Losing Land, Finding Hope: A Harvest Festival sermon on exile and taking one step at a time

2 Kings 22:1-10, 14-20; 23:1-3

            The high priest, Hilkiah, comes to the secretary, Staphan, with a message: I have found the Instruction scroll in the Lord’s temple!” (2 Kings 22:8). This might seem like a very little thing, but it is one of the earliest accounts we have of people following written scripture. Apparently, the Bible—as it existed in those days—was hanging out somewhere in the temple for Hilkiah to find. What this scripture is we don’t know exactly, though best guesses suggest something like the 12^th-26th chapters of Deuteronomy, since the reforms that Josiah institutes are limited to that section of what became Deuteronomy.

            Josiah must have realized that he had only part of the law. He had to have known he was dealing with partial information, but he also had to start somewhere. He understood that it’s often better to do something with little information than to do nothing until you have a fuller picture. He took the next step. And today I want to talk about what that looks like for us on the day we celebrate and give thanks for the harvest of 2019.

            I was pleased to find that the commentary on Working Preacher for the scripture of the week was by Mark Throntveit.[1] Dr. Throntveit was the seminary professor who preached at my ordination, and at that ordination service (eight years ago this month), he talked about the lamps that burned in ancient times, citing Psalm 109:105, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” We have a pretty modern image of lamps, something with a halogen or LED bulb, i.e. something awfully bright. The headlamp that I wore while hiking for a month had something like 325 lumens, which was enough to light my way for thirty feet without much difficulty. But the lamps they were using in the ancient world were lit by candles. Their lamps weren’t anything like the lamps we use today, not even like the kerosene lamps used for generations before us.

            Dr. Throntveit was making the point that “Your word is a lamp unto my feet” only means that God’s word gives us enough light to get us to our next step. We can’t see even three steps ahead, just one. We have only a little light, which means we only ever see a very small part of the picture. We might imagine that what we see is all there is, but it’s really only a little view, hardly anything in the scheme of things. If we overanalyze and overexert ourselves, fixating on every detail about the little that we see right now, then it’s easy to forget what is anchoring us.

Welcome to Advent (because, let's be honest, December is Christmas)

Isaiah 5:1-7, 11:1-5

We have two readings today from first Isaiah that, like last week, move us from a God of retribution and judgment to a God of something more. I know this is hard to do in this season of holiday everything. Honestly, the radio station Kate uses at the coffee shop—a certain not-to-be-named one out of Grand Forks—switched to Christmas music on Friday… November 15—and we aren’t even remotely in advent yet! Nonetheless, you are already being bombarded by advertisers trying to tell you that Christmas is right around the corner, which makes it particularly hard to do the necessary work of putting ourselves in the sandals of people who didn’t have Jesus yet.

            In fact, this is the yearly ritual of Advent in a nutshell, but by the time we reach December it’s probably fruitless to pretend that Christmas isn’t coming, so what hope we have for a real Advent lies in November. Advent is about anticipation, but it is not a clear anticipation; it should be as if we are about to hear the Christmas story for the first time. Advent is the season in which we should all become children again, wondering and marveling in the mystery of what is coming.

            This is the mentality we need to bring to Isaiah’s passage about the stump of Jesse. The stump is dead, as stumps are. Jesse was David’s father, a nod to the lineage of the kings of Israel. That line of kings started with David, but now it’s dead. It’s a stump. Yet, Isaiah anticipates a shoot springing from the stump—a sign of life from a thing most assuredly dead. And what will this shoot do?

            Oh, just judge the poor with righteousness and work for the equity of the meek; he’ll merely kill the wicked, and embody righteousness and faithfulness. In short, Jesus is coming to turn the world upside-down—not reform it, not to tweak it. Jesus is coming to turn everything around. The funny thing is we think that sounds great. There is a reason that Isaiah and the other prophets talk as much about the coming judgment of God as they do about the grace and love of God. It’s both. It starts with judgment before it can ever move to grace. The advent of God coming into the world is the harshness of the law first, Gospel only thereafter.

God's expanding love

Hosea 11:1-9

Hosea 11 stands as a fulcrum on which the history of God’s love pivots. We who know Jesus may find ourselves less than keen to delve into the Old Testament because of the love of God we find there. After all, from the beginning, God’s love felt harsh. God loved us so much that he said “Don’t eat that one thing” not knowing, as parents do, that there is no better way to get our children to do something than to tell them it is the one thing they are not allowed to do.

From then on, God has a kind of quid pro quo relationship with the Chosen People. I am your God, I will give you land, and children, and a throne that endures IF you worship me. Through much of the Old Testament, God’s love is finite and dependent on a response. If Israel fails, then God’s love turns to rage, as in the Great Flood, as in Sodom and Gomorrah, as with many others. God’s love was a transaction with Israel as Chosen People.

However, with the prophets we begin to see hints of something more. God’s love doesn’t seem to be the same. Through scripture, we are presented with a God who changes. It’s the same God and, yet, the rules of the game evolve over time. Once Moabites were evil, but then there came the story of Ruth. Once Samaritans were impure, but then there came to the story of the Good Samaritan. God’s love, which once was bounded by human imperfection, begins to break through as we begin to see hints of the life we have in Jesus Christ.

Jesus changed everything. And, yet, it was a process that had already begun. Hosea gives voice to God’s love in this poem we read today, saying “My compassion grows warm and tender” even for a people who have failed and disobeyed. God’s love, which was once dependent on you getting it right, is now something different. In Hosea, we begin to see hints of grace—hints we cannot understand until Jesus.

Worshiping America (and other gods)

“So Ahab sent to all the Israelites, and assembled the prophets at Mount Carmel. Elijah then came near to all the people, and said, "How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him."”

It’s that simple, and it’s that hard. If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.

It’s hard because Ba’al might be a made-up god but Ba’al is certainly an attractive made-up god. In fact, you might say we have plenty of our own Ba’als to deal with in 2019. There is the Ba’al of wealth, the Ba’al of fame, and the ever-present Ba’al of power. There are plenty of gods out there.

If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Ba’al, then follow him.

It is tough to be a Christian in America today. I’ve heard people say that, and I agree with it, though perhaps not for the reason most say it. It’s tough to be a Christian in America because for the entire history of this nation the Christian faith has been tied to power. From the pilgrims establishing their New Jerusalem to Manifest Destiny and the accompanying Christian justification for slavery and genocide, it has always been a good thing to be a Christian in this country. That hasn’t really changed. It’s tough to be a Christian in this country not because Christianity is becoming oppressed or anything like that. Rather, it’s hard to be a Christian because a few hundred years of history has tied our faith to the concept we call “America” and Christianity is not a faith that weds itself to political power. The great idol of American Christianity is—and always has been—America, whose tenets of freedom have freed us toward allying our faith with power. The American ideal is our Ba’al.