Recorded Right On the iHeart

Jeremiah 31:31-34

5^th Sunday in Lent 2012

There isn’t a very simple and concise answer to the question of who invented the first personal home computer.    There are detailed milestones we could review together, but suffice to say my 42 year life span covers most all the major developments.    I believe I’ve kept up fairly well with the insanely rapid pace of technological developments that has time-lined with my life.     And as is quite common enough for my generation, I confess I’m personally and professionally dependent on this technology and the internet it hosts.   I just have to chuckle when I occasionally remind myself that I didn’t own or much use a computer in college or even in graduate school.   

            One of the most interesting and useful developments in recent years has been the invention of the tablet computer.    This item is even more convenient than a bulky laptop.   It’s a flat, light-weight, easy to carry around item that stores and makes readily available all sorts of information for daily decision making and personal edification – from books, to documents, to photos, to graphic presentations, to emails, to calendars, and so forth and so on.   For the general masses, the biggest brand name in this biz belongs to the Apple iPad.    The newest version was released just this past week.  While I’m happy with my simpler, smaller tablet called the Kindle Fire, it was still fun to read about the latest iPad improvements – faster processing speed, cutting edge hi-resolution graphics, and countless new applications.    

            I’m wondering.  I’m wondering what will come after the tablet computer.   Will consumers need something even smaller, even more portable, even more powerful?   Will human brains become more and more and more dependent on computing devices to live healthy, productive lives?  Assuming so, how quickly will this drive demand for greater quantities of convenient innovations?    Perhaps computer chips directly implanted into our bodies and cyborg-like spectacles are up next?

            Well, that’s enough of this sort of spooky speculating!    Today, it’s that word and concept of a “tablet” that has my attention.   Be it a computer tablet or a writing tablet,    tablets are helpful for recording, remembering, processing, transmitting and creating relevant information.    So here’s a corollary, relevant faith question … did the word “tablet” mean anything to an ancient Israelite?    Can you think of one or two famous tablets from the Old Testament?

            I’m sure hoping the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments have come to mind.   Hear these words from Exodus 31, verse 18 – “When God finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.”  Wow, talk about a miraculous divine download!   These are also known by the name “Tablets of Testimony.”    They provided testimony about what God requires people to process for a faithfully productive life – worshipping God alone, honoring Sabbath and family, not engaging in idolatry, blasphemy, theft, murder.    Having been carved in stone, they then needed only to be presented to the people and obeyed.

            Yet these sacred laws, like the stones tablets they were etched upon, were breakable.   And so it happened as the free will and fragile faith of the ancient Israelites summoned the sledgehammer of sin time and again.    The process of God putting holy words into the hands of individual people and one nation by way of a third party did not fully produce greater fidelity and holy living upon the earth.

            The grievous consequences of having broken God’s prescribed, inscribed law is what jolts us as we read through the Book of Jeremiah.   The prophetic pronouncements rise up from a place of painfully honest anguish.   They reflect a horrible historic time in the life of the Hebrew people.  Jerusalem had fallen into the hands of a great enemy in 597 B.C., and within ten years the whole nation was in ruin.   “Cities were laid to waste, national hopes were dashed, and the faith of the people was in crisis as they were carted off into captivity.”  The Book of Jeremiah “addresses suffering, hurting exiled Israel with a repeated refrain” about present troubles being the direct result of past infidelities.[i]      The consistent, overall message is about the ever present need to repent and “return to the love and service of the God who loved and created” them.[ii]     

            This unabashedly critical word, however, is kept in balance with poetic, prophetic pronouncements of hope.    Our specific passage today is one such inspiring flourish.  It promises that better days – days of restoration – are coming, days when God will forgive and forget all sin, including the sin carried out by all previous generations.  It’s a stunning declaration about a fresh start in the covenantal grace of God.     Central to this coming righteous reboot is a new, core promise – God will no longer communicate divine law by of a third party or by engraving it on stone tablets.   In the time to come, God intends to write it directly on every human heart.

            Now let’s fast forward through the ages to the version of this holy promise we know best.   This direct download of God’s will and Word, of the Good News of God’s forgiving grace to the tablet of our hearts – that is, to the very center of our minds and emotions -- is what was begun by Jesus on the Cross, launched fully on the very first Easter, is continuously spread and connected by the power of His Holy Spirit, and will be completed upon His Second Coming.      Jesus is the very fulfillment of the “days” that were and still are “surely coming” … of the New Covenant that is for all, from the least to the greatest of human beings.    

