Perspective: Celebration in Heaven

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Celebration in Heaven

The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to [Jesus'] disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"  Jesus answered, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance."

Luke 5:30-32 (NRSV)

I left the ninety-nine to find the one

And you're the one

I walked a thousand miles in this desert sun

Only to bring you back

From "To Bring You Back" by Paul Alan

People spend a lot of time trying to figure out what Bible really means, but I think that sometimes the Bible reads us more than we read it.  St. James compares the words of God to a mirror, showing us profound truths about ourselves.¹  Personally, I would compare the Bible to a Rorschach test, for what we read into the text perhaps tells us more about ourselves than about anything else.  At the right time, even a passage that is totally familiar to us has a way of reaching out and grabbing us.  I think this is especially true about Jesus' parables.

Jesus repeatedly came into conflict with the good, upstanding religious people of His day, namely the Pharisees and the religious scholars.  One point of contention was the type of people with whom Jesus associated - tax collectors, prostitutes, and other kinds of "sinners."  One day, Jesus heard people's murmurings about the company He kept, so He told them a story - a parable - about a shepherd who noticed that one of his hundred sheep was missing.  He went out to search for the missing one, leaving the other ninety-nine in the wilderness.  When he finally found the missing sheep, he put it on his shoulders, joyfully took it back to the rest of the flock, and called his friends over for a celebration.²

Jesus then made a statement I find rather offensive: "I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."³

To drive this point home, Jesus went on to tell a story about two brothers, the younger of which approached his father and demanded his share of the family fortune.  After he received his inheritance, he moved away and squandered it all on a life of wine, women, and song.  He fell on hard times, and, when he reached the end of his rope, he decided to go home to apologize to his father and to beg to work as one of the household staff.  When he came home, his father wouldn't even listen to his apology but instead threw him a welcome home party.  The older brother, who stayed at home and did everything he thought his father expected of him, was livid that his wastrel of a brother got a party while his own faithfulness apparently went unappreciated.⁴

Jesus' statement offends me because it makes me feel like chopped liver, like the older son who had to watch his badly-behaved brother's party while his own good behavior went unnoticed.  I have heard the Parable of the Prodigal Son many times over the years, and I have always identified with the older brother.  If I had to identify with one of the sheep in the previous story, I would probably count myself among the ninety-nine who stayed with the shepherd.⁵  Though I cannot say that I've never made any mistakes in my life, I have managed to not mess up my life to any serious extent.  On top of that, I am a devoutly religious person, and I know my way around the Bible.  If I was a first century Jew and not a twenty-first century Christian, then I would probably have the makings of a good Pharisee.

Total screw-ups who turn over a new leaf and get their lives back on track get all the attention.  After all, who doesn't love to hear a good redemption story.  On the other hand, those of us who have kept our noses clean and stayed out of trouble are hardly recognized at all, except for the occasional pat on the back.  Our good behavior is not really rewarded or celebrated: it's just taken for granted.  There is celebration in Heaven for the repentant, but those of us who have been good the whole time have to settle for a measly pity party.

If you are a Type A religious person whose initial reaction to Jesus' words is to angrily call BS, then you're probably on your way to understanding God's grace.

As my initial outrage over Jesus' words starts to subside, I begin to wonder who I think I am to consider myself righteous.  I might be reasonably well behaved, but I am by no means righteous.  Were the religious people of Jesus' day righteous?  Is anybody righteous?  St. Paul laments, "There is no one who is righteous, not even one."⁶  I'm beginning to think that maybe Jesus was being somewhat sarcastic when he spoke of "righteous persons who need no repentance."  I think that maybe He was actually referring self-righteous persons who think they need no repentance.

Jesus once said to the religious leaders, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."⁷  With that in mind, which people are really lost, the people who mess up their lives or the people who think they can do no wrong?  Reflecting on the family dynamics at work in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, preacher Kent Dobson recently said, "Maybe the one you've lost is sleeping in your own house."⁸

Many Christians believe that humans are evil by nature.  Personally, I don't see how anybody can say that humans are naturally evil if we are all created in the Imago Dei, the Image of God, as we read in the Bible.⁹  I don't believe that humans are naturally evil, but I do believe that the divine image we bear has been corrupted and distorted by sin - but not beyond repair.

