God's Entrance
Commentary
Another cold, autumn Wednesday evening as the sun sets early and the church council gathers into the cool, musty church basement. As they sit on the plastic chairs surrounding two rectangle tables placed together, the pastor leads in prayer and maybe a Bible passage. The council president dutifully distributes the council agenda in front of all of the attendees. An older lady member was nice enough to bake some cookies and brew some decaffeinated coffee (so people are not kept awake at night) for those present. She reminisces about past times when the Sunday school classes were full of students. Now the reality of a barely existent Sunday school ministry is on the council agenda. The old business relates to property concerns, committee reports as well as the pastor’s report. New business entails ideas for the upcoming holiday seasons, approval of funds for the parking lot, electrical fixtures and sending money to the denomination for the latest natural weather disaster relief response fund.
As the council sits around the table, there is the harsh reality that a small Sunday school class, low church attendance and declining financial giving glares all people in the face, despite any new programs that have been attempted that were suggested by the denomination. The faithful stalwart, older pillar church attendees and financial givers have graying hair, if any at all. Their adult children have moved away from the area for better employment and education opportunities.
This is Pentecost season, the time the church still does its mission. So where is God? The budget struggles to remain either side of the magic black or red ink line-regardless of how it is “labeled” to be “Mission Money, Benevolent Ministry etc.” While there continues to be shared memories of the past on the walls and pictorial banners in the church basement, where is God now? Getting people to serve on council and any committee grows as difficult as a visit to a dental root canal. Finally, the pastor leads the church council in a closing prayer, followed by the Lord’s Prayer. There is a sigh of relief that this meeting is over for the month. The people chit chat about health, property and family concerns. Still, the pastor and council president see an older building with expenses and fewer younger people who have the zeal, gusto and excitement to do ministry. Such memories of new life are displayed in the large plastic covered black and white pictures of the charter members holding shovels in the ground breaking of this new sanctuary many decades ago! If there is ever a time, it is now when they need God to make an entrance. Each of the three texts today suggests differing ways God can make God’s entrance to any congregation in the year 2018.
1 Samuel 1:14-20; 2:1-10
A congregation is distressed that their midweek service has low attendance. It was implemented because some church members were complaining that their Sundays are too crowded with school activities for their children, and it was “family” day for some folks. So in efforts to be more invitational, the Wednesday service is a scaled down order of worship compared to the Sunday service. Meanwhile, downstairs in the same church, it is packed! The Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon Family groups meet there. These people are grateful for the church allowing them to use their basement. They clean up after the meetings and are very punctual in paying an agreed upon fee for use of the building. Is God entering the church in a new way? The 1 Samuel texts support the idea that this might be a way God is entering into people’s lives in a new way.
The text begins with a distraught, barren Hannah pouring her heart out in prayer to give birth to a son. She pledges to God that this son will be raised in a special way similar to the Samson story in the Book of Judges. Drinking was customary at this salvific service. She is so passionate that Eli the priest supposes Hannah to be drunk. He does give her peace, consoles her and promises she will bore a son who will be great man of God.
Eli’s sons Hophni and Phinehas have already disgraced the priesthood with sordid lives of impropriety with female worshipers as well as financial embezzlement from the treasury. God will now enter the Temple in a new way through the son whom Hannah will bear, that being Samuel (Klein, 11). Despite the desire to have a family lineage of successors to offices of Worship and Monarch, God seeks another family line. It creates as much tension as it did when Samuel would later anoint David to replace King Saul, while the current king remains alive.
Samuel, the son of Hannah, will be the true deliverer of Israel, rather than King Saul whom would be anointed as result of pressure from the people who rejected the tribal confederation model of rule. Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2:1-10 mirrors the praise for God’s deliverer by Mary in the Magnificat in Luke 1.
Some themes in this song and story include: God is holy and omniscient (complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things); has power to bring lives up from the dead (Sheol); works within history to complete saving acts; and can create something out of nothing (Hertzberg, 30-31). This is the God whom we worship as Christian and whose house of worship we bring our praise, sacrifice and prayer petitions.
