Oh That We Had Meat to Eat

Text: Numbers 11

When we read this passage from Numbers I’m quite sure many of us sigh heavily thinking, “Oh great, another story about God’s people acting spoiled and petty and then God quite narcissistically overreacting and angrily smiting and killing them with some sort of plaque.”  In Numbers 11 alone we have God sending the dreaded fire on the outskirts of the camp making the people anxious and what amounts to severe food sickness from eating quail that had spoiled because the amount of quail that God provided was so ridiculously large, to the point of being offensive.  Of course, it probably would have helped if their way of eating small fowl back then involved cooking it.  The ancient historian Herodotus says they ate it raw with lots of salt.  (Don't everyone gag at once.)  Yet alas, to simply dismiss this story and others like it as if the Old Testament were a movie entitled “Legends of a Petty God” would be to miss the invaluable lesson it contains with respect to us and God; that we prefer idols to the real thing.

Yet we have to admit here that something just isn’t quite right in Numbers 11 in that it is riddled with excessive behaviours that don’t add up.  If I were to put myself in the place of the Israelites, I would be missing meat too; carnivore that I am.  But I don’t think I would be standing in my doorway weeping loudly and bitterly about it as if someone had died.  And then there’s Moses and his “it’s all about me” reaction to seeing and especially hearing this multitude of 600,000+ people wailing for a little “two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes on a sesame seed bun”.  And the big question, why is the LORD so mad that he would literally bury his people in quail and give them a lethal dose of food poisoning?  With all these excesses in behaviours it seems there is more going on here than the Israelites simply complaining about the food.  It seems like something got lost in translation. 

So, maybe a different translation might be in order.  Take note: this will probably be the one and only time I will say the King James Version trumped them all.  It reads: “And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, ‘Who shall give us flesh to eat?  We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes’.”  Well, let me do a little verse by verse for a moment here and we’ll come to see that the Israelites are actually longing worship and serve another god than the one who delivered them from slavery in Egypt.

Let’s start with the mixt multitude who fell a lusting.  The mixt multitude or rabble was a considerable number of non-Israelite people who left Egypt with them after having seen how the God of the Israelites had humiliated all the Egyptian gods by means of the Ten Plagues.  They wanted to worship and serve the one true God.  Well, the rabble gets a strong craving.  They “fell a lusting”.  You see, almost all ancient religious festivals related to celebrating life and fertility and agriculture involved a drunken feast that turned into an orgy.  If you remember this was what was happening at the Golden Calf incident when the Israelites “rose up to play”.  I am inclined to think here in Numbers 11 that it was festival time for one of the fertility gods back in Egypt and the rabble’s craving was indeed that they “fell a lusting” because it was time to rise up and play. 

Second, the Hebrew does not say “Oh that we had meat to eat.”  Quite literally it reads “who will cause us to eat meat?”  In the ancient world it was next to impossible to eat meat that was not in someway associated with the worship of some god.  The Israelites being poor lower class slaves in Egypt didn’t get to eat much meat.  They mostly ate fish and root vegetables.  They said “Oh how we remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.”  Meat and fish would have most likely come to them as charitable overflow from one of the Egyptian fertility festivals for which it was the responsibility of the god to provide the food abundantly and free of charge for all the people.  So, their asking “who shall give us meat to eat” reflects that they are looking, longing for another god who will give them meat to eat and a god associated with the Nile is looking like a reasonable suspect.  I can see Moses and the LORD beginning to be a bit upset here because things are building up to another Golden Calf episode. 

