Isaiah 4 begins with glory. But this future day of glory will be preceded by a time of judgment: "Whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning." (v. 3-4)
Commentator George Adam Smith thinks that Isaiah has realized the truth that all reformers must come to: that justice needs a judgment. We all start out as idealists who can picture a world of peace but are naïve about how hard that will be: "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isaiah 2:4) For a people yearning for peace, you could hardly pick a better slogan from somewhere in the Bible.
But our idealistic pictures of a peaceful society do not in themselves regenerate society. They only reveal the work we have to do. "It will only reveal social corruption, and sicken the heart of the reformer himself. For the possession of a great ideal does not mean, as so many fondly imagine, work accomplished; it means work revealed - work revealed so vast, often so impossible, that faith and hope die down, and the enthusiast of yesterday becomes the cynic of tomorrow." (Smith, The Book of Isaiah, 31).
We can't be healed until we are properly diagnosed. As Father Brown said, "No man's really good till he knows how bad he is, or might be". We can only reach the glorious future God has for us through judgment.
We think a loving God wouldn't judge. When we think of his judgment, we must keep it wed to his love. God's judgment comes from a merciful desire to restore, rather than a vengeful anger to destroy. George MacDonald wrote: "Nothing can satisfy the justice of God but justice in his creature. The justice of God is the love of what is right, and the doing of what is right. Eternal misery in the name of justice could satisfy none but a demon whose bad laws had been broken." (Unspoken Sermons, quoted from Baptized Imagination, 106)
God isn't a bad sport, pouting up in the attic of the universe, refusing to play. His judgment is a manifestation of his love. And because God is our loving judge, we enter into work of faith, labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 1:3). Jerry Sittser writes about how the early church's expectation of God's day of judgment helped them to live simple, hard-working lives of love: "(Athenagoras) also believed that Christian moral excellence was directly attributable to the Christian belief in the last judgment. "If we did not think that a God ruled over the human race, would we live in such purity? The idea is impossible. But since we are persuaded that we must give an account of all our life here to God who made us and the world, we adopt a temperate, generous, and despised way of life." (Water from a Deep Well, 59)
What we find is that judgment wed to love does not drive us away from God; it focuses us. "There is but one way of escape, and that is Isaiah's. It is to believe in God Himself; it is to believe that He is at work, that His purposes for man are saving purposes, and that with Him there is an inexhaustible source of mercy and virtue. So from the blackest pessimism shall arise new hope and faith." (Smith, 31-32)
Our hope is not that salvation will be easy. Our hope is that no matter how hard it gets, we can still hope in God.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 254: Job 10-12 - Questions
We've all understand the importance of questions and answers. If we've been to a conference or to some official talk someone is giving, often there's a "Q&A" section afterward. We all have questions.
Questions keep us up at night. Questions wake us up in the morning. What woke you up this morning? Was it your alarm clock? Or was it a question?
In today's reading, Job bludgeons God with a series of questions: "Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked? Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as humans see? Are your days like the days of mortals, or your years like human years, that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin, although you know that I am not guilty, and there is no one to deliver out of your hand?" (Job 10:3-7)
You don't need to have questions like Job's to appreciate that he asks them. Job doesn't hate God. His questions come from intimacy with God. His questions arise from a life that has been lived in total delight and worship of God. He is offended because God feels distant.
When you pray to God today, what questions do you really have? I recall an overwhelming day, driving in my car, asking God, "why aren't I better than I am by now?"
There is a classic old book called Your God is too Small. It is a corrective for those of us who never risk saying what we really mean with God because we don't think he is very mighty. Job questions God as though he is the ruler of the universe. Job questions him as though he can take it.
Offer to God your real questions today. As you do, know that you are stepping out in faith. You are taking a risk with a real and living God. And think again of today's psalm: "The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore." (Psalm 121:7-8)
Questions keep us up at night. Questions wake us up in the morning. What woke you up this morning? Was it your alarm clock? Or was it a question?
