The Crisis

    The oak that I’d always wanted removed – the dead one in the front yard – fell through the house during the night. The night of the winds. Straight line winds, a hundred miles an hour. The night of the horror. Shattered windows without a glow. Someone’s minivan lurched over the curb like a vomiting hangover.

    The moon crashed over an empty highway. The night lay long through the dark and we were dying in shifts.

    We hid through the crisis of that night and the days and weeks that followed in the closest church lockdown. We barricaded the door with a broken pew. A solace without comfort. A comfort without consolation. Flaming billboards and parking lots of ash. Offices sacked in the escalation of destruction. My children sat on the floor with me, sleeping with their little heads on my lap.

    We heard women crying in the bathroom and men screaming in the alley. Two thousand years of longed-for apocalypse boiled down to a wordless howl. Crowds of the staggering sick were turned out of the hospital. The daily dead with meaningless eyes like blackened stones.

    Meanwhile, the great men in their great coats and black cars - the optimates - were buying and selling the antheap. Poisoning the river. Irradiating the soil. Cutting our throats and gloating as a parade squad of soldiers in jackboots marches across the square.

    None of the pleasant words. None of the challenging speeches. None of the proclamations and declarations mattered. Sermons from the void. None of them could stop anything. None of them meant anything anymore. Stupid fools wanted the world to end. They paid for its collapse.

    Fine. Goddammit. Burn the whole thing. Let their wickedness come down. Let ‘em have what they’ve always wanted. Let ‘em choke on it. I know I have. And I’m sick of it all.

Lamentations 1:22

Broken Brick Haiku

A friend of mine has a book in the works concerning various aspects of theology, incarnational ministry, community, and disaster work. He keeps on his desk a broken cinder block that he found in the ruins of a building after a tornado in Canton, Illinois, July 23, 1975 . He keeps it as a reminder and as a prompt.

In preparation for his book, which is nearing completion, he asked me if I might have something poetical that I could contribute as a sort of preface to the work. Knowing his fondness for haiku I sat down to write something for him that would combine the concrete image (pun intended) with a scriptural theme. I wrote two variations which I've sent to him. Whether or not he uses either one, or the other, or both...


a broken brick
from whirlwind rubble
even stones cry out


a broken brick
from whirlwind rubble
upon this I’ll build

To Dive into the Pool of Israel

The book of Jeremiah (where we’ve been the past couple of weeks, and will be for a few more) is difficult to read from start to finish, beginning to end, because the various parts and sections of the book are not arranged in a strictly chronological order. It begins with Jeremiah’s call to ministry in chapter one and ends with his flight to Egypt in chapters 42 – 43 (though it continues on for several more chapters…) after his message has been thoroughly rejected by the kingdom of Judah. But the sermons and speeches and (most importantly for our consideration these weeks) the confessions between the first and last chapters, delivered at various times and places during his 40 years as a prophet, have been collected and arranged and rearranged in this final form that we have today without a consistent regard for historical chronology. “Attention…is paid to chronology but only in a limited sort of way” (Lundbom 86). They are sometimes out of order, mixed, and repeated or interrupted (as in last week’s reading where Jeremiah’s confession was interrupted by a judgement against the nation of Judah).

Taking a cue from that somewhat disjointed arrangement, we’re going to, for the purposes of this sermon, proceed backwards through the confession in Jeremiah 17: 13 – 18. [i] I hope that this will prove more help than distraction. Reading the confession in this reverse order forces me, however, to begin with the material that I like least in this passage: the imprecatory prayer of Jeremiah against his enemies:

“Let my persecutors be confounded, not me,
let them, not me, be terrified.
On them bring the day of disaster,
destroy them, destroy them twice over“(Jeremiah 17:18-New Jerusalem Bible).

This is an example of an imprecatory prayer–a curse, if you will–on those who have been pursing and persecuting the prophet. It is a wish and a prayer for trouble or disaster to fall upon them–and soon! (Stuart 1218)

I recognize that I have, in the past, been somewhat critical (okay, yes…very critical) of the imprecatory prayers of the bible; they are not my favorite. If I were given the authority to remove portions of the bible, I would be tempted to take my scissors to them. I do not like them very much at all and I freely admit that this may say more about me than it does about the imprecatory passages themselves.

