God has a plan
Commentary
How many times are we told that “God has a plan”? A plan for your life. A plan for this earth. A plan for our nation. The trick, of course, is to align ourselves with God’s plan. We need to know God’s will. And as soon as we know what God’s will is, we have to follow it.
Who can argue with that? Well, the Bible can, for one thing. Consider the story from Exodus that is our Old Testament reading for today. Moses is following a God who sought him out, not the other way around. He has done everything God has told him to do: “confront Pharaoh; announce plagues to convince Pharaoh to let his slaves go free; organize those slaves; lead them out of Egypt and into the desert; then I will meet you and tell you what to do next.” But Moses had to go out and do the work. And God’s will, as in this story, is not so easy to discern. And the people have this tendency to forget what their life was like in Egypt. And they tend to blame Moses for everything that doesn’t go the way they think it should.
Even Paul doesn’t know God’s plan for him. He’s in jail, and he doesn’t know if he will go free or be convicted of undermining public safety. He continues to do what he has always done, teaching everyone who will listen about Jesus and what God has done in his own life.
And then there’s Jesus. Did his Father tell him to go in and destroy the market in the Court of the Gentiles? Was he supposed to terrorize the merchants and money lenders?
Was he supposed to arouse the anger of the priests and lawyers? Jesus himself must have been upset to curse a fig tree for not having figs when it wasn’t the season for figs. Was this a result of his fury at the elders for allowing the Temple to be “a den of thieves,” or was he dreading his imminent arrest? Surely Jesus knew exactly what God’s plan was. Right?
We need not feel bad when we can’t imagine what God has in mind. God is often inscrutable. And those who say they know exactly what God’s will is (or isn’t) aren’t usually right. But this does not excuse us from seeking God or building a relationship strong enough to enable us to go forward, knowing that the more we seek God and God’s will for our life, the more likely it is that we will be able to tell what God’s plan might be.
Exodus 17:1-7
In today’s passage, the Hebrews are in the Wilderness of Tsin (not “Sin,” as many translations put it, nor is it Zin as more modern translations write it1). The Hebrew does not mean sinfulness;the name comes from Syriac, and comes out of a root that means “shiny.” Therefore, scholars tend to put it between Sinai and the Gulf of Suez, in an area with highly reflective white chalk,2 similar to the Great Salt Flats in Utah. The Babylonian name for the God of the Moon, Sinu, contains the same root. We can also note the similarity between the names Sinu and Sinai. The Bible says that “the glory of Yahweh was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel” (Exodus 24:17). The crags of Jebel Musa (which means “the mountain of Moses” in Syriac) do indeed “glow as though with fire due to its red granite and pink gneiss rocks, long after the shadows have fallen on the plain beneath.”3
It must have been a spectacular sight for the Hebrews. Blinding, in fact. And hot, with the reflective white surface beneath their feet. In these circumstances, people need even more water than usual. God has been guiding Moses to lead the people through the wilderness by stages so that they don’t exhaust themselves. In between long treks, they would camp for a while to recover from the exertion. This is the way most desert residents live. And so they pitched their tents in the Valley of Rephidim.4
When travelling in a rocky and waterless area, it’s important to have a guide who knows where there are springs and pools. Moses is not as well-prepared in this way as the people expect. They think he should know these things, while Moses himself is relying on God. When the crowd becomes unruly due to their thirst, Moses goes to God. He also is complaining. “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
When I was attending seminary, our teachers frequently asked us to look to the future. “Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten?” I was not planning my future. In my denomination, the bishop appoints pastors to their posts, sometimes with little forewarning. We expect appointments to be made in the spring, but if an emergency calls for an immediate replacement in a church, a pastor might be called to a new appointment at any time. And we pledge to do as the bishop asks us. So I wasn’t making plans so much as waiting for a call. In this way, I identify with Moses. I had no idea what might come next, but I knew that God would help me through any transition. Like a faithful child, when the children of Israel got up in arms and started picking out likely stones for throwing, Moses ran to God.
His trust in the Lord was not misplaced. God tells Moses to pick out a few of the elders and go looking for a “rock at Horeb,” which they will know because Moses will see God standing on that rock. He takes his staff -- the one he had used in Egypt to announce each of the plagues -- and when he sees the rock, he strikes it with his staff. Water gushed out of the rock, providing enough water for all the people to drink as much as they needed,
The point of taking some of the elders with him was to protect Moses. The elders could attest that Moses did not have water put by, waiting for the people to be desperate before he slaked their thirst. Second, they must witness that Moses does not have this power within himself; rather, he needs God to lead him, and the staff that God gave him was what allowed him to provide the water. And third, when the thirsty multitude saw the water, Moses will not be trampled as they approach the spring. By the time the small group of elders could report back to the people, the spring would have cut a path across the wadi, and be large enough for the people to drink without crushing each other.