In today's reading, Job bludgeons God with a series of questions: "Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked? Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as humans see? Are your days like the days of mortals, or your years like human years, that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin, although you know that I am not guilty, and there is no one to deliver out of your hand?" (Job 10:3-7)
You don't need to have questions like Job's to appreciate that he asks them. Job doesn't hate God. His questions come from intimacy with God. His questions arise from a life that has been lived in total delight and worship of God. He is offended because God feels distant.
When you pray to God today, what questions do you really have? I recall an overwhelming day, driving in my car, asking God, "why aren't I better than I am by now?"
There is a classic old book called Your God is too Small. It is a corrective for those of us who never risk saying what we really mean with God because we don't think he is very mighty. Job questions God as though he is the ruler of the universe. Job questions him as though he can take it.
Offer to God your real questions today. As you do, know that you are stepping out in faith. You are taking a risk with a real and living God. And think again of today's psalm: "The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore." (Psalm 121:7-8)
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 217: 1 Corinthians 1-2 - Christ Crucified
The first two chapters of 1 Corinthians are about simplifying things. Paul is peeling back the layers of the divisive Corinthian group, revealing the rotting core of factionalism and competing loyalties. Paul is saying that they need to simplify and get focused on the same thing.
Richard Foster describes the power of simplicity: "Have you ever experienced this situation? One person speaks, and even though what he or she is saying may well be true you draw back, sensing the lack of authenticity. Then someone else shares, perhaps even the same truth in the same words, but now you sense an inward resonance, the presence of integrity. What is the difference? One is providing simplistic answers, the other is living in simplicity." (Freedom of Simplicity, 13)
It's easy to have simplistic answers. We resort to them when we don't want to get bogged down, or when we just want to make somebody feel better. It's a lot harder to live a disciplined, committed life of simplicity. And what is our organizing center, the thing we should simplify around? This one thing: "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (2:2).
There are several things which seem so unpleasant about this. One is the taint of failure - that we're worshipping a glorified wimpy guy, somebody the old Saturday Night Live duo, Hans and Franz would have made fun of. The other is the focus on death. It seems so gloomy, like you've been living in one of those haunted funeral hearses in St. Augustine.
Paul contends that there is a powerful subversion going on at the cross. God is turning things upside down. "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God." (1:27-29)
There are two ways God turns things upside down. First, God chooses it. We often think of the power of choice in consumeristic terms: the more money you have, the more you can choose. Not often enough do we see that the choice to simplify - to eat less, to spend less, to watch less TV, to be chaste, to sleep more, to worship more, to pray more - are just as powerful. God chooses the way of the cross, and it is the "power of God." (1:18) Nothing wimpy here. This is the power of God, subverting our usual ideas of power.
Second, these things shame those who think themselves strong. We hate shame, but there is no denying that it exists. When we look back over our life, and want to forget that certain days, weeks, years, or decades even happened, when we are downright embarrassed about the trivial things we thought were so important, shame is what we feel. Paul's point is that we who spend most of our lives steering clear of anything that looks, sounds, or smells of death and stowing money away in every nook and cranny to safeguard ourselves against encroaching death will be ashamed when we see that life is all about dying to ourselves as early as we can - "dying young", in fact - so that our life can belong to God. We will learn that knowing nothing but Christ crucified is not the same as knowing nothing.
What we spent a lifetime scorning, we will realize was God's precise way of giving us value. Shame of Jesus, shame of the cross will give way, as it does for each Christian, to shame of ourselves that we ever scorned an act so beautiful. In fact, the cross is the very center of God's plans to enrich us; for being crucified with Christ is directly tied to the promise of the Spirit, which Paul describes: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him." (2:9)
'Christ crucified' is a simple approach to life. But it is not simplistic. It is an approach which trusts that if God really gave his Son on the cross for us, it is something beautiful and it is something serious which demands our attention and which will change us. God does not coyly play around with us, but has made himself abundantly clear. He speaks with a deep resonance at the cross of Christ. And we won't draw back, for he speaks sincerely. We will listen and find ourselves drawn into the beautiful life of God.
