Sermons
“SERVE GOD EVEN IN BABYLON"
3/22/21
INTRO TO DANIEL
As we've talked about the prophets in this series, we've seen how they all bear God's Word to the people. They all speak God's truth to the powers of this world. Nathan spoke the truth to David about Bathsheba and Uriah. Elijah spoke God's truth to Ahab, Jezebel, and the hundreds of false prophets of Ba'al. Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, and Micah delivered God's truth to Israel's leaders against their idolatries. Ezekiel railed against the unrighteousness of Israel and her foreign neighbors. And last week, we heard of Jeremiah who bore God's Word to the people—the whole people—of Israel and Judah.
In all cases, the prophets stood alone in their integrity, representing the Word of God. Their own opinions meant nothing in the balance. They were messengers, servants of the Lord, and to the extent they selflessly bore God's Word to the People, they were prophets.
Today, we look at Daniel, who lived his life in exile in Babylon. Although he had a few friends there with him, he was treated as one alone in his integrity, serving the Lord even in Babylon when there was no earthly benefit in doing so.
DANIEL 6: 10-13
10 When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. 11 Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and plea before his God. 12 Then they came near and said before the king, concerning the injunction, “O king! Did you not sign an injunction, that anyone who makes petition to any god or man within thirty days except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered and said, “The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 13 Then they answered and said before the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or the injunction you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.” †
Daniel
Daniel, who grew up in Babylon during the Exile, distinguished himself early as a man of wisdom and integrity. His prophecy largely consists of dream interpretations. His truthful interpretations elevated him above all of King Nebuchadnezzar’s other advisors.
At one point, these advisors tattle on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—saying they refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s great statue. Nebuchadnezzar has them thrown into a fiery furnace, but an angel accompanies them, and they emerge unscathed.
Later, when Darius becomes king, Daniel is elevated above every other advisor and becomes one of three presidents over 120 governors ( these were the congressmen and senators of ancient Persia). Daniel is known to be a man of extraordinary integrity. He can’t be bought, bribed, or otherwise exploited—which in some government circles—renders him useless. The governors resent Daniel, perhaps for his integrity alone, so all they all lawyer up to find any dirt they can on Daniel so they can have him impeached. But Daniel is squeaky clean.
But some of their lawyers come up with a plan. They forward a bill that says no one can pray to anyone other than Darius for thirty days. Darius signs the bill into law.
Daniel’s response is to go into his room, and three times a day gets down on his knees, faces Jerusalem, and prays to the Lord as he always did. Daniel’s opponents knew that a man of integrity would not—could not—keep from praying to his Lord. It is this that gets Daniel thrown into the lion’s den.
ONE GOD FOR ALL PEOPLE
The main witness of Daniel is that he continues to serve the Lord even in Babylon. The ancients tended to believe that their gods were local—that each country or region had its own gods—but the God of Israel is not confined to one location. God isn't in Jerusalem alone but is present everywhere. He is the one true God of every nation, whether they acknowledge Him or not.
You might say Daniel is a Jewish evangelist. He lives his life as a witness to God, even in Babylon. He and many other Jews with him will not serve the local gods of Babylon but continue to trust the Lord, even though Jerusalem has been sacked, the temple ransacked, and its people taken away as slaves.
This is also unusual, for in the Pagan world, once your local gods proved ineffective, you served the conquering gods. It would have been the norm for the Jews now to worship the Babylonian gods. But the God of Daniel is above the gods of this world. God cannot and does not fail. As the other prophets rightly proclaimed, Israel had failed, not God.
Israel serves The Lord, not vice versa. That makes the God of Israel different from every otherworldly god—all of whom are false.
But Daniel not only kept his faith in the Lord when all Israel was overthrown, but he leads the Babylonian kings to worship his Lord. King Nebuchadnezzar, the king who threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ends up worshipping and honoring The God of Israel. So did Darius, who puts Daniel in the lion's den. Both of these pagan kings finish by praising Daniel and Daniel's God—the God of Israel—the one, true God of all.
We don't think about this much, but these two Babylonian kings turned out better followers of God than most of Israel's kings, including Solomon. So we can say that one result of Daniel's prophetic ministry was turning world leaders away from false gods toward the one true God.
Palm Sunday: Dark Humor
As we enter Holy Week, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Palm Sunday tends to be a very upbeat, celebratory Sunday, but it’s packed to the brim with dark humor, and there are notable parallels with Daniel’s story.
Just as Daniel in Babylon kept integrity though surrounded by people who worshiped false gods, Jesus—Jesus alone—has integrity as He rides into Jerusalem. All of Israel gathered around, lining the streets, shouting, “Hosanna!” have little idea of what’s really happening.
The people at the grand parade had wrong ideas about Jesus. Half of them believed he was a revolutionary—a militant, political revolutionary—come to overthrow the oppressive Roman regime that occupied the Holy Land. They hated Rome—hated Caesar even more—and had prayed for a Messiah who would liberate them from Roman chains, a Messiah who would crush the powers of oppression and establish justice for Israel and the pride of her people.
