuse to believe what is clear. They actually go so far as to redefine the work of God and the work of the devil because believing the truth means more than they are willing to accept. Rather than accept this new reality (which actually does fit with their traditions but doesn’t fit with their agenda) they will cut themselves off from the power of the Holy Spirit and thus condemn themselves

The Twelve, like us, need to take all of this in and answer this question – Who is Jesus? The 12 have been enlisted by Jesus in the war against the power of evil and darkness, but they may just become casualties in the war if they misunderstand Jesus the way his family did and the way the scribes did.

Who Is Jesus?

• He is the one who calls us to follow him. We get more concerned with what others think or with our own safety. When Jesus calls us to follow we may have to leave behind a lot of things that just aren’t as important anymore.
• He is the one who is stronger than the strong man. The power of Jesus to conquer evil puts it all in perspective. The kingdom rule of God has broken into the world and if we waver in our allegiance to it or try to redefine God’s power into something that makes us more comfortable or something that denies any responsibility to change on our part then we just may cut ourselves off from the only power that can save us.

Who is My Family?

• "Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother."
• Jesus’ family and the scribes failed to see him as the one who can unite people as diverse as his apostles or the crowds. They failed to see his power as that which can subdue the strong man and end his captivity of God’s creation.
• What about us? Do we see Jesus for who he really is? If so, then we will not hesitate to do God’s will.
• And those who do God’s will our Jesus’ family. The importance of doing what God wills.

Who Is Jesus? As One With Authority (Mark 1:21-28)

Posted by Chris on June 12, 2005 under Sermons

John the Baptist said that the one coming after him was more powerful. His ministry would do more than just preach – the preaching would change the world.
Just as John said, Jesus does come with a powerful message. He announced the kingdom rule of God. There’s a hole in the heavenly realm and God’s spirit is pouring through it onto earth. Things are going to change.
Jesus is calling us to change and to believe the good news. Of course he is more than just a messenger. Jesus is the Son of God. He is the one who teaches and preaches with a heavenly authority. Like the heir to the throne, when Jesus says it, it is done!

Read Mark 1:21-27

The situation and setting: It is the Sabbath in the synagogue. In a holy place at a holy time, evil is present. How long had this man possessed by the unclean spirit attended the synagogue? How long did he maintain the evil spirit – or find himself troubled by it?

Perhaps he went to the synagogue often and was never challenged or given relief by the teaching of the scribes and scholars. Instead of hearing a word with authority he sat through their debates and arguments: What cannot be done on the Sabbath day, when one should pray, how long ones robe should be, when to swear and when not to swear. In their attempt to be "biblical" they had lost sight of what it means to be godly. The scribes and scholars had become less interested in BIBLE and more interested in BARRIERS.

According to Mark, their teaching had no authority. Their teaching started with "When is it right to . . ." or "What do the great teachers say about . . ." and you never got a clear answer. They could apply the law to hundreds and thousands of specific situations – really exceptional situations and conditions. But they could not speak with authority. Why? Because there was always an exception or their answer on one subject would undermine their answer on another. When you are faced with this sort of complexity you take the best option which is "Better safe than sorry." In other words, do everything you can to avoid doing what is wrong. So, is healing on the Sabbath wrong? Well, you could help someone in an emergency on the Sabbath, but what if the sickness isn’t life-threatening? Well, perhaps we should just pray and wait until Sabbath is over – after all, we do not want to offend God and healing just might be considered work.

If you help a leper, do you become unclean? Well, it is right to help people. But it is also true that leprosy makes someone unclean before God and his holy things. You should try to find a way to help without being contaminated by the leprosy. It is a risk and you certainly shouldn’t help a leper on the Sabbath because it would be wrong to be unclean on the Sabbath and leprosy is not life-threatening.

Isn’t it blasphemy to claim that someone’s sins are forgiven? Oh of course. Only God can forgive sins and who are we to presume that he has forgiven any of us. I mean we just do not know. In fact we may have even committed a sin and we do not know it. Well, then why do we offer people cleansing or healing? Isn’t that sort of like forgiving their sins because sometimes their condition is a direct result of their sinfulness. Well, we should help but we probably ought to make it clear that our aid is no guarantee that God forgives them and maybe we ought to always say "May God forgive you – but don’t assume it."

Can you imagine how this man whose life was invaded by an ungodly spirit could not find any help from this sort of dialogue? How disappointing to think that a man with evil dwelling within him and making a wreck of his inner life can enter freely into a sacred time and sacred space and not be challenged by the word of God. It is so unauthoritative. As long as one doesn’t offend the "barriers" one can live an unchanged, unredeemed life.

Jesus has authority and the crowds are amazed at his teaching. Every word he spoke had the razor’s edge of the Holy Spirit. I am weary of commentators who say that Mark doesn’t give us the teaching of Jesus. Of course he does. He tells us in a nutshell what Jesus was teaching:

The Kingdom of God Is Near! In other words, God isn’t up there disinterested or waiting to be offended when we take a wrong step. He is not an old doddering fool that we can manipulate with words. His authoritative rule is busting through the barriers of heaven and earth and he is getting involved! You cannot contain him or cage him. He is breaking in and every other rule that sets itself up will have to give way for the way of the Lord.

Jesus’ authority is real. His teaching is not just ethical or conceptual. He heals sicknesses. Sicknesses that lead to death (Simon’s mother-in-law) and exclusion (the leper) And Jesus is concerned that the leper enter into community. He commands evil spirits because he is the one who is stronger than the evil one. He is the Holy One of God. And he has authority!

He even forgives sins and in doing so risks the charge of blasphemy. He does not pay attention to the barriers because he has authority. He has privilege. He has the master key. (How would we counsel Jesus? Take your time, change things slowly)

Repent and Believe the Good News! Before he ever displayed any power, they were amazed at the authority of his teaching. His message calls for a change in light of the good news being announced. It is a demanding word. If we believe the good news, then the response is to repent! When confronted with such authority, we cannot help but respond.

Repent: Not the old gloomy and frightening definition of repent. Jesus is not saying changing your ways or you will end up roasting in hellfire. Jesus is saying turn and experience something better than hell. This is a word of hope. It invites us to a new option and a new reality. Rend believe is an invitation to trust in the one with authority. We are not stuck forever living with the evil spirits. Now there is a new authority! We can repent and Be amazed! Be amazed by news – good news.

Mexico 1991: I don’t claim to be an expert on evil spirits. I have difficulty with stories about actual demons that haunt and possess people. It just doesn’t appeal to my scientific mindset. (A woman once told me that she was visited by a demon. He was a short squat figure that stood on the edge of her bed and counted backwards from 10 – that doesn’t sound like a demon. It sounds like a muppet.) Despite my scientific mind set I know it would be falling into the enemies hand if we decided that there was no such thing as evil and spirits. The devil’s greatest weapon is convincing us that he is not real. I don’t claim to understand how evil works, but I do know that it wrecks lives. My scientific mindset was challenged by the man I met on the streets of Mexico. He was hungry and wild eyed. He came up babbling in Spanish and asking for food. I was there with a mission group and our translator Sam and I began speaking to this man. When he found out we were Christians he began telling us his story. He went so fast that Sam couldn’t translate it all for me. Sam had a stunned look on his face. Then the man pulled up his sleeve to reveal a horrible scar that gouged his meaty arm from wrist to elbow. What is it Sam? I asked. "He says that he has been possessed by demons and he cut his arm open to release them but he is afraid they will return. What do I tell him?" Sam asks me.

Here I was two years into graduate studies. I knew Greek and the historical critical method. I had read sociological studies and missiological reports about animism and cultural beliefs. What do I say. What do we say? Oh, this is just mental illness. This is just cultural superstition. Maybe it is. And maybe the 12 inch scar on this man’s arm is a figment of my imagination.
Years later a young man selling magazines came to our church office in Texas. I could tell he was troubled so we sat in the hall and talked. He looked at me with eyes that were tinted with an angry gleam and he got a far away look on his face. As if his personality changed. Sometimes, he said, I just hate people. Sometimes I get the urge to load my pistol and turn on music and just shoot people. But I don’t want to. How do I make the feelings stop? What do I say? What do we say? Oh this is just the product of poor parenting. This is the failure of our school system. Maybe he needs counseling. Maybe he does. And none of that made me feel any safer if this scrawny kid had pulled a 9mm out his pocket right then.

However you describe these problems and explain them, they are part of the same thing – evil. I told the kid what I told Sam that night in Mexico. "Tell this man that Jesus is stronger!" Tell him that Jesus has authority. Tell him that Jesus is stronger and more powerful than any evil and not even death is more powerful than Christ! Sam told the man with the disfigured arm and he started to cry. We introduced him to God’s people in Mexico.

I will say to all of you what I said then and what John the Baptist proclaimed – Jesus is more powerful. Whatever power, unclean spirit, sociological development or cultural baggage has you in its grip – Jesus is more powerful. He is one who has authority. What ever illness or weakness tortures you makes your life unbearable – Jesus is more powerful. Listen to what he says – The Kingdom of Heaven is near! The rule of God overrules evil and death! Hear his invitation – Repent and believe the good news. Do you believe that he is able to handle what concerns you today? Then make a change.