Some directions I would preach here include: 1) What is “holy” for us today and how to we act upon it? Secular athletic events have symbols of power, and strength. What are those symbols in our sanctuaries? (Bible, altar, cross, lectern, pews/chairs, windows, banners). 2) Who are the Samuel people figures in our midst that are willing to explore other ways God is entering into our places of worship? 3) What songs of thanksgiving still have deep meaning for us as people of faith? For example, in my ministry rarely do I visit a funeral or funeral home where Psalm 23 is not on display in some manner of cards, plaques or blankets. For the church council in the opening illustration, the message should be heard and internalized is that “God is still acting in history. This God has a larger picture than what seems to be another dreary church council meeting. [Sources: Hertzberg, Hans W., The Old Testament Library: I & II Samuel, (Westminster Press, 1964); Klein, Ralph W., Word Biblical Commentary: 1 Samuel, (Word Books, 1983)].
Alternative Path
Why was Eli so willing to allow the priesthood office to be succeeded outside his family line? Later, King Saul of Benjamin, would not be so open to God working through another family lineage, that of David from Judah. Are there certain names, voices, matriarchs, patriarchs, whose names resonates with tradition and stability, while other names are seen as outsiders who are a threat to the current order? Why were King David and his family seen as restorable, but Eli’s sons as well as Saul’s family were not candidates for “restoration” back into their offices? This also gets to the topic of whose indiscretions get to be forgiven and the office holder receives another chance, while other names are forever associated with scandal treachery and corruption? [Source: Halbertal, Moshe and Stephen Holmes, The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel, (Princeton University Press, 2017)].
Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18)
Whenever any organization is on a plateau, or stagnant in growth, there might be a voice which exclaims, “Let’s go back to the old days!” Hebrews 10 says this would be a mistake. In the past the Jewish Christians relied on priestly sacrifices for sins on any number of weeks throughout the year. The priests stood up and were very active in their sacrificial actions. This new great high priest of Jesus as Christ has sacrificed once and for all, and is seated beside God like Psalm 110 suggests. Also, in the past a worshiper had to trust that the priest’s sacrificial works did erase guilt away. This high priest in Jesus as Christ fulfills the Jeremiah 31:31-34 text of a new covenant when God writes the law upon the people’s hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). The war against sin, which causes death, has been defeated at the cross by this high priest, who also rose from the grave.
A couple directions to pursue in preaching might be to explore what happens when the evil forces have lost and are now trying to take as many people down with them through deception and defeat. For example, the church in the opening illustration may well be doing the right ministries. They refuse to sell out their core values, and now are in a wait or Advent mode of their ministry.
Another direction might be to remind people that the “good old days” weren’t so good after all. People usually have a selective memory about the earlier times. Who could remember crowded churches without air conditioning, but rather metal blade fans on high speeds? Who can remember before disposable communion cups, how clean-up after communion was such a big job? Even though many church people may complain that clergy do not do enough visitations, these same people do not miss the old door-to-door salesmen who were hard to send out the door. In these times, there are boundaries to be respected enforced by both insurance companies and denominational offices.
The challenge that the entire Book of Hebrews brings to the table is how to creatively live out the definition of faith in a new and creative way in changing times? “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). In days when science fiction movies and books often present a dystopian future (a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding), rather than Utopia, the promises of God’s word contained in Scripture still stand. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). God is good for God’s promises of a second coming, final judgment and this high priest does sit down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12). Let us not take for granted that God does not remember our sins anymore. Sin is the cause of death. Therefore, this high priest has defeated death. This is good news for any night after church council, even all of the church’s problems are not solved tonight. God made his entrance through this high priest. [Sources: Johnson, Luke T., The New Testament Library: Hebrews, (Westminster John Knox Press, 2006); Long, Thomas G., Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Hebrews, John Knox Press, 1997); Smith, Robert H., Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament: Hebrews (Augsburg Fortress, 1984).