            I’m wondering.  I’m wondering where faithful proclamation and righteous living hit the road together.   In our modern age of having massive amounts of information and all sorts of global social connections right at our fingertips, right before us on computer tablets – does it all help us in the daily and deeply personal task of turning away from our sin and turning toward our Lord in greater trust, love and service?     

            I have on my small computer tablet about five different versions of the Bible, numerous books of value to professional ministry, and access to the internet’s enormous database.   The Wednesday morning men’s Bible study group knows I like to look up New Testament Greek words on it in the middle of our discussions.   And I also keep files on the Kindle Fire where I quickly find prayer lists, pastoral to-dos, sermon illustrations and such.     It is helpful as a devotional and ministry tool.   

            Yet while this all gives access to God’s Word, it can’t perform the tasks for us regarding what is truly necessary for living a life of loving, faithful service.   It cannot do what Jeremiah preached was necessary, the very action the Israelites needed to do that led God to reject third party communication and to promise a direct etching of holy hope on our hearts.    Modern tablets and ancient stone tablets all give access, but what is additionally necessary is heartfelt internalization.   

            Staring at religious rules and mechanically processing ritualistic motions can only draw us so far into sharing the mind and life of Christ.  Our knowing and experiencing the personalized Good News being engraved on each of our hearts requires more from us.   In the very center of our entire being, we also need to continuously engage ourselves in spiritual disciplines that help us experience the holy hope being inked on our hearts by the Almighty.   We need to intentionally make time to let the Word of God seep into and saturate us so that it can readily flow out of us into all the places of this world we are in circulation.    Beyond being told and reminded in both print and preaching, every one of us needs to come to our own daily, deeply intimate awareness of just how very much God completely loves us, forgives us, and, through Christ’s Spirit, is making us holier with every breath and heartbeat.    

            In both the Old and New Testament, the heart is not only referenced to as the center for thinking, feeling, remembering, and desiring.  It is also the central part of us that chooses every course of action.   So choosing to engage in actions that open our hearts to holiness cannot be done remotely by the likes of computer processing or by rules stamped in stone.   Such decision making truly only comes from a contrite heart that beats for radical intimacy with God.  

            It’s our heart that genuinely repents of sin.  

            It’s our heart that honestly seeks the Lord in every section of our lives.  

            It’s our heart that inspires loving and forgiving as Jesus taught.  

            It’s our heart that pours us out in selfless service to the greater good.   

            Psalm 13:5 declares a reminder of all this for us -- “I trusted in Your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.”   We are also and even more so reminded in Matthew 5:8, where we hear Jesus preaching the promise that “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”  

            Another way of talking about internalization is to call it “application.”    Computer iPads are so popular and useful in large part because they have a ton of helpful applications.    So if you are familiar with and daily dependent upon this sort of thing, may today be a reminder to regularly reconnect with your “iHeart,” with the center of your being where God as the great “I Am” is most directly experienced.     And whether or not computer processing is part and parcel of your daily life, we all need to use the fewer but very powerful iHeart applications found in the Bible – applications such as honest intercessory prayer, faithful study that challenges and inspires, selfless service for the greater good, and worship that stirs up powerful passion in the Lord who is always … always … directly communicating and connecting to our lives.     Amen.

---

[i] William H. Willimon, The Life With God Bible NRSV Old Testament preface to Jeremiah

[ii] ibid.

The House Exchange

John 2:13-25

2^nd Sunday in Lent 2012

            There were many currency exchange houses along the way.  They popped up annually as throngs of Jewish people made pilgrimage to the Great Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover Feast.     Every adult Jewish male living within fifteen miles of Jerusalem was required by sacred law to make this pilgrimage.  Upon arrival, each and every one was required to pay taxes to the Temple.     These exchange houses on the outskirts of the city very wisely offered reasonable rates for the service of swapping foreign, ritually filthy loose change for officially sanctioned Temple shekels.       

            It’s safe to assume that Jesus made this compulsory journey to the Great Temple many times.  We can conclude that He dutifully did as was required of Him.    And He may well have stopped by any one of the conveniently located exchange houses on His way into the Holy City.   