But I’m not alone in this uneasiness: many people of faith are uncomfortable with these passages. We’ve come to believe that if our faith causes us to hate than perhaps we’re doing it wrong. We’ve taken to heart the instruction of Jesus in the New Testament that we should love our enemies and that we should pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44 / Luke 6:28) and those instructions were further elaborated by the Apostle Paul, “Bless your persecutors; never curse them, bless them” (Romans 12:14–NJB). And the imprecatory prayers and psalms rub like coarse grit sandpaper against these instructions to love and bless. Imprecatory prayers call down death and destruction upon the supplicator’s enemies. Jeremiah called upon Yahweh God to “destroy them, destroy them twice over” to “Bring on them the day of evil and a double breaking, break them!” (Jeremiah 17: 18-Anchor Bible) [ii]

How should we read Jeremiah’s prayer (curse...) against his persecutors in light of these instructions that we should love and bless our enemies? It is important that we remember that Jeremiah had been hurt, had been abused–emotionally and physically by these enemies (many of whom had been members of his family and friends of the prophet). He was cut from his community, isolated and shunned, rejected by his people. His message was mocked; his warnings were ignored. His work was fruitless. He was despised by the leadership of the country. And all of this hurt. The prophet was deeply wounded both in body and in soul.

And the prophet gives vent to his wounded emotions in an outrageous, violent outburst: “Bring on them the day of disaster, and shatter them with double destruction!” (JPS) Jeremiah, the prophet- called by God, empowered to minister and to prophecy in his name, was-after all- a human being. He hurt. He suffered. He bruised. He bled. He wept and he cried. And Jeremiah, the fully human prophet, lashed out in his pain and his desperation, calling upon God to bring down the fullness of curses of the day of disaster on them, indeed he asked for a double fullness of that disaster to break upon his enemies.

Perhaps we are shocked to find this sort of violence in our holy scripture. It is somewhat unsettling. Refined religious folk don’t react this way. Right? Holy people don’t get angry. Right?  Holy people don’t have emotional outbursts like this. We expect our prophets to clear headed, our leaders to be calm (even under stress) and our spiritual heroes to be perfect (just as God is perfect–Matthew 5:48) without fail and without falter.

They are not allowed to be…human.

We don’t want to see them in their weakness. We insist that the faithful be successful and heroic. We don’t want to hear about their distress. We want power and dynamic victory after dynamic victory! And if we can’t have that we expect nothing less than quiet and patient endurance of suffering, fully trusting that God will soon move in a mighty way to bring restoration and vindication and reward.

But to demand this of our prophets and leaders and spiritual heroes (and of ourselves and fellow believers) may be setting up an impossible, not to mention-unhealthy-standard. The prophets and psalmists of our scriptures–like us today–were subject to hurts and pains and griefs. And we–like the prophets and psalmists before us-need to give expression to those painful emotions. We should not dare to dismiss or discredit the emotions of the prophet and the psalmists, just as we should not dismiss or discredit our own emotions. To stifle them is dangerous; to repress this is unhealthy.

But what should we do with the imprecatory passages of the bible in light of the other biblical injunctions against cursing and against violence and hatred? This is a question that may not ever have a full and final answer, but perhaps asking ‘what should we do with the imprecatory passages?’ is the wrong question.

Perhaps we should do nothing with them but read them and accept them for what they are: the unfiltered, immediate response of wounded people who were broken and desperate; read them as ragged cries of grief and not as sage reflections of holy wisdom. Listen to the cry of the poor and the distressed. Hear it. Feel it. Just as God does. And when necessary give expression to your own hurt. To deny our own wounded humanity (and that of others) is to lie, is to say that abuse and injustice will be allowed to go unchecked. We need to speak out-even if it is only to wail in grief and pain.

But Jeremiah’s cry of distress isn’t only against his human oppressors. Moving back a verse we find the prophet saying:

“Do not be a terror to me,
you, my refuge in time of disaster” (Jeremiah 17:17-NJB).

Jeremiah, who has, in previous confessions, suggested that God is something like unreliable and deceptive waters (Jeremiah 15: 18) now pleads with God to not be yet another source of terror and disaster; he has enough to deal with as it is. I don’t need another threat. I can’t take anymore. The prophet needs Yahweh God to be a refuge in time of disaster, not another danger to endure.

In verse sixteen, the prophet reminds God this was all his idea after all; Jeremiah never really wanted to be a prophet in the first place:

“As for me, I did not insist on shepherding after you,
and the day of desperation I have not desired.” (Jeremiah 17:16-The Anchor Bible)

That he follows obediently, and preaches the message that God has given to him and that he endures the hurt and abuse and scorn that is heaped upon is a demonstration of his faithfulness to God and to his word. And the prophet asks God to remember this. He could not endure, he could not persist if he thought that God was against him as well. Who could stand against that? Jeremiah knew that he could not continue, could not go on in the face of continual rejection and failure and slander and ridicule if he did not have a place of refuge to hide during his days of personal disaster.