Many of our parishioners may wonder why Moses uses that walking staff to open the rock. Hitting the rock would split the wood before it opened a rock. It sounds as though Moses has a magic wand of sorts. This is absolutely true. Moses’ staff did have the power of God in it. The people of his time would think of his staff as magical, just as the Egyptians of Pharaoh’s court thought that the staffs of their priests contained magic. The main difference is that when we talk about a magic wand, we think of it as a magician’s tool to distract us while the magician plays some sort of trick on us. But in Moses’ case, his staff was not a trickster’s tool -- it carried the promise of the power of God working on their behalf. With the elders present, there are witnesses to what happened.
Next question: What does it mean, exactly, that God “will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb”? We can believe that this was exactly true for Moses. Exodus 33:11 says that “God used to talk with Moses face-to-face, like a man with a friend.” So, you may ask, did God show his face to Moses? We do not know. God’s presence in 33:11 is shrouded in a pillar of smoke which would touch down at the entrance to the sanctuary, so no one could see exactly what was happening at those times. But God’s appearing is not a matter of smoke and mirrors. Moses’ experience of God was unique.
Most people today think that if someone says “God talks to me from time to time,” that person must be crazy. And yet... I have a friend, John Sumwalt, who has talked with literally hundreds of people about their encounters with God. He has published books telling their various stories about these encounters. Some of us hear his Voice, others see a figure seemingly made of light, some hear music, some see angels. All of these people were rescued from some horrible situation -- an accident, domestic violence, debilitating illness, addiction, fear of losing a loved one, financial ruin. While God doesn’t always “fix” their situation, their stories show that God has been present in a palpable way for them. Once we have heard stories like this, we begin to understand that while our experience of God may not be as direct as Moses’ experience, there are many people who really do hear from God, even in our secularized society.
This is the point of this story: God is by our side, wanting good for us. Some of us may be stymied by our circumstances, afraid and despairing; yet God is by our side. We may think that the end of our life is at hand, but with God at our side we can face even death without fear. We may not see any way to see forward; we may feel abandoned; but if we know God is at our side, we know we can accomplish great things in the name of God.
Notice: Moses didn’t just pray. He prayed, got an answer, and as strange as the answer may have seemed, Moses did as he was told. He searched for a rock, and when he struck it with his staff, the rock provided water in a dry place. This is a pattern for every one of us. Go to God, cry out for help, and do what you hear God telling you to do. Do not hesitate, no matter how afraid you may be of appearing foolish or crazy. If Moses could get water from a rock, who knows what miracle is waiting for us?
Philippians 2:1-13
This is one of my favorite passages of scripture. It is a “letter of friendship” -- a common form in Greco-Roman society. It was written while Paul was in prison, as yet uncertain of his trial date or the evidence that would be entered against him. It is a personal, loving letter, expressing affection for those who comprise a congregation that Paul himself helped to start. Finally, it is a prescription for any group of people who are supposedly working toward a common goal, Christian or not.
Phillipi was located in Macedonia, and in fact was once ruled by Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great (356 BCE). It was also the site of the battle of Brutus and Cassius vs. Marc Antony and Octavian (later designated as Augustus). Paul arrived in 49 CE, during his second missionary journey (see Acts 16:1-40). He did so because of a “night vision” in which he saw a man of Macedonia asking that he come over to help them. Thus, Paul evangelized the first city in Europe.
Besides the very loving tone of this letter, it contains one of the most beautiful hymns in praise of Christ in the New Testament (vv. 6-11).
Paul has spent the opening of his letter catching up the Philippians on his situation. Not that he is in prison, they know that; but his hope for the spread of the gospel as a result of his arrest and imprisonment. Not too many of us would take the attitude Paul does -- being in tough circumstances, it’s time to preach the gospel to the other prisoners and the guards! But his effort in that direction is bearing fruit. None of these people had ever heard of the Christ, but they have now. And this gives Paul great joy!
Not that Paul ignores the difficulties this mission is up against. Sadly, as every seasoned pastor can attest, some of those problems have come up because of some people in the congregation. As every family does, Paul’s supportive Christian family has a few who think less of him, mostly out of envy. We can understand this -- Paul is forever on about his relationship with Christ, and what Christ is doing through him, the churches he has planted, and on and on. When you do that, you’re “asking for trouble.”