And of course, they threw the word “remember” in there.  Remembering what your god had done for you was an official component of worship way back when.  In the book of Numbers this incident happened not long after their first celebration of the Passover in the Wilderness.  So, they should have been remembering how the LORD their God brought them out of Egypt, out of slavery and poverty and was taking them to their own land to make them to be a great nation.  But no!  They are “remembering” the free fish and slaves' food the so-called gods of Egypt provided them.  Moreover, they've got the nerve to say that their very lives were withering away.  Then the clincher, like gods themselves they rather snobbishly proclaim that there has been nothing but "this manna" set before them.  I hope you can feel the gravity of the insult they are offering up to the LORD.  They start by asking "who will give us meat to eat?" And add to it a showy display of bitter weeping and finish with "There's nothing but this manna."  No wonder the LORD wants to bury them in quail. 

What god are they longing for?  Well, there's an ancient Egyptian god who fits the bill and coincidentally, his name was Hapi.  He was a fertility god who made the Nile flood every year to make the soil rich in nutrients for growing crops.  He was the god responsible for feeding Egypt not only with vegetables but with fish as well.  Hapi was very important.  He gave Hapi-ness to his people, abundant food and festival.  Yahweh, the LORD, on the other hand, he was a great warrior god but when it came to food all he seemed able to give was manna and manna, miracle provision that it was, just wasn't Hapi enough.  They wanted more than the LORD God's gracious provision for them.

So, this morning we gather around the table of the LORD.  Part of the spiritual disciple we exercise with this simple ort of a meal is to come remembering how the Triune God of grace has acted savingly in each of our lives.  We come remembering that Jesus his very self is the True Manna come down from heaven from the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit to be our abundance of enough.  We come remembering how Jesus has come into our lives and changed us, healed us, transformed us and made us to know that we are not alone.  We should also come knowing that we too suffer from Hapi-ness.  We are indeed inclined to want to find a power greater than ourselves who will give us meat to eat because it is difficult for us to simply let Jesus, in his presence and his power be our enough.  We truly are inclined to say “Oh that we had meat to eat”.  Well, here is bread.  Here is wine.  Here is the flesh and blood of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.  We may be inclined to think he is not enough, but praise him for he has made us each to know for certain that he is.  Come to the table of our LORD.  Let us remember him and stand more firmly in the Life abundant.  Amen.

Things of Most Importance

Text: James 3:13-17

St. Ignatius was the third bishop at Antioch in Syria which was for a time the hub of the Church after it moved forth from Jerusalem.  He was born around 35 AD and tradition has it that he was one of the children whom Jesus called to himself and blessed as a lesson of humility to his disciples.  Ignatius knew Peter and was discipled by the Apostle John.   He Ignatius was arrested in Antioch around 107 AD and taken to Rome where he was martyred in 108 AD.  His traveling companions along the way were the leopards who finally mauled him to death in a public spectacle there in Rome.

On the way to Rome Ignatius wrote seven letters, one being to his friend Polycarp contains his advice on how Polycarp should go about his work as bishop in Smyrna.  This letter is the last words of one early church leader to another, actually one best friend to another and therefore it communicates things most important in church leadership and in life. Ignatius writes:

"Having obtained good proof that your mind is fixed in God as upon an immovable rock, I loudly glorify his name that I have been thought worthy to behold your blameless face, which may I ever enjoy in God!  I beg you, by the grace with which you are clothed, to press forward in your course, and to exhort all that they may be saved.  Maintain your position with all care, both in the flesh and spirit.  Have a regard to preserve unity, than which nothing is better.  Bear with all, even as the Lord does with you.  Support all in love, as also you do.  Give yourself to prayer without ceasing.  Implore additional understanding to which you already have.  Be watchful, possessing a sleepless spirit.  Speak to each one separately, as God enables you.  Bear the infirmities of all, as being a perfect athlete in the Christian life, even as does the Lord of all.  Where the labour is great, the gain is all the more." 

So what’s Ignatius saying.  First, he notes that Polycarp is clothed in grace, that there is a quality in his demeanour which manifests the favour and benevolence of God towards humanity.  The Spirit of the Lord was noticeably upon Polycarp in the conduct of his life.  Therefore, he should keep the course, keep moving forward in growth in Christ and living the Christian life and ministering (even if it leads to martyrdom) all the while begging for more wisdom, more understanding of Jesus and the Christ-like nature to add to what he already has. 

