February 17, 2013, "Things that Destroy"

Genesis 3.1-8, 21-24; Romans 7.13-25

By the rivers of Babylon … hearts broken, and there we wept … no music left in us … all is gone … 

Like all good parents, they wondered what their children would believe. 

Will our children opt for the gods of Babylon? Will the power of Babylon win them over?

What can we say?

What good does it do to talk about ancient military victories when our armies are no more?

What good does it do to talk about kings and queens when, in the end, all of their palace politics brought us nothing but sorrow?

What good does it do to talk about the beauty of the temple when that temple lies in ruins?

What good does it do to talk about Yahweh when we languish here in a strange land, the laughing stock of the nations … they look upon us with haughty eyes and ask, Where is your god now?

What can we believe about God, life and hope, faith and love? What can we tell our children? What do we tell ourselves?

Crisis of faith prompted big questions!

And from that crisis of faith flow the words of Genesis.

The ancient writers and poets, taken into Exile crafted the first chapter of Genesis, and then put the whole book together … to express the deepest faith in God … a faith beyond their own personal story … a faith larger than the moment … larger than Babylon … larger than Israel and Judah … larger than tears and sorrow … a god their children can believe in … a god worthy of their time … a god for the best of times, and most importantly, a god for the worst of times.

The ancient writers crafted and assembled a collection of documents that were to become the foundation of Judah’s hope for a new day … the Hebrew Bible … the Bible that Jesus studied, loved and memorized … the Bible that guided Paul the Apostle and his work … the Bible early Christians quoted to one another, and the words they used in prayer and worship … the Hebrew Bible … what we commonly call the Old Testament … 

To answer the big questions:

Is there a story bigger than our own story of sorrow and defeat?

Is there a god bigger than the gods of Israel and Judah … our gods failed, but perhaps we failed to really understand God?

Is there a god bigger than the gods of Babylon, the gods of Alexander the great, and the gods of the Roman Empire and their mighty armies?

Is there a god our children can believe in and trust?

The writers and thinkers and theologians penned Genesis 1, In the beginning … before Abraham and Sarah, before Israel and Judah, before Assyrian and Babylon … before everything and anything, God.

And there is darkness all about … plenty of darkness, and chaos, too … dark waters and darker night.

But God says, Let there be light.

A gentle light for the night - moon and stars … bright light for the day, the sun, golden and warm.

In the darkness, light … 

The biggest story of all … 

But the Hebrews are no one’s fool … light there is, the light of God, and the light of hope, the light of God’s mercy, the light of love … lots of light … but still the darkness.

Death and sorrow, war and hatred … we have a million ways of hurting ourselves, hurting those we love … a million ways for destroying what God made … a million ways to make it dark even when God creates the light.

So the ancient writers told the story of Genesis 3 … a clever creature comes along and raises questions about the trustworthiness of God … 

That’s always the question, isn’t it?

Can God be trusted?

The ancient writers sometimes wondered … just like we do.

Abraham and Sarah wondered if God would deliver on the promise on a son.

Jeremiah the prophet accused God of betrayal.

Job accused God of cruelty.

Jesus hanging on the cross wonders if God has abandoned him?

And in such moments, danger …

The Book of Genesis lays it all out - Judah tries to figure out: What happened to us? Why did we get here, in Babylon, drowning in our own tears?

WHAT went wrong?

We overreached our grasp, they said … we ate the fruit of the tree that rightly belongs only to God.

We wanted more … we loved armies and kings, power and glory; we despised enemies, thought we were better than everyone else, thought we had god on our side.

But it all fell apart … 

Judah had to rewrite its own story … 

And part of the story - things that destroy … 

We thought god would always protect the Holy City and preserve the throne of David … but, no, we were wrong … God is very different than what we thought.

