So Many 40’s

We are in the midst of the season of Lent in the Christian calendar.  Lent is forty days long, excluding Sundays which are of Lent but not in Lent.  Last Sunday was the second Sunday of Lent.  I have been thinking of the fact that the number forty (40) occurs frequently in the bible.  If you are familiar with the bible, I’m sure you can think of some of the times when this happens.  Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness after his baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist.  It rained for 40 days and nights during the flood which God sent to cover the earth.  The Israelites were in the wilderness for 40 years after escaping from slavery in Egypt.  Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days and night in his encounter with YHWH (God).    That is just a few of the better-known examples of the number 40 occurring in the bible.  However, if we take a bit of a dive into this, we will find there are many more – including some that are rather obscure e.g. the Egyptians spent 40 days embalming the body of Jacob – how’s that for obscure.   

So, is this just a coincidence – or is there a deeper meaning in the number 40 than just a measurement of mathematics or a length of time?  Well, to explore this I did what most people would do these days, I started with a question to AI.  I found out that the number 40 occurs 146 times in the Old Testament and New Testament.  This is the type of question that AI is good at answering. As noted above, there are occurrences where the number seems to be significant and others where it is not so much.

Here’s a few more examples:

·         Jesus appeared to his disciples for 40 days between his resurrection and ascension

·         Elijah traveled 40 days and 40 nights without food to Mount Horeb

·         The first three kings of Israel—Saul, David, and Solomon—each reigned for 40 years

·         Several judges, including Othniel, Deborah, Barak, and Eli, served for 40 years.

·         The holy of holies in the Temple was 40 cubits long 

·         Mosaic Law allowed a maximum of 40 lashes (stripes) for a guilty person

·         Goliath taunted the army of Israel for 40 days before David defeated him

·         The prophet Jonah warned that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days

I will leave it to you to decide if the examples are significant or not – for me some are and some don’t seem to be.  However, taking the big picture view, it seems to me that 40 has a significance beyond just its use as a measurement or in counting.  Looking at the symbolic meaning of the number, we find that 40 can symbolize completion.  Forty can be used to represent a complete generation.  Turning to another source for symbols, the Penguin Dictionary of Symbols states, “the number forty marks the completion of a cycle, ending in a radical change or a passage to a fresh level of activity or of living.”  Symbols can be difficult to tie down their meaning.  However, it does give us a different way of looking at the biblical stories.  For me, the 40 in those stories don’t as much mean a measurement but, rather, can represent the story of completion.  Whether the Israelites were actually in the wilderness for 40 years, rather it was a completion of their time of preparation for entering into the Promised Land to fulfill the promise that God had made to Moses. In the bigger picture, we are not ready to move to the next phase of something until we have completed the current stage we are living in.  That’s why we are not born fully formed – like Athena who came fully formed out of Zeus’ forehead.  We need to grow through the stages of life from infancy to childhood to adult and on.  Hopefully we will continue growing throughout our lives.

Something to consider and pray about in Lent.  May your Lent be a blessed one.  

 

Who is Your Samaritan?

Happy Labour Day (notice the Canadian Spelling of Labour with a u) to everyone in Canada and the United States.  This is one of the many holidays that we celebrate in common.  There is much in common between our two countries even though the differences seem to have become more of a breech in recent years with the great contrast between our two ‘Great Leaders’.  However, even Trudeau the Younger seems to be revealing that he also has feet of a clay-like substance.  Where are the Happy Days that we were promised?

That being said or ranted (albeit only a little rant which I didn’t set out to write) I must admit that this Labour Day Weekend was unusual for me.  I had to beg-off or bow-out of the two worship services I was scheduled to preside at yesterday because or flu-like symptoms that stuck around.  Lorna and I have for the first time in our joint memories, been sick at the same time with the same symptoms.  I noted this morning that our coughs were like a call and response.  However, we are both on the mend and we sound sicker than we feel this morning.  In respect to the worship services, fortunately was reminded that I am not indispensable and one of the lay readers stepped up and short notice and replaced me.  I do want to note that this was the first time since I was ordained that I was not was my not able to fulfill my scheduled Sunday worship duties. 

Bottom line is that I have a sermon that was undelivered and there is the eternal question if a sermon is unpreached, did anybody hear it?  In response, here is it for the most part as I would have delivered it so it won’t fade too quickly into the place where most sermons go to their eternal rest.

The Gospel reading in our prayer book is the well-known account of the ten lepers who are healed by Jesus and only one returns to give his thanks after he sends them to the priest to be declared clean.  The catch line in the story is, “and he was a Samaritan”.