A lot of people understand Salvation to be a one-time transaction that changes a person's eternal destiny.  Personally, I believe that Salvation is a lifelong process, an ongoing effort on God's part to restore the divine image we all bear.  God never stops tugging at our hearts, so we must never stop repenting and allowing ourselves to be transformed by God's grace.  None of us are truly righteous: all of us, including those who call themselves "saved," are still sinners in need of ongoing repentance and transformation.

Perhaps there would have been a celebration in Heaven if the scribes and Pharisees had begun to see people the way Jesus saw them.  Perhaps there's celebration in Heaven whenever any of us come to our senses about anything.  Perhaps there's an occasion to celebrate whenever the image of God we bear becomes a little bit clearer.


Notes:

1. James 1:22-25
2. Luke 15:1-6
3. Luke 15:7 (NRSV)
4. Luke 15:11-32
5. most of the time, anyway
6. Romans 3:10 (NRSV)
7. Matthew 21:31 (NRSV)
8. Kent Dobson.  "Parables: Prodigal Son."  Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 06/21/2015.
9. Genesis 1:27

The photograph of the flock of sheep was provided by the Agricultural Research Service and is public domain.

Sermon: Where Is God? (2015)

Delivered at Monaghan United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on July 19, 2015

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Where Is God?

Audio Version

Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, "See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent."  Nathan said to the king, "Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you."

But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell My servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build Me a house to live in?  I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle.  Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd My people Israel, saying, "Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?"  Now therefore thus you shall say to My servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.  And I will appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over My people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies.  Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.  When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to Me.  When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings.  But I will not take My steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.  Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before Me; your throne shall be established for ever.  In accordance with all these words and with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.

2 Samuel 7:1-17 (NRSV)

I will swim in the deep

'Cause You'll be next to me

You're in the eye of the storm

And the calm of the sea

You're never out of reach

God, You know where I've been

You were there with me then

You were faithful before

You'll be faithful again

I'm holding Your hand

From "Let the Waters Rise" by MIKESCHAIR

Jesus juke is a term coined by humorist Jon Acuff to describe something that occasionally happens during conversations between Christians.  As a football running back jukes a defensive player by suddenly changing direction to avoid being tackled, a person performs a Jesus juke by suddenly steering a conversation into a religious direction in a negative way.  For example, imagine that someone was talking about her favorite book, saying, "I read the whole book in one sitting!"  If someone wanted to perform a Jesus juke at that moment, he might say, "Too bad people don't read the Bible with that much enthusiasm."  Jon Acuff encourages people not say such things because Jesus jukes bring down conversations, make people feel guilty, and do nothing to actually bring anybody any closer to Jesus.¹

In the Second Book of Samuel, we read a conversation that begins with something not unlike a Jesus juke.  One day, King David was relaxing at his palace with his friend Nathan, when suddenly he said, "Nathan, look around you.  I live in this beautiful, luxurious palace.  It's too bad the almighty God, the Creator of the universe, has to live in a tent."²


The Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle

Not long before this conversation took place, David brought to Jerusalem the Ark of the Covenant, the object that symbolized both the Presence of God and God's covenant with the people of Israel.³  The Ark was a golden chest that contained the Ten Commandments and other symbols of the covenant.  Atop the Ark was the Mercy Seat, the throne of God made up of two golden cherubim.⁴

Replica of the Ark of the Covenant

Years before the reign of David, the Ark of the Covenant was housed in the Tabernacle, a place of worship constructed by the Israelites while they camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai, not long after God rescued them from slavery in Egypt.  The Tabernacle consisted of tent and a surrounding courtyard enclosed by curtains.  Within the courtyard was the Brazen Alter on which the priests offered burnt sacrifices to God and a basin where priests underwent cleansing rituals.  The tent itself was divided by a veil into two partitions: the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.  The Holy Place contained an altar for incense, a golden lampstand, and a golden table for sacred bread.  The Ark itself was housed within the Holy of Holies.⁵

