Sermon for North Hill
October 2, 2010
Months ago I had dinner with a friend from long ago and far away. We had a fun time catching up on our kids, our spouses, our work. But I left worried. Toni (not her real name, of course) had experienced some scary financial reverses. In the months since our visit, I thought about it occasionally, but what could I could do?
Then a couple of weeks ago her name came to my mind during my morning prayer time. I prayed for her, specifically for her finances.
A week later I sent her an email, saying I had prayed for her and asking how things were going. She replied she had just been offered a dream job. In addition a fantastic business opportunity had just opened up for her. When I checked the dates, it looked like her job offer came the day after I prayed.
And I said to myself, “I should pray for my friends more often.”
Then, there's my friend Jack (not his real name, of course). He faces daunting challenges at work and at home and with his health. His name comes to me in prayer very often. I don't know why. Over the last couple of years, I have prayed for Jack more than for any other individual. When we communicate—and it's nearly always by email. I hardly ever reach him by phone.--he thanks me for my concern. Thanks me for my praying. But the craziness at work never lets up. The challenges at home get no easier. His health is not improved, as far as I can tell.
(I stopped after writing the above paragraph and prayed for him again.)
So let's talk about intercessory prayer.
Jesus did not teach specifically about intercessory prayer. But, of course, he had a lot to say about prayer in general. And his teachings certainly apply to praying for other people.
So let's look at what Jesus said in Matthew 6, in his famous “Sermon on the Mount.”
Jesus cautioned against two common errors in thinking about prayer.
First, prayer is not for show. We don't pray so that other people can see us pray. Prayer is not to be used like a flag. 'See, I'm a Christian. I pray.'
“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to pray in public places to be seen by men.” Matthew 6:5.
One application of this principle is this: Don't try to impress on God how important getting your desired answer is because of the impact it will have on others. I've seen people put prayer requests on line, with the idea that if thousands of people are praying for some particular outcome, then if God grants their prayer, it will be a great witness to God's power.
As far as I can tell, God does not respond to that kind of pressure. When Jesus healed people, he asked them to keep quiet about it. God doesn't need publicity.
A second error Jesus warned against: Getting more petitions filed with heaven will affect God's decision. Not! Jesus put it this way: “When you pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them.” Matthew 6:7
Circulating a prayer request on line and getting thousands of people to join in our petition may comfort our hearts and give us encouragement. It will not influence God's action. Prayer is not a political campaign. God doesn't do polls or focus groups before making his decision.
Repeatedly, Jesus summarized the heart of his teaching on prayer with assurance that God knows what we need before we ask and our needs matter to him. So, ask. Jesus invites you to ask. Ask in confidence that God is aware of the situation and is interested in you and the person you are praying for.
Jesus then offered a model prayer.
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For yours in the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
This prayer highlights a couple of different purposes and effects of prayer.
When we pray “Our Father,” regularly we are training ourselves to trust in God's benevolence and capability. “Father” in Jesus' teachings is always a rich, warm term. By giving us this model, Jesus is teaching us to remodel our vision of God. God is good. God cares about you and the person you are praying for. God is strong. He is able to deal with whatever difficulty you bring to him.
When we pray “Our Father,” we are affirming that the person we are praying for is also part of God's family. God loves that person as much as you do.
(If “father” as a metaphor does not evoke in your mind images of competence, compassion, wisdom and security, then use other metaphors that help you relate to God in the way Jesus meant to teach when he used the word, “Father.” Other biblical metaphors for God include shepherd, mother hen, king, nursing mother, mother eagle, doctor, friend, lover, husband. Metaphors in our culture might include guard dog, fireman, mama bear, lifeguard, coach.)
Praying in the light of Jesus' words, “Our Father” shapes our hearts. It increases my compassion. It raises my awareness of beauty and goodness in the world because I see people through the eyes of a parent. Especially, if I'm praying for someone who annoys me, this kind of praying will change my vision. Instead of seeing the person only as an annoyance, I will also see them as the beloved of God.
If I pray in this way often enough, I will come to see even people I strongly disagree with, people who are truly evil, with affection and compassion instead of with disgust and hatred. My view of the world will be the opposite of all the talk show hosts who specialize in making other people look like idiots, perverts and criminals. Instead I will see people as the treasures of God.
Then our actions actions will be motivated by love instead of hate.
When we pray over and over 'Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,' we begin to see people and situations more and more through the eyes of God. We still see human brokenness, but we see broken people as children of God rather than as children of the devil. We dream of their restoration rather than their elimination.
Jesus invites us to pray, 'Give us today our daily bread,' teaching us that it is appropriate to pray about down-to-earth, nitty gritty stuff. And not just for ourselves.
God, my friend needs money, needs a new job, needs help with their health. We pray about these things because our hearts cry out for help. And we pray because Jesus invited us to.
Note, when we pray like this we are unabashedly asking for God to intervene in our lives. We want God to take action on our behalf. To help us. To bless us. To send good things our way. We are not thinking about changes that need to be made in our lives. We are thinking about changes we hope God will make in the way the world works.
Let's be clear: Jesus invites us to make these requests.
We ask God to do something, to take action, to change on our behalf. To help us with things like paying bills, finding healing for our pain and illness and dealing with the outrageous temptations and provocations of life.
To come back to my two stories.
When I spend time in prayer every morning, I am conditioning myself to see the world as a good place. Instead of overflowing with rage at politicians, Muslims, the French, the crazy people who cut me off on my way to work, the boss, I am suffused with gratitude for the good things in my life. I don't live in south Sudan or Somalia or Darfur. I have friends. I can see beauty. I can hear music. I can taste curried zucchini.
I feel compassion for Toni and Jack. And all the members and friends of North Hill. And the people of Windworks and Gig Harbor Adventist Fellowship. I cultivate appreciation for the holy zeal that motivates clergy whose specific opinions I disagree with.
I do not know what effect my prayer for Jack is having on his world. Would his world be worse than it is if I were not praying? I don't know. I do know that when his name comes to mind during my prayer time, he becomes important to me. My heart is drawn to him and his family.
Truth be told, I don't really know that my prayer had any impact on the life of my friend Toni. I'm sure the people who offered her the job were working on filling the position long before the Thursday morning when I prayed. But the coming of good things into her life at the time I was praying increases my gratitude to God for his compassion.
So, what to do?
Pray. Do it. Take a few minutes every morning. Or if you're a night person, do it at night. Make some time, not necessarily a lot of time, for deliberate, focused prayer for your children, your co-workers, your friends, your spouse. When you're driving and someone cuts you off, pray for that person. Pray for the stress in their life that makes them drive that way. Pray for the immediate crisis they are facing that day that made me have to drive aggressively.
Who knows, it may lead to a change in the world for yourself and for others. Good things. Money. Health. Happier relationships. Less stress at work.
We do know that it will lead to change in you. If you will make time daily to devote some time to prayer as Jesus taught it, you will become more compassionate, less angry, less worried, more confident.
Paul wrote this about prayer: Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thess. 5:16ff.
If you want to be less angry, more hopeful. Pray for people.
If you know people who could use some divine help. Pray for them.
Do it in the morning. Or at night. While you're driving, while you're waiting for the bus or the train.
Just do it. It will lead to joy.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Happy MIsfits
I'm still working on my sermon for this Sabbath describing the mission of North Hill—and by extension my mission, my raison d'etre at North Hill.
I've written a manuscript but I'm not happy with it.
My sense is that North Hill is a community that matters to a number of people. Its distinctiveness is its holding together the affirmation of devotion, piety and confident faith with a palpable openness to skeptics, agnostics and questioners.
My instinctive stance is that of protector, not director. I aim to make sure everyone plays nicely together. I don't have strong ideas about what everyone should be doing. I want them to be happy. I want others to come and find sanctuary here. My style is much more permissive than directive. I count on the Holy Spirit to direct individuals.
My model is the ministry of Jesus:
The party at Matthew's house.
The expulsion of the money changers
The rebuke of the Pharisees
The above two show Jesus in "Stern Mode" only when confronting authority figures.
The inclusion of the Syro-phonecian woman.
The inclusion of Children
The Inclusion of Zaccheaus.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
His healing and “exposure” of the bleeding woman
His words about the woman bent over double. Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, who has been kept bound by Satan for 18 long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her? Luke 13
All this inclusion against the exclusive tendencies of the fundamentalists. Against the words Ted Wilson and Dan Jackson (as reported in Adventist World, Sept. 2010, p. 28-29).
I've written a manuscript but I'm not happy with it.
My sense is that North Hill is a community that matters to a number of people. Its distinctiveness is its holding together the affirmation of devotion, piety and confident faith with a palpable openness to skeptics, agnostics and questioners.
My instinctive stance is that of protector, not director. I aim to make sure everyone plays nicely together. I don't have strong ideas about what everyone should be doing. I want them to be happy. I want others to come and find sanctuary here. My style is much more permissive than directive. I count on the Holy Spirit to direct individuals.
My model is the ministry of Jesus:
The party at Matthew's house.
The expulsion of the money changers
The rebuke of the Pharisees
The above two show Jesus in "Stern Mode" only when confronting authority figures.
The inclusion of the Syro-phonecian woman.
The inclusion of Children
The Inclusion of Zaccheaus.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
His healing and “exposure” of the bleeding woman
His words about the woman bent over double. Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, who has been kept bound by Satan for 18 long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her? Luke 13
All this inclusion against the exclusive tendencies of the fundamentalists. Against the words Ted Wilson and Dan Jackson (as reported in Adventist World, Sept. 2010, p. 28-29).
Friday, September 10, 2010
Prayer: Making Requests
Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship, September 11. 2010
Years ago in New York, I met a pastor named Jack McFarland who had special ministry of intercessory prayer. He spent an hour or two a day praying for people. He had a written list that was pages and pages long. He would systematically pray through his list. By the time I left New York his list was far too long for him to pray through in a single day. Thousands of people counted on him to pray for them. So he spent his designated time praying in order through the list. When his time was up, he'd mark his place and pick up the next day and keep praying.
Jack and his wife both exuded a magical warmth and gentleness that naturally drew you to him. Having him pray for you felt really special. He influenced my own prayer life, though I never became a heroic intercessor like him.
Prayer, the way Jack did it, was a systematic, structured discipline. It was like running or weight lifting or practicing the piano or guitar. It seemed to me that Jack's prayer life was part of filled him with such a magnetic warmth and connection with people. Prayer had changed Jack.