Mark 13:1-8
This text is a private consultation that Jesus gives to Peter, John, James and Andrew as he stands at the Mount of Olives, opposite of the Jerusalem Temple. This is one of the few texts in Mark’s gospel that casts the disciples in a favorable light. As the disciples look at awe and wonder upon the Jerusalem Temple, Jesus’ words of this “little apocalypse” might be frightening, but ultimately are intended to provide comfort to those who are faithful disciples.
Readers of Mark (dated around 70 A.D., C.E.) already know that the Roman General Titus has destroyed this temple (66-70 A.D, CE). The Temple was still having finishing touches of construction upon it in 61 A.D. (CE), as King Herod wanted it to be remembered for a long period of time. Jesus’ announcement of its demise signals the end of a time era when such symbols of Judean stability are destroyed. Wars and rumors of wars as well as earthquakes, famines and beginning of many sufferings occur in many ages in history. Jesus does not want his hearers to believe the end is coming near. He does not want believers to be deceived by false preachers who lead people astray with dates of the end, based on natural cataclysmic events.
Jesus will indeed return in his own time. Jesus’ words are reliable. God is still providing for his people despite any calamities such as the loss of the Temple or violence imposed by ruthless empires such as Rome. In this text, Jesus’ counsel is “beware…do not be lead astray” (13:5); “do not be alarmed” (13:7). The recurring theme throughout this discourse is that those who endure through the end will be saved. The themes of fidelity, faithful discipleship and avoiding idolatry, are also present in the Apocalypse of John the Divine in the Book of Revelation.
This text (Mark 13:1-37) is the longest uninterrupted discourse given by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. It is the conclusion of the Temple discourse began in Mark 11:27. There will be other Sundays to preach on its remaining parts of Mark 13 and its details. One preaching theme for this section might be that of birth pangs and the pain of something new coming out after the old era has been demolished. God’s entrance to the community is through the dying of new life while realizing it in other capacities.
In the opening illustration, are there some programs, ministries and areas the church is putting much of its financial and personal resources in that are now dead ends? Is it possible God is doing something new in the congregation, however many projects, committees and events simply have to be left to die so new ministry can be realized? For example, a church decides that monthly church council and committee meetings are tedious, fruitless and such business can be done just as easily either bi-monthly or quarterly. Maybe the harsh reality is that people like meal events the church puts on and they need to focus on how meals draw people together in terms of ministry.
Another example might be how one chapter of a person’s life is ending as another begins. A student had great memories while in school, but the job market is proving to be brutal as school loans are also coming due. An older person has to give up their driver’s license due to eyesight concerns, and now must rely on public transportation and the generosity of other people’s car pool efforts. Either this can be seen through a dim lens of dark sunglasses or through new windows of opportunity to experience the community around us. Just because many thought of constants or signs of stability disappear, does not mean this is the end. It could be a birth of new life to come. The person of faith is to continue to grow as a disciple. God’s word contained in scripture and the community of faith are there in some capacity to accompany any believer in any changing or ending time. Yes, there will be a second coming one day. Meanwhile God still provides. I prefer to use apocalyptic texts such as this one as words of comfort, hope and assurance of God’s plans which we do not fully see at this time in our limited locations of creation. God’s entrance accompanies painful birth pangs. [Sources: Black, E. Clifton, Abingdon New Testament Commentaries: Mark, (Abingdon Press, 2011); Boring, M. Eugene, The New Testament Library: Mark, Westminster John Knox Press, 2006)].
Alternative Path
What happens if God’s larger design entails people like us in church losing it all? Could God’s design entail losing our job, house, family, and even getting ill like the Book of Job? Some clergy wonder how much longer there will be congregations that can pay anywhere near a full time wage along with housing and medical benefits. If this is God’s design, how does one life out a faithful discipleship journey? The earth is not being destroyed -- per se -- but maybe those foundations or constants many Christians have come to rely on will be destroyed like the Temple finally was burned into rubble under Roman Emperor Titus. Yet, life goes on for the people of Judea as it must for us here in the year 2018. Rather than being “raptured” up out of the situation, we may find ourselves immersed in more turmoil, this time without the means of power and security we have relied on in the past. How does one build a faith community from scratch in this regard? [Source: Moloney, Francis J., The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary (Hendrickson Publishers, 2002)].
