Lifting God’s Blessing

     Joshua 7: 1-26

 

 

          When the people of Israel crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land, it was an event forty years in the making. Disobedience had cost the lives of a whole generation. But finally, the people of God were at the threshold of tasting the promise made so long before. The night before, they consecrated themselves for the crossing. The Jordan River stood still for probably close to a million people. When it was over, God told Joshua to command twelve men to remove twelve stones from the Jordan and mark the passage as a memorial. Joshua said to the people on the Lord’s behalf that the stones were a reminder “so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”

          At that point, the people of God must surely have known that they were blessed. They stopped for religious rites. The entire new generation was circumcised as a sign of God’s favor. Passover was celebrated. The people still had to take what was to be theirs, but they had God’s blessing.

          The next stop was Jericho, a fortified city with high walls. It was a daunting task. But God said to Joshua: “See, I have given Jericho into your hand.” Remember that. It becomes important later. For seven days, the armed men of Israel preceded seven priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant around the city walls seven times. Trumpets blew continually, but no one said a word. On the seventh day, everyone was cautioned not to take anything slated for destruction. “Devoted things” particularly were off limits. On Joshua’s command, the people all shouted and the walls fell down flat. The city was taken and God was at the helm.

          Now the people of Israel have experienced two miracles back to back. First the Jordan River has stood still for their crossing. Then the walls of Jericho came down on one shout from God’s people. In each case, the people are exhorted to pay attention, to be obedient to God, to observe his commands and to wait for God. The only thing God has asked of them is not to take the “devoted things” from Jericho. I’m thinking of another time when God asked only one thing. It was in the garden of Eden, and God asked Adam and Eve only one thing: not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That disobedience had some dire consequences.

          The first line of chapter 7 of Joshua is huge. It says that the people of Israel broke faith… for Achan took some of the devoted things. Listen again. The people broke faith…because Achan was disobedient. Do you see this? Because of the disobedience of one, the people had broken faith with God. And the result is that God’s anger burned against the people.

          So the next town in the path of God’s people is Ai. Ai is nothing like Jericho. Joshua sends scouts, who report that only 3,000 men should be needed to dispatch this little city. So Joshua, without speaking or praying to God, sends the men. Remember that at Jericho, God had promised that the city would be delivered into the hands of the people of Israel. No such promise is sought or given here.

          So a contingent of 3,000 fighting men go up to Ai. They are routed. Thirty six men of Israel are killed. The rest are chased away. The scripture says that the people of Israel melted and became as water. They were scared. They realized the something was different.

          Where is God? What happened? Actually, those are pretty much the questions that Joshua puts to God, right after he has torn his clothes and fallen on the ground before the Ark of the Covenant until evening, along with his elders. It’s cute the way Joshua confronts God. He talks exactly like the people talked to Moses a generation ago. They barely get out of Egypt and they are grumbling about how hard it is. Better they had stayed home where at least they had food. Joshua echoes this plea. Why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all? So that we can be destroyed? Maybe we should have been content to dwell beyond the Jordan. Look at us now. Why have you done this to us!

          It’s not what God has done to Joshua and the Israelites. It’s what they have done to God. You have to read it out loud to appreciate God’s answer. He starts with this. Get up! Get off your knees! It’s not me that let you down. It’s you who let me down!  Israel has sinned! They have stolen. They have lied. Get up! Clean your own house or “I will be with you no more.”              

          Look at what has happened here. One has broken with faith. One has been disobedient. But it is not one who will be punished. Already thirty six men have died. They have died because in the light of this intentional sin, God has withdrawn his blessing. The people of Israel are in big trouble. All of them may have to answer for the disobedience of one.