            He certainly had time to do so on the particular pilgrimage mentioned in this morning’s Gospel lesson.    The second chapter of John tells us this particular journey was a week-long trek from Capernaum.     But based on what we are told happened when He arrived at the Great Temple, it’s a safe bet He didn’t patronize any of the pop-up exchange places.     He hadn’t been looking for any bargains, nor was He interested in doing business as usual.  

             He fully understood that He would be expected to pay his taxes.   He fully understood this requirement supported the day to day operations of the Temple’s time-honored system of offering sacrificial animal rituals on behalf of penitent pilgrims.     But this particular Passover, Jesus had no intention of dealing with conversions to Temple coins or the costs of institutionally sanctioned sacrifices.   On this visit to the Great Temple, He had no intention of paying the high priests anything in worldly currency or courtesy.

            We should understand that religious law wasn’t the only reason the Jewish people gathered together en masse for Passover.    Many also sojourned because it was tradition and a great way to be gathered together to honor and recall the people’s epic story of the exodus out of enslavement in ancient Egypt.    Specifically, they recalled the gracious moments of deliverance when God passed over the homes of their ancestors during days of sin-punishing plagues.   Back then, a bit of blood from a spring lamb above the doorpost of a faithful home was the sign of God’s protection. 

             So in addition to long-established religious law, Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem was also inspired by this potent liberation narrative of the people.   The living memory of liberation from an enslaving system likely fueled this particular journey every step of the way.    

            From what John tells us, this specific sojourn of Jesus to the Temple was not at all for the purpose of fulfilling an annual religious obligation to a religious institution.   He went to make change.   And He went absolutely filled with faithful fervor, with tremendous zeal to glorify and reveal the will of God the Father above all else.   This zeal protested the spiritual effectiveness of sacrificing lambs, and it even more so protested the fleecing of pilgrim people.   It had nothing to do with exchange houses … and everything to do with His exchanging the house of God, the Temple, with His holy body.    

            To appreciate the power of Jesus’ zeal in that historic moment, it’s helpful to know about something that has been generally written about the Great Temple by Bible scholars.    Namely, that it suffered corruption in two particular ways.   

            First, despite the convenience of exchange houses outside the city, many a spiritual pilgrim waited until they got to the Temple to swap their foreign currency for official shekels.    After all, what exchange agent could be more trustworthy than the one operating right in the Temple court, right?    But the money-changers working for the big city Temple apparently charged an exorbitant rate.    So the honest, pious, and very often quite poor pilgrims got wrangled into paying more than just their required taxes.    

            Secondly, the economic injustice was further evidenced by a rigged process for procuring sacrificial offerings.   Pilgrims were absolutely allowed to bring their own lambs to the Temple for the sacrificial offering.   This meant, however, bringing the bleating creature every step of the sojourn and so many did not do so.   The religious officials no doubt counted on this.

            They also, however, counted on the fact that even if an animal was brought in from the outside it was going to have to pass official inspection.   By law, it would only be accepted if it was regarded as perfect and unblemished.   And guess what?  There was a fee charged for the inspection.    And guess what else?   The Temple inspectors were apparently not inclined to pass any animal they inspected.   Pilgrims were therefore forced to purchase either a lamb or a pair of doves from sellers in the Temple court.    Go ahead and imagine what those prices were and who made a hefty profit!     One respected Bible scholar has called this whole entire process “bare-faced extortion at the expense of poor and humble pilgrims.”[i]    Bottom line, it seems the Temple accrued massive wealth during this mandatory religious holiday.   The good, faithful zeal pilgrims brought with them to the Passover Feast really got zapped. 

            Enter Jesus.   Enter the Son of God.   Enter the One with the authority to call out the Temple authorities for this fleecing.    In one of the most intensely dramatic scenes in Scripture, Jesus’ zeal was utterly unleashed in the outer court of the Great Temple (which, I understand, was about two football fields in length).     I enjoyed reading the way one Christian essayist described what happened as he imagined the disciple’s reaction.  He wrote, “No doubt the disciples tossed and turned a long, sleepless night that evening; it must have been terribly disconcerting to witness Jesus unhinged, throwing furniture, screaming at the top of his lungs, and flinging money into the air.  Perhaps they ran for cover with the crowd … did they look him in the eyes the next morning, or shuffle their feet, stare at the ground, and make small talk?”[ii]  

            Jesus’ holy zeal caused this great disturbance during what was otherwise a mechanically ritualistic, celebratory time -- not to simply be a nuisance or display some sort of spiritual showmanship;  not to only protest the corruption so as to hopefully transform the Temple system for the better.    He wasn’t there that particular Passover for renovation or even reform.      

