Sun, Sept 4, 2005 - Ezekiel's Hope

Ezekiel 33:7-11
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20


So, Ezekiel, huh? What do you know about Ezekiel? Most of us don’t know anything about this prophet of 2600 years ago - I know I pretty much knew nothing until I started working on the sermon for today. I knew he was a prophet, and I knew he was the guy connected with the Valley of the Dry Bones, but that was pretty much it.

But Ezekiel, as it turns out, was a prophet who lived through a terribly traumatic time in the history of Israel, and he has a lot to say to us as we try and understand the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans.

So, in 609 BC, Israel was a wonderful country. Their beloved King Josiah was on the throne, a king who had brought them back to the ways of the Lord after years of idol-worshipping, squabbling kings who descended from Solomon. According to tradition, King Josiah had discovered the Book of Deuteronomy, giving the Israelites insight into what God wanted for them, and he had made the Temple in Jerusalem the holy site of Israel. People flocked from all over the country to worship the Lord in the Temple, and it was the spiritual heart of the people.

Things were going well, the people were prosperous, and then the unthinkable happened. The beloved, God-bless Josiah was suddenly killed in a battle against Egypt, and from that point on, things just went downhill. A couple of years later, Babylon invaded and took over the territory of Judah, the southern part of Israel. Then, in 597 BC, they attacked Jerusalem, the Holy City, the city where David had established the monarchy and where his son Solomon had built the Temple for God, and they exiled many of the inhabitants to Babylon. Ezekiel and many others who had been born and grew up in Jerusalem were forcibly removed and sent to live in another country. They were separated from their families; Ezekiel lost his wife.

And if that wasn’t enough, in 586 BC, 11 years later, when the Israelite leaders decided they had had enough and tried to revolt, the Bablyonians destroyed the city of Jerusalem, tore down the Temple, the home of God on earth, and exiled the people who remained.

To say that this was a national disaster is liking saying what happened in New Orleans was a flood. It goes beyond just a label. We can only imagine the devastation of Jerusalem, although some of you, I know, have had first-hand experience with war - the homes lost, the people killed, the lawlessness and panic that sweeps away all rational thinking. We can actually see for ourselves the devastation of New Orleans - again, the homes lost, the people killed, the lawlessness and panic that is sweeping the city. Even if we’ve never lived through it, each one of us knows human suffering.

Now one way of understanding disasters when it comes to God is to believe that the disaster is God’s punishment for one sin or another. That way of understanding calamity goes right back to Noah’s Ark, when God wiped out the world because people were too sinful. And the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple were considered, by Ezekiel, to be God’s punishment for the increasing idolatry of the Israelite people. Ezekiel believed that the people had broken the covenant with God, that they had gone to worship other gods, and that God was now punishing them by letting the Babylonians invade and take over. Ezekiel had warned the people, but they did not turn from their ways, and so now they were being punished.

But this way of looking at disaster is not just limited to the Bible. Even today, on the CNN website, and in the papers, you can read people writing that they believe that the flooding of New Orleans was God’s punishment for the moral recklessness of both New Orleans and the US at large. You can also read people’s opinions that the hurricane and flooding is punishment for humankind’s sinfulness in general, abusing the environment and not caring for God’s creation. Even if there are some of us here who have never lived through a national disaster, we all have those moments of personal crisis when we wonder if this is God’s punishment for something.

The thing is, this way of understanding disaster - that it is God’s punishment for sin - doesn’t hold up for very long. Ezekiel himself quotes God as saying, "As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live." And Jesus, in the Gospel of Luke, when confronted with the situation of Gentiles murdered as sacrifices and eighteen people killed when a tower fell on them, emphatically responded that No, disaster did not fall on these people because they were worse sinners than anyone else. [Luke 13:1-5]

You see, we know through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ that the God we worship is the God of life, not death, of mercy, not punishment. People in antiquity had no other way to explain disasters that happened to them than to say that God did it. They lived in a world of demons and angels, good spirits and bad spirits. But we, we live in a world of plate tectonics and shifting ocean currents cause tsunamis, where thunderstorms are caused by the rapid rising of moist warm air, which can then cause hurricanes. We live in a world where we understand that God is present in the midst of suffering, not the cause of it. Where Jesus has died in order to defeat death, where God weeps with the world and then moves to heal it.

Even Ezekiel knew that, to an extent. After all, we can’t forget that it was Ezekiel who gave us the beautiful vision of the valley of the dry bones. After all these terrible things had happened, Ezekiel wrote this story - I’ll read it to you.

The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all round them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord GOD, you know.’ Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.’