Replica of the Tabernacle

A key feature of the Tabernacle was its portability.  The Tabernacle was covered by the Presence of the Lord, which, at that time, was manifest as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  When the Presence of the Lord rose from the Tabernacle and began to move, the Israelites would dismantle the Tabernacle and follow the cloud.  When the cloud stopped, the Israelites would reassemble the Tabernacle and set up camp.⁶


The Temple of the Lord

The Tabernacle was still in use at the time of King David, though the Ark itself was housed in a tent David had set up in Jerusalem.  David did not believe it was right that the sacred object that symbolized the very Presence of God was kept in a meager tent while he lived in a luxurious palace.  Nathan, a prophet of God, could see that David desired to build a temple fitting for God, so Nathan told him to go ahead and do what he intended to do, knowing that God was with him.  Later that night, God gave Nathan a response for David, basically saying, "Why do you want to build temple for Me?  Did you ever hear Me complain about living in a tent?"⁷

Building a temple was not what God had in mind for David, but I believe that God must have been touched by his dedication and love, for God gave him a promise.  God promised an age of peace for the people of God.  Honoring David's wish to build a temple, God promised that one of David's descendants would build a house for God's name.  God promised to treat this descendant as a son by loving him faithfully and by chastening him for any iniquity "with blows inflicted by human beings."  God then promised to establish David's dynasty forever.

The Temple of the Lord, which was built in Jerusalem under the leadership of David's son Solomon, was larger and more ornate than its more modest predecessor.  Like the Tabernacle's tent, the inner sanctuary was divided into two parts: the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.  The inner sanctuary was completely overlaid with gold, and the walls of the temple were adorned with carvings of cherubim, palm trees and flowers. Within the inner sanctuary stood two fifteen-foot-tall statues of cherubim, also overlaid with gold.  Surrounding the sanctuary were treasure chambers.⁸  The Temple had an outer courtyard as well as an inner courtyard where burnt sacrifices were offered.⁹

Replica of the Temple of the Lord

Construction of the Temple required seven years, and, on the day that the Temple was dedicated, the Ark of the Covenant was brought inside, along with the Tabernacle's tent and the objects once contained therein.  On that day, the Presence of the Lord, manifest as a cloud, entered the Temple, and the Presence of the Lord was so think that the priests could not carry out their duties.¹⁰  The Temple was destroyed by Babylonian invaders around four hundred years later, rebuilt when the Jewish exiles returned to their homeland, renovated by King Herod at the time of Jesus, and destroyed again by the Roman Empire just decades after that.¹¹  One remaining courtyard wall, often called the Wailing Wall, still stands in Jerusalem to this day.


A Different Kind of Temple

Believe it or not, there is a third kind of temple mentioned in the Bible - a temple very different from the Tabernacle and the Temple of the Lord.  One day, around the time of Passover, Jesus visited the Temple in Jerusalem.  He looked around and saw people selling animals for sacrifices and exchanging Roman currency for Jewish currency.  Though this was commonplace at the time, Jesus went ballistic for some reason - maybe He saw people being cheated by the merchants and moneychangers, or maybe He was just offended by the blatant commercialism going on in a house of worship.  Jesus made a whip, started cracking it, and drove everyone out of the Temple, yelling, "Take these things out of here!  Stop making My Father’s house a marketplace!"  When Jesus was confronted about His actions, He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."¹²

"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

Interestingly, Jesus was not referring to the Temple of the Lord, as people thought, but was rather calling His own body a temple.  The Presence of the Lord was not found in a temple of gold but in a temple of flesh and blood - the man Christ Jesus.  Jesus later said to His disciples, "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father...  The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own; but the Father who dwells in Me does His works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me..."¹³

An early Christian hymn states that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, "though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross."¹⁴  The religious people of the day would not have considered Jesus a temple fitting for God.  He was born in a stable under very questionable circumstances; He hung out with people from the wrong side of the tracks; He was in constant conflict with the religious elite; and He was executed on a Roman cross like a criminal.  Of course, Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day, just as He had said.