          God tells Joshua how to find the offender. By tribe, then clan, then household, then person. To Achan’s credit, he does not lie. He takes the blame for his act of disobedience. The people of God are going to be saved, but look at the cost. Thirty six dead in a battle where God’s help has been withdrawn. Then, Achan is stoned and burned. It would seem that his children are also stoned, as the scripture says that all the people of Israel burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. It is a group execution. No one person can be responsible for stoning. The responsibility rests upon all of God’s people in the same way that the disobedience of one rested on them all. It is only then that the Lord turns from his burning anger.

          Does God get angry? If you ever had any doubt, read this story. Yes, God gets angry. And sometimes, when he gets angry enough, he lifts his blessing from among us. And look at the consequences when he does. People get hurt. People die. And not just the people who anger him. God’s anger can have severe and long reaching consequences.

          Before we leave this story, we should take another look at leadership. Joshua is the leader here, and he also has something to learn. Before crossing the Jordan, Joshua talks with God. After crossing the Jordan, Joshua talks with God. Before going into battle in Jericho, Joshua talks with God. What happens at Ai? Joshua talks with his scouts. Maybe Joshua thought that Ai was no big deal like Jericho. Maybe Joshua assumed he had God’s blessing.  Maybe Joshua thought he was a good enough leader to go it alone and just consult with God along the way. Whatever Joshua may have thought, he thought wrong. Leadership in God’s world is not unilateral. It’s a consulting business. We ask. He answers. Don’t make assumptions.

          There is plenty of blame to go around here, from Joshua’s lack of godly leadership to Achan’s clear disobedience. There was a reason for God’s wanting his people not to hold on to the “devoted things” of other people. These were religious icons. They were in effect false gods. The only thing they could do for the people of God would be to compete with God himself. Achan coveted earthly value and wanted something like that in his home. He had God in his presence, and yet coveted stuff over that relationship. It cost him, his children and thirty six others their lives.

          When the people of Israel next went up against Ai, God was again in their corner. Joshua received the pre-battle words that made everything possible: “Do not fear…I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land.”

          In this world where we are taught daily to look after number one, that I is the most important word, that our first duty is to ourselves, the story of Achan screams for attention. It was not just Achan who had false gods. We do the same today, only our idols are more contemporary.

When Achan sinned and was disobedient, it was the entire nation that paid for it. We do not live in a vacuum. This is particularly true for Christianity, the new Israel, as Paul puts it. We live accountable to one another. We live in community. When one trips, we all stumble. When we act in Christian concert, God is with us. When we do not go to God to get our marching orders before we march, we should expect to fail. Joshua learned that lesson the hard way.

          We are God’s people. Let us never do anything to cause God to lift his blessing from among us. Rather, let us live in such a way, and with such communication, that his hand remains upon us and our steps.

Two and Five Equals What?

     John 6: 1-15

 

 

          How many times have you gone somewhere unprepared? You go for a walk and get caught in the rain. You go for a swim at the beach and you forgot a towel. You treat yourself to a nice meal, not noticing that the restaurant doesn’t accept your credit card and you have no cash. We all have many examples we could draw on to remind us to go prepared for more than just what we see. Situations change.

          A few weeks ago, we looked at the arithmetic of discipleship. Today, I want us to examine another math principle in the kingdom. Let’s take a look at God’s multiplication. The gospels tell of a miracle story that involves a meal. The story is usually known as the Feeding of the Five Thousand. It is the only miracle story that is recorded in all four gospels. It must be important for it to be in every gospel. The gospels were not written at the same time, so the story would have been known by the later writers, and yet they included it anyway. Each gospel says essentially the same thing, but only John mentions a boy, a boy who came prepared. He had packed his lunch, a lunch of five barley cakes and two fish.

