Learning hard lessons
Commentary
Arthur Clutton-Brock, who was for many years an art critic for the London
Times, wrote about his Christian faith in a book titled What Is the Kingdom
of Heaven? He tells a powerful story of his childhood.
He was out for a walk with his sitter, traipsing along a country lane. At a house just before them three children were romping through the yard, playing games, and laughing delightedly. They had climbed a small sycamore tree, gathering leaves and tossing them into the air. The tender branches from the top of the tree, covered at the time with blazing bronzed leaves, they broke off and carried them in a bundle like a bouquet of flowers.
When Arthur and his sitter passed by, the children ran out into the lane and danced about them. Then they presented the bouquet of branches to Arthur in a ceremony of great pomp. It was a magical moment of grace and beauty.
But for some reason, said Arthur, whether from fear or from pride, he refused the gift offered. He ran after his sitter and when they were shortly down the path he turned round to look at the three. He saw them standing in the middle of the road, faces suddenly dragging on the ground. The laughter was gone, and all the pretty flowers they had made were spilled around them in the dust.
Looking back on that moment Clutton-Brock said, "I felt, in that moment, that I had turned my back on the kingdom of God. Something had been offered to me in love, and I hadn't taken it!"
He also said that the sight of those three disappointed faces has haunted him all his life.
So it is with faith. The words we speak in testimony mean little until our feet carry us home. That is why Elijah ran to find God at Horeb, why Paul needed to finish the education of the Galatian Christians, and why Jesus completed the healing of the demon- possessed man with little further instruction. What we believe is written in a story penned anew each day. The test of our relationship with God is not the bent of our theology but the grace with which we receive flowers of the kingdom and the attitude we bear toward all those God has made to romp in it.
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Among the many interesting stories found in 1 Kings, few are as intriguing as the personalized antagonism between the prophet Elijah and the reigning team of Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 17-21). Several general things are helpful in understanding how this combatative becomes focused here in chapter 21. First, it is important to remember that there is a chain of leadership throughout the Old Testament that passes from Moses to Joshua to the elders to the judges (the last of whom is Samuel) to the kings and finally to the prophets. Moses and Joshua embodied the mediatorial relationship between God and Israel in a unique way. In his last years, Joshua passed the torch to the Elders who were the clan leaders throughout the nation (Joshua 24). The elders nurtured an ongoing relationship between the people and God by way of the Sinai Covenant dynamics. Once that generation died, however, a collective amnesia settled over the nation, bringing terror and judgment punctuated with grace and restoration only on the few occasions when flawed judges were "raised up."
Samuel was seen as the last of these, because during his life the Israelites demanded a king. Against his will, but affirmed in the course by God, Samuel anointed first Saul, and then later David, to the royal office. Saul began to rule well, endowed with the divine Spirit, but disobedience chased that relationship away, and David became the next great hope. The years of David's and Solomon's reigns were the apogee of Israelite covenant/kingdom theocracy. But when Solomon's silly son Rehoboam frittered away the dignity of the monarchy, the nation was divided. At this point the prophets entered the scene, divinely appointed to serve as stand-in leaders for the spiritually abdicating kings. It is precisely this point that is at stake in the conflict between Elijah and Ahab -- who serves legitimately in leading the nation, and from where does that authority derive?
Second, the stories of kings make it very clear that this is no objective history, but rather prophetic instruction. Historians and archaeologists have made it clear that Ahab's father Omri was a huge political power in the ancient Near East. Omri's influence extended far beyond Israel's borders, and the nation itself was identified in other royal records as "the House of Omri." One would never know this from the Bible, however, where the tale of Omri is lightly dismissed in only seven verses (1 Kings 16:22-28). Whatever appears on these pages is religiously and morally weighted instruction, viewing human interaction through the spectacles of heaven. So, no matter how expansive the reign of Omri might have been, or whatever good might have been displayed through Ahab's political directions, these lives were judged harshly because of the way that they ignored the Sinai Covenant and the God who initiated it. This is important for interpreting the story of Ahab, Jezebel, and Naboth with his vineyards. The tale has little political significance, but it is highly instructive with regard to the religious character of the nation.