On the other side of the path, they celebrated their new king who would make Israel great again! Someone who would take back the government to God’s people and whose reign would mean law, order, morality, and prosperity for the nation.
Both these groups had the wrong idea about the Messiah, so they are both like the people of Babylon who fall prostrate before a great, golden statue. Jesus was not coming to overthrow Roman power. In fact, he said the Romans would win completely—and he was right—Jerusalem was sacked within that generation. Not one stone was left upon the other of the Temple. Its treasures were taken to Rome, and its gold put to use in pagan temples. Those who shouted “Hosanna!” to Jesus, hoping for security, did so for the wrong reasons.
And those who followed Jesus as a strategy for self-care—as a means to personal security, financial security, freedom from harm or hardship—all these were shouting in vain as well. They may have been saying “Hail, Jesus!” but the subtext was “Hooray for ME, Hooray for US!” These were the ones Jesus would tell to head for the hills because trouble was coming.
And so our Palm Sunday today is filled with dark humor and irony. Palm Sundays in church tend to be upbeat—we celebrate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and cry, “Hosanna!” “Oh, save!” “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”—but this parade is not headed to earthly glory of any kind. It leads straight to Golgotha, Calvary, the Cross.
Are you sure you want to be yelling, “Hosanna!” Should we be cheering at all? Do we forget every Palm Sunday that it is still Lent and the dark horrors are still ahead? We should be dressed in black or sackcloth and ashes.
By Friday, these parade crowds would be ashamed that they cheered for Jesus. Many of them would instead be chanting, “Crucify HIm! Crucify HIm!” because he will most certainly violate their expectations.
WHY WE FOLLOW
It’s not hard to imagine voices in the crowd:
“What? No earthly kingdom? No overthrowing Rome? What? Are we going to lose Jerusalem entirely? Why are we following this guy?” These are the right questions.
“What?” say others, “No personal protections from the storm?” “No guarantees of our safety or prosperity?” “He’s telling us we’re going to lose it all? Why are we following this guy?” “Do we have any other Messiah candidates in the pipeline?”
Daniel worshipped The Lord when no one else around him did. He worshipped God when Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel had all been overthrown. He worshipped The Lord despite worldly circumstances and foreign domination. Because The Lord is God, and there is no other.
Jesus rides that donkey through the cheering crowds outside Jerusalem, knowing that His road leads to the cross. He knows that their love of Him is shallow and self-serving—they love Him for what He can give them—pride, security, and prosperity. And yet he rides, yet he makes His way to the cross, and that is the perfect picture of love and integrity.
Why did Daniel worship The Lord in Babylon when it was illegal to do so and would only get him thrown to the lions? Because The Lord is God, and the Lord is worthy of worship no matter what happens in our world.
Why did the crowds cheer for Jesus on Palm Sunday? Is it because they knew Him to be the true Messiah? If so, would they have stopped following Him after His arrest? Would they have fled for their lives and gone into hiding? Would they cover their tails by lying? No. They followed because they stood something to gain, and when the probability of earthly gain—in whatever form—was taken away from them, their devotion dissolved, their commitment crumbled.
What is the reason we follow Christ when He only offers us a cross? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died in a Nazi prison yard, puts it simply:
When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.
The path to the cross is the only path toward Christian integrity. We follow not because we stand to gain from it but because it is the true path. We worship The Lord, even in Babylon, because He is the Lord and He is worthy of worship. Daniel proclaims it, Jesus demonstrates it, and we are called to follow. It is not a path of riches, pride, and security, but it is the path of truth. The path of the cross is the path of Christian integrity. Every other path is part of a false parade—a bowing down to some giant, phony statue of one kind or another. †
“LET ME REMIND YOU AGAIN"
3/15/21
JEREMIAH 6: 10-13 NRSV
10 To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? See, their ears are closed, they cannot listen. The word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn; they take no pleasure in it.
11 But I am full of the wrath of the Lord; I am weary of holding it in. Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the gatherings of young men as well; both husband and wife shall be taken, the old folk and the very aged.
12 Their houses shall be turned over to others, their fields and wives together; for I will stretch out my hand against the inhabitants of the land, says the Lord. ’
13 For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.. †
FLOUNDERS
When I was 12, my father took me deep sea fishing off the coast of Long Beach. One of my persistent memories from that trip was an object lesson involving a flounder. A man on the boat had hauled up a big flounder from the depths and swung it onto the deck. It flopped helplessly with bulbous, wonky eyes—gasping for breath.
A man explained to me about flounders. In their larval youth, they look like normal fish, but as they grow, an eye migrates around to the other side of its head, and it swims flat, dwelling on the bottom of the ocean.
My Dad explained to me as I watched this ugly fish flapping there that the word flounder is also a verb which means, in short, to flop around helplessly, exactly like that flounder.