So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there as a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and here were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath:* Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath,* and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely." Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act, says the LORD.’

In the midst of his despair, having lost the only country he knew, seeing his beloved wife die before him, watching the destruction of the Holy City and the devastation of God’s Temple, Ezekiel still believed that God was the God of life, that the people would be brought back to Israel, that the City and the Temple would be rebuilt.

And that is our belief and our hope as well. Despite the disasters that continue to devastate the world, despite the crises that we encounter in our own lives, we know that we have a God who is determined to bring us new life and who has the power to make it so. We know that our God is a God, not of death and destruction, but of life and healing, and we know that God is bringing these things to the whole world.

I want to end by having us a sing a hymn together. It is one that most of you will know, and it is a beautiful proclamation of our hope in God despite the tragedies of the world that we face everyday. So please turn to hymn 320 in the LBW and join me in singing, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past."

O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home,
Under the shadow of your throne Your saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is your arm alone, And our defense is sure.
Before the hills in order stood Or earth received its frame,
From everlasting you are God, To endless years the same.
A thousand ages in your sight Are like an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Soon bears us all away;
We fly forgotten, as a dream Dies at the op’ning day.
O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come,
Still be our guard while troubles last And our eternal home!
Watts/Croft

Sun, August 28, 2005 - Overcome Evil with Good

Jeremiah 15:15-21
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28


"Do not repay anyone evil for evil... but overcome evil with good."

I’m sure you’ve all heard about Pat Robertson and his infamous comments this week. For those of you who haven’t, Pat Robertson is the founder of the Christian Coalition of America - he’s a heavyweight among the conservative Christians in the States. And, on Monday, this prominent Christian directly advocated for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Later he said that he was misunderstood by the press and then he apologized, but Robertson actually did say that since the US was being accused of plotting to assassinate Chavez, they might as well go ahead and do it. Now, I don’t know what Robertson’s reasons were for saying this - but I do know that his comments fly in the face of everything that Paul is trying to teach us today, and they are downright unChristian. They are, however, in sync with today’s culture of retribution and revenge, where we turn to violence in an attempt to suppress the evil in the world.

This culture is something that we’re experiencing in Toronto, with devastating shootings and murders on pretty much a daily basis. People somehow seem to think that the best way to avenge a hurt or wrong done to them is to go out and shoot the person who hurt them. Shootings pile up on top of shootings, violence upon violence, revenge upon revenge, until we are left with a city that is hurt and bleeding.

But we shouldn’t be surprised that that’s how people today are solving their problems. After all, what examples do we have for confronting evil? - We have the eminent role model of the President of the United States who is determined to wipe out the evil of terrorism by violent means. We have television shows that lift up violent confrontation as the way to solve evil - shows like Jerry Springer - you may laugh, but there are other shows, too. Can you recall the last time you saw a show where the conflict was solved by talking? Where the evil was overcome by good?

And it’s not only the television that gives us these ideas, but there’s video games, too. Now, the majority of us here don’t play violent video games, but I bet you know people who do - either your kids or your grandkids. And we may turn a blind eye to those games, and think they’re harmless, but games that perpetrate violence - where you can kill your enemies with handguns or machine guns or grenades or by beating them over the head with a bat - those games are evil, even when the so-called enemies are bad guys. And the evil and violence of these games comes out in real life. The American Psychological Association just released a report that clearly links playing violent video games to aggressive thoughts, behaviours, and angry feelings among youth. The reports says that "Showing violent acts without consequences teaches youth that violence is an effective means of resolving conflict."

But before we get up on our high horse about gangs and youth culture and violent media, we must a look at the moments of evil in our own lives. We all have those moments that we succumb to, moments that don’t necessarily seem evil, but certainly aren’t good. Moments when people make us mad and we swear at them - I’m particularly thinking of driving on the highway here - or moments when someone cuts in front of us in line and we mutter things under our breath at them that aren’t very nice, to put it mildly. Moments when, if someone has been especially hurtful, we badmouth them to our friends and acquaintances. All of us have moments when we nurse a fervent hope that the people who’ve hurt us get what’s coming to them.

But the Bible teaches us, very clearly, that it is not up to us to exact retribution and revenge. That’s left to God. All three of our readings are quite emphatic about that. In our Old Testament reading, the prophet Jeremiah, who has been attacked and betrayed by his own people, even his own family, prays that God would "remember me and visit me, and bring down retribution for me on my persecutors." He doesn’t take it on himself to pay them back, but waits for God to do it. And then there’s Paul in the letter to the Romans. "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord"." Again - we aren’t to make an assault on evil ourselves - we’re supposed to wait for God to do it. And lastly, of course, there’s Jesus himself, who reassures his disciples that "the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done." So we know that, whatever evil and wrong we see in the world, that has been done to us or to others, God is going to take care of it. God is going to come in wrath and vengeance and repay and overcome the evil and violence of the world.