Third, there is a strong suggestion throughout the stories of Ahab and Elijah that the real opponents are Jezebel and Elijah. Even their names reflect this combatative stance: "Elijah" means "My God is Yahweh," while "Jezebel" is best interpreted as "Where is the prince?" Elijah acted on behalf of the God of Israel's covenant identity, while Jezebel's very character insured that no man (prince) and certainly no god would press any authority into her sphere of influence. She is the leading figure in robbing Israel of its religious heritage and replacing it with a fertility-centered magic that is more controlled by humans than humans are subservient to it. This tension between Elijah and Jezebel shows up strongly in 1 Kings 18, for Jezebel brings in an establishment religion diametrically opposed to that which lies at the root of Israel's historic religious identity.
This, then, brings us to the critical issue at stake in 1 Kings 19. Elijah had just staged a showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in which the central issue was the question of power over both the elements of nature and the allegiance of Israel. The chorus of Israelite voices affirmed their commitment to Yahweh, and the royal religious establishment was destroyed. Jezebel, of course, was very displeased, even though both fool and famous could see that her prophets wielded no authority, and Yahweh was clearly in control of the elements of nature.
But sense and sensibility were not Jezebel's strong suit. She only knew that her pet priests would not be available to stroke her power-hungry ego (Baal worship emphasized seizing the powers available and making them work for you). Now she swore an oath of vengeance against Elijah. By tomorrow he would be dead.
There are a number of things to take note of as the tale of 1 Kings 19 unfolds. First, Elijah is obviously exhausted, and when the emotional batteries are dead, every challenge becomes a personal crisis. Second, although the journey of Elijah may seem strangely long and misdirected (why bypass Jerusalem and flee all the way south through the barren wilderness?), the logic is inscrutable. Elijah is heading for the place where God twice showed up to Moses, first in the personal encounter through the burning bush and then in the Sinai covenant-making ceremony with Israel. Elijah ("My God is Yahweh") is looking for God where God previously showed up in power.
Third, there is a pleasant and thoughtful kindness about the way in which God makes space for Elijah. He is given food he did not have to prepare. He is guarded through a sleep marathon that restores his general psyche. He is even affirmed in his flight plan to distant places. Though God is able to guard and speak through Elijah even in the danger zone of Jezebel's back porch, God recognizes and affirms Elijah's human need. He can "run and not be afraid," to paraphrase and adapt the famous verse from Isaiah 40.
Fourth, God's "cure" for Elijah's deep (and nearly suicidal) depression is creative and tender. He is protected from the blazing displays of divine power. He is quietly invited to consider his situation and need. He is offered the hopeful meaning of small and measurable tasks to accomplish. He is assured of shared significance in his fundamental religious outlook. He is placed in a community of care and given the encouraging camaraderie of a supportive friend.
We can live up to forty days without food. We can survive up to ten days without water. We can continue living for about three minutes without oxygen. But we cannot thrive a second without hope. In the tough leadership lessons of personal and spiritual combat with Ahab and Jezebel over the soul of the nation, Elijah helps us see ourselves in the tough and tender care of the God of battlefields and the blues.
Galatians 3:23-29
This is the earliest of Paul's New Testament letters, written in late 48 or early 49 AD, shortly before the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. Paul and Barnabas had recently completed the first Christian missionary journey (Acts 13-14), and were deeply emotionally invested in the young Christian congregations that had begun in a number of cities in south central Asia Minor. They had returned to their home base of operations, the western Roman regional capital city of Antioch. But through personal contacts and reports from travelers they were able to monitor the developments in these newly forming and expanding churches.
