Jwquaker's Blog
Sermon
Come Up to Me
By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
February 19, 2023
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Exodus 24:12–18 (ESV)
12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” 13 So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. 14 And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.” 15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18 Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
This week as I was considering this passage my mind wandered as it often does. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the book of Exodus, it is the story of the trials of Israel under the yoke of slavery in Egypt, Israel’s deliverance, and finally the establishment of Israel as a nation. But if we are to turn our attention only to this passage we need to understand the context.
When God confused the languages in Babel, we are told that he divided these various language groups into nations, and put these nations under the sons of God, of hosts of heaven. This might confuse some, if not all of you. It almost sounds as if I am saying that there are multiple gods. That is not what I mean, in Hebrew the term Elohim can mean many things, but basically it is spiritual beings. This could be the spirit of humans that have passed beyond the veil separating life and death, it can mean the beings we commonly refer to as angels. It can also mean God the most high. What Moses means when he says, in Deuteronomy, the sons of God, is angelic beings. These beings are not equal to God, and they are not equal to humanity. If we want to believe what is written in Deuteronomy, this would mean that each nation, each language group, had an angel set over them, but each of these angels could either encourage the people to walk toward God, or away. But out of all the nations, God chose Israel to be his allotment.
Israel, was not a nation when this announcement was made in Genesis. Israel was not even a tribe. It is important to remember this. When God judged the world at Babel there was no Israel, God relegated the entire earth to these lesser beings, and what did he keep for himself? The answer is nothing. God let our rebellious ancestors live just as we wanted. We chased after these spiritual beings, we wrote myths and formed religious cultic practices honoring them. And God allowed it to happen. And only after he gave the nations to the forces of chaos did God begin to work on his own allotment. In the land of Ur he called one man Abraham.
I want us to get a grasp on what God did prior to this point, because only then will we begin to truly appreciate the revelation he provides us in scripture. Egypt was a nation, Babylon in some form was a nation, Ur was a nation, all of these are nations that were in the areas occupied in scripture, but at that moment Israel did not exist. One man, Abraham of Ur, was called. This man was already an adult, he was married he belonged to a family that lived in one of the nations that God had allotted to another spiritual being, but out of that chaos He called out to Abraham, and this man in faith followed.
Abraham was told that he would be the father of many nations, that his offspring would be like the stars in the heavens. And yet Abraham had no offspring because his wife was barren. God chose a man with a barren wife to become the nation through which he would reverse the sin and rebellion of the world.
When Abraham was well along in years his wife finally gave birth to a child named Isaac. One child, when he was over one hundred years old. And Isaac then carried on this hope that God would make him the father of many nations. But much like his father, Isaac was not blessed with an abundant house. They had wealth, their livestock holdings, and their servants would make most people in those ancient times green with envy, but they did not have a large family. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob, the younger of the brothers, out of deceitfulness gained his father’s blessing, but this deceitfulness caused Jacob to live in fear most of his life. Jacob was blessed with a large family. Abraham had one son, Isaac had two, Jacob had twelve children. Finally the seed of nationhood is beginning to take root, yet Jacob lived in fear instead of hope. He stole the blessing from his brother and he shrewdly gained his wealth by trickery. If we were to just look at the life of Jacob without knowing anything else, we would find Jacob as being a man with questionable morals.
When Jacob returned to the land of his father, the land where his brother Esau resided, Jacob was afraid. He knew that he had lived a dishonest life, he knew that his brother had every right to be upset with him, and could extract revenge according to the laws of the kingdoms of man. Jacob knew all of this, and he still returned. He returned because he knew that he was running from the life he was called to and he needed to repent. And one night a man came to him, and Jacob wrestled with this man throughout the night. He struggled and fought, we are not fully told why, but at the end of the story we are told that Jacob eventually realized that he was not just struggling with a man, but something greater. Jacob wrestled until the man blessed him. And this is where Jacob became Israel, one who wrestles with God.
We now have the name Israel, but we are far from a nation. Abraham was promised a land; that promise was extended to his son, and to his grandsons. Jacob returned to this land so that he could reunite with that promise, but they were still far from being a nation. At this point Israel was a dysfunctional blended family of twelve sons from four different women.
