Rested Development

 September 6 2020

2 Corinthians 10:1-6, 12:7-10, 13:5-9

         Well, the day has finally arrived when the last of our children, Matt and Sarah are moving out of our house and starting a new life in their own home. It is a strange feeling this being at long last empty nesters yet this is what we had hoped for all along. I remember reading one time that parenthood is an eighteen year journey of letting go and how true that is. The whole point of teaching them and disciplining them and spending time with them is so that they can become an adult who can go out and be independent. We’re proud that all three of our children are gainfully employed, that they know how to save up their money and have made wise choices and at long last they can invest what they have earned in a home of their own. This is what you hope for when you bring that tiny baby home and you wonder just how in the world you are going to care for this child so that one day this child can take care of itself. You want them to grow up, to be somewhat mature because lets face it, even I am still working on the being mature thing. Most of all what you want is for them to be able to carry on with out you because you realize that one day this is probably what they are going to have to do.

         Just like our hope is that our children grow up and become mature adults, God’s hope isn’t much different. God too hopes that his children grow and mature the only difference is that to be mature children of God doesn’t mean that we will become independent but so they will be fully dependent on him. In most of Paul’s letter’s he almost always reminds his readers that growing up is what God expects. Now this maturity that God expects of his children has to do a lot with how we as God’s children react to the suffering that comes from hearing God’s word and obeying that word by loving others. As we learned last week, the world hated Jesus because the works that he did witnessed to the fact that the works that the world does are evil. In other words with the coming of Jesus, there came a new way of ordering life, one where extravagant love, justice and selflessness were to be the norm. The old way of life lived by the flesh and its desires is on the way out and those who still want to live that way are not happy about it. So, when we follow Jesus and live like Jesus then we can expect, like Jesus, that the world is going to hate us. This is why we said we need encouragement. We need the encouragement of God which comes to us through the work of the Holy Spirit and we need the encouragement of our brothers and sisters in Christ so that we do not lose heart, we do not lose our faith.

         What we are striving for as we experience suffering on account of our faith in Jesus is what Paul calls patient endurance. This is the right response when we are living in by and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We have to fight the two responses of the flesh, the first of which is to take flight. As Jesus taught his disciples, those who receive the word with joy, if they do not put their roots deep in his life will want to take flight when persecution or suffering comes on account of the word. The other reaction of the flesh is to fight, to fight against those who persecute us. This is something Jesus clearly taught against. In the eighteenth chapter of John, Jesus responds to Pilate when asked about being the king of the Jews said” My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting…” As citizens of a new and different kingdom we do not fight but rather we take up our cross and follow Jesus. This is what it means to patiently endure our suffering. The Greek wording for patience that Paul often uses means to abide under and this is what we are called to do to, to live under this suffering until God calls us home.  This understanding of patience as abiding or dwelling under helps us understand the hope of our Christian maturity. Just as it is a sign that our kids are mature that they have their own place to live so also with God his desire that we abide or dwell in a place this is a sign of our maturity. We learn of this in the fourth chapter of the book of Hebrews where we read, “Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.” And further on in the chapter, we read, “For if Joshua had had given them rest, God would have not spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for God’s people for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did form his.” The reference to Joshua alludes to the people of Israel entering into the Promised Land. God’s hope for his people though was not just that they would live in the promised land but that they would come to enter his rest.  Sadly, they never did receive the greater promise of God’s rest which life in the Promised Land was supposed to be about. This was the root cause of their being sent into exile and when they did return from exile to once again live in the land promised to them by God the people of Israel still failed to receive the rest that God promised they could experience. The promised land then was a symbol of the greater promise of God, that his people should enter his rest.