Even so, Paul persists. In the first chapter of Philippians, he has talked about those who preach the gospel with the hope of exceeding Paul’s zeal, or perhaps with an eye to increasing their own fame, or converting more people to join their church. But Paul says that’s all right, because either way the gospel is preached. He may be in chains, but those others are not, and the fact that they are stepping into the breach, so to speak, is expanding the good news into Roman society. His imprisonment means that others must take up his work. But it also means that there has been contention about who’s in charge, what most needs to be preached, and the clash of egos.
In this second chapter, Paul becomes eloquent in his own right: “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete.”
As we can see, Paul has begun with some poetry of his own, even before the hymn. The prophets of the Old Testament are almost always written in verse, and so Paul may be demonstrating his prophetic voice. He is certainly writing as an eloquent leader, even the father, of the church: “make my joy complete.” He is speaking as an apostle: “be in full accord and of one mind.” He is speaking as a representative of Christ: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.”
This is a word that resonates (or should) for today’s church as well. How many times have programs and plans become the purview of one faction or another of our local churches and pastors? How many ministry teams have become destructive rather than constructive because of personality clashes, or different visions for ministry? How many times have local congregations split due to differences of opinion? How many pastors have become jealous of the appointment of a rival to a “better” appointment, and how many of those so appointed have taken the attitude that they are entitled to tell others how to run their churches? How many times have cooperative program proposals been “shot down” due to jealousy or self-aggrandizement?
Paul does not address the worth of specific movements or opinions. What he calls for is a unity of attitude: “have the same love, be in full accord and of one mind.” It’s not that programs and theological disagreement fragment the church, it’s the need to be right, to have a vision that will overwhelm the opposition that turns us into contentious congregations and denominations. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.”
It’s never easy to see our best efforts go unappreciated. It’s never easy to see others get the promotion we think we deserve. That this is also true of pastors might surprise the people in our pews -- though not those who have filled leadership positions in our congregations. They have seen enough to know that our desire to have our services on the internet may be less our attempt to introduce others to Christ and more the pride of seeing and hearing ourselves on social media.
Paul’s words can soothe our envious souls, and remind us of the Founder of our Faith: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
Do we believe that Jesus was “in the form of God”? The Nicene Creed (rewritten in 381 CE) tells us that he was “Light of Light, very God of very God... being of one substance with the Father.” If we accept that this was the teaching of Christians from at least that date, what does it mean that he “did not regard equality with God was something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness…. And became obedient to the point of death”?
He could have come demanding our loyalty, could have led armies and taken political power, could have ruled by threat and fear. But he didn’t.
He could have come to run as president of the United States and waged religious war against all those who didn’t believe what he taught, making the U.S. ruler over all the earth.
He could have come to recruit soldiers to defeat the workers of evil forever.
Those offers were certainly made to him, according to Matthew and Luke. But Jesus refused the offers. Why? They did not agree with his view of what God wanted. He found himself “in human form” and humbled himself -- that is, he accepted his downgraded status, and humbled himself to living away from the glory of heaven.
Compare this to those who have achieved fame, money, and power in our world. How many top performers have crashed and burned upon achieving all that? We humans tend to love the roar of the crowd when they’re shouting in joy, especially if they’re cheering for us. Our pride in having parishioners tell us what a good sermon we have just given should please us, in that we have made plain part of the Truth that Jesus preached. But we tend to think of ourselves as the Author of our sermons, or at least want some praise for selecting the right words. How does that affect our sermons over the following three or four weeks? It’s hard to be humble when you’re on a roll.
Jesus, on the other hand, preached the hard stuff to the rich and the easier stuff to the poor and outcast. This is an annoyance to the rich, who don’t want to have their sins pointed out and wonder what this scruff of a preacher says to the prostitutes he hangs out with. They call him a glutton and a drunk, and finally arrest him and have him crucified. But what he preached to both the rich and the poor is still being taught (and sometimes with the same result), and we would not even know the names of those Temple authorities were it not for the story of Jesus.
And here comes the glorious part of this passage: “Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Paul ends this exhortation with a task: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you” to become what God has in mind for us. Paul doesn’t mean that what Jesus accomplished was not our salvation. But salvation is only the start of our journey, not the destination. We are called not to be born again, but to put our salvation to work in our lives. We are called, as Moses was called, not just to follow God, but to lead the way for those who have lost hope, who live impoverished lives, who suffer because they have no access to a doctor or the medicine that could save their lives and relieve their pain, who really do hunger and thirst, not just because they have no high-class snacks for this week’s game party, but because they have only a can of soup and a box of cereal in the house and no money to buy groceries. When we know that, we can go out and make changes to the world. We will not give in to the idea that we can make so little difference in a world that seems to be heading for Armageddon. We can take up our cross and follow Jesus, remembering the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who reminds us that “We are not called to be successful, we are called to be faithful.”