It also seemed to me then and seems to me still today, to be the most exalted form of prayer as request. Petitioning heaven on behalf of others.
Then there is Henry's kind of prayer. (This story is taken from Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom.)
He had gone to Brooklyn where some of his old friends were. He barged in with an unloaded gun, waved it around demanding money and drugs. They handed over the stuff and he headed back to his place in the Bronx. At some point that night he realized what he had done. He had just robbed people who knew him. People who knew where he lived. People who had ready access to guns and friends with guns. He spent the night hiding behind the garbage cans in front of their apartment with a gun in his hand waiting for the attack.
He prayed. “God, get me out of this and I'll shape up and follow you.”
The attack did not come.
The next day he flushed his heroin down the toilet. Began going to church and eventually ended up Detroit, in the bleakest, most hopeless part of that hopeless city, pastoring a church in a falling down building with a huge hole in the roof.
There he served other druggies, ex-cons, and losers. And on rare occasions experienced the blessing of seeing someone else find the same kind of deliverance he had tasted back in New York.
So which kind of prayer is better? Which kind of prayer is more likely to get God's attention? Jack's daily, quiet focused prayer or Henry's desperate, spur-of-the-moment, bargaining plea for back up while he held his shotgun? Which is more likely to get results?
We can find parallels to both approaches to prayer in the Bible.
Two men are specifically described as practicing intercession, prayer for others. Job and Daniel. Job prayed regularly for his children. He even offered sacrifices on their behalf. Daniel prayed for his nation, the Jewish people who were living in exile in Babylon.
Both men experienced catastrophe in connection with their praying. In Job's story we read that God bragged on Job because of his goodness. In response the devil attacked everything Job possessed, then managed to get his kids all killed in a disastrous house collapse.
Daniel gets thrown into a lion's den as a result of his daily prayer practice.
Now in both cases it wasn't really their praying that got the men into trouble. They were targeted for the gestalt of their lives, for the whole package of integrity and personal and professional goodness. Still the Bible presents their prayer practice as an important part of their spiritual life.
And their spiritual life offered no protection against earthly disaster.
Then there is the story of Samson. From the very first time we meet him, he is willful and reckless. He rejects his father's counsel. He flirts with prostitutes. He becomes the leader of Israel at a time when there is a serious leadership vacuum. For twenty years he serves as something of shield for the Israelites from the dominating tyranny of the Philistines. Along the way he kills a lot of Philistines. They finally capture him. They put out his eyes and put him to work in prison as a mule grinding grain by pushing the long arm of a mill round and round.
Some time later, at a major national feast, the Philistine leaders brought Samson out to show him off and celebrate their victory over Israel's hero. There in that feast Samson prayed. “Lord, give me strength just once more so I can get revenge on these Philistines for putting out my eyes.”
Samson had the boy who was leading him take him over to the central pillars of the massive temple. (Apparently, Samson had been there before and knew the design of the place.) God answered Samson's prayer and gave him his usual supernatural power. Samson pushed the pillars over and collapsed the temple. The writer reports that Samson killed more Philistines in that single event than in all the rest of his life.
This story raises all kinds of interesting questions. But notice this: God answered Samson's prayer! Instead of spending decades as a prisoner, humiliated and tormented, he died as a hero in the eyes of his people. In his own eyes!
Two very different approaches to prayer: Daniel's daily, steady habit. Samson's desperate 911 call. Jack McFarlands practice of daily intercession. Henry's spontaneous cry for divine protection from impending retaliation from the drug dealers he has just ripped off.
What can we learn for ourselves from these stories?
FIRST
God is not predictable. At least not in terms of how he will respond to our specific requests. Sometimes God responds in dramatic and welcome ways. Like he did with Samson in the temple. Other times God makes us wait and wait and wait and only responds when we are desperate beyond words. Like he did with the woman Hannah who spent years begging for a child with no apparent effect (1 Samuel). Sometimes God does not respond at all. As happened with King Saul near the end of his life. (“Saul inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. 1 Samuel 28:6)
There is no known prayer technique that obliges God to act. The previous sentence should perhaps be put in 24 point type, underlined, colored red and put in BOLD. I repeat: There is no known prayer technique that obliges God to act.
God is free. We cannot compel him to act, not by “claiming promises,” not by using formulas that invoke the words “bind,” “declare,” or “blood.” If you find various formulas helpful to you in your prayer life, great use them. But remember they no more compel God to act than Jack McFarland's prayer list compels God to act. Jack's paper list and you “magic words” are no more than tools to help you pray. They cannot be turned into levers by which you can manipulate or force God.
SECOND
God's response is not based on our character.
Sometimes God answers the prayers of scoundrels and sometimes not. Like Samson. Like King Saul. Like Henry the Detroit minister. Sometimes God rejects the requests of good people. Like with Jeremiah and John the Baptist (by inference).
THIRD: Two contrasting perspectives on prayer
Prayer as the key to heaven's treasures.
When we pray our requests, the focus of our attention is our desire for God to act. When we think of prayer this way—as the human quest for God's intervention—our focus is on what God does. Any kind of prayer will do in this situation. The power is in God not in the prayer or in the person praying. God does not need us to master some particular technique or discipline before he is able to act in this world.
We make our requests and God decides. We can make our request using the formulas of TV preachers. We can use the words Jesus taught us in the Lord's prayer. We can claim the promises of the Bible and speak politely to God. Or we can pray in desperate, raw street language. Either way, polite or raw, our prayer is heard by God. And God acts or not out his great wisdom and love. It is not the “power” of our prayer that matters, it is the power of God.
Prayer as spiritual practice.
We can also think of prayer as spiritual exercise. Just as people exercise to get strong, practice to become skillful on the piano or drums or guitar and do homework in preparation for taking exams, so we can engage in regular prayer as a spiritual exercise.
When people pray regularly, it has an affect on them. When we think of prayer as a human spiritual discipline, then the form or format of prayer matters. Regularity and practice matters. Location matters. Because in this case, the goal of prayer is to change the person praying.
Jack fuels his compassion by his focused time of intercessory prayer. I think if Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh spent an hour a day in intercessory prayer it would alter their speech. It would change their attitudes. If we spend time in prayer daily, it will change us.
Regular, daily prayer helps align us with God's kingdom. It helps us become effective agents of heaven.
So what is the bottom line? This:
If you are in an emergency, pray. Of course, I don't have to tell you this. It is natural to the human soul. In dire straights, our eyes naturally lift toward heaven. Our minds and often our voices naturally cry out, “Help!” The good news from the Bible? God hears. And he doesn't first run your request through a committee to see if you qualify for a response from heaven.
Second, if you are wanting a deeper, more authentic spiritual life, structure regular times of prayer into your days. Pray for people. (The fancy way of putting it is practice intercession.) Or find other forms of prayer to engage in regularly. Practice gratitude. Practice quiet listening prayer. Practice affirmational prayer. Whatever, just do it. God will take notice. Your heart will be blessed.
Years ago in New York, I met a pastor named Jack McFarland who had special ministry of intercessory prayer. He spent an hour or two a day praying for people. He had a written list that was pages and pages long. He would systematically pray through his list. By the time I left New York his list was far too long for him to pray through in a single day. Thousands of people counted on him to pray for them. So he spent his designated time praying in order through the list. When his time was up, he'd mark his place and pick up the next day and keep praying.
Jack and his wife both exuded a magical warmth and gentleness that naturally drew you to him. Having him pray for you felt really special. He influenced my own prayer life, though I never became a heroic intercessor like him.
Prayer, the way Jack did it, was a systematic, structured discipline. It was like running or weight lifting or practicing the piano or guitar. It seemed to me that Jack's prayer life was part of filled him with such a magnetic warmth and connection with people. Prayer had changed Jack.
It also seemed to me then and seems to me still today, to be the most exalted form of prayer as request. Petitioning heaven on behalf of others.
Then there is Henry's kind of prayer. (This story is taken from Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom.)
He had gone to Brooklyn where some of his old friends were. He barged in with an unloaded gun, waved it around demanding money and drugs. They handed over the stuff and he headed back to his place in the Bronx. At some point that night he realized what he had done. He had just robbed people who knew him. People who knew where he lived. People who had ready access to guns and friends with guns. He spent the night hiding behind the garbage cans in front of their apartment with a gun in his hand waiting for the attack.
He prayed. “God, get me out of this and I'll shape up and follow you.”
The attack did not come.
The next day he flushed his heroin down the toilet. Began going to church and eventually ended up Detroit, in the bleakest, most hopeless part of that hopeless city, pastoring a church in a falling down building with a huge hole in the roof.
There he served other druggies, ex-cons, and losers. And on rare occasions experienced the blessing of seeing someone else find the same kind of deliverance he had tasted back in New York.
So which kind of prayer is better? Which kind of prayer is more likely to get God's attention? Jack's daily, quiet focused prayer or Henry's desperate, spur-of-the-moment, bargaining plea for back up while he held his shotgun? Which is more likely to get results?
We can find parallels to both approaches to prayer in the Bible.
Two men are specifically described as practicing intercession, prayer for others. Job and Daniel. Job prayed regularly for his children. He even offered sacrifices on their behalf. Daniel prayed for his nation, the Jewish people who were living in exile in Babylon.
Both men experienced catastrophe in connection with their praying. In Job's story we read that God bragged on Job because of his goodness. In response the devil attacked everything Job possessed, then managed to get his kids all killed in a disastrous house collapse.
Daniel gets thrown into a lion's den as a result of his daily prayer practice.
Now in both cases it wasn't really their praying that got the men into trouble. They were targeted for the gestalt of their lives, for the whole package of integrity and personal and professional goodness. Still the Bible presents their prayer practice as an important part of their spiritual life.
And their spiritual life offered no protection against earthly disaster.
Then there is the story of Samson. From the very first time we meet him, he is willful and reckless. He rejects his father's counsel. He flirts with prostitutes. He becomes the leader of Israel at a time when there is a serious leadership vacuum. For twenty years he serves as something of shield for the Israelites from the dominating tyranny of the Philistines. Along the way he kills a lot of Philistines. They finally capture him. They put out his eyes and put him to work in prison as a mule grinding grain by pushing the long arm of a mill round and round.
Some time later, at a major national feast, the Philistine leaders brought Samson out to show him off and celebrate their victory over Israel's hero. There in that feast Samson prayed. “Lord, give me strength just once more so I can get revenge on these Philistines for putting out my eyes.”