Famine struck the land, and the tribes of Israel left the land promised to them for Egypt. They went because this dysfunctional family sold one of their siblings into slavery and after some time this former slave rose within society to become the second most important man in Egypt. Joseph invited Israel to live in Egypt and they were fruitful in that land. They were fruitful yet they were living outside the promise given to Abraham.
They were enslaved because they trusted in themselves and the kingdoms of men instead of their God. They looked after themselves. They became fruitful in this land, but it was not where they were supposed to be. God allowed this, but this was not his ultimate plan. Even Joseph the son sold into slavery recognized that they were living outside the promise and begged them to take his bones to be buried in the land that God had promised.
When we live outside God’s promise, when we live according to the kingdoms of men instead of God, we put ourselves at risk. The kingdoms of men are not always faithful. Egypt loved Joseph, he had brought them through a famine, and yet eventually the acceptance turned. Eventually Egypt saw Israel not as a blessing but as the source of all their problems. So, they made them their slaves. We can learn much from this story, but that is not the point today.
God heard the cries of his people while they toiled in bondage. They began to recognize that they were not where they should be, and they began to turn back to the God of their fathers. And out of Egypt, God called Moses and Aaron. He through great feats of awesome power, brough the might of Egypt to their knees and Israel was free. They marched out of Egypt into the wilderness. They wandered through the wilderness, being guided by the presence of God in a cloud and pillar of fire. And they made camp at the base of a mountain.
I think about mountains quite often. I love mountains. When I travel to Colorado, I like to imagine what the people that crossed the great plains heading west might have thought as their covered wagons neared the Rocky Mountains. The mountains take your breath away, but imagine if you had to try to walk, and push and pull a wagon up through them? Imagine trying to encourage an ox or horse to drag all your earthly belongings up over these massive rocks that reached into the heavens. This is the image I want you to have when you think of the scene. Israel, this massive group of people descended from Jacob, were walking through the wilderness and they came to a mountain range. Right in front of them was something that seemed impassable.
It was here, as Israel stopped and made camp that the presence of God revealed himself. They had the pillar of fire and the cloud, but they did not know exactly what those things were. When they came to this mountain, the cloud grew and surrounded the peak, and out of that cloud, God began to speak not only to Moses but to all the people.
As the people stood in shock, listening to the voice of God, Moses began to record what was said. And this became known as the Book of the Covenant. Once God had finished his monologue, they began to do something else. They built an altar, they made sacrifices and they put the blood of the sacrifices into two bowls. The blood from one bowl was ceremonially splattered on the altar, and the blood of the other was sprinkled on the people. This is the only time the blood of a sacrifice is split between God and the people. This ceremony is important. The book of the covenant was God’s call to the people, asking them to become his nation. The sacrifice and the sprinkling of blood was the ceremonial rite that bound the two parties together into the covenant. Then Israel shared a meal with their God at the base of this mighty mountain.
It is at that moment Israel became a nation. While they ate the meal, Moses read from the book of the Covenant. He reminded them of what they were bound to. And once this meal was complete, God called Moses to come up to meet with him.
This morning we are at the base of the mountain as we reflect of this morning’s scripture. I mentioned that there were nations prior to Israel; Egypt, Babylon, Ur, there were Amorites, Hittites, and other nations. Each of these nations, each of these people groups interacted with each other. They shared stories and had religious systems that overlapped with each other. They had different names for their deities, but there was something interesting about these religions, they were very similar. Each had a greater god and lessor gods. Each taught of their gods living in the mountains. High in the heavens where humanity could not quite reach. All these cultures had influence on the people that became Israel. Israel knew there God, but they did not fully know how to relate to God, nor how their God fit into the world system all around them. Because in this ancient world the most powerful god was the god whose people had the most power. This concept continued long into Israel’s history and we continue to see it in the writings of the prophets. But at the base of this mountain, God revealed himself to his people. At this mountain God became the God of a nation. And then he calls the leaders of this nation to come up and meet with him.
Moses takes Joshua, Aaron, and the elders up into this mountain, and they leave the people down below. He calls to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone.” Israel had just participated in a covenant ceremony. In those ancient days when a covenant was made, both parties would receive something to commemorate what was agreed upon. They would carve in stone or make markings in a clay tablet. Archeologist are finding these sorts of things throughout the Ancient Middle East. This covenant was agreed upon not just by Moses, but all the people, and now God is calling Moses up to retrieve the documentation.
