Sound Familiar
Good Morning Friends,
Just what is it that you wish for, wonder about and worry about? Interestingly enough, most fairytales deal with these issues and they often have a weak person achieving success against great odds and great evil. Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk come to mind. They are coming of age stories not unlike David and Goliath except that they do not carry so much a spiritual message embedded in the story but certainly a moral one. Yesterday through my work I purchased clothes for an Immokalee farmworker family facing a similar story of need. Then last night I watched the two and a half hour uncut and restored version of the silent science fiction movie Metropolis. It did not hide its audacious and angry message at all- even without spoken words. The Maria robot in the film is classic. Parts of it were pretty racy…the New Tower of Babel, the Seven Deadly Sins, The Garden of the Sons, Moloch burning up the workers and the Whore of Babylon were all part of the story line. All religious imagery. Interesting work for an epic German film released in 1927. The overarching story line was that we need a mediator who has a heart for his brothers and sisters…. a heart to join our heads and hands…connecting the Father to man. Sound Familiar.
Scripture: 12It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. 3And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— 4was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. 5On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, 7even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. 8Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, 9but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
2 Corinthians 12.1-9 (NRSV)
11For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. 15Because you have said, “The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,”— 16Thus says the Lord concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who live in this city, your kinsfolk who did not go out with you into exile: 17Thus says the Lord of hosts, I am going to let loose on them sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like rotten figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. 18I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, and will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of cursing, and horror, and hissing, and a derision among all the nations where I have driven them, 19because they did not heed my words, says the Lord, when I persistently sent to you my servants the prophets, but they would not listen, says the Lord. 20But now, all you exiles whom I sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon, hear the word of the Lord: 21Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying a lie to you in my name: I am going to deliver them into the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, and he shall kill them before your eyes. 22And on account of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: “The Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,”
Jeremiah 29:11-22 (NRSV)
9Then Job answered: 2“Indeed I know that this is so; but how can a mortal be just before God? 3If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand. 4He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength—who has resisted him, and succeeded?— 5he who removes mountains, and they do not know it, when he overturns them in his anger; 6who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; 7who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars; 8who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea; 9who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south; 10who does great things beyond understanding, and marvelous things without number.
Job 9:1-10 (NRSV)
Message: We do so want to read the Bible like a fairy tale parsing the verses to deliver a moment and meaning. Take Jeremiah 29:11. Alone the message is very different from the one in the context of the story of Babylon. It forces us to realize that sometimes heaven is silent. Sometimes even with all our prayers and efforts and our begging of God, we still end up with a thorn in our side. Maybe it is depression. Maybe an addiction. Maybe it is a weakness. Maybe it is poverty. Maybe it is trying to figure out why there is so much suffering. Today’s scripture is not about waking up on the wrong side of the bed and deciding not to worry believing that God has a plan for your day. It is not about believing that God is going to prosper us. It is not about facing a rough patch at work. Friends, destruction is part of the future just as it was for Babylon and Babel and Metropolis and Germany. Taking a breath is not going to help. Maybe God’s going to prosper you and maybe not. The good news is that it is not the end. Even after the destruction… Even when you lose everything material there is still grace. There is no guarantee of personal fulfillment here.
Pray we a relevant. Pray we are never boring to children when it comes to Jesus. Pray we understand that God’s grace sets Christianity apart. Pray we become stronger in our heads, hands and hearts. Pray we realize that one of the wonders of life is that God knows more that we know and maybe we will get a glimpse of the revelation of the love in paradise. Pray we realize that all we need until then is God’s grace. Pray we are our brother’s keeper. Pray we realize that the world is still groaning, and we with it; but God is with us in the groaning, and will bring it out for good in the end. Pray we realize that the poor we will always have with us, and we can help them any time we want.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 