Jeremiah's message to Israel and Judah is that the people of God were floundering—helplessly gasping for breath and life, and it was as much as they deserved.
JEREMIAH
Jeremiah delivers his prophecies before the fall of Jerusalem, after its fall is all but inevitable. His voice is the end of a long line of prophets who time and again called Israel to remember the Lord, the one who called them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. The refrain of the prophets was a broken record: turn from idols, serve the Lord. Let me remind you again, and again, and again, but now it was too late.
Jeremiah was reclusive, analytical, and self-critical. He’s called the “weeping prophet,” because grief underlaid his proclamations. He is famously long-winded, but very elegant. His style has given us the word Jeremiad: a prolonged lamentation or harangue.
Through this series we have seen how prophets confronted the various powers—kings, princes, the rich, the popular—but Jeremiah speaks God’s truth to the people—the whole people of God. He did so solo—without a supportive group or movement. Jeremiah’s word cut across everyone, but he, the weeping prophet, grieved as he delivered the hard news.
He prophesied in brokenness, against the pride of Israel.
It is wrong to think of prophets as bold revolutionary types—extremely headstrong and proud of their ideas. Revolutionary leaders are surrounded by followers of their movement, and they feed off the energy of their hot cause. You might even say that such leaders completely depend upon having a throng of frothy-blooded followers, all intent on changing the world as they see fit.
The revolutionary leader’s m.o. is agitating the masses—getting people riled up to join in with their cause. Behind the facade of the bold justice warrior is—more often than not—self-interest and self-care. What poses as concern for others tends to benefit the leader and his cause.
The difference between prophets and revolutionary leaders is pridefulness. Prophets have none; they speak from humility. It is out of emptiness, brokenness, and unworthiness that the prophets speak.
They’re not giving people fiery opinions forged in indignant passion over injustice—they’re not giving their own opinions at all—but they bear the Word of God to the people. People hate this. They’d rather hear from prophets who tell them that God will only bless them and tell them how special they are.
Most math problems have one right answer. One right answer and dozens—if not hundreds and thousands—of wrong answers. Just as there are many wrong answers to a math equation, there are many kinds false prophecy. Anything other than God’s Word is false prophecy.
We see it in the self-serving revolutionaries and the messengers of sloppy grace—good news only, nothing is required of you; you are completely and utterly wonderful just as you are with nothing to add.
FALSE PROPHECIES
As far as I can tell, behind most false prophecy is self-interest and the drive for self-empowerment. Now it might not be terribly obvious because one can be greedy for others as well as oneself. This allows one to rant away at will with a paper halo: "But this isn't about me; this is about all of Israel and Judah's diplomatic relations with our foreign neighbors!" Or, "This isn't about me; this is about racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, immigrants, our children, our neighborhood, America! etc." To be clear, America suffers all of those things, but the solutions proposed by radicals—or just politicians—are all cheap substitutes for love, which is what we are called to live out.
Most causes are a form of veiled self-love. Love of self, love of one's own family, tribe, or nation. So the love of family has virtue in it, but our own family's love is self-love once-removed—ditto for our tribe, nation, or identified cause.
Now I'll be careful here: there's nothing wrong with loving yourself, your family, and your people (however you should define them). It is a noble life to raise a family. Culture depends upon families for its moral structure—which is equally true for pagan or atheist societies as well as Christian ones. Look at history: wherever families flourish, so the culture flourishes. Wherever the family flounders, so the culture flounders as well.
And there we have that word: floundering. It stands at the opposite pole from flourishing. One doing well, the other flopping helplessly on the deck, gasping for air which it cannot breathe.
Jeremiah's message is that Israel and Judah have floundered past the tipping point—beyond hope of return. It grieves him terribly.
He is not proposing solutions or offering last chance rescue scenarios; he's telling the people the truth: in effect, we have brought this about ourselves, and it is all we deserve.
COMFORT AND WORTH
We must distinguish between false comfort and God’s comfort.
False comforts are the ones we fashion for ourselves, and they include all the means of this world: among them wealth, health, safety, and the political bubbles we choose to ease our minds over ongoing conflicts.
Contrast these with God’s comfort—which is comfort only God can bring. How does that differ from the comforts we shape for ourselves? Entirely. The life of faith in God does not place trust in the goods and mechanisms of this world. Jesus says we aren’t to worry about what we’re going to eat or wear because our real comfort comes from trusting in our Loving, Heavenly Father, who will provide for us all that we need.
That doesn’t mean sitting back and doing nothing, but it means we pursue our work and life’s adventures trusting God to provide what we need for both body and soul. That is a far cry from storing up earthly treasures for ourselves.
In the same way, we must distinguish between false worth and God’s worth. People driven by pride and pridefulness are secretly insecure and unsure of their value, so they have to prove it to themselves and everybody else by any means necessary. False worth is the kind we fashion for ourselves, made up of achievements, acquisitions, and measuring ourselves against the Smiths and Jones families next door.