A quickly emerging issue that threatened nearly all of them was the growing tension between the lifestyle and practices of Gentile believers in contrast with the highly ritualized behaviors of the Jewish believers. Gentiles who were enjoying the excitement of confidence related to their new understanding of human worth as affirmed through the resurrection of Jesus seemed to be living on the edge of moral license. Messianic Jews, on the other hand, seemed to take the news of Jesus' coming and identity as a call to more devout living and channeled it through tenacious expressions of Pharisaic ritual observances. The end product was polarizing these Christian communities into extremes of license and legalism, each of which subverted the gospel by calling attention to behaviors over against beliefs.
Paul steers a middle course through this muddle, chastising those who would seek to find religious fulfillment in ritualized practices, and warning others against the destructive ends of thoughtless immoral experimentation. The eschatological morality rooted in a personalized redemption (see Galatians 2:20) precedes any codes of ceremonial conduct that might reflect it but cannot create it. At the same time, this union with Christ presupposed an ethical lifestyle that demands certain behaviors that are not the source of the relationship but its natural outgrowth.
All these ideas come together in the short passage of today's lectionary reading. The law is an external force, like a babysitter or tutor or elementary school teacher, each of whom keeps the children safe and helps them understand the parameters of the world and pushes them toward more mature expressions of life. But the children need to grow up and assert their human independence. So it is for maturing religious faith. This is the point of Paul's wonderful words in verses 26-29. From all races, genders, and civilizations, the children grow up when Jesus becomes their primary companion. This is a friendship that changes everything else for the better.
Luke 8:26-39
During my college years, I had one semester in which a variety of circumstances seemed to conspire against me. It was a very difficult time, and late one night I shared some of my fears and frustrations with my parents. They listened well and prayed much. Soon a letter appeared in the mail containing a kind note from my mother, along with a recipe card on which she had copied Grant Tuller's insightful poem:
My life is but a weaving between my God and me.
I do not choose the colors; He worketh steadily.
Oft times He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper-, and I the under-side.
Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas and explain the reasons why
The dark threads are as needful in a skillful weaver's hand
As the threads of gold and silver, in the pattern he has planned.
Although my colleagues have often debated several points of Tuller's theology, his verse has traveled with me as a warm and helpful friend. None of us sneaks through life without brushes with pain, tastes of troubles, or dabbles in difficulties. During our darker times we need hooks of faith on which to hang our wilting souls, and Tuller provides these with homespun grace.
The demon-possessed man in today's passage was well aware of both sunshine success and fogged failure. He had treated his family and his neighbors to extended expressions of his maddening behaviors. In fits of mania and valleys of roaring depression, his life burbled often with both pain and outrageous acts of energized bad behavior. In this passage both become tamed and focused as Jesus helps him slide from entropy to ecstasy. Finally he ended up gushing platitudes and sagacious reflections not unlike those of Tuller.
While this man's cruel wildness exceeded the worst most of us have to face in life, when he found his sanity restored he could have been writing a journal entry for any of us. We all thrill at the first spiritually charged release from guilt or bondage that lingers longer than a passing glance, but is too steamed with hyper-emotionalism to bear long. We find our days energized as we tell the stories of our restoration or reformation or recovery, and our nights are even better because of restful dreams. When we succeed, we testify to the goodness of our God who carries us along on the currents of victory.
But life goes on for everyone, and along with this tamed and whole man there are also the wimpy pages in our diaries when days pass without a note, and those that finally appear are short and tear-stained. Sickness. Lost opportunities. Foolish mistakes. Broken promises. In an instant the balloon is burst, the energy sapped, and the darkness is our closest friend.
What do we say then? How do we get by?
Perhaps, with the famous suffering Job, we need to be reminded that not all suffering comes from God, but also that no suffering is beyond God's care. Perhaps, with the saints of Bible times and the ages of the church, we need to claim a larger perspective that prevents us from getting stuck too long in the "slough of despond," where John Bunyan had his hero mired for a time in The Pilgrim's Progress.