Moreover, since the grace of God is evident upon Polycarp he should therefore exhort everyone with the knowledge of Jesus’ lordship that they may be, not might be, may be saved.  In the early church they believed that the simple proclaiming of the Gospel had actual saving effect on a person.  Proclaiming the Gospel to be heard was an act of the saving Lordship of Jesus Christ upon another.  Proclaiming to others that God the Father in his love for his creation by means of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of God the Son as Jesus the Christ has in the power of God the Holy Spirit defeated sin and death and all evil powers is saving to person.  Jesus is the Lord who saves and redeems us; simply proclaiming this Good News has saving effect on a person. 

So, applying this to us, do we really get it that God’s grace is evident upon us who are Jesus’ disciples?  Do we get that?  I suspect we don’t and that’s why we are so shy about making the saving proclamation of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.  Truly, there is real saving power in the Gospel; life giving power to save us from the disease of sin and its consequence death; thus, healing power, transforming power.  The Gospel is not simply an invitation to believe religious stuff.  Jesus is Lord and he has saved his creation from sin and death and throw the power of evil in there too.  This is reality since the God the Father raised Jesus from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit which he freely shares with us.  This is the new creation which the Holy Spirit is bringing about.  Since we have been saved, we must therefore live our outward lives worthy of and exhibiting of the grace God has so lavishly poured upon us and we must pay particular attention to maintaining our spiritual lives – our relationship to the Father through and with Jesus the Son in the Holy Spirit.  Treating others graciously and attending to our spiritual lives are two of the most important things in life for us according to Ignatius.

The most important thing Ignatius wants Polycarp to get is to above all work to preserve unity or union in the church.  He says “than which there is nothing better”.  Unity, a church’s communion in Christ is the most important thing for a congregation and its leaders to be on about.  I have a few years of ministerial experience behind me and I can attest that getting “church people” to see beyond their own opinions, their own personal beliefs, beyond the ends of their own noses to seeing Jesus is a near exercise in futility and I say that realizing how difficult it is for Christ Jesus to get me to see past my own opinions, beliefs, and pride.  Unity in Christ, the minister who comes to a congregation in these days of declining and dying churches saying that unity is more important than getting people in the doors is most likely on a path to martyrdom carried out by that congregation.  Ignatius here realizes that not everybody is on the same page at the same time if ever when it comes to unity in the church.  Therefore, bearing with one another, being patient with one another, putting the person before the problem is the way of the Christian.  Moreover, Ignatius says to support all in love, get involved in each others’ lives and be supportive to each other.  We are all sick in the head and sick in the heart with respect to our relationship to God.  Sin is fundamentally a relational sickness, a disease in our relationship with God and others not simply a moral problem or that we do bad things and deserve to be punished.  So we must as Ignatius says bear one another’s infirmities, one another’s sin sick minds and mindedness of not being focused on Christ Jesus.  Ignatius also encourages us to speak to each other individually for it is in loving and supportive listening in Christ’s name that God enables truthful and wise speaking.  This is particularly true in the midst of interpersonal conflict.

Ignatius then instructs us to pray without ceasing.  The capacity to bear with all and to be supportive to all arises from prayer.  The intentional effort to pray without ceasing is the context in which the Holy Spirit works to heal and retrain our mindedness away from envy and selfish ambition – the two things that James says are at the heart of disunity in the church, and not only in the church but also in our families, in our friendships, truly in every area of our lives.  A large part of the work of prayer is simply acknowledging your self being in the presence of God, feeling what you feel, becoming aware of your worrisome and loathsome patterns of thought and being open to hearing from the Lord what your character defects are which he would like to graciously heal.  Much of prayer is just lifting our stuff up to the Lord and saying “I can’t change me, Lord. You change me”.  The healing sometimes comes immediately.  Usually, it takes time – months, years – but it comes and in such a way as you know it was Jesus who did it. 