And Jeremiah seems to have plenty of them. I mentioned last week that there is only one place in the 52 chapters of his work, only one point in the 40 years of his prophetic ministry, where Jeremiah described anything like joy in his work (Jeremiah 15: 16). And even that joy was somewhat muted. The rest of his work was an exhausting 40 years long challenge that often left him broken and feeling defeated. His enemies mocked him and his apparent failure saying:

“Where is the prediction of the LORD?
Let it come to pass!” (Jeremiah 17:15–JPS)

“Where is Yahweh’s word? Let it come true then!” (NJB)

They mocked his lack of results. They derided his inability to prove his message. Show us the statistics. Show us the proof. Give us some evidence. But he had none–only the word of his message and the depth of his faith.

“All my work is for the Master,” wrote the sixth general of The Salvation Army, Albert Orsborn.
“He is all my heart’s desire;
O that he may count me faithful
In the day that tries by fire!” (Orsborn)

All my work may be for the Master, but it would be nice to have some tangible reward, some evidence of success, some measurement of achievement. Jeremiah gave his speeches and his warnings, preached his sermons, delivered his addresses but few took him seriously. They taunted him: “Where is the word of Yahweh? Let it come!” (Jeremiah 17:15-Anchor Bible) I think Jeremiah would have been as keen as (if not more so) his taunters to see the word of Yahweh proven true (even if he never desired to preach it, or wanted to see the day of disaster come); he wanted to have some vindication and validation of his life’s work.

Can we wonder that the prophet felt broken and abused by everyone–even (almost) by God? Are we still surprised by his angry outbursts and by his desire to see his detractors get some of the pain that he’d received for so long? Jeremiah was a wounded man, Jeremiah was a broken man. I’m sure that there will be some who’ll object to my description of the prophet of God as a broken man. ‘He was strong and firm in his faith,’ they’ll say. ‘He was faithful and true. How could you describe him as broken?’

I say it because Jeremiah said it of himself:

“Heal me, Yahweh, and I shall be healed,
save me and I shall be saved,
for you are my praise” (Jeremiah 17:14–NJB)

He was a man in need of healing, in desperate need of salvation. He was a broken man, even if he was the prophet of God–maybe especially because he was the prophet of God. We make the prophet into a plaster saint of little value if we fail to recognize how broken he was. And the same is true of any of our heroes of the faith.

I especially like the JPS translation of this verse:

“Heal me, O LORD, and let me be healed;
Save me, and let me be saved;
for You are my glory” (Jeremiah 17:14–JPS).

Let me be saved. The prophet is begging: please, Lord! Let me be healed. Let me have some relief. My wound is incurable, refusing to be healed; Lord, heal me and let me be healed. Please. My suffering is continual; Lord, save me and let me be saved (Jeremiah 15:18). 

Why do we insist on seeing our prophets and spiritual leaders as unwavering paragons of triumphant, victorious faith? Are we afraid to see them in weakness? Are we unwilling to accept them as failures? Why can we accept the apostle Paul’s boasting: “…and that is why I am glad of weaknesses, insults, constraints, persecutions, and distress for Christ’s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong” (2 Corinthians 9:12–NJB) but we’re unable to accept Jeremiah’s desperation: “Heal me, and let me be healed. Save me, and let me be saved!”

If Jeremiah has been faithful in his work, in spite of cruelty and abuse and without any appreciable results, there have been many who were less than faithful to God. The worship of Yahweh had been, during the reign of King Josiah, restored somewhat. The idols and shrines of the polytheistic cults had been torn down and destroyed, their priests had been killed. But after Josiah’s untimely death, his religious reforms were halted and undone. The worship of Molech, Ba'al, Ashtoreth, Chemosh, Asherah, etc. returned.

Jeremiah says that those who have abandoned the God of Israel, Yahweh, would be “written in the earth” (Jeremiah 17:13b-Anchor Bible[iii]). They will be “written in dust” (NIV), “registered in the underworld” (NJB). The first human, Adam, was formed from the dust, the adamah, but there was no life in that dust man-not until God breathed life into him and he became a living being. The human was taken from dust, and dust they were and to dust those who abandoned Yahweh would return (Genesis 3: 19). They were doomed men, doomed to death and to dust because they had forsaken the Spring of Living Water. They had abandoned the source of their life.