Today may be the best day of your life; it won't be the last. Tonight might be an inch short of hopeless; it won't last, either. Whatever has brought you to this moment is only part of the story of your life and relationship. The rest is yet to come, and only in the telling of it all is the truth. God's truth. This is the message Jesus taught the haunted man of Galilee. This is also the instruction those who used him as a scapegoat for their own deficiencies needed to learn. Jesus shakes things up, socially, medically, economically. For that reason we need to keep our eye on the larger weaving of all the strands in the hand of the master designer.
Application
The haunting of our lives is the gap between what we know to be truly significant and our own actions that betray days lived by secondary values and systems. A psychiatry textbook once carried this story of dissonance. A young lad with a rather evil temperament had met with every act of discipline his parents and school could mete. Still he rebelled and worked his cruel schemes.
One summer's day, playing with the little dog that he had recently come to enjoy, he tried to teach the puppy a new trick. The afternoon was hot, the dog tired, and the boy impatient. When it failed to understand his commands, the lad lashed out with his foot, kicking it in the mouth until it bled. Puzzled and bewildered, the dog crawled back to him, big brown eyes questioning in love. One front leg was broken. Still it humped its way to the boy's leg, and reached up a shaking paw. With a bleeding nose it sniffed at his arm and whimpered as it tried to lick his hand.
The boy broke. He jumped to his feet and ran to the house blinded by tears. Sobbing in fits he threw himself into his mother's arms, repeating over and over, "I have done an awful thing!" Like Israel under Elijah's passionate leadership, he was haunted into repentance. This is also where Paul hoped the ones who were leading the Galatian Christians astray would find themselves when they came to their senses, and the shelter that finally gave peace to the man released from demon possession by Jesus.
Alternative Application
Galatians 3:23-29. Paul's letter to the Galatian Christians is passionate, poignant, and practical. There are so many immediate applications to be drawn from even the few short verses of today's epistle reading that it requires the least amount of background work to energize for your congregation. Some time could be spent on giving the interesting background to the problems of divisions in the community, some to the problems of both legalism and license, and the rest to the great energizing blessing of liberty in Jesus Christ.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalms 42 and 43
Thirst is a powerful thing. In a society where few ever go thirsty it's a difficult concept to embrace. Even though millions of people around the globe suffer from thirst, abundant and potable water is a blessing for most people in the United States. Think, though, about falling asleep with the mouth wide open. Then imagine awakening to a dry and parched tongue. The first thing that happens is a run to the bathroom for a quick glass of water. How good that water feels as it courses down the throat. This is a peek into the reality of thirst. It is a sense of absence of moisture, a dryness, a brittle parchment of flesh that yearns for water: This is thirst. This is the kind of thirst that humanity has for the Holy.
There is a deep unmet yearning for a connection with God that is somehow built into the human spirit. It even visits those who deny God's existence. It is as though someone is in the desert without water for a number of days, and stands swaying in the sun denying the existence of water. Within the human heart lives a desire for a refuge that represents a complete safety that is unavailable in most other corridors of life. There is a longing for something that completes and fulfills. This something is God.
God is missing in the lives of so many that it is not an easy thing to ponder. It is especially difficult when God seems to go missing in the lives of those who claim to believe in (him).
When tragedy strikes or bad luck turns terrible, believers wonder about this God of refuge. When injustice rears its contorted face or when implacable systems quash the human spirit, those who claim God find themselves despairing of God's presence.
Yet, it is precisely into these fractured moments that God reaches to find us. It is into the turmoil of brokenness and grief that God's healing wonder seeps. This is why the psalmist does not abandon prayers of praise, even though the enemy is at the gates. This is why the trust and hope in the Holy is never withdrawn, even when oppression grinds the soul into dust and tears.
There will be moments, days, perhaps even years when it feels as though God has, as the young folk say, "blown us off." But it is in this darkness, in the crisis time, in the midst of mourning that the dawn of the Holy shines forth.
