Holy Rebels

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship, July 2, 2011

235 years ago, a group of wealthy men put their signatures to a document explaining why they were rejecting the authority of the British government, and especially the authority of their king. Here's what they said:

The Declaration of Independence

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
[The declaration then goes on to enumerate a long list of grievances they have against King George and the British parliament. It concludes with these words:]
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, . . . appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; . . . and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
. . .

These men were rebels. They were rejecting the authority of a government that had existed for hundreds of years. More than that they were rebelling against the very idea of government that had been held by Christians for almost two thousand years. But notice their words. In rejecting the authority of the British crown, they appealed to higher laws, “the Laws of Nature and Nature's God.” They appealed above the king of England to “the Supreme Judge of the world.”

Which reminds me of some Bible stories.

In Genesis 18, spends some time visiting Abraham. At the end of their visit God tells Abraham about his plans to destroy Sodom. The way the story is told in Genesis, God says to Abraham that he has heard terrible stories about Sodom. It is a hopelessly wicked place. God is going to check it out, and if it's as wicked as he has heard, God is going to wipe it out.
Abraham is appalled. It sounds to him like God is failing to make any distinction between good people and bad people. “You can't do that.” Abraham protests. “You are the Judge of All the Earth. Surely you, in your position, must do right. You, of all beings, must act justly.”
Then Abraham begins bargaining. “What if there are 50 people? Will you spare the city, if you can find 50 good people in the city?”
God agrees. “For 50 people I will spare the entire city.”
“What about 45?” Abraham asks. “Will you destroy the city for the lack of five people? You're short five people and you wipe out the entire population?”
“Okay,” God says. “If I find 45 I'll save the place.”
Abraham keeps bargaining. He gets God down to 10. If God can find ten good people, he'll spare the city.

God's agents cannot find even ten good people. So, under orders from God they evacuate the four decent people they can find before the place is destroyed.
Abraham was a rebel. He challenged God's stated plans. He held God to a “higher authority.” Being the Supreme Judge of All the Earth did not give God the freedom to do whatever he pleased. Instead, according to Abraham, it imposed on God higher obligations. He had to act in accord with the highest law. He had to do what was right and fair.

Abraham was a rebel, a holy rebel. The Bible describes him as a “Friend of God.” There is not the slightest hint anywhere in the Bible that Abraham was mistaken to challenge God to his face. In fact, the kind of challenge Abraham issued to God-- “Far be it from you! Shall not the judge of all the earth do right.” --appears to be a model for holy living and holy praying. When God condemns, when od threatens destruction, the appropriate role for us is to become holy rebels. We are to plead for, and even demand, mercy.

In Exodus, God gets fed up with the Israelites' hard-headedness and chronic complaining. He tells Moses, “Step aside. I'm going to wipe these people out. I'll get rid of all this riffraff and start over with you. I'll make a new nation based on your descendants. ” The implication is that surely Moses' family will get it right. They will be worthy progenitors of the Messiah. They will give birth to the Savior of the world.

Moses refuses to step out of the way. “You're have to go through me. You're going to have to take me out first if you want to get at my people.” Moses bluntly refuses God's direct command. If God had acted like a classic monarch, Moses would have lost his head. Quickly. Instead God acquiesces. He does not destroy the people. He does not make Moses' descendants the new Messianic line. He goes back to his agonizingly complicated relationship with the Israelites.
Moses was a holy rebel.

In the Old Testament, the one kind of rebellion that is blessed is this rebellion in favor of mercy. When God threatens punishment and disaster, it is wholly appropriate to protest God's action, to plead for him to change his mind, to oppose the divine word.

This is highlighted by the opposite kind of action on the part of the prophet Jonah. In his situation, God announces destruction for the heathen city of Nineveh. They king learns of the threat and calls his people to repentance. God observes this behavior and changes his mind. Jonah gets upset at God's softness. Jonah is a tough-on-sin conservative. God is not impressed. Unlike Abraham and Moses who are celebrated for their arguments with God, Jonah is scorned.

We see the same pattern in the New Testament. In the stories of Jesus, people are always arguing with him. And they always lose. Except when they are arguing for greater mercy, greater generosity.

Once Jesus left Judea and went north to the heathen city of Sidon to get away from the crowds so he can spend some quiet time with his disciples. Somehow a mother discovers Jesus is there. She starts hanging around. When Jesus and the disciples come out of their rented house, she's there and follows them down the street, shouting, “Lord, Son of David! Please! My daughter is suffering terribly from a demon.”

Jesus ignored her. The disciples picked up on his coldness and copying him tried ignoring her. But it didn't work. Exasperated, they begged Jesus to get rid of her. “Please, send her away!”

