Pentecost 21: Psalm 96: Great is the Lord

 We only have about five weeks left in this liturgical (church) year. November 26 is Advent I and the New Year of the Church. There will be a new series then.

Today we look at the expansive inclusiveness of God’s love. God cares for all people, not just those who consider themselves ‘religious’ or knowledgable, or even powerful. In fact, God seems to prefer the least likely. We hear of non-Jews who God welcomes, and we often hear Jesus criticizing those in religious power in his day as he points to God, the only One who is truly great. 

In the Hebrew Scripture reading from Isaiah (45:1-7), we hear God tell King Cyrus of Persia, I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I surname you, though you do not know me.” God uses the reign of this Persian king to bring about the rebuilding of Jerusalem in the 6^th Century BCE.

The Epistle (I Thessalonians 1:1-10) speaks of how the faithful in Thessoloniki in Greece have became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia…how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming. The Greeks, considered pagan by the Jewish leadership are welcomed into the Family of God. 

As humans, we have a long history of denying this gift to anyone who doesn't agree with our theology, or who doesn't accept our leadership. We have, generation after generation, gone to war to gain power and control over anyone who isn't like us. When will we discover that we have more in common than is different? When will we recognize that, as the song says, "We are one in the Spirit, we are One in the Lord, and we pray that all unity may one day be restored." You might want to listen to this version of the song by Kingdom Expression.

In light of events in the past couple of weeks in Jerusalem and Israel, we might wonder if God is absent or if God is enacting ‘wrath’ because of our actions. In fact, God is with all the people—on all sides of the conflict. God, I am sure, weeps with those who weep and cries out for peace and compassion just as much as those who seek to find a new (and lasting) peace. God, I am sure, does not take sides, but holds all humanity in love even as we kill and destroy one another. Fear and hatred of the ‘other’ leads to kidnapping, displacement, destruction, and death. This is not God’s way, nor God’s will.

Our Gospel today (Matthew 22:15-22) is a confrontation of Jesus by the religious leaders. They are hoping to trap him into making seditious comments. Instead, he responds, give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s. The leaders of the world think they have power. True power is God’s.

God is in the midst of all our petty strivings for power whether it is as a nation or in our job or just the attempt to be important to someone. God can use the ways of the world to move the Kingdom closer, just as God used Cyrus of Persia and opened the hearts of the Greeks. Nothing is impossible for God, even though we humans may think we have the final word, we don’t. God’s love is the final word.

God is always seeking us, even in those times when we forget to look for God. James Finley says, “Our longing for God is an echo of God’s infinite longing for us.” No matter how far we stray, God is still right there waiting for us to return.

As Psalm 96 says, we must learn to Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the whole earth. It is our call in this time to continue to point to the One God who is able to save us from ourselves. As a human race, we have perhaps forgotten that it is the Lord who made the heavens. All families of the peoples [are to] ascribe to the Lord honor and power. Let us remember to Tell all the nations how wonderful he is! Tell people everywhere about the amazing things he does.

Psalm 96:1-9 1 Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the whole earth. 2 Sing to the Lord and bless his Name; proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations and his wonders among all peoples. 4 For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; he is more to be feared than all gods. 5 As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols; but it is the Lord who made the heavens. 6 Oh, the majesty and magnificence of his presence! Oh, the power and the splendor of his sanctuary! 7 Ascribe to the Lord, you families of the peoples; ascribe to the Lord honor and power. 8 Ascribe to the Lord the honor due his Name; bring offerings and come into his courts. 9 Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth tremble before him. (Book of Common Prayer)

Sing a new song to the Lord! Let the whole world sing to the Lord! 2 Sing to the Lord and praise his name! Tell the good news every day about how he saves us! 3 Tell all the nations how wonderful he is! Tell people everywhere about the amazing things he does. 4 The Lord is great and worthy of praise. He is more awesome than any of the “gods.” 5 All the “gods” in other nations are nothing but statues, but the Lord made the heavens. 6 He lives in the presence of glory and honor. His Temple is a place of power and beauty. 7 Praise the Lord, all people of every nation; praise the Lord’s glory and power. 8 Give the Lord praise worthy of his glory! Come, bring your offerings into his courtyard. 9 Worship the Lord in all his holy beauty. Everyone on earth should tremble before him. (Easy to Read Version)

Pray for all war-torn parts of the world, esp. Israel, Palestine, and Ukraine.
Pray for the innocent caught in the cross-fire and forced from their homes.
Pray for those who think war is the only solution to differences.
Pray for our children and children’s children.
Pray for the Family of God.
Pray that God's peace may be restored.

Catalyst to a Journey

Through Lent, we’ll travel the Road to Jerusalem and to the Emerald City. What can these two very different paths teach us? Like Dorothy in Oz, we are each seeking a way to ‘get home’ and find the love and security that can only be found in God. Hebrews 11:13-16 reminds us that we are “strangers and exiles on the earth…[desiring] a better country…for [God] has prepared for [us] a city. Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) because he knew that his journey would open the door for us, to that city. Dorothy found herself on a long road through Oz to find someone to help her get home. Jesus also traveled a long road to the Holy City. Come follow their paths and see how it might change your Lenten journey.