Richard Foster describes the power of simplicity: "Have you ever experienced this situation? One person speaks, and even though what he or she is saying may well be true you draw back, sensing the lack of authenticity. Then someone else shares, perhaps even the same truth in the same words, but now you sense an inward resonance, the presence of integrity. What is the difference? One is providing simplistic answers, the other is living in simplicity." (Freedom of Simplicity, 13)
It's easy to have simplistic answers. We resort to them when we don't want to get bogged down, or when we just want to make somebody feel better. It's a lot harder to live a disciplined, committed life of simplicity. And what is our organizing center, the thing we should simplify around? This one thing: "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (2:2).
There are several things which seem so unpleasant about this. One is the taint of failure - that we're worshipping a glorified wimpy guy, somebody the old Saturday Night Live duo, Hans and Franz would have made fun of. The other is the focus on death. It seems so gloomy, like you've been living in one of those haunted funeral hearses in St. Augustine.
Paul contends that there is a powerful subversion going on at the cross. God is turning things upside down. "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God." (1:27-29)
There are two ways God turns things upside down. First, God chooses it. We often think of the power of choice in consumeristic terms: the more money you have, the more you can choose. Not often enough do we see that the choice to simplify - to eat less, to spend less, to watch less TV, to be chaste, to sleep more, to worship more, to pray more - are just as powerful. God chooses the way of the cross, and it is the "power of God." (1:18) Nothing wimpy here. This is the power of God, subverting our usual ideas of power.
Second, these things shame those who think themselves strong. We hate shame, but there is no denying that it exists. When we look back over our life, and want to forget that certain days, weeks, years, or decades even happened, when we are downright embarrassed about the trivial things we thought were so important, shame is what we feel. Paul's point is that we who spend most of our lives steering clear of anything that looks, sounds, or smells of death and stowing money away in every nook and cranny to safeguard ourselves against encroaching death will be ashamed when we see that life is all about dying to ourselves as early as we can - "dying young", in fact - so that our life can belong to God. We will learn that knowing nothing but Christ crucified is not the same as knowing nothing.
What we spent a lifetime scorning, we will realize was God's precise way of giving us value. Shame of Jesus, shame of the cross will give way, as it does for each Christian, to shame of ourselves that we ever scorned an act so beautiful. In fact, the cross is the very center of God's plans to enrich us; for being crucified with Christ is directly tied to the promise of the Spirit, which Paul describes: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him." (2:9)
'Christ crucified' is a simple approach to life. But it is not simplistic. It is an approach which trusts that if God really gave his Son on the cross for us, it is something beautiful and it is something serious which demands our attention and which will change us. God does not coyly play around with us, but has made himself abundantly clear. He speaks with a deep resonance at the cross of Christ. And we won't draw back, for he speaks sincerely. We will listen and find ourselves drawn into the beautiful life of God.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 215: Hosea: 10-14 - It is Enough
I've grown curious about Abraham Lincoln in the last several years. I've been slowly reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals which chronicles Lincoln's rise to the presidency, through which he eventually welcomed earlier political competitors into cabinet positions. Out of the furnace of his campaigns, he recognized the gifts of those he defeated and those who defeated him. It gave him a thick skin for sure, one he would need as he led the nation into civil war for the distant dream of a stronger nation. It wasn't the best that Lincoln ever would have wanted to give his country. Torn to shreds by newspapers, mocked by friend and enemy alike, his service took its toll on him and his family, even as it took its toll on the nation. This is what interests me: the Civil War was violent, bloody, nobody really came out of it with anything even closely resembling total victory. The costs were just too high. But the high costs now seem worth it. It was bad, but we now see it as good.
