Visions From Our Story: The Promise Saved

One became two and then two become one. God's people had created, under the leadership of King David, one nation; one nation capable of carrying God's promise for the world. Unfortunately as we discovered, that one nation lasted only a matter of two generations. David's son, Solomon and his grandson, Rehoboam, broke the nation in two through oppression, abusive taxation and a refusal to listen to the needs of the people.

The two nations (Israel in the north and Judah in the south) engaged in an elaborate dance for several hundred years. Sometimes they would wage war against one another. At other times they would work together for a common cause. Ultimately Israel chose to go down a road that not only led them away from God (worshipping the gods of their neighbors and engaging in economic oppression and child sacrifice) but led them to an arrogance that ignored geo-political reality. Their demise was a brutal demonstration of the power of the Assyrian Empire and the foolishness of Israel's leadership. They would no longer be a factor in bringing the promise of God to fruition.

In the face of this defeat and destruction Judah (the remaining bearer of the promise) was blessed to have a king who did all he could to be faithful to God. Hezekiah was one of the bright spots in the life of God's people. His reign began a few years after the fall of Israel. The scriptures say that "he did what was right in the sight of God." He pushed out the gods of neighboring peoples, destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses had created in the wilderness (it had become an object of worship), defeated Israel's enemies, obeyed the Laws of God and then refused to pay tribute to Assyria (who by this time was elsewhere occupied). For a moment things were looking up.

Unfortunately for Hezekiah and Judah, the Assyrians returned. Hezekiah attempted to buy off the Assyrian King Sennacherib with silver and gold, but that would not suffice. The Assyrians were out to destroy Jerusalem. Hezekiah did not know what to do and so he sought the wisdom and advice of the great prophet Isaiah. Isaiah sought the wisdom and advice of God. The word that came to Isaiah was that Hezekiah should not fear. The Assyrians would never take Jerusalem.

It is at this point that the scriptures and history are in agreement with the outcome of the events, but not the cause behind the outcome. With the Assyrians encamped around Jerusalem, ready to destroy it, a miracle occured. Literally one morning the residents of Jerusalem awoke and the Assyrians had vanished, leaving behind much of their equipment and food. While the scriptures attribute this to God's hand (an angel who slew 143,000 of the Assyrians), there is speculation that either a plague broke out amongst the army, or the king of Assyria heard rumors of a rebellion at home and returned to protect what was his (he was assassinated by his sons shortly after arriving home). Regardless of the reason Jerusalem and the people of God were saved. The Promise would live for another day.

Where I believe this story helps us with our vision is to remind us that even in the most difficult of times, God is willing and able to assist us in fulfilling our vision. We can see this in the life of our church. Over the last twenty years, even with the rotating door of pastors and interim pastors and the economic meltdown in the area, First Presbyterian has made a difference in the world. By being faithful to the call of God to love neighbor and work for the reconciliation of the world you changed lives and communities. This story reminds us that even as Jerusalem could count on God so can we.

Visions From Our Story: the Promise Diminished

Scripture offers us a wide variety of images of God. God is the creating one who brings everything into being; the covenanting one who calls Abraham; the liberating one who frees God's people from captivity; the patient one who puts up with God's people in the wilderness; the seeking one who sent prophets to call God's people back to life and to faithfulness; the Promise keeping one who does whatever it takes to insure that the promise to bless the world will become a reality.

The book of Second Kings however shows us another image of God which is not quite as nice as those that had come before. This book tells the story of the Israel's relationship with Assyria. In 755BC Tiglath-Pileser III came to the Assyrian throne and began a dramatic expansion of the kingdom including sweeping into Israel and Judah. Those nations surrendered and agreed to pay tribute. Over the next 33 years Israel would have a series of kings who were at first obedient to Assyria and then would rebel. Most of the kings were ultimately assassinated either by those who wanted to rebel or those who wanted to give into Assyria. Ultimately Assyria had had enough of Israel and after a three year siege captured Israel's capital, burned it to the ground and either killed or deported 90% of its people. Those who were deported would never be heard from again.

While these events could be seen from a strictly geo-political point of view they offered a difficult theological conundrum for God's people. If Israel was part of the people of the Promise how could God allow them to be destroyed and diminish the Promise? The answer came from the writer of Second Kings who put it this way,

"Now this came about, because the sons of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and they
worshipped other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel, and in the customs of the kings of Israel which they had introduced. (2 Kings 17:7-8).

 

In other words God had had enough of Israel and let them suffer the consequences of their greed, pride and idolatry. This new image showed that God's patience was not eternal; that ultimately God's promise did not insure the survival of all people of the Promise. If the people would not carry out their part of the mission they would be removed from the equation.