“Yahweh, hope of Israel, all who abandon you will be put to shame” (Jeremiah 17: 13a-NJB).

The hope of Israel, Jeremiah’s hope, was Yahweh. People (not even friends and family members) could not be trusted, religious leaders could not be trusted, princes and kings could not be trusted (Jeremiah 17: 5). Only God could preserve the prophet. Only God could save and heal him. Only God could protect the country, preserve and restore it. Only Yahweh God-the hope of Israel, the pool, the source, the life, the Spring of Living Water.

It has been pointed out by those who know the Hebrew language better than I[iv] that the phrase “the Hope of Israel” can also be translated as “the Pool of Israel” (Lundbom 797). The Hebrew word miqwēh has the double meaning of both “hope” and “pool of water” that “reinforce[s] the image of Yahweh as [the] ‘fountain of living water’”(Lundbom 797)[v]. The word has the sense of something waited for, expected-something abiding. The word carries the idea of things gathered together–like the chaotic waters of creation gathered together (Genesis 1:10) into deep pools.

Yahweh is the expectation of Israel, the hope of the prophet, the deep cool waters of the pool of Israel, the spring of living waters. Yahweh God is the “fount of every blessing” with “streams of mercy never ceasing” (Robinson). He is the hope of our patient enduring and waiting, the hope of our sweet relief, the cool blessing of our lives. When accusers make demands that we cannot meet, we have the Pool of Israel. When our work is marked by failure and few successes, we still have the abiding, gathering Hope of Israel. When we feel beaten down, even to death, we have the ever-flowing Spring of Living Water to heal us and we shall be healed; the Hope of Israel to save us and we shall be saved.

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to [the Hope of Israel]!
Let anyone who believes in the [Pool of Israel] come and drink!
As scripture says, ‘From his heart shall flow streams of living water.’ (John 7:37-38-with interpolations)

JPS Hebrew – English Tanakh. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society,

1999.

Lundbom, Jack R. Jeremiah 1 – 20: Anchor Bible Vol. 21A. New York, NY. Doubleday. 1999.

New Jerusalem Bible. New York, NY. Doubleday. 1999.

Orsborn, Albert. “All My Work Is for the Master” The Salvation Army Songbook,

The Salvation Army, London.

Robinson, Robert. “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” The Salvation Army Songbook,

The Salvation Army, London.

Stuart, Douglas. “Curse” Pages 1218 – 1219 in Vol. 1 of Anchor Bible Dictionary. Ed. David Noel

Freedman. New York. Doubleday. 1992.

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[i] (It should also perhaps be noted that division of the various parts of Jeremiah’s writing is not an exact science. There are various opinions about where this confession begins and ends. Some commentators include verse 12. Some start with verse 14. Some believe that the confession continues through verse 20.) Choices have to be made and I have chosen this material for this sermon.

[ii] Lest we think that violent imprecations are only found in the Old Testament / Hebrew Bible, here are a few (but not all) from the New Testament / Christian Bible: Matthew 23: 13 – 36, Matthew 26: 23 – 24, 1 Corinthians 16: 22, Galatians 1: 8 – 9, Galatians 5: 12, 2 Timothy 4: 14, Revelation 6: 10, Revelation 22: 18 – 19.

[iii] I like Lundbom’s suggestion (794-798) that this confession should be read as a three way conversation between Jeremiah, Yahweh and the mockers in Israel, and that this verse is to be understood as Yahweh’s voice. If I were reading the confession the ‘right way round,’ I would have followed that interpretation.

[iv] I often tell people that I’m a bilingual illiterate-I can’t read in two languages.

[v] It also means “yarn” (1 Kings 10:28, 2 Chronicles 1:16) – go figure…

Where Were You when Wormwood Fell?

We were in the backyard, sipping coffee and listening to the crickets and the thrum of I-80, me reading another Stephen King novel and you working one of those sudoku puzzles, when great Wormwood fell. The third angel – third in a week, you said quietly – slipped gracefully through the third heaven with a silver trumpet in his hand. And he blew that accursed horn so loud it shook the whole heartland. 18-wheelers on the long haul shuddered and screamed, skidding to a halt, burnt rubber tracks and tire shreds flying out in smoke behind them. Cars and minivans veered for the shoulders, dived into the ditches, their radiators steaming, engines ticking and little kids screaming in the back seat, crying with red eyes and snot bubbles under their noses.

We watched with slow wonder as that great star began its descent, falling from orbit, its signal lights twinkling normally at first, as if nothing was wrong, five-by-five on orbital path. Then suddenly faster and faster as it plummeted, plunged to the earth, down into the sea, somewhere in the North Pacific. A spray of mist came over us there in the yard, more than four thousand miles away. And that fine spray of mist was bitter – not the shock of ocean salt water, mind you, but bitter.