The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Mark 1:1-12)

Posted by Chris on June 5, 2005 under Sermons

Who is Jesus? What was he like? Was he serious and grim? Was he dashing and self-confident? Was he tall, short, or average? Do we think of him as child in a manger or crucified savior? Is he the suffering servant or the risen lord? Is he the worker of miracles or the teacher with authority? If we say all the above, then which is most important?

What does it mean to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior when we have so many questions about who he is? What do we mean when we say he is the Son of God? What do we mean when we call him Lord?

Thomas Jefferson wanted to know the "real Jesus." Jefferson was concerned that the teaching of Jesus had been contaminated over the centuries by Christians who had buried the words of Jesus. The pollution of ancient cultures and superstitions drove these early Christians into "sophisticating and perverting the simple doctrines [Jesus] taught by engrafting on the mysticisms of a Grecian Sophist, frittering them into subtleties, and obscuring them with jargon, until they have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust, and to view Jesus himself as an imposter." [For the following information and outline I relied on Stephen Prothero, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, 2003.]

So, in the winter of 1804, President Thomas Jefferson sent off for two identical copies of the New Testament from a Philadelphia bookseller. He sat in his White House study, with his razor in hand, and began to set right what 18 centuries of Christian perversion had created. The finished product contained only a tenth of the original gospels. There is no account of the beginning and the end of the Gospel story. There is no story of the annunciation, the virgin birth or the appearance of the angels to the shepherds. The resurrection is not even mentioned.

Some call this the Jefferson Bible. It was actually titled "The Philosophy of Jesus" (1804). It was followed up 16 years later by "Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" (1820). Jefferson didn’t actually discover the "real Jesus." He simply polished the lens through which he viewed Jesus. Jefferson’s knew which sections to cut with his razor because he had already concluded that Jesus was a great Teacher of Common Sense. In his own words, Jefferson saw Jesus as: "a man, of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, (and an) enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions of divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the Roman law." Oddly, Jefferson’s Jesus, who was so focused on reason, philosophy, and common sense, bore a striking resemblance to Jefferson himself.

Of course there were those who focused on one aspect of Jesus and his story over all others before Jefferson. And in our own nation we have certainly done what Jefferson did many times. Perhaps most haven’t had the gall to edit the four gospels, but through our preaching, teaching, music and artwork we project a certain "type" of Jesus.

For instance, Thomas Jefferson’s ethical and moral teacher without passion or miracles did not suit everyone. In the mid-19th century, church leaders realized that church memberships were mostly made up of women. So, the image of Jesus that prevailed in preaching, songs, and artwork was a compassionate, touching Jesus. He is the sympathizing Jesus, the lowly Jesus. And of course women enjoy baby pictures so there was plenty of his sweet baby pics made into cards.

But by the late 19th century and the early 20th century, people had enough of Jesus’ feminine side. One commentator of the period said that the Jesus presented in the churches was a bearded lady. So the culture, under the influence of the likes of rough-riding Teddy Roosevelt, war reporter Wm Randolph Hearst, and cowboy artist Remington, began looking for a rugged Jesus: the Jesus who hammered nails and sawed wood in his dad’s shop, the Jesus who punched the lights out of thieves in the temple.

By the mid 20th century Jesus was showing all sides of his character and showed up just about everywhere. Warner Sallman was an advertising executive in the 1950’s. He was also a born-again Christian and he tried to depict a very human and real Jesus. This started a trend of depicting Jesus as a sort of "average Joe" Savior. Jesus stops by to talk to his pastor or stockbroker just like everyone else. When he comes by to see you at your office you happily want to introduce him to your clients. ("Jesus, this is Bob, he’s in accounting. Bob, this is Jesus, savior and creator of the universe.") Jesus is imagined as a good neighbor and he might be sharing a big fish story with his neighbor Joe on the way to pick up the morning paper. You just don’t know where Jesus will turn up! He might be leading a Scout troop or giving directions to wayward travelers looking for the way to the interstate. That Jesus, he’s just so friendly!

Of course this seemed a bit silly to some and like Jefferson they wanted a Jesus that made sense. In the 20th century a group of scholars started the Quest for the Historical Jesus and their work continues in the Jesus Seminar that strives to determine what the actual Jesus of history would have been like. They do have the gall, like Jefferson, to edit the New Testament. Yet, even those who don’t want to chuck out portions of the Holy Bible have an interest in historical reality. Recently some forensic experts and archeologists worked with the skull of a 1st century man in Palestine to create a model of what Jesus might have looked like. It was announced as astonishing that Jesus was probably a very Semitic looking man. Well that makes sense, but throughout the ages, artists, poets and preachers have not been stopped from depicting Jesus with their own racial and cultural features. Jesus has been portrayed as Asian, African, and quite often as a blue-eyed European.

But Jesus shouldn’t be reduced to a single race or nationality. Some want Jesus to be bigger than life. And so in the late 20th century and early 21st century our consumer, market-driven culture has made Jesus a celebrity- or a rather flexible commodity. Jesus will make special appearances and endorse your cause. His image has appeared in a PETA ad campaign. He has his own chain of gymnasiums – really. He has at least two Broadway musicals in which he is the star (Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell). He has action figures and cartoons. He has been on Time and Newsweek. And yes, Jesus is proud to be an American – in America of course.

There’s not just one single Jesus anymore – now you too can have your own personal Jesus … someone to say he cares, someone to answer your prayers. Just reach out and he’s there. Do you like to play softball? Guess what, so does Jesus? He is always around. He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He just wants to be your Jesus.

Yes, we have many lenses through which we choose to see Jesus. Everyone does some of this, not just liberals and progressives. Conservatives do too. Even if we say that we should look to the Bible and the whole Bible, we may have a tendency to emphasize some stories and scenes over others. Some pay attention to the stories of his birth, and others to his teachings. And others focus on the miracles. Some are glad to know that he went to a wedding. Others place a lot of weight on the fact that he dealt out serious hurt to the money changers who were walking on his fighting side. Even if just limit the story down to the gospel, some have a tendency to focus on the death and crucifixion and others rush right to the resurrection.

Even in the first century, Jesus was misunderstood. Not just by his enemies, but also by his disciples. They had preconceived notions of "the Christ." And those lenses and filters kept them from hearing and seeing Who Jesus Is. Even after his death, burial, and resurrection, a generation came along with their own set of lenses and filters. The Gospel of Mark was written as a message to open our eyes and ears and confront us with Jesus. In Mark, Jesus asks us "Who do you say I am?" and tests us to live out our answer to this question. In Mark, we are called once again to follow Jesus … Read Mark 1:1-12

John’s Message

1. The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. Jesus is one who is greater and more powerful than John. He isn’t just the messenger who prepares the way for the arrival of the Lord. He is the Lord.
2. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." – John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, but Jesus’ baptism is effective. It is more than just a symbol or sign – it participates in the reality of forgiveness. Jesus is one who is greater and more powerful than John. His forgiveness and his baptism in the Holy Spirit creates the reality that John’s baptism prepares for.

God’s Message

1. Jesus saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.
2. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." He is the Son of God.

Conclusion – The legacy of Thomas Jefferson’s pick-and-choose attitude toward Jesus, which many have followed, is that we can all have Jesus as our own personal Jesus; Jesus is friend to all, but lord of none. That’s not the Jesus John preached. That’s not what God the father declared when Jesus was baptized. Who is Jesus? He is the one who is greater than us. He is the one who changes us with the power of the Spirit – the Spirit given him by God. Jesus is the Son of God and has all the authority that title confers. This is just the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ. May God help us and open our eyes and ears so we may truly know Jesus Christ the Son of God.

Sending a Messenger (Malachi 4)

Posted by Chris on May 29, 2005 under Sermons

Israel had sued God. They had taken Him to court. As is common with such breakdowns in arelationship, they dredged the past and brought a lot of old garbage to the surface …

Lord, where were you when the Edomites profited from our exile?
Lord, why haven’t you done anything about them?
Lord, you always say you are for righteousness and justice, but you really are not!
Lord, you said you would provide for us and protect us, but you don’t seem to be doing it!
Lord, we come to worship to give you what you have asked, but you never seem happy with it!
Lord, we might as well do what’s wrong because doing what’s right doesn’t seem to be any good!
Why don’t you keep your promises God? Why don’t you love us anymore?

God goes to trial and makes His defense. He has His own perspective on the matter.

