Monthly Archives: May 2021

Old Testament Lectionary

For those who want a change from the Gospel

Pentecost – Ezekiel 37:1-14

This purple passage from Ezekiel may be the only bit of the whole book with which modern-day readers feel familiar (unless we are fans of Pulp Fiction, in which case 25:17 might be familiar). It begins with two questions, one which God asks the prophet, but also one which we ought to ask ourselves, even though the answer is taken for granted in the text. ‘Can these bones live?’ is the obvious question, but the other is less clear: ‘What caused these dry bones to be in the valley?’ In order to answer that question, we have to be familiar with the book of Ezekiel so far, and the life of its writer.

Ezekiel has lived through a two year siege of his city, Jerusalem, with all the attendant stress, hardship, famine and sickness. After a year in lockdown everyone is paying attention nowadays to mental health, and rightly so, but imagine two years of the kind of lockdown which leads to starvation and eventual captivity, with a threatening and cruel army just over the wall. He has heard reports from his exile in Babylon of the destruction of the Temple, where he served as a priest and even in exile expected that he would return to his duties sooner or later. He has seen in action the legendary cruelty of the Babylonians as they tortured the captives. He has seen the death of his beloved wife, but has been told by God not to mourn, as a sign to the people not to mourn for their city, now razed to the ground. And perhaps the worst of all, he has seen in a vision the glory of God, symbolising his presence among his people, depart from the Temple. Put it like that, and piles of dry bones might well describe how you see life, and the future. So no wonder the despairing answer to God’s question ‘Can these bones live?’ is ‘Your guess is as good as mine, O Lord.’

We do, of course, have a human tendency to want to skip the nasty bits of life and head for the positive bits. We’re not comfortable with death, and we’re allergic to pain, so lets head for the nice passages, which offer us a hope and a future and the drying of our tears. There’s nothing wrong with that: anyone who enjoys pain is rightly branded as a bit weird. But liturgically we can do the same if we long for Easter Sunday without entering into the full horror of Holy Week, and celebrate Pentecost without first asking ‘Why do we so need the power of the Holy Spirit?’ Only if we see ourselves, and the Church, as God sees us; only if we are aware of the dryness and deadness of so much of what we do can we really appreciate how much we need the new life which Pentecost promises and the Spirit brings. To really appreciate our need cuts through ideas such as Pentecost being the Patronal Festival of those funny charismatics, but it’s not for me, thanks very much! Elsewhere the exalted Christ asks self-satisfied members of his church to realise how poor, naked, pitiful and blind they are, and to come to him for healing (Rev 3:17). We can’t afford to ignore Pentecost.

The restoration of the mighty army happens in two stages, and that has something to teach us too. The word ‘Zombie’ is not in the Bible’s vocabulary, but the reality here is that people brought to life by God are really the undead, walking around but with no life in them, until the second touch of his Spirit, breathed into them, brings them fully alive. It was the practice of the Early Church first to baptise new converts following their repentance and belief, and then to pray for them to receive the Spirit. The C of E has institutionalised this into Confirmation, and separated it into a second and much later ceremony, and some Pentecostal churches teach that a ‘Second Blessing’ of the Spirit, as evidenced by speaking in tongues, is necessary for full salvation. But whilst it may be wrong to separate Baptism and the Holy Spirit, the fact is that there are plenty of undead Christians walking around with no practical experience of receiving the Spirit at all. When that happened in the book of Acts, the Apostles immediately did something about it, and prayed for the people concerned to be filled with the Spirit, so that what flowed from their mouths, whether praise, prophesy or tongues, gave evidence to anyone present that they really had received the Spirit. Maybe today there are those who will want, on this feast of Pentecost, to ask God for that filling with his Spirit, or to ask to be refilled (because we leak!) so that we can come fully alive in Christ.

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OT Lectionary

For those who want a change from the Gospel

Sunday after Ascension Day – Ezekiel 36:24-28

Whilst it is a bit of a miserable book, blaming the people of Israel for their behaviour which led them into exile in Babylon, there are a few passages about blessing and restoration, such as this passage for today. But before we go ‘Ahhh, that’s lovely!’ too readily, there are a few things we ought to know, and a few harsh lessons for us to learn from this seemingly benign post-Easter message.