To close, this advice from Ignatius to Polycarp points us towards doing what James calls “deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom”.  If we are honest with ourselves and each other we will recognize that nearly everything we do at home, at work, at leisure,...everything is driven by envy and selfish ambition.  Taking Ignatius’ advice to Polycarp we will find “the wisdom that comes from heaven which is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”  Jesus will make us to be “peacemakers who sow in peace” who “raise a harvest of righteousness”.  Amen.

All Things New

Text: Revelation 21:1-22:7

I have worn eyeglasses since the fourth grade.  I switched to contact lenses a few years ago under the inspiration of William Golding's book The Lord of the Flies in which things did not fair well for the fat kid who wore glasses.  Surprisingly, thirty-seven years later I can still quite vividly remember walking out of the eye-doctor's office and looking up at the sky and it was like I had never really seen clouds before.  Instead of plain white, indistinct blotches in the sky I now saw every billowy detail.  I could see individual leaves on the trees and individual flowers.  The Blue Ridge Mountains were no longer just a blue, grey bulk in the view from the back porch.  Now I could see the ridges and the details of trees.  To me, my first day of wearing glasses was like seeing a new heaven and a new earth.

When the Apostle John wrote "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more" we should read it in the sense that John is seeing creation made new, made new by means of the presence of God come to dwell in his creation and everything is full of his glory.  John wants to emphasize the newness of it not that it is something all together different.  Like eyeglasses correcting blurry vision so that things look new so heaven and earth become new when God comes to dwell in it and shine forth his glory.

God speaks to John and says, “Behold, I am making all things new."  God is making all things new, the world and everything in it; us each and all our relationships are being made new in the glory of God now that Jesus Christ, the Lamb on the throne has corrected our vision with the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.  We now see life by the light of the Lamp of the Lamb.  We see life according to the light of God-glorifying, other-centered, self-sacrificing love which shines through us.  The light of the Lamb is the corrector of our vision.  When God the Father raised Jesus the Son from the dead God began making all things new by the power of the Holy Spirit, the same power of the personal presence of God which is at work in us now. 

Your history lesson for the morning, John wrote this vision of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven from God some twenty-five years or so after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD.  To the Jews and to the earliest Christians the Temple in Jerusalem was where God lived and from where he would reign and from where in righteousness he was going to put the world to rights.  But the Romans had destroyed the city and the Temple.  So, where was God to dwell on earth and from where would he reign on earth?  Well, breaking into the code of the Book of Revelation, the New Jerusalem, the new heaven and new earth are not things we should simply ascribe to the future and forget them until they come about.  The new heaven and the new earth are as much present realities as they are future.  We see heaven and earth now as if they are the new heaven and the new earth since we have been made alive in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.  Therefore, since God dwells in us what we are as the church is the New Jerusalem.

Ever since Pentecost the New Jerusalem has been coming from heaven from God to earth.  God has come to dwell with his peoples.  This is who we are.  The New Jerusalem, you and I, this congregation, all congregations, the church all over the world is the New Jerusalem.  Yet, don't think about it in terms of the institution called the church.  Think of it in terms of a relational network, of people's bonded together in the new man, Jesus Christ, by means of the communioning work of the Hoy Spirit.  The glory of God shines through us, through our relational bond.  The light of the lamb shines through us.  The light of God-glorifying, other-centered, self-sacrificing love shines through us.  No matter how small, whithered, and insignificant we may appear we each and all together are the New Jerusalem coming from heaven from God to earth.  In us, among us is the place on earth where God dwells among the nations.  Am I being redundant enough on this?  Let me hear somebody say "amen".  In fact, how about all of God's people say "Amen" because that is what all creation is saying to what God the Father through Jesus the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.  That's what John says he saw happening in heaven in chapter four of the Revelation.  All creation saying "Amen".  People join in.  People of God say "amen".