          Let’s put this story into the twenty first century and let’s tell it through the eyes of the boy. Let’s give him a name. The boy in John’s gospel didn’t get a name. I think he should have, but John didn’t do that. He had his mind on what Jesus did, not what the boy did. But let’s give the boy a name. How about Toby? Our fictional Toby attends E. Rivers Elementary School (not fictional) in Atlanta. He was attending on January 29, 2014, the day that Atlanta’s highways shut down due to a three inch snow that fell at just the right time. All it took was a thin sheet of ice and a few wrecks to shut down the Interstates, helped by workers who went home at midday to beat the storm, but instead created gridlock on the roads just as the storm hit. The Interstates stayed that way for a day. And in that day, thousands of people’s lives were altered. Twenty Four hundred children stayed in their schools that night, unable to get home, with parents unable to get to them.  Unless, of course, you were Elizabeth, the daughter of   Mark, who walked six miles in the snow to spend the night with her and help out at their school. Fifty more children spent the night on their school bus trapped in the gridlock. Food was walked in to them. One lady had to deliver her child in her car, aided by state troopers. Many acts of kindness sprung up all up and down the Interstate. Some who were able to leave their cars walked to an open CVS drugstore, returning with treats for their neighboring motorists. It was a day when a plastic CVS bag was far more popular than any Gucci bag has ever been. Toby’s school bus got stuck on I-285, and he and sixty of his classmates rode in ambulances to a Kroger supermarket where they spent the night and were fed by the good folks at Kroger. Stores all along the highway opened their doors to thousands of stranded motorists. And when state and local officials were stymied as to how to handle the crisis, a woman named Jocelyn started a Facebook page called Snowed out Atlanta, which by the day’s end had over fifty thousand signups. The site coordinated help to thousands; over eight hundred homes were opened. There were literally thousands of random acts of kindness going on all over Atlanta.

          Doesn’t that sound a lot like the Feeding of the Five Thousand? Jesus is in the area. Jesus is like this snowstorm in Atlanta. Everywhere he goes, it causes a traffic jam. Here is Jesus on a mountain next to the Sea of Galilee. This should be a slightly populated area, but here on the mountain, there are five thousand men. There are also women and children, but they are not counted. This is a big crowd, and out on the mountain, no one is selling concessions. It’s time to eat, and no one came prepared. And here comes young Toby. He is probably local because he has food with him. He probably has come from nearby and brought a bag lunch.

          Jesus sees the crowd forming. He knows the situation. He turns to Philip to test his wits and his faith. He asks Philip where to buy bread. He knows that there is not only no place, but not enough money, to do this. Andrew comes up. Andrew is called the Bringer because it seems as if he is always bringing things or people to Jesus. He does it again. He has found Toby and Toby has offered to share his bag lunch.

          It’s a wonderful story. The people are seated on the mountain. Jesus gives thanks. The loaves are passed. The fish is passed. Everyone, EVERYONE, is filled! Ten thousand people or more are filled! When all have eaten, twelve baskets of food are left! The people call it a sign. They call Jesus the Prophet.

          Some say that this is easily explainable, that it is simply the generosity of the many caught up in the moment. If that was indeed the case, I have no problem with that. It is no less a miracle to get five thousand hungry people to share what little they have than it is for the Lord to snap his fingers and produce the harvest.

          Is that what happened in Atlanta that January day? Was it just the natural generosity of the many in a crisis? Reports are that for all the acts of kindness, there were plenty who would not lift a finger for fear of losing their place in the traffic line, so it’s something more than mob generosity.

          With the Feeding of the Five Thousand, you can just say that Jesus was there. His presence alone was reason enough. If you did, you would be only half right. Jesus was also present in Atlanta in 2014. He is always present through the Holy Spirit abiding in his people. He is always present beside the Father interceding for his brothers and sisters in the faith. Jesus lost nothing in his Ascension. We just gained a spiritual presence in us here and a divine advocate for us in heaven.

          Here’s the point. The story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand is in every gospel for a reason. The teaching of this story is that important. It is a tale of wholesale generosity. It is a tale of miraculous multiplication. It is a reminder that if we are to reach the lost, we had better be prepared to feed them if we want them to be able to hear us. Man does not live by bread alone, but man cannot live without it. And for John, who more than likely was the last to write his gospel and who therefore would have been familiar with the other three, chose to add the boy, the boy who brought his bag lunch to Jesus and handed it over to be used by the Master. I’m asking myself, what was it that John wants us to consider? Why the boy?