Where does Jesus’ Road to Jerusalem start? When Jesus is baptized and begins to call his disciples he and they step onto the road that will ultimately lead to Jerusalem. (Mark 1:9-20) The every day life of Peter and Andrew, James and John, was about to be dramatically changed. A catalyst entered their life, similar in some ways to the tornado that scoops Dorothy up and spins her off to Oz. 

Dorothy was an ordinary girl living in Kansas-perhaps not too happy with her situation, but it was the life she knew. The disciples, too, were going about their daily routine of fishing and selling the fish and cleaning the nets for the next day. Rather boring, but predictable. I know I go through my days in a fairly standard cycle, too. Breakfast-feed cats-check computer-go to work-come home-writing-dinner-TV-bed.

Into the lives of the disciples and Dorothy comes a catalyst that changes them. For the disciples it is Jesus saying “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” For Dorothy the tornado whirls her out of the everyday bland life into a life full of danger and unexpected things.

I recently heard that there are two sorts of problem solvers: those who see opportunity in every difficulty and those who can only see difficulties in opportunities. Jesus taught his disciples how to look for the opportunity no matter what the apparent difficulty. Dorothy could only see the difficulties in her situation. In Kansas her life was boring and repetitive. Even in Oz she discovers that there are more difficulties: witches and ‘lions and tiger and bears, oh my’, and a wizard who isn’t the solution. As we’ll see, it took the catalyst of saving her friends to help her find the opportunity (a bucket of water) in the difficulty. For the disciples it took the seemingly impossible-to-overcome difficulty of the Jesus’ crucifixion to understand that God is greater than any problem.

The Book of Ruth in the Old Testament tells the story of a woman who also had to step out on a journey to discover God. Naomi’s life in Bethlehem started out fine, but then came the catalyst of drought and famine. Her husband decides to look for greener pastures in Moab and so her journey starts. “In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there.” (Ruth 1:1-3)

What catalyst is there in your life? Lent is a catalyst because it offers a set length of time in which to try new disciplines or ministries. Are you up to the challenge to try something new, to step out of your comfort zone this Lent? Maybe it is a simple (or hard) as starting to look for the opportunities in the difficulties rather than focusing on the difficulties. Perhaps it’s a new phase in your life, or it could just be spending more time with God in quiet and prayer.

Next time we’ll start down the road to Jerusalem and the Yellow Brick Road. They look wonderful and seem to be the answer to all problems.

Roads for Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent, when we are urged to spend time in self examination and make plans to ‘give up’ something like chocolate or novels. Sometimes though, self examination takes the form of looking at the journey we are on. It can be a good time to map out where we are and where we are going on the road of life.

Roads are everywhere. Some are wide, some are narrow. There are interstates and country roads, city streets and village lanes. Tracks in the woods (like at the left) are just as much roads as giant concrete interchanges. Jesus warns his disciples to “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14) Robert Frost echoes this in his well known poem, “The Road Not Taken”:  

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,  
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.  
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

In life, as Frost notes, we have to make choices about the road we take. He says “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Throughout literature and movies, we find the road image again and again. Consider the Yellow Brick Road in Oz, or the Road to Mordor. The Odyssey and Canterbury Tales both take place as people travel as do Don Quixote and Huckleberry Finn. Of course in these works, the road symbolizes the protagonist’s search for meaning or a solution to their problems.

A long time ago, in “The Little Colonel's House Party”, I read a story about Robert Lewis Stephenson and how after his death, the chiefs of Samoa built a road to honor him. In the book it was called “The Road of the Loving Heart” and was a reoccurring theme throughout the series as the girls turned into young women and got married, they all tried to keep ‘building a road of the loving heart’ for people around them. Angry words and wrong choices left rocks in the road for others to stumble over, but doing right and being loving created a smooth highway. It always reminds me of Isaiah 40:3: “Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

Isn’t that what we should be trying to do-build a smooth, straight road that points to God, so that others can find their way? Have you ever stopped to consider what ‘road’ you are on in your spiritual journey? Are you searching for a solution to life’s problems like Don Quixote or Odysseus? Do you need to find a way home like Dorothy and Frodo? Is the road you are on just a way to get from here to there as for Huck Finn and Chaucer’s folks? Is your road a “narrow road that leads to life”, a “highway for our God”? Are you building a ‘Road of the Loving Heart’? If you are like me, your road and journey is a little bit of all these things.  We learn about life and God as we ‘travel life’s highway’. John Bunyan put this whole journey into the allegorical story, Pilgrim’s Progress as did Dante with The Divine Comedy.

During Epiphany I explored two parallel passages from Paul’s letters as ways to help us live and remain faithful to our life in Christ. We are to ‘rejoice always’, ‘pray without ceasing’, ‘give thanks in all things’ so as to welcome the Spirit and live in the peace of God. At first these seem impossible, but maybe there are ways to use them as cobblestones for our roadway. When we live into the promises of our God, we can build a 'road of the loving heart'. 

Through Lent I’ll be traveling with Jesus to Jerusalem and with Dorothy’s along the Yellow Brick Road. How will their different, yet perhaps not so different roads inform my Lenten journey and yours? If you are looking for a new focus for this Lent, come along on this adventure.