It is not for nothing that down the years we learn that it is only through the cross that we find the resurrection.
He was out for a walk with his sitter, traipsing along a country lane. At a house just before them three children were romping through the yard, playing games, and laughing delightedly. They had climbed a small sycamore tree, gathering leaves and tossing them into the air. The tender branches from the top of the tree, covered at the time with blazing bronzed leaves, they broke off and carried them in a bundle like a bouquet of flowers.
When Arthur and his sitter passed by, the children ran out into the lane and danced about them. Then they presented the bouquet of branches to Arthur in a ceremony of great pomp. It was a magical moment of grace and beauty.
But for some reason, said Arthur, whether from fear or from pride, he refused the gift offered. He ran after his sitter and when they were shortly down the path he turned round to look at the three. He saw them standing in the middle of the road, faces suddenly dragging on the ground. The laughter was gone, and all the pretty flowers they had made were spilled around them in the dust.
Looking back on that moment Clutton-Brock said, "I felt, in that moment, that I had turned my back on the kingdom of God. Something had been offered to me in love, and I hadn't taken it!"
He also said that the sight of those three disappointed faces has haunted him all his life.
So it is with faith. The words we speak in testimony mean little until our feet carry us home. That is why Elijah ran to find God at Horeb, why Paul needed to finish the education of the Galatian Christians, and why Jesus completed the healing of the demon- possessed man with little further instruction. What we believe is written in a story penned anew each day. The test of our relationship with God is not the bent of our theology but the grace with which we receive flowers of the kingdom and the attitude we bear toward all those God has made to romp in it.
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Among the many interesting stories found in 1 Kings, few are as intriguing as the personalized antagonism between the prophet Elijah and the reigning team of Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 17-21). Several general things are helpful in understanding how this combatative becomes focused here in chapter 21. First, it is important to remember that there is a chain of leadership throughout the Old Testament that passes from Moses to Joshua to the elders to the judges (the last of whom is Samuel) to the kings and finally to the prophets. Moses and Joshua embodied the mediatorial relationship between God and Israel in a unique way. In his last years, Joshua passed the torch to the Elders who were the clan leaders throughout the nation (Joshua 24). The elders nurtured an ongoing relationship between the people and God by way of the Sinai Covenant dynamics. Once that generation died, however, a collective amnesia settled over the nation, bringing terror and judgment punctuated with grace and restoration only on the few occasions when flawed judges were "raised up."
Samuel was seen as the last of these, because during his life the Israelites demanded a king. Against his will, but affirmed in the course by God, Samuel anointed first Saul, and then later David, to the royal office. Saul began to rule well, endowed with the divine Spirit, but disobedience chased that relationship away, and David became the next great hope. The years of David's and Solomon's reigns were the apogee of Israelite covenant/kingdom theocracy. But when Solomon's silly son Rehoboam frittered away the dignity of the monarchy, the nation was divided. At this point the prophets entered the scene, divinely appointed to serve as stand-in leaders for the spiritually abdicating kings. It is precisely this point that is at stake in the conflict between Elijah and Ahab -- who serves legitimately in leading the nation, and from where does that authority derive?
Second, the stories of kings make it very clear that this is no objective history, but rather prophetic instruction. Historians and archaeologists have made it clear that Ahab's father Omri was a huge political power in the ancient Near East. Omri's influence extended far beyond Israel's borders, and the nation itself was identified in other royal records as "the House of Omri." One would never know this from the Bible, however, where the tale of Omri is lightly dismissed in only seven verses (1 Kings 16:22-28). Whatever appears on these pages is religiously and morally weighted instruction, viewing human interaction through the spectacles of heaven. So, no matter how expansive the reign of Omri might have been, or whatever good might have been displayed through Ahab's political directions, these lives were judged harshly because of the way that they ignored the Sinai Covenant and the God who initiated it. This is important for interpreting the story of Ahab, Jezebel, and Naboth with his vineyards. The tale has little political significance, but it is highly instructive with regard to the religious character of the nation.