The Elders, along with Moses, went up onto the mountain, and they waited. The Glory of God dwelt on this mountain, Mount Sinai, as a cloud covered it for six straight days. This would have been an awesome and fearsome sight. When scripture speaks of the Glory of God, it often speaks of light, and sometimes earthquakes. For six days the elders are up on the mountain. Lights flashing, the earth trembling, and a cloud surrounding them. Then on the seventh day, God calls out from the cloud for Moses to come further up. Our passage says that the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.
I want you to picture this in your mind. A thunderous voice is calling down to you from the clouds, and a mountain is glowing. For me I would want to run away because when I picture this the only thing that comes to mind is a volcano, and I grew up watching movies about volcanoes and I do not want to be anywhere around one. And all the people heard God call their leader, Moses, to go on up into the very flames. Moses entered that flaming cloud and was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
This week is Transfiguration Sunday. It is the day where we celebrate the revelation of Jesus’ true nature. Jesus took his disciples to a mountain. He left some of the disciples down at the base, he took a few up onto the mountain, and then he moves further up again to pray. Jesus on this day is reflecting the very scene that we see here in Exodus. And as He prays, the glory of God shown around him, and his garments became like a radiant light, and with him. the disciples reported, was Moses and Elijah.
We have just listened to the story of Moses on the mountain. We have yet to hear about Elijah. Moses brought Israel to the mountain, and they became a nation. Once they entered into the land promised to them, they were to become God’s people and God, would be their God. But shortly after this Israel began to fall away. They fell because they had all these other nations influencing them. Nations that had a long history and wealth to prove it. They began to turn away from their God and chased after the gods of the nations. Elijah is the father of the prophets. He served during a time when the Baal was being worshiped in Israel. This is important to consider, because Baal worship is ancient, but Baal was not the most high god of that nation. The worshipers of this deity worshiped Baal as the intermediary between humanity and the higher god El. Many in Israel may have thought that they were staying true to God even while participating in these religious rites, justifying their worship as being to El not Baal.
Elijah was sent to tell them otherwise. On Mount Carmel Elijah challenged the priests of Baal to a godly duel. The priest of Baal were to cry out to the gods to light the fire of sacrifice. They chanted, danced, cut, and worked themselves into a religious frenzy but the altar remained cold. Elijah then took his turn and said a simple prayer. In response, God sent fire from heaven and burned the sacrifice, and the stones of the altar to the ground. Elijah then killed the priest of Baal and ran for his life. He stayed upon a mountain, hiding from the king and his evil queen. Elijah just witnessed this miraculous event, and he went to the mountain and hid in despair. He cried out to God, I am all that remains faithful. Only Me. And God visited Elijah where he was. A wind and a fire raged outside the place Elijah hid. And then a stillness. It was in the stillness that Elijah covered his head and went out to speak to God.
Moses entered the cloud, and Elijah exited the cave. And on these mountains, they spoke with God. Separated one from the other by hundreds of years, yet in that moment and in that place the Law and the Prophets met with Jesus on the mount of Transfiguration.
Nothing going on today in the kingdoms of men is new to God. We might think that the world is crumbling all around us and we like Elijah are crying out to God that we are all that is left and the rest of the world is corrupt and without hope. We like Moses might be looking at the people around us wondering how on earth are we supposed to influence and lead these people that claim to follow God yet seem to turn away at the slightest discomfort. We struggle. We despair. We worry. We sometimes run. And like Moses and Elijah, God is calling us to come up to Him on the mountain and wait there. Come and wait, he says, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandments, which I have written for their instruction. God wants us to stop looking at the world around us for our direction and instruction. He instead desires that we wait in prayer so that he can carve or write the law on and in our hearts.
Let us now repent and turn from the kingdoms of men, and return to God. Let us come up to him and wait. Let us lay down our fears, our struggles, our despairs, and our worries. And let us let God in his stillness write our future in our hearts. Let him create in us the people and nation he desires at this time and in this place. Let us wait, so he can make us into a people Loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others.