Samson had the boy who was leading him take him over to the central pillars of the massive temple. (Apparently, Samson had been there before and knew the design of the place.) God answered Samson's prayer and gave him his usual supernatural power. Samson pushed the pillars over and collapsed the temple. The writer reports that Samson killed more Philistines in that single event than in all the rest of his life.
This story raises all kinds of interesting questions. But notice this: God answered Samson's prayer! Instead of spending decades as a prisoner, humiliated and tormented, he died as a hero in the eyes of his people. In his own eyes!
Two very different approaches to prayer: Daniel's daily, steady habit. Samson's desperate 911 call. Jack McFarlands practice of daily intercession. Henry's spontaneous cry for divine protection from impending retaliation from the drug dealers he has just ripped off.
What can we learn for ourselves from these stories?
FIRST
God is not predictable. At least not in terms of how he will respond to our specific requests. Sometimes God responds in dramatic and welcome ways. Like he did with Samson in the temple. Other times God makes us wait and wait and wait and only responds when we are desperate beyond words. Like he did with the woman Hannah who spent years begging for a child with no apparent effect (1 Samuel). Sometimes God does not respond at all. As happened with King Saul near the end of his life. (“Saul inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. 1 Samuel 28:6)
There is no known prayer technique that obliges God to act. The previous sentence should perhaps be put in 24 point type, underlined, colored red and put in BOLD. I repeat: There is no known prayer technique that obliges God to act.
God is free. We cannot compel him to act, not by “claiming promises,” not by using formulas that invoke the words “bind,” “declare,” or “blood.” If you find various formulas helpful to you in your prayer life, great use them. But remember they no more compel God to act than Jack McFarland's prayer list compels God to act. Jack's paper list and you “magic words” are no more than tools to help you pray. They cannot be turned into levers by which you can manipulate or force God.
SECOND
God's response is not based on our character.
Sometimes God answers the prayers of scoundrels and sometimes not. Like Samson. Like King Saul. Like Henry the Detroit minister. Sometimes God rejects the requests of good people. Like with Jeremiah and John the Baptist (by inference).
THIRD: Two contrasting perspectives on prayer
Prayer as the key to heaven's treasures.
When we pray our requests, the focus of our attention is our desire for God to act. When we think of prayer this way—as the human quest for God's intervention—our focus is on what God does. Any kind of prayer will do in this situation. The power is in God not in the prayer or in the person praying. God does not need us to master some particular technique or discipline before he is able to act in this world.
We make our requests and God decides. We can make our request using the formulas of TV preachers. We can use the words Jesus taught us in the Lord's prayer. We can claim the promises of the Bible and speak politely to God. Or we can pray in desperate, raw street language. Either way, polite or raw, our prayer is heard by God. And God acts or not out his great wisdom and love. It is not the “power” of our prayer that matters, it is the power of God.
Prayer as spiritual practice.
We can also think of prayer as spiritual exercise. Just as people exercise to get strong, practice to become skillful on the piano or drums or guitar and do homework in preparation for taking exams, so we can engage in regular prayer as a spiritual exercise.
When people pray regularly, it has an affect on them. When we think of prayer as a human spiritual discipline, then the form or format of prayer matters. Regularity and practice matters. Location matters. Because in this case, the goal of prayer is to change the person praying.
Jack fuels his compassion by his focused time of intercessory prayer. I think if Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh spent an hour a day in intercessory prayer it would alter their speech. It would change their attitudes. If we spend time in prayer daily, it will change us.
Regular, daily prayer helps align us with God's kingdom. It helps us become effective agents of heaven.
So what is the bottom line? This:
If you are in an emergency, pray. Of course, I don't have to tell you this. It is natural to the human soul. In dire straights, our eyes naturally lift toward heaven. Our minds and often our voices naturally cry out, “Help!” The good news from the Bible? God hears. And he doesn't first run your request through a committee to see if you qualify for a response from heaven.
Second, if you are wanting a deeper, more authentic spiritual life, structure regular times of prayer into your days. Pray for people. (The fancy way of putting it is practice intercession.) Or find other forms of prayer to engage in regularly. Practice gratitude. Practice quiet listening prayer. Practice affirmational prayer. Whatever, just do it. God will take notice. Your heart will be blessed.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Offering Hospitality to God
North Hill, September 4, 2010
With thanks to Scott Arany for the title and central idea of this sermon.
About 4000 years ago, if you had been sitting with Abraham in the shade outside the door of his tent, you could have seen out there, out beyond the shade of the oak grove, shimmering heat waves dancing above the dry grass.
Out there, out under the hard-blazing sun, Abraham's herders tended goats and sheep and camels. Their work increases your appreciation for the shade.
Suddenly Abraham gets up, staring into the distance. You turn and follow his eyes. You can barely make out figures on the road in the distance. Their shapes distorted and wiggling in the heat waves. Three travelers, you finally make out, headed this direction.
When they got close, Abraham steps out into the sun and walks to greet them. He bows. “If I have found favor in your eyes, gentlemen, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought so you can wash your feet and rest in the shade. Let me get you something to eat so you can be refreshed and then be on your way. I'm so delighted you have come to me.”
The men agreed. A servant brought water and they washed their feet. Then they sat back in the shade while Abraham gave directions for dinner. When dinner was finally ready an hour or two later, Abraham himself served them, making sure their plates stayed full.
At one point in the dinner, the leader of the three visitors asked Abraham, “Where's your wife Sarah?”
“In the tent.” Abraham said.
Then Abraham's visitor informed him, “About this time next year your wife will have a son.”
Sarah, listening in the tent, laughed into her sleeve. The very idea, she thought. Now? When both of us are over the hill and I'm thirty years past menopause? Me have a baby? I don't think so.
The visitor asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord? It will happen next year just as I said.”
Sarah stuck her head out of the tent and protested. “I didn't laugh,” she pouted.
I imagine at that, the visitor himself laughed. “Oh yes you did. Don't try denying it.”
At some point in this conversation Abraham must have have realized his visitors were not ordinary men. Maybe he thought the leader was a prophet or priest. Maybe he guessed they were angels.
Wouldn't that be cool, to serve dinner to three visitors and then realize you had just served dinner to angels or a prophet or a priest with high spiritual power?
Abraham's story gets better.
The visitors got up to leave. Abraham got up to walk with them a bit and see them on their way. They hadn't gone far when the leader sent his two companions on down the road and turned to talk with Abraham. In this conversation, Abraham discovers the full identity of his guest.
The guest was not a prophet or a priest or an angel. It was God. God had stopped by Abraham's tent in the oak grove of Mamre. It was God, Abraham had welcomed with his hospitality. Abraham had just spent a couple of hours visiting . . . WITH GOD!!!!!!
A favorite Adventist definition of prayer comes from Ellen White: “Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend.”
Can I paraphrase this? Prayer is like sitting down to dinner with God. Prayer is like Abraham walking out to God and urging him, “Won't you please come in and stop awhile? Can I get you some water for your feet and some food for your belly? And we'll talk. Okay?”
This is not all there is to prayer, of course. Over the next few weeks we'll consider several different metaphors and pictures the Bible uses to help us understand prayer. Today, imagine prayer as inviting God to step in out of the sun, to join you in the shade for a leisurely dinner.
Prayer is offering hospitality to God.
The same can be said for our time together here on Sabbath morning. What is worship? One way to think of worship is it is offering hospitality to God. Through our music and scripture reading, through our care for this comfortable place, through our Bible study our fellowship with each other, we are offering hospitality to God. We are saying, “Welcome. Won't you come and spend some time with us? Won't you sit with us? Keep us company for awhile?”
And God says yes.
Here at North Hill we cap off our hospitality by sharing food together after the service. On the first Sabbath of most months, a full dinner, shared potluck style. On most other Sabbaths, snacks and beverage. In these meals we are offering hospitality to the visitors and to one another. Of course. We are also offering hospitality to God. We are reminded of the words in Hebrews 13:1-2. “Keep on loving the brothers and sisters in the church. And do not neglect to entertain strangers because by so doing some people have entertained angels.”
We might editorialize: And some people have even entertained God!
Worship as entertaining God. Is that a helpful picture for you?
Here at church we seek to provide truthful information about God and spiritual life. But if information was all you needed, you could probably find it on the internet.
We try to create a friendly environment where people can fellowship with each other. That's an important part of church life. We feel the importance, and the New Testament explicitly talks about how crucial this connection with other people of faith is. But if connecting with people socially was all we needed, we could do that at work, at school, in the neighborhood. We could join clubs or organizations.
The irreplaceable reason for coming to worship is to meet God. We want to rub the shoulders with God, to hang with God. We offer hospitality to God. Those who plan the service aim to create an environment where God is welcome and we are welcome to visit with each other and God.
Abraham's dinner with God has echoes in other places in the Bible. In Exodus 24, not long after God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, he invited Moses and Aaron and his sons and seventy of the elders of Israel to come up on Mt Sinai to visit with God. Their visit ends with a feast on the mountain. The Elders and God sharing table fellowship!
Jesus ended his three years of ministry and fellowship with his 12 disciples by sharing a meal with them. A meal that we now remember by celebrating the Lord's supper.
Then in Revelation 3, Jesus says, “I am knocking at the door. If anyone will open the door, I will come in and we will share dinner.”
What do you do when you go out to dinner? You just take time together. The conversation doesn't have to “go” anywhere. There's no agenda. The purpose of sharing the meal is ot share time together, to share life.
This is the first purpose of prayer and worship.
Neither praying nor coming to public worship will automatically make all the aches and pains in our lives go away. But when we spend good time with God the very real challenges and difficulties shrink. Their significance in our lives begins to diminish.
Entertaining God, connecting with God in prayer and worship may not solve our marriage difficulties or fix our unemployment. Still spending time with God in prayer and worship gives us strength and wisdom for living.
We come to church, we spend time in prayer with high expectations that God will show up and keep company with us in a special way.
Jesus promised, “Where two or three are gathered, there I will be in the middle.” Matthew 18:20.
Notice that Jesus is eager to show up. He is knocking on the door. He promises, if you show up in my name, I will be there. We are not begging and pleading, hoping Jesus might stoop to join us for a couple of minutes. Instead we are planning our hospitality, knowing Jesus is eager for time with us.
So I want to encourage you to take some time, regularly, to offer hospitality to Jesus, to God. If you eat breakfast by yourself, don't turn on the TV. Don't read a newspaper or book. Instead share your meal with Jesus. Savor each bite and in your mind hold converse with God.
