Day 1471 - Searching for a Righteous Man

Psalm 80

Isaiah 7:1-10

Matthew 1:18-25

The Greek philosopher, Diogenes, searched fruitlessly for an honest man. His behavior was clearly eccentric but guided by the principle that any act one does in private without shame can be done in public. This idea is quite contradictory to the Christian ideal unless we also understand that righteousness should guide our inner activity, and hence, our external activity.

If we read the laments of Psalm 80 we find much in common with a lament for righteousness we may raise today, “Lord come and save us.” The words of the psalmist clearly show that the Hebrews have incurred the ire of God and are oppressed by neighbors and enemies, “You make us the scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves.” The psalmist says the Lord is not happy with their inner self, “How long will you be angry with your people's prayers? You have fed them with the bread of tears."Using honoroific descriptions such as "Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,” “O Lord God of hosts,” and “You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, he repeats the only pleas available to him, "Restore us, O God, Restore us, O Lord God of hosts,” and “Stir up your might and come to save us!"

The psalmist captures the depths of lament held in common by all of God’s children who feel abandoned or oppressed, yet ends on a note of hope for reconciliation, "Let your face shine, that we may be saved." These words parallel the great benediction of Numbers 6:24-26, (“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”)

Isaiah speaks to King Ahaz of Judah in a similar situation of hopelessness and despair. Although the history of King Ahaz is complicated by the differing accounts in 2 Kings 16 and 1 Chronicles 28, we do know Ahaz reigned in the time of threat by Assyria, Syria, Israel and Egypt. Although he may have only been trying to create alliances to save Judah, he does not present himself as an exemplary righteous king. His congress with the Syrians swayed him to worship and erect idols of Syrian gods in the Temple in Jerusalem indicating he had little confidence in the Lord's ability to save Judah but much confidence in the Syrian king.

Isaiah knows the Lord promised he would defend Judah, so he tells Ahaz not to be fainthearted and calls Judah’s two enemies Syria and Assyria pathetic “smoldering torches.”

Isaiah taunts Ahaz with disgust and sarcasm,  “Why don't you ask the Lord for a sign?” only to have Ahaz say, “I do not want to put the Lord to the test.” Can we conclude anything else than Ahaz doesn't have confidence the Lord will come through?

Exasperated, Isaiah’s sarcasm cuts deeper, “Why do you weary my God?” - a clear slap in the face of King Ahaz who has been worshipping Syrian gods. And then the truth, salvation of Judah will come by a Savior, a child born be born of a young woman who will be named Emmanuel... (Emmanuel means God is with us)... before the child is old enough to know good from evil the kings who threaten Judah will be gone. The lament of Psalm 80 is answered with the assurance that the Lord will be with them in this time of their lament.

Now, about 500 years later, Matthew in the time of the Romans describes the birth ofJesus. Sadly, as far back as in the first 150 years of the Church arguments about whether Mary was a “young woman” or a “virgin” have caused great debate and conflict in the church and cost a few people their life. People argue over the proper translation of the Hebrew and the Greek words for young woman and a virgin expending great energy arguing over the legitimacy or validity of the virgin birth, a relatively inconsequential issue in the face of the core message of the good news in all the gospels embodied in the two names given her child, the absolute measure of our faith, that finally “God is with us to save us.”

It is a divine tragedy when we miss this one common thread in all the Scriptures that Jesus is the answer to the lament of the Psalm, “God come and save us.”  There is more to Matthew than meets the eye on a first reading of this account of the birth story. Yes, we know that Mary found herself pregnant with this young child while she was engaged to Joseph before they began to live together.

This was a very serious, deadly matter, whether intended to preserve family structure or assuage the cuckolded male’s pride.  According to the Law, both the unmarried woman and man who were discovered to have a relationship outside of marriage were to be stoned to death. (If discovered in a field, only the man was stoned with the presumption no one could hear the woman’s cry for help.)

Joseph goes against the letter of the Law and opts to divorce Mary quietly rather than humiliate and expose her, yet Matthew calls Joseph a righteous man. (The traditional reference to “Jesus son of Mary” acknowledges the indeterminate parentage.)

Joseph bears some similarity to Abraham (father of many nations). Do you remember the story of what made Abraham righteous? The Lord told Abram (before he was renamed) to pack his bags, take his belongings and leave Aram for the life of a sojourner, a traveler. Abram packed his bags and left, not questioning the Lord. For that he was reckoned righteous because of his willing obedience.