Reading Hosea 13, I'm struck by this line about Israel's kingdom: "Where now is your king that he may save you? Where in all your cities are your rulers, of whom you said, "Give me a king and rulers"? I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath." What strikes me is this: that God gave Israel a king in anger. God's anger is brought on by Israel's rejection of his authority. (1 Samuel 8:7) Choosing their own king means they are choosing against God. Yet, in this anger, God gives it to them. Over time, as one bad king led to another (see 1 and 2 Kings), the day comes when God's wrath falls on Israel, leading them into exile, taking their kingdom away. This is all summed up neatly in God's phrase in Hosea 13: "I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath."
I like the Civil War narrative better: it was bad, but we now see it as good, it was costly, but it was worth it. I don't like the narrative of Israel's kingdom as much: it was bad when I gave it to you, and it was worse when I took it away. That just can't be all there is to it! And of course, this is the way we tend to look at the whole Old Testament narrative: "God created the world, the world fell into sin, God created Israel, and then things got worse...and worse...and worse...........and worse...until God himself said, "That's it! I'm coming down there." What's this narrative missing?
It's missing the same sense of cost that we all understand about the Civil War. Lincoln suffered. Union soldiers suffered. Confederates suffered. African-Americans suffered. Out of all the enmity and strife and fighting of that time, and the loss of life in the war being as stunning as it was, we all stand back and say, "it is enough." The cost has been paid. Who bears the cost of all this in the Old Testament? God does. God's children kill each other. God's children give their worship to false gods. God's children are known more for disobeying their God, than for being a light shining the righteous, holy, merciful character of their God. God bears the cost of all this. God suffers.
"They have rejected me," he says in 1 Samuel. They did, but God didn't reject them. God's kingdom moves in unseen, hidden ways while the corrupt kingdom degenerates more and more. Even the death of Jesus, as climactic and central and new as it is, has much more in common with the sacrificial, abiding, weak, suffering way of God's love as depicted in Hosea than we typically acknowledge. God's role in the Old Testament is not as the idle, distant, "get your act together" God. He is the God as portrayed in Hosea, the wounded, unyieldingly faithful lover, whose only Son will pay the ultimate cost. And all those who see with the eyes of faith will say, "it is enough."
Reading Hosea 13, I'm struck by this line about Israel's kingdom: "Where now is your king that he may save you? Where in all your cities are your rulers, of whom you said, "Give me a king and rulers"? I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath." What strikes me is this: that God gave Israel a king in anger. God's anger is brought on by Israel's rejection of his authority. (1 Samuel 8:7) Choosing their own king means they are choosing against God. Yet, in this anger, God gives it to them. Over time, as one bad king led to another (see 1 and 2 Kings), the day comes when God's wrath falls on Israel, leading them into exile, taking their kingdom away. This is all summed up neatly in God's phrase in Hosea 13: "I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath."
I like the Civil War narrative better: it was bad, but we now see it as good, it was costly, but it was worth it. I don't like the narrative of Israel's kingdom as much: it was bad when I gave it to you, and it was worse when I took it away. That just can't be all there is to it! And of course, this is the way we tend to look at the whole Old Testament narrative: "God created the world, the world fell into sin, God created Israel, and then things got worse...and worse...and worse...........and worse...until God himself said, "That's it! I'm coming down there." What's this narrative missing?
It's missing the same sense of cost that we all understand about the Civil War. Lincoln suffered. Union soldiers suffered. Confederates suffered. African-Americans suffered. Out of all the enmity and strife and fighting of that time, and the loss of life in the war being as stunning as it was, we all stand back and say, "it is enough." The cost has been paid. Who bears the cost of all this in the Old Testament? God does. God's children kill each other. God's children give their worship to false gods. God's children are known more for disobeying their God, than for being a light shining the righteous, holy, merciful character of their God. God bears the cost of all this. God suffers.