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Choosing Life and Good or Death and Evil
By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
February 12, 2023
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Deuteronomy 30:15–20 (ESV)
15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”
Today we have our reading from Deuteronomy. This book is that last book of the Pentateuch, or the last of the five books of Torah. Torah in Hebrew can mean different things. We usually think of Torah as the Law, but there are other meanings. Another word that can be used when translating Torah is directive. I know that this might be mincing words, but there are slight differences. When we think of law, certain images come to mind. Some of us might get the image of the police, a courtroom, maybe even a job. But what comes to mind when we consider the word directive? It comes across in our minds just a bit less harsh, a bit less scary. The reality of the two words is that there is not much difference. They both carry authority, they both give direction. It is just one usually has prescribed consequences.
Image if we were to go to Ikea, and we make a purchase of one of their products. We open the box only to find that there is some assembly required. We are in luck because there is a booklet included that has directions. We know what we are doing, we look at the pieces and we begin to put in screws and anchors. We continue for a while only to find that all of a sudden there is a piece that we cannot seem to get in. What will we do? We open that booklet and we consult the directions. We begin to take things apart and we begin to put this product together step by step, piece by piece. This the concept of directives. It gives a clear and concise method to get the desired results.
What would happen if that little booklet was considered Law instead of directives? This is how I want us to consider Torah today. There is a point where the directions listed in the Ikea package do become law. This is when something goes wrong and we call customer service to demand a replacement. They could examine our construction and determine that the directions were not followed and therefore they are not to be held liable for whatever failure may have occurred. When the directives are not followed, we are responsible for the consequences. We do not face a fine or a potential jail term when we overlook step five in the directions, but we also cannot accuse Ikea of a defective product.
We often look at scripture from the perspective of legality. This is not wrong because there are consequences to actions. But how does this affect our relationship with God?
Deuteronomy is in many ways a reteaching of God’s directives. The word Deuteronomy is from the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and literally means copy or second law. When we read the other four books of Torah, we read about how we got to this place. Genesis speaks of creation and God’s purpose and mission for life. It continues to speak of human failure. But there is hope in Genesis because God does not give up on humanity even though it grieves him. We are deceived in the Garden of Eden by the serpent, or if we look at the word for serpent it could be translated as shining one or burning one. The word is like serpent because of the burning pain one receives when a person is bitten by a venomous snake. But these serpents of ancient days were often used to depict the ferocious power of God’s throne guards so in many ancient religious beliefs, the Serpent takes on a supernatural form. Adam and Eve were not just deceived by a snake, they were deceived by a shining one. They were deceived by a supernatural being that they believed to be a servant of the Most High God, but this servant was in rebellion and by its deception we skipped a step in the directions of God and faced the consequence of death. The curse of Adam is not original sin, but death. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we are told, and the wage of sin is death.
Genesis continues. Humanity failed yet God does not give up. Two more times humanity rises and falls, the result of these failings were the flood and the confusion of the languages. And even through these failures, God remains true. God does not give up on humanity, instead God calls out of the nations of the earth one man through which God will reverse the failures of the Kingdoms of Men and restore what was once lost. From this point the Torah leaves the nations behind and focuses on Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. From this point on God’s revelation comes not to all people but his directives are given to one nation, Israel. And Israel is given the task of being the light to the nations. They are given this task not because they are great in themselves, but because God chose to restore all people, all tribes, and all nations through them.
Genesis begins the story. Exodus continues the story. Leviticus, the book we often skip, we regard as being filled with a myriad of laws, but if we consider the teachings within those directives, we might be able to see them not as law, but as a conversation between a teacher and a student. Then there is the book of Numbers. The title of the book is a bit misleading, because it is not about math, but is instead, this book takes us from the mountain where God made a covenant with the nation of Israel, to the banks of the Jordan where they will soon enter the land promised to them.
The first five books of scripture are not merely law, but teaching. They teach us true humanity and direct us to live with and within creation. They direct us. And Deuteronomy is, in many ways, Moses retelling Israel their story, it is Moses encouraging the people of Israel to remember what they experienced and carry that into the next stage of life. Deuteronomy is the commencement address. You were once children in primary school, you moved on to secondary school and now that you are an adult you will face challenges and struggles. Remember what you were taught and embrace life.
In today’s reading Moses tells the people, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil” I find this verse interesting. Moses does not say I set before you today right and wrong, correct and incorrect. Instead, he says life and good, death and evil. We can interpret it as right and wrong, but does this really tell the whole story?