Contrast that with our worth in God’s eyes. We cannot begin to imagine how beloved and valuable we are to God. We don’t see ourselves with the same scale as God sees us. He made us. He loves us in Spirit and Truth. And it is precisely because we don’t see how God values us that we try to construct value for ourselves and live by false value rather than God’s value.
This is behind all idolatry—our entire Old Testament narrative--that people do not trust God either to provide or to value them, so they invent false worth for themselves and false comforts for the soul.
WORTH AND PRIDE
We all live on a polarity—an unresolved tension—between unworthiness and pride. Living too much at either end is a problem. Few things break my pastoral heart so much as those living too much in one of these extremes.
I’ve counseled dozens of intensely devout Christians who—in their heart of hearts—live with a constant crushing sense of unworthiness. Because they feel they have let God down by their sins (usually nothing much at all), they feel they are unworthy of His love and therefore unworthy of anything good in this world. They stop trying to do anything because they feel they deserve no more and no better.
If you’ve ever lived at that end of the spectrum—oppressed by feelings of unworthiness—I tell you it is YOU Jesus is speaking to in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, “Blessed are you who are spiritually poor, depressed, defeated, discouraged, and without hope—rejoice and be glad: God is for you, not against you.” He’s on your side. He loves you and gave His Son for you so that you would know wholeness, peace, and power to live in abundance. Your healing comes by finding the right kind of pride: you must know and receive that God loves you immeasurably. So rise up, fret no more, live in the strength and abundance God intends for you. You are His son, His daughter.
If you live at the unworthy end of the spectrum, you need to be singing “Who You Say I Am” every day. “I am chosen, not forsaken, I am who You say I am; He is for me, not against me; I am who you say I am.” That would be a good daily dose.
If you live at the unworthy end of the spectrum, you should with each Lent NOT focus on your petty sins but rather on your divine inheritance. You want something to feel bad about, kick yourself for not cashing the winning lottery number God has provided you in Christ. Rise up, be strong—God means for you to know that He has made you worthy!
The unworthy live in repentance—it is their whole heart and life—but the prideful can never seem to find it.
Humility is a virtue; pride the number one deadly sin. It is the prideful—those living at the other end of the spectrum—that are the toughest nuts to crack. Surrounded by false comforts and false worth, they feel they have little to nothing to repent over. Sitting pretty! Doing great! It’s all good!
The problem is that they’ve so satisfied themselves with falseness that there is no reason for them to seek what is real—the soul’s comfort in faith and their true value in God’s eyes.
Ever tried to compliment an arrogant person? It’s like throwing a penny into a pot of gold. They so value themselves that they become incapable of receiving—let alone giving—authentic love.
When Scripture criticizes the rich, it has nothing to do with stuff, money, or politics and everything to do with the place of those things in the rich person’s soul.
Whenever Israel was peaceful and prosperous, what happened? They became proud, and they forgot God. It’s the same with our pride. If we’re sitting pretty and got all we need (and plenty stored up for winter), then what do we need God for? Who needs to trust? Who needs His comfort when we’re perfectly comfortable in this world?
It is for the prideful that Lent has healing power. Lent means sloughing off the false comforts and the false sense of self-worth so that the proud would return to repentance--that they should awaken to their shallowness and be broken before God, who alone gives worth and comfort.
Though outwardly comfortable and secure, the prideful soul flounders. It is the humble soul that flourishes.
To be humble does not mean to feel unworthy, but to find one's worthiness in God alone. †
QUESTIONS
- How do the prophets of Scripture differ from revolutionary leaders?
- How is the self-serving nature of popular movements revealed?
- How do we rightly distinguish false comforts from the comfort that only God can give?
- How do we rightly distinguish false self-worth from the worthiness we receive from God?
- On the prideful/unworthiness polarity, we can get stuck at either end. How do we rightly travel between these poles in our walk with God?
- How should we advise those who are trapped in feeling unworthy?
- How should we advise the prideful and comfortable?
- How can one surrounded by comforts be led to seeking their comfort in God alone?
“ABOMINATIONS"
3/14/21
EZEKIEL
Ezekiel was likely born in Jerusalem and grew up to to the priesthood. He is exiled to Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar among hundreds of others. Ezekiel would have seen this conquest as an instrument of God’s justice against the unfaithfulness of Israel and Judah.
One of his favorite words is abominations. Ezekiel saw human unrighteousness as an injustice toward the goodness of God.
Ezekiel the priest makes his transition to prophet by God’s call through amazing, mystical visions—wheels within wheels, flaming chariots, and the like—which draw him out of the crowds into that personal Twilight Zone of prophetic revelation.
Ezekiel was known for some strange antics. He liked to get his whole body into his prophesying, lying on one side of his body for so many days, switching to the other side for so many more days, and initiating many symbolic actions as embodied signs of God’s messages to the people.
He eats bread cooked on a cow pie fire, and that was after bargaining with God.
