Follow the Leader

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(2 Samuel 6)

Our main text this morning is a sequel—and not the blockbuster kind, but the kind that comes out a decade or two later because the first one wasn’t all that popular.  In this case, we’re going back to 1 Samuel 4-6 to complete what some scholars refer to as the Ark Narrative.  If you were here at the beginning of June, you remember that in 1 Samuel 3 God gave Samuel a word of bleak judgment for his mentor Eli.  In chapter 4, that judgment hits like a sledgehammer—and it happens because Eli and his sons have not discipled the elders of Israel well.

Israel is going into battle against the Philistines, because of course they are, and the leaders of the nation decide to bring the ark of God (which is referred to elsewhere in scripture as the ark of the covenant) from the sanctuary at Shiloh to the battlefield.  This is classic magical thinking, which is to say it’s pagan thinking:  the ark is a divine object which has powers which they can use to help them win.  It’s terrible theology, and it shows a lack of respect for—or even awareness of—God’s holiness.  They are treating God as someone they can use to accomplish their own purposes.  The result is utter disaster:  the army of Israel is routed, the sons of Eli are killed . . . and the ark is taken by the Philistines.  When Eli hears, he falls backward, breaks his neck, and dies.  His pregnant daughter-in-law hears the news, goes into labor early, and dies in childbirth; she lives just long enough to name her son Ichabod—i-kavod, which means “no glory”—saying, “The glory has departed from Israel.”

Now, the capture of the ark is a loss for Israel, but no win for the Philistines, for a similar reason.  Where the Israelites’ pagan thinking led to a lack of respect for God’s holiness, that of the Philistines produces a lack of respect for his power.  They have captured the sacred thing of Israel’s god; by their understanding, that must mean their victory on earth was the result of a victory in heaven by their gods over Israel’s god.  The thing to do with the ark, then, is to represent and honor that victory in heaven by taking it into one of their temples and setting it before the image of the god.  So they do, taking the ark to Ashdod (one of their five main cities) and placing it in the temple of Dagon.

Again, the result of pagan thinking is disaster.  The next morning, the Philistines find the statue of Dagon flat on its face before the ark.  They set the statue back on its feet—and then the next morning, they find the statue has fallen on its face again before the ark, except this time the head and hands have broken off and are lying in the doorway.  What’s more, the Philistines are hit by bubonic plague and overrun by rats, first in Ashdod and then everywhere else they try moving the ark, until the people beg their rulers to send the ark back to Israel before they all die.

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Inside-Out, Upside-Down

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(1 John 5:1-6)

[“Abou Ben Adhem,” by Leigh Hunt]

I first encountered that poem when I was younger than Iain is now, I think, and it’s stayed with me ever since—not because it’s poetically great, but because it’s a fascinating scene.  I could easily start analyzing it as I would an Old Testament narrative—if the angel was there, God must have sent the angel, and obviously God knew what would happen, so . . . —and I’d be off to the races.  That would be piling far too much weight on it, of course, but the poem is making a theological point:  we can only love other people because of the love of God, and so to the extent that we do love others, it’s a sign of the love of God at work in our hearts.

Which is true, and one of those truths which sounds very noble and high-minded, especially if one wants—as it seems Leigh Hunt, who wrote “Abou Ben Adhem,” did—to argue the position that all religions are fundamentally the same, all lead to God, etc.  At first blush, it seems freeing; you don’t have to worry about anything specific the Bible teaches, or any other religion, because as long as you love other people, you’re good.  But here’s the kicker:  that’s a move away from a divinely-revealed faith toward human religion, and as I’ve noted recently, that means legalism.  What does it mean to love other people, and how do we know if we’re doing it right, or if we’re doing it enough?  All well and good if you have an angel show up in your bedroom to tell you, but what about the rest of us?

I get teased a little for my insistence that we have to define our terms—which makes me smile, because it makes me feel seen—but no word ever actually goes undefined; it’s just that if we don’t get the definitions out into the open at the beginning, we don’t know what definitions everyone is using or who’s determining them, and so we’re playing by someone else’s rules without knowing it.  That’s especially true when we’re using a big, loaded word like “love.”  “All you need is love” sounds great when you have John, Paul, and George on guitar with Ringo on the drums, but what happens when you get down to brass tacks?

Well, what happens is what always happens:  the law of love yields to the love of law, and the people who get to decide what it means to be loving make all the rules and judge you for breaking them.  Read more→

Made One

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(1 John 2:28-3:10)

As you may know, we’re going to be spending the next several months reflecting on the concept of integrity in light of the Scriptures, and vice versa—a concept which eludes easy definition.  We don’t want to abandon the effort, like Justice Potter Stewart, and say, “OK, I can’t completely define it, but I know it when I see it”; but moving from “I know it when I see it” to being able to articulate what exactly it is that we know is a challenge because integrity can’t be defined with a checklist.  As Emily highlighted last week, it is an attribute of God, and like all such, it is too large a thing for us to pin down and dissect.  We have to watch it fly, so to speak, to understand it.