So what is this day of judgement going to look like? Well, books like the Left Behind series would have you believe that it’s full of smoke and blood and even more violence. Writers like Dante would have you believe that God’s wrath takes the form of sending evil people off to the fiery pits of hell where they experience exactly the agony they inflicted on their victims, but a thousand times more painful. But is that what’s really going to happen?

Ah, well, the funny thing about God is that God never works the way we think God should. And this is no exception. We get a hint that God might be doing something different in the payback department when Paul says to the Romans, "bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.... "If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink."
And then we have Jesus’ quote from Matthew, "he will repay everyone for what has been done." There’s another place in the Bible where we hear that verse, and it comes from Psalm 62:12. The psalmist, talking to God says, "for you repay all according to their work." But just before that, we read, "Steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord."

In fact, as it turns out, God’s method of payback, of ultimate retribution, of overcoming evil is the way of steadfast love. In God’s ultimate bid to overcome evil, God doesn’t drop the theological bomb on us, dooming us all to hell. That would never work - we know, we see daily, that violence and force can never truly take away evil. The cycle never stops. Genocides lead to more genocides, murder to more murder, hatred to more hatred. So instead, God takes the opposite path. God takes on the frail and vulnerable body of a human in the person of Jesus Christ, and even then he doesn’t go around leading military coups and hunting down bad guys and punishing them like a vigilante. No, he gets up on the cross and he dies. Motivated by love and a desire to save the world - the whole world, including all the evil, violent people - he overcomes evil with good. That’s how God gives people what’s coming to them, that’s how God overcame the cycle of violence - by committing the ultimate act of good - by loving us to death. After all, how do you pay someone back for loving you? How do you exact revenge on someone who died for you? There’s not way to do it - the cycle is broken.

We are called to follow this same path of overcoming evil with good. As Jesus said to his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." But, just in case you think that only Jesus is capable of doing something like this - of responding to evil with good, I want to tell you two stories about regular people who were, by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, able to do this.
The first story is very recent, it only just happened last week. Last Wednesday, in the Taize community, an inter-denominational community in France, the community’s leader, Brother Roger, was stabbed and killed by a woman in the middle of the service. You can imagine how shocking and appalling that must have been for the community, and how they must have felt towards the woman who murdered Brother Roger, but at his funeral, the words came forward, "With Christ on the cross we say to you, Father, forgive her, she does not know what she did." Their beloved leader was killed before their eyes, but they did not avenge his death, nor did they curse the woman who killed him. Instead, they prayed for her forgiveness - they blessed and did not curse. They sought to overcome evil with good.

The second story is similar, although a couple of years older. This, too, was a case of murder, but instead of a 90-year old man who was murdered, it was a 17-yr old, Jason Lang, who was shot and killed by his 14-yr old classmate at school in Taber, Alberta. It got a lot of coverage, and that coverage was renewed recently when the classmate ran away from a Toronto half-way house. But what has not received as much coverage, but which is most important for us today, is the response of Jason’s father, Dale Lang. At the memorial service for his son, Rev. Lang - yes, he is an Anglican priest - but nevertheless, at the memorial service less than a week after he lost his soon, he prayed and "asked God to bless the family of the 14-yr-old boy accused of the shooting, and for the boy himself." And, he and his wife have continued to pray regularly for the murderer of their son since the shooting. They, too, have chosen not to avenge their son’s death, nor to curse the one who persecuted them. Instead, they have chosen to bless him, and they have chosen to overcome evil with good.

Which means that there is hope when it comes to ending the presence of evil in the world. When we choose to overcome evil with good, instead of evil, we are doing the same work that Jesus did on the cross. When we bless people under our breath instead of cursing them, when we speak well of them to others, when we feed our enemies and give them something to drink, and most importantly, when we pray that they get what’s coming to them - that is, the grace and forgiveness of God, when we do all these things, we are invoking the same power that defeated the power of evil, that broke the cycle of violence, that proclaimed that in the end, life has the victory. No, that doesn’t bring back the people who’ve died, or make right the wrongs that have been done to you, but it does, over time, change the world so that one day there will be no more reason for payback or revenge. And when the Son of Man comes and repays everyone for what has been done, grace and forgiveness will be everyone’s reward, and peace will abound forevermore. Thanks be to God, Amen.