It was the bitterness of acrimony, the bitterness of despair. It was the bitterness of petty officials who get their way, not because they’re right, but because of an abstract authority, acting in spite and venom. It was the bitterness of stifled dreams. Of every whispered threat. Of anxious worries. The bitterness of wrongs left un-repented and unforgiven. A third of the waters of the Earth turned bitter like wormwood oil, and many people died because of its poison.

The Lego League Responds to Nature's Fury

Last night I spoke as a representative of the Salvation Army to the members of the local First Lego League team:  9 - 14 year olds interested in science, technology, robotics and problem solving.  Every year the league chooses a theme and the kids are challenged to design and build a robot that can solve a problem associated with that theme.

This years theme is "Nature's Fury." As part of their information gathering stage, they invited me, and a number of other representatives from agencies that respond during natural disasters - Fire Department, Sheriff and Police, County Emergency Management, the hospital, Red Cross, Air Guard etc...

The kids asked us question about how our agencies plan and prepare for and respond to natural disasters like floods and tornadoes and blizzards.  (These three were in their focus because they are natural disasters that could occur in central Iowa.  Hurricanes and Tsunamis don't happen very often round here...)

Many of their questions revolved around the issue of communication - especially communication to the general public: "How is a disaster announced?  Who decides when to sound the warning siren?  How long does it take to alert the public? "

Some of their questions were more generalized: "Do you have a disaster plan?  Does the public have access to it?  What's the biggest need after a disaster?  How important is a home emergency plan?  What do you know now that you wish you knew sooner?"

Some of their questions were much more ominous: "Who decides when the military /national guard gets involved?  Can a person be forcibly removed from their home during a disaster?  How do you find people (bodies) after a disaster?"

I'll be eager to hear from them what problem they'll try to solve, and to see the robot they design in action.

Some Navel Gazing Observations after a Day of Emergency Disaster Services Training

1 – I never sleep well the first night in a hotel.  I miss my family.  So I didn’t sleep well last night. Didn’t sleep at all last night in fact.  It was somewhere around 4 this morning that I finally was able to settle in the land of Nod. 

But I tried to use the time – and not merely waste it watching goofy monster movies on Netflix.  Instead I read a couple more chapters from The Transgender Studies Reader and another chapter from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.  I also wrote a 400 words short story that I’m going to hang on to for a bit before I decide whether or not to post it here on the blog.

2- I am an Introvert by nature.  If I have to attend meetings, I’d rather sit in the back of the room and not participate – except when it’s a topic in which I’m interested.  The other folks in our sessions today did not believe me when I told them that I am very much an introverted person.  I’m not shy.  Especially, it seems, when you get me talking about serving in response to tragedies and disasters. 

This surprised me a little bit. Why was I participating so much?  I don't do that... But I think I realized something about myself today – I enjoy disaster work.  Enjoy? What a terrible word. Who enjoys seeing the devastation and despair that follows in the wake of natural and manmade disasters?   Only psychopaths.  I don’t enjoy that.  I –apparently – enjoy being able to serve people in that time. 

I am not an adrenaline junkie, or an ambulance chaser. But I have found, in many experiences, a measure of fulfillment in coming alongside those who are suffering.

3 – My wife sometimes jokes that I am Spock – I’m not.  I have nowhere near that level of emotional control.  I’m just a bit more Stoic than she is.  But when I haven’t slept well, and when I’ve sat through 9 hours of training in a single day, my emotions start to sit pretty close to the surface.  Some of the things I’ve seen during disaster deployments have been pretty horrible.  I’ve sat with families who’ve lost children.  I’ve seen towns leveled by uncontrollable natural forces.  At several points today I felt my eyes getting a little moist and my throat felt a little tight. All those things – years and years in the past – continue to affect who I am today. 

Another several hours of training material tomorrow, but I anticipate that I’ll be better rested.  I look forward to them.  

What I'm Reading - J.B. A Play in Free Verse

When I was a Senior in high school, while many of my classmates were busy watching Beverly Hills 90210, I was reading J.B.[i] the play in free-verse by Archibald MacLeish based on the book of Job.  I was a strange kid, I know.

Anyone who tries to tell you that there is comfort in the book of Job is wrong. There isn’t.  There is only mystery and overwhelming wonder.  Injustice, death, calamity – these fall on men and cannot be resolved, not with an appeal to God’s justice, nor to his righteousness.  But still we love, or rather, we struggle to love.