Matthew 21:23-32
This passage follows the stories about Jesus coming into Jerusalem at the start of the Passover festival. He rode in to the acclaim of the crowds. But then he drove out the cheats who sold lambs for sacrifice at an inflated price, who exchanged money from all the nations into temple shekels at an inflated rate, and tore down one of the curtains and used the rope tieback as a whip to make a great noise as he overturned their tables. He was so upset by all of this that as they came out of the city, he looked for a fig on a small tree by the road, even though it was not the season for figs, and cursed the poor tree, which according to Matthew shriveled on the spot.
No wonder the temple authorities came to him and asked: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” (v. 23).
This is the question posed to all those who would preach the gospel. “By what authority do you say this?” I had a man tell me that I was out of line in preaching about money, since Jesus never said anything about money. Clearly, for him Jesus had authority, and if I did I would be preaching in the same way he did. “Really?” I couldn’t help but say in return: “Have you never heard that Jesus said, ‘If you have two coats and see someone who has none, you must share yours’? How about when Jesus praised a woman for putting her last penny in the collection box, saying she had given more than anyone he had seen giving, because she gave away the last of her money? The Old Testament says in several places that we are to return to God 10% of what God has blessed us with, but Jesus says that’s not enough.”
The man was actually taken aback. “Well, I never heard any of that in church.” Although I was sure it had been preached, I was also sure he was telling the truth -- he hadn’t heard it.
We have the authority to preach when God has called us, and the church has recognized our call and approved us to pastor a portion of the flock. In some of our churches, the call has to be enhanced with advanced education. In others, all that is needed is that we have preached as called by a local pastor and the congregation approves of us. Sadly, there are thousands of churches who will hire easily, but will also fire their pastor for preaching the demands of God as well as the blessings. And there are others who will only hire a person with an advanced degree, but will not hold that pastor to preaching the good news; they want, as Paul puts it, someone to “tickle their ears,” that is, to say what they want to hear.
Jesus is up to this question, though. “I’ll answer your question if you’ll answer mine: Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”
He’d trapped them. They rejected John’s preaching, but the people loved John and came in droves to be baptized by him. If they said “from heaven,” they would be in trouble because of their behavior. If they said “of human origin,” they were in trouble because the people believed John was a prophet, maybe even Elijah. And they did not want a riot on their hands, especially during Passover when religious zeal burned its brightest. So they took the politician’s way out: “We don’t know.” Oh well, that’s different -- that ends that conversation.
Matthew follows this exchange with a brief parable typical of Jesus’ teaching.
“A certain man had two sons, one of whom, when asked to work in the vineyard that day said, ‘No, I don’t want to.’ ” But later he got to feeling bad and went out and did the work. Good thing, because Dad had asked his brother to do the same, and that brother said, “Sure, glad to, Dad.” But that young man then went off with his friends and didn’t follow through. So which one did the will of his father? It doesn’t take a genius to see that the sassy son actually did what his father asked. And Jesus said, “Well, if the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed John and you didn’t, who do you think will get to heaven first?”
Jesus has this way of telling stories and asking questions, rather than preaching and telling people what to do. It’s rather like an old-fashioned way of keeping a baby quiet for a while -- smear a little honey on the baby’s fingers and hand it a feather. It may get frustrated, but as soon as s/he puts those fingers in his/her mouth, the sweetness of the honey will soothe the baby. With a story, we will keep picking at it. It may frustrate us when an “answer” doesn’t come immediately, but the story will feed us even before we come to an understanding of it.
And when Jesus says things directly, it tends to make the authorities really angry. By the time of this story, however, Jesus is already on a collision course with the authorities. It is clear from his behavior in the Temple that his sharp comments recorded here will only go away when Jesus is gone. Therefore, they have laid plans to arrest and try him. The very next night, they will seize him. They have already bought one of his disciples to help them do it. Little do they know that his arrest and death are all part of his own plan.
1 The Hebrew letter stands for the sound “ts” as in “The Tsar of Russia.”
2 According to Bible Hub, an online site that provides geographic information about the Bible sites. The descriptions given here are from their article on the Wilderness of Zin (sic).