         All of this is what we have to understand in order to make sense of just what Paul is speaking of when he writes about being at war and taking down strongholds. These are both images taken from the conquest of the promised land by the people of Israel. Just like the promised land was one where the people of Israel had to fight to lie there so too is the rest that God promises is something that must be fought for. Yet just as in the case of the promised land, the war is fought in and through the power of God; it is a more a war of faith than action.This was powerfully demonstrated in the battle for Jericho, a stronghold city. How was this battle won? This battle was won by trusting in God’s direction to march around the city one time for six days and on the seventh day march around the city seven times. Then the priests were to blow the trumpets, the people were to shout and the walls of Jericho would a come tumbling down. It goes without saying that these directions given to the people of Israel by God required them to trust him.It is the falling of the walls of this great city through faith in God that I believe Paul is calling us to remember when he writes that the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh  but have divine power to destroy strongholds. Now, it seems a little confusing that we just heard Jesus say that his servants were not going to fight because his kingdom was not of this world yet here Paul is seemingly talking about doing just that. But what we have to remember is that the war that Paul is referencing is a war within ourselves not a war outside of us. Paul writes that we are to destroy every argument and any lofty option raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ…” The key to understanding what Paul is saying here is I believe found in what he means by the phrase the knowledge of God. We have to ask ourselves just what does it mean to know God? The gospel of John proves very helpful in figuring out just what it means to know God. It is there in the seventeenth chapter, that we have recorded the prayer of Jesus on the night he was betrayed. In that prayer Jesus states that “this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” So, first this conveys the importance of knowing God that in doing so is our eternal life. Secondly, when we understand just what is meant by eternal life is then we can also know what it means to know God. Eternal life it just makes sense is the life of God who is eternal. And Jesus describes this eternal life again in this prayer stating, “You Heavenly Father have loved me before the foundation of the world.” So, eternal life is a life of love; the Father loving the son, the Son loving the Father both loving the Holy Spirit and both being loved by the Holy Spirit. This tells us that knowing God has something to do with loving others. This is confirmed by what we find in the twenty second chapter of Jeremiah where God, speaking about king Josiah says, “Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? declares the Lord”. This is a further confirmation of what is found earlier in Jeremiah in the ninth chapter where God says, “let him who boasts, boast in this that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.” So, from all of this we can begin to understand that what Paul is talking about when he speaks about the knowledge of God is not just some head knowledge that we know attributes about God but rather that in knowing God we know that we must be people of steadfast love, justice and righteousness just as God is a God of these as well. What Paul is writing about then is how will we fight against whatever keeps us from fulfilling this moral mandate we have to love others with justice and righteousness. You see as Christians we know that we have been set free from sin; no longer are we held captive unable to to do the right we know to do. So, no matter who God might place in our path we are to respond with steadfast love, justice and righteousness; anything else is to come against the knowledge of God.It is right here that the promised rest of God enters the picture. When we do the good that we know that we ought to do our hearts are at peace, at rest and this peace is extended outward to the ones we show our love to. But when we fail to love or refuse to love the person in need this when we find ourselves in a state of unrest, not peace but at war within ourselves because we know we could have done something but didn’t and what we need is a good reason why. This is why Paul tells us that what we need to war against to have peace within ourselves is our thoughts, these reasons we think up that justify why we have failed to offer steadfast love, justice and righteousness when we so easily could have done just that. Paul uses three different words to describe the various workings of our mind that need to be destroyed. The first he speaks of is the Greek word logismos which means what is found to be reasonable, to weigh out the pros and cons to determine what is reasonable. This Paul adamantly writes, we are to destroy. This just makes sense doesn’t it because to be a person who loves with a steadfast love, who does justice and righteous the same way God does means that that we know doing so is not going to be the reasonable thing to do. How do we know this? We know how how unreasonable this life of steadfast love, justice and righteousness can be because of the cross. The cross was the most unreasonable decision ever made, that the one who knew no sin would take on our sin so that we who were held captive in sin might become the righteousness of God. There just is no way that the cross can be understood by reason. As the famous theologian Blaise Pascal so beautifully put it, “Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.” So, as Paul demands, reasoning, this weighing out the pros and cons whether we should act or not should be destroyed so that the heart is free to act as it knows it should.

         The second action of the mind that Paul writes about is our lofty opinion.  The Greek word here is hyposoma and the idea behind it is a towering of self-conceit. Here Paul is addressing the fact that we want to justify our not loving someone on account of who that person is instead of acknowledging the fact that our loving anyone never depends on them but on us. It is the epitome of self-conceit to judge another person to be unworthy of being loved.This is what James addresses in his letter in the fourth chapter when he writes, “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. The one who speaks against a brother or a sister or judges them, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of the law. There is only one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?” The law James speaks of here is the law of love and as he said when we withhold love to another because we find them unworthy of doing so we not only judge them we also judge the law of love. This is why Paul says this high and mighty attitude must be pulled down and destroyed. 