Life is a state of being, but it is more than being alive, it is a process. It is thriving. Death is also a state of being and a process. Death is the opposite of life both in the state of being and in the process. If life is thriving, death is withering. I rested on this verse a bit as I approached interacted with these words in prayer. And I considered these states and processes. I reflected on my own life, as I must come to grip with the reality that I am now encouraged by my doctor to watch what I eat. Am I still part of life or am I withering?
I am thankful that I have the background that I have. I grew up on a farm, I know livestock and plants. I know that the young heifers are full of life and energy. They are this weird mix of a calf and an adult cow still wanting to play and yet big enough to cause damage. They are full of life; they are thriving and yet their offspring are rarely the most desirable. Then there are the old cows, sometimes they are barely able to move. They look as if in any moment they just might fall over and break, yet these old cows will often produce wonderful offspring. We look at them as being at death’s door yet they thrive.
As we age, thriving takes on different forms. We might not have the energy we once had when we were teenagers, but that does not diminish our value. We often contribute more than we ever could. Moses begins this section not by saying I set before you right and wrong, but he says life and death. Thriving and withering. It is as if he is telling them, we have embarked on a journey together and now it is time for you to take the lead. If you continue as I have taught you, you will thrive, but if you are distracted and walk a different path, you will begin to wither.
Moses continues, “If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God , by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.”
If you obey the commandments. After is sat in prayer, contemplating the state of my life. I then began to reflect on the commandments. Throughout the Torah there are six hundred and thirteen laws or commandments. As I sat and considered all these laws, I mind was drawn back to a memory from when Kristy was in school. Kristy, as many of you know, is an artist. And artists often look at things in ways that people like me do not. When Kristy was in school many of her classmates were in their studios working on various things. During the studio time of their day I would often spend time with Kristy and her friends. We would talk and laugh. But I remember one of Kristy’s friends was working and I walked by and stopped. I was drawn into this work of art, captivated by it. It was a chair, a large formal chair. A chair that you might see sitting at the front of a church. And this ceremonial chair was covered with cones made from pages of a book, little spikes all over it. This friend, knew who I was and my back ground, she knew that I was a pastor, and she got a bit nervous when I took notice of her art. And I began to ask questions. She had cut pages out of the bible and curled them into these spike and glued them onto this chair, a chair that many members of the clergy would sit upon on a Sunday morning. I loved it. If I had money at the time I would have offered to purchase the chair from her but I was broke. This chair captivated my attention, and I remember asking her which book of scripture she used and begged her to tell me Leviticus. And I asked her how many spikes she had glued on, and she asked me why it mattered. This piece of art, a piece of art that was created to express the negative aspects of religion became a touchpoint where we could have a conversation. I encouraged her to try to get as close to six hundred and thirteen spikes as she could because that is how many laws there are in scripture. And we laughed.
I mention this chair because it looked horrific. It looked like a seat of torture, and yet there was beauty in it. Life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God…
We can use scripture as an instrument as death instead of life. This is why I encourage you to look at scripture as directives instead of law. It is not that I am encouraging you to sin, or to disregard the commandments but I want you to learn and be encouraged by them instead of tortured. If you were to look through the six hundred and thirteen laws, at first you might become overwhelmed. But there is beauty in them. They teach us how to live our lives together. They encourage us to live our lives in balance with nature and with our neighbors. The law, no, the teachings of God if we read them from the mindset of life instead of death can allow us to thrive.
I would love at this moment to go through each of these laws, all of them and explore them. But unfortunately, my son would like to eat sometime today so I will have to leave that for later. We know many of the laws though, we see them blasted all over social media. But have we actually stopped to consider what God is telling us through them? You might be surprised that most of the laws are not actually about sin. You might think of the kosher dietary laws because that is usually a group that we all remember because we do not follow them, but did you know that even though these were part of the law, it was not a sin? Uncleanness was not sin, but exactly what it sounds like health and hygiene. Most of the six hundred and thirteen laws of scripture are the equivalent of the CDC asking us to wash our hands during flu season.