3 Ibid.
4 Rephidim means “to spread” and may refer to the fact that two wadi (dry river beds) meet in this place. When the winter rains come, the water would fill the gully and spread across the dry land.
Who can argue with that? Well, the Bible can, for one thing. Consider the story from Exodus that is our Old Testament reading for today. Moses is following a God who sought him out, not the other way around. He has done everything God has told him to do: “confront Pharaoh; announce plagues to convince Pharaoh to let his slaves go free; organize those slaves; lead them out of Egypt and into the desert; then I will meet you and tell you what to do next.” But Moses had to go out and do the work. And God’s will, as in this story, is not so easy to discern. And the people have this tendency to forget what their life was like in Egypt. And they tend to blame Moses for everything that doesn’t go the way they think it should.
Even Paul doesn’t know God’s plan for him. He’s in jail, and he doesn’t know if he will go free or be convicted of undermining public safety. He continues to do what he has always done, teaching everyone who will listen about Jesus and what God has done in his own life.
And then there’s Jesus. Did his Father tell him to go in and destroy the market in the Court of the Gentiles? Was he supposed to terrorize the merchants and money lenders?
Was he supposed to arouse the anger of the priests and lawyers? Jesus himself must have been upset to curse a fig tree for not having figs when it wasn’t the season for figs. Was this a result of his fury at the elders for allowing the Temple to be “a den of thieves,” or was he dreading his imminent arrest? Surely Jesus knew exactly what God’s plan was. Right?
We need not feel bad when we can’t imagine what God has in mind. God is often inscrutable. And those who say they know exactly what God’s will is (or isn’t) aren’t usually right. But this does not excuse us from seeking God or building a relationship strong enough to enable us to go forward, knowing that the more we seek God and God’s will for our life, the more likely it is that we will be able to tell what God’s plan might be.
Exodus 17:1-7
In today’s passage, the Hebrews are in the Wilderness of Tsin (not “Sin,” as many translations put it, nor is it Zin as more modern translations write it1). The Hebrew does not mean sinfulness;the name comes from Syriac, and comes out of a root that means “shiny.” Therefore, scholars tend to put it between Sinai and the Gulf of Suez, in an area with highly reflective white chalk,2 similar to the Great Salt Flats in Utah. The Babylonian name for the God of the Moon, Sinu, contains the same root. We can also note the similarity between the names Sinu and Sinai. The Bible says that “the glory of Yahweh was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel” (Exodus 24:17). The crags of Jebel Musa (which means “the mountain of Moses” in Syriac) do indeed “glow as though with fire due to its red granite and pink gneiss rocks, long after the shadows have fallen on the plain beneath.”3
It must have been a spectacular sight for the Hebrews. Blinding, in fact. And hot, with the reflective white surface beneath their feet. In these circumstances, people need even more water than usual. God has been guiding Moses to lead the people through the wilderness by stages so that they don’t exhaust themselves. In between long treks, they would camp for a while to recover from the exertion. This is the way most desert residents live. And so they pitched their tents in the Valley of Rephidim.4
When travelling in a rocky and waterless area, it’s important to have a guide who knows where there are springs and pools. Moses is not as well-prepared in this way as the people expect. They think he should know these things, while Moses himself is relying on God. When the crowd becomes unruly due to their thirst, Moses goes to God. He also is complaining. “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
When I was attending seminary, our teachers frequently asked us to look to the future. “Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten?” I was not planning my future. In my denomination, the bishop appoints pastors to their posts, sometimes with little forewarning. We expect appointments to be made in the spring, but if an emergency calls for an immediate replacement in a church, a pastor might be called to a new appointment at any time. And we pledge to do as the bishop asks us. So I wasn’t making plans so much as waiting for a call. In this way, I identify with Moses. I had no idea what might come next, but I knew that God would help me through any transition. Like a faithful child, when the children of Israel got up in arms and started picking out likely stones for throwing, Moses ran to God.
His trust in the Lord was not misplaced. God tells Moses to pick out a few of the elders and go looking for a “rock at Horeb,” which they will know because Moses will see God standing on that rock. He takes his staff -- the one he had used in Egypt to announce each of the plagues -- and when he sees the rock, he strikes it with his staff. Water gushed out of the rock, providing enough water for all the people to drink as much as they needed,
The point of taking some of the elders with him was to protect Moses. The elders could attest that Moses did not have water put by, waiting for the people to be desperate before he slaked their thirst. Second, they must witness that Moses does not have this power within himself; rather, he needs God to lead him, and the staff that God gave him was what allowed him to provide the water. And third, when the thirsty multitude saw the water, Moses will not be trampled as they approach the spring. By the time the small group of elders could report back to the people, the spring would have cut a path across the wadi, and be large enough for the people to drink without crushing each other.