I love you and I always have!
You have despised and dishonored me with your half-hearted, apathetic worship!
I am tired of your “by-the-book, rule-keeping” attitude when you really don’t care about me atall!
I am tired of you giving me your leftovers and your excess and walking away from worship proudof what you have done for me!
I am tired of you claiming that you are my people and talking about the privilege of knowing thetruth when you don’t live by it!
I have had it with the way you break your promises with one another so easily. I have had it withthe way you mistreat one another and betray each other!
I am so tired of the way you use words to excuse your motives and your actions! I am tired ofthe way you try to redefine what’s right and wrong so you can do what you want to do instead oftrusting in me!
I am tired of the way you claim everyone else does what you do but you won’t own up to ityourselves!
I love you and I always have, and it hurts me that you claim I haven’t!

And that’s how the trial with God has gone. God ended the trial and assumed the role of judge. He passed sentence: God’s people need to return to him. But how do you do that with all thisslimy, smelly garbage dredged up from the past and it fills the room?

Have you ever had one of those arguments that seems to leave an indelible mark on therelationship? You know the sort. Some word is used that can never be forgotten. A mistake ofthe past is brought up like case law to justify lack of trust. Old hurts are taken out of the damp,moldy box they have been stored in for just a time as this. Cruel jokes or unkind statementsbecome shields that protect us in our fear of being disappointed.

These sort of arguments that dredge up the past leave the room filled a silence in which wewonder if the relationship can ever be repaired. The unspoken question is “Well now what?” You know these arguments. They happen in friendships, in marriages, in the workplace, inchurches, and even among nations.

What do you do with the past that has been dredged up?

God takes the first step at reconciliation and restoration. He has faith that a better day is coming. He ought to, because it is they day he is working toward – the day of the Lord … Read Malachi 4

All through the preaching of the prophets, the day of the Lord is spoken of as great and glorious. It is a day to be feared and hoped for at the same time. On the day of the Lord, justice will prevail… “For the day of the Lord is near against all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done toyou; your deeds shall return on your own head.” – Obadiah 1:15 The day of the Lord is the turnof the ages. The age of corruption is burned up and the new age of righteousness begins.

For the wicked and evildoers who prefer the cover of night, it is the end of their rule. For thosewho welcome the dawn of the sunshine of righteousness, the day is the beginning of the world asit is supposed to be.

And for God, burning up the wicked isn’t as easy as scraping off old wallpaper … The destructionof the age of wickedness and corruption means that some of the people God loves who haveinvested themselves in the darkness are going to perish with it. Like a tree that is completelyremoved by a wildfire – neither root nor branch is left. It will be as if they never existed. Therewill be no future for the wicked in the home of righteousness, and there will not be a past todredge up.

God wants his children, all of them, to withstand the day of the Lord. He wants them to havedeep roots and strong branches. He wants to provide past and future for them.

Past – Remember the teaching of Moses. The commands and the law are a source of orientation. We have a great tradition of faith that nurtures us. They are deep roots that feed us and nurtureus and will nurture generations to follow. The speaker at the seminar I recently attended said hesat in a class and the speaker said “Forget everything you learned in Sunday school.” Heapproached her and said, “You didn’t really mean that, did you.” We don’t really mean it when wesay we need to chuck out the past and start over again, do we. We have learned some greatthings in Sunday school and when we were young. We have learned some important things fromour past – not just our past but THE past. We learn that God loves us, that Jesus is the Son ofGod, the Holy Spirit gives life and gifts for living to the people of God, that the church is thewitness of God is doing on earth. Where did we come up with this? When did we come up withit? This comes from a tradition of 2000 years, some of it even older than that. We dare notdispose of the past or tradition! It is our root system.

But when people say forget everything you learned in Sunday school, they do not mean tradition,they mean traditionalism. They mean the dead faith of living people, not the living faith of deadpeople. Traditionalism is the encrusted cake of ideals that cries out “The Old Paths are best” butinstead of walking the old paths into the future, they call a little cul-de-sac the Old Paths and theywalk around in a circle. That’s not the Old Paths; that is the Old Rest Home. The Old Pathscontinue into the future. The ancient commands are made new everyday by the mercy and love ofGod.

Notice that God calls up another figure from history – Elijah. Elijah is the prophet of prophets inIsrael’s memory. The prophet keeps the law of Moses from becoming old and tired. He brings itto life for each generation. Even in our time, we cannot rest lazily on the work of theRestorationists or of a generation ago. Every generation has the need to live out the word of God- right here and right now. We can look back and see what our parents did in their generation, orwhat the pioneers did 200 years ago, we can see what the first century church did and what Israeldid. But they will ask us, like good witnesses, now what will you do?

God is sending a messenger so that his people will be aroused from the idea that God did nothingmore than leave us a book. God is not interested in building a “by-the-book” bureaucracy. Hedesires a family in which the parents and the children, every generation, is connected with aheartfelt faith that keeps alive the message of the messenger.

This is the hope for the future that God gives us after the past has been dredged up. The day ofthe Lord is yet to come, but the messenger has arrived. If the folks who put the books of theBible together in their current order had been paying attention, the first gospel would be Mark,not Matthew. Mark’s gospel opens where the last book of the Old Testament leaves off … “See, Iam sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying outin the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ “

The messenger, the Elijah, was John the Baptist and his message was about the one who cameafter him, Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh come to save us, but also to form a relationship with us. We are called to know Jesus (not just know about him, but know him). Jesus, the Son of God,can turn our hearts back to our heavenly Father as he himself is the turning of Father God’s heartto his children.

Learning the Lord’s Language (Malachi 3)

Posted by Chris on May 15, 2005 under Sermons

        Last week a reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette called me to ask if I ever thought about the words and phrases we use in the church. She wanted to know if I struggled to communicate when some of the language we use as the church seems like religious jargon. (The article was published in the May 14, 2005, issue of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette religion section).
        I welcomed this conversation because it is something I have thought about for quite some time. The words we use and the way we define things matters. This isn’t just hairsplitting or quibbling over semantics; I do not mean the clever word-smithing or doublespeak of politicians. What I am talking about is something we all experience – words shape reality. They become ways of forming community and relationship. Naming things is important. Words that once meant one thing now mean something completely different. Words like "gay and queer" were once very common words but now they have a very specific meaning and the way they are used may define how one stands on the issue of homosexuality. Naming things is important and words create relationships. In the military, there are proper and improper ways to speak to one’s superior officer given the circumstances. Why? Words create relationships. They shape reality. Polls show that many Americans, an overwhelming majority in fact, believe in God. But what do they mean by God? Some may ask, "Does it matter?" Considering that God tells Moses that his name is "I AM," meaning that he defines himself, I would say it does matter.
        Words are very important. We have the ability to use words the way God does. We have the ability to learn the Lord’s language. Or we can wear God out with our words. This is the charge that Malachi lays upon the people of Judah during their court case with God … Read Malachi 2:17 – 3:15

        They have wearied the Lord with words. They have changed the "terms" of their relationship with God. Terms – in the sense of words! God is too nice to judge. God is not paying attention to evil and those who do what is wrong get away with it so there really is no point to doing what is right. Maybe what we have called "wrong" really is "alright" and maybe what we have called "right" is really "too strict." They have changed the terms. They are renaming things and reshaping reality on their terms – but not God’s terms.
        "Yes, I’m on my way to visit you with Judgment. I’ll present compelling evidence against sorcerers, adulterers, liars, those who exploit workers, those who take advantage of widows and orphans, those who are inhospitable to the homeless-anyone and everyone who doesn’t honor me." God will use his words. He will announce his terms. He will speak up and be a witness. Those who engage in sorcery will hear God’s terms. Those who are involved in adultery will hear God’s terms. Those who lie and those who oppress the poor and their own workers will hear God’s terms.
        But before that happens, God is going to send them a speech therapist. He is going to send them a translator. God is going to send a messenger who will teach the people God’s terms. It will be a process of purification and refinement. It will be hard, but if God arrives before they are ready then none of them will be able to stand up to the test.
        God is now appealing the Case on behalf of Israel. He has moved from defendant to prosecutor to judge but now he becomes defense advocate. God the judge is withholding the sentencing to give the people time to change. He wants to delay so that they will return to him and learn how to speak of the world as he does. He wants to give them time to cease their sorcery and adultery and to reverse their oppression. 3:6 For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished. ⁷Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, "How shall we return?

Purification and Preparation – Isn’t this the question before us also? Isn’t this question before our culture?