The Temple of the Holy Spirit

The promise God made to David, like other prophecies recorded in Scripture, can be understood in multiple ways.  God promised David that one of his descendents, a future king, would build a temple.  Normally we would see the fulfillment of this prophesy in King Solomon, since he built the Temple in Jerusalem.  Jesus was also a descendant of David who was lauded as a king by the Magi, by the people who followed Him, and even by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.  God promised that this descendant will be like a son to God, and Jesus himself was the Son of God.  God promised that this descendant would be punished for his iniquities by blows delivered by humans, and, though Jesus committed no iniquity, it has been said that, on the cross, He bore the iniquity of others.

Like Solomon, Jesus also built a temple.  One day, Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"  The Disciples replied with various rumors about who Jesus was, and then Jesus asked, "But who do you say that I am?"  Simon, the most vocal of the twelve, answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."  Jesus turned to Simon and said, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven.  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it."¹⁵

St. Paul offers a clue to what Jesus meant when he writes to the Corinthians, "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"¹⁶  The temple Jesus built is made up of people bound together by one Spirit.  The Presence of the Lord entered this temple on the day of Pentecost when the Disciples heard a sound of a mighty wind and saw the Holy Spirit descend on them like tongues of fire.¹⁷  From that day forward, followers of Jesus Christ all over the world have offered up their lives as living sacrifices to God on the altars of their hearts, burning bright with the fire of the Holy Spirit.

"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"

We are the Church, the worldwide communion of the followers of Jesus Christ.  We are the Temple of the Lord and the Body of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry on the ministry Jesus began nearly two thousand years ago.  We - a group of very human, very flawed, often cantankerous followers of Christ - are the ones in whom God has chosen to dwell and the ones with whom Christ has entrusted His ministry.  Not only do we, the Church, believe in God, God also believes in us.


So Where Is God?

These four very different temples - the Tabernacle, the Temple in Jerusalem, the God-man Jesus Christ, and the Church universal - offer us an important insight into the nature of God.  King David believed that living in a simple tent was beneath God and that God belonged in a large, ornate temple.  Perhaps, like David, we believe that there are some places - in the world and in our lives - that are not fitting for God.  The different temples of God demonstrate the truth that God is equally comfortable dwelling in a mobile tent, residing in a temple of gold, sleeping in a manger in a dirty stable, or meeting us in the deepest, darkest corners of our hearts.

When St. Paul visited the city of Athens, he could not help but notice the many altars, shrines, and idols.  Being in this very pagan city was a bit of a culture shock for the once devoutly Jewish convert to the way of Jesus.  At a place called Mars Hill, Paul told the people of Athens about the God who created the world, the God of whom we are all children.  He told them that this God "does not live in shrines made by human hands" but is not far from anybody, for, in God, we all "live and move and have our being."¹⁸  As the Psalmist writes,

Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend into heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.¹⁹

There is no place we can go where God is not to be found, and there is no time in our lives when God is not with us.  No matter how far from God we might feel, God is never far from us.

A famous poem describes a dream in which the poet is walking on the beach with God.  As she walks, she sees scenes from her life flashing across the sky in front of her, and, in each of these scenes, she sees footprints in the sand.  She begins to realize that, during the happy scenes of her life, she sees two sets of footprints and that, during the darker times in her life, she sees only one set of footprints.  She reaches the disturbing conclusion that, during the dark times of her life, God was nowhere to be found, and she asks God why He wasn't there for her when she needed Him the most.  God replies that, when she saw only one set of footprints, He was carrying her.²⁰

Many people consider the "Footprints" poem cliché, if not a bit cheesy.  I would probably roll my eyes at it as well, had I not lived it for myself.  For nearly two years of my life, I worked as a software engineer in the gambling industry, writing software for video poker machines and video slot machines.  It was not a proud time in my life, for I worked in an industry that benefited from people's weaknesses.  I was so ashamed of my job that I tried to compartmentalize my life: my job was something I tried to keep in a locked box only to be opened from 8:30AM to 5:00PM, Monday through Friday.  Despite my best efforts, the shame and the stress of my job still managed to seep into the rest of my life.  Back then, my job was not a place in which I would expect to find God.

