Daily Devotions

“The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth, and not only I but also all who know the truth, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever:  Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, in truth and love.”

“I was overjoyed to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father. But now, dear lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning, let us love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment just as you have heard it from the beginning—you must walk in it.”

“Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist! Be on your guard, so that you do not lose what we have worked for, but may receive a full reward. Everyone who does not abide in the teaching of Christ, but goes beyond it, does not have God; whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. Do not receive into the house or welcome anyone who comes to you and does not bring this teaching; for to welcome is to participate in the evil deeds of such a person.”  2 John 2:1-11

Guilt by association is a tricky matter.  Is cutting yourself off from those with different views, even those who deny Jesus, the best or right thing to do?

Rick Warren, teaching for the 40 Days of Purpose, said that Christians are to be in the world but not of the world.  He cautioned that it is dangerous for Christians to be so worldly as to be ineffective.

The writer of James said it this way:  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God (James 4:4).  And, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this:  to care for the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

I think I hear what they are saying but it remains for me a tricky matter.

The writer of 2 John is warning his readers to be watchful for those who are attacking their faith in Jesus.  They are denying Jesus’ divinity and thus negating who he was and what he taught.  Their teaching is dangerous to the new and fragile faith of the writer’s community.  So he counsels them, “Do not receive into the house or welcome anyone who comes to you and does not bring this teaching; for to welcome is to participate in the evil deeds of such a person.”

Again, I hear what he is staying but it remains for me a tricky matter.  Isn’t the Bible clear that God not only created but also loves the world?  Isn’t it for love of the world that Jesus died for the ungodly?  And aren’t we called, in the very commandment to love, to love that world and the people in it, with fearlessness, devotion and generosity?

How can you be loving and yet cut yourself off from the very ones you are called to love?

I had a couple of very close friends who meant the world to me. We spent a lot of time together as friends do. We literally would have done anything for each other. But there came a point when I realized that I had to cut my ties.  The issue that divided us was racism – it came up again and again in how language was used, how stereotypes were thrown about, until I just couldn’t take it anymore.  I felt that my continuing friendship was a betrayal of my own heart-felt and, I believe, well-reasoned convictions. So I ended the friendship. 

It has been a couple of years now and I still wonder if I did the right thing. I cut off a friendship.  What good came of it? 

Guilt by association is a tricky thing.  Can leaving ever be loving?

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, we can understand the desire to protect ourselves from those who believe differently, even who believe differently about you.  But it is hard for us to always know the right action we ought to take.  Free us to love deeply; guide us when we need to part ways; forgive us when we make mistakes.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.  Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”  Luke 21:29-36

It is funny, but I think very significant, how little events, little one-liners, stick in our minds.  Out of the flurry of life’s experiences, only a few really land and then come back, again and again, as we take our next steps.

One of those lines comes from a sermon given by Pastor Don Carlson, my senior pastor in my first call.  The line, it might even have been the title of the sermon, was “What have you done for me lately?”  What drove that point home was his comment that he (and I’ve since proven this true by my own experience) was amazed by the number of people whose grandfathers “built this church.”

As in, simply, “My grandfather built this church.”  And normally this sentence comes couched in a longer paragraph describing how we grew up in this church but then yadda yadda yadda, we haven’t darkened the doors since yadda yadda yadda happened.

Thus God asks the haunting question, “What have you done for me lately?”

A few years ago I joined a pilgrimage to Israel.  The plan included each of the pastors on the trip taking turns creating daily worship experiences for the places we would visit.  My turn came in the Garden of Gethsemane.  I remember the twisted gnarly olive trees enclosed by an impregnable fence, but I was surprised by the image it impressed in my mind.

I expected to see Jesus, on his knees in agony, praying fervently, his humanity dreading the terrors awaiting him on the other side of the valley.  That image was clearly there but the real surprise was seeing the disciples, sleeping in exhausted contentment, blissfully unaware of Jesus’ pain.

Not once but three times in Mark’s telling of the story, Jesus walks back to the disciples and shakes them awake.  Luke softens the memory, saying that the disciples were overcome by grief and thus slept, but the point remains.  In his hour of deepest need, Jesus’ best friends slept through the first part and ran away from the rest.

What have you done for me lately?

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.”

The Christian faith leans into the future but it is very focused on today.  Yesterday teaches us its lessons.  Yesterday returns again and again until we learn them and move on.  But the prayer of our faith is rooted in give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

We live the faith well when we live expectantly – when we remember both that today might be our last day and that someday we might be someone’s grandfather or grandmother.  And what will our grandchildren say about us?