  

I’m not sure if that should be read as a question or an exclamation.  When we hear of this account it is natural to think of the parable of the Good Samaritan which has resonated down through the millennia since Jesus told it.  Again, it has the same message; it was the Samaritan who did the right thing – who was the neighbour to the traveler.  The priest and the Levite stayed on the other side and looked the other way.  Have you ever done that when someone has approached you on a street for a hand out.  How easy it is to look the other way and ignore the request.

However, why did Jesus use the Samaritan in the parable, and why was it surprizing that it was a Samaritan who returned to give thanks to Jesus for his miraculous healing?

The bottom line was that Samaritans and Jews did not generally get along with each other.  That is something of an understatement.  Well, actually you could say that the Samaritans were closely related to the Jews.  They considered themselves to be descendants of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh who were the sons of Joseph. 

These tribes were considered half tribes making up the twelve tribes of the Israelites.  So, in effect it was what could be considered a family feud.

What then was the basis for this feud?  Well, it probably won’t surprize you that it was religious.  The Samaritans’ bible was the Samaritan Pentateuch based on the torah, the first five books of the Hebrew bible.  You only have to look at Christian Church history to know how many wars and battles and schisms have been fought over what tis the true bible and in what language it should be written.  It still comes as a surprize to some people that Jesus did not speak the Queen’s English or Latin or even Greek.  But I digress somewhat.

If that was not enough, there was more to this feud than just the Holy Book or Books.  There was also a dispute over which place of worship was the true place.  This is mentioned in the account in John’s Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well who encounters Jesus.  She tells Jesus that the mountain is the centre of their worship.  Of course, the centre of the worship for Jews was the Temple in Jerusalem.  She poses the question to Jesus when she realizes that he is the Messiah. Jesus affirms the Jewish position, saying "You (that is, the Samaritans) worship what you do not know" which seem to settle the question for Jesus’ view of the true religion.

There was also the question of the Samaritans worshipping idols in addition to an impure form of temple worship.  Of course, the problem of idol worship and false Gods such as Baal, was an ongoing one with the Jews which the prophets railed against and prophesied doom if the chosen people did not repent and return to the one true God.   

  

There were other differences in beliefs and practices but bottom line is that they both worshipped YHWH and had the same foundation to their religious beliefs.

It reminds me of a great sketch I heard once - I think it was one of Garrison Keillor.  In the story, as I remember it, two men meet and begin to talk.  They discover they are both Lutherans.  They go through the various branches and divisions of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod and so on and find they that they are both members of each division.  Finally, they come down to a rather obscure branch and find they find themselves on different sides of the branch.  The one responds to the other, “die apostate”!  It is amazing how we can find things that divide us rather than things that unite us. 

Who would the Samaritans be in your life?  Who would Jesus have to substitute for the Samaritan to make his point in telling you the Parable of the Good Samaritan or the one leper who returns.  Who would he have to identify to shame you into realizing you are finding division rather than unity with your brother and sisters?  Would it be a Palestinian if you were a Jew?  Would it be an American if you were a Canadian who felt superior to those Americans who are so divided in their politics and seemingly everything else?  Would it be those refugees that land on one of our borders?  Would it be you next door neighbour who isn’t a good neighbour? Would it be a member of your congregation who acts in ways you do not approve of?  Would it be a member of your family who you find embarrassing?  Would it be a member of your family who comes out as gay or lesbian?

And he was a Samaritan. 

Jesus commands us to love one another as he loves us.  He commands us to love one another and yes even to love our enemies.

Who is your Samaritan?

Sermon May 29, 2016

The account of the battle between Elijah and the priests of Baal is marvelous example of those times when God’s chosen people strayed from worshiping the one true God.  A common story of the Jewish people in the Hebrew Bible, is one of the Israelites being tempted to worship false Gods and being called back by the prophets to worship the one true God.  This encounter between Elijah and the priests of Baal is one of the most dramatic and engaging accounts of this continuing story.

I don’t know if this story has been made into a movie but it cries out for it to be done.  We have all the essential parts here.  It is so dramatically written that it is almost a scene play as it is presented.  Elijah, the prophet and the hero of the story rally the people and lays it on the line.  Which God do you serve?  You cannot serve two Gods.  Will it be YHHW or will it be Baal—the foreign god of Jezebel the foreign wife of King Ahab.  He puts it wonderfully to the Israelites, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions?  All was not well with the Chosen People of God.

Elijah engages in a battle with the priests of Baal. It hardly seems a fair fight—Elijah all by himself against four hundred and fifty priests of Baal.   

It is a version of anything your God can do mime can do better.  It is a wonderful, dramatic display of one-upmanship. 