          There are any number of reasons that John wants the boy to be in the picture. Here are a few I see.  First, he was a boy, not an adult. John might be telling us that revelation does not have to come just from on high, not just from the pulpit or the learned commentarian. Revelation can come in simple ways, like those of a boy with his bag lunch. Second, the boy was prepared. He was in a position to help because he didn’t come out to the mountain empty-handed. It’s the same as bringing your gloves to a work day or having a shovel handy when a hole is to be dug. Things don’t happen unless someone shows us prepared.

           And then, there is that supernatural presence of God that is waiting to be activated. If we don’t turn things over to Jesus, then we are left to our own devices. But when we do, look out! Great things can and will happen. Just ask Atlantans about how to come together and use what is there. Just ask our friend Toby, the boy with the bag lunch. If Toby were here to tell us about that day, he might say something like this? “It went from my hands to the Master’s hands. When you let things pass from your hands to the Master’s hands…they get multiplied.”

          So two plus five can equal thousands with Jesus. Whether its food, or clothing, or disaster relief, or people, or even souls, put it in the Master’s hands. And then, expect a miracle!

Drake’s Observation

Luke 17: 20, 21     John 14: 15-17

 

 

          A couple Sundays ago, I dropped in on the children’s Sunday school class. While we are in Telephone Church, they meet in the hall. They line up on the wall and the only chair is for the teacher. I think they sort of like it that way. That particular morning, the lesson was on Jesus’ battle in the wilderness. As is the way of children, that might have been the story in the book, but they had questions and observations that went far beyond Jesus and Satan and those temptations in the wilderness. Somehow, the conversation turned to how it will be when Jesus returns. Everyone had a thought. What happens if we’re alive? How will we meet Jesus? What happens if we’re already dead? How will we meet Jesus then? What will we look like if we’re already dead? And what will heaven look like? Where is it? What’s it like?

          You have to be quick if you’re going to teach Sunday school to young boys and girls. They have more questions than you have answers. And they don’t ever ask simple questions. When children ask about God, they go to the heart of theological discourse. No seminary professor ever asked me questions that hard.

          Amid all these questions, one stood out to me. It wasn’t a question. It was an observation. Drake O’Neal said something pretty simple but very profound. Drake said: “I like it here.” It isn’t that Drake has anything against heaven. In fact, he liked the idea because it would mean he could hook up with his Pa again. Drake has someone in heaven whom he misses. Isn’t that true for all of us! But still, there was that very pointed observation: I like it here.

          Now, Drake’s parents and grandparents can feel flattered. Drake’s experience so far on this planet has been pretty good. Drake likes it right where he is. He’s in no hurry to experience heaven as long as earth goes along the way it’s been going. If heaven is so wonderful, why isn’t Drake in a hurry to get there? In fact, if heaven is so wonderful, how come all of us aren’t in a hurry to get there?

          I’m not. I like it here. Come to think of it, I can’t name a single person that I know who is in a hurry to get to heaven. Even though the Christian religion is based largely upon our salvation, no one is lining up for heaven. It’s a promise that all of us want to claim, but not right now. So Drake is onto something when he says he likes it here. We all like it here. How is that possible when heaven is the ultimate goal?

          I think that we sometimes get off track when we use all our time and energy to point to heaven. Of course, it is the destination we all desire, but the journey is just as important. In fact, it’s pretty much the only way I know to get there.

          Why do we like it here so much? The simple answer is that that’s the way God meant for us. In the creation, God made everything for us that we need. He made us to enjoy the creation, to have dominion over it, to help one another, to be in communion with him. He also gave us freedom of choice and in our desire to be like God, we chose to use that freedom to bring us to a broken relationship with God. But God meant it for good. He always means it for good. The whole Bible is this long story of God rescuing us from ourselves over and over and over again, always loving us and looking after us even when we reject him. Remember what Joseph said to his brothers, the brothers who left him for dead? “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…” [Gen. 50: 20].