 

         The third working of the mind that must be taken captive is the thoughts we have. The Greek word here is noema and the idea behind it is the mental effort to reach a conclusion. What Paul is addressing here is that people tend to overthink things especially when it comes to loving others so much so that all that gets done is that they think about doing something and not much else. What Paul tells us we should do is to take captive these thoughts we have of loving others. The word Paul uses here for captive is a word that means to be taken captive by the spear, to be a prisoner of war. This fits with how Paul frames his whole argument in this section of Second Corinthians as a waging of a war. Just as the Promised Land had to be conquered in order for the people of Israel to live in peace there so too in order for us to enter into the rest God promises us we must have a conquering mindset. What is at stake is whether we will experience this sense of rest that comes when we love as we know we should or are we going to be filled with unrest because we realize that we could have done something and we should have done something but we deliberately chose not to and the reason for our indecision lies squarely upon us.Paul is saying when you make decisions keep in mind the high stakes of those decisions. What you are doing is fighting for what God promises can be ours. Yet we must not forget that the weapons we fight against these actions of our mind are weapons that have divine power. This is why Paul tells his readers to examine themselves, to see whether or not they are in the faith. They were to test themselves and to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ was in them. Paul knew personally how he needed this power of Christ within him. He faced what he called thorns in his flesh, people who harassed him at every turn. And for Paul the challenge was the same as for everyone else, how to love even these. What Paul discovered is that he did not have it in him to love like he knew how to do but what he did have within him was Jesus. Jesus was the one who powerful enough to defeat the strongholds of his mind. Just as he wrote earlier in this letter, it is the love of Christ that now controlled him. Just as the walls of Jericho fell through faith in the power of God so too the strongholds of our mind can be pulled down and destroyed through faith in the power of God. This power is the power that can raise the dead, the power that can bring into existence those things which do not exist and it is by this power we can be more than conquerors to live in the promised rest of God. Paul’s prayer was that the people of Corinth would be mature, which meant that they would lead lives fully prepared to offer love, justice and righteousness to whosoever stood in need of it next. This should be our hope as well, that we would always be ready through the power of Christ within us to let no workings of our mind keep us from loving others as God has created us to do. To the honor and praise of God. Amen!

The Way of the Goose

 August 30 2020

2 Corinthians 1:1-7

         On of the things that I’ve gotten into in the past couple of years is feeding the birds that frequent our back yard. I have a couple of bird feeders that I keep filled and it is fun in the morning to look out the window and see all the activity around them. Of course, you can’t feed birds without attracting a horde of squirrels and these lovely creatures are on our dog, Mazy’s radar at all times. During this time of the year the squirrels are not only looking for the stray sunflower seed some bird may have dropped but they are also foraging the acorns and nuts gathering them up for the winter ahead. Seeing them scurrying around always makes me think of one of my favorite books called “Gung Ho”. This is actually a book about business management which was written by Ken Blanchard and it deals with what it takes to motivate people. The book is told from the perspective of a wise old Indian who looks to nature to learn what it takes for people to be gung ho about their work. He summarizes what he learns down to three ways of being,; the way of the squirrel, the way of the beaver and the way of the goose. The way of the squirrel is that the squirrel is busy because it knows that what it is doing, gathering nuts, is all about staying alive. So to get excited about work or whatever you do you have to always keep in mind how does what you do affect your life or the life of others. The second way is the way of the beaver and if you watch a colony of beavers build a dam each beaver adds to the building of the dam in their own way. So the way of the beaver is to give people the freedom to figure out how they can contribute to the work at hand. The third way, the way of the goose is the real point of what was on my mind for today. During this time of the year as we enter into fall you begin to notice that more and more flocks of Canada geese are on the move. Now before you even see them you for sure will hear them honking and squawking as they fly overhead. Have you ever wondered why they make such a ruckus as they fly along? I mean wouldn’t it be better if they would just save their energy and flew a little quieter? Well, what they are doing when they are honking is they are cheering each other on. This is the way of the goose, the way of mutual encouragement for the long journey ahead. In order to be gung ho about the work that is to be done all of us need to have others around us to cheer us on.