Third, there is a strong suggestion throughout the stories of Ahab and Elijah that the real opponents are Jezebel and Elijah. Even their names reflect this combatative stance: "Elijah" means "My God is Yahweh," while "Jezebel" is best interpreted as "Where is the prince?" Elijah acted on behalf of the God of Israel's covenant identity, while Jezebel's very character insured that no man (prince) and certainly no god would press any authority into her sphere of influence. She is the leading figure in robbing Israel of its religious heritage and replacing it with a fertility-centered magic that is more controlled by humans than humans are subservient to it. This tension between Elijah and Jezebel shows up strongly in 1 Kings 18, for Jezebel brings in an establishment religion diametrically opposed to that which lies at the root of Israel's historic religious identity.
This, then, brings us to the critical issue at stake in 1 Kings 19. Elijah had just staged a showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in which the central issue was the question of power over both the elements of nature and the allegiance of Israel. The chorus of Israelite voices affirmed their commitment to Yahweh, and the royal religious establishment was destroyed. Jezebel, of course, was very displeased, even though both fool and famous could see that her prophets wielded no authority, and Yahweh was clearly in control of the elements of nature.
But sense and sensibility were not Jezebel's strong suit. She only knew that her pet priests would not be available to stroke her power-hungry ego (Baal worship emphasized seizing the powers available and making them work for you). Now she swore an oath of vengeance against Elijah. By tomorrow he would be dead.
There are a number of things to take note of as the tale of 1 Kings 19 unfolds. First, Elijah is obviously exhausted, and when the emotional batteries are dead, every challenge becomes a personal crisis. Second, although the journey of Elijah may seem strangely long and misdirected (why bypass Jerusalem and flee all the way south through the barren wilderness?), the logic is inscrutable. Elijah is heading for the place where God twice showed up to Moses, first in the personal encounter through the burning bush and then in the Sinai covenant-making ceremony with Israel. Elijah ("My God is Yahweh") is looking for God where God previously showed up in power.
Third, there is a pleasant and thoughtful kindness about the way in which God makes space for Elijah. He is given food he did not have to prepare. He is guarded through a sleep marathon that restores his general psyche. He is even affirmed in his flight plan to distant places. Though God is able to guard and speak through Elijah even in the danger zone of Jezebel's back porch, God recognizes and affirms Elijah's human need. He can "run and not be afraid," to paraphrase and adapt the famous verse from Isaiah 40.
Fourth, God's "cure" for Elijah's deep (and nearly suicidal) depression is creative and tender. He is protected from the blazing displays of divine power. He is quietly invited to consider his situation and need. He is offered the hopeful meaning of small and measurable tasks to accomplish. He is assured of shared significance in his fundamental religious outlook. He is placed in a community of care and given the encouraging camaraderie of a supportive friend.
We can live up to forty days without food. We can survive up to ten days without water. We can continue living for about three minutes without oxygen. But we cannot thrive a second without hope. In the tough leadership lessons of personal and spiritual combat with Ahab and Jezebel over the soul of the nation, Elijah helps us see ourselves in the tough and tender care of the God of battlefields and the blues.
Galatians 3:23-29
This is the earliest of Paul's New Testament letters, written in late 48 or early 49 AD, shortly before the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. Paul and Barnabas had recently completed the first Christian missionary journey (Acts 13-14), and were deeply emotionally invested in the young Christian congregations that had begun in a number of cities in south central Asia Minor. They had returned to their home base of operations, the western Roman regional capital city of Antioch. But through personal contacts and reports from travelers they were able to monitor the developments in these newly forming and expanding churches.