But then there are some laws that seem more important than others. When we think of the law or the commandments what are the first things that come to mind. If you have been to church for any amount of time or if you are a fan of Charlton Heston then the Ten Commandments is the answer. I took a class when I was studying for my master’s degree that explored the ten commandments in depth. To most of us we look at these as a bunch of rules that tell us what we should not do. And yes, that is true, but there is a beauty to them. It might surprise you but the commandments, those ten commandments start a conversation, one that Jesus himself continued in his sermon on the mount. The command not to murder goes beyond the taking of a life, but it speaks to honoring and protecting life. And this is not simply life as the pro-life proponents might say, but life as Moses speaks in today’s passage. The command to not murder is a directive to engage in all the things that will encourage growth. We should not kill, but there are more steps involved, we should protect. We should protect because the person next to us as annoying as they might be, is a bearer of God’s Image. And to take their life is to say to God that we do not respect what was pronounces very good.
As Moses urges us to obey the commandments, he is telling us to stop focusing on ourselves and our own pleasures and passions, but to use those passions to promote continued growth within our communities. “Then you shall live and multiply.” When Jesus was being tested by the various religious leaders, he was asked what the most important commandment is. Jesus replied and said that We should love God with everything we are and all that we have. And to love our neighbor as ourselves. He went on to say that all the law and the prophets are built upon this. All the law hinges on that one teaching. Do not murder, because it is not loving your neighbor as yourself. How should we love our neighbor then? We to start, don’t kill them. But the next step is to encourage them. But how should we encourage them? This takes many forms, and it depends on who they are.
Moses urges us to obey the commandments and we will thrive, but he explains something else too. “But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.” I want us to stop and think about this for a moment. Consider the command that Jesus gave us. What happens when we do not love our neighbor as ourselves? What happens when a husband does not love his wife as Christ loves the church? What happens when we fail to regard those around us better than we do ourselves? We begin to see things differently. They never give me what I want. They never do the things that I want to do. My needs are not fulfilled. And the list goes on. We begin to argue, we begin to fight. We begin to take people to court demanding that we get what we deserve. This is not always wrong, but is it thriving? Is it promoting life? It sounds a bit shriveled, dry, and dead. It sounds a bit like a chair of spikes instead of a love seat.
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.”
Imagine, Moses standing on a hill above the valley of the Jordan. Imagine the entire camp of Israel looking at the lush land below. They are peering into their future, a land flowing with milk and honey. A future filled with hope and security. And their leader stands before them with possibility as a backdrop, and he says set before you is life and death, blessing and curse. You get to choose one as you journey forward. You can choose Life or death. Thriving or withering. Blessing or curse.
We can look at the Torah as God’s law or we can look at it as his directives. They both have authority, but they have a different approach. One dictates and the other converses. One discourages and the other encourages. One brings death and the other promotes life. Paul speaks about the law in his letter to the Romans. He says that he would not have known what it is to covet apart from the law, but once he knew that law, sin seized the opportunity and produced in him all kinds of covetousness. And he says, “The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” How can the commandment promise life but instead bring death?
We choose. Will we encourage, or be consumed with fulfilling our own desires? Will we demand, or will we bless? Close your eyes for a moment and look over the valley that is the promised land. The future, your future is right there within your grasp. Israel walked into that promised land. They claimed it and took possession of it. And they almost immediately turned from the God that brought them out of the land of slavery. They cycled through blessings and curses and have their entire history. And the prophets cried out that it is not sacrifices but justice that God desires. So quickly we turn what is beautiful into something of torture. And why? We are deceived, and we are misguided. We want to be right so badly, that we forget to live. And suddenly a chair that brought rest, becomes a throne of pain. We are standing on the hill overlooking the promised land of our future. Each of us will walk into that land, but we will each have a different experience.
Shortly after Moses spoke these words to Israel, he turned to his friend Joshua and said, “I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in… Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” Moses then turned to all of Israel with Joshua at his side and said, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers…It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
We are looking over the hilltop into the future. What will our future hold? Life or death, blessing or curse, thriving or withering. The choice is ours. While we were still enemies of God, Paul tell us, Christ died for us. While we were living under the dominion of deception, Christ, God incarnate, took on human flesh, lived a complete human life and took our penalty. He suffered injustice, ridicule and shame, for us and with us. And he did it so that we could walk into our future without fear. Because God so loved the world that he gave his only unique son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. Eventually each of us will pass beyond the veil of life, and meet death, but that does not mean we cease. We can thrive even as we die. We can be an encouragement, even as we breathe our last breath.