J.B., the eponymous protagonist of the play is Job – blessed and fortunate, with a wife and children and a fortune – and if “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” his life will be played out on the stage, beneath the lights, beneath the dramatic masks of comedy and tragedy.  The story has been written, the dialogue composed.  The play will be performed and we will observe.

We watch along with two broken down circus vendors who assume the roles of God and the Satan.  We know the story, just as they do, yet Nickles – the stand in for the Satan- becomes our stand in as well, arguing and railing against the inevitable injustices that must fall upon J.B. And, what is more, he rails against J.B.’s acceptance of all of this.

Nickles:                Everything he ever had!
                             And all he asks is answers of the universe:

                             Why ? Why? And God replies to him:
                             God come whirling in the wind replying  -
                             What?  That God knows more than he does.
                             That God’s more powerful than he! -
                             Throwing the whole weight of creation at him!
                             Throwing the Glory and the Power!
                             What’s the Power to a broken man
                             Trampled beneath it like a toad already?
                             What’s the Glory to a skin that stinks!
                             And this ham actor! – what does he do?
                             How does he play Job to that?

                Attitutude

     “Thank you!”  “I’m a worm!”  “Take two!”
                                               
     Plays the way a sheep would play it -
     Pious, contemptible, goddam sheep
     Without the spunk to spit on Christmas!

You know the story as well as I – even if you’ve never read J.B. or Job.  Life is full of disaster, even for the faithful. There is no need for me to rehearse the plot.  We know how the story ends. Yet it is still and always a surprise that J.B. can forgive God – that he can endure all that is flung his way, accept it all, retain his integrity and in humility forgive God.

I re-read this play every so often.  Not because there is comfort in it – no more comfort than there is in its ancient source material – but because of the challenge and the hope it proffers.  Even on that dung heap played out in front of the audience there remains a breath to blow upon the coal of the heart.

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[i]  MacLeish, Archibald J.B.  Houghton Mifflin Company,  Boston, MA 1956.

The Salvation Army Feeding and Sheltering Those Hit by Hurricane Sandy

As millions struggle without access to power and other basic services up and down the East Coast, The Salvation Army entered its fifth day of response for Hurricane Sandy. Feeding and sheltering activities are continuing in the most heavily impacted areas including New York and New Jersey where coastal devastation and flooding remain major issues. West Virginia and Maryland are facing a different kind of disaster with record snowfalls leaving thousands without power.

In New Jersey, The Salvation Army is serving hundreds of people at shelters throughout the state. This includes service in Atlantic and Hunterdon Counties. Starting today, The Salvation Army is also providing food, hydration and emotional and spiritual care to first responders in Freehold, NJ. A Salvation Army mobile feeding unit (canteen) has also deployed from Western Pennsylvania to support efforts in the state.

In New York City, officials from the Office of Emergency Management have appointed The Salvation Army as the lead agency for the City’s Food Access Plan, to coordinate efforts ensuring access to food for city residents. For the next few days The Salvation Army will be serving food at Seward High School in lower Manhattan where 1,000 people are being fed breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Meanwhile, in Maryland and West Virginia, The Salvation Army is serving in portions of Western Maryland and West Virginia where more than two feet of snow have left thousands without power in frigid temperatures. In Cumberland, MD, The Salvation Army worked with the National Guard to help 100 senior citizens evacuate from a local senior home, providing 125 meals for the trip to a nearby shelter. The Salvation Army is also running shelter and feeding operations throughout West Virginia at multiple locations in Charleston, Beckley, Grafton, Bluefield and Martinsburg, WV.

Elsewhere:

·       In Northeast Ohio, The Salvation Army has partnered with the American Red Cross to provide meals at 3 shelters.

·       The Salvation Army is serving meals and drinks from canteens in several coastal communities in Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia. 

·       In Nashua, NH, The Salvation Army provided meals to personnel at the Emergency Operations Center and also delivered clean-up kits to the Hampton, NH area.

·       In Bridgeport, CT, The Salvation Army is feeding 450 seniors three separate sites.

“This will be a long-term response and recovery effort,” said Major George Hood, National Community Relations and Development Secretary for The Salvation Army. “The best thing the public can do now to help is to give generously.”

The Salvation Army is extremely gratified for the continued support of the donating public. To date, the Army has received nearly $700,000 in online donations alone to support relief efforts.

How To Help

The Salvation Army asks people who want to help those affected by this disaster to click here or call 1-800-SAL-ARMY (1-800-725-2769).