A quickly emerging issue that threatened nearly all of them was the growing tension between the lifestyle and practices of Gentile believers in contrast with the highly ritualized behaviors of the Jewish believers. Gentiles who were enjoying the excitement of confidence related to their new understanding of human worth as affirmed through the resurrection of Jesus seemed to be living on the edge of moral license. Messianic Jews, on the other hand, seemed to take the news of Jesus' coming and identity as a call to more devout living and channeled it through tenacious expressions of Pharisaic ritual observances. The end product was polarizing these Christian communities into extremes of license and legalism, each of which subverted the gospel by calling attention to behaviors over against beliefs.
Paul steers a middle course through this muddle, chastising those who would seek to find religious fulfillment in ritualized practices, and warning others against the destructive ends of thoughtless immoral experimentation. The eschatological morality rooted in a personalized redemption (see Galatians 2:20) precedes any codes of ceremonial conduct that might reflect it but cannot create it. At the same time, this union with Christ presupposed an ethical lifestyle that demands certain behaviors that are not the source of the relationship but its natural outgrowth.
All these ideas come together in the short passage of today's lectionary reading. The law is an external force, like a babysitter or tutor or elementary school teacher, each of whom keeps the children safe and helps them understand the parameters of the world and pushes them toward more mature expressions of life. But the children need to grow up and assert their human independence. So it is for maturing religious faith. This is the point of Paul's wonderful words in verses 26-29. From all races, genders, and civilizations, the children grow up when Jesus becomes their primary companion. This is a friendship that changes everything else for the better.
Luke 8:26-39
During my college years, I had one semester in which a variety of circumstances seemed to conspire against me. It was a very difficult time, and late one night I shared some of my fears and frustrations with my parents. They listened well and prayed much. Soon a letter appeared in the mail containing a kind note from my mother, along with a recipe card on which she had copied Grant Tuller's insightful poem:
My life is but a weaving between my God and me.
I do not choose the colors; He worketh steadily.
Oft times He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper-, and I the under-side.
Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas and explain the reasons why
The dark threads are as needful in a skillful weaver's hand
As the threads of gold and silver, in the pattern he has planned.
Although my colleagues have often debated several points of Tuller's theology, his verse has traveled with me as a warm and helpful friend. None of us sneaks through life without brushes with pain, tastes of troubles, or dabbles in difficulties. During our darker times we need hooks of faith on which to hang our wilting souls, and Tuller provides these with homespun grace.
The demon-possessed man in today's passage was well aware of both sunshine success and fogged failure. He had treated his family and his neighbors to extended expressions of his maddening behaviors. In fits of mania and valleys of roaring depression, his life burbled often with both pain and outrageous acts of energized bad behavior. In this passage both become tamed and focused as Jesus helps him slide from entropy to ecstasy. Finally he ended up gushing platitudes and sagacious reflections not unlike those of Tuller.
While this man's cruel wildness exceeded the worst most of us have to face in life, when he found his sanity restored he could have been writing a journal entry for any of us. We all thrill at the first spiritually charged release from guilt or bondage that lingers longer than a passing glance, but is too steamed with hyper-emotionalism to bear long. We find our days energized as we tell the stories of our restoration or reformation or recovery, and our nights are even better because of restful dreams. When we succeed, we testify to the goodness of our God who carries us along on the currents of victory.
But life goes on for everyone, and along with this tamed and whole man there are also the wimpy pages in our diaries when days pass without a note, and those that finally appear are short and tear-stained. Sickness. Lost opportunities. Foolish mistakes. Broken promises. In an instant the balloon is burst, the energy sapped, and the darkness is our closest friend.
What do we say then? How do we get by?
Perhaps, with the famous suffering Job, we need to be reminded that not all suffering comes from God, but also that no suffering is beyond God's care. Perhaps, with the saints of Bible times and the ages of the church, we need to claim a larger perspective that prevents us from getting stuck too long in the "slough of despond," where John Bunyan had his hero mired for a time in The Pilgrim's Progress.