Fortunately, for those of us who were here before the service last week for the Opening, Frank Benyousky gave us a little help when he started a parallel conversation about the nature of truth.  Like integrity, truth is an attribute of God, and thus when we ask, “What is truth?” we are diving into a sea of which we will never see the bottom in this life; but for all that, I believe there is an answer that can guide us in that dive.  It dates back over 2300 years to the Greek philosopher Aristotle:  if I say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, I speak the truth.  If I say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, I do not speak the truth.

It’s a simple enough definition, and can play out just that simply with regard to matters of scientific or historical fact; but of course, when you start dealing with the human heart, figuring out “what is” gets much, much harder.  All the same, if we understand that each person is an objective reality—each of you exists, and each of you are who you are, whether I perceive and understand you accurately or not—and ultimately God are an objective reality who determine himselves who he are, not a concept we can define however it suits us, then I think there’s a principle here we can use.  If we can say truth is alignment with what is real, I believe we can understand integrity in the same way.

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The Problem with “Therefore”

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(Philippians 2:1-13)

If it seems a little odd to you to put Mark 11 and Philippians 2 together, you might find it interesting that the folks who put the lectionary together would agree with you.  The fact is, I’m playing mix-and-match with the lectionary this morning.  Today is Palm Sunday, but it’s also called Passion Sunday, especially in churches which don’t have services for Maundy Thursday or Good Friday.  The lectionary deals with this by offering two tracks:  the “Liturgy of the Palms,” with Psalm 118 and Mark 11, and the “Liturgy of the Passion,” with Mark 14 and Philippians 2.  There’s a tension here, and the lectionary opts to avoid it with this separation.  I believe—and this is very much in keeping with what this congregation has always been—we need to lean into the tension and see what it has to teach us.

To do that, we need to pay careful attention to the context.  Strictly speaking, the lectionary passage from Philippians 2 is just verses 5-11, but it’s dangerous to take those verses in isolation.  It’s very easy to treat them as a pure abstraction, and then to spiritualize and theologize away to our heart’s content (and many have done just that over the years).  Thing is, Paul didn’t write this because he got up one day and felt like saying something pretty about Jesus—he’s going somewhere in this letter, and our passage this morning is a piece of his argument.

So, OK, we’ve included verses 1-4 as the immediate context for the next seven; but then 2:1 begins, “Therefore . . .”  There’s a piece of wisdom I heard many times growing up, and maybe you’ve heard this, too:  “When you see a ‘therefore,’ you need to see what it’s there for.”  It’s good advice, and one of the things that has anchored me in understanding the Bible; therefore tells us this is because of that, and thus where that sends us.  Back up a few more verses, then, and, we can see the church in Philippi is going through tough times.  They’re facing opposition, and they’re struggling.  Paul compares their situation to his own—and he’s in prison, facing possible execution and contemplating his mortality.  But while that possibility, to borrow from Samuel Johnson, has concentrated his mind wonderfully, it’s having the opposite effect on the Christians in Philippi:  their community is fracturing and dividing under the stress.

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That None May Boast

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(Ephesians 2:1-10)

One of the small disappointments of my time in seminary at Regent College—there weren’t many, but there were a few—was that Larry Crabb did not succeed Eugene Peterson as professor of spiritual theology when Eugene retired.  That might seem odd, but it was announced in chapel that Larry would be taking Eugene’s position, and then it just . . . never happened.  One of the joys of our time here at VSF was getting a second chance to learn from Larry and his wife, both here and at the School of Spiritual Direction.  I learned much from his teaching, both his content and his method; as we’re talking about detachment in this season, it’s worth noting that a particular sort of detachment lay at the heart of his approach to teaching, counseling, and leadership.  It’s not one I’ve ever been able to manage, alas, which may be why I was blessed most of all by Larry’s honesty about his failures in life and ministry and his frustrations with God.

At the top of that list is a comment that still sticks with me for how powerfully it resonated with my own experience.  I can’t tell you the context, but I remember Larry expressing his exasperation at God for not being as concerned about Larry’s holiness as Larry was and thus not giving him victory over his sinful behaviors on Larry’s preferred schedule.  That wasn’t a new thought for me; I’ve been wrestling with that issue for many years now; but his clarity and forcefulness spoke of a man who had been wrestling with it for many, many more.  Does it seem strange to you that I found that, and still find it, comforting and encouraging?  True, it suggests strongly that I won’t find an end to that struggle in this life; but more importantly, it tells me this struggle doesn’t mean I’m on the wrong road.