Ezekiel, like other prophets, sees the God-to-people relationship as analogous to that of husband to unfaithful wife, and therefore understands the collapse of the life of Judah as God’s judgment against Israel’s infidelity.
Our text today is an oracle against the Prince of Tyre.
Some scholars have used this text to explain the origins of Lucifer or Satan—but others—myself included—consider that a misreading.
Hear now the text.
EZEKIEL 28: 1-10 NRSV
1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord God:
Because your heart is proud
and you have said, “I am a god;
I sit in the seat of the gods,
in the heart of the seas,”
yet you are but a mortal, and no god,
though you compare your mind
with the mind of a god.
3 You are indeed wiser than Daniel;[a]
no secret is hidden from you;
4 by your wisdom and your understanding
you have amassed wealth for yourself,
and have gathered gold and silver
into your treasuries.
5 By your great wisdom in trade
you have increased your wealth,
and your heart has become proud in your wealth.
6 Therefore thus says the Lord God:
Because you compare your mind
with the mind of a god,
7 therefore, I will bring strangers against you,
the most terrible of the nations;
they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom
and defile your splendor.
8 They shall thrust you down to the Pit,
and you shall die a violent death
in the heart of the seas.
9 Will you still say, “I am a god,”
in the presence of those who kill you,
though you are but a mortal, and no god,
in the hands of those who wound you?
10 You shall die the death of the uncircumcised
by the hand of foreigners;
for I have spoken, says the Lord God. †
ITHBAAL, PRINCE OF TYRE
Ezekiel’s target, in our text, is Ithbaal, who was the prince of Tyre. Tyre was a leading city in Phoenicia, just above Galilee on the Mediterranean coast. Its people were semitic—in the time of Solomon they prayed to the Lord, the God of Israel—and the Phoenicians were good friends of Israel. Solomon built his beautiful temple and palaces with the famed cedars of Lebanon, which shipped straight out of Tyre. So Tyre had great wealth and peace, but when Solomon fell and the kingdom divided, it is likely then that the Phoenicians went back to worshipping Canaanite deities—Baal and Asherah—just as Israel and Judah had done.
So Ithbaal and his armies manage to repel Nebuchadnezzar’s army from doing much damage to Tyre (this after they had overthrown Jerusalem), so the prince thought himself invincible—even godlike—and praised himself without hindrance. Ezekiel calls him out and condemns his pride.
The first words state the theme of the oracle: Because your heart is proud
Again, some have used Ezekiel 28 as the origin of Lucifer story. This is not the best reading, in my opinion. Even good people can make myths out of prophetic utterances, and this chapter—especially the latter half—is a case in point. But rather than run down the list verse by verse about why this is not about Satan nor Lucifer, I’ll just remind you that in both verse 2 and verse 9, Ezekiel makes it crystal clear:
“But you are a man, and no god.”
Recently, on Ash Wednesday, we marked ourselves as dust. We do the very thing that the Prince of Tyre could not do; namely, acknowledge that under the one, true God, we are all dust—we all answer to God’s judgment.
prophets of the dust.
Prophets speak from the dust. They all carry their message from God with something like brokenness, something like poverty, and unpopularity written large. It is the brokenness of being merely human and therefore sinful. It is the poverty of the people of God who think their own way is better than God’s way. And it is the unpopularity of speaking truth—the real truths—that no one wants to hear, chiefly because it calls out the sins they love most.
One prophetic sign of repentance and grief was sackcloth and ashes. It was self-humiliation. They would wear cheap sackcloth that even naked beggars would reject, and sit in the town square pouring handfuls of dust on their heads.
People would do this out of grief. Soldiers who had lost in battle but survived would do this. Prophets did it to show the lowliness of humanity in comparison to the greatness, goodness, and holiness of God.
But Ithbaal, the prince of Tyre, is at the opposite end of the spectrum. He’s so impressed with himself for his successes and wealth that he thinks himself divine—a god or a son of the gods. This was not unusual—most of the city/state rulers of Mesopotamia did the same—as did most of the Roman Caesars. Greek leaders, like Antiochus Epiphanes—you hear that name, “Epiphany”?—means “God made manifest.”
There is no limit to how highly a successful man will think of himself. Wealth can certainly breed megalomania—and an atheism to all gods but oneself—but no amount of money or success can keep a mere mortal from finishing life as dust, dust, dust.
Lest you think the prophets like Ezekiel are being negative—far from it—they are truth-telling the good news that God is greater than all of humankind and greater than the world we see. Ezekiel will proclaim by the image of a valley of dry bones that God is greater than death. God will have the last word with humanity, not death.
God is the perfect judge, and He is absolutely unavoidable. So we all are dust. Rich, poor, just, unjust, oppressor, oppressed, devout and sinners alike—we all are equalized beneath the pall of death and the judgment of a good and holy God.
“SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER”
This series, The Prophets and the Powers, is about how the Word of God and its truth speaks to the powers of this world.