The first thing is that nowhere in the entire book does the prophet speak of God’s love for the people. That may seem shocking, but the message is reinforced if we read on a few verses: God tells the people in no uncertain terms ‘I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign Lord. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, people of Israel!’ (v.32) This is not about the people: it’s about God’s reputation. When he does restore their fortunes, the next few verses tell us, it is so that ‘the nations around you that remain will know that I the Lord have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.’ (v.36)

Of course the love of God for his people is not absent from the biblical accounts, but it is worth asking the question as to why it doesn’t feature big-time in Ezekiel. But there is yet worse to come: the only way that God is going to be able to present to the world a holy, cleansed people is by taking away their free will! A new heart and a new will is going to replace their stubborn hears and wills, so that they will simply be unable to sin. The precious gift which was given in the Garden of Eden, but which led to so much disaster, is going to be taken away. The oft-repeated idea that God did not make us to be robots is going to be proven wrong: we will have no option but to obey him.

Suddenly this passage has taken on a chilling aspect, and while like all texts it has to be read in the context of the whole Bible, there are maybe some things for us to learn from what it actually says. I am currently doing a piece of work on the way in which some modern churches have sold out to the gospel of consumerism and therapy. In other words, God is there to make me feel better, to answer all my prayers, and to fill me with joy and peace. I have listened in several churches to testimonies from people who have found faith through some kind of evangelistic course, and without exception their stories have been about finding healing, confidence, a better self-image, calm and peace in difficult situations, and so on. Since I met Jesus, my life has felt better. Not once did I hear anyone bewailing their sinful lifestyle and rejoicing in forgiveness, or people having been sent out in costly service to the world as a result of their conversion. And certainly never once have I heard anyone saying that they had become convinced that the gospel was, quite simply, the truth. Now of course Jesus does give peace and all the rest of it, certainly in the immediate post-conversion honeymoon period, but when we preach a gospel which only promises those things, rather than the suffering and persecution which Jesus promised, it is not surprising that people can be headed for a fall.

So Ezekiel reminds us that God is not there for us: we are there for him. His reputation is at stake, and he will do what it takes to protect it, even from the behaviour of his people. I have recently completed another five or six hours of safeguarding training. Don’t get me wrong – we need to do this, but my goodness how tragic that we need to. The church has become a byword for child abuse. You only have to listen to any stand-up comedy and it’ll come up sooner or later, and God’s reputation has been dragged through the mud, because of the behaviour of a small but significant number of people who were more concerned about their own appetites than about the reputation of their Lord.

Of course none of us would ever do anything so terrible as that, but it is worth asking the question ‘What is it that I do do which causes God’s name to be dishonoured?’ Even something as simple as choosing to speak to our friends after church rather than approaching those newcomers can result in people telling others ‘I tried church, but nobody seemed to want me there, so I won’t bother again.’ We used to sing that it was all about you, Jesus. We still do have free will – let’s make sure that it is all about him.

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OT Lectionary

For those who want a change from the Gospel

Easter 6 – Isaiah 55:1-11

I must confess that I absolutely love this passage. I am also a great fan of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. For any who haven’t heard of this model, it’s basically a way of dividing the human race up into 16 different personality types, and then using insights about yourself in areas as diverse as your marriage, your working life, parenting, spirituality, preaching, and even which Bible books you prefer. I have found it immensely helpful over the years, but I can still remember the retreat I went on when we were sorted out into our types (no hats were involved) and taught what it all meant and how it might be applied. The climax of the weekend was when we were put into groups of the same personality type. I have rarely felt so comfortable in my life, being with a small group of people who thought in exactly the same way as I did. Each group was given two sheets of flipchart paper, and asked to write two things: what we would most like to say to the world, and what we would most like to hear the world saying to us. It took us all of 10 seconds to come up with ours: we would like to say ‘Trust us, we know what we’re doing!’ and we would most like to hear ‘You were right all along!’ I’ll never forget that moment.

This passage, which dates from the end of Israel’s exile and which promises liberation and return to their homeland, has Israel’s enemies saying to her ‘You were right all along!’ It is one of several passages in the OT where those who have not been part of Israel’s relationship with Yahweh come flocking to his people to receive from his riches, his wisdom and his blessing because they have seen Israel’s splendour. Zechariah 8:23 is a great example: ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’”’ I love the idea of those who have rejected God finally getting it, and saying to the Christians ‘You were right all along!’