Many of our parishioners may wonder why Moses uses that walking staff to open the rock. Hitting the rock would split the wood before it opened a rock. It sounds as though Moses has a magic wand of sorts. This is absolutely true. Moses’ staff did have the power of God in it. The people of his time would think of his staff as magical, just as the Egyptians of Pharaoh’s court thought that the staffs of their priests contained magic. The main difference is that when we talk about a magic wand, we think of it as a magician’s tool to distract us while the magician plays some sort of trick on us. But in Moses’ case, his staff was not a trickster’s tool -- it carried the promise of the power of God working on their behalf. With the elders present, there are witnesses to what happened.
Next question: What does it mean, exactly, that God “will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb”? We can believe that this was exactly true for Moses. Exodus 33:11 says that “God used to talk with Moses face-to-face, like a man with a friend.” So, you may ask, did God show his face to Moses? We do not know. God’s presence in 33:11 is shrouded in a pillar of smoke which would touch down at the entrance to the sanctuary, so no one could see exactly what was happening at those times. But God’s appearing is not a matter of smoke and mirrors. Moses’ experience of God was unique.
Most people today think that if someone says “God talks to me from time to time,” that person must be crazy. And yet... I have a friend, John Sumwalt, who has talked with literally hundreds of people about their encounters with God. He has published books telling their various stories about these encounters. Some of us hear his Voice, others see a figure seemingly made of light, some hear music, some see angels. All of these people were rescued from some horrible situation -- an accident, domestic violence, debilitating illness, addiction, fear of losing a loved one, financial ruin. While God doesn’t always “fix” their situation, their stories show that God has been present in a palpable way for them. Once we have heard stories like this, we begin to understand that while our experience of God may not be as direct as Moses’ experience, there are many people who really do hear from God, even in our secularized society.
This is the point of this story: God is by our side, wanting good for us. Some of us may be stymied by our circumstances, afraid and despairing; yet God is by our side. We may think that the end of our life is at hand, but with God at our side we can face even death without fear. We may not see any way to see forward; we may feel abandoned; but if we know God is at our side, we know we can accomplish great things in the name of God.
Notice: Moses didn’t just pray. He prayed, got an answer, and as strange as the answer may have seemed, Moses did as he was told. He searched for a rock, and when he struck it with his staff, the rock provided water in a dry place. This is a pattern for every one of us. Go to God, cry out for help, and do what you hear God telling you to do. Do not hesitate, no matter how afraid you may be of appearing foolish or crazy. If Moses could get water from a rock, who knows what miracle is waiting for us?
Philippians 2:1-13
This is one of my favorite passages of scripture. It is a “letter of friendship” -- a common form in Greco-Roman society. It was written while Paul was in prison, as yet uncertain of his trial date or the evidence that would be entered against him. It is a personal, loving letter, expressing affection for those who comprise a congregation that Paul himself helped to start. Finally, it is a prescription for any group of people who are supposedly working toward a common goal, Christian or not.
Phillipi was located in Macedonia, and in fact was once ruled by Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great (356 BCE). It was also the site of the battle of Brutus and Cassius vs. Marc Antony and Octavian (later designated as Augustus). Paul arrived in 49 CE, during his second missionary journey (see Acts 16:1-40). He did so because of a “night vision” in which he saw a man of Macedonia asking that he come over to help them. Thus, Paul evangelized the first city in Europe.
Besides the very loving tone of this letter, it contains one of the most beautiful hymns in praise of Christ in the New Testament (vv. 6-11).
Paul has spent the opening of his letter catching up the Philippians on his situation. Not that he is in prison, they know that; but his hope for the spread of the gospel as a result of his arrest and imprisonment. Not too many of us would take the attitude Paul does -- being in tough circumstances, it’s time to preach the gospel to the other prisoners and the guards! But his effort in that direction is bearing fruit. None of these people had ever heard of the Christ, but they have now. And this gives Paul great joy!
Not that Paul ignores the difficulties this mission is up against. Sadly, as every seasoned pastor can attest, some of those problems have come up because of some people in the congregation. As every family does, Paul’s supportive Christian family has a few who think less of him, mostly out of envy. We can understand this -- Paul is forever on about his relationship with Christ, and what Christ is doing through him, the churches he has planted, and on and on. When you do that, you’re “asking for trouble.”