This has become a very hip phrase in our time: speaking the truth to power. Whenever I hear it, I think, “Beware—false prophets ahead!”
Among its most popular—and pompous—practitioners are the news media. They speak of the role of the press as that of “speaking the truth to power,” which may rightly characterize journalism at its best, but usually they use that phrase merely to establish their credibility—their moral credibility.
Be clear, journalists are not the noble, dispassionate arbiters of objective truth they’d like us to think they are, nor are they the world’s high priests of honest information. They do love to think of their profession as nobly speaking the truth to power, but they are not prophets—not good ones, anyway.
Yes, they think of themselves like prophets flouting popularity in order to speak the hard truths to those in positions of power—it’s a grand image, isn’t it? The noble, lowly reporter who refuses to kiss the king’s ring, or who nobly declares that the emperor, in fact, has no clothes on. But today, in the era of fake news, this moral credibility is equally fake.
The anchor-persons who work as very attractive, professional, readers of teleprompters are the masks of their parent companies. CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox, msnbc—these are powers unto themselves. Considerable powers with enormous automatic influence on public opinion. They shape the facts that you and I discuss day to day.
William Randolph Hearst’s massive empire spoke only in morning and evening editions of his newspapers, so what are we to think of 24/7 live-streaming news—Twitter, Facebook, Google, and the rest—refreshing their news feeds every 20 seconds? Speaking the truth to power? They are the power, and any who dare to speak the truth to them runs the risk of getting cancelled or shut down. Influence negated.
No, journalists are pawns of their princes, lackeys of their network lords, serving their extremely for-profit corporations and their shareholders.
Journalists don’t speak the truth to power, they are the very voices of power, and the news readers are valued for their loyalty to the company line. Otherwise, networks would reward truth-tellers even when their ratings go south (which would certainly be the case with real prophets of God).
If you want real journalists, you have a better chance with independent writers. You might even look towards those who have been fired for unpopular opinions—say, those critical of their parent companies—but these trend toward obscurity rather than air-time.
“We’re being prophetic”
Another popular trend to beware is the use of the word “prophetic” to legitimize one’s activism. This is particularly popular with seminaries and Christian activists seeking to lend moral weight to their otherwise-questionable agitations. “We’re being prophetic,” or “We need to use the prophetic voice,” are their attempts to sacralize their agenda, which is usually politically-driven.
Calling oneself “prophetic” is a patent invitation to self-righteousness and sanctimony—a rather pitiful attempt at moral legitimization. We should not be fooled by it.
Beware any who publicly pat themselves on the back proclaiming that they are “being prophetic” or “speaking the truth to power,” because these are now the trademarks of false prophets.
Real prophets don’t talk that way. They bear the Word of God in humility, and often in the midst of their own, personal brokenness. The truth they speak is God’s truth—it is nothing any individual can be proud about, because it is not their own. God’s truth judges the prophets every bit much as anyone else.
Yes, the prophets speak truth to power, but it is equally true to say that the prophets spoke for the true power of God to the false powers of this world. And this is what we’ve seen with every prophet in this series.
Today, we hear Ezekiel speaking God’s truth to the false power of egotistical pride. That word speaks to each of us as well.
PROPHETS SPEAKING TO US
As prophets bear the Word of God to the people, we can hear God’s Word to us as well. This season of Lent is our time to put ourselves under their scrutiny—setting every aspect of our lives under the history of God’s judgment of His people.
Do we see ourselves in Israel and Judah? Are you and I ever so pride-filled by comforts or success that we disregard the calling of God? If so, you and I play at being Ithbaal.
The judgment of God does not come to us to wreck or destroy us, but rather to save us and grow us into wholeness. Where God’s Word does not get a foothold inside our hearts, sin certainly will.
Sin is like a nasty salesman at your door. He gets his foot inside and plants it in place. If we do nothing to remove that foothold, we’re stuck, for soon that foothold will grow metal scales or a stone wall around it.
Sin is insidious and persistent. Once it builds a little fortress around its foothold, it immediately seeks to build another wall further out—further inside our souls—and another wall soon after that. Sin would to take us over entirely—that is what it does. The Word of God, through the prophets, seeks to stop that occupation, that spread.
Unless we do, that sin becomes the source of one abomination after another until our entire life, heart, and soul becomes an abomination.
The good news is that God is with us. In Christ He has paid the price for our catharsis.
It is in freedom and hope that we do the hard work of searching our hearts for whatever abominations may be trying to take root. We have the Holy Spirit in us working—searching our hearts at depths deeper than sighs—and revealing to us the things that would block us from knowing God’s love, grace, and mercy.
We should all be taking time with this kind of self-inventory each Lent. Think of it as spring-cleaning for the soul. We pray that God would help us access the deeper rooms of our soul and there reveal any “planted feet.” From there, we have the mechanism of confession by which we turn those things over to God’s judgment and mercy, and God will cleanse every room.