         If Paul would have known about the way of the goose I think he would have been totally on board with the idea. Where my version has the original Greek word translated as “comfort” a better understanding of the word is actually encouragement.  So reading the first few verses of this first chapter of Second Corinthians again, substituting encouragement for comfort, see how this changes up what Paul is trying to say. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies and God of all encouragement who encourages us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction, with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. Paul is saying that God is cheering us on and as God cheers us on we cheer each other on. If you think of the way of the goose then there is a whole lot of honking going on! Yet while all this encouragement is a great thing what we can’t forget is why Paul feels there is such a need for us to be encouraged. The reason for all of this encouragement is that as followers of Jesus we are going to experience afflictions or otherwise translated, suffering. These are the two themes, encouragement and suffering that Paul is bouncing off of each other here in this first paragraph of his letter. So to understand our need for encouragement we really first have to understand why we as followers of Jesus can expect affliction, suffering or trouble on account of our faith. As Paul wrote to his dear friend Timothy in his second letter to him, in the third chapter, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Now even though this seems pretty straight forward it is surprising how many followers of Christ, especially here in America are taken aback when they run into trouble because of following Jesus. Paul doesn’t say that you may run into trouble, or you might run into trouble; no, Paul says that you will run into trouble if your aim in life is to live a godly life in Jesus Christ. What most people haven’t done though is to consider just why persecution and suffering are a necessary part of our walk with Christ. The answer lies with what we have talked about in the previous weeks, what Paul has been writing in his first letter. As we said when we began this series this second letter to the church at Corinth is really a bunch of letters, a long distance conversation Paul is having through his writings with this church that he loves. So, in past weeks we covered what was his first communication with them and what Paul wrote about was this new covenant God has brought about with the coming of Jesus. This is a covenant where Gods law is no longer written on tablets of stone but instead God’s law is written on our hearts.With this new covenant everyone can know God through a personal relationship with him.So with this new covenant we are now able to keep the two commandments that Jesus taught us abide by. The first is that we are to love God with all of our heart, to love God with all of our soul or life and to love God with all of our strength or our resources. The second which is like it is that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. To love God with all of our heart is to treasure God’s word. This means that we not only hear God’s word, but we have faith that God’s word is the true way we are to live and so we then obey this word. The faith we have in God is a resurrection faith, a faith that God indeed can give life to the dead and bring into existence the things which do not exist. It is when we have this faith in God that our life is in his hands that we can offer our life to him out of love.  And since our life is safe in God’s hands we then place our treasures in heaven using our resources for his kingdom. We begin by treasuring God’s word and we end placing our treasures in heaven from where God speaks his word.

         Now what is not really spelled out by Paul is just what is this word that God speaks? Just what is it that God is speaking to us? Well, the gospel of John helps us understand just what is this word that God is speaking to us. In the fourteenth chapter of John where Jesus is speaking to his disciples on the night he was betrayed, Jesus tells them, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Then further in his teaching Jesus instructs them “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.” So the word spoken to us by God that we are to keep or obey is the commandment of Jesus. This commandment is found in the thirteenth chapter of John’s gospel where Jesus commands his disciples and us, “Love one another just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” So, in order to love Jesus, to love God with all of our heart we must love one another. To put it another way, as we read in Johns first letter, the fourth chapter, “If anyone says, “I love God” and hates his brother he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”  What is not apparent when we consider keeping the word of God, obeying his command to love one another just as Jesus loved us, is that this is the source of the affliction that is certain if we desire a godly life in Jesus. Yet if we listen to Jesus it becomes clear why he experienced such hatred from some of those around him. In the seventh chapter of John, we hear Jesus tell his brothers, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil.” The love Jesus showed to others, the good works done through the power of the Holy Spirit that gave glory to his Heavenly Father, this life witnessed that all other actions apart from God, done in the power of the flesh were evil and condemned by God. The coming of Jesus meant that a new order was being put into place, an order where goodness, selflessness, and extravagant love were to be the rule. This meant that that the evil way of life lived through the power of the flesh and its desires was on the way out which terrifies those who refuse to know any other way of life. This is the root of the hatred Jesus experienced. And as Jesus taught his disciples on the night he was betrayed , “If the world hates you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word I say to you, ‘A servant is not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”