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Stand

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(1 Corinthians 8)

I’d like to tell y’all a story.  Once upon a time, there were three good Jewish boys named Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.  Their homeland, the kingdom of Judah, had been conquered by the Babylonian Empire; along with their good friend Daniel, they were among the thousands of Jews who were taken from their homeland and dragged back to Babylon as spoils of war.  Like Daniel, they had stayed faithful to God, and God had blessed them; the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, had given them positions of authority among the administrators and bureaucrats of his realm.  And as usually happens eventually, staying faithful to God got them in trouble.

You see, one day, King Nebuchadnezzar decided it would be a really swell idea to have everyone in his government worship a huge golden statue.  He had it made and erected outside the city, where there was room for the Babylon Symphony Orchestra to set up nearby, then summoned all his administrators, bureaucrats, and officials to gather before the statue.  His herald gave them the king’s command:  “When the orchestra starts playing, bow down and worship the king’s statue!  If you don’t, you will immediately be thrown into the fire in that huge furnace over there.”  And the orchestra played, and everyone fell flat on their faces and worshiped . . . except for Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who stayed standing.

I didn’t make up this story, of course; as I’m sure many of you recognized, it’s from the book of Daniel, chapters 1 and 3.  The story of those three young men—mostly known by their Babylonian names, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—has been told many ways for many reasons, but I’m not sure it’s ever been used as a commentary on American political and cultural polarization, so this morning might be a first.  Read more→

Deliver Us From Our Evil

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(Psalm 80, Isaiah 64)

This weekend was the Calvin Oratorio Society’s 104th annual performance of Handel’s Messiah, and Rebekah was in the orchestra on violin.  I took off work a little early, Sara and the kids picked me up on the way, and up we went to Grand Rapids.  Rebekah was feeling lousy—she figured it for a case of food poisoning—but God sustained her through the afternoon, and she played through the concert without a hitch.  It was a joy and a blessing to be able to be there, both for her and for the music.  I’ve heard the Messiah I don’t know how many times and sung a number of the choruses in choir, but this was the first performance I’ve ever attended.

If you’re familiar with the work, you know the text is a montage of Scripture passages, beginning with Isaiah 40:1-5; the opening command, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” filled the auditorium literally and spiritually.  As it should, for it introduces an extraordinary promise of extraordinary deliverance.  I don’t want to get too far into this, given that Isaiah 40 is a passage for next week, not this week, but that promise also introduces a puzzle which has challenged Jews and Christians at least as far back as the twelfth-century rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra.  Isaiah was a prophet in the southern kingdom of Judah in the eighth century BC, during the period in which the Assyrian Empire obliterated the northern kingdom of Israel and nearly conquered Judah.  Isaiah 40-55, however, are clearly addressed to the people of God in the sixth century BC, after Judah has fallen to the Babylonians—which might not be a problem, except it seems equally clearly to be addressed from the sixth century BC as well.  The exile is not prophesied as a future consequence of Judah’s unfaithfulness, it’s the starting point for the deliverance which is prophesied as an expression of God’s faithfulness.  What do we do with that?

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Worth-Ship

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(Matthew 25:1-13)

As we’ve been spending this last quarter of 2023 considering what it means to worship God, Emily has kept us oriented by keeping us focused on the Hebrew word avad, which in some places in Scripture means “to worship,” but in others means “to work” or “to serve.”  This is a good thing to keep before us as we think about worship, because it counters our natural tendency (which is reinforced by our individualistic and hedonistic culture) to see our worship as ours, something which exists to serve us and our purposes.  Intuitively, however, it may still feel like worship is something over here while work and service are over here and they don’t have much in common.  Cue Sesame Street:  one of these things is not like the others.

Now, when we study the meaning of biblical words, we generally look at the Hebrew and Greek, since they are the primary biblical languages.  In this case, though, I think a bit of English word study can be helpful.  You see, our English word “worship” is one of those words which used to be longer and got shortened up to make it easier to say; the original form was worthship.  It’s the word “worth” plus the “-ship” ending, which we see in words like professorship—having the position and responsibilities of a professor; seamanship—referring to the skills and training needed to carry out the responsibilities of a seaman, a sailor; and friendship—having the connection and intention of being friends with another person.  “Worth-ship,” then, is about someone or something having worth or being worthy.  If I worthship God, it means I see God as having worth, being worthy, being important, and that I treat God accordingly.

What, then, do work, service, and worship have in common?  All three are things we do because we believe they’re worth doing.  I may go to work because I ascribe worth to our customers at the BMV or because I ascribe worth to the money I receive in return, but if neither were true, I would quit.  If I serve others, I certainly hope I’m doing so because I believe they have intrinsic worth as human beings and deserve the best I can give them; doing my job at the BMV may be service to others, or it may . . . not.  I might do the same things whether I’m worth-shipping my customers or worth-shipping my paycheck, but I won’t be doing them in the same way, or in the same spirit.  The job is the same; the work is different.