As we leave this meeting for worship, as we move back out into our community and our homes, we are taking steps into that future we have just gazed upon in our mind’s eye. We go into that land with everything we need for the future we have chosen. That does not mean that we can conjure up the power to claim the riches of the world as a blessing for ourselves. No. that is not what Life with God is about. We have everything we need to live the life we choose. We can leave here today, as an instrument of God’s blessing to others, or we can exit these doors and embody the curse. Which will you choose. Will you love God, embrace the Holy Spirit, and live the love of Christ with others? Or will you walk into that future set before you with fear?
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Discipline of Justice
By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
February 5, 2023
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Isaiah 58:1–12 (ESV)
1 “Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God. 3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. 4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? 6 “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, 10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. 11 And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.
This week I spent quite a bit of time in contemplative prayer. Well to be honest, I had a migraine and Kristy gave me this really neat wrap that you can put in the freezer and then you put it on your head over your eyes, and you just sit there with this cold head wrap in the dark. I call it my hawking hood because that is what it looks like. But as I sat there in my hawking hood, I was in contemplation. Last week we read Micah, and he spoke about justice. This week Isaiah speaks of the same things. There seems to be a common theme throughout the prophets. And that is why I picked that long song to open worship with. Patrick speaks of the prophet’s scrolls. He speaks of them as having power.
I have often thought about St. Patrick and the conversion of Ireland. Their story of conversion is different than most ancient nations’. They were not in a war. They were not conquered by Christians; they were just going about their lives content. And then this man Patrick, a former slave in their land, comes and begins to preach about Christ. And not too long after he began to preach nearly the entire island converts. I have often contemplated this, I have read books on the subject, and most scholars have not really provided much of an answer. But I yearn for the answer, because I think this speaks to our world today. I continued to research and study, and I came to a conclusion. It may not be profound, it does not have theological depth, but the conclusion that I came to is that Patrick was not afraid.
He faced constant persecution. The wizards, spoken of in his song, were seeking to do him harm. People sought to kill him, pretty much every stanza in that poem is something that Patrick faced. And yet the people of Ireland, heard what he had to say, and they followed. Imagine being in a land where spells and magic seemed to be a reality. Imagine every moment of your day could be the last breath you take, and yet Patrick persevered through his trials. He persisted and people began to take notice. He faced these trials. Trials that would keep many people awake at night, and yet from all my research the one thing that I found most profound was that the people considered what Patrick had to say, because he was not afraid and he slept soundly at night.
As simple as that may seem, it is powerful. He could sleep at night. He was not afraid. We live in an era where fear is a dominant emotion. The twenty-four-hour news cycle uses fear to keep our attention. The politicians use fear to garner our support. Often the decisions we make are made, not out of careful consideration, but out of fear.
This caused me to consider what Isaiah was speaking about. The prophet tells the people to cry aloud, to sing the praises of God with their full throat. He urges the priest on the day of Atonement to not hold back and to speak truth. The nation that claimed to be the people of God were not living the life they professed with their mouths.
Isaiah says, “They seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God.” If we do not listen carefully, we might think that Isaiah is speaking of the goodness of Israel, but that is not the case. Mark Elliott, quotes Theodoret of Cyr, in his Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Series. “The text shows that they have no desire to draw near to God, but want him to come near to them through his protection and care, even while choosing a life unworthy of him.[1]” This caused me to pause and I hope that it shakes you soul a bit as well.
They were worshiping. They were gathering together corporately to give praises and to offer sacrifices to their God. The first verse indicates that they were participating in the required fast proposed in Torah in preparation for the Day of Atonement. And yet they cried out to God because their prayers and deeds seemed to be falling on deaf ears and blind eyes. “Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?” They cry out to God.
We have those cries ourselves at times. We have those emotions individually and as a nation. We wonder why we are facing the possibility of another recession, when many of us have yet to recover from the one that happened fifteen years ago. We wonder why God allowed a plague to ravish our world. Why God has allowed suffering and war to wage throughout the world. Why? Why do good people suffer?
