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

Visions From Our Story: The Promise in Limbo

If you have ever seen a yo-yo then you will have a great visual image of the next chapter in the story of the Promise. God would draw the people close. The people would run away. God would pull them back in. Again and again in the Book of Judges this fleeing and drawing played itself out.

The first running away begins almost immediately after the death of Joshua. The New International Version puts it this way in Judges 2:10-15. "After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.
Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths."

As we learned last week, the conquest of the Land of Promise had not been as complete as the book of Joshua would lead us to believe. Entire swaths of land and numerous cities remained firmly in the hands of those who had been in the land before the Israelites arrived in mass. The Baals and Ashtoreths were the primary god and goddess of the Semitic peoples in Canaan. Baal and Ashtoreth were fertility gods. The belief was that in order to insure good harvests people needed to engage in sexually oriented rituals (with both male and female cult prostitutes), offer human sacrifices and participate in ecstatic and violent rituals.

The people of Israel were tempted to abandon the worship of YHWH (the Hebrew consonants used to write the name of God who had given them the Promise and had liberated them) in order to become like their neighbors and worship Baal and Ashtoreth. The result of this transfer of allegiance inevitably led to Israel's political and economic oppression. Out of their despair the Israelites would cry out to YHWH for relief. YHWH, the always promise keeping God, would then send them judges to liberate them. The judges were charismatic leaders who could rally the Israelites to fight for and win their freedom. There were twelve judges in all (including Gideon, Samson and Deborah) which meant that the yo-yo of faith to apostasy and back was a regular event for almost 200 years.

While you and I do not live in a world in which there are statues of Baal and Ashtoreth around every corner, we live in a world in which there are competing claims for our time, talent and treasure. There are competing world views which call for us and our children to abandon our lives as people of the Promise. The Israelites abandoned God because they forgot the story of what God had done for them and adopted the story of the Baals and Ashtoreths. They forgot the story of the Promise. Our task is to insure that we and our children do not forget our story. We need to be sure we remember that there is a living God who loves us passionately and calls us to be coworkers with Christ in the release, renewal and restoration of the world.

Part of our vision then needs to be the constant telling and retelling of our story so that it is not forgotten and thus becomes the foundation of our and our children's worldviews…thus one of my reasons for my retelling the story.

Visions From Our Story: the Promise Comes Home

The promise is free but it has no home. Last week we left the Promise free but in the wilderness. The people of the Promise were wandering, without any concrete direction because they had failed to be faithful. Finally, after 40 years the generation of the Exodus had come to an end. An entirely new generation (with a few minor exceptions) had inherited the Promise. Their task was to go home…to conquer the Land which God had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

This part of the story of the Promise is often difficult for us to understand. Not that the people of the Promise ought not to have a home. Everyone needs a home. The issue becomes that there were already people living in the land. There were people who had migrated to that area over decades and centuries. They had established small cities and homesteads. They were, if you will, in the way of the Israelites calling Canaan home.

Though Israel's conquest of the land was not as quick, simple or complete as the scriptures imply none-the-less they did carve out a significant part of the land of Canaan for themselves. In the process they drove out some peoples and killed others. Cities were destroyed and innocent men and women died. We often ask ourselves how a loving God, a God of the Promise could either command or allow such a mission. Surely there was an easier and less violent way.

Perhaps this is the time for us to reflect on the fact that the realization of the Promise of God to release, renew and restore humanity is often a messy business. The world in which God and God's people are working can be brutal and cruel. Sin and its effects run rampant leading to death dealing manifestations (war, hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia to name a few). God, for whatever reason, has chosen to work with the world as it is in order that it might ultimately become what God desires it to be.

What that means is that in order for the people of God to have a home other peoples would need to move on…just as millions of peoples have done, and will continue to do, throughout the history of the world. Remember that this world is in process. It is still changing (demographically, politically and geologically). Nations, peoples, cities come and go. God's call upon God's people to make a home was not a statement that God's people were better or more deserving than the others who were already there. This was instead a part of the process of insuring that the Promise would have a secure geographic incubator in which to grow in order that God's people might ultimately bless all the peoples of the world.

Just as the post-Exodus generation inherited the Promise under new circumstances, so have we. The differences between those people and ourselves as keepers of the Promise are that we have no religious homeland and we are to love and not militarily conquer. Our calling is to be part of a worldwide movement through which the Promise is made real not only within our church but in showing the love of Christ for others through relief for Haiti, mission trips to the Yucatan, and our work in Pontiac and Detroit among others. As we do these things we will encounter the messiness of the world, but we trust that through the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ the Promise can be made real in the lives of all we meet…and lives will be saved and not lost.