As a visionary I’m very good at seeing what’s wrong with things, and as a thinker I like to believe that I’m always coming up with workable solutions for improvement. But as an introvert I rarely show my working-out, so that the net result is that like John Lennon people often say I’m a dreamer. We’re all very well aware that we live in a Church which, at least in the West, is far from effective, is in desperate need of an overhaul, and is being increasingly marginalised by the world around, with fewer and fewer people apparently having any interest at all in what we have to say. Add into the mix a year of lockdown when we have been unable to do one of the main things we think we do know how to do, and everything seems to be up in the air. So the promise of people coming to us and saying ‘People of God, what must we do?’ seems a highly remote one. Show us how to be saved, teach us the wisdom to live well, and share with us your splendour and God’s blessings. Yeah, right. Not going to happen.

And yet the promise of this text is that it will, and I for one find this immensely comforting as I come to terms with the decline of the organisation I have given most of my life for. I take home two things from this passage. The first is the importance of personality in reading Scripture. All of us will have different bits, books, or passages which we most love, and that isn’t a sin: it’s because of how God has wired each of us up uniquely. That of course doesn’t let us off the hook from exploring other passages which we are less immediately drawn towards, or which we find downright difficult. But to enjoy those passages which most speak to us because of who God has made us can be a real tonic for our spirituality.

But the second thing this to listen to the message of this text, especially when we are tempted to feel despair at the state of the Church and the state of the world because of the state of the Church. I pray fervently towards that promised day when people will flock to us to say ‘You were right all along!’

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OT Lectionary

For those who want a change from the Gospel

Easter 5 – Genesis 22:1-18

This is an appalling story on so many levels. God demands a human sacrifice. That sacrifice is to be the longed-for son born miraculously to a barren woman of 90, as a direct result of his promise of a dynasty for Abraham. The way that the story is narrated slows down as we read through, building the tension until the dramatic climax when Abraham, knife in hand, is about to kill his own son, believing that God has told him to do so. What on earth is this all about? Is it a story of a cruel and heartless God, or Abraham’s misguided faith, or what?

On one level, this story (known in Jewish scholarship as the ‘Akedah’ or ‘binding’ of Isaac) is what is known as an aetiology, that is, a story told to explain a present reality. The OT is full of them, and they are easy to spot as they usually say something like ‘That is why that pile of stones is here to this day’. You can imagine a child asking a question, with the aetiology being told as the answer. This story became associated with the Temple in Jerusalem, and the child might have asked ‘Why do we cut up animals?’ The answer is that people used to cut up each other, until God stepped in and prevented that form of worship, substituting animals instead. Our culture’s animal rights agenda notwithstanding, the story immediately becomes something of an improvement. But I think there is something deeper going on, and we will have to look elsewhere for the key which unlocks it. But first, as always, a bit of context.

22:1 begins ‘Some time later’ or, in the Hebrew ‘After these things’. After what things? For many chapters God has been at work on Abraham. He begins by changing his name, and then through a series of encounters he tests Abraham’s relationship with him. He makes the promise of a naturally born son and heir, and Abraham’s reaction is incredulous laughter. He invites Abraham to intercede for the doomed cities, and he allows Abraham to lie about his wife to king Abimelek, rescuing Sarah just in time. Abraham’s faith in God is, to say the very least, a bit shaky. But by the time God steps in and rescues Isaac from the knife, he knows now that Abraham ‘fears’ him – the first time this word has been used about Abraham and God, although we have seen Abraham fearing death at the hand of local rulers because of his beautiful wife (Chs 12 and 20), and we have seen him afraid that God’s promise of a son could not be fulfilled without his and Hagar’s help. Abraham is not so much being invited to kill off his son, but rather his lack of trust in God.

But there is something else going on here, and the key is to be found in Gen 18:17. God sends three angels (?) to Abraham to warn his about the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, where his relative Lot was living. But God asks himself the poignant question ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?’ The immediate meaning of this is the destruction of the evil cities, but many centuries in the future God was going to do something else: he was going to offer his one and only son, whom he loved dearly, as a sacrifice. All those years earlier God wanted to share with his friend what was on his heart: that’s what friends do, and that may be why James was later to describe Abraham as God’s friend (2:23). Abraham gained a unique insight into God’s eternal purposes as his friend shared his heart with him.

When I was working as a diocesan discipleship officer there was, as you might imagine, much debate over what discipleship really means, how we might define it and whether or not it might in any way be measured. Surely there is no greater relationship with God than one of profound friendship, in which we gradually, and often painfully, get to understand his heart as he understands ours. Yes, Christian growth is to some extent about becoming more like Jesus, breaking the grip of addictive sins on us (whatever our particular poison might be), knowing our Bibles better and all that, but Abraham would tell us that the bottom line is how well we know God and understand his heart. This is still a very difficult story, but to read it as an insight into God’s heart and emotions can at least help us to find a way into it.

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