• We don’t have too many sorcerers, but we do have our own techniques of gaining control. Sorcery and magic were ancient methods of influence with words. Think about the ways we try to influence others. We place our hope and trust in these methods of influence. And we justify doing so by changing the terms. How do we describe a successful person? With whose terms? We use words like secular to describe our finances and politics. Why are we doing that? Do we trust in God or do we depend on our party being in power or our business succeeding at any cost? Like the sorcery of ancient times, we have our science, wisdom, influence and resources that we like to control and we need to be careful that we do not rely on the language and the reality created by these words instead of learning God’s terms. Have we wearied God with our use of words?
• Perhaps adultery is more common to us. But how do we define it? How do we define all immorality? Do we look for strict definitions so that we can create loopholes? Pornography isn’t sinful, some say, it is just natural and normal. (Perhaps an initial curiosity is understandable, especially among the young; but a continued engagement isn’t). Really? How did Jesus define adultery? (Matthew 5) According to Jesus, isn’t adultery also a matter of the eyes and the heart and not just the reproductive organs? In our age we have defined sexual immorality with such strict definitions and particular words so that we excuse certain forms of physical behavior. Some say, "It isn’t really sex if we don’t take it to a certain physical level." Have we wearied God with our abuse of words?
• Consider how oppression takes place. Words are used to justify it. We choose to believe certain things about the poor and the weak so we can insulate ourselves from their world. There was a time in this nation when slavery was declared to be God’s will. The segregation of the church along racial and economic lines is still justified because of the way we use words. "Some people prefer church with their own kind." What does that mean? In Christ Jesus there is only one kind! One kindred people! (Galatians 3:28) Pay attention to the terms we use and pay attention to the language we are using – is it God’s language that creates our reality and relationships? Or is it our own corrupted language?" Have we wearied God with our abuse of words?

Returning to God – Learning the Lord’s Language (Living with God’s Terms)
        Let’s be honest before God, living in a culture that is good at warping words it is easy to find ourselves speaking our own language and living on our own terms. That’s when we have to ask, "How do we return to God so he might return to us?" The simple answer is we need to trust in God and keep our covenant with him.
        God called upon Israel to stop robbing him. They were withholding their tithes. Why? Because they didn’t trust him! They wanted to manage their resources on their terms. Notice that the people have said harsh things about God because to them keeping the covenant is all a matter of profit and gain. (3:14) What’s in it for us? Why serve God? It really seems like a waste of time because the people who really succeed are the proud, the arrogant, and the rich.
        It is in the simple things that we return to God. That’s how we practice trust and covenant. How do we regard our resources? Even if we give 10% how do we use the 90%? Do we view that as the Lord’s money, (one of our church terms) or is the Lord’s money just the allowance we give him each week? How do we view our faith? How do we talk about it? Is it a means to an end for our spiritual life? Or is it all a part of who we are?

God Taking Names – Read Malachi 3:16-18
        Here is hope at the end of this difficult trial when God was sued by the people he loves. Some of them listen to hims and try to imagine a new way. They love to think about God and the respect his covenant.
God takes down their names and then he names the people in the book. "They are mine!" he says. "These are my kids!" And that makes a difference. Words shape reality and create relationships. How you name things matters. And God is going to show us how that is done.
        The article in the newspaper ended on a good note. I people will pay attention to it. I was talking with the writer about the fundamental teaching of the Scriptures that God creates the universe with words. It is a very important teaching and it is unique in creation stories. Here’s what I said: "God speaks and that sets the creation story apart. He allows man to name creations. And in naming them, we define them. We have this gift of speech and language and it is not unimportant."
        Of all creatures in creation we are they only ones who use words in that way we share in Gods’ creative power. According to the traditional church calendar, today is the day of Pentecost. On the Pentecost Sunday after Jesus resurrection and ascension to heaven, God’s spirit enabled his messengers to speak and to be understood by the crowds in the temple. The miracle of Pentecost is not that the apostles spoke in tongues – it is that the people understood the word they were preaching. Instead of confusion, there was clarity and the world was learning to speak the Lord’s language. This is the dawning of the day that Malachi anticipates.
So, will we weary God with our abuse of words or will we learn to praise Him with our words/mouths? Will we let His spirit teach us how to use words and to name things and how to create relationships on God’s terms? Everything else in the universe speaks on God’s terms and praises Him. Can we, the creatures who use words, praise Him?

Keeping the Covenant (Malachi 2)

Posted by Chris on May 8, 2005 under Sermons

I want to continue the legal drama we started last week. It is 450 B.C. and Israel has decided to sue God. They have taken him to court before the priests and the officiating judge. They want to know why God hasn’t fulfilled his obligations in their covenant. Why haven’t they prospered as he promised? Why haven’t their fortunes been restored? Why do their enemies continue to mock them? By bringing God to trial, it is Israel that ends up on trial. God defends his case by stating and proving that he has always loved Israel. But they have lowered their expectations. Their worship is a sham and God deserves to be honored as a mighty king. Instead they go through the motions and offer half-hearted, routine worship. Even still, they have the audacity to hold God to his covenant promises. God addresses the charge that he has not been faithful to covenant, and in doing so God moves from defendant, to prosecutor, to judge … Read Malachi 2:1-9.

God reads the verdict. Because the priests of Israel have made a mockery of the covenant God has put them out of his presence. In doing so he is the one who actually honors covenant. The covenant is that important. It is not a covenant of restrictive, rules. It is a covenant of life and well-being. It is good for everyone! The covenant is the social and spiritual structure that gives meaning and shape to the way God’s people live and order their lives. It determines not only how people worship God, but also how they should treat one another. It establishes how husbands should treat wives and how wives should treat husbands. It gives shape to the way one generation nurtures the next generations. By setting boundaries and lining out behavior it doesn’t seek to isolate Israel from the world, but it strives to order Israel’s life on display before the world.

The priests have a special place in the covenant. They are to teach the people how to order their lives in relationship to God and thus how to order their lives with one another. They are to be God’s messengers in this covenant relationship. But instead of speaking for God the priests have spoken against him. They have despised his name and they have dishonored him. Their disregard for God and his covenant has led to the malaise and discontent in the lives of the people of Israel. Instead of teaching people how to live, their dishonorable teaching has caused people to lose their way.

It seems contradictory that God who claims to love the people is also prepared to punish. How can that be love? It is love because God cares about the way people live. If the people do not live in covenant, then they will return to the egotistical pursuit of pleasure that hurts the innocent and disrupts the bonds of good society. God loves the priests and the people enough to care about what happens to them. God loves them enough to be intolerant of the lack of love and respect they show to one another because of the lack of love and respect they have for God and covenant. There are consequences of such behavior and those consequences bring curses upon the priests.

Now, God’s advocate speaks to the people of Jerusalem gathered to watch the courtroom drama. God has delivered his verdict and the people need to learn the lesson. They too have broken covenant like the priests and if they think it was just the priests who have a stake in covenant, then they need to think again. Malachi (whose name means God’s messenger) speaks to the people … Read Malachi 2:10-16 … To emphasize all of it, God himself speaks, “I hate divorce, and covering one’s garment with violence! So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless!”

Malachi is telling the people that God is very much aware of what they’ve done – even if they are not. They have broken covenants with God and one another and the consequences have come back to visit them. The two covenants they have broken are related: In Israel, the men and women married young, often before the age of 20. Now after years of companionship with the wives of their youth, after building homes with them, after raising children, after worshipping with these women, they have discarded their wives to marry other women. There’s no mention of why the men were doing this: the women were often foreign women who brought with them knowledge of other cultures and gods. Perhaps it was just that the women were younger and no Israelite father would give his daughter to a man already married. Perhaps it is because the women were exotic and strange and had the allure of the forbidden. Perhaps it is because marriage to these women enabled the men to secure business relations with the men of other nations. We don’t really know and Malachi doesn’t bother to cite the reason because the reason for the divorce doesn’t concern God as much as the consequences of the divorce!

The consequences are 1) that the men are breaking faith with their ancestors who struggled to preserve their faith in God in the midst of a land full of idols. And now they casually bring idolatry into their society. 2) They are disrupting their society and creating hardships by turning out their wives who expected these men to care for them and provide for them. They have broken faith with their wives and God takes that seriously. 3) They are breaking faith with their children and not passing on the covenant to their offspring. When God speaks he speaks his hatred of the way the people of Israel have made a mess of covenant not only with him but with one another. According to God it is violence. He doesn’t care how spiffy a tuxedo they wear to their wedding, it might as well be covered with the spiritual and social blood they have shed. God hates this culture of covenant breaking Israel has created only because he loves his people so much.

I really don’t know if it is easy or hard to see how this text implicates all of us. Their culture of marriage and divorce is so unlike our own in many respects (women couldn’t initiate divorce, marriages were arranged by parents, the problem of foreign gods) and then in other respects it is so like our situation because we have created a culture of covenant breaking that ignores the consequences. In her book, The Divorce Culture, Barbara Defoe Whitehead surveys the titles of recent books providing guidance for divorce. These titles demonstrate that the consequences of divorce are being ignored. For men, the most popular titles appeal to male competitiveness and include titles such as The Fighter’s Guide to Divorce: A No-Holds Barred Strategy for Coming Out Ahead, The Lion’s Share: A Combat Manual for Divorcing Males, and How to Dump Your Wife. For women the titles include such upbeat and nurturing titles as: Divorce and New Beginnings, Growing Through Divorce, Our Turn: Women Who Triumph in the Face of Divorce, and The Best Is Yet to Come. But it is the children’s literature on divorce that is perhaps the most honest. It contains titles that speak of the loss and the anger. Titles such as Daddy Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Unfinished Portrait of Jessica, It’s Not the End of the World, and I Won’t Go Without a Father. Could it be that like Israel we have broken faith with one another and with our children?