 

As we look to our own vision we need to keep this new image in mind. It is a constant reminder that we as a church have a mission…to work toward the releasing, renewing and restoring of God's world. We are not a spiritual country club but a missional agency. And if we are not faithful in our work we will fade away, and rightfully so. The good news though is that we know our calling and have the gifted, caring people to make it happen. So as we seek our vision for the future let us be mindful of our calling as God's covenant partners in God's amazing restorative work.

Visions from Our Story: The Promise Begins to Drift

God's people divided themselves, north (Israel) and south (Judah). The potential for pushing forward the promise to bless all people through the descendants of Abraham appeared to be fading.

In order to insure its religious as well as political independence Israel (northern kingdom) established its own centers of worship at Bethel and Dan. King Rehoboam even created two golden calves and declared that they were the gods who had led the people out of Egypt. He continued the struggle for independence by ordaining priests who were not Levites (I Kings 12). These actions were the beginning of a long and tortured slide by the Northern Kingdom into arrogance, apostasy and finally self-destruction.

The books of First and Second Kings tell this tale with an eye not only to the failures of the people but also the faithfulness of God in the face of God's rejection by the people. The story offers a clear vision as to the wrong turns taken by Israel on their way to annihilation.

Step one: Worship - Political independence became more important than right worship. By replacing the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob first with golden calves and then the gods and goddesses of their neighbors, the people lost any sense of their calling to fulfill the Promise. This alternative worship focus led them not only to forget God but the life giving ways into which God had called them to live. Their worship ultimately involved human sacrifice and sorcery (II Kings 17:17).

Step two: Ethics – The shift to worshipping other god's allowed the people to forget God's commandments to love neighbor, care for the widow and orphan and welcome the stranger. The Northern Kingdom became a nation in which wealth and prestige were the only criterion by which people's importance was measured. Abuse and slavery, the original reasons for declaring independence, became part of the fabric of the culture.

Step three: Leadership – While the Southern Kingdom (Judah) maintained its kingship through the lineage of David (sons following fathers) the Northern Kingdom (Israel) was one in which assassination and violence were the means by which the kingship changed hands. This meant that no leader was safe and the tenure of kings tended to be short and ineffective.

Step four: Arrogance – Because of its geographical position the nation became wealthy and powerful. Trade between Africa (Egypt) and the east (Assyria, Babylon) traversed the region and Israel reaped the rewards. The wealth they accumulated led them to believe that they were invulnerable and had no need to listen to God or God's prophets.

The amazing thing about God is that God loved the people and continued to pursue them. God continued to send prophet after prophet to call the people to repentance and new life. Great Prophets like Elijah and Elisha risked their lives to call the people back to the life giving faith offered by God. Their refusal to listen to the call had both immediate and eternal consequences.

The challenge for us is to examine our communal life and ask whether or not our vision assists us in avoiding the same step by step process which led Israel away from God? Are we rightly worshipping? Are we living rightly? Are we encouraging long term leadership? Are we living humbly? By assessing our vision with these questions we can become the kind of community God would have us to be.

Visions From Our Story: A House Divided will Fall

The Kingdom of Israel sat on the edge of a knife. Solomon "the Wise" had built his wealth and fame on the backs of the people. His oppression was not only in violation of the Law of God it was not a long term practical political strategy. The people of the north had spent too many generations as tribal units to allow any king to dominate them for an extended period of time. They were restless even before Solomon's death and a variety of opponents had arisen (I Kings 11). With Solomon's death however the opportunity arose to solidify Israel as a nation and not merely as a loose tribal confederation held together by intimidation and power. Whether or not this would happen was up to Solomon's son and heir Rehoboam.

Rehoboam began his reign with promise. He went to Shechem in order to be crowned king. Gathered at Shechem were the leaders of the Northern tribes. They were ready for change…for a king who would treat all people fairly and disband the hated forced labor which Solomon had created. They told the king-to-be that if he would release them from this service they would serve him willingly. Rehoboam was not sure what to do. Therefore he consulted his advisors. First he began by seeking the advice of the older more mature members of Solomon's household. Their counsel was to agree to the dismantling of the forced labor system. Rehoboam did not like their advice so he consulted his friends.