         This is what we have to keep in mind when Paul writes about the affliction and suffering not only that he experienced but the affliction and suffering he knew his brothers and sisters were sure to face whenever the kept the word of God. This is also why Paul knew the need for encouragement. The word “encourage” means to put something within your heart to make it strong which is what is needed when we are called to love God with all of our heart. As Jesus warned his disciples, there were going to be those who received his message with joy but when suffering or persecution came on account of that message they would fall away and the word of God would never bring about the new life God intended. This is why Paul states that we desperately need to be encouraged. The one who first encourages us is God himself.Now we can understand more how God encourages us in the Greek word we translate as “encouragement” or “comfort.” The Greek word is paraklesis and it is actually two words, para which means alongside like parallel lines run alongside of each other, and the word klesis which means to call. So the image is one of someone who comes alongside of another person and calls out to them.Now what makes all of this even more interesting is that when Jesus tells his disciples about their Heavenly Father sending to them the Holy Spirit, the word Jesus uses to describe the Holy Spirit is Paraclete. This is the God who comes alongside of us to call out to us. This is what Paul was speaking of when he wrote that we first are encouraged by God. Our hearts are strengthened because the Holy Spirit, the God who comes alongside of us speaks his word to us. And what is the Holy Spirit going to say to us to encourage us? Well, what Jesus told his disciples that the Holy Spirit would speak to them about, interestingly enough, is him. In the fourteenth chapter of John’s gospel, we hear Jesus tell his disciples and us, that “the Holy Spirit , whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that I have said to you.” And in the fifteenth chapter of John, Jesus again teaching on the Holy Spirit tells his disciples, “when the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” Lastly from the sixteenth chapter of John, Jesus tells us that “when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth because he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.’Are you beginning to see just how the Holy Spirit that the Jesus sends us from the Father encourages us? The Holy Spirit speaks to us about Jesus. The point is made so clear in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews where we read, “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our gaze upon Jesus the originator of our faith and the one who brings our faith to completion. Who instead of experiencing joy instead endured the cross that was set before him, disregarding its shame and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow exhausted in your life and lose heart.” The Holy Spirit speaks to us about Jesus, about his faith in his Heavenly Father, our God who has the power to bring life to the dead and bring into existence the things which do not exist. Jesus gave up the unspeakable joy of life in the bosom of the Father to come to earth to live a life of the greater love, a love that laid down its life upon the cross, a cross considered a curse among his people that became instead the place of greatest blessing.  This faith of Jesus, this is why he now abides eternally in the presence of his Heavenly Father and why we have the hope of abiding there as well.Yet, this hope is only ours if we endure. As Paul writes, “If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation; and if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.” The word Paul uses here for patience is a word that means to abide under, in other words it is to accept to live with suffering as a part of life with Christ. This is the difficulty that is faced when suffering comes, to remain under the suffering instead of listening to the desires of the flesh which can be summed up as flight or fight. Patient endurance is to not fall away when persecution or suffering comes nor is it to fight against suffering demanding what may be rightfully ours. No patient endurance is to fix our gaze upon Jesus who fixed his face like flint toward the cross. For us to do so means that we not only need the encouragement that comes from our Heavenly Father through the Holy Spirit but it also means that we need encouragement from each other. In the third chapter of Hebrews we read, “take care lest there be in any of you an unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But encourage, again the word is paraklesio, one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partners of Christ if we indeed hold our original confidence firm to the end.” This is telling us that we are to come alongside one another and call out to each other and speak to each other about Jesus. This is why the author of Hebrews also writes in the tenth chapter that we should not neglect to meet together but we are to encourage one another all the more as we see the Day of the Lord drawing near.This is why the fellowship we share as brothers and sisters is so important because it is this fellowship with the brothers and sisters that we can see that helps us hold fast to the fellowship we have with the God that we cannot see.When Paul states that we share in his sufferings, the word he uses for share is actually the word for fellowship. In other words, Paul believed rightly that the body of Christ is a fellowship of suffering and encouragement. As Paul wrote in the twelfth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored all rejoice together.”