Invite God to keep you company while you eat. This is part of what saying “the blessing” at meal time is about. As you practice attending to God over the next few weeks, you will find that you are more aware of his presence. Invite God to keep you company through your days.
Learn to “Practice the Presence of God.” It will heighten your sense of gratitude and thus your joy. Hopefully, it will make you more responsive to the leading of God's Spirit. This is the bedrock of mature prayer. It is the heart of what we are about when we come together for worship.
With thanks to Scott Arany for the title and central idea of this sermon.
About 4000 years ago, if you had been sitting with Abraham in the shade outside the door of his tent, you could have seen out there, out beyond the shade of the oak grove, shimmering heat waves dancing above the dry grass.
Out there, out under the hard-blazing sun, Abraham's herders tended goats and sheep and camels. Their work increases your appreciation for the shade.
Suddenly Abraham gets up, staring into the distance. You turn and follow his eyes. You can barely make out figures on the road in the distance. Their shapes distorted and wiggling in the heat waves. Three travelers, you finally make out, headed this direction.
When they got close, Abraham steps out into the sun and walks to greet them. He bows. “If I have found favor in your eyes, gentlemen, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought so you can wash your feet and rest in the shade. Let me get you something to eat so you can be refreshed and then be on your way. I'm so delighted you have come to me.”
The men agreed. A servant brought water and they washed their feet. Then they sat back in the shade while Abraham gave directions for dinner. When dinner was finally ready an hour or two later, Abraham himself served them, making sure their plates stayed full.
At one point in the dinner, the leader of the three visitors asked Abraham, “Where's your wife Sarah?”
“In the tent.” Abraham said.
Then Abraham's visitor informed him, “About this time next year your wife will have a son.”
Sarah, listening in the tent, laughed into her sleeve. The very idea, she thought. Now? When both of us are over the hill and I'm thirty years past menopause? Me have a baby? I don't think so.
The visitor asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord? It will happen next year just as I said.”
Sarah stuck her head out of the tent and protested. “I didn't laugh,” she pouted.
I imagine at that, the visitor himself laughed. “Oh yes you did. Don't try denying it.”
At some point in this conversation Abraham must have have realized his visitors were not ordinary men. Maybe he thought the leader was a prophet or priest. Maybe he guessed they were angels.
Wouldn't that be cool, to serve dinner to three visitors and then realize you had just served dinner to angels or a prophet or a priest with high spiritual power?
Abraham's story gets better.
The visitors got up to leave. Abraham got up to walk with them a bit and see them on their way. They hadn't gone far when the leader sent his two companions on down the road and turned to talk with Abraham. In this conversation, Abraham discovers the full identity of his guest.
The guest was not a prophet or a priest or an angel. It was God. God had stopped by Abraham's tent in the oak grove of Mamre. It was God, Abraham had welcomed with his hospitality. Abraham had just spent a couple of hours visiting . . . WITH GOD!!!!!!
A favorite Adventist definition of prayer comes from Ellen White: “Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend.”
Can I paraphrase this? Prayer is like sitting down to dinner with God. Prayer is like Abraham walking out to God and urging him, “Won't you please come in and stop awhile? Can I get you some water for your feet and some food for your belly? And we'll talk. Okay?”
This is not all there is to prayer, of course. Over the next few weeks we'll consider several different metaphors and pictures the Bible uses to help us understand prayer. Today, imagine prayer as inviting God to step in out of the sun, to join you in the shade for a leisurely dinner.
Prayer is offering hospitality to God.
The same can be said for our time together here on Sabbath morning. What is worship? One way to think of worship is it is offering hospitality to God. Through our music and scripture reading, through our care for this comfortable place, through our Bible study our fellowship with each other, we are offering hospitality to God. We are saying, “Welcome. Won't you come and spend some time with us? Won't you sit with us? Keep us company for awhile?”
And God says yes.
Here at North Hill we cap off our hospitality by sharing food together after the service. On the first Sabbath of most months, a full dinner, shared potluck style. On most other Sabbaths, snacks and beverage. In these meals we are offering hospitality to the visitors and to one another. Of course. We are also offering hospitality to God. We are reminded of the words in Hebrews 13:1-2. “Keep on loving the brothers and sisters in the church. And do not neglect to entertain strangers because by so doing some people have entertained angels.”
We might editorialize: And some people have even entertained God!
Worship as entertaining God. Is that a helpful picture for you?
Here at church we seek to provide truthful information about God and spiritual life. But if information was all you needed, you could probably find it on the internet.
We try to create a friendly environment where people can fellowship with each other. That's an important part of church life. We feel the importance, and the New Testament explicitly talks about how crucial this connection with other people of faith is. But if connecting with people socially was all we needed, we could do that at work, at school, in the neighborhood. We could join clubs or organizations.
The irreplaceable reason for coming to worship is to meet God. We want to rub the shoulders with God, to hang with God. We offer hospitality to God. Those who plan the service aim to create an environment where God is welcome and we are welcome to visit with each other and God.
Abraham's dinner with God has echoes in other places in the Bible. In Exodus 24, not long after God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, he invited Moses and Aaron and his sons and seventy of the elders of Israel to come up on Mt Sinai to visit with God. Their visit ends with a feast on the mountain. The Elders and God sharing table fellowship!
Jesus ended his three years of ministry and fellowship with his 12 disciples by sharing a meal with them. A meal that we now remember by celebrating the Lord's supper.
Then in Revelation 3, Jesus says, “I am knocking at the door. If anyone will open the door, I will come in and we will share dinner.”
What do you do when you go out to dinner? You just take time together. The conversation doesn't have to “go” anywhere. There's no agenda. The purpose of sharing the meal is ot share time together, to share life.
This is the first purpose of prayer and worship.
Neither praying nor coming to public worship will automatically make all the aches and pains in our lives go away. But when we spend good time with God the very real challenges and difficulties shrink. Their significance in our lives begins to diminish.
Entertaining God, connecting with God in prayer and worship may not solve our marriage difficulties or fix our unemployment. Still spending time with God in prayer and worship gives us strength and wisdom for living.
We come to church, we spend time in prayer with high expectations that God will show up and keep company with us in a special way.
Jesus promised, “Where two or three are gathered, there I will be in the middle.” Matthew 18:20.
Notice that Jesus is eager to show up. He is knocking on the door. He promises, if you show up in my name, I will be there. We are not begging and pleading, hoping Jesus might stoop to join us for a couple of minutes. Instead we are planning our hospitality, knowing Jesus is eager for time with us.
So I want to encourage you to take some time, regularly, to offer hospitality to Jesus, to God. If you eat breakfast by yourself, don't turn on the TV. Don't read a newspaper or book. Instead share your meal with Jesus. Savor each bite and in your mind hold converse with God.
Invite God to keep you company while you eat. This is part of what saying “the blessing” at meal time is about. As you practice attending to God over the next few weeks, you will find that you are more aware of his presence. Invite God to keep you company through your days.
Learn to “Practice the Presence of God.” It will heighten your sense of gratitude and thus your joy. Hopefully, it will make you more responsive to the leading of God's Spirit. This is the bedrock of mature prayer. It is the heart of what we are about when we come together for worship.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
A Prophet among Us
Manuscript for Sermon at North Hill, August 28, 2010. Who knows how closely the actual "preached sermon" will be to this manuscript.
Sometimes a prophet's messages can make a real difference. Other times, the prophet must wonder why he or she bothered.
About 2000 years ago, a prophet named Agabus, visited the church in Antioch. While there he had a vision that there was going to be a severe recession and called on the church to get ready. The Christians in Antioch believed him and not only prepared themselves, they also took up a collection to help the believers in Jerusalem.
Agabus must have been pretty pleased with this response of the Antiochan, especially since Jerusalem was his home town. It appears that without the message of Agabus, there would have been no collection for Jerusalem. People there would have suffered severe hardship. Some may have actually starved to death. So Agabus' message was pretty important.
Several years later we meet Agabus again. He was still a citizen of Jerusalem, but this time he was visiting a town named Caesarea, about fifty miles northwest of Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul was also in Caesarea on his way to Jerusalem. Agabus gave Paul a message from God: “If you go to Jerusalem, you will be arrested and end up in the hands of the Romans.”
Paul decided to go to Jerusalem any way. Sure enough, while there, he was arrested. Paul spent the next couple of years in prison in Palestine. Then he was shipped off to Rome where he spent another couple of years under house arrest.
It is interesting to note that when the believers in Antioch responded to Agabus' first prediction and took up a collection for the Christians in Jerusalem, Paul was the head of the delegation that carried the money to Jerusalem. Paul had experience with the ministry of Agabus! He knew Agabus was a genuine prophet. But when Agabus gave Paul a personal message that contradicted Paul's own plans, Paul felt free to ignore Agabus' counsel.
In hindsight, we can say, “Oops!”
God did not abandon Paul because of his refusal to pay attention to Agabus' warning. Even in captivity, Paul was still able to share his faith and preach the gospel, though in a far more limited way than if he had not been a prisoner. Through the message of the prophet Agabus, God offered Paul an alternative to prison. Paul ignored Agabus to his own detriment.
Which reminds us of the words of 2 Chronicles 20:20. “Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established. Believe his prophets so shall you be established.”
The reason God sends message through prophets is he wants the best for us.
Today, I'm going to talk about the work of Ellen White, a woman Seventh-day Adventists believe was called by God to act as a prophet among us.
Over the course of her life time Mrs. White, as we often refer to her, had something like 2000 visions. She produced 100,000 pages of sermons, articles, letters and books. No other person has come anywhere close to having the impact on the Adventist Church she has.
The church did not start with Ellen White. She was not the founder of the church in the sense that Luther founded the Lutheran Church or Mary Baker Eddy founded the Christian Science Church or Joseph Smith founded the Mormon Church. In those cases the formal doctrines of the church were first articulated by the founders. In the Adventist church, the formal doctrines were developed in small group sessions and conferences. Ellen White was part of these early gatherings, but she was not the leader, either in a social or theological sense.
But she remained active in the leadership of the church for 70 years. Long after all the other early leaders had died, she remained active and engaged. And the belief of the church that she had the gift of prophecy made her writings, her ideas more and more influential over time. She is now the most famous of all Adventists, having eclipsed all the other leaders she worked with during her life time.
What does it mean to be a prophet? What is the job of a prophet? Idoes a prophet do?