What we have to understand about Rehoboam's friends is that they all grew up in the palace in positions of wealth and power. They were the privileged elite of the land. Their advice was different from that of the older men. They advised Rehoboam to threaten the Northern tribes with harsher work than Solomon had ever laid on them. After all, he was going to be king. Who would dare to confront the king? Rehoboam took their advice and said to the Northern tribes, "My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, I will chastise you with scorpions." (I Kings 12:11)

Chances are the response Rehoboam thought he would get, was not what he received. The Northern tribes left prior to his being made king and publically stated that they were no long under his authority. Ignoring such talk Rehoboam sent his forced labor czar to conscript more people. The Northern tribes killed the labor czar and came after the newly crowned king. Rehoboam barely escaped with his life. (I Kings 12:18-20) The Northern tribes then crowned their own king, a man named Jeroboam, who had led an earlier revolt against Solomon. Thus the nation was divided…forever. The Promise would be imperiled then by almost continual war between these two nations (Judah in the South and Israel in the North), as well as the fact that a divided nation was easier prey to outside kingdoms than a united one.

Jesus understood quite clearly that a house divided against itself cannot stand (Matthew 12:25…later quoted by Abraham Lincoln). Any organization, church or otherwise, needs to be united if it is to accomplish the tasks for which it was created. While unity should never be the primary value that trumps all others, it is a necessary ingredient to success. This does not mean we all have to agree on everything. The issue is being able to create an environment in which there is diversity within our unity. In other words while we may not agree on everything, we are united in the essentials which define our life together (our Core Values). As we move forward in seeking our vision let's be sure to leave room for a variety of voices and views so that we insure that the one voice we may really need to hear is not silenced but is given room to speak.

Visions From Our Story: Success Can Get in the Way of the Promise

The wisdom of King Solomon (the king who followed David) was legendary. He expanded the kingdom's borders and secured trade which enriched the nation. He built the Temple in Jerusalem. Even today his name still evokes images of wealth and power (the movie King Solomon's Mines is just one such example). One would think then that Solomon's tenure as king would have been the time when the promise, even if it was not fulfilled, would have become evident in the lives of God's people. Unfortunately, once again, that would not be the case. Instead Solomon, for all of his wisdom began to see the promises of God as his personal possession intended to benefit him alone.

Solomon's beginnings were in many ways a mixed bag of both death and discernment. On the one hand he became king through the machinations of his mother Bathsheba (Solomon was not the oldest of King David's sons…but Bathsheba was David's favorite wife) and others close to his father King David. Solomon then had his rivals and their supporters either executed or exiled (I Kings 1-2). On the other hand one of his initial acts as king was to pray not for wealth or power but for wisdom (I Kings 3:3-9). The Bible tells us that God was so pleased with this prayer that God granted Solomon the power and riches for which he did not pray along with a large dose of long life.

It would be easy at this point to buy into the carefully crafted image that Solomon was the most wise and benevolent ruler by which God's people were ever privileged to be governed. That image was crafted by telling stories of his wisdom at work (the famous "cut the baby in two pieces" story…I Kings 3), the awe of other rulers at his wealth (the visit by the Queen of Sheba…I Kings 10) and ultimately by his building of the Temple in Jerusalem (I Kings 6-9). The claim that he wrote the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes additionally enhances the picture of Solomon as the perfect ruler.

There is however a second tradition which tells a different story. In this tradition Solomon became the epitome of the kind of king against which Samuel the prophet warned the people (I Samuel 8). How so? To begin with Solomon conscripted his own people without pay in order to build all of his famous cities (essentially making them short term slaves). He forcibly recruited others into his service at the palace. He taxed the people at extraordinary levels in order to pay for his excessive lifestyle. Finally and most importantly he married the daughters of foreign kings and allowed them to bring their gods with them into the palace (I Kings 11). Eventually Solomon began worshipping these other gods. That act would ultimately set the stage for the undoing of all that Solomon and his wisdom had accomplished.

It has often been said that success can be an organization's worst enemy. Success can cause an organization to lose its way and focus. This is what happened to Solomon. He saw his success as his success and not as God's blessing. Our challenge then is to be wary of our own success (more members, meeting the budget, serving the community) in such a way that we are continually asking, how are we being faithful to God's calling to be releasing, renewing and restoring the world? True wisdom is not measured in the bottom line, but is measured in our faithfulness to God's vision for our life together.

John

Visions From Our Story: the Past Was Never Perfect for the Promise

They had it all. The nation of Israel was independent. Their enemies were defeated. There were no great world empires to contend with. David, who was "a man after God's own heart", was acknowledged as king by all of the tribes of Israel. There was a national capital at Jerusalem which housed not only the king's palace but the Ark of the Covenant…the icon of the nation's religious identity. In addition God gave, through the prophet Nathan, a promise to King David that one of his descendants would rule the nation for ever. (II Samuel 7). This then should have been the moment when the promise of God to release, renew and restore the world ought to be unleashed on the world. Yet it was not. So what went wrong?