As the council sits around the table, there is the harsh reality that a small Sunday school class, low church attendance and declining financial giving glares all people in the face, despite any new programs that have been attempted that were suggested by the denomination. The faithful stalwart, older pillar church attendees and financial givers have graying hair, if any at all. Their adult children have moved away from the area for better employment and education opportunities.
This is Pentecost season, the time the church still does its mission. So where is God? The budget struggles to remain either side of the magic black or red ink line-regardless of how it is “labeled” to be “Mission Money, Benevolent Ministry etc.” While there continues to be shared memories of the past on the walls and pictorial banners in the church basement, where is God now? Getting people to serve on council and any committee grows as difficult as a visit to a dental root canal. Finally, the pastor leads the church council in a closing prayer, followed by the Lord’s Prayer. There is a sigh of relief that this meeting is over for the month. The people chit chat about health, property and family concerns. Still, the pastor and council president see an older building with expenses and fewer younger people who have the zeal, gusto and excitement to do ministry. Such memories of new life are displayed in the large plastic covered black and white pictures of the charter members holding shovels in the ground breaking of this new sanctuary many decades ago! If there is ever a time, it is now when they need God to make an entrance. Each of the three texts today suggests differing ways God can make God’s entrance to any congregation in the year 2018.
1 Samuel 1:14-20; 2:1-10
A congregation is distressed that their midweek service has low attendance. It was implemented because some church members were complaining that their Sundays are too crowded with school activities for their children, and it was “family” day for some folks. So in efforts to be more invitational, the Wednesday service is a scaled down order of worship compared to the Sunday service. Meanwhile, downstairs in the same church, it is packed! The Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon Family groups meet there. These people are grateful for the church allowing them to use their basement. They clean up after the meetings and are very punctual in paying an agreed upon fee for use of the building. Is God entering the church in a new way? The 1 Samuel texts support the idea that this might be a way God is entering into people’s lives in a new way.
The text begins with a distraught, barren Hannah pouring her heart out in prayer to give birth to a son. She pledges to God that this son will be raised in a special way similar to the Samson story in the Book of Judges. Drinking was customary at this salvific service. She is so passionate that Eli the priest supposes Hannah to be drunk. He does give her peace, consoles her and promises she will bore a son who will be great man of God.
Eli’s sons Hophni and Phinehas have already disgraced the priesthood with sordid lives of impropriety with female worshipers as well as financial embezzlement from the treasury. God will now enter the Temple in a new way through the son whom Hannah will bear, that being Samuel (Klein, 11). Despite the desire to have a family lineage of successors to offices of Worship and Monarch, God seeks another family line. It creates as much tension as it did when Samuel would later anoint David to replace King Saul, while the current king remains alive.
Samuel, the son of Hannah, will be the true deliverer of Israel, rather than King Saul whom would be anointed as result of pressure from the people who rejected the tribal confederation model of rule. Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2:1-10 mirrors the praise for God’s deliverer by Mary in the Magnificat in Luke 1.
Some themes in this song and story include: God is holy and omniscient (complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things); has power to bring lives up from the dead (Sheol); works within history to complete saving acts; and can create something out of nothing (Hertzberg, 30-31). This is the God whom we worship as Christian and whose house of worship we bring our praise, sacrifice and prayer petitions.