            But why do we like it here so much? One of the reasons has a theological name. It’s called realized eschatology. Eschatology is a big word with a big meaning. It is the study of the “end” things, the “last” things. It’s the study of when and how God’s intentions for the world are fulfilled.[1] When Jesus came, when he died and was resurrected, he brought life. That is, God’s will was and is being done on earth as it is in heaven.[2] It started then and it will never completely finish until Jesus comes again. So we are in the end times, even if they last a million years. The world changed forever when Jesus came and died for us. And if Jesus came and died for us to live, then we are already participating in some way in the kingdom of God. So realized eschatology is a term that instructs us that since Jesus has come and died and risen and defeated death and sin, then we are already in the end times, but since he has not come again to close out all history, then we are also living in the not yet. We live in the already and the not yet.

          I think that’s why Drake likes it here. Jesus has already given us all the hope we need. We are living on the place where God started it all. Even though we have mucked it up a lot, there is so much, so very much, that is just plain wonderful about our world and all the people and relationships that we have here. I agree with Drake. I like it here. I like it here a lot.

          And every time I make a new friend, every time I smile at some act of kindness, every time I see someone giving out love just because they can, I know I like it here so much that I don’t want it to end. Even in the rough times, when someone I care about is hurt or dies, I still am glad they were here and that I got to know them and remember them. They become part of me in some way and in that way, perhaps they never completely die.

          What we are talking about is the Kingdom of God. Is it here? Is it there? Is it coming? Is it now? Yes to all of the above. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus is asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God will come.  Jesus answers them this way: “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, Look, here it is! or There! For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” [17: 20, 21].  Before he ascended, he promised the disciples the coming of the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of every believer. Where is the Kingdom of God? It’s inside us and all around us.

          We are between the times; that is, between Easter and the end. In the between times, the battle between God and the powers of darkness is still waged, but the outcome has been sealed. Shirley Guthrie says it this way: “The victory of Christ that has been won is the guarantee of the final victory that is surely on the way.”[3] So yes, the kingdom of God is already here and now, and yes the kingdom of God is not yet complete.

         For Drake, and for many other Christians including me, the answer is pretty simple. I like it here. Why? Maybe it’s because the kingdom of God is already here, just enough to make it special to be alive.

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     [1] Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., Christian Doctrine (Louisville, Westminster John Know press, 1994), 281.

[2] Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 281.

     [3] Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 284.

Seeing the Invisible

Nehemiah 2: 13-18     2 Corinthians 5: 1-10

 

 

          Don’t you love to be around people who can cast visions! People who can look out into space as if they see something, and as they begin to describe what they see, it isn’t long before you can begin to see it too.  I remember as a college student hearing Robert Kennedy use these words as the theme for his 1968 Presidential bid: “Some men see things are they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.” Just to be fair, he was quoting George Bernard Shaw, but he claimed those words as his vision. Or there was Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech delivered in 1963 in the March on Washington.

          Both these men died casting their vision. They died, but their visions lived. Both these men were vision casters. They looked out into the nothing and they saw not what was, but what could be. Without dream casters, where would we be? They see the invisible. They give it a taste of reality for us.

          We’ve been talking about the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is like Kennedy and King. He has even better vision. From his vantage point in King Artaxerxes Persian palace, he can see Jerusalem, a place he has never lived, in a country in which he has never set foot. And his vision of what is there is so real that it brings him to tears.

          I’m thinking that Nehemiah had two visions. The first one was a vision of what Jerusalem looked like. He had the capacity to see in his mind’s eye the ruin and devastation that was there. He could see the broken down walls. He could smell the burned gates. And in this vision, scripture tells us that Nehemiah wept and mourned for days. He fasted and he prayed. He remembered the teachings of his elders and of scripture that if they would return to God, that God would again gather them and bring them to his chosen place.