         So, yes the unpleasant truth is that when we desire to live a godly life following Jesus we will experience the hatred of the world. I mean, if it happened to Jesus why should we not expect that this hatred would come to us those who are following him? But our hearts our strengthened by the Holy Spirit who every morning is there speaking to us about Jesus causing us to fix our gaze upon Jesus instead of focusing in on all of the world’s distractions. As Jesus endured so can we. He is the originator of our faith and he is the very completion of our faith so we look to him to keep our faith. And not only do we have the gift of the Holy Spirit but we also have each other. Ours is a fellowship of suffering and encouragement. When one of us hurts, we all hurt. When one experiences joy, we all rejoice. The common denomination in all of this is this idea of the word. God speaks, calling us to love each other which causes the world to react with hate. So, God speaks again the word, the word called Jesus which strengthens us to keep his word. And we speak, a word, a word about Jesus, a word to give strength to another’s heart just as God first spoke his love to us. This is why we don’t take flight and fall away from God or fight to take up the weapons of the flesh but we patiently endure, abiding under our sufferings until the day when we will all abide in the presence of God forever. Ame. 

         

The Completion of Holiness

 August 16 2020

2 Corinthians 6 and 7:1

         This past while since I’ve been home more I’ve found that I really enjoy cooking and baking. The internet is loaded with recipes so it isn’t hard to find something to try. I should say though that I only really enjoy cooking or baking if what I’m making turns out the way it is supposed to. It’s hard to go to all the trouble of putting ingredients together only to end up with something less than you hoped for. This past while this is what has been happening to a few of my cakes I’ve tried to bake them and they’ve come out a little gooey on the inside. As I tried to figure out what was going on it seems as if our ovens thermostat may be on the fritz. The easy part in getting the oven fixed is that remembering when we purchased it which isn’t to difficult to figure out. We, of course, got it when the tree wrecked our house seven years ago. So, if the oven has been faithful for seven years I guess I can’t complain.

         When I was trying to figure out how old our oven was I just automatically used the event of the tree wiping out our house as a reference point. It’s funny that the tree hitting our house is our defining story even though we have lots of other stories we could tell. When we look back and remember though we always include that what we’re remembering was either before the tree hit the house or after the tree hit the house. I often wonder if other families have defining stories like our family does, an event that happened that kind of changed the course of all other events after it. The family of Israel, the people of God, had such an event. What is surprising is that this event wasn’t what most people would expect, the event of their leaving Egypt as free people under the leadership of Moses. I mean, after all this event was the event that formed them into a nation under the rule of God. Yet as defining as leaving Egypt was there was something else that happened to the people of Israel that shaped and molded how they looked at the world. The reason that this even had such a profound effect upon the people of Israel is that it was very traumatic, an unbelievable happening that even though it was predicted and prophesied that it was going to happen was still quite a shock to everyone when it did happen. This event I’m talking about is what the Bible speaks of as the exile. The exile was where the people of Israel who lived in Judah were taken into captivity by the Babylonians in Five Hundred and Ninety Seven B. C. Now, why this defeat at the hands of the Babylonians came as such a surprise is that the people of Israel believed that God would keep them safe, after all his Temple was at the center of Judah in Jerusalem. Surely God would not allow anything to happen to them as long as the Temple was there? What the people did not understand is that God had grown tired of his peoples idol worship, idol worship that led them into behave in grossly immoral ways. So, what God let his people know, through the various prophets that he called forth, is that he was going to allow Babylon to overrun Judah and take his people into captivity because of their transgressions. Yet even though this seemed like the end of the people of Israel being the people of God, God also told his prophets that he was going to do something that the world had never seen; God was going to bring his people back to the land that he had promised their ancestors. This was unusual because when an invading country overwhelmed a country and took their inhabitants captive those captives were taken away never to be heard from again. Not so with God’s people. They were going to be brought back home, led by God and his servant in much the same way that Moses had once first led the people to the Promised Land. Well, what God promised did happen and through what is very much a miracle, the Babylonians allowed the people of Judah to go home, to go and rebuild the city of Jerusalem and to rebuild the ruined Temple. And even though the people of Judah did return there was always the feeling among the people of Israel that the exile was never truly over, there was always a lingering doubt that what was supposed to have happen actually really happened. The grand visions of the peoples return as pictured by the prophet Isaiah were never experienced. The problem of course, was that the root cause of what had caused the exile, the peoples captivity to sin had never been dealt with.