Time for a commercial to rally you up a little more.  Here's a short video of what the Bible Society of Australia has been up to. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5pB8wflpkU&feature=youtu.be

One last thing to mention from the Revelation, we are the leaves of the Tree of Life watered by the River of Life (the Holy Spirit) that flows forth from the relationship of God the Father and God the Son (the Throne and the Lamb).  We, the leaves of this tree, you and me, are for the healing of the nations.  In 1960 the Yali, the people in that video were a Stone Age people for whom vengeance and feuding were the way of life.  Missionaries went to them and worked to get the Bible into their own language so that they could read it, know it, ingest it, and live it.  Two of those missionaries were martyred in the 70’s.  Today, the Yali live in peace still relatively unpolluted from Western life.  It is hard to watch that and not say “Jesus is Lord!”  Jesus is Lord.  There is living proof of that.  They drink of the River of Life.  So should we?

  Therefore, drink of the River of Life and go and heal the nations.  The missional life of the church arises from the out-flowing of the Holy Spirit which results in the outgrowing of the church.  We must be growing out there, out there in front of and in the midst of the people of our communities.  The New Jerusalem comes from heaven to earth.  Therefore, we grow from the pew to the neighbourhood not from the neighbourhood to the pew.  The River flows forth from the city.  It is not a stagnant lake.  The Tree of Life is not hidden behind walls in someone's courtyard garden.  It grows forth into our neighbourhoods that peoples may be healed. 

We are those who are seeing the New Heaven and the New Earth.  The New Jerusalem is in our midst.  The River of Life is flowing forth from here.  There Tree of Life is growing forth from.  God is making not only all things new.  He is making us new too. Go your families, your neighbourhoods, our communities and bear the Light of the Lamb.  If the Lordship of Jesus gloried forth from the Yali people by means of only four “missionaries”, what could happen in your neighbourhoods?  Jesus is coming.   Amen.

Welcoming the Implanted Word

Text: James 1:17-27

Being a Southerner I grew up rather insular in my ideas of hospitality.  When somebody mentioned hospitality, I rather thought that "we" Southerners were the inventors of it in much the same way as the Scots were the inventors of the modern world.  Since growing up and having seen a bit of the world, I've come to see that hospitality exists everywhere and every culture has its own way of showing it.  Living here just north of Brampton where immigration from India has been so thick it might do us some good to know something about the way they show hospitality. 

In the South our ideas about hospitality are rooted in the biblical idea of not turning away strangers for you might be entertaining angels unawares (Heb. 13:2).  For Hindu people hospitality also has religious roots.  They're main teaching about it is what they call Athithi devo bhava which means "the guest is God".  Treat your guests as if they were God, worshipfully.  Showing hospitality to a guest for them has five formalities to it that are derived from the way they worship.  First, there is fragrance.  While receiving guests the rooms must have a pleasant smell because odour is the first thing a person will notice and it sets the stage for the visit.  A pleasant fragrance will put a guest in good humour.  Down South fresh coffee and bacon can serve that purpose. Second, there must light.  A lamp is put between host and guest when at a table so that facial expressions and body language can be clearly seen.  Third, there must be fresh fruit and sweets made of milk; hence all the sweet shops in Hindi neighbourhoods.  The fourth formality involves rice which for them is a symbol of unity.  They make that red dot on the guest’s forehead and then stick rice grains to it.  In Hindu Indian families this is the highest form of welcome.  Finally, there must be flowers given to the guest when he leaves so that sweet memories may linger for several days. 

Welcoming a guest as if they were a god; we of the Christian faith should always pay attention to how welcoming we are to other people especially the vulnerable for it says a lot about who we are as persons; persons who know the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord.  Humility, meekness, honesty, patience and generosity are all expressions of the grace and kindness with which the Trinity has regarded each of us and are part of the attracting mechanism (if I may call it that) through which the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit draws people to Jesus and makes them able to believe.  These attracting qualities arise in us; I am inclined to say, in a way that resembles how we welcome Christ Jesus himself into our lives.  The hospitality we show to him results in his showing hospitality to others through us.  Let’s turn to James for a moment.