The angel tells Joseph not fear taking Mary as his wife because this child will save his people from their sins, instructing him to name the child Jesus. The angel repeats the verse from Isaiah that he will be Emmanuel or God is with us. Joseph names the child Jesus, as instructed.

Have we found the righteous man (besides Abraham)? Joseph finds himself in quite a predicament. As I said under the law a woman and a man having been discovered in a relationship outside of marriage especially if the woman was betrothed to another, are to be punished by stoning. The Law prescribed a rigid solution for the circumstance. It seems to me by conventional wisdom that if Joseph was a righteous man, he would have led Mary out to the gate and perhaps picked up the first stone himself. Or perhaps fear that people might decide even to stone him as the other guilty party. This alone might fuel the desire to divorce Mary quietly and not call attention to the matter.

What more is buried in this birth story by Matthew?  Certainly, Joseph shows compassion for Mary, and willingly follow the word of the Lord. But the birth story reveals another part of his righteousness. In the time of Jesus, a man naming a son, regardless of parentage, was a public sign and covenant with the child that the son was recognized as kindred son. The child is thereby accepted fully into the family. We discover another facet of his righteousness.

But there is more to the outcome of the righteous acts by Joseph.  Joseph named the boy Jesus as told. What is in the name Jesus? The name “Jesus” has an interesting history. The Hebrew word, Yahoshua evolved into the word Yoshua, or Joshua, that the Greek translates loosely into Jesus. The Hebrew meaning of Joshua is, “O Lord, Save us!”  or, “the Lord, saves us.”  

Even if the angel had not told us that this young child is Emmanuel, “God is with us,” the angel made sure by the child's name that we would get the message that this child will be “the Lord who saves us,” and therefore he will be also “the Lord who is with us.”

So, we see several perspectives of righteousness in Joseph. He exhibits a fatherly righteousness that Jesus will speak about later during the confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees, when he takes them to task for trying to live the literal word of the law rather than the law that is written in their hearts. If that rigidity happened with Mary, Jesus would not be here.

Throughout his ministry Jesus will drive home over and over a simple point about righteousness.  Righteousness, the manifestation of a life lived under the law, is not found by what is written on paper or stone but by what grace is written in one’s heart.”

Sin and the written Law binds and condemns us. Matthew gives us Joseph, another example of a righteous man who did as the Lord instructed. He  embraced his son as Jesus who came to hold out the hand of righteous grace to save us, not to judge us.

After sorting through Isaiah and Matthew, it is hard to miss what the hope in the lament by author of Psalm 80, “God come and save us.” The psalmist expected divine grace. Isaiah prophesied divine grace to a generation that did nothing to justify the steadfast lovingkindness of the Lord bound in the covenant that he made with the Hebrews, “You will be my people, always.”

That covenant rings in the air as Isaiah tells Ahaz that he had too little faith in that covenant to ask for grace. “Is it (grace) too little for you to weary my God so?”

I wonder if that is not so different from our own world where the rush to judgment is often cloaked in a mantle of self-defined righteousness? That is our nature. We go about the world inclined almost reflexively to judge people, or our own self. Some time we say it alound, at other times we say it under our breath, "they don't deserve it, I can’t believe they did that," “I don’t deserve grace,” and so on.

But, even when we are self-righteously, pridefully, floundering in our own trials, tribulations and judgment, who among us does not hope, “Lord please save us,” from the person a righteous man named “The Lord Saves Us.”

The part of our liturgy called the prayer of confession is tied fundamentally to the whole principle of our Christian belief. Paul says we've all as sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Yet confession only requires us to proclaim that Jesus is Lord, and act that way.

Righteousness sounds so simple, doesn't it?  Micah (6:8) tells us how simple it is. Micah asks, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you? Only to do justice to love kindness and walk humbly with your God.

I think finding righteousness is so hard because like Ahaz, we find it hard to acknowledge that we can accept and trust grace rather than judge our own selves. That message is the heart of this person called God save us and God is with us, this Jesus, this Emmanuel. This is the One to whom the psalmist laments, “Restore my soul, Lord God of hosts let your face shine that we may be saved.”

Next Saturday evening and Sunday Christians celebrate the response found in the heart of God, that this child born on Christmas day is the answer to that lament to the Lord, "Stir up your might, and come to save us!" The response relied on the compassionate righteousness in the heart of Joseph, for Mary and for this fatherless child that he named him Jesus and took for his own.