            He was there to boldly, bodily declare that the existence of the Great Temple was no longer going to be needed as the place to be directly in the presence of God.  

            He was there to boldly, bodily declare an end to the time-honored sacrificial system that had become sinfully self-serving and therefore had ceased to honor the Almighty or righteously serve God’s people.   

            He was there to boldly, bodily declare that through Him, God was about to raze the ancient Temple house and its sacrificial system to the ground.    It was about to be replaced with His body—starting with the very first Easter morning – so all people would have direct, undefiled access to the merciful presence of God.     Spiritual pilgrimage henceforth would need only be made from a person’s heart to the heart of God known through Jesus, whose self-sacrifice was once … and for all.

            Stepping from the Bible to our present Lenten journeying -- if you were in the Temple that particular Passover day, on that day of house exchange, what would you have done?  Who would you have been?        

            Would you have been a Temple official, caught off guard by this disturbance, this bold challenge to your time-honored authority, spouting off defensive demands to Jesus in reply?            Would you have been a confused lamb or dove seller suddenly squeezed in the middle of an economic rebellion?   

            Or would you have been a poor, exhausted pilgrim ecstatic about someone with the right kind of honest, faithful zeal finally taking a stand for you, for liberating holy justice?    Amen.  

           

           

           

                       

---

[i] William Barclay, Daily Bible Study Series, Gospel of John, Book 1

[ii] Dan Clendenin @ www.journeywithjesus.net, March 9, 2009

“Shaking A Fist While Holding Fast in Faith”

Psalm 22

Second Sunday in Lent 2012

    

            There I was again shaking a fist while holding fast in faith.   Perhaps you were doing exactly the same thing this past week.   It happens all the time, this indignant lamenting to God while at the same time hanging all hope on God.    Our hearts and minds rock back and forth between plaintiff cries and primal praise.   In the particular instance of Monday, February 27^th, the duel motion happened while reading the horrendously sad news headline coming out of Chardon, Ohio.   

            A .22 caliber pistol obeyed the hand of an extremely quiet seventeen year old by pounding ten bullets into a group of students just sitting in their High School cafeteria.    This perturbed teen from a deeply troubled home life had, I understand from reports, stolen the weapon from his uncle.    In the aftermath of this violence in which no community is completely protected, the lives of two sixteen year olds and one seventeen year old were so very suddenly, terribly sadly swiped away.     This entire news story – make that, human story -- is such a swift kick to the gut.  It’s perhaps even more acutely felt for those of us raising kids and grandkids right now that are in or about to be in high school.  

            My initial response when the news broke was to think, “No, not again.”   I felt anger before allowing any of the sadness to settle in.    The fist shaking came first.   Along with it came an inner-dialogue with our Almighty.    I didn’t blame or curse God because I accept the complex tensions between human free will and holy providence.   But I sure did let God know I was greatly aggrieved about the horror of the shooting, about all the dark dominoes that had toppled into the life and triggered the intentions of the shooter, and about the Chardon community being rapidly shot into the grip of all the grief.    I also did some self-reflection with God about the quiet, rage-filled teen from a troubled home that I was twenty-six years ago. 

            The fist shaking was held fast by faith.   I trusted God could handle the truth I was decrying.   I trusted God was already responding to this fresh bit of hell on earth with loads of loving mercy and holy comfort.  I recalled how strongly I had come to see and believe such divine care in all the other headline tragedies and personal moments cascading through my memory bank.    And through this recollection, I received fresh insight about God on the move. 

            It came in the form of reading about the humble assistant football coach who refused to be called a hero for just doing what was right and what he was trained to do in a crisis.   He told the families he was by the side of the victims, he prayed with them and that he knew God was there.   

            It came in the form of one of the mothers of a slain teen being asked what she would say to the shooter.  She replied, “I would tell him I forgive him.” She then went on to declare “It’s in God’s hands” and to report that her son’s donated organs had already saved the life of another child.  

             It came in many more forms as I read about ways the local and national community came together in the bonds of peace and love despite all the outraged cries for retribution.   