Today may be the best day of your life; it won't be the last. Tonight might be an inch short of hopeless; it won't last, either. Whatever has brought you to this moment is only part of the story of your life and relationship. The rest is yet to come, and only in the telling of it all is the truth. God's truth. This is the message Jesus taught the haunted man of Galilee. This is also the instruction those who used him as a scapegoat for their own deficiencies needed to learn. Jesus shakes things up, socially, medically, economically. For that reason we need to keep our eye on the larger weaving of all the strands in the hand of the master designer.
Application
The haunting of our lives is the gap between what we know to be truly significant and our own actions that betray days lived by secondary values and systems. A psychiatry textbook once carried this story of dissonance. A young lad with a rather evil temperament had met with every act of discipline his parents and school could mete. Still he rebelled and worked his cruel schemes.
One summer's day, playing with the little dog that he had recently come to enjoy, he tried to teach the puppy a new trick. The afternoon was hot, the dog tired, and the boy impatient. When it failed to understand his commands, the lad lashed out with his foot, kicking it in the mouth until it bled. Puzzled and bewildered, the dog crawled back to him, big brown eyes questioning in love. One front leg was broken. Still it humped its way to the boy's leg, and reached up a shaking paw. With a bleeding nose it sniffed at his arm and whimpered as it tried to lick his hand.
The boy broke. He jumped to his feet and ran to the house blinded by tears. Sobbing in fits he threw himself into his mother's arms, repeating over and over, "I have done an awful thing!" Like Israel under Elijah's passionate leadership, he was haunted into repentance. This is also where Paul hoped the ones who were leading the Galatian Christians astray would find themselves when they came to their senses, and the shelter that finally gave peace to the man released from demon possession by Jesus.
Alternative Application
Galatians 3:23-29. Paul's letter to the Galatian Christians is passionate, poignant, and practical. There are so many immediate applications to be drawn from even the few short verses of today's epistle reading that it requires the least amount of background work to energize for your congregation. Some time could be spent on giving the interesting background to the problems of divisions in the community, some to the problems of both legalism and license, and the rest to the great energizing blessing of liberty in Jesus Christ.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalms 42 and 43
Thirst is a powerful thing. In a society where few ever go thirsty it's a difficult concept to embrace. Even though millions of people around the globe suffer from thirst, abundant and potable water is a blessing for most people in the United States. Think, though, about falling asleep with the mouth wide open. Then imagine awakening to a dry and parched tongue. The first thing that happens is a run to the bathroom for a quick glass of water. How good that water feels as it courses down the throat. This is a peek into the reality of thirst. It is a sense of absence of moisture, a dryness, a brittle parchment of flesh that yearns for water: This is thirst. This is the kind of thirst that humanity has for the Holy.
There is a deep unmet yearning for a connection with God that is somehow built into the human spirit. It even visits those who deny God's existence. It is as though someone is in the desert without water for a number of days, and stands swaying in the sun denying the existence of water. Within the human heart lives a desire for a refuge that represents a complete safety that is unavailable in most other corridors of life. There is a longing for something that completes and fulfills. This something is God.
God is missing in the lives of so many that it is not an easy thing to ponder. It is especially difficult when God seems to go missing in the lives of those who claim to believe in (him).
When tragedy strikes or bad luck turns terrible, believers wonder about this God of refuge. When injustice rears its contorted face or when implacable systems quash the human spirit, those who claim God find themselves despairing of God's presence.
Yet, it is precisely into these fractured moments that God reaches to find us. It is into the turmoil of brokenness and grief that God's healing wonder seeps. This is why the psalmist does not abandon prayers of praise, even though the enemy is at the gates. This is why the trust and hope in the Holy is never withdrawn, even when oppression grinds the soul into dust and tears.
There will be moments, days, perhaps even years when it feels as though God has, as the young folk say, "blown us off." But it is in this darkness, in the crisis time, in the midst of mourning that the dawn of the Holy shines forth.
It is not for nothing that down the years we learn that it is only through the cross that we find the resurrection.