1. Call people to repentance
The first words of the Gospel of Mark are, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God: It is written in Isaiah the prophet, “I will send my messenger before you to prepare the way . . . And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Mark 1:1-3.
Repent! This was the central theme of John's prophetic message. Which is hardly surprising. It is the dominant theme of all prophets.
Repent! Alter the status quo. Change. Do something different. Quit doing the same thing.
A growing field of business is the professing of coaching. What is the essence of coaching? Helping people change. You want to write a book? There are people who specialize as writing coaches. The purpose of the coach is to help you change. Move from thinking about writing a book to actually writing a book. One of my sisters has signed up with a personal trainer. Why? To help her improve her physical condition. Business owner hire business coaches. Why? To help them improve—that is CHANGE—the way they engage in business.
The only reason to hire a coach is because you want to change because the job of a coach is helping people change.
This is primary job of a prophet.
When Elijah summoned the nation of Israel to Mt. Carmel he wanted them to change. Quit messing around with Baal the god of the Philistines and give yourselves unreservedly to the worship of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
When God sent Jonah to Nineveh, he wanted the residents there to give up their evil habits and devote themselves to goodness. (As you will remember, Jonah wasn't all that in synch with God's purposes. Still through Jonah's prophetic work, God got the people of Nineveh to change.)
The prophet Jeremiah is famous for his stern messages of warning. Repent! Change! Quit doing what you're doing! Do something different. If you don't, disaster looms over you.
The central work of a prophet is to call people to change. To repent. To do differently. To do better.
When Agabus gave Paul a prophecy, it was not “Great job you're doing there.” Agabus did not say, “You're on your way to Jerusalem. Way to go. Keep up your courage.” No, Agabus cautioned about impending calamity. The prophet was urging the apostle to change his plans. Repent. Change direction. Do something different. This is the central work of a prophet.
When you read the writings of Ellen White, this is one of the most obvious characteristics of her content. She is constantly urging her readers to repent. To move their lives in greater harmony with the will of God and the teachings of the Bible. She paints a vivid picture of a dauntingly high ideal:
We are to act like God, to be like God. Our habits are to flow out of a deep, genuine knowledge of God. (I'll come back to this later.) But for those who like to “do theology” in the sense of playing with ideas about God's activity and character, Ellen White offers a very direct challenge: make sure all that “knowledge” is actually shaping our lives. Just as Jesus came to serve, so we, if we are going to call ourselves Christians, are also here to serve, to be co-workers with God. Not merely co-thinkers or co-theologians with God. Ellen White was constantly prodding people to actually live their Christianity. She pushed so hard for obedience that people with sensitive consciences who relied on her as their primary spiritual guide could become overcome with the weight of duty.
2. Organize God's People
The prophet Elisha helped the people of Israel in all sorts of ways. He helped the city of Jericho fix their water supply. He set up schools for young men. He traveled from place to place advising, preaching and healing. Near the end of Elisha's life, the king, who was not a very devout man, came to visit him. When he saw the old prophet lying sick in bed, he exclaimed, “My father! My Father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!”
That's how influential Elisha was. That's how indispensable he had become in the nation. Elisha was like an entire army all by himself. His action, however, was not defeating enemies, it was organizing the domestic affairs of Israel. His primary foreign policy work was the reduction of military conflict.
In the years after the Jewish people returned from captivity in Babylon, the prophet Haggai called for a new, vigorous movement to finish reconstruction of the temple which had been demolished by the Babylonians. He told them their own current economic difficulties were the result of neglecting the temple. If they would make the reconstruction of God's house top priority, God would bless them in their own personal lives.
(It is important to note that in the Bible, the prophets did not possess political or religious authority. They gave advice to kings and high priests. They thundered warnings and urged courses of action. But the final decision did not lie in the hands of the prophets. The authority for making decisions remained in the hands of the properly constituted authority of the monarchy and priesthood. To the extent we Christians think of ourselves as a “prophetic voice,” it is proper for us to speak up and voice our opinions about how the nation ought to be run. We must also respect the proper authority of government and we can confidently leave the decision making in the hands of secular authorities.)
Ellen White gave the Adventist Church pointed counsel regarding colleges, a medical school, publishing houses and missions. She supported a massive restructuring of the entire administrative structure of the denomination in 1902. Most observers agree that it was largely her counsel that set in motion the trends that led to the incredible world-wide growth of the church.
Today there are somewhere between 15 and 20 million Adventists world-wide. There are over a hundred colleges and universities, including three medical schools. More than 170 hospitals. All of this is largely the consequence of the advice and counsel of Mrs. White.
So Ellen White demonstrated the work of a prophet in her constant calls for repentance, her constant urging for us to do better, do differently. She acted in harmony with the Bible prophets in giving guidance to the church regarding how our life together should be organized.
Then there is theology.
3. Prophets Teach Theology.
The Gospel of Mark describes the work of John the Baptist as a message of repentance. Mark also uses another phrase. The work of John the Baptist was to prepare the way for the Messiah, to smooth the road for Jesus. In the Gospel of John, we read that Jesus came to make his Father known. Jesus reveals God more clearly than any other prophet or priest. He is the supreme teacher and model of God. All prophets participate in this work to a lesser degree. The job of prophet is to make God known.
Ellen White has been dead for almost a hundred years. The passage of time has made some of the details of her messages less and less relevant. A favorite illustration of this is her counsel regarding education of girls. She wrote that every girl should learn to harness a horse. The context of the statement is equipping girls for practical living. In her day, transportation was by horse. If a girl did not learn to harness a horse, it made her less independent, less capable of functioning apart from a man in her life.
Harnessing a horse is obviously not an important skill in today's world. The equivalent in our world would be that every girl should know how to change a tire or use jumper cables.
However, the spiritual theological heart of Ellen White's writings is as relevant as ever.
Of the scores of books that have her name on them, by far the most famous are the five volumes of a narrative commentary on the Bible called "The Conflict of the Ages Series" --Patriarchs and Prophets, Prophets and Kings, The Desire of Ages, Acts of the Apostles, and the Great Controversy. In these books Ellen White reviews the entire history of God as we know it in the Bible and church history. She works to explain how every action God has ever taken is an expression of amazing love. Even the bad news stories—Noah's Flood, the destruction of the Philistines, the terrors of the last days—all of these calamities and disasters are actually the outgrowth of God's commitment to love, to freedom and the eternal blessedness of not only human beings but every living creature in the universe.
The first sentence of the first book, Patriarchs and Prophets, is God is love.
“God is love.” 1 John 4:16. His nature, his law, is love. Every manifestation of creative power is an expression of infinite love. The history of the great conflict between good and evil, from the time it first began in heaven to the final overthrow of rebellion and the total eradication of sin, is also a demonstration of God’s unchanging love.
Patriarchs and Prophets, Chapter One, page one. (with ellipses)
Mrs. White's phrase “the history of the great conflict” is really a reference to the Bible. Patriarchs and Prophets is the first book in a five-volume narrative commentary on the Bible. The over-arching organizing theme of this series is her attempt to show that every action of God, from his miracles of creation, healing and deliverance to his sternest judgments and curses, can be best explained as expressions of deep, genuine love for humanity.
Ellen White grew up believing in eternal hellfire. She was driven away from that belief by its incompatibility with the truth of God's love.
The conviction that God is love is one of the few things all Adventist theologians agree on—conservative and liberal. All agree that ultimately whatever theories they advance must be squared with this bedrock conviction.
The last sentence of the last book in Mrs. White's commentary series, repeats the opening sentence of the first book: God is love.
Persuading us of this truth and helping us understand and apply its implications in our lives is the central task of all prophecy and all prophets. Because Ellen White has given us so much help, we are confident that her visions did indeed come from God.
It remains for us, now, to carry forward in our world the work she did so admirably in hers. We are called to know God ever more fully and to make him known.
To repent and to call the world to repentance. (Remember, repentance is not some mysterious, complicated theological process. To repent means to make positive change. One step in the right direction.)
To organize ourselves for carrying forward Jesus' ministry of hope, help and healing.
If we do these things we will have properly honored the legacy of the prophet among us.
Sometimes a prophet's messages can make a real difference. Other times, the prophet must wonder why he or she bothered.
About 2000 years ago, a prophet named Agabus, visited the church in Antioch. While there he had a vision that there was going to be a severe recession and called on the church to get ready. The Christians in Antioch believed him and not only prepared themselves, they also took up a collection to help the believers in Jerusalem.
Agabus must have been pretty pleased with this response of the Antiochan, especially since Jerusalem was his home town. It appears that without the message of Agabus, there would have been no collection for Jerusalem. People there would have suffered severe hardship. Some may have actually starved to death. So Agabus' message was pretty important.
Several years later we meet Agabus again. He was still a citizen of Jerusalem, but this time he was visiting a town named Caesarea, about fifty miles northwest of Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul was also in Caesarea on his way to Jerusalem. Agabus gave Paul a message from God: “If you go to Jerusalem, you will be arrested and end up in the hands of the Romans.”
Paul decided to go to Jerusalem any way. Sure enough, while there, he was arrested. Paul spent the next couple of years in prison in Palestine. Then he was shipped off to Rome where he spent another couple of years under house arrest.
It is interesting to note that when the believers in Antioch responded to Agabus' first prediction and took up a collection for the Christians in Jerusalem, Paul was the head of the delegation that carried the money to Jerusalem. Paul had experience with the ministry of Agabus! He knew Agabus was a genuine prophet. But when Agabus gave Paul a personal message that contradicted Paul's own plans, Paul felt free to ignore Agabus' counsel.
In hindsight, we can say, “Oops!”
God did not abandon Paul because of his refusal to pay attention to Agabus' warning. Even in captivity, Paul was still able to share his faith and preach the gospel, though in a far more limited way than if he had not been a prisoner. Through the message of the prophet Agabus, God offered Paul an alternative to prison. Paul ignored Agabus to his own detriment.
Which reminds us of the words of 2 Chronicles 20:20. “Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established. Believe his prophets so shall you be established.”
The reason God sends message through prophets is he wants the best for us.
Today, I'm going to talk about the work of Ellen White, a woman Seventh-day Adventists believe was called by God to act as a prophet among us.
Over the course of her life time Mrs. White, as we often refer to her, had something like 2000 visions. She produced 100,000 pages of sermons, articles, letters and books. No other person has come anywhere close to having the impact on the Adventist Church she has.
