Good Morning Friends,
Today we have the story of how big things come in small packages…we explore the way of kingdom growth and parables from Jeremiah and Jesus, and the wonder of how things that are not normally seen can change the world. We consider what changes our perception of reality and how we might influence that reality. So perhaps you have seen God at work and maybe you have been satisfied and maybe disappointed with that reality. But there is a deeper question than what the glowing promise of the Kingdom of God is like and what we will experience of it. When Solomon said that there is a time and season perhaps, he was prophetic about our time in the flow of a Judeo-Christian history that seems so fractured. Carl Sanburg, that great poet and historian on the life of Lincoln, had more than a few things to say about the subject and how words can be phrased in a way to promote the cause of social change. Friends, we all have different hopes and fears so our image of God responding to them is very different, but at some point, there needs to be a collective response so others might taste the bread of life and not waste the opportunity we have been given. Maybe with all the focus on parables I guess I should use more illustrations. So here is one from our Civil War from Carl Sanburg. “We trust the Lord is on our side, Mr. Lincoln,” said the speaker of a delegation of Christian people to that good man, during one of the darkest days of the American Civil War. “I do not regard that as so essential as something else,” replied Mr. Lincoln. The worthy visitors looked horror-struck, until the President added: “I am most concerned to know that we are on the Lord’s side.” The right side is not my side or your side. The Lord’s side is the place to which every one of us should rally. His banner has right, truth, love, and holiness written on it. Be sure you stand up for God’s banner, even if you stand alone.So, Are You Rising To The Occasion Of The Presence Of The Kingdom Of God To Be On The Lord’s Side?
Scripture: Thus said the Lord to me, “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth, and put it on your loins, but do not dip it in water.” So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the Lord, and put it on my loins. And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, “Take the loincloth that you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.” So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me. And after many days the Lord said to me, “Go now to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. But now the loincloth was ruined; it was good for nothing. Then the word of the Lord came to me: Thus says the Lord: Just so I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. For as the loincloth clings to one’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord, in order that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. But they would not listen.
Jeremiah 13:1-11 (NRSV)
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.”
Matthew 13:31-35 (NRSV)
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. “Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
Matthew 13:44-52 (NRSV)
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
Matthew 12:30 (NRSV)
Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.
I Peter 1:22 (NRSV)
Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain, carrying the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, tablets that were written on both sides, written on the front and on the back. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” But he said, “It is not the sound made by victors, or the sound made by losers; it is the sound of revelers that I hear.” As soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.
Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?” And Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, that they are bent on evil. They said to me, ‘Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off’; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” When Moses saw that the people were running wild (for Aaron had let them run wild, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him.
On the next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, blot me out of the book that you have written.” But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; see, my angel shall go in front of you. Nevertheless, when the day comes for punishment, I will punish them for their sin.”
Exodus 32:15-26, 30-34 (NRSV)
Message: One of the greatest questions in the Bible is found in Exodus 32. It is asked by Moses when he came down from the mountain with the ten commandments only to find the Hebrews worshipping a Golden Calf and behaving immorally. He was angry. Even Aaron was caught up in the action. Years later Jesus would warn that not everyone would be true and that if you were not with him, you were really against him. It makes one wonder who is really on the Lord’s side these days. Many religious people claim they are, but I am not sure it would stand up in a heavenly court. In the end, what we say, feel and think is not as important as what we do. In today’s twin parables, Jesus rebukes our cults of bigness and noise. He is announcing that the Kingdom of God has come into the world silent and imperceptible, like yeast and is summoning people to that Kingdom.We pray for it when we share the Lord’s prayer and marvel at it when we get glimpses of it but find it difficult to grasp. It is such an elusive thing, and few agree on exactly what it means for some of it is old and some of it is very new. We have different expectations and doubts. The Bible is filled with stories of captivity and exodus and partial restoration of Kingdoms in development. It has stories of separation for a purpose as well as dispersion into the world for a purpose as well. It has not exactly been a series of successes. There is so much failure of the people of God attempting through belief and practice to solidify the hope of the consummation of God’s purpose in the establishment of his Kingdom, it boggles the mind. The existence of the Kingdom frightens some people. However, today’s parables give us an answer to how we are supposed to respond during these bewildering times. And it begins with us acknowledging who we think Christ is and what he came to do and what we are called to do in response. Sure, most of the time we will end up being unprofitable servants but not always if we keep trying. In today’s scripture Jesus is giving us guidance about the Kingdom by connecting all the dots of the prophets with the law revealed in his life as a creation of something new but also honoring what is old. And it is this new thing, as part of a new covenant, sparked by the Holy Spirit that births a community of service and its holy function until Jesus returns. Perhaps that is why finding the Kingdom is like finding a treasure buried in a field. We are surprised by the meaning hidden beneath the surface. And as we discover and uncover it, it produces delight in the reality that scripture has been fulfilled in Christ but if blessed can be a catalyst for its growth in our sowing of seeds as well. Still, we wonder what kind of Kingdom is it that the Messiah has set up and how good and evil seem to grow together prompting us to wonder, what will be left… what remnant will remain. Friends, some things will be thrown away. Some things will survive the test of time. But what we do know is that the Kingdom cannot be separated from the King. Thankfully we have been invited to join in the joy of it all. So, when you sense it, realize that it is priceless to spend time with Jesus..