"They have rejected me," he says in 1 Samuel. They did, but God didn't reject them. God's kingdom moves in unseen, hidden ways while the corrupt kingdom degenerates more and more. Even the death of Jesus, as climactic and central and new as it is, has much more in common with the sacrificial, abiding, weak, suffering way of God's love as depicted in Hosea than we typically acknowledge. God's role in the Old Testament is not as the idle, distant, "get your act together" God. He is the God as portrayed in Hosea, the wounded, unyieldingly faithful lover, whose only Son will pay the ultimate cost. And all those who see with the eyes of faith will say, "it is enough."
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 212: Hosea 1-9 - A Deeper Memory
It starts with the second verse of the book.
Hosea captures all the goodness and beauty God has for us - "take for yourself a wife..." In chapter two, Hosea describes a marriage "in righteousness, justice, love, mercy, and in faithfulness." And then this beautiful phrase: "On that day I will answer, says the Lord, I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth; and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel; and I will sow him for myself in the land. And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah, and I will say to Lo-ammi, "you are my people"; and he shall say, "You are my God." Marriage of heavens and earth, marriage of listening, speaking and responding, marriage of man and woman, and marriage of God and his people. You are mine. I am yours.
("Man, maybe I'd better look through the good ol' wedding photo album again. It was worth all that money.")
But that's not all that begins with the second verse. Hosea captures all the tragedy of sin in that same verse: "take for yourself a wife of whoredom." This is not really about torturing poor Hosea. Remarkably, it is about journeying alongside God. What is it like to love someone like God loves Israel?
Through this journey, what really stands out is the chiding, wooing, scoffing voice of God. He sees the backroom deals, he hears the whispers of betrayal in the bedroom, he walks with Israel through the alleyways after she's gotten her scandalous paycheck. He observes, prophecies, and quips with proverbs, ironies, and mournful dirges. He could almost walk away from the whole mess and yet he can't.
("Yeah, come to think of it, maybe I won't look at the wedding pictures. I was way too happy, trim, and optimistic back then.")
God's redeeming love cuts so deep in Hosea's work. When Paul says that God died for sinners in Romans 5:6, we can accept it as a fact. When Hosea talks about God's love for sinners, it burrows deep into our bones. In 9:9, God has had it. Israel's sin is so repulsive, so incomprehensible that it can't be undone or forgotten: "he will remember their iniquity." In 9:10, we find a deeper memory: "Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on a fig tree, in its first season, I saw your ancestors." However clearly God sees our dark hiding places and diagnoses our illnesses, he has a deeper memory. He has total childlike delight over real love and justice, like a weary traveler finding sweet grapes in the middle of the desert.
God is amazing. He is truly the best part of this whole world, being that he is creator. Hosea reminds us of the wedding album we have with God, not because the ceremony has already happened, but because it will happen. Through Christ's sacrifice, he has put heavenly life into us, making us a bride in righteousness, love, mercy, and faithfulness fit for the love of our life - God, the greatest lover of all.
Hosea captures all the goodness and beauty God has for us - "take for yourself a wife..." In chapter two, Hosea describes a marriage "in righteousness, justice, love, mercy, and in faithfulness." And then this beautiful phrase: "On that day I will answer, says the Lord, I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth; and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel; and I will sow him for myself in the land. And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah, and I will say to Lo-ammi, "you are my people"; and he shall say, "You are my God." Marriage of heavens and earth, marriage of listening, speaking and responding, marriage of man and woman, and marriage of God and his people. You are mine. I am yours.
("Man, maybe I'd better look through the good ol' wedding photo album again. It was worth all that money.")
But that's not all that begins with the second verse. Hosea captures all the tragedy of sin in that same verse: "take for yourself a wife of whoredom." This is not really about torturing poor Hosea. Remarkably, it is about journeying alongside God. What is it like to love someone like God loves Israel?
Through this journey, what really stands out is the chiding, wooing, scoffing voice of God. He sees the backroom deals, he hears the whispers of betrayal in the bedroom, he walks with Israel through the alleyways after she's gotten her scandalous paycheck. He observes, prophecies, and quips with proverbs, ironies, and mournful dirges. He could almost walk away from the whole mess and yet he can't.