The offerings to the two Gods are set up.  Which God will send down holy fire to make the offerings a holy sacrifice?  The priests—all four hundred and fifty of them—call on Baal to send down the fire to made the offering a holy sacrifice.  Of course their god is silent and does not respond.  Again the writer describes it wonderful language, “But there was no voice, and no answer. They limped about the altar that they had made”. 

Elijah responds by upping the ante.  He has his people prepare an altar which represents all the people—twelve stones; one for each of the tribes of Israel.  He reminds them who they are and who their God is and that He brought them out of slavery in Egypt.  He has them pour water on the wood of the sacrifice; not once but three times to show beyond a doubt that YHWH is the one true God.    God responds and send down holy fire.

What happens next is one of those inconvenient parts of the bible that I have mentioned before.  How does Elijah act after this wonderful response by God?  Does he call on the Priests of Baal to see the error of their ways and to worship the one true God?  No, he has the People of God slaughter them—every last man jack of them; so much for having compassion on your enemies. 

However, that seemed to be the only way that people could live in those times—by a battle to the last man—and sometimes woman, child and animal. 

So, if this was the Hollywood movie it could easily be we would have the compulsory happy ending—they would all live happily ever after—at least the hero and everyone who supported him.  However, we know that this is not going happens as things never go that smoothly for the People of God.  Queen Jezebel—well deserving of that name—declares war on Elijah.  What does Elijah do?  He is not so heroic now but, quite sensibly, hightails it out of town, “Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life.”  No High Noon showdown here. 

This is a wonderful dramatic story.  Is there anything in this account in Holy Scripture that we can apply to our time and to us today?  Well, I don’t think God is calling us to treat our enemies the way Elijah treated the Priests of Baal or Queen Jezebel treated Elijah.  However, we can learn a lot about the need to be reminded vigorously when we have forgotten to worship the one true God.  I can imagine that Prophet of God saying to us, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions”?  The only problem with that is that we seem to have many more than two options or opinions today. 

There are so many, many gods that we worship today; materialism, the obsession with social media and popularity, success, and power.  I could go on very easily but you get the point. 

I love the expression “limping after them”.  That is such an apt description.  When we are following the wrong opinion or option in life, when we miss the mark we are not seeking God; When we sin that is what we are doing, limping through life and not living life to the fullest.  So how do we know when we are seeking the wrong option? Well the account of Elijah gives us an answer.  We will know by the results.  Elijah as a representative of YHWH defeated the Priests of Baal in dramatic form.  However, we cannot expect that God will act in such a dramatic way today.  God have given us the new covenant in his only begotten son Jesus Christ.  In this he has dramatically shown the way.  However, he has given us the option —again those inconvenient and difficult options—this one of following Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.  We have that model of who and what Jesus is that we should no longer need dramatic proof in the form of fire from heaven—God sending down lightning bolts like Zeus from the heavens.  We have Jesus Christ to show us what it means to live the life that God intends us to live—a life or sacrifice for others in service to our God. 

We have another thing that we can take from the story of Elijah and the Priests of Baal.  Things did not go well for Elijah after his great victory.  He ran away in fear for his life from the wrath of Queen Jezebel.  There are going to be times when, even in our successes we are going to taste defeat.  The sweetness of life—even if we choose the right option and are faithful to God— will at times turn to ashes in our mouths.  However, in those times we know that just as God was still with Elijah, even as he fled from the wrath of Jezebel, God is still with us.  God will sustain us and Jesus will be our guide through the valley of the shadow of death.  Thanks be to God. 

Who is My Neighbour

The heart rending picture of Alan Kurdi, the drowned three-year-old, from Syria who washed ashore on a beach in Turkey is one of those iconic pictures which has captured the conscience of people in Canada and around the world.  We can only hope and pray that this picture may result in some good in the response to the ongoing refugee tragedy.

I didn’t need anything to bring the picture to mind since I saw that picture.  However, the Gospel readings for the last two Sundays in the Book of Common Prayer brought it into even great focus for me.  The Gospel readings from both Sundays involve Samaritans.  Two Sunday ago, the Thirteenth after Trinity, was the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan.  Here the Samaritan is the good neighbour who tends to the Jew on the side of the road while the priest and the Levite pass by on the other side.  The Gospel for yesterday, the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity accounted Jesus’ healing of the ten lepers.  The one who returns to give him thanks is the Samaritan—the other nine were Jews. 