The church did not start with Ellen White. She was not the founder of the church in the sense that Luther founded the Lutheran Church or Mary Baker Eddy founded the Christian Science Church or Joseph Smith founded the Mormon Church. In those cases the formal doctrines of the church were first articulated by the founders. In the Adventist church, the formal doctrines were developed in small group sessions and conferences. Ellen White was part of these early gatherings, but she was not the leader, either in a social or theological sense.
But she remained active in the leadership of the church for 70 years. Long after all the other early leaders had died, she remained active and engaged. And the belief of the church that she had the gift of prophecy made her writings, her ideas more and more influential over time. She is now the most famous of all Adventists, having eclipsed all the other leaders she worked with during her life time.
What does it mean to be a prophet? What is the job of a prophet? Idoes a prophet do?
1. Call people to repentance
The first words of the Gospel of Mark are, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God: It is written in Isaiah the prophet, “I will send my messenger before you to prepare the way . . . And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Mark 1:1-3.
Repent! This was the central theme of John's prophetic message. Which is hardly surprising. It is the dominant theme of all prophets.
Repent! Alter the status quo. Change. Do something different. Quit doing the same thing.
A growing field of business is the professing of coaching. What is the essence of coaching? Helping people change. You want to write a book? There are people who specialize as writing coaches. The purpose of the coach is to help you change. Move from thinking about writing a book to actually writing a book. One of my sisters has signed up with a personal trainer. Why? To help her improve her physical condition. Business owner hire business coaches. Why? To help them improve—that is CHANGE—the way they engage in business.
The only reason to hire a coach is because you want to change because the job of a coach is helping people change.
This is primary job of a prophet.
When Elijah summoned the nation of Israel to Mt. Carmel he wanted them to change. Quit messing around with Baal the god of the Philistines and give yourselves unreservedly to the worship of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
When God sent Jonah to Nineveh, he wanted the residents there to give up their evil habits and devote themselves to goodness. (As you will remember, Jonah wasn't all that in synch with God's purposes. Still through Jonah's prophetic work, God got the people of Nineveh to change.)
The prophet Jeremiah is famous for his stern messages of warning. Repent! Change! Quit doing what you're doing! Do something different. If you don't, disaster looms over you.
The central work of a prophet is to call people to change. To repent. To do differently. To do better.
When Agabus gave Paul a prophecy, it was not “Great job you're doing there.” Agabus did not say, “You're on your way to Jerusalem. Way to go. Keep up your courage.” No, Agabus cautioned about impending calamity. The prophet was urging the apostle to change his plans. Repent. Change direction. Do something different. This is the central work of a prophet.
When you read the writings of Ellen White, this is one of the most obvious characteristics of her content. She is constantly urging her readers to repent. To move their lives in greater harmony with the will of God and the teachings of the Bible. She paints a vivid picture of a dauntingly high ideal:
Like our Savior, we are in this world to do service for God. In order to be co-workers with God, we must know Him as He reveals Himself. This is the knowledge needed by all who are working for the uplifting of their fellow men. Transformation of character, purity of life, efficiency in service, adherence to correct principles, all depend upon a right knowledge of God. This knowledge is the essential preparation both for this life and for the life to come.
Ministry of Healing, p. 409 (with ellipses).
We are to act like God, to be like God. Our habits are to flow out of a deep, genuine knowledge of God. (I'll come back to this later.) But for those who like to “do theology” in the sense of playing with ideas about God's activity and character, Ellen White offers a very direct challenge: make sure all that “knowledge” is actually shaping our lives. Just as Jesus came to serve, so we, if we are going to call ourselves Christians, are also here to serve, to be co-workers with God. Not merely co-thinkers or co-theologians with God. Ellen White was constantly prodding people to actually live their Christianity. She pushed so hard for obedience that people with sensitive consciences who relied on her as their primary spiritual guide could become overcome with the weight of duty.
2. Organize God's People
The prophet Elisha helped the people of Israel in all sorts of ways. He helped the city of Jericho fix their water supply. He set up schools for young men. He traveled from place to place advising, preaching and healing. Near the end of Elisha's life, the king, who was not a very devout man, came to visit him. When he saw the old prophet lying sick in bed, he exclaimed, “My father! My Father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!”
That's how influential Elisha was. That's how indispensable he had become in the nation. Elisha was like an entire army all by himself. His action, however, was not defeating enemies, it was organizing the domestic affairs of Israel. His primary foreign policy work was the reduction of military conflict.
In the years after the Jewish people returned from captivity in Babylon, the prophet Haggai called for a new, vigorous movement to finish reconstruction of the temple which had been demolished by the Babylonians. He told them their own current economic difficulties were the result of neglecting the temple. If they would make the reconstruction of God's house top priority, God would bless them in their own personal lives.
(It is important to note that in the Bible, the prophets did not possess political or religious authority. They gave advice to kings and high priests. They thundered warnings and urged courses of action. But the final decision did not lie in the hands of the prophets. The authority for making decisions remained in the hands of the properly constituted authority of the monarchy and priesthood. To the extent we Christians think of ourselves as a “prophetic voice,” it is proper for us to speak up and voice our opinions about how the nation ought to be run. We must also respect the proper authority of government and we can confidently leave the decision making in the hands of secular authorities.)
Ellen White gave the Adventist Church pointed counsel regarding colleges, a medical school, publishing houses and missions. She supported a massive restructuring of the entire administrative structure of the denomination in 1902. Most observers agree that it was largely her counsel that set in motion the trends that led to the incredible world-wide growth of the church.
Today there are somewhere between 15 and 20 million Adventists world-wide. There are over a hundred colleges and universities, including three medical schools. More than 170 hospitals. All of this is largely the consequence of the advice and counsel of Mrs. White.
So Ellen White demonstrated the work of a prophet in her constant calls for repentance, her constant urging for us to do better, do differently. She acted in harmony with the Bible prophets in giving guidance to the church regarding how our life together should be organized.
Then there is theology.
3. Prophets Teach Theology.
The Gospel of Mark describes the work of John the Baptist as a message of repentance. Mark also uses another phrase. The work of John the Baptist was to prepare the way for the Messiah, to smooth the road for Jesus. In the Gospel of John, we read that Jesus came to make his Father known. Jesus reveals God more clearly than any other prophet or priest. He is the supreme teacher and model of God. All prophets participate in this work to a lesser degree. The job of prophet is to make God known.
Ellen White has been dead for almost a hundred years. The passage of time has made some of the details of her messages less and less relevant. A favorite illustration of this is her counsel regarding education of girls. She wrote that every girl should learn to harness a horse. The context of the statement is equipping girls for practical living. In her day, transportation was by horse. If a girl did not learn to harness a horse, it made her less independent, less capable of functioning apart from a man in her life.
Harnessing a horse is obviously not an important skill in today's world. The equivalent in our world would be that every girl should know how to change a tire or use jumper cables.
However, the spiritual theological heart of Ellen White's writings is as relevant as ever.
Of the scores of books that have her name on them, by far the most famous are the five volumes of a narrative commentary on the Bible called "The Conflict of the Ages Series" --Patriarchs and Prophets, Prophets and Kings, The Desire of Ages, Acts of the Apostles, and the Great Controversy. In these books Ellen White reviews the entire history of God as we know it in the Bible and church history. She works to explain how every action God has ever taken is an expression of amazing love. Even the bad news stories—Noah's Flood, the destruction of the Philistines, the terrors of the last days—all of these calamities and disasters are actually the outgrowth of God's commitment to love, to freedom and the eternal blessedness of not only human beings but every living creature in the universe.
The first sentence of the first book, Patriarchs and Prophets, is God is love.
“God is love.” 1 John 4:16. His nature, his law, is love. Every manifestation of creative power is an expression of infinite love. The history of the great conflict between good and evil, from the time it first began in heaven to the final overthrow of rebellion and the total eradication of sin, is also a demonstration of God’s unchanging love.
Patriarchs and Prophets, Chapter One, page one. (with ellipses)
Mrs. White's phrase “the history of the great conflict” is really a reference to the Bible. Patriarchs and Prophets is the first book in a five-volume narrative commentary on the Bible. The over-arching organizing theme of this series is her attempt to show that every action of God, from his miracles of creation, healing and deliverance to his sternest judgments and curses, can be best explained as expressions of deep, genuine love for humanity.
Ellen White grew up believing in eternal hellfire. She was driven away from that belief by its incompatibility with the truth of God's love.
The conviction that God is love is one of the few things all Adventist theologians agree on—conservative and liberal. All agree that ultimately whatever theories they advance must be squared with this bedrock conviction.
The last sentence of the last book in Mrs. White's commentary series, repeats the opening sentence of the first book: God is love.
And the years of eternity, as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of God and of Christ. As knowledge is progressive, so will love, reverence, and happiness increase. The more men learn of God, the greater will be their admiration of His character.
The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love.
Great Controversy, Last Paragraph. (p. 678) (with ellipses)
Persuading us of this truth and helping us understand and apply its implications in our lives is the central task of all prophecy and all prophets. Because Ellen White has given us so much help, we are confident that her visions did indeed come from God.
It remains for us, now, to carry forward in our world the work she did so admirably in hers. We are called to know God ever more fully and to make him known.
To repent and to call the world to repentance. (Remember, repentance is not some mysterious, complicated theological process. To repent means to make positive change. One step in the right direction.)
To organize ourselves for carrying forward Jesus' ministry of hope, help and healing.
If we do these things we will have properly honored the legacy of the prophet among us.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Downstream from Revival
Last week I talked about the Mt Carmel showdown. Elijah on one side. Ahab, the prophets of Baal and Jezebel (in absentia, but represented by the prophets) on the other. The people are pictured as lying between these competing claims to loyalty.
Elijah wins. The people shout, "The Lord, he is God."
After the sermon, I got a text: Is there any evidence that Elijah's sermon and demonstration on Mt Carmel had any lasting effect?
Intriguing question. My first response was, No. The fire fell. The rain came. Elijah ran off into the wilderness whining he was the only Israelite left who was loyal to God.
God's response to Elijah's whining was to have him anoint Elisha as his successor. Elisha's story is full of evidence that there was a pervasive change in the nation. Ahab and Jezebel did not convert. Baal worship did not disappear. ON THE OTHER HAND. People in Jericho turned to Elisha for help when they had a problem with water quality. A prophet's widow found miraculous support when she went to Elisha. Wealthy people provided hospitality for Elisha out of deep regard for his ministry. People sent their sons to schools allied with Elisha. A foreign general came to Israel to be healed, Elisha's reputation for healing had become so widespread.