John

Visions From Our Story: The Promise Wandering in the Wilderness

If you have not discerned by now the story of the Promise (the Promise of God to Release, Renew and Restore God's world so that humanity can love God, love neighbor and steward creation) is one that lives what appears a very roller coaster like existence. One minute everything looks rosy; the Promise is at work in the world. The next minute the Promise appears to be in danger of being lost in the trials and tribulations of those people who carry it. While we hope that God's love and power will insure that the Promise is brought to completion, the Biblical tale of the promise is one that makes us wonder if humanity is capable of being an effective partner in this endeavor.

This week's story is one that shines a very bright light on the struggle of human beings to keep the Promise alive. When we last left the people of God, the carriers of the Promise, they had been set free from the slavery in which they had been held. We might think that the people would be so grateful for this freedom that they would do anything that God asked of them. As we will discover that was not the case.

Following their liberation the people of God were asked to do two things. The first was to be faithful to God and the second was to enter into the Land of Promise, in which they would be safe. They would not be willing to do either.

The first request of God, to be faithful, was ignored almost immediately. The people made a stop in the wilderness at Mt. Sinai where God was going to give them the Law, the rules by which they could live and be the people of the Promise (Exodus 19 – 34). While Moses was away receiving the Law, the people decided find another god. Turning to Aaron (Moses' second in command) they requested he make a golden calf for them that they might worship it rather than the God who had set them free (by the way archeologists have found similar golden calves dating from the time of the Exodus). Needless to say neither Moses nor God was pleased by this and there were consequences meted out.

The second request of God, to enter the Land of Promise, was also ignored. Moses sent spies into the Land of Promise. Their report was positive (it is a land flowing with milk and honey) and negative (there are giants there who live in fortified cities!). The people decided to hear only the negative and refused to enter the land (Numbers 13:17-14:25). At this point God has had it with the people. God's decision was that the people would wander in the wilderness for 40 years until almost all of the rebellious generation had passed away and God could start afresh.

My guess is that there are times when we feel as if we are wandering in the wilderness…as if there is little purpose or direction to what we do as a faith community. We go through the motions, doing good things, but in the end as one person described it, "It is like we are a cruise ship circling the harbor, but not really going anywhere." The challenge that is before us, as we vision, is to listen to the two commands given to the people after they have been set free. We are to be faithful to God; listening to God's call upon our lives rather than the competing claims of society. We are also to be seeking God's leading as to the direction we are to be going; asking, what kind of church are we to become that we might be co-workers with Christ in releasing, renewing and restoring God's world? So my friends as we enter 2010 let's get on the road and see where God is leading us.

Visions From Our Story: the Promise is Held Captive

The promise of God's restoring work for humanity and creation seldom appears to have an easy time maintaining any momentum. Each time the promise seems to be well on its way to success it ends up taking a detour into difficult and dangerous circumstances. The conclusion of the Joseph story is one such deadly detour.

We left the story of the promise last week with Jacob and his clan safely ensconced in Egypt with plenty to eat and connections to power (which means the promise is safe). What we did not take a look at was the cost of that safety. If we carefully read the texts at the end of Genesis what we discover is that Joseph, while being able to save Egypt and his family from starvation also assisted the Pharaoh in consolidating all power into Pharaoh's hands. The Pharaoh essentially makes slaves of all Egyptians and ultimately of the clan of Joseph (who have come to be known as Hebrews).

This enslavement then poses one more threat to the promise. The question becomes how can a community of slaves ever be God's instruments of universal salvation and restoration? That question is the one posed in the opening lines of the book of Exodus, the second book of our English Bible.

"8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh." Exodus 1:8-11 (NRSV)

 

In some sense this is the constant condition of the Promise. It is held captive by someone. Martin Luther (the first of those who worked to reform the church in the 1500s) wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church." Though we will deal with Babylonians later what we can gain from his writing is that the church, and the promise it holds, is always at risk of being taken captive and losing its power to transform persons and the world.

 

As most of us are aware we, the people of God are just that, people. We are not perfect and are constantly making missteps in our attempts to live out the Promise in such a way that our relationship with God, others and the world are fully restored. While we desire to live out the Promise we are often led astray by those who claim to be able to have all of the answers as to how the Promise ought to be lived out. We see this in our own time in those who preach an exclusivist Gospel (only certain people are acceptable to God) or a self-centered Gospel (God is all about me and not about my serving others). When the church follows one of these paths (among many) it allows the promise of God's reconciling and restoring love to be held captive…its transforming power diminished.

 

The challenge before us at First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham is to be constantly checking in with scripture and tradition in such a way that we set the Promise free rather than holding it captive by our preconceived notions of what church and faith are all about. As we head into a new decade I believe we are up to the task of being the Promise bearers for God and for God's Son, Jesus the Christ.

The Promise Goes South

God had promised to bless Abraham and through Abraham the entire world. This promise outlived Abraham because he had a son, Isaac. The promise was continued when Isaac had two sons Esau and Jacob. While it was assumed that the promise would be continued through the eldest son Esau we discovered that God had something else in mind as it was Jacob who obtained the blessing and the promise.