James wants us to know something profoundly transformative about ourselves.  God the Father of his own will and desire has made us to be born anew by means of the New Creation Word of Truth that he spoke and continues to speak in, through, and as Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Father by his own choice (not ours) has spoken a new word of creation like the first one he spoke that brought the creation into being.  He spoke this Word in such a way as to implant it into us.  The salvation producing union of God the Son to human being and flesh in Jesus has been planted into us by the work of the Holy Spirit and it is changing us, healing us, making us to be more and more like Jesus as he shines forth through us in his resurrected and ascended glory.  We whom God has chosen to be in him are as James says “a kind of firstfruits of God’s creatures”.  The Light of Christ that the Trinity has implanted in us at his own choice shines through us as the result of this Word for all the world to see and to be attracted to like a moth to a flame. 

Therefore, James tells us to welcome the implanted word which has the power to save our souls, the entirety of who we are.  The depth of meaning there in that verse 21 doesn’t come over into English very well, but what James is telling us to do is to show hospitality to the implanted word of God in us.  The Hindu say that the guest is God.  Treat your guests as you would your god.  James, on the other hand is saying that Christian spirituality, the Christian walk, is based on welcoming the implanted Word of God into our lives as we would a guest.  And there’s more to it.  This implanted Word to which we must show hospitality is not in us by our own invitation, but because of the Father’s will, the Father’s desire for us.  So, we must welcome the Word even though it is in us as a guest uninvited.

James doesn’t leave us with just that he goes on to tell us how to show hospitality to this uninvited Guest.  He says “Be doers of the Word not only hearers, deceiving themselves.”  Imagine someone showing up at your house wanting to spend the night and they start telling you how to live your life expecting that you will take their advice.  That would take a heck of a lot of trust on our part.  According to James it is not enough to let a guest into your life and all you do is give them lip and ear service.  It is rude to be simply a “hearer”.  The word for “hearer” James uses is for someone who sits in a place public speaking listening to what is said, taking in the ideas, but doing nothing with what they’ve heard and thus treat the living Word if it were another religious idea to be taken or left according to one’s own idea of what it is to be “spiritual”. 

James says that people who are merely hearers and not doers are like people who look at themselves in a mirror and then walk away forgetting what they look like.  So it is when we walk away from the Word of Truth that God of his own free will and love has planted in us.  This word speaks the honest to God Truth to us about who we are as individual persons, but if we don’t listen to this Word and act on what it says to us about ourselves then we deceive ourselves.  To throw a little bit of Paul in here from Romans 8, this Word of Truth causes us to know that we are beloved children of God and causes us to lift up our hands in adoration and trust crying out “Abba! Father!”  He also says in Galatians 4:4-9  “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’  So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” 

For the Christian, spirituality is a living, communicative relationship with the Trinity.  Experientially speaking, this relationship is founded upon God the Father getting it through our thick ears and brutally deceived minds by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are his beloved children with Jesus the Son.  Our work when we hear that Word is to live accordingly.  Speaking personally, so much of spirituality for me is reminding myself and settling myself in that very Word, that I am a beloved child of God and it changes the way I am.  It changes the way I regard myself and the way I regard others.  It makes hospitality to God, to myself, and to other people possible in such a way as it is God’s grace working through me and not just some religious duty that I feel I have to do to stay on God’s good side.  Living in the Word of Truth that we are God’s beloved children keeps us from deceiving ourselves and getting stained by the world.  Showing hospitality to God, receiving, welcoming the Word of Truth means doing the work of daily, hourly, and even moment to moment of reminding ourselves that we are God’s beloved children.  It is difficult and quite similar to having to be hospitable to an unwelcome guest.  So, be a doer of the Word and not just a hearer.  Don’t forget what you look like, because God is making you to look more and more like Jesus.  Amen.