While the nation did not "officially" reject the gods of the Philistines and Jeroboam. A substantial population obviously did. This is a dramatic downstream effect of Elijah's revival.
Elijah, on Mt Carmel asked God to send fire as evidence that he really was God, and that he was turning the people's hearts back to himself. From what we see in the stories of Elisha it is clear that many people did turn to God.
There is a place for "event," for special occasions, for revivals, and congresses. For excitement and times of enthusiasm. These special times help us set a new direction. They help us get up and move in the direction we have known we should be moving. Revivals or events are valuable because they are beginnings. Obviously, beginnings are not worth much if there is no continued movement. On the other hand, there can be no "continued movement" if there is not a start. There can be no maturation if there is no birth.
So take a step. Any step. Just one step. In the right direction. That is the essence of revival. And if you'll take a second step in the same direction, you're well on your way to maturity and holiness.
Elijah wins. The people shout, "The Lord, he is God."
After the sermon, I got a text: Is there any evidence that Elijah's sermon and demonstration on Mt Carmel had any lasting effect?
Intriguing question. My first response was, No. The fire fell. The rain came. Elijah ran off into the wilderness whining he was the only Israelite left who was loyal to God.
God's response to Elijah's whining was to have him anoint Elisha as his successor. Elisha's story is full of evidence that there was a pervasive change in the nation. Ahab and Jezebel did not convert. Baal worship did not disappear. ON THE OTHER HAND. People in Jericho turned to Elisha for help when they had a problem with water quality. A prophet's widow found miraculous support when she went to Elisha. Wealthy people provided hospitality for Elisha out of deep regard for his ministry. People sent their sons to schools allied with Elisha. A foreign general came to Israel to be healed, Elisha's reputation for healing had become so widespread.
While the nation did not "officially" reject the gods of the Philistines and Jeroboam. A substantial population obviously did. This is a dramatic downstream effect of Elijah's revival.
Elijah, on Mt Carmel asked God to send fire as evidence that he really was God, and that he was turning the people's hearts back to himself. From what we see in the stories of Elisha it is clear that many people did turn to God.
There is a place for "event," for special occasions, for revivals, and congresses. For excitement and times of enthusiasm. These special times help us set a new direction. They help us get up and move in the direction we have known we should be moving. Revivals or events are valuable because they are beginnings. Obviously, beginnings are not worth much if there is no continued movement. On the other hand, there can be no "continued movement" if there is not a start. There can be no maturation if there is no birth.
So take a step. Any step. Just one step. In the right direction. That is the essence of revival. And if you'll take a second step in the same direction, you're well on your way to maturity and holiness.
Friday, August 6, 2010
The World according to Ahab
Actually, the title should be something like the world according to God in the light of how he interacted with Ahab.
Preached at North Hill, July 31, 2010
1 Kings 16-22
Has something you posted on the internet ever come back to bite you? Some flaming rhetoric, a picture? Or perhaps something someone else posted, a scathing review of your work as a teacher or your practice as a physician?
Last week, I heard an interview with a law professor who was discussing the “new world” the internet has brought into existence—a world of total, eternal recall. Once something shows up on the web, it's there forever. And a determined searcher can find it. The professor raised the question of how we relate to this world of total, eternal recall. How, in the future, will anyone be qualified for public service if we hold them accountable for every infelicitous remark, every youthful indiscretion, every sexual peccadillo? Some people have suggested there should be some kind of expiration date on information on the internet. But that's not likely.
Just how do we live in a world of total, eternal recall?
Actually, this is not such a genuinely new reality. Rather it is best seen as a technologically empowered expression of the world most humans have always lived in. Namely, the world of small, stable communities where the librarian and the mayor remember the stupid things you did during middle school and high school.
Memory is the primary accellerant of the endless conflicts in places like the Middle East and the Balkans. I remember not only your offenses against me. I remember the offenses of your great, great, great grandfather against my great, great, great grandfather. I remember and nurse my hunger for justice (which, experientially, is inseparable from a desire for revenge.) Even in small town Mississippi, memory fuels eternal fear and antipathy. (Those @*#& Yankees! The South shall rise again!)
American culture has been built on the possibility of starting a new story. I can move away from the memories—others memories of my past, my memories of their past. We can start over. A new place. A new identity.
How do we live when erasing inconvenient parts of our histories is no longer an option? How do we live hopefully and joyously in a world of eternal, total recall.
The story of Ahab offers some help.
Ahab, Son of Omri. 1 Kings 16-22.
Ahab's father, Omri, “did evil in the eyes of the Lord and sinned more than all those before him. Omri walked in all the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit, so that they provoked the Lord, . . . to anger by their worthless idols.
That sounds pretty bad. You would hope that Ahab would learn something from his dad's mistakes and do better. Alas.
Instead, Ahab “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. [Like father like son.] Ahab not only mimicked the sins of Jeroboam, he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. Ahab built a temple for Baal and set up an altar in the temple. He made an Asherah pole and “did more to provoke the Lord, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.” 1 Kings 16:30-33.
And God was watching. God was writing it all down. The heavenly digital recorders were running. And the ancient scribes were writing it down in the annals of the kings of Israel. We, too, that is the Christian church and preachers, we, too, remember. Ahab was a bad man. Wicked. Evil. In our eyes, hopeless. Worthless.
God sent a message to Ahab through Elijah. “This is what God, the one I serve, says, 'For the next several years it will not rain unless I say so.'”
This is not good news! Not on its face anyway. But hidden in this dire prediction is a message of hope. God scolds and warns because he is interested in turning us toward life and righteousness.
Ahab did not warm to Elijah's message. He did allow the prophet to walk out of the palace unscathed. But as the drought increasingly affected agriculture and people and animals began starving to death Ahab got angry. He launched a search for the prophet . . . to kill him. No luck. Ahab sent ambassadors to neighboring kingdoms demanding they certify they were not harboring the prophet.
Curiously, during this time, Ahab's leading domestic official was a devout believer, a man named Obadiah. Obadiah dared to defy Ahab's wife, Jezebel. She began a campaign to kill off all of the prophets with any connection with Yahweh. Obadiah hid a hundred prophets and supplied them with food.
It is the second example of Ahab's curious inconsistency. He is a wicked man complicit in the worst forms of idolatry, but he allowed Elijah to walk out of the palace after announcing the drought. And now this: His chief of staff is a devout believer who has the conviction and the guts to defy Jezebel!
One of the most important characteristics of the way the Bible pictures people is its clear-eyed view of people's goodness and badness. Ahab was a “bad guy.” But the Bible does not reduce him to “only bad.” Abraham is the Father of the Faithful. But the Bible does not gloss over his moral and personal failings.
At the end of three years, God gives Elijah another message for Ahab. To deliver the message Elijah finds Obadiah. He tells Obadiah, “Go tell Ahab, I'm here waiting to see him.”
Obadiah protests. “You're trying to get me killed. King Ahab has scoured the nation looking for you. He has sent ambassadors to every nation in the region requiring them to swear an oath that they are not harboring you. Now you show up and tell me to go tell the king that you want to talk to him. And while I'm gone to fetch the king, who knows where the Spirit of God will take you. I'll show back up here with the king and you'll be gone. And he will kill me for not arresting you. Why are you trying to get me killed?”
“No,” Elijah says, “I'll be here. You go get Ahab.”
Ahab comes. When he sees Elijah he exclaims, “Ah, there you, you troubler of Israel.”
“No way.” Elijah rebuts. “I am not the one causing trouble. It is you and your idolatry and wickedness that have brought on this trouble. Now summon the nation—all of the people and all of the prophets of Baal—to Mt. Carmel. We are going to have a show down.”
Amazingly Ahab complies.
Take notice. Ahab is God's agent for calling the nation together to witness God's dramatic call to revival. Elijah is going to preach the sermon prior to the fiery miracle. But it is Ahab who gives the invitation. Ahab, the wicked king, Ahab, the son of Omri is God's agent for calling the people together for a dramatic demonstration of God's power and his continued interest in Israel.
The nation gathers. The prophets of Baal spend the day dancing before a sacrifice they have laid out on an altar. Nothing happens. At the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah announces it is his turn. He invites the people to come close. He buillds an altar and prepares his sacrifice. He has it doused with twelve large jars of water. Then he kneels and prays.
God responds with fire from heaven. It is so intense it burns not only the sacrifice, but the altar itself and the water in the surrounding trench. The people fall on their faces shouting, “Yahweh, he is God.”
Elijah then give orders for the prophets of Baal to be killed. And Ahab's officers obey!
Again this curious inconsistency. Elijah had no army. It was Ahab's officers who performed these executions. Obviously, Ahab consented to Elijah's order.
My impression is that Ahab was weak rather than massively evil. He was influenced by his father. No help there. Then by his wife Jezebel, a formidable woman if there ever was one. She even intimidated Elijah, who is presented as one of the boldest, most iron-willed prophets. Ahab went along with Jezebel in the fostering of Baal worship. When confronted by Elijah, Ahab bends toward righteousness. Then when back in Jezebel's company he reverts to pleasing her.
God does not write Ahab off as worthless or hopeless. God sets up the call to revival at Carmel and has Ahab play an active part. A little later in Ahab's reign, when the king of Damascus invades, God works a dramatic series of miracles to protect Israel. A message of grace ot Ahab.
It doesn't work.
Later still, Ahab tries to buy a piece of property next door to his palace. When the owner, Naboth, refuses to sell, Jezebel has Naboth framed and killed. Ahab goes along with the scheme. God then sends Elijah to confront Ahab yet again. Elijah announces total destruction of Ahab's royal house and lineage.
In response, Ahab puts on sackcloth and goes about in mourning.
God visits Elijah again and asks, “Have you noticed how Ahas has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”
This does not sound like a great reprieve. It is a dramatic picture of God's willingness to take notice of the slightest evidence of repentance. Most commentators consider Ahab's “humbling himself” as mere regret over consequences. It is the lament of someone who has been caught not the genuine repentance of someone who has had a change of heart. Still, God asks Elijah, “Have you noticed?”
The story of Ahab offers several points of wisdom for living in a world of total recall.