Some directions I would preach here include: 1) What is “holy” for us today and how to we act upon it? Secular athletic events have symbols of power, and strength. What are those symbols in our sanctuaries? (Bible, altar, cross, lectern, pews/chairs, windows, banners). 2) Who are the Samuel people figures in our midst that are willing to explore other ways God is entering into our places of worship? 3) What songs of thanksgiving still have deep meaning for us as people of faith? For example, in my ministry rarely do I visit a funeral or funeral home where Psalm 23 is not on display in some manner of cards, plaques or blankets. For the church council in the opening illustration, the message should be heard and internalized is that “God is still acting in history. This God has a larger picture than what seems to be another dreary church council meeting. [Sources: Hertzberg, Hans W., The Old Testament Library: I & II Samuel, (Westminster Press, 1964); Klein, Ralph W., Word Biblical Commentary: 1 Samuel, (Word Books, 1983)].
Alternative Path
Why was Eli so willing to allow the priesthood office to be succeeded outside his family line? Later, King Saul of Benjamin, would not be so open to God working through another family lineage, that of David from Judah. Are there certain names, voices, matriarchs, patriarchs, whose names resonates with tradition and stability, while other names are seen as outsiders who are a threat to the current order? Why were King David and his family seen as restorable, but Eli’s sons as well as Saul’s family were not candidates for “restoration” back into their offices? This also gets to the topic of whose indiscretions get to be forgiven and the office holder receives another chance, while other names are forever associated with scandal treachery and corruption? [Source: Halbertal, Moshe and Stephen Holmes, The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel, (Princeton University Press, 2017)].
Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18)
Whenever any organization is on a plateau, or stagnant in growth, there might be a voice which exclaims, “Let’s go back to the old days!” Hebrews 10 says this would be a mistake. In the past the Jewish Christians relied on priestly sacrifices for sins on any number of weeks throughout the year. The priests stood up and were very active in their sacrificial actions. This new great high priest of Jesus as Christ has sacrificed once and for all, and is seated beside God like Psalm 110 suggests. Also, in the past a worshiper had to trust that the priest’s sacrificial works did erase guilt away. This high priest in Jesus as Christ fulfills the Jeremiah 31:31-34 text of a new covenant when God writes the law upon the people’s hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). The war against sin, which causes death, has been defeated at the cross by this high priest, who also rose from the grave.
A couple directions to pursue in preaching might be to explore what happens when the evil forces have lost and are now trying to take as many people down with them through deception and defeat. For example, the church in the opening illustration may well be doing the right ministries. They refuse to sell out their core values, and now are in a wait or Advent mode of their ministry.
Another direction might be to remind people that the “good old days” weren’t so good after all. People usually have a selective memory about the earlier times. Who could remember crowded churches without air conditioning, but rather metal blade fans on high speeds? Who can remember before disposable communion cups, how clean-up after communion was such a big job? Even though many church people may complain that clergy do not do enough visitations, these same people do not miss the old door-to-door salesmen who were hard to send out the door. In these times, there are boundaries to be respected enforced by both insurance companies and denominational offices.
The challenge that the entire Book of Hebrews brings to the table is how to creatively live out the definition of faith in a new and creative way in changing times? “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). In days when science fiction movies and books often present a dystopian future (a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding), rather than Utopia, the promises of God’s word contained in Scripture still stand. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). God is good for God’s promises of a second coming, final judgment and this high priest does sit down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12). Let us not take for granted that God does not remember our sins anymore. Sin is the cause of death. Therefore, this high priest has defeated death. This is good news for any night after church council, even all of the church’s problems are not solved tonight. God made his entrance through this high priest. [Sources: Johnson, Luke T., The New Testament Library: Hebrews, (Westminster John Knox Press, 2006); Long, Thomas G., Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Hebrews, John Knox Press, 1997); Smith, Robert H., Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament: Hebrews (Augsburg Fortress, 1984).
Mark 13:1-8
This text is a private consultation that Jesus gives to Peter, John, James and Andrew as he stands at the Mount of Olives, opposite of the Jerusalem Temple. This is one of the few texts in Mark’s gospel that casts the disciples in a favorable light. As the disciples look at awe and wonder upon the Jerusalem Temple, Jesus’ words of this “little apocalypse” might be frightening, but ultimately are intended to provide comfort to those who are faithful disciples.