The company's flagship product was a video slot machine with a penny theme, and, for a period of time, one of these machines was set up near my desk.  One day, I looked at this machine and I began to notice the detail with which the pennies on the machine had been drawn.  I then realized that sprinkled all over the machine, from the video screen to the illuminated glass on the cabinet, was the motto "IN GOD WE TRUST."  Written all over that instrument of iniquity manufactured by that godless company, was the word GOD.

At that time in my life, I was in a place where I did not want to be, a place I believed, deep down, was beneath God.  Seeing the motto "IN GOD WE TRUST" on that machine was a reminder to me that there was no place I could go where God was not to be found.  In that dreary office in that godless industry, God was right there with me, holding me close like a loving parent.  In that dark, dismal time in my life marked with shame and despair, God was carrying me, as in the "Footprints" poem.  I would never return to that job, but sometimes I find myself missing something about that time in my life.  Perhaps, ironically, I miss the closeness to God I did not even realize I was experiencing at the time.

Maybe the places where we think God cannot be found are, in reality, the places where we are actually closest to God, and maybe we actually need to step into these places to truly experience the Presence of God.  Shane Hipps once said,
If you want to experience the Presence of God, one place you will most certainly find that God is in the dark, shadowy back alleys of the soul and the world - the parts of ourselves that we repress, deny, and disown, that we are frightened of - in that dark back corner room with the locked door.  If you were to go and open that door, what you would find, nestled in among the sin and the shame and the sickness and the sorrow, is the Creator of the universe, reclined and relaxed, completely at home, not the least bit offended, not the least bit surprised, not the least bit fearful - completely at home.  None of it would surprise Him.  It's this fascinating phenomenon that the divine dwells in the darkest places.²¹

God knows everything about us - our personal problems, our failures, our regrets, and everything we sweep under the proverbial rug - and still God has chosen us to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ.  Consider the Disciples: Christ knew their baggage, their shortcomings, and even their future failures.  He knew that Peter would someday deny knowing Him; He knew that Judas would someday betray Him; and He knew that all of them would run away with their tails between their legs when He was arrested.  Christ knew all these things, and He still handpicked them to be the raw materials with which He would build His Church.

Again, God knows everything about us: what's right about us, what's wrong about us, and what we just don't like about ourselves.  God knows us even better than we know ourselves.  The Psalmist writes,

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

You discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down,

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

O Lord, You know it completely.²²

In the Presence of God we are free to be fully ourselves.  Before God, there is no need to hide ourselves behind false modesty or behind some sort of spiritual facade: we don't have to pretend to be someone we're not.  So often we think we need to fix certain things about ourselves in order to be in a right relationship with God.  Such a mindset is actually symptomatic of a wrong relationship with God.

St. John writes, "If we confess our sins, He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."²³  When we confess our faults, our shortcomings, and our missteps to God, we do not reveal anything about ourselves that God does not already know, nor do our confessions change God.  Confession changes us.  Confessing to God means first confessing to ourselves, being brutally honest with ourselves, confronting and owning the things we would rather hide, deny, and ignore.  Confession means offering our whole selves to God to be redeemed and transformed.  We can be real with God, and there is nothing we cannot take to God.  St. Paul writes, "I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."²⁴

May you realize that there is no place on your journey where God is not with you.  May you remember that God is never far from you, no matter how far from God you might feel.  May you realize that there is no place in your heart or soul that God is not willing to step inside if you will just open the door.  May you remember that you can be fully yourself before God, because God loves you.  May you remember that you too are called to be part of the Temple of the Holy Spirit and part of the Body of Christ, and may you embrace this calling with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Amen.