Before I go any further I want to be clear … the divorce that God hates is not simply divorce in marriage, but the divorce that is the breaking of covenant which includes covenant with God and with one another. God’s charge is for his people to be faithful. We are all stakeholders in marriage and the other structures that hold us in godly relationship with one another.

I want to be clear. God loves everyone who has been divorced for whatever reason. There are no exceptions. God loves you. But I know form personal experience that divorced people haven’t always felt like the church loves them. That’s wrong. Divorced people in a church or people on the verge of a divorce sometimes feel like a football coach in a West Texas town: If you lose, we will give you your walking papers. We are not going to do that. We are going to love you. Just as we can forgive lying, gossip, and angry words even as we hold one another to the standard of maturity and speak plainly of the consequences of divisiveness; so also we can forgive the failure of marriage even as we hold one another accountable to covenant. To speak plainly of the consequences of breaking covenant, does not contradict love or forgiveness. And likewise, to love and forgive does not contradict the ability to speak plainly.

I want to be clear. I am not saying that we are going to be na?ve and pretend divorce cannot happen. Not even God does that. He hates divorce. Why? Because it tears up the people he loves. If you have been divorced you know what I mean. I went through a divorce with good friends and all of us felt the pain of it. One day we were discussing Malachi 2:14. My friend spoke, “God says, I hate divorce. Well, so do I.” I don’t think there is any better way to understand this text.

I want to be clear. Divorce is not merely an individual choice. It isn’t limited to the private realm. We all have a stake in every marriage and every family bond. (This is why we demonstrate our commitment to young families!) You don’t hear that very much in our culture anymore and I think this has magnified the problem. God implores us to do more than condemn sin or take a stand against divorce, he warns us not to break faith, which is to say – Keep the covenant! Keep the covenant of marriage and the covenant of faith and the covenant of Christ-like love. Keep faith with one another! This is more than an attitude that says “Hate the sin but love the sinner.” No, it goes beyond that to say that you cannot truly hate sin until you first love the other sinner! And if we do not hate sin and the way it dehumanizes and wounds and de-spiritualizes, then in what sense do we truly love?

This has been a hard sermon to preach. It may have been even harder to hear. I offer no pat answers, quick-fixes, or three-step solutions. Such glib advice only feeds into the individualism that has distracted us from the harder, but more rewarding work of maintaining covenant. What we need to do – all of us, divorced, married, remarried, never married – is strive to keep the covenant and not break faith with our cloud of witnesses and with the generations we witness to. Most of all let us strive to keep the covenant that God made with us. He sent his Son to form a new covenant; if you have been baptized into Jesus then you are a child of that covenant. Live by it! The Son sent the spirit so that we might be able to live in covenant with one another. The spirit gives life and well-being. Let’s love one another according to the ethic of this spiritual covenant rather than the ethics of individual choice.

Following God in a Foreign Land

Posted by Chris on May 1, 2005 under Sermons

Part 1 – Naming the Change

There’s a lot of uncertainty and anxiety in our culture and it makes us feel like we are living in a foreign land. How do you follow God in a land that is changing? For some people the challenge is that they have left the land they knew. But what if the land you knew has left you? Where did it go? Whatever happened to home?

That’s the sort of feeling expressed in this popular song (Mayberry by Rascal Flatts)…

Sometimes it feels like this world is spinning faster
Than it did in the old days
So naturally we have more natural disasters
From the strain of a fast pace

Sunday was the day of rest
Now its one more day for progress
But we can’t slow down
Cause more is best
All in the process

But I miss Mayberry
Sittin’ on the porch drinking ice cold Cherry — Coke
Where everything was black & white
Pickin’ on a Six String
People pass by and you call them by their first name
Watching the clouds roll by
bye bye

Sometimes I can hear this whole world stopping
Through the trees as the wind blows
That’s when I climb up here on this mountain
And look through God’s window

No I can’t fly
I’ve got to be
To get me high up here
Far from the noise and city streets
My world receives the peace

chorus

Sometimes I dream I’m driving down an old dark road
Not even listed on the map
I pass a dad and his son carrying a fishing poll
But I always wake up everytime I try to turn back

What sort of feelings are being expressed in this song? How have you experienced any of this? That may be what it feels like to have the "land" you knew leave you.

Here’s how I want to frame this discussion:

1. Naming the Change
First, let’s name the change. If you know what you are up against that helps. The changes we are feeling all around us are both good and bad – they are a mixed bag. They present challenges and opportunities. The goal will not be to strategize but to simply attach some name to what’s going on.

2. Nomads and Exiles
Second, let’s learn some lessons from nomads and exiles. The Bible tells the story of God’s faithfulness with people who are always being uprooted, scattered and dispersed (Beginning with Abraham and continuing through to the persecution in Acts 8; and the churches in Asia were also unsettled) We even sing songs that say things like "This world is not my home, I am just passing through." Do we mean it?

3. Plans for the Future
Third, we’ll talk about plans for the future. But they aren’t my plans or your plans. They are the plans for the future that are a gift from God.

Naming the Change
(I am indebted to Alan Roxburgh for indicating many of the details of this section. I recommend his book: The Missionary Congregation, Leadership, and Liminality, Christian Mission and Modern Culture Series, Trinity Press International, 1997)

The "Land" We Knew was predictable and stable. Of course by land we do not mean a physical location. We really mean a culture situated in a particular time and place. For most of still alive that would be the America we knew during the 1950’s-1980’s.
We can recall some of the "landmarks" of that land …

• Nation States – The keys players on the political scene could come to the U.N. and many of them were part of the Security Council. I remember that in movies and comic books the "bad guys" were the communists. They were just like us, except they were communist. Now, the political players are less obvious. Terror cells are more fluid and unbounded. Activist groups have influence on world politics.

• Social Institutions – Social Institutions such as church, government, and other civic organizations gave structure to life. However, that has declined and now there is a sense of disconnection or disembodiment. Since Watergate, people have lost faith in government structure. Since the PTL scandal and the reports of abuse in the Catholic church, people have lost faith in organized religion. Instead of supporting local and community schools, the buzzword is now school choice. (For an in-depth treatment on this issue of change I recommend Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, 2000.)

• Experts – In the land we knew, we called upon experts to help us figure out difficult situations. Experts were well-educated and had researched their material. Remember when 4 out of 5 dentists recommended Dentyne? We accepted that because the experts are right. Now Dentyne jokes about the fifth dentist. The attitude tward experts is less confident. In churches, the reliance on the expert led to the church growth movement. If we could just do what the expert did it would work in our situation, right? Well it didn’t work out that way is what discovered. More important than an expert is a facilitator who can help us dialogue because we all have something contribute – not just the expert.

• Managers – Leaders were called upon to maintain what was. But now we look to innovators to reconstruct what was. The classic failure of the railroads was that they assumed it was their job to manage the railroads. But the land they knew left them and they were not the innovators of the automobile.

• Central Authority – In the land we knew, leadership and authority were centered in a recognizable person or object. Recall the monopolies such as the phone company or the monopoly that the Post Office had on all deliveries. Now there is individual choice. We are given choices in even the most minimal details. Do we want paper or plastic? Do we want plan A or plan B? Do we want Coke with Vanilla or Cherry or Lime? This is one of the reasons why the Bible is not instantly accepted as "fact." After all, if I can choose perhaps I will choose the Quran or other spiritual teachings. Maybe, as Oprah and others have said, there are many paths to God and one only has to choose.

• Linear – In the land we knew, cause and effect were linear and straightforward. The Surgeon General said that cigarettes caused cancer, so the solution is simple: Don’t Smoke. But now things are more complex. The Surgeon General wasn’t wrong, but maybe the surgeon general didn’t know everything that the Surgeon General should have known. Big Tobacco hid the facts, so Big Tobacco must pay. History and science are not regarded as simple, linear facts. For example, did Columbus discover America? Well, once we sang that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 to give the answer. But that’s not as simple as what we know now. Vikings discovered it long before Columbus and the Indians were here long before that. Cause and effect has given way to a complex network of variable.

• Predictable – Which means that this foreign land is lot less predictable than the land we knew. The city of Lake Jackson was built by the Dow Chemical Corporation. They built the town for their employees. They promised their workers and their families that they would be taken care of for their entire life. And many people did work until retirement. But now that has changed. Now the future is not so certain and the outlook for company and one’s job is less predictable. Now volatility in markets and career is assumed. Everything is more chaotic.

Consider how these factors have contributed to the change we are trying to name:

• Globalization – The world is a much smaller place and less isolated than in the past.
• Rapid Technological Change – Once computers filled an entire room, and now I wear one on my belt. It is millions of times more powerful than the huge computers that filled a room. In the life time of many of us we went from party line phones to cell phones. Many of these technologies have only mushroomed in the last 10 years. The growth is exponential.
• Staggering Need – We have always been aware of the needy. But now we see neediness in our own nation and among people who were once doing well. Recall the crisis of the homeless that came to our attention in the 1980’s. Presently there is economic uncertainty worldwide.
• Loss of confidence in primary structures & institutions – loyalty and commitment have changed because of a failure of confidence in the structures that once provided stability. This creates a dilemma in our mission: if people are losing confidence in primary structures and institutions then our efforts to build an institutional form of church are not going to be well received. But what if we let form follow faith? What if form made sense because it embodies the gospel?