          It is a powerful testimony that even though seventy years had passed, even though Nehemiah had grown up in a mixed culture where he was constantly exposed, and was successful in, the Persian way of life, he still was profoundly influenced by the power of God. Even though he has climbed the ladder of success, even though he has no physical connection with Jerusalem, he does have this incredible, almost instinctual, connection with his homeland. He knows it is in trouble and for all practical purposes destroyed. It makes him hurt. It brings him to his knees. But this is only the first vision.

          But Nehemiah begins to pray again. You know this is dangerous. When righteous believers begin to pray about something, things happen. Prayer is powerful. We are reminded of that over and over in scripture. What does James tell us? Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective [5:16].

          So Nehemiah prays. And in that prayer, another vision is born. This time, Nehemiah does not see the description of Jerusalem as brought to him by certain men from Judah. This time, Nehemiah sees a different vision. This time, Nehemiah sees Jerusalem rebuilt. He sees the walls rebuilt. He sees the gates restored. He sees the temple as a center of worship. He sees the people no longer as the scattered, but rather coming together to worship as the gathered people of God. Nehemiah sees what to everyone else is still invisible.

          And in that prayer, Nehemiah is emboldened. He is so emboldened by that prayer that he goes to the Persian King and asks for permission to go home and rebuild. Right before he makes this crazy request, he prays again. If you read Nehemiah, you can see a pattern. The man doesn’t go off half-cocked. He is always going to God in prayer before he does or says something big. And it works.

          So Nehemiah sets out to the home he has never known, to the people who are his but know him not, to rebuild a city where no one wants to live. Why? Because Nehemiah has seen the invisible. He has cast his vision for God.

          Hold that thought, the thought of seeing the invisible, while we now turn to another form of vision and another form of re-building. While Nehemiah was concerned with an earthly home, the apostle Paul in 2^nd Corinthians 5 was concerned with a different kind of home.

          Paul calls our bodies our earthly home. He compares them to a tent in which we live, but only temporarily. He talks about being uncomfortable in a way. It’s as though we know that there is something more, something better, but that is in the valley of the not yet. In the now, we groan and carry our burdens, sensing more, but unable to see that which is promised.

          Paul says in verse 6 that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. In verse 5, he says that we have the guarantee of the Spirit until life, life in God that is, swallows up our mortality. Now this is high theological cotton, and Paul is apparently trying to reassure us that when our mortal bodies are separated from our souls, we need not fear, for God in his time will reunite them. But this seems also to be a teaching moment. For me, to be at home in the body is not to be away from the Lord, but to be in community with the Lord through the power of the Holy Spirit. No, we are not yet ready for heaven, but yes we are already in communion with God. I don’t disagree with Paul. I’m just noticing another thing that God teaches me in this scripture.

          But here is what else Paul says. And here, he joins with Nehemiah. Paul says: we walk by faith, not by sight. Paul is reminding us that we too are called upon to see the invisible.

If you can see it with your naked eye, then you don’t need faith, do you. You can rely upon your eyes. If you can feel it with your hands or taste it with your tongue or hear it with your ears, you don’t need faith any more. But if you can’t, then you need faith. You need faith to cast a vision. You need faith to see God in his presence. And you need faith to place yourself in that presence.

          And what is God’s presence? I am God’s presence. When I stand here in faith, talking about what God means to me, I am God’s presence. You are God’s presence. When you rise to sing a hymn, bow to pray, hold the hand of another in Christian love, you are God’s presence. Think about it. You can’t do any of that without faith. And that’s precisely how you see the invisible. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, says the writer of Hebrews.

          What is it that you can see? What is that invisible reality that God has shown to you? Kennedy and King and Nehemiah and Paul all had something in common. They saw a world or a place or a people with the eyes of God. Then they set out to get others to see it with them. Your job is no different. What do you see? God has given you eyes for something special. Pray about what you see. Then share it.