Notes:

1. Jon Acuff.  "The Jesus Juke."  Stuff Christians Like, 11/16/10.
2. My paraphrase of 2 Samuel 7:2
3. 2 Samuel 6:1-19
4. Exodus 25:10-22
5. Exodus 40:1-33a
6. Exodus 40:33b-38
7. My paraphrase of 2 Samuel 7:5-7
8. 1 Kings 6
9. 2 Chronicles 4:9
10. 1 Kings 8:1-11
11. Wikipedia: Temple of Jerusalem
12. John 2:12-22 (NRSV)
13. John 14:9-11 (NRSV)
14. Philippians 2:5-11 (NRSV)
15. Matthew 16:13-20 (NRSV) (emphasis added)
16. 1 Corinthians 3:16 (NRSV) (emphasis added)
17. Acts 2:1-4
18. Acts 17:16-31 (NRSV)
19. Psalm 139:7-8 (NKJV)
20. http://www.wowzone.com/fprints.htm
21. Shane Hipps.  "The God in Nineveh."  Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast, 02/21/10.
22. Psalm 139:1-4 (NRSV)
23. 1 John 1:9 (NRSV)
24. Romans 8:38-39 (NRSV)

The replica Ark of the Covenant is from the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. The photograph of the model Tabernacle was taken by Wikimedia Commons user Ruk7 and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. The photograph of the model Temple was taken by Juan R. Caudra and is public domain.  Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple was painted by El Greco in 1600.  The illustration of the day of Pentecost is of unknown origin.  None of the artists or photographers are in any way affiliated with this blog.

Perspective: The Voices of the Prophets

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

The Voices of the Prophets

So woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees.  You hypocrites!  You tithe from your luxuries and your spices, giving away a tenth of your mint, your dill, and your cumin.  But you have ignored the essentials of the Law: justice, mercy, faithfulness.  It is practice of the latter that makes sense of the former.  You hypocritical, blind leaders.  You spoon a fly from your soup and swallow a camel.

Matthew 23:23-24 (The Voice)

My brother had a book he would hold with pride

A little red cover with a broken spine

On the back he hand-wrote a quote inside

"When the rich wage war it's the poor who die"

From "Hands Held High" by Linkin Park

As someone who is no stranger to the religious section of the bookstore, I am very selective about the books I buy: I intentionally avoid certain authors and even certain publishers.  Sometimes, if I don't know much about the author of a particular book, I will check the endorsements to see if the book is endorsed by any of the authors I try to avoid.  In general, people tend to be selective with the information they consume.  For example, most people prefer unbiased news sources - and, by "unbiased news sources," I mean news sources that share one's biases.  Often, we consume information not to stretch ourselves, but to receive affirmation for what we already believe.

Basically, we don't want to hear what we don't want to hear.

But, once in a while, someone has to enter the scene and force us to listen.

In the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah, there was a group of people who were brave enough to say the things that would upset people.  In fact, telling people what they didn't want to hear was their God-given mission in life.  The prophets were usually not considered a welcome presence, and their message was usually not well received.  Like most people, the people of Israel and Judah didn't particularly like to hear that they were doing something wrong and that they would inevitably suffer the consequences of their actions if they didn't make some changes.

Micah was a prophet sent by God to cry out against injustice in Judah during the eighth century BC.  Micah rather sharply called out the people of Judah for their complacency and unwillingness to listen, saying that their preacher of choice would be one who sermonized about the virtues of alcoholic beverages.¹

One indictment Micah issued was against the rich and powerful people who would lie in their beds at night, dreaming of other people's land, and then get up in the morning and dispossess people of that land.²  Though I'm sure that we all understand how wrong it is to steal a person's property, a look into Jewish Law will offer us some additional insight into the gravity of this crime.  According to the Law, land was never meant to change hands but was meant to be handed down as an inheritance.  If a land owner got into trouble financially, he was not allowed to sell his land, but he was allowed to lease the land to someone else on a temporary basis.