It is good to remind ourselves that the Samaritans, in Jesus’ time, were the outcasts of the family.  The Samaritans inhabited the former Northern Kingdom during the Babylonian captivity.  The Samaritans worshipped the gods of the invaders along with YHWH and intermarried with them.  The Samaritans opposed repatriation of those returning from exile.  A great animosity arose between these close relatives and continued to Jesus’ time.  Jesus uses the Samaritan as an example of the despised outsider who is the true neighbour to the Jewish traveler by the road side and the one who gives thanks to God for being made whole.

If Jesus was walking amongst us today I have no doubt that he would be using the refugees from Syria in the account of the Good Samaritan and of being made whole.  We have a responsibility as Christians to respond to this refugee crisis.  I must admit that it took that heart rendering picture of Alan Kurdi to move me to action.  Beyond that it is up to us to shame our government into action is responding to this crisis.  It is most unfortunate that our government would wait until there is demand from the general public to do the right thing.  I was—shall I say highly disappointed— that the minister of citizenship and immigration, Chris Alexander would try, incorrectly, to blame the media’s inattention for the fact that the Canadian Government’s response had been totally inadequate.  The government system to respond to the refugee crises seemed to deliberately prevent most applications for refugees being processed. 

I trust this particular refugee crisis will pass in time.  However, one of the lessons here is that there is always a Samaritan who we want to treat as the despised outcast—and it doesn’t have to be on some foreign shore.  As Christians who are called to follow the teachings and example of Jesus we cannot wait for another heart rending picture of an Alan Kurdi to make us act. 

Taming the Wild God

²⁶Surely God is great, and we do not know him; the number of his years is unsearchable. ²⁷For he draws up the drops of water; he distills his mist in rain, ²⁸which the skies pour down and drop upon mortals abundantly. ²⁹Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds, the thunderings of his pavilion? ³⁰See, he scatters his lightning around him and covers the roots of the sea. ³¹For by these he governs peoples; he gives food in abundance. ³²He covers his hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark. ³³Its crashing tells about him; he is jealous with anger against iniquity. “At this also my heart trembles, and leaps out of its place. ²Listen, listen to the thunder of his voice and the rumbling that comes from his mouth. ³Under the whole heaven he lets it loose, and his lightning to the corners of the earth. ⁴After it his voice roars; he thunders with his majestic voice and he does not restrain the lightnings when his voice is heard. ⁵God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things that we cannot comprehend.  (Job 26: 24-27:5)

Last week I heard someone on the radio (I don’t remember the context) speaking about taming the wild God.  My thought on this was that this is exactly what religion attempts to do—tame God.  Religious doctrine must, perhaps of necessity, define God.  For most Christian denominations it is the Trinity of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Whenever we fallible human mortals try to define God we are in effect trying to tame him or her or it and make it in some respects a house pet.  In that respect we do create God in our image or at least in an image we can get our minds around and define God as something which we approve of.  When we say God is this God is that we are saying that God is not something else. 

One of the dangers in doing that is that is that we will want to have God at our beck and call.  That has been called ‘God the Butler’.  We keep ‘Him’ downstairs conveniently out of the way when it doesn’t suit us or is inconvenient to have Him around.  Then we ring for Him (or even Her) when we want something.  God is then at our beck and call.  God help God if God doesn’t live up to our demands or even expectations.  Then we say, “Well if God can’t do what I want or need Him to do then what kind of a God is that?”  The conclusion to that can be, “There is no God”. 

One of my favourite books of the Old Testament, if not the whole Christian Bible is the Book of Job.  It is also one of the more controversial and I am surprized that it made it into the canon.  It puts God/YHWH into less than a shining light.  God and Satan (before he was thrown out of Heaven) have a bargain that allows Satan to do pretty much what he wants to Job — who is described as “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”   The object of this little bet is to see if Satan can get Job to curse God.  Satan does his best (or worst from Job and our perspective) and yet Job is faithful.  However, he demands a hearing before God.  God justifies his actions by saying that Job is a mere mortal and cannot know the ways of God:

6Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 7“Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me. 8Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? 9Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?

This is a hard truth but truth none-the-less.  We can’t comprehend why God acts the way we believe God does.  Jesus presented God the Father as a God of love but this world of God’s creation is unfathomable.  God is unknowable and as much as we would like to tame Him/Her and explain why good things happen to bad people and vice versa there is mystery in life that is beyond us.  We have scientific understanding for those things that the opening quote from Job that credited God.  However, that does not take away any of the mystery of creation and the wonder which is still there if we are open to it; “At this also my heart trembles, and leaps out of its place”.

All we have left is the eternal why—why is there evil in the world of God’s creating; why doesn’t God answer prayer the way we want God to; why isn’t God behaving like God should?  Beyond all these questions we have Job’s response:

25For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; 26and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,

Thanks be to God.