         Now, I am surprised a little that in churches we don’t ever really talk about the exile all that much even though it is the defining event for the people of Israel. It is perhaps that people don’t really see the relevance the exile has to the way were living today. This is where what Paul has to teach us in our scripture for today is so important for us. You see, as we have said for the past couple of weeks Paul has been teaching about the new covenant how God’s law is to be written on our hearts, how we are to know God in an intimate way and how having his law upon our hearts and knowing God enable us to love him with all of our hearts, our souls and our strength and love our neighbor as ourselves. What we cannot forget is that this new covenant was in response to God’s people returning from exile. In the thirty first chapter of Jeremiah where we learn about the new covenant we also find God telling his people that there is hope for their future because one day their children would come back to their own country. The whole chapter is about how God is going to bring his people back to the country that he promised to them and when this happens this is when he would enter into a new covenant with them. The importance of this new covenant is that only through this new covenant would people be finally able to be free from the power of sin, free from the curse which causes people to be far from God.

         As we look at the second through the seventh chapters of Second Corinthians what we discover is that Paul has used this idea of the exile extensively and he especially used prophecies about the return from exile to drive home his points. When Paul speaks of being in the triumphal procession in the second chapter of Second Corinthians, he is recalling the prophecy where God would be the victor over Babylon and it is God who would lead his people home. When Paul speaks of being a pleasing aroma, he is most likely quoting from the Twentieth chapter of Ezekiel where we hear God tell Ezekiel, “As a pleasing aroma I will accept you when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered. And I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of the peoples. So, Paul in his letter, right from the beginning has got the return from exile on his mind. 

         We have to keep in mind that the return from exile is Paul’s theme for his letter when we come to our scripture for today otherwise it might seem that Paul has gone off on some strange tangent. No, what Paul is doing in todays scripture is teaching us how, now with the new covenant, God has brought us back to himself. No, longer does anyone have to dwell in a far country, far from the Heavenly Father who loves them. God tells us, “In a favorable time I listened to you, in a day of salvation I have helped you.” This is God’s promise given to his people in exile found in the book of Isaiah and it is this promise that Paul uses to urge his readers to not receive the grace of God in vain but instead to work together with God. Now, the way Paul words this should make us stop because this phrase “in vain” as we might remember is part of the second command of the Ten Commandments where we are not to take the name of God in vain. Paul is thus pointing out that the new covenant which empowers us to love God with all of our heart, our life and our resources in effect empowers us to keep the first of the Ten Commandments to have no other gods because now we love only the one true living God. So, it only makes sense that Paul would go on to bring up the second commandment to not take the name of the Lord in vain. This commandment is about the people of God bearing the name of God, living a life which exalts the name, the unchanging characteristics of God. This means that we as people of God are to be people slow to anger, people of steadfast love and faithfulness, willing to forgive transgressions and sins. This is what we are to do as we work with God is to bring honor and glory to his name. To bear God’s name in vain then is to live a life where even though we know God and love God the life we lead does not show that the name of God rests upon us so that the reputation of God is ruined because of the way we live. This is Paul’s concern at the beginning of the sixth chapter of Second Corinthians. 

         Now, in order for us to not receive God’s grace in vain what is necessary is that we are no longer living in exile. This is where this idea of exile becomes so important to us here in the twenty first century because the exile  represented the people of God being taken to a far off country to symbolize that even though they were God’s people they were instead actually far from him. Being in exile wasn’t about pagans, or Gentiles who of course had no relationship with God; no, exile is about people who thought they had a relationship with God but found out too late the relationship they had was not as good as they thought it was. The answer as to what was wrong in the people of Israel’s relationship with their God was revealed at the crucifixion of Jesus. There the people of Israel, relying upon the power of their flesh, in horrible violence, put to death the Son of God who relied upon the power of the Spirit. All seemed lost until three days later Jesus walked out alive of the tomb on Easter morning. You see, what caused the people of God to be so far from God that they would crucify God’s own Son was their reliance upon their flesh. So, to come out of exile, to come out of Babylon is a call by Paul to leave the ways of the flesh behind. When Paul states that he puts no obstacle in anyone’s way, he is declaring that the road out of exile, the road out of a life lived by the power of the flesh has been made smooth; there is nothing to prevent anyone from living life in the power of the Spirit. Paul references the Sixtieth Chapter of Isaiah when he writes that his heart is open wide. Isaiah was writing about the returning children of Israel and he wrote “Lift up your eyes all around and see; they shall all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be carried on the hip. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall throb and grow large with delight.” This is what Paul was witnessing, the sons and daughters of God returning to him and Paul was thrilled, his heart was wide open with delight.