In some ways we might simply say that the time was not right. The nation itself though living under King David was, as we will discover, still very much divided by its ancient tribal allegiances. The people of God still were not at a place where they could see themselves as a single, coherent community. While there was political stability, it would prove to be temporary.

A second reason why this would not be the time of God's blessing flowing to the world is that David, though a mighty warrior was rather incompetent when it came to ruling his nation or running his family. David had the ability to motivate people to great deeds. He had the integrity to show appropriate deference to his predecessor Saul. He had the cunning to survive threats from every direction. Yet he was not an administrator. He established no means for running his empire. This led to corruption, betrayal and the deaths of many innocent people.

David did not have the ability to control his family as well. He watched as one son raped one of his daughters, and then another son killed the rapist. Neither was adequately punished by David. We are never completely clear as to David's reasons for such behavior. However we might assume it was based on how own behavior as regards Bathsheba. David committed adultery with Bathsheba, then had her husband (a very loyal soldier) killed in battle with Israel's enemies. It was as if David's guilt over that incident paralyzed him from taking appropriate action as regards his family.

In the end, while David's tenure as King was often lifted up as the best of times, it was in many ways far from it. There were unresolved issues which would haunt the kingdom for generations; which is perhaps where we ought to turn with our vision seeking process.

There is a tendency in many churches to look to the past in order to find a vision for the future. People believe that there was a mythical time in which everything was perfect in the life of the church and if we could only return to that time everything would be fine. The problem with such a belief is that our mythical times were never perfect. There were issues which divided churches and relationships. There were failings on the part of staff and session. The challenge of any vision seeking congregation is to take the best of the past and combine it with God's plans for the future. God is always pointing us forward toward a deeper and more faithful life in community. So let's mine the past and seek Christ's future that we might be ever more faithful with each passing year.

John

Visions From Our Story: The Promise Looks Promising

Last week we witnessed the Prophet Samuel anoint a king for Israel. Samuel, under God's directing located a man named Saul, anointed him and helped him become king. The rest of Saul's story is not all that pretty. He began to suffer from fits of rage and insecurity. He was buffeted by enemies who threatened his kingdom and his people. He was threatened as well by the growing popularity of a guy named David, who seemed to be a far more charismatic leader than Saul. Ultimately, out of desperation Saul turned to a witch to summon the by then, long dead Samuel in order to get some assistance. Instead of offering help the ghost of Samuel revealed that God was no longer supporting Saul and his days were numbered. Saul's end came in battle, when faced with certain defeat and capture by the Philistines he took his own life. Thus Israel was once again left without a king or a leader. You can find this story in I Samuel chapters 10-31.

It is at this point in the story it would appear that the Promise of God to release, renew and restore the world (which is to come through Israel) appears to be at risk. The Philistines are triumphant and the people of Israel are once again living in fear and submission. What I did not mention above however was that intertwined with Saul's story was the beginnings of David's story. As Saul began to lose God's favor, God chose another soon-to-be leader for Israel…a young man named David. Samuel, before his death, secretly anointed David to follow Saul.

David's rise to kingship was not without problems. The family and supporters of Saul believe that they are the rightful heirs to the kingship. What followed was a dreadful Civil War between David and Saul's forces. David finally emerged triumphant and was acknowledged as king. He then turned his efforts to dealing with Israel's enemies. Demonstrating his ability as a tactician he defeated the Philistines, captured Jerusalem and then conducted a series of campaigns against Moab, Edom and other local kings that secured peace for Israel.

David understood that political and military victory however was not enough to secure his position. He needed religious affirmation as well. David accomplished this by bringing the Ark of the Covenant (which w as a sign of God's presence) into Jerusalem. Thus Jerusalem became not only the City of David (belonging to David and not to a tribe) but the center of worship for Israel. David thus managed to merge political and religious power in a single location.

At this moment in the story everything appears to be perfectly situated for The Promise of God (to bless the whole world) to be fulfilled. There is political and military peace. The Kingdom of David is secure. But as we will see human nature is going to get in the way. The kingship of David which portended great things never quite lived up to its potential.

For the moment then, perhaps what this story ought to teach us is to celebrate our successes. As we work with Christ to fulfill The Promise we ought to take the time to savor simple victories in which lives are changed, our community is built up and God's love is lived out. In this way we will be encouraged to continue to make a difference for Christ in the world even when life around us is not perfectly lived.

John