1. Don't wait for perfect people. Don't even look for perfect people. Not in politics, not at church, not at school, not at home. If God used Ahab to summon Israel to the revival at Mt. Carmel, why would we demand perfection of our political leaders? Why would we demand perfection of ourselves? Just do what it is you're called to do today. See what you can get the people around to do then let it go. Why would we hold our children hostage to their histories. God will use our children to do wonderful, significant work. Fully aware of their history but not imprisoned by it.
2. Honor any evidence of openness to God. Ahab's repentance was not highly believable. God believed it. Let's put the very best imaginable spin on other people's actions. Our own efforts are often mixtures of noble and ignoble intentions, godly and base motivations. So are the efforts of others. Practice overlooking the ignoble and base motivations. What does it matter whether others or even we ourselves have pure motives? Do the best you can and imagine that others are doing the same.
3. Acknowledge there are limits to deferred justice. There are real consequences of evil. Judgment on Ahab was postponed, not annulled. Even God's patience has its limits when he is confronting injustice. Sometimes, we, too, must say, Enough! To protect others, sometimes to protect ourselves, we appropriately say, “Enough!” “No more.” “Done.”
Ahab was an evil man. Weak. Manipulated by the wicked witch he married. Still God sought his repentance. God worked through him to summon the nation to a major spiritual event. God took notice of his slightest tipping of the hat to goodness.
How do we live in a world of total, eternal recall? We honor every hint of goodness and deal graciously and gently with the inevitable evidences of frailty that show up in every complete telling of anyone's story. Even if someone passes a limit of forebearance, don't forget the good things they did, the good people they associated with. Don't "remember" that they did only evil.
Preached at North Hill, July 31, 2010
1 Kings 16-22
Has something you posted on the internet ever come back to bite you? Some flaming rhetoric, a picture? Or perhaps something someone else posted, a scathing review of your work as a teacher or your practice as a physician?
Last week, I heard an interview with a law professor who was discussing the “new world” the internet has brought into existence—a world of total, eternal recall. Once something shows up on the web, it's there forever. And a determined searcher can find it. The professor raised the question of how we relate to this world of total, eternal recall. How, in the future, will anyone be qualified for public service if we hold them accountable for every infelicitous remark, every youthful indiscretion, every sexual peccadillo? Some people have suggested there should be some kind of expiration date on information on the internet. But that's not likely.
Just how do we live in a world of total, eternal recall?
Actually, this is not such a genuinely new reality. Rather it is best seen as a technologically empowered expression of the world most humans have always lived in. Namely, the world of small, stable communities where the librarian and the mayor remember the stupid things you did during middle school and high school.
Memory is the primary accellerant of the endless conflicts in places like the Middle East and the Balkans. I remember not only your offenses against me. I remember the offenses of your great, great, great grandfather against my great, great, great grandfather. I remember and nurse my hunger for justice (which, experientially, is inseparable from a desire for revenge.) Even in small town Mississippi, memory fuels eternal fear and antipathy. (Those @*#& Yankees! The South shall rise again!)
American culture has been built on the possibility of starting a new story. I can move away from the memories—others memories of my past, my memories of their past. We can start over. A new place. A new identity.
How do we live when erasing inconvenient parts of our histories is no longer an option? How do we live hopefully and joyously in a world of eternal, total recall.
The story of Ahab offers some help.
Ahab, Son of Omri. 1 Kings 16-22.
Ahab's father, Omri, “did evil in the eyes of the Lord and sinned more than all those before him. Omri walked in all the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit, so that they provoked the Lord, . . . to anger by their worthless idols.
That sounds pretty bad. You would hope that Ahab would learn something from his dad's mistakes and do better. Alas.
Instead, Ahab “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. [Like father like son.] Ahab not only mimicked the sins of Jeroboam, he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. Ahab built a temple for Baal and set up an altar in the temple. He made an Asherah pole and “did more to provoke the Lord, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.” 1 Kings 16:30-33.
And God was watching. God was writing it all down. The heavenly digital recorders were running. And the ancient scribes were writing it down in the annals of the kings of Israel. We, too, that is the Christian church and preachers, we, too, remember. Ahab was a bad man. Wicked. Evil. In our eyes, hopeless. Worthless.
God sent a message to Ahab through Elijah. “This is what God, the one I serve, says, 'For the next several years it will not rain unless I say so.'”
This is not good news! Not on its face anyway. But hidden in this dire prediction is a message of hope. God scolds and warns because he is interested in turning us toward life and righteousness.
Ahab did not warm to Elijah's message. He did allow the prophet to walk out of the palace unscathed. But as the drought increasingly affected agriculture and people and animals began starving to death Ahab got angry. He launched a search for the prophet . . . to kill him. No luck. Ahab sent ambassadors to neighboring kingdoms demanding they certify they were not harboring the prophet.
Curiously, during this time, Ahab's leading domestic official was a devout believer, a man named Obadiah. Obadiah dared to defy Ahab's wife, Jezebel. She began a campaign to kill off all of the prophets with any connection with Yahweh. Obadiah hid a hundred prophets and supplied them with food.
It is the second example of Ahab's curious inconsistency. He is a wicked man complicit in the worst forms of idolatry, but he allowed Elijah to walk out of the palace after announcing the drought. And now this: His chief of staff is a devout believer who has the conviction and the guts to defy Jezebel!
One of the most important characteristics of the way the Bible pictures people is its clear-eyed view of people's goodness and badness. Ahab was a “bad guy.” But the Bible does not reduce him to “only bad.” Abraham is the Father of the Faithful. But the Bible does not gloss over his moral and personal failings.
At the end of three years, God gives Elijah another message for Ahab. To deliver the message Elijah finds Obadiah. He tells Obadiah, “Go tell Ahab, I'm here waiting to see him.”
Obadiah protests. “You're trying to get me killed. King Ahab has scoured the nation looking for you. He has sent ambassadors to every nation in the region requiring them to swear an oath that they are not harboring you. Now you show up and tell me to go tell the king that you want to talk to him. And while I'm gone to fetch the king, who knows where the Spirit of God will take you. I'll show back up here with the king and you'll be gone. And he will kill me for not arresting you. Why are you trying to get me killed?”
“No,” Elijah says, “I'll be here. You go get Ahab.”
Ahab comes. When he sees Elijah he exclaims, “Ah, there you, you troubler of Israel.”
“No way.” Elijah rebuts. “I am not the one causing trouble. It is you and your idolatry and wickedness that have brought on this trouble. Now summon the nation—all of the people and all of the prophets of Baal—to Mt. Carmel. We are going to have a show down.”
Amazingly Ahab complies.
Take notice. Ahab is God's agent for calling the nation together to witness God's dramatic call to revival. Elijah is going to preach the sermon prior to the fiery miracle. But it is Ahab who gives the invitation. Ahab, the wicked king, Ahab, the son of Omri is God's agent for calling the people together for a dramatic demonstration of God's power and his continued interest in Israel.
The nation gathers. The prophets of Baal spend the day dancing before a sacrifice they have laid out on an altar. Nothing happens. At the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah announces it is his turn. He invites the people to come close. He buillds an altar and prepares his sacrifice. He has it doused with twelve large jars of water. Then he kneels and prays.
God responds with fire from heaven. It is so intense it burns not only the sacrifice, but the altar itself and the water in the surrounding trench. The people fall on their faces shouting, “Yahweh, he is God.”
Elijah then give orders for the prophets of Baal to be killed. And Ahab's officers obey!
Again this curious inconsistency. Elijah had no army. It was Ahab's officers who performed these executions. Obviously, Ahab consented to Elijah's order.
My impression is that Ahab was weak rather than massively evil. He was influenced by his father. No help there. Then by his wife Jezebel, a formidable woman if there ever was one. She even intimidated Elijah, who is presented as one of the boldest, most iron-willed prophets. Ahab went along with Jezebel in the fostering of Baal worship. When confronted by Elijah, Ahab bends toward righteousness. Then when back in Jezebel's company he reverts to pleasing her.
God does not write Ahab off as worthless or hopeless. God sets up the call to revival at Carmel and has Ahab play an active part. A little later in Ahab's reign, when the king of Damascus invades, God works a dramatic series of miracles to protect Israel. A message of grace ot Ahab.
It doesn't work.
Later still, Ahab tries to buy a piece of property next door to his palace. When the owner, Naboth, refuses to sell, Jezebel has Naboth framed and killed. Ahab goes along with the scheme. God then sends Elijah to confront Ahab yet again. Elijah announces total destruction of Ahab's royal house and lineage.
In response, Ahab puts on sackcloth and goes about in mourning.
God visits Elijah again and asks, “Have you noticed how Ahas has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”
This does not sound like a great reprieve. It is a dramatic picture of God's willingness to take notice of the slightest evidence of repentance. Most commentators consider Ahab's “humbling himself” as mere regret over consequences. It is the lament of someone who has been caught not the genuine repentance of someone who has had a change of heart. Still, God asks Elijah, “Have you noticed?”
The story of Ahab offers several points of wisdom for living in a world of total recall.
1. Don't wait for perfect people. Don't even look for perfect people. Not in politics, not at church, not at school, not at home. If God used Ahab to summon Israel to the revival at Mt. Carmel, why would we demand perfection of our political leaders? Why would we demand perfection of ourselves? Just do what it is you're called to do today. See what you can get the people around to do then let it go. Why would we hold our children hostage to their histories. God will use our children to do wonderful, significant work. Fully aware of their history but not imprisoned by it.
2. Honor any evidence of openness to God. Ahab's repentance was not highly believable. God believed it. Let's put the very best imaginable spin on other people's actions. Our own efforts are often mixtures of noble and ignoble intentions, godly and base motivations. So are the efforts of others. Practice overlooking the ignoble and base motivations. What does it matter whether others or even we ourselves have pure motives? Do the best you can and imagine that others are doing the same.
3. Acknowledge there are limits to deferred justice. There are real consequences of evil. Judgment on Ahab was postponed, not annulled. Even God's patience has its limits when he is confronting injustice. Sometimes, we, too, must say, Enough! To protect others, sometimes to protect ourselves, we appropriately say, “Enough!” “No more.” “Done.”
Ahab was an evil man. Weak. Manipulated by the wicked witch he married. Still God sought his repentance. God worked through him to summon the nation to a major spiritual event. God took notice of his slightest tipping of the hat to goodness.
How do we live in a world of total, eternal recall? We honor every hint of goodness and deal graciously and gently with the inevitable evidences of frailty that show up in every complete telling of anyone's story. Even if someone passes a limit of forebearance, don't forget the good things they did, the good people they associated with. Don't "remember" that they did only evil.
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