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, thank you for today.  Another day of life, another opportunity to enjoy, to serve, to celebrate, to work, to love.  Help us make the most of this day.  Plant the seeds of eager expectant faith in our lives and use us, that our lives might bear fruit for your Kingdom.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

1      Woe is me! For I have become like one who,

      after the summer fruit has been gathered,

      after the vintage has been gleaned,

      finds no cluster to eat;

      there is no first-ripe fig for which I hunger.

2      The faithful have disappeared from the land,

      and there is no one left who is upright;

      they all lie in wait for blood,

      and they hunt each other with nets.

3      Their hands are skilled to do evil;

      the official and the judge ask for a bribe,

      and the powerful dictate what they desire;

      thus they pervert justice.

4      The best of them is like a brier,

      the most upright of them a thorn hedge.

      The day of their sentinels, of their punishment, has come;

      now their confusion is at hand.

5      Put no trust in a friend,

      have no confidence in a loved one;

      guard the doors of your mouth

      from her who lies in your embrace;

6      for the son treats the father with contempt,

      the daughter rises up against her mother,

      the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;

      your enemies are members of your own household.

7      But as for me, I will look to the LORD,

      I will wait for the God of my salvation;

      my God will hear me.

                             Micah 7:1-7

Wednesday has long been known as “hump day”.  One weekend is fading fast in our rear-view mirrors.  The next shimmers off in the future like a fabled oasis rising up from the sands.  And here we are, stuck in the middle.  Two work days gone, two yet to come, and we’re living in hump day.

Depending on how life is going, Wednesday can be a joy or…not.  It can draw forth the best from us as we are now firmly in the groove of the week or it can make us grumpy.  There will always be evidence out in the world that can pull us either way.

Micah was written from Judah, the southern kingdom, when the chains of the Assyrian empire were rattling in the north.  In a very short time, the Assyrian armies would defeat Israel, the northern kingdom would fall, Samaria would be occupied and the southern kingdom depleted by paying for the war, tribute to keep the Assyrians at bay, and extra defenses at home.

Micah wouldn’t blame God for the fall to come.  Instead, he would point out the failures of society.  Businesses gouging customers.  The rich ignoring the poor.  Widows and orphans neglected.  Politicians seeking bribes.  And families, living out the anxiety of their age, turning against one another.

Sound familiar?

Maybe life itself, in every age, bears the marks of hump day.  Broken human beings, trying to figure out life, far too many finding short cuts at the expense of others, soiling their own nests. 

Caught between “Let there be light!” of creation and “Let there be life!” of the resurrection, every age bears the marks of sin. 

And yet every age also finds hope in the proclamation, “But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.”

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, every day we hear of another trusted person betraying that trust, war and conflict around the world, disasters and storms that threaten life.  Hope is so often muted by the anxieties of our lives.  So we pray this day that you might encourage us in our walk, that we might make the most of this day, doing our part as only we can.  Be our Rock, our joy and our hope.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“See, just as the LORD my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?”

“But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children— how you once stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when the LORD said to me, “Assemble the people for me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me as long as they live on the earth, and may teach their children so”; you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain was blazing up to the very heavens, shrouded in dark clouds. Then the LORD spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. He declared to you his covenant, which he charged you to observe, that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them on two stone tablets. And the LORD charged me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy.”

“Since you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire, take care and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves, in the form of any figure—the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven. But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron-smelter, out of Egypt, to become a people of his very own possession, as you are now.”  Deuteronomy 4:5-20

A “god” is whatever we look to as our ultimate source of security, status, and identity.   This is a key insight into the first commandment – You shall have no other gods before me – as the basic foundation for the other commandments which follow.

In Martin Luther’s explanation to that commandment he writes, “We are to fear, love, and trust God above anything else.”  This is the fundamental relationship in our lives.  God is God and we’re not. Fear (reverent devotion), love (choosing to follow God’s will over our own) and trust (living out of this fear and love) describes our side of our relationship with God.

So it is that Luther’s explanations of each of the other commandments all begin, “We are to fear and love God so that…”  TRUST means demonstrating our fear and love for God in our relationships with God and with other people.  Because we fear and love God, therefore we call upon him, we set aside time to rest and listen to God, we honor authority figures, we protect life, we enjoy our sexuality within safe boundaries, we help our neighbors keep their stuff, we speak well of others (or keep our mouths shut) and we rest content in what we have.

This is “the way of being in the world” that Deuteronomy insists is a sign of God’s love.  It is well worth teaching to our children.  But it is fragile in that our rebellious nature always wonders if that is enough.  Idols, gods who are no gods, fashioned by our own hands, within our own power, entice us to follow.