We were not made for abominations; we were made to be the wholesome, joyous people of God who know His love like the love of a good Father, a good shepherd, an ineffably-loving Lord. †
QUESTIONS
- How is unrighteousness a kind of injustice?
- How do wealth, success, and comfort lead to pridefulness? Can one have these things without becoming prideful?
- How does pridefulness distort one’s perception of God?
- Why was it no picnic to be a prophet?
- What is the problem with seeking to be one who “speaks the truth to power”?
- Why should we beware one who claims to be using the “prophetic” voice?
- What is the key difference between well-meaning, political activists and true prophets?
- How is the Word of God rightly born to us today? Are there several ways?
- What obstacles do we face when it comes to checking our own hearts for sin?
“JUSTICE WARRIORS"
3/7/21
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the popular term “social justice warriors.” SJWs are those people who see an injustice in society and take personal responsibility for seeking its correction. But to be honest, it’s not really a balanced term; we tend to apply only to left wing activism. We don’t use the term for right wing activism for justice. Those Texas citizens who monitor their borders for illegal crossings are not called social justice warriors, nor are those who express outrage over voter fraud or the injustice of property crimes—vandalism and illegal squatting—although these, too, are citizens taking personal responsibility for seeking the correction of injustices.
Even the word “justice”—all by itself—has taken on a great deal of political baggage, so when we would like to speak of “doing justice,” we can’t simply assume we are all agreed on the course of action. We have to define our terms carefully before we arrive at agreements. And good luck with that, congress!
Our concern is not social justice as defined by our contemporary terms, but the justice of God, to which all human beings are subject and accountable.
We’re going to take a brief look at four texts by four of God’s Justice Warriors—prophets of God who bear His Word to the people of God in ancient Israel—namely; Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, and Micah. All have justice—God’s justice—at the center of their proclamations.
ISAIAH 29: 13-14 NRSV
13 The Lord said: Because these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote; so I will again do amazing things with this people, shocking and amazing.The wisdom of their wise shall perish, and the discernment of the discerning shall be hidden. †
We don’t know much about Isaiah, son of Amoz, except that he wrote his prophecies with elegance and great, poetic style. Part of the book rails against the injustices of Israel, and the latter parts declare God’s will to redeem His people.
Isaiah is a justice warrior against the injustice of insincere worship. He clearly sees phony worship for what it is and calls it out. These descriptions ring in our ears as well. “Their hearts are far from me, and their worship is a manmade regulation learned by rote.“
Haven’t we all been guilty of this? Of going through the motions and leaving a service wondering where our mind was? This is also a criticism of certain kinds of liturgy—“heaping up empty phrases,” as Jesus says—not because the words themselves are bad, but because we can recite them and no more be praying than a parrot.
The cliché penance of Catholic confession is something like, “Go say ten Hail Mary’s” or “Go pray the the Lord’s Prayer a dozen times.” The Lord’s Prayer, in and of itself, is wonderful, but it is possible to mouth the words and while having no purpose to them in one’s heart.
Jesus criticized the Scribes and Pharisees of this same thing, even citing this verse. In Mark 7:9 we hear Him say: said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!”
It is quite possible for worship to serve the traditions of people and completely forget to serve God.
The result of unjust worship is the perishing of wisdom and the loss of discernment. To have neither wisdom nor discernment is spiritual blindness—grand confusion like the Tower of Babel.
What would that look like? Have you ever heard of a congregation that has lost all moral compass? Standing up in grand self-righteousness for something the Bible clearly contradicts? Yes, I’ve seen it too—the perishing of wisdom and the loss of discernment. Lukewarm water, seeds on the path, good for nothing but gravel.
Justice, from the mouth of Isaiah and the Word of God, means worship—worship in spirit and in truth.
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Amos was an outsider. He claimed be neither a prophet nor a son of a prophet, which means he wasn’t part of the normally recognized calling. When Amos was in town, I think it was like one of those old westerns. Mothers pulled their children close and quickly disappeared indoors. Shop keepers pulled their shutters closed, and everyone cleared the streets, because they knew this Amos meant bad news.
AMOS 5: 18-24 NRSV
18 Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; 19 as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. 20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? 21 I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. 24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. †
The Day of the Lord meant the coming of justice. This was regarded as good news, because it meant God would set everything in its proper place. That’s a good definition of justice: everything in its proper place.
Though they look forward to the Day of the Lord and the coming of Gods justice, Amos tells them not to be so sure. God’s justice is coming, but it will not be good news for you because you too will be sorted out—much more than you’d like to think.
“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies”
People can do these things for their own self-satisfaction. We can certainly gather and worship just to manufacture good feelings about ourselves, or just so we can feel that we’re being good, dutiful Christians, but that’s all about us, and if it’s about us, it is something other than worship.
“Shut your noise,” says Amos, “the Lord detests your hypocrisies.” Nice worship is not enough. Instead, God demands our service—real service:
“let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
We are to live the life of faith—24/7—not just do God lip service once a week.