Even so, Paul persists. In the first chapter of Philippians, he has talked about those who preach the gospel with the hope of exceeding Paul’s zeal, or perhaps with an eye to increasing their own fame, or converting more people to join their church. But Paul says that’s all right, because either way the gospel is preached. He may be in chains, but those others are not, and the fact that they are stepping into the breach, so to speak, is expanding the good news into Roman society. His imprisonment means that others must take up his work. But it also means that there has been contention about who’s in charge, what most needs to be preached, and the clash of egos.
In this second chapter, Paul becomes eloquent in his own right: “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete.”
As we can see, Paul has begun with some poetry of his own, even before the hymn. The prophets of the Old Testament are almost always written in verse, and so Paul may be demonstrating his prophetic voice. He is certainly writing as an eloquent leader, even the father, of the church: “make my joy complete.” He is speaking as an apostle: “be in full accord and of one mind.” He is speaking as a representative of Christ: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.”
This is a word that resonates (or should) for today’s church as well. How many times have programs and plans become the purview of one faction or another of our local churches and pastors? How many ministry teams have become destructive rather than constructive because of personality clashes, or different visions for ministry? How many times have local congregations split due to differences of opinion? How many pastors have become jealous of the appointment of a rival to a “better” appointment, and how many of those so appointed have taken the attitude that they are entitled to tell others how to run their churches? How many times have cooperative program proposals been “shot down” due to jealousy or self-aggrandizement?
Paul does not address the worth of specific movements or opinions. What he calls for is a unity of attitude: “have the same love, be in full accord and of one mind.” It’s not that programs and theological disagreement fragment the church, it’s the need to be right, to have a vision that will overwhelm the opposition that turns us into contentious congregations and denominations. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.”
It’s never easy to see our best efforts go unappreciated. It’s never easy to see others get the promotion we think we deserve. That this is also true of pastors might surprise the people in our pews -- though not those who have filled leadership positions in our congregations. They have seen enough to know that our desire to have our services on the internet may be less our attempt to introduce others to Christ and more the pride of seeing and hearing ourselves on social media.
Paul’s words can soothe our envious souls, and remind us of the Founder of our Faith: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
Do we believe that Jesus was “in the form of God”? The Nicene Creed (rewritten in 381 CE) tells us that he was “Light of Light, very God of very God... being of one substance with the Father.” If we accept that this was the teaching of Christians from at least that date, what does it mean that he “did not regard equality with God was something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness…. And became obedient to the point of death”?
He could have come demanding our loyalty, could have led armies and taken political power, could have ruled by threat and fear. But he didn’t.
He could have come to run as president of the United States and waged religious war against all those who didn’t believe what he taught, making the U.S. ruler over all the earth.
He could have come to recruit soldiers to defeat the workers of evil forever.
Those offers were certainly made to him, according to Matthew and Luke. But Jesus refused the offers. Why? They did not agree with his view of what God wanted. He found himself “in human form” and humbled himself -- that is, he accepted his downgraded status, and humbled himself to living away from the glory of heaven.
Compare this to those who have achieved fame, money, and power in our world. How many top performers have crashed and burned upon achieving all that? We humans tend to love the roar of the crowd when they’re shouting in joy, especially if they’re cheering for us. Our pride in having parishioners tell us what a good sermon we have just given should please us, in that we have made plain part of the Truth that Jesus preached. But we tend to think of ourselves as the Author of our sermons, or at least want some praise for selecting the right words. How does that affect our sermons over the following three or four weeks? It’s hard to be humble when you’re on a roll.
Jesus, on the other hand, preached the hard stuff to the rich and the easier stuff to the poor and outcast. This is an annoyance to the rich, who don’t want to have their sins pointed out and wonder what this scruff of a preacher says to the prostitutes he hangs out with. They call him a glutton and a drunk, and finally arrest him and have him crucified. But what he preached to both the rich and the poor is still being taught (and sometimes with the same result), and we would not even know the names of those Temple authorities were it not for the story of Jesus.
And here comes the glorious part of this passage: “Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Paul ends this exhortation with a task: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you” to become what God has in mind for us. Paul doesn’t mean that what Jesus accomplished was not our salvation. But salvation is only the start of our journey, not the destination. We are called not to be born again, but to put our salvation to work in our lives. We are called, as Moses was called, not just to follow God, but to lead the way for those who have lost hope, who live impoverished lives, who suffer because they have no access to a doctor or the medicine that could save their lives and relieve their pain, who really do hunger and thirst, not just because they have no high-class snacks for this week’s game party, but because they have only a can of soup and a box of cereal in the house and no money to buy groceries. When we know that, we can go out and make changes to the world. We will not give in to the idea that we can make so little difference in a world that seems to be heading for Armageddon. We can take up our cross and follow Jesus, remembering the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who reminds us that “We are not called to be successful, we are called to be faithful.”