So God says, “You are going to have a god.  You might as well have the right one.”  So we have heard and so we follow.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, we’re always looking for an edge, a loophole, an easy way out.  We entrust ourselves to shifting sands and lose our way.  Draw us back to you.  Teach us, that we might teach our children to fear, love, and trust you above everything and anything else.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.  

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. Matthew 24:36-44

You just never know when God will show up.

I know these verses from Matthew, as well as the parables soon to come in the 25^th chapter, open the door to speculation about the end of time as we know it, the reappearance of Jesus, the last judgment, the sheep and the goats, the lake of fire, the 7^th seal, David Koresh and Waco, Harold Camping’s latest mathematical shot in the dark, and on and on it goes.

I say…enough already.  Let’s keep this very simple – you just never know when God will show up.  It is enough to know that and that is enough for us to adjust our lives accordingly.

You just never know when God will show up.  Notice – the bold words are show up. 

We believe that God is always everywhere at all times.  There is nowhere we can go where God is not already there, as well as having been accompanying our every step along the way.  Psalm 139 reminds us, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”

And yet, for most of our lives, for most of the time, we live unconscious of God’s presence.  We’re far too focused on ourselves, our lives, our problems, our schedules, our agendas.  God is an after-thought at best.  God might be right there but we simply don’t realize it.  Until God suddenly shows up.  That is, until God bursts out of hiding in ways that are usually entirely unexpected and not always entirely welcomed.

Unless we are ready for God to show up.  For if we live our lives in the expectation that God is always present, always there, we are far more likely to “see” life in an entirely different way.  God will suddenly show up in a friend who needs our help or a friend who can help us.  God shows up when we see meaning in the fog of our daily routines.  God shows up in whispers and nudges and coincidences and calamities and caring faces where we least expect them.

We do well to live in the expectation that we just never know when God will show up.  We don’t need Harold Camping’s math any more than we benefit from sneaking a peak at a Christmas present.  The joy is in the surprise.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, thank you for those little moments that reveal yourself, your presence and your love to us.  Thank you for the grace that opens our eyes to see what seems so clouded to the world.  Remove our fears and replace them with a joyful sense of expectation that is firmly grounded in your love.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Now as an elder myself and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory to be revealed, I exhort the elders among you to tend the flock of God that is in your charge, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion but willingly, as God would have you do it —not for sordid gain but eagerly. Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away. In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for

      “God opposes the proud,

      but gives grace to the humble.”

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. 1 Peter 5:1-6

Here is what it is like to write these devotions in the morning.  First, I know I have a deadline.  If it isn’t done by 9:00 am then it won’t make the daily email batch and you will end up not receiving it the day it is written AND you will receive two the next day.  It will then be obvious to you that I didn’t get it done on time and I’ll already know it and I would have been fretting about it since yesterday morning when I missed the deadline in the first place.

Plus, lots of you will write to me and point out what I already know.  I missed the deadline and you didn’t get Tuesday’s devotion until Wednesday when you received both Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s on the same day.  I failed you and I know it.

Second, I get up in the morning, I read the text for the day, and then I take it with me to the back yard for some quiet time.  I sit.  I pray.  I think.  I try to find connections in the text to our lives today.  I follow the old rule we were all taught in speech class 101, “when all else fails, talk about personal experience.”  That is a painful rule for a pastor.

In seminary, at least when I was in seminary, we were expressly forbidden to ever talk about personal experience.  I’ll never forget Sheldon Tostengaard telling us in his heavy Norwegian brogue, “Believe me, your children will never be as interesting to your congregation as they are to you.”  Which puts us between a rock and a hard place.

We can’t talk about our personal experience without a degree of guilt but then we read the letters of the Apostle Paul and see him regularly referring to himself, his conversion experience, and his dealings with other Christian communities.  What are we supposed to do?

I choose to follow the advice of Luther, “Sin boldly and believe more boldly still.”  So my time in the back yard always looks for life connections and I let my life play too.

Which eventually brings me back to this text from 1 Peter.  This is a hard text for me to read as a pastor.  For it is written by a pastor to a pastor with advice about how pastors are supposed to fulfill their callings.

I would love to say that I show up for work every day willingly and eagerly and humbly.  (I actually would prefer to do my job without accepting a salary from the congregation but, unlike Rick Warren and Max Lucado, I write for free and haven’t published anything, let alone a world-wide best seller for which I earn millions of dollars.)  I would love to say all of that (including the world-wide best seller part) but, quite frankly, being a pastor is a hard job.  It might not be hard physically but it wrenching emotionally and spiritually.  Sometimes I feel much closer to Sisyphus, eternally pushing his rock uphill, then Jesus.  And then I bring all of that home to Kelley.  (You don’t want to be Kelley.)