Donors may also contribute $10 via their phone bill by text messaging the word STORM to 80888, and confirming the donation with the word, “Yes.”*

At this point, in-kind donations, such as used clothing and used furniture, are not being accepted for hurricane relief. However, these items are vital to supporting the day-to-day work of your local Salvation Army. Please consider giving these items to your local Salvation Army Family Store or dial 1-800-SA-TRUCK (1-800-728-7825).

Checks may be made out to The Salvation Army Disaster Services Center, PO BOX 1959 Atlanta, GA 30301. Please designate “2012 Hurricane Season” on all checks.

For more information on The Salvation Army’s response to Hurricane Sandy, please visit The Salvation Army USA's blog, Facebook, or Twitter.  

The Burden of Nahum

I have said it before; I will probably say it again.  I don’t like Nahum.  And I don’t think I’m likely to change my opinion here.  I don’t like the book of Nahum.  We don’t know enough about the man, Nahum, whose name means “Comfort” or “Consolation,” for me to say I don’t like Nahum the man.  But I do not, do not, do not like his book.

Is that a strange admission for a pastor to make?  I mean, this isn’t just a matter of preference – like I prefer the Mark’s gospel over Luke’s or I like the letter to the Hebrews more than Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  No.  This is a thorough dislike of the book of Nahum.  I just don’t like it.

And yet, I have purposefully brought myself to preach from it.  I could have avoided this. I crafted the preaching calendar we’re using this year to bring us through each of the prophets, and I could have slipped right past Nahum’s three chapters – and some of you probably wouldn’t have noticed or cared.  Hardly anyone reads or preaches from Nahum.  In fact, none of the official church lectionaries include Nahum.  In the history of Christian sermons, there have been relatively few drawn from Nahum’s oracle.

Though, I will make this concession.  Nahum’s writing is powerful.  He has the poet’s descriptive skill.  To read his book is to be overwhelmed by the chaotic sights and sounds of war.  Reading Nahum you can hear and see and almost feel the battle being fought around you.  There is intensity and power in his writing.

The book is described for us in the first verse of the first chapter as “An oracle concerning Nineveh, the book of the visions of Nahum.” An oracle is a form of prophetic speech in which information is transmitted from God to his followers to answer important questions, to respond to feelings of doubt, or to reveal future events.  Sometimes the prophet would seek out an answer to a question and be given an oracle in response, other times God would speak without having been sought out.

Curiously, the Hebrew word for Oracle is also sometimes translated as “burden.”  It is something lifted up – the prophet who speaks the oracle must lift up his voice.  But it is heavy; it is something that must be carried; it is a load upon the prophet’s shoulders.  It is a burden. And it is this burden that the prophet Nahum has left us. 

What are we to do with this oracle? What should we do with this burden?  I ask the question, but I’m getting ahead of myself. How can you understand that question or begin to form a response, until you know more about the book, until you’ve felt its weight?  

So let us pick up this book together, let’s carry it a little while, you and I. 

Ready?  Lift (remember to use your legs, not your back…).

The Assyrian Empire (more specifically known to historians and scholars as the Neo-Assyrian Empire) was the world’s first military superpower.  With a vast hoard of military men armed with iron weapons and covered with strong armor, and countless chariots – used as mobile firing platforms for archers – the Assyrian army would launch merciless attacks against its foes. First a devastating charge of cavalry and chariots to smash the enemy’s lines followed by a swarm of infantrymen to purse and slaughter the now divided forces.  The Assyrians preferred this kind of bloody frontal assault designed to surprise and shock their enemies. 

“At the command of the god Ashur, the great Lord, I rushed upon the enemy like the approach of a hurricane...I put them to rout and turned them back. I transfixed the troops of the enemy with javelins and arrows....I cut their throats like sheep...My prancing steeds, trained to harness, plunged into their welling blood as into a river; the wheels of my battle chariot were bespattered with blood and filth. I filled the plain with corpses of their warriors like herbage” —Sennacherib, (704 – 682 B.C.)

The populations of captured cities were deported to other portions of the vast and expanding Assyrian empire.  This undermined the ability of restless and angry subjects to rebel. And, perhaps more significantly, it was a psychological weapon. The threat of deportation or slaughter kept the empire settled and encouraged those cities and nations that might have otherwise resisted the Assyrian expansion to settle peaceably.