During the opening theme song of All in the Family, Archie and Edith sang nostalgically of the past: "Those were the days" One line in the song hits home for everyone: "And you knew who you were then." The massive changes lead to an identity crisis.

Consider how the changes described above lead to these effects …

1. Uncertainty – Since everything we knew is changing, there is uncertainty about the future even as near as tomorrow. Who knows if tomorrow will be another 9/11? Can anyone say with any real certainty?
2. Unending Work – Rapid technological change and innovation in transportation have de-compartmentalized our lives. We just cannot leave work at the office. Our work never seems to end. In the 1950’s there was a real concern that Americans would have to figure out how to use leisure time. Now cell phones, Wi-Fi Internet and jet travel make it hard to "get away."
3. Anxiety and Stress – So of course this leads to increased anxiety and stress. It also leads to fear. Turn on the morning talks shows and see if they don’t offer you something to be worried about. The watchword these days is safety and precaution.
4. Loss of Purpose and Meaning – People feel dehumanized by work, they feel insignificant in the scope of the world and the universe and they feel disconnected from others. Who am I? Is a common question. How many people have struck off on strange quests to find themselves?
5. Insecurity and Instability – Without purpose and meaning, and with anxiety there is a real problem of insecurity and instability. Add to that the fact that people have loss confidence in primary structures. No wonder the security business is growing even as other businesses are suffering.
6. Hostility and Fear – Since we live in a "State of Fear" there is a great deal of hostility. Also, the fact that our culture is polarizing to the extremes creates hostility. We do not talk about differences. We live in red states and blue states and no one wants to be purple.
7. Loss of Identity and Community – And now no one knows who they are. The day of the rugged individual was a myth. The rugged individual was as connected to his/her community and surroundings as anyone else. But now we are disconnected and being a lone individual is not as wonderful as we once imagined. A phone company tells us that we are "singular" individuals, but we they are also buying up all the small phone companies to become a telecom giant. I can be singular, but I must choose Cingular.

Conclusion:
We are experiencing a barrage of changes (not just one change)
Personal Choice is god (pick and choose)
No central Authority
New insecurity (state of fear)

Deuteronomy means the second giving of the law. It anticipates the day when the people of God will be refugees and exiles in a foreign land. It speaks to the question raised in Psalm 137 – How do you sing the songs of Zion in a strange land?

There is hope in the message of Deuteronomy. It gets at the heart of what it means to have a covenant relationship with God. Even though they have lost their king, their land, and their connection with the temple of God they can still seek the Lord.

Many things change, but God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

There is a theme to the stories of God and his people. The theme can be drawn as a pattern that shows how people leave the land they knew, go through an intermediate place or time (this is what Roxburgh refers to as liminality), and then arrive in the land/future that God provides. This is the story of nomads and exiles and the same God who carries all of them through their experiences.

Abraham:

This is first seen with Abraham (though an argument could be made for Noah being the first). See Genesis 12-13. When God calls Abraham he calls him out of the land he knew – the land of his ancestors. He promises to take him to a new land, Canaan. But along the way he ends up in Egypt. The bulk of the "adventure" in Genesis 12 is not in Ur or Canaan. It is in the in-between place, Egypt. This is where the important action takes place. It is a time of testing and faithfulness.

Jacob:

See Genesis 28:1-5 and the reason why Jacob is being sent out. Jacob leaves the land of his fathers and goes to his uncle Labans land in Paddan Aram. This is where the bulk of Jacob’s story takes place. Jacob’s time in Paddan Aram gets stretched out longer and longer. Why? What is God able to do with his in-between time in Laban’s land? God uses this time away from the land of promise to build up the population of the people of promise. How many make up Israel before Jacob starts having children in Paddan Aram? Not many. How many make up the people when Jacob returns. Jacob is able to divide his household into two camps!

There is change and renewal through the time of transition. Where was God in the midst of all this? He was working on Jacob. The wrestling match that ties it all up sums up the adventure and the transition. Jacob comes out of it with a limp, but he is also blessed and has a new name and a new future (he was not the firstborn).

Notice the pattern that there is an in-between place and an in-between time that is not the destiny or future for God’s person, but it is still a significant part of the story.

Israel’s exodus from Egypt and the Wandering in the Desert:

What is the identity of Israel in Egypt? Slaves. They were part of the structure of Egyptian society.

When did they learn about God and learn his ways? When did they get the Law and the covenant commands? (Ex. 19-20) (Ex. 24 – covenant) When were they fed with manna? Quail? (Ex. 16) When was water provided from the rock?

When did they fight the Amalekites? (Ex 17) When did real leadership in Israel form (ex. 18) When did they build the tabernacle? When did they develop the priesthood?

These great events that shape Israel’s identity do not happen in Egypt or in Canaan. The happen in the desert – the in-between place. The slaves of Egypt are formed into God’s nation before they enter the land.

Babylonian Exile:

Another important "in-between" event that will shape the identity of Israel is the exile. Consider the awesome loss that the people experience in 587 B.C. when they are invaded and overpowered by the Babylonians (see Lamentations and Psalm 137). This was not supposed to happen to God’s people. They lose the things they gained in the desert and after the arrival in the land – priesthood, temple/tabernacle, the land itself and the king. These became meaningless under Babylonian control. But in the exile they rediscovered the law and the prophets. This is what makes them God’s people. The promise of the prophecies is that God will write his law on their hearts. He will rebuild them spiritually and materially.

This is the setting for the Deuteronomy 4 text …
"But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him."

The word of the prophets go back to the law and through it proclaim a time of punishment but also the hope of renewal The great prophetic sermons come out of this time of tension and crisis

Lamentations 3
Ezekiel 37 – the dry bones
Ezekiel 36:24-28 – A new heart and a right spirit.
Jeremiah 29:11 – The plans I have for you. Seek me and find me!

Daniel 1 – Daniel is versed in the language and culture of the land of exile (v. 4-5); Daniel becomes an expert at this (v. 20) and gains the trust of the Babylonians. 2:46; 4:37 – Nebuchadnezzar honors God. Isn’t this God’s mission to the nations in effect? If not, then what is it?

The Persecution of the Church (Acts 8)
Lest we think this is some bizarre Old Testament phenomenon, there is a New Testament example of this. In Acts 8, Luke tells us that the church is scattered from Jerusalem after Stephen is executed. What must the people been thinking at this point? For most of us this would be the end. How can they remain faithful if their connection to Jerusalem is severed?

What do the scattered people do? They preach Jesus! What was Jesus’ agenda in Acts 1:8? That they would become his witnesses in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

God is doing something with this in-between time and Judea and Samaria become the launching points for mission to the ends of the earth. (see 11:19) The scattered disciples go to Antioch and some of them start converting Gentiles! Antioch becomes the base for Paul and Barnabas’ journey. Who could have predicted that the persecution could lead to such an outcome?

What about Us?

So is this just the way God did things long ago but now he likes them stable and same? Did God pick the 20^th century as the way to keep things? How do we lament change but also open ourselves up to what God may be doing during the in-between NOW?

Do we have the faith to discover what God is doing with us in the in-between time? The changes that are taking place are lamentable in many cases, but God may be working in them still. They also may be stripping us and cleansing us of so many sinful attitudes and habits we have picked up. These may be things that are keeping us from renewal and hope

We have to open ourselves to what God is doing among us in the "in-between" time and trust in him to provide the future. On another level, in this world we have no lasting city but we await the city to come and so what do we do? We leave the city of this world and join Jesus outside the camp …

It was 1991 and I had completed my first year of graduate school. The campus minister at the Razorbacks for Christ wanted me to come back to the RFC spring banquet and share my thoughts on what the RFC’s should do next. He wanted me to articulate a plan for the future. Thankfully, I felt very inadequate to the task. I struggled about what to say. Then I recalled something that Dr. John Willis had taught us in Old Testament. It was this text from Jeremiah 29.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

The future is a gift from God. This is the message from the prophet for the people of God captive in Babylon. They are in despair. They have lost their land, their king, their homes and their fortunes. Will God punish them forever? Has he abandoned them?

The message is gospel – it is good news. (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

• The future is God’s gift. He has good things in mind and has plans for hope.
• But the people are invited to seek God – to eagerly and earnestly seek him in prayer and worship.
• God promises that they will find him if they seek him with all their heart. He will restore their fortunes and return them to the land he had promised to them.

God made a promise to Abraham and he keeps this promise. God has saved these people – but not just for their own sake – it is for the sake of the world.
Is it any different with us? We also are saved – but not for our own sake, but for the sake of the world!