Judah had to come up with a new story to fit the times and build a road to the future … the past was gone; long gone. No since crying over spilled beer, as they say … no sense looking back - look what happens to Lot’s wife … no, the only way out of this is the way forward, new ideas, new ways of doing things … the old is gone; gone forever … and that’s okay … because God is taking us to new places … it hurts to go where God is taking us, but we have to go where God leads.

A local church was having some issues, so they invited a consultant who, they hoped, could help them find new purpose.

The consultant arrived in January, when the Ladies Association was beginning a new year - new officers and a new program booklet for the next twelve months, listing times and places, programs and people, luncheons and dinners and Bible Studies.

And it was their fortieth year.

In the fellowship hall, laid out on a table, all the program booklets from the last forty years - an impressive sight - red booklets, green booklets, yellow booklets and blue.

The consultant picked up the first booklet - an old mimeographed booklet stapled together with red construction paper - and began to read the names of the leaders and the programs for the year to come. The consultant was impressed.

So the consultant read the second booklet … then the third, the 10^th booklet, the 25^th, and then the last booklet, the 40^th booklet on the table … she was shocked to see that in the last 40 years, nothing had changed - same programs, same schedule, same topics, same restaurants - and many of the names were the same, too.

Judah had to face a painful truth:

We didn’t change! 

Our god grew smaller and smaller every year for us … and we grew smaller, too.

Our prophets warned us, but we put ‘em in prison, we drove them out, we killed them. We stopped thinking, we stopped growing.

Judah learned a hard lesson - those who will not CHOOSE the future, are HAMMERED by the future when it arrives … for Judah, the future looked like an enemy, a Babylonian soldier, but God said to the people, Even Babylon is my servant.

In the Genesis story, Adam and Eve are driven from the Garden, just like Judah driven from Jerusalem - there’s no going back … angels on the east side of the Garden bar the way with flaming swords.

There’s no going back to Eden, no going back to Egypt, no going back to Jerusalem.

But there’s a clue in the text: fertile land OUTSIDE the garden! Good earth! 

We will make it, and so will our children.

God’s people need the greater story … of a god much greater than we could ever imagine.

The creator-god, the god of heaven and earth - greater than our own story, greater than Israel and Judah, greater than David and Solomon … greater than the temple … greater than Calvary Presbyterian Church, greater than the United States of America … greater than all the nations of the world and all the religions of world … greater even than Christianity itself.

As long as God remains big for us, we will be big, too … big in courage, to face the future … with creativity, to find new ways of serving the LORD … and love … love for one another, no matter what … love that transcends boundaries of race and creed … love greater than we could ever imagine.

Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven, to earth come down; fix in us thy humble dwelling; all thy faithful mercies crown!  

Jesus thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art; visit us with thy salvation; enter every trembling heart. 

Amen and Amen!

August 12, 2012, "The Blood Runs Red"

1 Kings 2.31-34

The great English novelist, Charles Dickens …

His Tale of Two Cities ...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, 

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, 

it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, 

it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, 

it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, 

we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, 

we were all going direct to Heaven, 

we were all going direct the other way ...

Dickens’ description of Paris and London just before the French Revolution … describes well those fateful last days of King David … the transfer of royal power to Solomon.

David is old and David is dying.

What will happen now?

David’s older son, Adonijah, proclaims himself king.

He and his friends throw a party.

Bathsheba runs to David … tells him what Adonijah has done.

David may be old … infirm and weak.

But he knows betrayal when he sees it.

David declares that Solomon is the king.

David’s friends rally around Solomon.

Adonijah’s friends fear for their lives and flee to the four corners of the country.

There will be blood; everyone knows it. It is the way of kings.

David’s finals words to Solomon - a death sentence on General Joab - who killed General Abner when Abner came to David in peace … who killed Uriah so David could marry Bathsheba. Joab, a man of blood - David used him, but never trusted him.

David knows there can be no security for Solomon if Joab should live.

David breaths his last. David enters death ordering death for another.

Solomon secures the throne.

At his command:

Adonijah, the elder brother, is executed.