For me, the antidote for this world of anger and hostility and judgment and finger-pointing is to live with the grace and model of righteousness found in two people, Joseph and Jesus.

When you celebrate these remaining days before Christmas remember that you're celebrating the season of the righteous man, you're celebrating the proclamation of Micah (6:8) who said "…He has told you Oh mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

Is there anything else we can say than, "Merry Christmas and God be with you." Amen.

Day 1466 - The Patient Gardener

An abridged sermon shared with First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, December 11, 2016

Isaiah 35:1-10

James 5: (1-6),7-11

There is a “safe” way and a “dangerous,” or difficult, way to read this passage from James. It all depends on how we translate the word “patience.” Many “safe” sermons focus on the enjoyment and excitement of the season while we wait for Christmas with an upbeat message about waiting. What we get from scripture so much depends on how we translate it. The safe, upbeat message is understandable if we use the King James Version that translates verse 11  as, “…Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” Unfortunately, James was written in Greek whose words have complex meaning often lost in the KJV.

The “safe” reading does James an injustice by translating a Hebrew word as “patience.” The Greek word James uses in verse 11, is not “patience” but endurance. 
“…Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; 
that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.”

Now it is true that endurance and patience can have a similar sense of biding one’s time while something happens. But endurance carries a much richer sense of a personal withstanding, or bearing, something difficult or oppressing while achieving a goal. For example, one says a long-distance runner must have endurance to bear the discomfort of pushing the body hard enough to finish a marathon under 3 hours, or 10 kilometers under 34 minutes when all the body wants to do is stop and rest, or breakdown. James is talking about enduring substantial difficulty so that one can achieve the fruit of faith.

Another objection to the “safe” sermon is rooted in every passage we have read thus far in Advent. Whether Isaiah, Romans, or Luke, they all directly or indirectly recommend endurance that sustains hope for a positive future in the face of an atmosphere of hopelessness.  

You remember Isaiah wrote in a time when the Hebrews faced hopelessness in the imminent destruction of Israel, the Temple’s home in Jerusalem, and of Judah. Israel and Judah faced annihilation of their distinct political and theological identity. Even in Romans Paul described a sustained thread of hopeful expectation about our future after the reason for hope, the crucified Christ, is not with us.

The safe way preaches sugarplums and angels and a rosy future and ignore all the stumbling blocks. To be melodramatic, the “dangerous” side of James entreats us to let our endurance of faith to cling to the “this is what I live and believe” sustain our wait for the Lord.

When I began I asked myself, do I talk about the hard reality that faced both Christians in the time of Christ and Hebrews in the time of impending captivity, or serve up a sermon on the rosy side of waiting? 

I re-read this passage in James and a few commentaries on it, and decided I’d give you a reflection first on the safe way to read the passage and then one on the “dangerous” or “challenging” way to read it.

The safe way. The line about the patience of the farmer who waits for the early and late rain is a good way to start the safe way because we are in a drought in southern Tennessee right now, and we are all excited getting ready for Christmas. (I’m listening to Paul Simon’s Getting Ready for Christmas Day, as I write, a not-so-safe take.)  

James talk of the early and late rains reminded me that the last significant rain that amounted to anything around here, although we’ve had a couple rainy days the last week or so, the last serious rain happened in early August. 

I don’t know if you know the background about the early and late rain in Palestine. In Palestine, the climate is strongly influenced by the oceans, deserts and prevailing winds. The land is scrub highland and an interior desert except close to the shoreline where the moisture from the ocean dominates. In most of Palestine rain comes with the seasonal changes. The winter especially is much like Southern California (see Weather Controls over the Fighting in Mesopotamia, in Palestine, and near the Suez Canal, Robert De C. Ward, The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 4, Apr., 1918, pp. 298)

It seldom if ever rains between May and September in Palestine. The early rains begin around planting season in mid-to late fall (October to mid-November, and mid-December to January) well after the preceding harvest. The fierce heat of the May to September summer days scorch the ground dry and these welcome early rains soak the ground for the new crops. Then the early rains taper off, hopefully not totally, between February through March. If the wind is right in March, the second climatic round of late rain begins. The farmer is captive to the rain. He can only hope enough early rain falls through the winter growing season to sustain crop growth from the planted seed until the early spring when the late rain returns, giving the soaking boost for the final growth spurt of the crops. There is nothing the farmer can do but be patient through the dry spells and wait for the late rain to come. Worry is natural but pointless.