("Yeah, come to think of it, maybe I won't look at the wedding pictures. I was way too happy, trim, and optimistic back then.")
God's redeeming love cuts so deep in Hosea's work. When Paul says that God died for sinners in Romans 5:6, we can accept it as a fact. When Hosea talks about God's love for sinners, it burrows deep into our bones. In 9:9, God has had it. Israel's sin is so repulsive, so incomprehensible that it can't be undone or forgotten: "he will remember their iniquity." In 9:10, we find a deeper memory: "Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on a fig tree, in its first season, I saw your ancestors." However clearly God sees our dark hiding places and diagnoses our illnesses, he has a deeper memory. He has total childlike delight over real love and justice, like a weary traveler finding sweet grapes in the middle of the desert.
God is amazing. He is truly the best part of this whole world, being that he is creator. Hosea reminds us of the wedding album we have with God, not because the ceremony has already happened, but because it will happen. Through Christ's sacrifice, he has put heavenly life into us, making us a bride in righteousness, love, mercy, and faithfulness fit for the love of our life - God, the greatest lover of all.
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 208: 1 Chronicles 23-29 - Valley of Vision
The end of 1 Chronicles builds to prayer. From chapter 23, we see priests given their various duties. In chapter 25, it is the musicians. In chapter 26, gatekeepers and treasurers, officers, and judges, and in chapter 27, the military. And all these folks gather for an assembly of worship, concluding in 29:10 with David's prayer to God.
Think of the established order of local government. The mayor's office, the chief of police, the district attorney, the zoning commissions, the accountants, and don't forget social workers! Imagine them all being gathered. In theory, it would be for a purpose relevant to all of them.
For the court of David's kingdom, it is worship. From military commanders who need order in the ranks and victory at war, to the treasurer who needs money coming in to make up for money going out, what is needed is God.
But of course, things are different now. Whether in local government, business, a wing of a hospital, a classroom - we aren't quite allowed to do this today. So we aim to get as much of our worship in on Sunday, because good luck finding the space - or the time - to do it otherwise.
It is chapter 29:14-15 that unites us beyond the centuries and sociological changes to our ancestors in the faith: "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to make this freewill offering? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. For we are aliens and transients before you, as were all our ancestors."
It is strange to think of our deeper heritage as being 'aliens and transients.' Don't the foreigners and immigrants only travel and work as they do so that their kids don't have to say "we are aliens and transients." It is a strange idea in our world for people to have no home except in God, no identity except in God, no business or job or money except what God gave them. But it should not be strange to God's people.
A Puritan prayer describes our home as a valley of vision: "Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights." As musicians, gatekeepers, treasurers, and warriors gather together for worship, they can see that God has made them great. But David's prayer brings them to the valley of vision: they are aliens and transients who need God.
Think of the established order of local government. The mayor's office, the chief of police, the district attorney, the zoning commissions, the accountants, and don't forget social workers! Imagine them all being gathered. In theory, it would be for a purpose relevant to all of them.
For the court of David's kingdom, it is worship. From military commanders who need order in the ranks and victory at war, to the treasurer who needs money coming in to make up for money going out, what is needed is God.
But of course, things are different now. Whether in local government, business, a wing of a hospital, a classroom - we aren't quite allowed to do this today. So we aim to get as much of our worship in on Sunday, because good luck finding the space - or the time - to do it otherwise.
It is chapter 29:14-15 that unites us beyond the centuries and sociological changes to our ancestors in the faith: "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to make this freewill offering? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. For we are aliens and transients before you, as were all our ancestors."
It is strange to think of our deeper heritage as being 'aliens and transients.' Don't the foreigners and immigrants only travel and work as they do so that their kids don't have to say "we are aliens and transients." It is a strange idea in our world for people to have no home except in God, no identity except in God, no business or job or money except what God gave them. But it should not be strange to God's people.