The captives in Babylon could dream of a hopeful future – if they sought after God. What about us? Can we dream again? Sometimes I fear we have lost our dream and our vision. Or we forget the reason for our salvation and our future. We do not secure the future. God does.

Can we expect our future – especially the future of the church – to be hopeful? I think we can, but we have to look beyond the two typical options we often assume are our only options …

Two Typical Options

The first option is Nostalgia –
Let’s return to what we knew! Go back to how it was!
This is impossible

The second option is the Restart
This is Reactionary Change – We will start over anew. But we are still in control. We attempt to jettison the past to get a new future. But this is really just rebellion controlled by the past or the present uncertainty. It is inattentive to history.

Even though these options seem to be different, they have some negative characteristics in common:

1. They ignore the experience of the in-between place. They try to avoid the benefit of the trial. Leaving the land that is known is always an occasion for God to shape his people into a people especially prepared for his mission in the world.

2. They are both attempts to make the future on our own power! They ignore the biblical theme raised in the question: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

Is Anything Too Difficult for the Lord?

This question begins with Abraham and Sarah – Genesis 18:14

Abraham and Sarah – God asks the question of Sarah because she laughed. Don’t be too hard on Sarah. If your 99 year old grandfather and his 90 year old wife who never had children told you they were expecting you would laugh too. The only future these folks have is buying a tombstone not buying pampers. Is anything too difficult for God?

Jacob Steals the Promise – Now what? Is that the end of the story? No future? Would you entrust the future to Jacob? Esau wasn’t too great either but at least he didn’t resort to tricks. Is anything too difficult for God?

Slaves in Egypt/The Desert – Who can stand up against Pharaoh? They are pushed against the Sea – trapped! They will probably die in the desert. Why continue with these people? Surely they won’t make it. Why not restart? Why not go back to Egypt? Is anything too difficult with God?

David and Goliath – Who would have bet on David? And he even refuses Saul’s armor. Oh, the good old days before the Philistines! Is anything too difficult for God?

Exile – What if you lost everything that communicated God’s blessings? Would you still believe God was able to deliver? What if foreign agents broke into God’s house and evicted him? Whose God is most powerful? [Exile – Jeremiah 32 – Buying the field with the imagination of a new future. God’s vision.]
Is anything too difficult for God?

Cross – What if your deliverer and Messiah were executed? How do you restart? How do you return to what was? Is there any hope for the future? Is anything too difficult for God?

Emerging future
Between the two typical options there is a third. It is the option of the emerging future that is a gift from God. To find it we must be willing to do the following: Dwell in this place without quick solutions and we will hear God’s solutions and hope for a possible future

Most models (Nostalgia and Restart) for change and response to changing circumstances begin with a conclusion and then suggest a strategy to get there. In reality, there is no quick-fix! This is hard work. Rather than quick-fix, instant-bake plans, we need to empower and release the people to use God’s resources. If we are attentive to God perhaps we can determine what he wants for our future. How can he redeem our experience? (Joseph, Genesis 50 – You intended this for evil, but God intended it for good).

Waiting on God to give us the future that is from him is always best. Do you recall how Abraham and Sarah tried to manage God’s promise of the future? The result was Ishmael. Abraham loved Ishmael and God blessed Ishmael, but Ishmael was not the future God intended and conflict came out of Ishmael’s birth. Don’t forget that Ishmael was Abraham’s first born son – but God has a way of determining the future on his terms, not ours.

Leaving the land that is known is always an occasion for God to shape his people into a people especially prepared for his mission in the world.

Suing God (Malachi 1)

Posted by Chris on under Sermons

      One day in the fall of 1951, Lydia McGuire decided to sue her husband. She and her husband, Charles, had been married for 32 years. When they married she was a young widow in her early thirties with two daughters. He was a frugal bachelor farmer in northeastern Nebraska.
      Lydia was a dutiful and obedient wife. Like many other Nebraska farmwives she treated her husband as the boss and didn’t argue with his rules. As was typical of her time, she raised her own money to pay for household goods with her farm chores. When Charles drove her to the town of Wayne to visit her mother she paid for the trip with money she earned selling eggs. It wasn’t a comfortable or enjoyable trip. Charles owned a 1929 Model A Ford with a broken heater.
      Life for the McGuires was rather ordinary and routine. Though they didn’t talk about finances or their feelings they weren’t worried about them either. In 1951, Charles owned 398 acres of land, had nearly $13,000 in the local bank, and owned government bonds worth $104,000. Perhaps Lydia decided to sue her husband because, despite their wealth, they lived in house without indoor plumbing, her kitchen had no sink and the furnace in the house did not work very well. On Charles’ insistence, they never participated in community organizations and he only allowed Lydia to make local telephone calls.
      Lydia decided to sue her husband, but she didn’t want a divorce. It wasn’t that she was unhappy or didn’t love her husband. That wasn’t the issue. She simply wanted the court to make Charles do his duty as husband as she had faithfully done her duty as a wife. Lydia didn’t want a divorce, she just thought that their situation could be better and she knew Charles had the means – she just wanted Charles to provide decent furniture, a few more visits to relatives, a heated automobile, and flush toilet. She was just asking for her husband to meet his obligations in their relationship.

About 450 B.C., the people of Jerusalem decided to sue God. These weren’t particularly bad times for the people in Jerusalem. They had returned to the land and the holy city nearly 100 years earlier. They had reconstructed the temple and the priests were re-established in the kingdom. But Israel was disappointed thinking that things could be much better. It was a time of malaise, boredom, and stagnation. Life was rather ordinary and routine: they paid tithes to support the priests, they went to temple worship, they offered their sacrifices; they practiced all the ancient acts of worship just as they had been taught – but why? The years of their exile in Babylon still stung them and the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, still seemed to be profiting from Israel’s losses in those days. This didn’t seem to be the sort of conditions that "chosen people of God" should have to endure. They felt that they should be the mighty nation they were before the exile and they knew that God had the means. So, they took God to court and intended to ask the court to make God do his duty as God and meet his obligation in their relationship.

The setting for the court is a sort of Israelite version of the Supreme Court. God is on trial. The Law of Moses allowed for judicial matters to be tried by the leaders of the city at the city gates. But situations that were difficult were taken to the priests:
"If a judicial decision is too difficult for you to make between one kind of bloodshed and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another-any such matters of dispute in your towns-then you shall immediately go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose, where you shall consult with the levitical priests and the judge who is in office in those days; they shall announce to you the decision in the case." (Deut. 17:8-9)
This is the setting of Malachi 1. We enter into a courtroom drama in which God has just taken the stand. Israel, like Lydia McGuire, doesn’t want a divorce, they just want God to fulfill his covenant obligation and they have sued God in court to get him to pay up and start acting like God. And so God speaks from the stand …
Read Malachi 1

God begins his defense by affirming his love for his people. He addresses their question which asks, "How have you loved us? What have you done for us lately, God?" God says, "You might not be able to see it right now but you will! I have loved you and I always will." And as for the accusation that God doesn’t seem concerned about the Edomites and the way they profited from Israel’s exile: God reminds them that Edom was punished and they will never be the great nation Israel will be. Which is true; they had been ransacked by invaders and relocated to the south of Edom. 300 years after this courtroom drama, Edom was absorbed into the Jewish commonwealth.

The rest of the drama unfolds with God making his case that he has loved the people and along the way they are the ones who find themselves on trial. He turns the tables on them. They are questioning God, but he cross-examines them. This isn’t because God is a crafty old fellow or because he can yell louder and smokes and fumes. It is because out of the dark clouds of Israel’s conflict with God comes a beam of light: Israel gets a glimpse into the heart of God.

Have you ever noticed how a good honest argument might actually lead us to be more genuine with the people we love than going thru the motions and playing nice? God makes a claim of his own, a counter-suit: "You’ve despised me." The people are shocked, "How have we despised you?" Israel had been going through the motions when it came to worship. They were mailing it in. They didn’t expect much to happen in worship, so they didn’t put much effort into it. They didn’t expect to live as chosen people, so they weren’t really devoted to it. They went to worship, but it was so half-hearted and weak that God says, "I wish you would just cancel it and close the doors!" They were offering crippled, diseased lambs and calves as tributes to the lord. They gave the first fruits of the harvest – the ones that had gotten sort of fuzzy with mold and pinpricked with wormholes. "Try paying your taxes and honoring your officials with that sort of effort!" says God. See how it is received! God’s people didn’t expect much to happen – they didn’t really think God was at worship, so they didn’t invest a lot into worship.

This sort of worship despises God and it despises his name because it is weak and there is no change in the lives of the people. No wonder their lives are so uninspired and routine. Furthermore, if Israel is so bland and lifeless (just like their worship) then how can they bee the light to the nations that God wants them to be? One of the glimpses we get into the heart of God on trial is that God has visions for the people: He longs for the day when people in all nations "from the rising to the setting of the sun" will call upon God as a great king. He desires that people everywhere know him and give pure and sincere offerings. That was Israel’s purpose in being chosen. To model for the world what it means to be God’s people. The temple in Jerusalem wasn’t just a worship machine so Jerusalem could crank out a few blessings – it was to be God’s lighthouse to the world and everyone would come to it. But instead, the people of God are going through the motions and giving God leftovers and the food that is stale or has been in the pantry since they bought they house, and though that is bad enough they have the audacity to say to God, "So what have you really done for us lately, God?"