Driving up here from Chattanooga in October, the dry lake bottoms in Soddy-Daisy and Dayton made me think about my years living in San Diego in the years when neither the early or late rains came like the winter in Palestine.

In the years I lived in San Diego, it rained very little. Over the seven years I was there, I watched the shoreline of a large reservoir formed by a dammed river on I-15 near Escondido slowly retreat into the distance until finally by 1992 it was no longer visible from the highway. The year I moved back to Atlanta I had given up expecting to see the reservoir full again…but guess what? The rains came back and the reservoir filled up again. I guess my patience wasn’t strong enough.

If you have children, or maybe if you think you are never too old to have a happy childhood, you know patience is rare around Christmas time. You can’t wait to get the tree up. You can’t wait to make your wish list that when asked, you give to your mother, father, wife, husband, children or special friend. Then of course, you dislike and dread shopping in this season because of having to deal with the long lines.

This is the safe way to talk about James, is spite of all these issues, waiting, long lines, Christmas will be a happy time with family and friends, so enjoy the festivities, the waiting, the long lines while you wait for Christmas, the sign of our redemption.

What about the “dangerous” way contained in James?

You probably know some among us, friends, relatives perhaps, find Christmas to be a sad, depressing time; or perhaps you feel that way yourself. For some people Christmas reminds them of the pain they feel when it seems everything important to them is seen in others but is absent in their life. Rather than joy, excitement and expectation, they feel depression and foreboding for that last shoe to fall on hope, as they have missed something joyful left behind that everyone else except them has discovered.

If you know that reality from experience with others or yourself, you know how painful it is to look and only see darkness and no hope when others laugh and see joy.

Depression is a complex problem. I do not want to minimize its seriousness. If you read this and feel that way, please seek out a listening ear. (That is what James encourages.)

Depression does not lend itself to easy, logical solution because it involves chemical and cognitive matters. Even though the root cause is complicated, I wonder sometimes that a big part of the cognitive, or thinking part of holiday depression feeds on a lack of endurance to bear all the things that weigh down one’s life, to find the endurance to exert the extreme effort it takes to act positively when you feel as if you are sliding down to the bottom of a deep hole. James and Paul know to fall into the depths of despair is a difficult, common problem and it takes great personal action to overcome it.

We don’t appreciate that James is encouraging us to endure in the face of despair, and for those who can rejoice in this season of waiting, who claim to have faith,  to come to the aid of those who suffer despair. You need to read back into verses 1-6 to find the despair he acknowledges in the circumstances of the faithful people he was addressing. First to the oppressors:

¹Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. ²Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. ³Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days.  ⁴Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, (those wages) which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. ⁵You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. ⁶You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

And then James offers those of us who are under the heel of the rich this divine assurance:

⁷Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. ⁸You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. ⁹Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged.(as the rich do to you) See, the Judge is standing at the doors! ¹⁰As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

That despair standing in the pit of the darkest hole was the reality of Job. It was the reality of that mysterious remnant among the Hebrews facing exile and the seeming loss of everything the Covenant stands who salvation was promised. It was the reality of the poor Church of the Easter people of Jerusalem as the days of the revolt in Jerusalem approached.

Paul solicited money for the poor congregation in Jerusalem throughout the Christian congregations of his Mediterranean ministry. To an extent, it is the reality of the experience of our congregation several years ago with the split. Grace seemed to lose out to grumbling and judgment.

But friends, and I do call you that, friends, never forget grace prevails to those who endure such hardship and focus on the words, “strengthen your hearts, do not grumble lest you be judged, we know the mercy and compassion of the Lord!”

 This is the more difficult way to read James in this Christmas season.

James is talking directly to those who struggle with despair of abandonment. James says cling to the endurance that allows us to engage our lives in active living the Christian life with the knowledge not only that the Lord shall come, either in the Lord’s time or in the end of our own days. Know that we are walking towards that Grace living the Christian life. (It is the sure-fire prescription for depression – action!)

Those who do not love us but judge us and therefore invite judgment on themselves need our love ever the more so. The act of living the Christian life in the face of despair is the sign, no not the sign, but the victory of faith over our own death. James talks to, and draws our attention to those who struggle under a heavy, even shared burden.

In my short time here at First Presbyterian Church, I can say, as a congregation, you show your endurance, you have held onto joy when it would be easier to fall into despair. No matter what has happened, as James said, “you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” Is there anything more satisfying in the Advent season than to know you have the endurance to live the faith awaiting his coming?