I ask these questions, and to be honest I do not have answers. I wish I could, like so many pastor, simply say the reason for all the suffering is because of sin. This is not wrong, but to me it sounds as if it is an evasion of the questions we all ask. Yes, sin is a problem, but that does not really help. We can say Jesus came, lived, died, and rose again to take away our sin. I believe this with my whole mind, body, soul and spirt, and yet I still cry out to God at times.
This is why the words of that ancient father, Theodoret, spoke so deeply to me. He lived during the turn of the 5th century. This, if you know church history, was when many of the core theologies within the church began to take root. The first great schism of the church began at this time and in many ways it was over a misunderstanding of language. The Oriental Church said that Christ had one nature, where the Catholic or Universal Church said that Christ had two natures. The sad thing is that the Oriental Church and the Catholic church was meaning the same thing, but at the time they could not reconcile this. They both meant that Jesus was human and divine, the Oriental Church simply said that Christ always existed as he is, fully God and human in one person. I understand the schism and the semantics. But poor Theodoret was caught in the middle trying to bridge the gap, yet the discussion fell on deaf ears. And after nearly 2000 years, they are finally making attempts toward reconciliation.
This speaks to me because we often find ourselves in quarrels. We argue and we fight. We pound our Bibles saying, “Thus says the Lord,” but are we listening to what the Lord has to say? “Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high.”
The nation that claimed to worship God, turned their backs on the lifestyle God desired. I do not speak much about fasting. My negligence on this discipline is in part because of these verses. So often when people fast, they simply see it as being a sacrifice made so that they can honor God and participate in the suffering of Jesus. That is part of the fast, but it is deeper than this. The sacrifice is to direct our attention to our own weaknesses and our need for God’s provision. Most Christian sects fast during the season of Lent, they will give up something for forty days. I have participated in a fast like this, and it does give some clarity. A few years ago I fasted from Dr. Pepper, and I quickly realized just how tight the grip caffeine and sugar had on me. If something so small could cause such struggle in my life, how could I possibly make a larger sacrifice? That is the point. We cannot. This does not mean that we should not try.
Israel during the time of Isaiah did fast, and they did it according to Torah. In the eyes of mankind, they were righteous. Yet in the eyes of God, all they proved was that they were stubborn. The fast is not just to give up, but to give out. It reveals to us that we are slaves to our own lustful and hungry natures. And hungry we are. We have strong desires, desires for wealth, power, luxury, and pleasure. We can make a list a mile long if we wanted to, but Isaiah is telling Israel, and us, that we may fast, but we are not recognizing the reality of who we are.
We are being led by our lusts. We are in bondage to our greed. We lash out to those that might question this within us. If you do not believe me just turn on the news, it is all right there in our fears. The Republicans are going to take away our social security. The Democrats are wanting to kill babies. The Libertarians just want to legalize drugs. The Russians are going to nuke us all. The …. Do we need to go on?
Fear is big. Fear distracts us from the truth. It drives us to act in ways that do not always reflect what we believe, and yet we are bound to fear. What if we were to let go of the fear? What if we were too fast from fear?
What if instead of worrying about our social security, babies, or drugs, we invested the energy we expend on fear toward the people around us? Isaiah says, “If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday…And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall rise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.”
Do you love one another as becomes the followers of Christ? Are you careful of the reputation of others? When differences arise do you make earnest efforts to end them speedily? Are you in bondage to fear or are you participating in the discipline of Justice?
Last week Micah told us what the Lord wants of us, and today Isaiah repeats the same theme. God is calling us to come back to the life and lifestyle our first parents rejected during the fall. He is calling us to walk once again with Him in the cool of the evening and to participate in the mission that has always been part of who we as image bearers of God have been called to participate in. We are to go into all the world and bring it into submission, we are to go out into the world and tend to it as if it were the Garden of Eden. We cannot do this on our own, because we are so often distracted by the customs of the kingdoms of Men. We want what is ours. We want what we deserve. We want. Yet Jesus tells us, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” And his command is that you love one another as he has loved you. Let us go now and live the love of Christ with others.
[1] Elliott, Mark W., editor. Isaiah 40–66. InterVarsity Press, 2007, p. 209.
To Donate to Willow Creek Friends Church Click here:
To help support the personal ministry of JWQuaker (Jared Warner) online and in the community click to donate.