A Puritan prayer describes our home as a valley of vision: "Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights." As musicians, gatekeepers, treasurers, and warriors gather together for worship, they can see that God has made them great. But David's prayer brings them to the valley of vision: they are aliens and transients who need God.
Friday, July 11, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 193: 1 Chronicles 1-8 - Counting Blessings
I recently finished Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. At an intimidating 800 pages, it took a little over a year of stolen moments and early mornings, thanks in large parts to the short chapters. Otherwise, Tolstoy tends to include so many names and places that it is easy to lose track of the basic story.
Reading the genealogies in Scripture, such as the long one found in the first 8 chapters of 1 Chronicles, can feel like an exercise in triviality. Rarely do we feel that the writer is spending less energy trying to reel us in. After all, how exciting and relevant can a list of dozens of names be?
But then what else did God promise Abraham but people...and lots of them? "Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." (Gen. 12:1-2) So Abram will become a nation. The one will become many. As this nation grew, they experienced many ups and downs. Disoriented, they would lose the trajectory of what God was doing. Remembering God's words to Abram, they could remember all the people, the great nation God had promised. They count their blessings.
Imagine the author of 1 Chronicles actually knew a story about everyone who gets listed here. Each name is a story in itself. So the list of names is not as trivial as it seems. The little stories tell the big story of the God who made the promise to Abram. Obviously, not all the people lived as though they were part of this big story. Though they are still included in the list, some of these folks were villains. One suspects they would have found genealogies especially useless. What use is a family if I live only for myself?
But for those of us who love family, family vacations, being part of a tradition, a heritage, being built up by God's promises, there is a lot here in the first eight chapters of 1 Chronicles to at least appreciate if not enjoy. Through Jesus' blood, we are part of God's family. We shouldn't lose the narrative on account of all these names because ultimately these names are the narrative. We are the narrative. Our lives, our choices, our relationships with God and others are the story. "I will make of you a great nation."
My prayer list is not terribly exciting. It is a list of names. If I showed you my list, chances are you might know one or two people, but you probably wouldn't know everybody. Sometimes, I don't even know everybody on my list. People who pray at some point become more or less comfortable lifting up names they don't know and praying for people they've never met before. United by the one who created us all, we learn to live this way, in this family.
Reading the genealogies in Scripture, such as the long one found in the first 8 chapters of 1 Chronicles, can feel like an exercise in triviality. Rarely do we feel that the writer is spending less energy trying to reel us in. After all, how exciting and relevant can a list of dozens of names be?
But then what else did God promise Abraham but people...and lots of them? "Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." (Gen. 12:1-2) So Abram will become a nation. The one will become many. As this nation grew, they experienced many ups and downs. Disoriented, they would lose the trajectory of what God was doing. Remembering God's words to Abram, they could remember all the people, the great nation God had promised. They count their blessings.
Imagine the author of 1 Chronicles actually knew a story about everyone who gets listed here. Each name is a story in itself. So the list of names is not as trivial as it seems. The little stories tell the big story of the God who made the promise to Abram. Obviously, not all the people lived as though they were part of this big story. Though they are still included in the list, some of these folks were villains. One suspects they would have found genealogies especially useless. What use is a family if I live only for myself?
But for those of us who love family, family vacations, being part of a tradition, a heritage, being built up by God's promises, there is a lot here in the first eight chapters of 1 Chronicles to at least appreciate if not enjoy. Through Jesus' blood, we are part of God's family. We shouldn't lose the narrative on account of all these names because ultimately these names are the narrative. We are the narrative. Our lives, our choices, our relationships with God and others are the story. "I will make of you a great nation."
My prayer list is not terribly exciting. It is a list of names. If I showed you my list, chances are you might know one or two people, but you probably wouldn't know everybody. Sometimes, I don't even know everybody on my list. People who pray at some point become more or less comfortable lifting up names they don't know and praying for people they've never met before. United by the one who created us all, we learn to live this way, in this family.
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