James offers a message of hope for those of us who are assailed for our faith in grace to endure to the end. For the strong, he offers a demand of those of us who have the luxury to laugh and enjoy the wonder of the season. That demand is to use the season of waiting to reach out and be a supporting presence to those long for justice and those who mourn. Jesus Christ will not allow his Church that remains faithful to that demand to die but will stand with grace beside those who endure.

Day 1462 - It's a hard rain that's gonna fall

Patti Smith did a wonderful stand-in job at the Oslo Nobel Prize award for literature given to Bob Dylan. She couldn't get through the powerful lyrics without her voice cracking.  I can understand why.

It seems every day brings another news story about a new appointment in the President-elect's new cabinet, or a preposterous, but true story of Russia hacking government and political organizations and planting information to sway the election and the President-elect denying its truth.

I hear of questionnaires being sent throughout the government agencies to identify everyone who was involved in climate change issues with the implied threat of some wholesale purge.

I talk to good-minded friends and acquaintances who voted for the fellow, folks who when presented with clear facts simply dismiss them all them all as lies or being irrelevant, who would as soon believe an unsubstantiated blog post on a political web site promoting a fascist world-view than factual evidence from educated persons, or history.

Mostly I hear of criticism of "big" government while I look at the great progress our government  has made in eliminating industrial pollution that threaten the lives and welfare of our children and our children's. I drive by old super fund sites covered safely by parking lots, knowing what might have happened but for the Federal EPA insisting on a solution.

Mostly I recall a few weeks ago awaking up to an ever-present, overwhelming smokey atmosphere from forest fires, recalling that before people and "big" government woke up to the threat to health in Pittsburgh often one never saw the sun due to the heavy dark smog fed by the exhaust of coke-making ovens and steelmaking furnaces. We were told in the corporate headquarters of ALCOA in downtown Pittsburgh that the executives kept a fresh white shirt in the office to change at mid-day because the first one would be smudged and blackened by the sooty smog. Now we have relatiuvely clear air thanks to "big" government.

Mostly I recall the Coosa River flowing out of Rome past the old GE light industrial transformer plant whose effluent for 24 years filled the river with PCB's. I recall my grandfather who regularly fished crappie and catfish out of the river down by the old lock and dam, and wonder how much PCB infused his and our bodies before the "big" government let everyone know that the river and much of Lake Weiss was polluted by those PCB's and the fish were dangerous if not deadly to those who ate them, and forced a solution.

Mostly I recall the desolate red dirt of Copper Hill, TN burnt treeless from years of mining and unrestrained exposure to sulfurous fumes from the "free enterprise" copper refining indusrty, of the arsenic and other heavy metals left behind by that mining, that "big" government caused a repair..

Mostly I recall the terrible days of segregated life in my little home town of Rome, GA as well as throughout the South and how things changed as "big government" enforced a constitution that proclaimed the inalienable equality of every person. I think about how long it may have taken to right the wrong of segregation if the US Supreme Court of "big" government had not weighed in and if President Eisenhower had not had the Federal power to send troops to Little Rock, Arkansas. I think about what would have happened if we had not had the kind of "big"government that allowed Lyndon Johnson to confront Governor George Wallace and federalize National Guard troops to allow desegregation of the University of Alabama in 1963.

Mostly, I read of the lists of the choices by the President-elect (sic) for Supreme Court Justice to facilitate rolling back the decades of progress by "big" government in proclaiming and defending civil rights, women's rights and protecting our environment so hunters, fishermen and campers can enjoy it safely.

Mostly I look back at the time when most of the progress of civil society began in this country, much of it in the 1940's and1950's; and listen to these modern voters who never heard, or remember, the old saying by George Santayana "Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it."

Mostly I look at this retrograde chaos and weep knowing my days will likely end before the correction of this tragedy initiated by a distinct minority of the voters of the United States is accomplished.

Mostly I weep for those unimpassioned voters in key states who ignored the reality of their economic situation, who cut off their nose rather than vote (or vote at all) for a compromise rather than absolute victory.

Most though, mostly I look at the blue eyes of my sons and weep for their future, and for the future of their children and my neighbors' children who shall inherit this profound retrenchment from reason and sanity, and be the worst for it.

Mostly though, I weep for them as they are innocent and do not deserve the hard rain that is going to fall.