I could say that “I try to be humble” but the truth is that far more often I say or do dumb things where, like it or not, I end up having been humbled.  I doubt I’m alone in that – rare is the pastor who doesn’t sometimes turn into the parking lot of the church without asking why God doesn’t show more grace to the wonderful people of that congregation and send them a pastor more effective, more worthy, more like the pastor they deserve.

So let today’s devotion be my confession as we head together into All Saint’s Sunday.  To me, All Saint’s Sunday will always be a Christian pep rally, a time when the cracked clay jars who have gone before us cheer us on from heaven, for they know that this life we lead isn’t easy.  Let today’s devotion be a reminder that all of us are but saints and sinners – we sometimes do the best we can, we sometimes fall very short, and most of the time we are just trying to make a deadline.

Let us pray:  Dear Jesus, we come to you today with empty hands, knowing there is nothing we have to give you but only to receive.  Thank you for your love, your sacrifice to end all sacrifice, your promise of eternal life.  Thank you for using common things like water, bread, wine, and people, to do uncommon, extraordinary and life transforming miracles.  Thank you for the people with whom we have shared our lives, who now wait for us with you.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Luke 14:7-14

This has only happened to me once but I learned my lesson well.  I, an associate pastor, along with my senior pastor, had been invited to a 50^th wedding anniversary celebration.  Although we knew some of the family members, we didn’t know everybody so he and I stuck close together.  Eventually we sat down at the end of what was obviously the head table in the room…culturally, we knew this is where the pastors were supposed to sit.

All was well until just about when everyone was directed to find their seat.  And one of the daughters came up to me and the other pastor and explained that they had saved that last chair for the senior pastor.  So I, dutifully and red-faced, retreated to the back of the room and sat at a table with the cousins.

I’ve learned that lesson well.  Since then I’m always going to be toward the end of the buffet line.  I’m very aware of the “places of honor” when it comes to dinner seating and I never presume to know where I’m supposed to sit unless it is clearly marked.

You would think that being raised in North Dakota would have been enough to plant well the lesson that “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  I’ve been to plenty of meals where the guests gush on and on about how ecstatically excellent the food was only to hear the hostess demur, “Oh, it’s nothing.  Just a little something I threw together.”

The unwritten rule is that the guests are supposed to gush like that, the hostess is supposed to demur like that, and both continue doing so until someone changes the subject of conversation back to the weather (where it belongs) and then you wait and do the whole thing again over dessert.

But heaven forbid that you neglect to gush (you’ll never be invited over again) or that the hostess claims credit for slaving away for hours while admitting that yes, she is an excellent cook (you won’t want to go over there again…well maybe.)

This is why (I’m revealing a trade secret here) pastors quickly learn to take a little something from every single bowl offered at every pot luck dinner.  You never know whose eyes are paying close attention, waiting to be offended if you don’t try their tuna casserole with strawberries on top.

Here’s the bottom line:  We all stand together under the cross of Jesus.  Human nature will always keep score, mark the pecking order, eat with friends, and ignore those who have no table at which to sit or food to put upon it.  Thus Jesus invites us to invite the lame, lost and outcast, not just to our table but into our lives.  And he doesn’t use them as a handy counter point to keep us humble, he really means it.

The world would be a much better place if we weren’t so intent on keeping our place in place.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, forgive us for our incessant score keeping, our “keep up with the Jones’” thinking, and our avoidance of people outside of our immediate circles.  Fill our hearts with love and compassion, open our eyes to those who are too often invisible to us, and give us opportunity to be neighbor to those in need.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen. 

While they were bringing out the money that had been brought into the house of the LORD, the priest Hilkiah found the book of the law of the LORD given through Moses. Hilkiah said to the secretary Shaphan, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD”; and Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan. Shaphan brought the book to the king, and further reported to the king, “All that was committed to your servants they are doing. They have emptied out the money that was found in the house of the LORD and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers and the workers.” The secretary Shaphan informed the king, “The priest Hilkiah has given me a book.” Shaphan then read it aloud to the king. When the king heard the words of the law he tore his clothes. Then the king commanded Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Abdon son of Micah, the secretary Shaphan, and the king’s servant Asaiah: “Go, inquire of the LORD for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that has been found; for the wrath of the LORD that is poured out on us is great, because our ancestors did not keep the word of the LORD, to act in accordance with all that is written in this book.” 2 Chronicles 34:14-21

Josiah was eight years old when his father died and he became king of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel.  He was king for roughly 40 years, from 649-640 BCE. He is remembered as a good and righteous king.  During his time the temple was refurbished and he helped restore the civic and spiritual lives of the people.