Though permitted if necessary, the leasing of land was apparently not considered by God to be ideal, for the next of kin was obligated by Law to redeem the land or buy back the use of the land from the lessee, if he had the means to do so.  If the land owner's luck changed over time, he was obligated to buy back the use of the land from the lessee for a fair price, taking into consideration the amount of time the lessee had been using the land.  Otherwise, the lessee would farm the land until the next Year of Jubilee, which occurred every fifty years.  At this time, the land owner and his family were to return to the land.³

Do you get the sense that maybe God wanted a family's allotment of land to remain within the family?

Land, according to the Jewish Law, was not something to be given or taken or bought or sold, for it all ultimately belonged to God and was held in trust by the people who lived on it.⁴  The rules restricting the sale of land were put in place because, to God, distribution of land was a matter of justice.  In the Law, God states the purpose of these rules thusly: "You shall observe My statutes and faithfully keep My ordinances, so that you may live on the land securely.  The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live on it securely."⁵  God did not want a privileged few to control a majority of the land, for God wanted all people to have the opportunity to work the land, to make a living for themselves, and to provide stability for their families.

In Micah's day, the rich and powerful disregarded the ethos of the Law.  By taking people's land, they took away the means for people to provide for themselves and for their families.  The rich got richer, and the poor got poorer.  Micah showed up to warn these transgressors that, while they were lying awake at night, plotting injustice against other people, God was plotting misfortune against them as well.  In the same way that the rich and powerful take away the land inheritance of other people, God will take away their own land inheritance and give it to their conquerors.⁶  In regards to a God-given blessing, if we misuse it or abuse it, we will lose it.

In my time in the religious book aisle, I have seen numerous books about discerning God's will for one's life.  What God wants from us is an age old question, and the prophet Micah gave us the answer to this question around 2800 years ago when he said,

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?⁷

I am convinced that justice, kindness, and humility are still what God wants from humanity today.

When I write to you about justice, I write as a white male who obtained a bachelors degree.  Some would say that my skin color, my sex, my educational opportunities, and possibly other factors have afforded me a place of privilege, meaning that I have certain undeserved advantages in society.  It is often difficult for people of privilege like myself to see the injustice at work in the world.  We typically like to think that we've earned everything we have and that none of it can be attributed to the luck of the draw; therefore, we quickly assume that all people have the same opportunities that we have.  There are many people in the world who do not share that same vantage point and see the world in a very different way - perhaps in a much clearer way.

We are living in a time when people of privilege need to start listening to the voices of the prophets in our midst, the people like Micah who cry out for justice.  Like the prophets of old, they are ready to tell us what we do not want to hear because they have seen for themselves what we do not want to see.  They demand our attention, and we must listen - not to judge what they say, but to allow what they say to judge us.

The ancient prophets teach us that God takes injustice seriously and that no amount of religious lip service will excuse it.  The prophets also offer us the good news that it is not to late to repent of our injustice.  We must listen to the voices of the modern-day prophets in our midst and seek the good for all people.


Notes:

1. Micah 2:11
2. Micah 2:1-2
3. Leviticus 25:24-28
4. Leviticus 25:23
5. Leviticus 25:18-19 (NRSV)
6. Micah 2:3-5  (See also the notes on this passage in The Wesley Study Bible (NSRV).  2009, Abingdon Press.  p 1113)
7. Micah 6:8 (NRSV)

The engraving of the prophet Micah was created by Gustave Doré in the 1800s.  It was made available in digital format by Wikimedia user Ariely and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Perspective: The Prideful and the Penitent

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

The Prideful and the Penitent

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to You,

Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Psalm 19:14 (CEB)

I focused on the score

But I could never win

Trying to ignore

A life of hiding my sin

From "Undo" by Rush of Fools

Jesus once told a story about two people who went to their place of worship to pray.  One worked in a corrupt and disreputable industry that was notorious for bankrupting people financially.  He was regarded by those around him as the scum of the earth and a traitor.  Nowadays, one might say that he was "part of the problem" and not "part of the solution."