Readers of Mark (dated around 70 A.D., C.E.) already know that the Roman General Titus has destroyed this temple (66-70 A.D, CE). The Temple was still having finishing touches of construction upon it in 61 A.D. (CE), as King Herod wanted it to be remembered for a long period of time. Jesus’ announcement of its demise signals the end of a time era when such symbols of Judean stability are destroyed. Wars and rumors of wars as well as earthquakes, famines and beginning of many sufferings occur in many ages in history. Jesus does not want his hearers to believe the end is coming near. He does not want believers to be deceived by false preachers who lead people astray with dates of the end, based on natural cataclysmic events.
Jesus will indeed return in his own time. Jesus’ words are reliable. God is still providing for his people despite any calamities such as the loss of the Temple or violence imposed by ruthless empires such as Rome. In this text, Jesus’ counsel is “beware…do not be lead astray” (13:5); “do not be alarmed” (13:7). The recurring theme throughout this discourse is that those who endure through the end will be saved. The themes of fidelity, faithful discipleship and avoiding idolatry, are also present in the Apocalypse of John the Divine in the Book of Revelation.
This text (Mark 13:1-37) is the longest uninterrupted discourse given by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. It is the conclusion of the Temple discourse began in Mark 11:27. There will be other Sundays to preach on its remaining parts of Mark 13 and its details. One preaching theme for this section might be that of birth pangs and the pain of something new coming out after the old era has been demolished. God’s entrance to the community is through the dying of new life while realizing it in other capacities.
In the opening illustration, are there some programs, ministries and areas the church is putting much of its financial and personal resources in that are now dead ends? Is it possible God is doing something new in the congregation, however many projects, committees and events simply have to be left to die so new ministry can be realized? For example, a church decides that monthly church council and committee meetings are tedious, fruitless and such business can be done just as easily either bi-monthly or quarterly. Maybe the harsh reality is that people like meal events the church puts on and they need to focus on how meals draw people together in terms of ministry.
Another example might be how one chapter of a person’s life is ending as another begins. A student had great memories while in school, but the job market is proving to be brutal as school loans are also coming due. An older person has to give up their driver’s license due to eyesight concerns, and now must rely on public transportation and the generosity of other people’s car pool efforts. Either this can be seen through a dim lens of dark sunglasses or through new windows of opportunity to experience the community around us. Just because many thought of constants or signs of stability disappear, does not mean this is the end. It could be a birth of new life to come. The person of faith is to continue to grow as a disciple. God’s word contained in scripture and the community of faith are there in some capacity to accompany any believer in any changing or ending time. Yes, there will be a second coming one day. Meanwhile God still provides. I prefer to use apocalyptic texts such as this one as words of comfort, hope and assurance of God’s plans which we do not fully see at this time in our limited locations of creation. God’s entrance accompanies painful birth pangs. [Sources: Black, E. Clifton, Abingdon New Testament Commentaries: Mark, (Abingdon Press, 2011); Boring, M. Eugene, The New Testament Library: Mark, Westminster John Knox Press, 2006)].
Alternative Path
What happens if God’s larger design entails people like us in church losing it all? Could God’s design entail losing our job, house, family, and even getting ill like the Book of Job? Some clergy wonder how much longer there will be congregations that can pay anywhere near a full time wage along with housing and medical benefits. If this is God’s design, how does one life out a faithful discipleship journey? The earth is not being destroyed -- per se -- but maybe those foundations or constants many Christians have come to rely on will be destroyed like the Temple finally was burned into rubble under Roman Emperor Titus. Yet, life goes on for the people of Judea as it must for us here in the year 2018. Rather than being “raptured” up out of the situation, we may find ourselves immersed in more turmoil, this time without the means of power and security we have relied on in the past. How does one build a faith community from scratch in this regard? [Source: Moloney, Francis J., The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary (Hendrickson Publishers, 2002)].