As we watch the scene, Jesus is confronted with two requests. One is in line with his expressed will. The other starkly contradicts the obvious intentions of Jesus.
According to Matthew, Jesus went to this town to get away. He was on retreat with his disciples, deliberately avoiding public attention, so he could do important personal work with his disciples. When the woman shows up, again Matthew is quite clear, Jesus ignores her. Then when she intrudes so emphatically she cannot be ignored, Jesus explains to his disciples, in front of the woman, that he has been sent to the lost sheep of Israel. In this statement Jesus explicitly states that helping someone like this Canaanite woman would be a deviation from his sacred calling.

The disciples get it and urge Jesus to get rid of the woman. “Send her away! She's driving us crazy with her begging cries.”
The woman refuses to get it. She rejects both the implied intention of Jesus and his explicit statement. She presses her request. “Pleeeease help me!”
Jesus makes one last attempt to get her to see helping her is not part of his plan. “Look here.” He says. “It would not be right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs.”

She still doesn't get it. Instead of yielding to Jesus' stated intention, she turns Jesus words on their head. “So, you agree your ministry is like feeding children? Then, obviously you understand there will be crumbs. AND,” she goes on, “even the meanest father would not stop the puppies from licking up the crumbs under the table. I'm not taking anything from the children. But if you're feeding the kids, at least let me get at the crumbs.”

Jesus gives in. After three statements of rejection, Jesus looks at the woman and smiles and blesses her for her stubborn argument. “Great is your faith.” He tells her. “Go. Your daughter is healed.”

She is another holy rebel appealing to a higher law.

Abraham, Moses and this nameless pagan woman argue God into changing his mind—or at least acting contrary to his stated intentions. Notice that in every case the successful argument is in favor of greater mercy, a wider circle beneficence.
Abraham appeals to the law of fairness. You can't destroy the good with the bad. And God agrees.

Moses uses two arguments: first, God's own reputation—if you destroy the people that means you failed. You brought them out of Egypt but were unable to get them all the way to Palestine. Second, Moses used his own life as a bargaining chip.

(This second point raises huge questions about the traditional Christian view of the world: We're going to get ours, too bad about the rest. Don't waste emotional energy on the lost. Preach the gospel and move on. Don't get your heart all tied up with the losers. A stark contrast to Moses' emphatic rejection of destruction for the sinners in his neighborhood.)

The woman's argument is simple: My kid needs it. She's not a “tiger mom,” she's a grizzly mom. She will stop at nothing to get the help her kid needs. God, in the person of Jesus, bends to her will.


One of the central pillars of Adventist theology is our regard for God's law. Early on, Adventists paid a lot of attention to the ten commandments. There are TEN commandments, not nine. And all ten still apply. The special focus in our early days was on the Sabbath commandment. God said, Keep the Sabbath holy. Sabbath was the seventh-day of the week. Sunday was the first day of the week, so it was a no-brainer to figure out that going to church on Sunday was not the same thing as keeping Sabbath.

This is still one of our greatest contributions to Christianity. Our spiritual life, our family and civic life are all enriched when we practice Sabbath-keeping.
As Adventists continued to study what the Bible says about God's law we came to realize that God's law is much larger than the Ten Commandments. Jesus summarized God's law for humans in the twin commandments: Love God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself. The Ten Commandments are an elaboration of those two foundational principles. All the other rules for godly living are simply further explanations about how to love.

Taking it one step further, The twin rules, love God and your neighbor are not merely rules for humans, they are descriptions of how God himself operates. God loves—within the trinity and outward toward us. The link between God and the “law of love” is so powerful that the law itself can be appealed to in “arguing with God.”

The early American rebels contradicted millennia of belief about the absolute sovereignty of kings. King George was not right just because he was king. Pointing to the king's position was no argument in favor of the justice or rightness of his actions. The goodness of earthly government was measured by the quality of the service it provided to its people.
Adventists believe the same is true of heavenly government. God is not to be worshiped merely because he occupies the throne but because what God does and who he is aligns perfectly with the law of love. We are called to be holy rebels pleading with God to “have mercy.” We are to pray against destruction and condemnation. We are to join Abraham and Moses in resisting the sweep of disastrous judgment. We are to join the Canaanite woman in urging God to show mercy and favor to those who are tormented and enslaved by the Devil.


Some practical implications:
Classic Christian understanding of all three stories argues they were set-ups. Abraham, Moses and the Canaanite woman were actually doing the very thing God wanted. When they argue for mercy over against destruction and rejection they are, in fact, voicing the deeper will of God. The moral of the stories is clear: the job of humans is to push mercy not judgment.

Slavery, women as chattel, the execution of homosexuals, rebellious sons and Sabbath breakers are all presented as God's will. They are the law. Abraham, Moses and the Canaanite woman model a holy rebelliousness in the face of divine severity. It is a kind of rebelliousness we would do well to copy. Instead of gleefully joining other fundamentalists in condemning people and celebrating the wrath of God, we ought to join the holy rebels in reminding God that it makes him look bad in the world if he fails to save all his children. “Holy rebels” are indefatigable partisans of love, fighting not for their own rights and privileges, but for the well being of those who need a champion. This kind of holy rebellion will transform us and bring in deeper, richer friendship with God.