Matthew 21:23-32
This passage follows the stories about Jesus coming into Jerusalem at the start of the Passover festival. He rode in to the acclaim of the crowds. But then he drove out the cheats who sold lambs for sacrifice at an inflated price, who exchanged money from all the nations into temple shekels at an inflated rate, and tore down one of the curtains and used the rope tieback as a whip to make a great noise as he overturned their tables. He was so upset by all of this that as they came out of the city, he looked for a fig on a small tree by the road, even though it was not the season for figs, and cursed the poor tree, which according to Matthew shriveled on the spot.
No wonder the temple authorities came to him and asked: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” (v. 23).
This is the question posed to all those who would preach the gospel. “By what authority do you say this?” I had a man tell me that I was out of line in preaching about money, since Jesus never said anything about money. Clearly, for him Jesus had authority, and if I did I would be preaching in the same way he did. “Really?” I couldn’t help but say in return: “Have you never heard that Jesus said, ‘If you have two coats and see someone who has none, you must share yours’? How about when Jesus praised a woman for putting her last penny in the collection box, saying she had given more than anyone he had seen giving, because she gave away the last of her money? The Old Testament says in several places that we are to return to God 10% of what God has blessed us with, but Jesus says that’s not enough.”
The man was actually taken aback. “Well, I never heard any of that in church.” Although I was sure it had been preached, I was also sure he was telling the truth -- he hadn’t heard it.
We have the authority to preach when God has called us, and the church has recognized our call and approved us to pastor a portion of the flock. In some of our churches, the call has to be enhanced with advanced education. In others, all that is needed is that we have preached as called by a local pastor and the congregation approves of us. Sadly, there are thousands of churches who will hire easily, but will also fire their pastor for preaching the demands of God as well as the blessings. And there are others who will only hire a person with an advanced degree, but will not hold that pastor to preaching the good news; they want, as Paul puts it, someone to “tickle their ears,” that is, to say what they want to hear.
Jesus is up to this question, though. “I’ll answer your question if you’ll answer mine: Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”
He’d trapped them. They rejected John’s preaching, but the people loved John and came in droves to be baptized by him. If they said “from heaven,” they would be in trouble because of their behavior. If they said “of human origin,” they were in trouble because the people believed John was a prophet, maybe even Elijah. And they did not want a riot on their hands, especially during Passover when religious zeal burned its brightest. So they took the politician’s way out: “We don’t know.” Oh well, that’s different -- that ends that conversation.
Matthew follows this exchange with a brief parable typical of Jesus’ teaching.
“A certain man had two sons, one of whom, when asked to work in the vineyard that day said, ‘No, I don’t want to.’ ” But later he got to feeling bad and went out and did the work. Good thing, because Dad had asked his brother to do the same, and that brother said, “Sure, glad to, Dad.” But that young man then went off with his friends and didn’t follow through. So which one did the will of his father? It doesn’t take a genius to see that the sassy son actually did what his father asked. And Jesus said, “Well, if the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed John and you didn’t, who do you think will get to heaven first?”
Jesus has this way of telling stories and asking questions, rather than preaching and telling people what to do. It’s rather like an old-fashioned way of keeping a baby quiet for a while -- smear a little honey on the baby’s fingers and hand it a feather. It may get frustrated, but as soon as s/he puts those fingers in his/her mouth, the sweetness of the honey will soothe the baby. With a story, we will keep picking at it. It may frustrate us when an “answer” doesn’t come immediately, but the story will feed us even before we come to an understanding of it.
And when Jesus says things directly, it tends to make the authorities really angry. By the time of this story, however, Jesus is already on a collision course with the authorities. It is clear from his behavior in the Temple that his sharp comments recorded here will only go away when Jesus is gone. Therefore, they have laid plans to arrest and try him. The very next night, they will seize him. They have already bought one of his disciples to help them do it. Little do they know that his arrest and death are all part of his own plan.
1 The Hebrew letter stands for the sound “ts” as in “The Tsar of Russia.”
2 According to Bible Hub, an online site that provides geographic information about the Bible sites. The descriptions given here are from their article on the Wilderness of Zin (sic).
3 Ibid.
4 Rephidim means “to spread” and may refer to the fact that two wadi (dry river beds) meet in this place. When the winter rains come, the water would fill the gully and spread across the dry land.