The story then becomes a bit more complicated when Jacob has 12 sons and those twelve sons act like, well twelve brothers, filled with competition, jealousy and spite. By their actions they manage to alienate all the other peoples living near them and to even sell one of their brothers, Joseph, into slavery. This hardly seems likes a group of people God would use to help bless the entire world.

What we will discover however is that God is able to work in and through circumstances that would appear to preclude any sense of grace or promise. And we will see that the continuation of the promise often turns on moments which at the time, would appear to be filled with more evil than good.

We see this played out in the story of Joseph, the brother sold into slavery. He is sold into slavery because his brothers are jealous of him. They are jealous because Joseph claims to have dreams from God which can tell the future. This might not be so bad except that the future predicted in the dreams is one in which all the older brothers serve the younger brother, namely Joseph. This so angers the older brothers that at first they plan to kill Joseph (making it look like an accident) but later decide slavery is the better option.

Joseph is taken into slavery in Egypt where he works for a wealthy man. The man's wife takes a shining to Joseph and invites him into her bed (and you thought the Bible was boring). He refuses, she lies about him and Joseph ends up in prison. While in prison he interprets some dreams which eventually gets him out of prison and working for the Pharaoh. In the meantime there is a famine in the area in which Jacob and his family are still living. Upon hearing that there is food in Egypt some of the brothers travel there and guess who they meet, though they do not realize it…yes that's right…they meet Joseph.

Joseph takes his time reveling his true identity, but ultimately he lets them know who he is, invites the family to live with him in Egypt and thus saves the family (and the promise). The promise is thereby saved by the evil intentions of the brothers. Where this leads us is to one of the more intriguing lines in the entire Bible when Joseph tells his brothers, "You meant it (his being sold into slavery) for evil, but God meant it for good." (You can read this story in its entirety in Genesis 37 – 47)

Hopefully this story will remind us that God is able to turn even the most despicable of actions into paths to the good. We are called then to see that those moments in our lives and in the life of the church when we believe all is lost, are moments when we should never count God out. For it may be that God is indeed working to turn the world's evil into God's own good in order that the promise continue to live and humanity and creation be restored.

Visions From Our Story: The Promise Takes a Detour

We have watched as the Promise of God to restore creation and all of its relationships was put at risk by God's own self…and saved by God as well. This week we watch as the Promise appears to take a significant detour. It will appear to go by a route no one was expecting.

The Promise has been given to Abraham and through Abraham and to his son Isaac. Isaac carries on the promise and is prepared to pass it to his oldest son Esau. Now for those unfamiliar with the story Isaac had two sons Esau and Jacob. They were twins with Esau being born first (Genesis 25:24ff). Esau was his father's favorite and was a real man's man. He was the guy who was always out hunting and doing manly things.

Jacob in the other hand appears to be a momma's boy. He is always hanging out with his mother Rachael while talking about his feelings (not really but it sounded good). He was someone who was much practiced at deception and learned how to get his way by working behind the scenes rather than confronting things head on.

The Promise by all intents and purposes was supposed to be passed (through a blessing) from father to first born son. Thus Esau was the intended recipient of the Promise. Rachael and Jacob (and evidently God) had other plans. Together they concocted a plan through which they would steal the promise and the blessing (Genesis 27:5ff) First Jacob buys the birthright (the privilege of receiving what would go to the first born) from his brother for a bowl of stew (hey even back then the way to get something from a manly man was through his stomach). Then Rachael and Jacob trick nearly blind Isaac into giving the blessing to Jacob.

Suddenly the Promise has taken a detour. Instead of moving through the obvious hero Esau it now moves through a trickster and deceiver named Jacob. What is going on here? This hardly seems to be the way that the God of justice and righteousness would work. Jacob does not deserve it and certainly hasn't earned it. Why would God allow such a thing?

Perhaps the lesson we need to learn from this story is that God seldom does the expected. This is one of those discoveries that often confuses and irritates people. If there is one "person" we expect to always do the expected it is God. What the Bible teaches us however that God, while always being faithful, is seldom predictable. God is not some sort of blessing dispensing machine where we put in our faith and always receive what we ask for. God is regularly upsetting things by choosing the wrong person to carry the blessing, forgiving those who we think ought not to be forgiven and asking us to do what we consider to be the impossible.

Jacob's story (Genesis 24-35) is one that often surprises people because it is so human. Jacob is not some caricature of the perfect person, but a rather atypical antihero who happens to be God's chosen Promise bearer. What I believe we can take from this is first, we do not have to be perfect to work for God. God can, has and will use ordinary persons for extraordinary tasks. Second we can always expect the unexpected from God as God works to insure the restoration of God's good creation and God's relationships with us.