General Joab is killed, as David wanted.

The high priest, Abiathar, who supported Adonijah, is exiled.

Shimei, a member of Saul’s household, is put under house arrest in Jerusalem, and eventually killed at Solomon’s command.

The Bible says: In these ways, royal power was handed over to Solomon.

In the telling of these tales, a search for meaning and purpose.

The Northern Kingdom of Israel long gone under Assyrian domination.

The Southern Kingdom of Judah fallen to the Babylonians.

The City of David in ruins.

Solomon’s Temple destroyed.

Judah’s leadership exiled to Babylon.

How did we get here?

How did this come about?

One has to be brave to tell these kinds of stories … let the world see our dirty laundry … now is not the time for glossing over our failures … only truth will do … the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help us God!

God’s people came face-to-face with sobering truth:

We did it wrong … we closed our ears to the prophets; we choose violence over peace … we thought we were the only nation that God was interested in … we were filled with pride, and without sorrow … our best kings, sometimes wise and humble, were still kings: men of violence, war and death … death on every side … the blood ran deep.

Is there hope for us?

Answers are found in the Prophets - Isaiah for one, Jeremiah for another … Hosea and Amos, Micah, Jonah, Nahum and Malachi … hope:

There is yet another king to come.

One night, wise men in the east see a star, and follow it ... angels sing to shepherds in the field … the king is born.

Born in a stable, David’s town, Bethlehem.

30 years later, Jesus is baptized in the Jordan - the river of boundaries - on one side, the wilderness, on the other hope … in that river, on that boundary, to join wilderness and hope together, Jesus is baptized.

For three years, Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God, turns a few heads and overturns a few tables … until the powers-that-be can stand it no more … a mob is dispatched, Judas kisses the master … the powers-that-be choose Rome instead of redemption, choose power rather than peace.

A disciple draws a sword to defend Jesus; Jesus shouts at him, Put away your sword; those who live by the sword die by the sword.

I show you another way.

Beyond violence, war and death.

The way of peace … the way of a cross.

To follow me will take courage and require risk.

You, too, will have to take up a cross if you want to be a part of my work.

Dear friends in Christ:

Can we really choose the power of love today, or shall we remain stuck in old ideas?

A friend of mine recently wrote:

Everyone has a love; something they love or something they love to do. I have a niece who loves animals beyond measure and the art of animation too. And another niece who loves history. I have sons who are athletes with a love for all things baseball. If I ask them for a reason, I might just get a shoulder shrug or an "I don't know. I just do." And that's enough. Your love never needs a reason or a defense - it's yours. All we can do is support each other in finding what it is we love. And when we do, support each other in cultivating it.

Only in love and kindness … if we learn anything from the Prophets, we learn to live justly, to see that all are treated fairly, with special regard for the down and out: the widow, the orphan and the alien.

Because we belong to the real King … the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that the world might be reconciled to God … 

Dear friends in Christ:

Heaven is already ours; we don’t have to fret about the afterlife, or what happens to us when we die.

It’s earth that needs some fretting … earth waits for our redemption.

Our neighbors wait for love.

The dead in Colorado and Wisconsin wait for us to choose peace.

Millions caught in the crossfires of war wait for so called “christian nations” to put away the sword.

The world waits for God’s People to love as God loves, to forgive as God forgives, to seek wellbeing as God seeks, to calm the storms, to heal the sick, to take care of the poor, to build just societies that love peace more than war.

The world waits for God’s people to final figure it out: Death does not produce life; war does not produce peace; greed does not produce justice.

The world waits for “christians” to be Christians.

God waits for us to seriously follow Jesus.

The one who governs by the Spirit, not the sword.

By his own death, not the death of others.

A cross for a throne.

A wreath of thorns for a crown.

The King of kings, and the LORD of lords.

The Alpha and the Omega.

Jesus is his name.

And it may it be said of us: Those people followed him, and we knew it by their love. Amen and Amen!