            This ever-present dance between plaintiff cries and primal praise is nothing new.   It’s the story of God’s people.   It’s found in most every passage of the Bible.   And it’s absolutely front and center in this morning’s passage, Psalm 22.    So much so that there was no way to just read a few verses from it.  We needed to experience it all, and I hope the dialogue way we offered the reading helped you hear both the deep lament and the steadfast faith.   

            The Psalmist’s life was under attack.    As a victim, he felt as dirty, down and squashable as a common worm.    He felt mocked, scorned, reduced to melted wax in a pile of disjointed bones.   The Psalmist was shaking a fist at what he descriptively identifies as encircling enemy bulls and as evildoing dogs that roll dice to lay claim to his very clothing.     Significantly, even though it very well might have been the great King David who wrote this Psalm, the lamenting voice identifies full with all of the earth’s poor and outcast.

            This entire fist shaking episode is companioned by steadfast affirmations of faithful trust in God.    It’s very important to notice that at no point in the Psalm are we told about a reversal of fortune.  The praise does not rise up from suddenly and miraculously having a safer, better life where evil has been undone.  It rises up from firm, faithful trust that God is listening, that God is indeed responding with loving mercy and justice, that God is and has been and always will be the safest haven in this sin-stained world.   The praise flows beautifully through affirmations about faithful ancestors being delivered from shame and about security in God being as intimate as a baby trusting in its mother’s breast.   This is bold affirmation that God does not despise the afflicted of any time and place.     It is clear invitation to praise and live for the Lord in whose good and holy dominion we all dwell … dust to dust, ashes to ashes, and on into the new life we have in Christ.

            We are in the church season of Lent.   We are all the wounded walking toward the final, dark, despairing hours of Jesus.   Now, whether it’s Lent or not,  if I ask a bunch of people at random if they can quote one thing Jesus said I’m guessing more than a few would answer, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”    That the all-time most faithful representative of the human race felt abandoned by God is something that really resonates with a whole lot of folks.   “Sweet Jesus, you mean you’ve had fist shaking times too?”  

            There is a problem with this, however.    Historical studies indicate that Jesus never intended for us to stop at the lament, at the fist-shaking part of his tortured time on the Cross.    In the tradition of His days, “Citing the first words of a text was a way of identifying an entire passage.”[i]  I suppose, then, it’s kind of like my saying, “Jesus loves me this I know …” and suddenly the rest of the words pop in your head.    

            So what was Jesus quoting in his final hour that He wanted us to fully recall?    Let’s go back to the first verse of Psalm 22, shall we?   “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”   Our Lord had Psalm 22 – all of it – going through His mind as he was dying for our sin.    He had endured this dire experience by identifying himself as one being mocked and scorned, whose meager clothes would gambled over, as one in complete solidarity with all the poor and outcast of the world.    Most powerfully, He bridged us to salvation by exhaling a last breath that was a resolute reminder and declaration of divine deliverance and dominion.  

            Jesus knew the power of Psalm 22 for our lives too.   It was a final teaching in the last moments of his fully embodied presence on earth.    He wanted us, His disciples, to understand that this Scripture “combines prayer and praise, language of suffering and celebration, in one arc of unity so as to say the one is not to be understood apart from the other.”[ii]     As we experience everything in our lives and learn about all that’s happening in this wonderful but also wounded world, we should not box ourselves into either only lamenting or only praising God.    Plaintiff cries and primal praises are looped together all in and around our hearts and minds.   This is nothing new.  It’s the story of God’s people.

            I’ll leave you with an inspiring quote about this from a more contemporary voice.    A man named Daniel McConchie was struck down by a hit-and-run accident back in the summer of 2007.     He survived, but was left paralyzed from the waist down.   Hear what he’s been saying since that traumatic, life-altering day …

             "God has not healed my affliction, but he has taught me the power of lamenting to him about it.   To our detriment, one of the most overlooked portions of Scripture in modern-day America are the psalms of lament. However, [King] David repeatedly demonstrated that laments make obvious our intense faith in God, that he can and will intervene in our time of need. They demonstrate just how deep our relationship with the Father really is. After all, we don't communicate our grief and mourning to strangers. We save that for those we truly know and love.”    Amen.

---

[i] Theology Today, Vol. 42., No. 3, October 1985 “Prayer and Christology: Psalm 22 as Perspective on the Passion.”

[ii] ibid.