For Israel, their key unrighteousness was self-absorption. They worshiped to meet their own needs rather than to bring glory to God. There are still churches like this, where the worship focus is “all about us” and who we think we are. Again, true worship focuses on God and God’s glory. We do not worship to meet our own needs; we worship because God is worthy of our worship.
Israel’s key injustice was was neglecting those in need—the poor and the oppressed, the widows and the orphans—those who, because of the limitations of their cultue and world, had no way of helping themselves.
Similarly, helping those who cannot help themselves is a duty of the Church. We are to never allow anyone to suffer alone. If we can do something to mitigate that suffering, it is our obligation to God to do so.
Justice, from the mouth of Amos and the Word of God, means reordering things into their proper place—Love of God, love of neighbor.
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Hosea is remembered for marrying a woman named Gomer who was unfaithful. This was a sign of Israel’s idolatry and unfaithfulness to God, and though Israel was unfaithful, God remains ever faithful.
HOSEA 6: 1, 6 NRSV
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. 6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.†
“Come, let us return to the Lord”—this is the nature of repentance: returning to God. Knowing God as God and loving Him.
God desires “steadfast love.” The Hebrew word is chesed, and it means love that endures and remains ever-faithful. That chesed is the love God shows to Israel (and to us). It is chesed—steadfast love—that God wants from us.
Returning to God with steadfast love is more important than sacrifices and burnt offerings. Read: nothing we do for God is any good whatsoever if our hearts are not in the right place. If we worship in all the right ways, but our hearts are not in it, then the worship means nothing.
The key injustice for Hosea is having wrong priorities—the cart before the horse. Worship must follow our knowing God. Otherwise, all our religious observance is empty and misdirected.
It is the “knowledge of God” that matters more than everything that makes up religious practice. This isn’t merely knowing about God, but knowing God personally. We must know God as God, know that there is none other, and love Him as God.
Justice, from the mouth of Hosea and the Word of God, means knowing and loving God
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MICAH 6:8 NRSV
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?†
Micah’s main target was Jerusalem, and he warned them that its destruction was coming. In compact form, he tells the people of God what God expects of them: to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
“Doing justice” is simply doing the right thing. Do what is right and don’t do what is wrong. It sounds so simple when Micah puts it this way. As our attitudes go, though we stumble, we should make doing the right thing our pattern and desire.
To “love kindness” is also a worthy thing. The Hebrew word here is chesed again—remember: steadfast love—we could say that we are to love steadfast love. We should love kindness, steadfast love, and mercy, because know and see that much of the world does not love kindness.
We should honor the practitioners of kindness—the merciful, the tender-hearted—and pray that in honoring them we too may develop more of that characteristic ourselves.
This is how we “walk humbly with God,” seeking constant faithfulness and letting God be enough for us. His grace is sufficient for us; we can relax and find our peace in walking with Him.
Justice, from the mouth of Micah and the Word of God, means to value and practice kindness.
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SOCIAL JUSTICE
So from these four justice warriors, we learn how God means to set everything in its proper place. Our role in doing justice—God’s justice—involves sincere worship, love of God and neighbor, practicing mercy and kindness. Does this have anything in common with social justice?
The Presbyterian Book of Order proclaims that one of the great ends of the Church is “The promotion of social righteousness.” Recently, many have wanted to revise that to read, “The promotion of Social Justice,” but there are times when the promotion of social righteousness does not mean the promotion of social justice.
Are social justice warriors interested in loving God above all else? Some, perhaps, but that’s not their message. Are they interested in worship in spirit and truth? Again, that is not their message. Is it necessary to know God as God to be a social justice warrior? Absolutely not. Are they committed to kindness? Again, some are, but others clearly despise kindness as a form of weakness. Some would even say that kindness and mercy perpetuate oppression and suffering. This is where we break our ties with them.
Social Justice—as we know it in today’s America—leans heavily on racism, sexism, homophobia, now transphobia, and whatever cause is next in the pipeline they invent. They will call for “economic justice” without defining either the ends or the means. The real danger for the Church is that we are seen as a useful tool to their ends, and many would have us turn over the Church’s agenda to political activists. It means the Church becoming co-opted by social activism and its aims, rather than pursuing the central and uncompromised proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The center is not human good, human accomplishment, human striving, or human happiness. Humankind is not at the center of the cosmos, but rather the glory of God.
The call to God’s justice is what we hear in the true prophets: return to God, love Him with your whole heart, be kind to others, and walk humbly with Him every day of this life.
The justice of God is made manifest to us in Jesus Christ, who meets us today in the flesh of this bread and wine. To all who suffer—who are truly poor or oppressed—good news: God loves you and is for you. Social justice warriors, get off your high horses, come down to the table and walk humbly with God.
Let us all worship The Lord in Spirit and in Truth as we grow in our love and learn to walk in God’s chesed, steadfast love.†