If the Hebrew Bible uses one word, avad, for work and service and worship, it might just be because with all three of those things, God cares less about our outward actions than about the heart reality that powers them.  Each is an answer to the same question:  what or whom do we treat as worthy of our time and attention?  What deserves our focus, our preparation, our effort, our commitment?  Remember Jacob and Rachel:  he served his uncle for seven years and felt it as no time at all because she was worth every day of it.  Who do we see as worth waiting for?

Let’s keep those questions percolating in the backs of our minds as we turn to our text this morning.

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The Arrow Points Up

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(Exodus 32:1-24)

If you’re familiar with William Goldman’s book The Princess Bride, you know it’s supposedly the “good parts” version of an original text by one S. Morgenstern.  If you’re familiar with the lectionary, you might be tempted to think of it as Princess Bride Scripture, since as Emily noted last week, it has a tendency to give us the “good parts” version of the Bible.  Thus, from one Sunday to the next, we’ve taken a flying leap from Exodus 20 to Exodus 32.  I understand the impulse, since the thought of reading four chapters on the construction of the tabernacle is only slightly more thrilling than that of sixty pages on Prince Humperdinck’s ancestry, but we do lose something important in the gap.  The dramatic story of disaster and redemption we read in Exodus 32-34 doesn’t exist on its own, it’s an interruption of a lengthy set of instructions regarding the tabernacle, the priests, and the Sabbath.  In other words, what we have here is God telling Moses how to set things up for Israel to worship him in truth, interrupted by the reality of Israel’s false worship.  The contrast is important, as we will see.

The other key piece of context here comes from Exodus 24:18, which tells us Moses went back up the mountain and stayed there forty days and forty nights.  In other words, he’s been gone for over a month, and they’re getting anxious.  For one thing, they had begged him to stand between them and God, and he’s not around to do that—either to connect them to God or to protect them from God.  So they’re waiting, hoping nothing bad happens . . . and nothing does, but nothing good happens either.  In fact, the other reason for their anxiety, there’s nothing but nothing happening.  They’re waiting, and all it’s getting them is more waiting, and how long are they going to have to sit around in this boring camp at the foot of the mountain doing nothing and going nowhere?  You can only stand so many card tournaments, you know, and if you play Trivial Pursuit enough times, you end up memorizing all the answers.  They don’t know when—or if!—they’ll see Moses again, and until they do, they can’t move on.  They’re stuck . . . waiting.

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Love Looks Like I AM

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(Exodus 3:1-15)

Does anyone else think this story is deeply weird?

Familiarity and expectations can be deadly to our ability to see things as they are.  I literally cannot remember a time in my life when I didn’t know the story of Moses and the burning bush.  If the word “flannelgraph” means something to you, please raise your hand.  For the rest of you, to borrow a line, when I was a kid in Sunday school, videos were called flannelgraphs.  The flannelgraph was a flannel-covered board on a stand—ours were a medium green—and the teacher had all these paper cutouts of people and animals and other things, clip-art style, which had the backs treated with something so they could be stuck to the flannel and taken off again.  I don’t know how old I was, but I can remember the little drawing of the burning bush on the flannelgraph as the teacher told us the story.  Which is a good thing, on the whole—but it does create a challenge:  can I see the burning bush as more than just a paper cutout?

This is a place where the wisdom of the late Presbyterian pastor and writer Frederick Buechner resonates:

When a minister reads out of the Bible, I am sure that at least nine times out of ten the people who happen to be listening at all hear not what is really being read but only what they expect to hear read.  And I think that what most people expect to hear read from the Bible is an edifying story, an uplifting thought, a moral lesson—something elevating, obvious, and boring.  So that is exactly what very often they do hear.  Only that is too bad because if you really listen—and maybe you have to forget that it is the Bible being read and a minister who is reading it—there is no telling what you might hear.

There truly is no telling; and there is no telling what you might see if you really look; and if either happens, there is no telling at all what you might do.  But for any of that to happen, we need to be jolted out of our expectation of familiarity—from “Oh, yeah, the burning bush” to “Wait, what?”  God could show up as a person, or send an angel, and he does both at various times.  Here, he shows up as a fire that’s in a bush, or around a bush, but just sort of co-existing with the bush, and waits for Moses to wander by with the sheep.  This is like God doing Rube Goldberg, choosing this roundabout way to strike up a conversation; we need to let it rock us back on our heels a bit and make us ask, “Why?”  Thing is, if we do that, I think the question points us to the answer:  after forty years of meandering through the wilderness with a rabble of dirty, smelly, hapless, stupid sheep, Moses needed his eyes jolted open.  This isn’t Rube Goldberg at all, this is God anticipating Flannery O’Connor:  “To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.”

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