Unlike Ahaz and Jezebel, the Bible says that Josiah “did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.”

In the text for today, Josiah asked the High Priest, Hilkiah, for an accounting of the money that had been saved for the refurbishment of the temple.  While at the temple, Hilkiah discovered a book that had been hidden within the temple, unearthed during the temple rebuilding project.  He read the book to King Josiah who was overcome with emotion and resolve that the people of Israel be exposed to the lessons of the book and orient their lives to its teachings.

Biblical scholars believe this long lost book was Deuteronomy, the last book of the Pentateuch.  (Many of those same scholars wonder if in fact it wasn’t a new book, written as part of Josiah’s broader reform movement.)   Either way, this event became part of a great awakening of faith in Judah.

Deuteronomy itself reads like a series of sermons by Moses.  That has long been the traditional understanding, although that understanding makes one wonder how Moses could have written the report of his death as the book concludes.  However we understand the writing of Deuteronomy – whether written soon after Moses, or over a long time by several authors, or actually written during the days of Josiah to provide guidance for Judah’s spiritual renewal – the goal of the book is for the common life of the people to conform to God’s will for justice and a good life.

This good life is freely available to people but it does involve making choices.  Some choices, rooted in God’s will, result in good consequences; other choices, rooted in disobedience, selfishness, or pride, reject God’s will and result in bad consequences.

We listen to this story from our modern point of view with mixed feelings.  On the one hand, we can clearly see the common sense that God’s will (even as we understand that will in the ten commandments) leads to a good life.  On the other hand, it is exactly this way of thinking that drives religious fundamentalists to religious wars or the invocation of hard line laws rooted in their understanding of faith whether or not that is how the population chooses to live.  History has proven that this doesn’t work very well.

But for a time, not a long time, but for a time, Josiah ushered in a good period in the life of Judah.  There is, in that, a lesson for all of us.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, we know you in part because of your commands to us.  We know your character, revealed in Jesus, who helps us better understand the love and care that lies behind your commands.  Above all, that we fear, love and trust you above all, and that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  Let this be our resolve today.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen. 

Later the following events took place: Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. And Ahab said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” But Naboth said to Ahab, “The LORD forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.” Ahab went home resentful and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him; for he had said, “I will not give you my ancestral inheritance.” He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat. 1 Kings 21:1-4

King Ahab and his wife Jezebel are two of the most notorious bad guys in the Bible.  Think of them as a “demonic duo”.  Name it and they did it – break the laws of Israel, battle against the prophets sent by God, worship idols like Baal and, in the text for today, teamed up to murder a good man for the sole purpose of stealing his ancestral property so they could have a vegetable garden closer to their palace.

Read 1 Kings 21:1-28 to see how Jezebel plots Naboth’s death.

We don’t spend much time listening to stories like this one.  There are probably lots of reasons for that.  They don’t offer much in the way of encouragement.  They don’t directly reveal Jesus.  Sometimes they cast God in a very different light than we are used to.  Often they reveal more about inter-tribal politics (which can be historically interesting) but they don’t seem spiritually helpful.

On the other hand…

We look at the world around us today and we see ample evidence of political leaders who abuse their office to the detriment of their people and the diminishment of the human community.  We’ve watched leaders fall in places like Egypt and Libya and we’ve learned new information about the depth of political corruption and outright theft that have characterized their death grip on the lives of their people.

Last week I finished reading Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and pastor before and during World War II.  Bonhoeffer was one of the leaders of the Confessing Church which was a protest movement against the established church’s eager support, and even theological justification for, the rise of National Socialism and the power invested in the leadership of Adolph Hitler.

Eventually he was arrested, imprisoned and – just two weeks before the camp he ended up in what liberated by the Allies – killed for his participation in the conspiracy to kill Hitler. 

That story is a chilling reminder of how easy it is for the goodness of God to be co-opted by the power of evil.  Ahab and Jezebel stand in a long line of people who want what they want, have the power and opportunity to get it, and nothing will stand in their way.  Over against such power stands the will of God and the willingness of God’s people to speak out, to resist, to protest, and to suffer.

As the saying goes, ” The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Let us pray:  Gracious Lord, you continue to create a good earth, full of all that is necessary for life.  And yet we soil life with disobedience and disorder.  So this morning we pray for those in positions of power and authority, that they use that power for the good of all rather than resort to evil out of selfishness, ambition, and fear.  May your good and gracious will prevail and may that will be our guide in life.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.