The other was a good, upstanding individual.  He played by the rules, kept his nose clean, and never got himself into any serious trouble.  He was also very religious: he rigorously observed numerous spiritual disciplines and was charitable with his income.  He realized all of these things about himself, so he walked into his place of worship with his head held high.  He caught a glimpse of the other man who had come to pray, turned his nose up at him, and thanked God that he was so much better than people like him.  He prayed, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income."

The other man hanged his head low, beat his chest, and prayed, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"¹

Something about Jesus' Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector strikes me as unrealistic.  I can totally imagine somebody praying the prayer of the tax collector.  In fact, a long time ago, it was adapted into a traditional prayer commonly called the "Jesus Prayer."  Perhaps you've prayed this prayer yourself.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,

have mercy on me, a sinner.

On the other hand, I simply cannot imagine a person, no matter how arrogant he or she happens to be, actually praying as the Pharisee in the story prayed, thanking God for his or her own goodness and superiority to others.  I think we all know better than to pray this way.  From the days of children's Sunday school, we are taught not to be like the arrogant, judgmental Pharisees, and at some point we're taught, either explicitly or implicitly, that we should demonstrate some humility when we approach God in prayer.

But then again, I think that maybe this parable is not really about the prayers a person prays but rather the state of a person's heart.  Who among us has not known the right prayers to pray while the words of our mouths didn't truly reflect the meditations of our hearts?  Who among us has not prayed a prayer of confession while thinking, "I'm not that bad," or, "At least I'm not as bad as 'so-and-so'"?  (And we all have a "so-and-so.")  I make these observations from experience, for I have the makings of a Pharisee.

In this parable, Jesus is not calling us to pray humble prayers but is rather calling us to be humble.  Jesus closes his parable by saying that it was the tax collector and not the Pharisee who went home justified.  God sees not only all that we say and do, but also what is in our hearts.  God looks beyond the surface to the motives of our actions and the sincerity of our words.  God knows us even better than we know ourselves.  We can all pray the right prayers, but God knows who is prideful and who is truly penitent.

In the early 1900s, The Times newspaper in London requested that people write in with their opinions on what is wrong with the world.  Christian thinker G.K. Chesterton submitted a response that could have fit on an index card.  He wrote,

Dear sir,

I am.

Yours,
G.K. Chesterton²

Of course, Chesterton was not claiming that he single-handedly caused all of the world's problems.  He was merely taking ownership of his share of the guilt we all bear.  We are all born into a broken world, inheriting the brokenness of those who came before us, and each of us, in his or her own way, further contributes to the problems that plague the world.  Hopefully we all want to be a "part of the solution," but we all must first take personal ownership of the fact that we are also "part of the problem."

Nobody likes to own up to his or her own shortcomings, so, like the Pharisee in Jesus' story, many of us resort to Judgmentalism, which is a very effective way for us to distract ourselves from our own faults.  Though we like to rank other people's sins as worse than our own, ultimately we're all in the same boat.  When we focus on the failings of others, we essentially create a giant blind spot around ourselves, and blind spots always bring the potential for disaster.  Perhaps this is one reason that, in the words of the ancient proverb, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."³

Prayer is not a time of saying the right words to God but rather a time of total honesty before God.  Some would say that prayer is meant to change us more than it is meant to change our situations.  Brian Zahnd likes to say that "the primary purpose of prayer is not to get God to do what you want Him to do, but to be properly formed."⁴  May we pray humble prayers so that we may become humble people.


Notes:

1. Luke 18:9-14 (NRSV)
2. http://www.chesterton.org/wrong-with-world/
3. Proverbs 16:18 (NRSV)
4. Brian Zahnd.  "You Are What You Pray."  Brianzahnd.com, 05/27/13.

The Pharisee and the Publican was painted by James Tissot in 1894.