And So, the parables of Jeremiah and Jesus are in a special form that we need to understand if we are to get all the benefits they can provide. Parables are moral stories. They start off with a narrative about something that most listeners would understand, and it has to be something a little unusual, so it is memorable. Jeremiah physically acted out his parable. He puts on a pair of undershorts and wears them for a few days. Then he goes to the river and takes them off and stuffs them under a rock. After a couple of weeks, he comes back, and nature has taken its course. The shorts have been destroyed. But the meaning of any parable is always on a higher level. In Jeremiah’s story, God is trying to tell His people something about their relationship with Him. He is saying that their relationship is to be intimate. That is how close God was to His people, Israel. But because they refused to hear God’s word, stubbornly followed their own will, and lusted after the pagan gods of the land, God let them rot and then threw them away. It was their own fault that they were exiled to Babylon and Egypt. The parables of Jesus were often more subtle. In Jeremiah, there is a one-on-one relationship between the element of the parable, like the loincloth, and the element of the meaning, which would be the relationship with the people of God. In Jesus’ parables, we must read them as a snippet of learning, in this case about the Kingdom of God. For instance, when you take yeast and work hard to knead it all through the dough, the entire loaf then rises in ways the ancients could not understand. So, the kingdom of heaven grows, and it is a mystery how it does, given that so many are corrupt and incompetent. The thing is that the leaven does not work unless it is worked into the dough. Thankfully the Spirit of Christ is yeast in the world, and we get the opportunity to be His hands. So together these parables form an intimate reassurance and promise of abounding hope but also explaining the mystery of why Christianity must be in the world to change it. Friends, your life is precious for a purpose so realize that Jesus is the only sensible option in living it to the fullest. Be on the Lord’s side.
Pray we are catalysts for change and see history in the making with our own eyes. Pray for time when leaders yeast up and embody the American Dream but moreover Christ’s Cause because it balances freedom and responsibility. Pray that we as Lincoln prayed, perhaps sensing the relevance for us now, that ” In times like the present men should utter nothing that they would not be willingly responsible for time and eternity.” Pray that we cling to God in the process of rising to the baking of bread as the body of Christ for a holy purpose. Pray we perceive the possibility of the Kingdom of God, seek it out and make it our reality. Pray we have an intimate relationship with God that is not wasted. Praywe acknowledge Jesus as Lord. Pray we realize that the Kingdom of God’s power has already been released in the world and from its tiny beginnings a new age has dawned for those called to God’s purpose. Pray we realize that if we sow a field with seed, we can set in motion forces which one day will inevitably produce a harvest. Pray we are heirs to the promise. Pray we seek and find the treasure of Jesus. Pray we understand that we must still walk in faith. Pray we seek victory but not be discouraged if it is not fully accomplished in our lifetime. Pray we face without fear the will of God for us and realize that the Kingdom of God is connected to the power and glory of the Spirit of Christ in us. Pray that the joy of the Kingdom becomes a priority in our lives. Pray our hopes are realized. Pray our fears are relieved. Pray we read the signs of the times and seasons. Pray we always choose Jesus. Pray we delight in the discovery of the Kingdom of Love that exists beyond time.Pray we are not so easy to compromise our faith. Pray too that we not be so quick to judge by appearances and to blame others but be real leaders reflecting the truth in us. Pray we admit when we are wrong. Pray we not be afraid to tell others around us of Jesus, the way, truth, and life. Pray we stand up for truth when others are going astray. Pray we are doers of the word, not just hearers. Pray we realize that we are saved by the truth of Christ. Pray we are satisfied with the truth of Christ. Pray we are honest. Pray we follow through with our commitments in the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 