Lydia McGuire’s case went fairly well and lower courts ordered her cheap husband to pay for plumbing and buy a car with a heater. Eventually, Charles appealed the case to the Nebraska Supreme Court. They ruled that there was no basis for the law to get involved in the private marriage of the McGuires. But Justice Frederick Messmore, stated the court’s opinion on the matter. Although they may have seemed to legally side with Charles, they really didn’t have much respect for either party or for their vision of the marriage relationship. They admitted that the court was being asked to define marriage and thought they said that Charles attitude toward his wife said little about his character, they also said that marriage certainly wasn’t the quid pro quo relationship that Lydia and her lawyers made it out to be. To reduce marriage to nothing more than instrumental calculation would deny its true significance.

How often do we reduce our relationship with God to nothing more than instrumental calculation? How often do we reduce it to mechanical obligation? Dear God, we’ve have followed the five steps and we keep the five acts of worship on the first day of the week – and Wednesday – now what have you done for us? Do we gather to take care of church business and make certain we have a little worship for God’s sake, but in our collective heart we really don’t expect anything to happen in worship (or we don’t want anything to happen) and as a result we don’t invest much into worship. Like Lydia McGuire, do we stay in an uninspired relationship just so we can inherit the wealth?

Once I heard a good man tell me that he didn’t intend to miss Sunday’s worship but he felt as if he could worship God in the beauty of nature on the lake or in the woods. I confess to you that at the time I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t feel compelled to say to him, "Well the Bible says you better show up or you are in trouble." How inspiring is that? How is that love? Looking back I now realize why I didn’t have an answer for him (other than obligation and rule-keeping): I confess that I didn’t really expect much from worship myself. So why should I ask anyone else to be a part of it. If I could go back I know what I would say! I would say, "But God has invited us to his house to enjoy a meal with him. Yes, he has given us the beauty of nature and yes we can worship him there. But he has invited us to the family reunion and I believe that something even greater will happen when we get there – something even greater than the awe we feel at the sunset and the serenity in nature. You will see ordinary, imperfect people shaped into the children of God and even more you will be awed by a glimpse into the heart of God."

God has opened his heart to us. Dare we listen to what he has to say? Can we stand to be inspired by his imagination? I warn you that God’s vision for us is not simply to make us happy or to fulfill our fondest dreams. God has something much greater than that in mind for us. Nor is his intent to damn us to hell if we don’t get it right. God has something more hopeful and adventurous in store for us. He has a vision that involves the whole world and his rule over all the earth. God envisions a time when all of his children from far and near, the good ones and bad ones, the rich and poor, the clean and dirty, all give honor to him as the Great King. We can mail this song in and go on our way being routine, but ask yourself if that sort of calculating relationship is really what God intends for his covenant people. I invite you to lift up your voices in to honor your Father, the Almighty King who deserves our praise and let this be your way of presenting "your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." (Romans 12:1)

Notes:
• The case of Charles and Lydia McGuire is taken from chapter 1 of Man and Wife in America: A History (Harvard Univ. Press, 2000) by Hendrik Hartog.
• I am indebted to Elizabeth Achtemeier’s commentary on Malachi in the Interpretation series for the observation that Malachi takes place in a Jerusalem priestly court setting.

Earning, Income, and Credit

Posted by Chris on April 24, 2005 under Sermons

Review: Jesus is Lord and we believe he is Lord over every area of our lives. This is challenging and it is the reason why we need be changed through worship and prayer to surrender all things to the Lord. This is why we have spent some time learning from our Lord; hearing his teaching and his word about money, wealth, and trust.
      We live in a market-driven culture. It is a consumer culture. Because of that, our lives are often centered on finances. This is true for the poor, the rich and everyone in between. Our economy and culture create a "Cash Values" lifestyle and regardless of our financial health we need to conform to the Lord’s teaching on money.
      I want to say a special word to those of you who may be struggling financially or may have questions about your money and how to manage it. Financial struggles are a source of stress and a distraction from life in the kingdom. The solution to financial troubles is not more money, nor should we assume that God is a genie in the sky who blesses us if we learn the secrets of how to get rich God’s way. Yet, I am not saying that we as the people of Christ cannot work with one another to overcome problems created by debt and wealth. In fact, it is very biblical for us to do so and it is critical we do so because of the age we live in.
      There are many people in this congregation that we can all learn from when it comes to managing our finances. Don’t be afraid to ask around. You may have noticed in the announcements that there is a financial workshop planned Saturday, May 7. There are many people in this congregation that we can all learn from when it comes to developing a spiritual view of wealth and money.
      What I want to say to all of us is this: We need to be dealing with this matter in many ways and in many settings and we cannot limit it to three sermons. How we use money and the way we shape our lifestyles are not issues outside the scope of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. This is a vital teaching in the Scriptures and it was a matter Jesus addressed often. And for good reason, because as we have said already …

1. Money is not a neutral, secular commodity. It is a power that operates like a god; if we surrender and submit to this power and give it our heart and let it cloud our vision. Rather than use God in the service of money, let us use money in the service of God.
2. Rather than quibble about tithes and funds and how we spend the Lord’s money, let us give beautifully and understand how our discipleship and giving are matters of the heart and not just line items in our check registers or church budgets.
3. As Americans living in the materialistic, consumerist culture of our age, we need to hear the word that Moses preached to the Israelites as they entered the promise Land. It is a message that Jesus exemplified in his life and teaching …

Read Deuteronomy 8.

Explanation:
      Moses’ words are for a future generation that knows only prosperity. They didn’t live through the depression years of the wilderness trek. When you live through the wilderness you realize how much you depend on God. Manna falls from the sky. Water comes from a rock of all places. Quail show up to provide proper nutrition for a wandering people. The wilderness days are tough going lean years but somehow folk just happen to make it. They keep on living and keep on moving. They overcame the danger of snakes and scorpions. Even their shoes and clothes hold up during the journey. They just seem to survive the hard times, but those who saw the waters open up so they could cross over on dry land tell it to the rest. God provided and he still provides. He rescued us with a mighty hand and he sustains us with a mighty hand.
      Now Moses is making this testimony a part of his last words because the generations to follow won’t have first hand experience of the wilderness. They won’t recall what it was like to be slaves and be rescued. They won’t recall what it was like to walk through the sea. They won’t remember what it was like to collect the morning manna. They won’t remember how the quail gathered or how the rock, of all things, started spewing water. All they will know is what it is like to earn a living on the good land and enjoy a decent income from their work. And when they forget about God, who will get the credit for their blessings?

In the classic western movie Shenandoah, Jimmy Stewart stars as Charlie Anderson, a Virginian farmer trying to keep his family out of the Civil War. With one empty place set for his dead wife and his children gathered around the supper table, Charlie begins a litany they obviously have heard before: “Now your mother wanted all of you raised as good Christians, and I might not be able to do that thorny job as well as she could, but I can do a little something about your manners.”

He gestures that they all should bow their heads and continues: “Lord, we cleared this land, we plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. We wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’, if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-boned hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for the food we’re about to eat. Amen.”

At least Charlie Anderson paused to speak the name of the Lord. At least he thanks the Lord "just the same." He makes some sort of connection between God and his earnings – even if it is the wrong one. Because of the materialistic, consumer-driven age we live in, we have effectively removed God from any discussion or thought about our ability to earn and our income. Because we live in a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking we too easily forget to bless the Lord our God for all he has given …

Citation: 2000 Phoenix Wealth Management Survey; USA Today “Snapshots” (11-13-00), B1
Percentage of senior corporate executives with a high net worth (defined as having a net worth of $1 million or more, not including primary residence) who credit their current financial status to …
Hard Work – 99%
Intelligence and good sense – 97%
Higher-than-average I.Q. – 83%
Being the best in every situation – 62%
Luck – 32%

If we are pressed on the issue we would surely all agree that it is God that makes it possible for us to earn a living. We would surely all agree that God not only created the opportunity for us to earn a living and enjoy an income, but that he also sustains us. If we were pressed on the issue we would absolutely give God the credit.
But why must we be pressed on the issue? Why? Because it is so easy to forget what it was like in the wilderness. Some of us don’t even know what it means to live in the wilderness. And so we forget and though we don’t intend to say it, we begin to say "My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth." Perhaps we don’t say it so boldly, but there are other, more subtle ways to say it and live it.
Who remembers the old TV ad of actor John Houseman speaking on behalf of the financial firm Smith-Barney? At the end of the ad Houseman confidently spoke to the camera saying that at Smith-Barney they earn money the old fashion way – "We earned it!"