         So, just as the prophets had foresaw, people were leaving the existence of captivity, their life in the flesh, a life far from God depicted by life in Babylon and they were coming home to God to a life of freedom in the Spirit of God.What Paul’s concern.was was that even though the people of Corinth had experienced life in the Spirit they were still, at the same time, trying to live according to the flesh. When traveling preachers came to town, the people of Corinth were enamored by the letters of recommendation that these preachers passed around. The people of Corinth were also impressed that unlike Paul these preachers were willing to enter into the accepted patron/client relationship receiving payment for their preaching. These were all ways of the flesh, the letters of recommendation elevating these preachers own abilities and getting paid was all about control in the power of the flesh. We also see this in the first letter Paul wrote to the people at Corinth where there were a number of issues that had their roots in the life of the flesh. The church had split into four factions and they quarreled among themselves as to which faction was the best. There were issues of immorality that went unaddressed, they took their grievances against each other to the public courts and when they came together for the Lord’s Supper instead of sharing their food as was expected everyone just ate on their own totally missing the point of the meal symbolizing their unity in Christ. Listen to how Paul describes the work of the flesh in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Galatians that the being in the flesh is marked by sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, and drunkenness. Do you see how many of these were happening in the church of Corinth even though they were believing that they were Spirit filled people of the new covenant? It was if when the people of Israel were at long last being led back by God to come home with him they decided to bring a few momentous of life in Babylon. Paul is saying that when you get out of Babylon you get out of Babylon and never look back. 

         Paul uses four different verses from the prophets of old to drive home his point that they needed to give up completely their old way of life. The first quotation Paul uses is from the thirty seventh chapter of Ezekiel who was a prophet in exile and God spoke to him and told him  that one day God’s dwelling would be with his people. God declares “ I will be there God and they shall be my people.” And further God told Ezekiel that he would make a covenant of peace with them. This is exactly what Paul has been teaching in his letter, that God makes his home with anyone who keeps his word. This is what establishes God’s new covenant with his people. Paul goes on to quote from the fifty second chapter of Isaiah where Isaiah in a vision sees the people of Israel leaving Babylon and he writes “Depart, depart, go out from there touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her, meaning Babylon, and purify yourself those who bear the vessels of the Lord.” What Isaiah is saying is that the people were not to bring the impurities of Babylon with them when they come home to Jerusalem to dwell with God. They were to purify themselves, to prepare themselves for a life lived at home with God. Next, Paul quotes from Ezekiel again this time from the twentieth chapter where God declares, “I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out from the countries where you are scattered with a mighty hand and outstretched arm…” God is bringing his people out from the nations so that they might be set apart for the holy work of life in the Spirit. God’s intention has always been that his people would be separate from the nations in that their actions would be guided by the Spirit and not by the flesh. Finally, Paul quotes from Second Samuel, the seventh chapter where God promises to be a father to his people and they would be his children. This meant that God would discipline them yet his steadfast love would never depart from them.”It was God who would teach his children the ways of the Holy Spirit and he would discipline them out of love when they turned back to the ways of the flesh. As Paul goes on to say, these are the promises of God. God promises to make his home among us, he promises to be our God  and welcome us home. God promises to be our father, to guide and discipline us and to never take his steadfast love from us. This is why we are to cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the flesh, to be holy before our God.

         You see the problem with the way of the Spirit is that it is so radically different from the ways of the flesh that it just doesn’t seem right. I mean look at the life of Paul . He endured afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, riots labors, sleepless nights and hunger. Is it any wonder the people of Corinth were ashamed of Paul’s life? The way of the Spirit is the way of suffering, of being vulnerable, of bearing another’s sin at great cost to yourself. But what Paul found in the midst of all his trial is that he had patience, he had kindness, he had the Holy Spirit, he had genuine love and truthful speech and most of all Paul found he had the power of God which was infinitely greater than the power of his flesh. You see, Paul knew the beauty of  life at home with God and what he couldn’t understand is why anyone would want to go back to the captivity of Babylon. Yet you know, even today Christians get enamored with the ways of the flesh to which Paul would say to them “Cleanse yourself and bring your holiness to completion.” May we take Pauls teaching to heart today. Amen.