Those who refused to surrender and those who attempted to rebel against their Assyrian overlords were publicly tortured; they were flayed, impaled, beheaded, and burnt alive. Their eyes were ripped out, and their fingers, noses and ears cut off. Women were raped, men mutilated until death, and their heads, arms, hands and even lower lips were placed on the conquered city's walls, skulls and noses atop stakes as a warning to others. On some occasions, people were blinded so that as they wandered throughout the land they could tell others of the Assyrian terrors.

The Assyrian Empire was powerful and it was cruel. 

In 722 B.C. the Assyrian Empire conquered the kingdom of Israel and destroyed its capital city, Samaria.  Its inhabitants were scattered throughout the empire.  And for nearly one hundred years the Assyrian Empire threatened and attacked and invaded the southernkingdom of Judah.  They demanded tribute and taxes. Their armies raided Judean villages. 

So this is where we start, with the long memory of torture and fear and terror and violence from the Assyrian Empire.  Can we feel that burden?  The Assyrians have been the dominant power for as long as anyone can remember. They have been calling the shots.  The people of Israel – those survivors who fled south into the kingdom of Judah, and the people of Judah had lived in continual fear of the Assyrian Empire. They’d suffered and died under the Assyrians for generations…

And now…

And now Nahum has a word – an oracle (a burden) from Yahweh concerning Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria.

“Victims of injustice have a long memory, for the traces of their suffering are deeply engraved.” Jurgen Moltman -The Tortured Christ

While most of the words of Nahum’s oracle are addressed to the people of Nineveh, it is unlikely that he actually spoke them in that great city, or that he wrote them down to be delivered in the mail.  It’s as if he’s speaking over Nineveh’s shoulder to the people of Judah.  The oracle of doom and death and destruction for Nineveh wasn’t given in order to encourage them to repent, but to give “consolation” and “comfort” to Israel and Judah and her many other victims.

Nahum begins with what almost sounds like an incantation:  

Yahweh is a jealous and vengeful God, 
Yahweh takes vengeance, he is rich in wrath; 
Yahweh takes vengeance on his foes, 
he stores up fury for his enemies.
Yahweh is slow to anger but great in power.
Nahum 1: 2 – 3

It’s as if by repeating the name of God, Nahum intends to invoke his God – to awaken the sleeping divine warrior and to summon him to battle.  And that’s the kind of God we find in Nahum’s oracle – a warrior God.  Nahum sees him striding forth in the upper regions of the atmosphere, in the storms and winds – the clouds of the sky are the dust stirred up by his feet as he goes forth to war. (1: 3)

And this warrior God is powerful.  He speaks and rivers and oceans dry up, garden lands wither for lack of moisture, mountains collapse, hills reel, the earth and its inhabitants quake in the heat of his volcanic wrath. (1: 4 – 6)  Nothing and no one can withstand him or stand up against his righteous indignation.

But in all of this, Nahum’s God begins to sound a bit like the Assyrians that he hates – powerful, cruel, and merciless. I wonder if this is too much of a burden.

Verses 9 – 15 of chapter 1 contain a series of shifting judgments and promises – left ambiguously in the original language with unidentified pronouns.  Except for the promises in verse 15, it isn’t immediately clear who is being addressed. Is it Nineveh? Is it Judah? Who is the “you”?  Who are “they”?

What do you plot against Yahweh?
He will make a full end;
his adversaries will not rise up a second time.
Like  entangled thorns they are consumed, 
like dry stubble.

From you has emerged 
someone plotting evil against Yahweh,
one who counseled villainy.

Yahweh says this:
“Unopposed and many though they be,
they will be cut down and pass away.
Though I have made you suffer,
I shall make you suffer no more, 
for now I shall break his yoke which presses hard upon you
and I will snap your chains.”

As for you, this is Yahweh’s decree:
“You will have no heirs to your name,
from the temple of your gods I will remove
the carved and cast image,
and I will make your grave a heap of filth.”

See on the mountains, the feet of the herald!
“Peace!” he proclaims.
Judah, celebrate your feasts,
carry out your vows,
for Belial will never pass through you again:
he has been utterly cut off.
Nahum 1: 9 – 15

And though some translations like the NIV offer to interpret for us inserting “O Nineveh” or “O Judah” in order to clarify the subject of these pronouncements, I prefer to leave them as Nahum wrote them – slightly ambiguous. The interpretive insertions probably are correct, but the ambiguity, slight as it is, helps me. Otherwise it’s all to easy to assume that Nahum’s voice is God’s voice – that Nahum’s enemies were, in fact, God’s enemies, and that I can do the same with my voice and my enemies.

The prophet Jonah was reluctant to offer God’s mercy and love to the people of Assyria.  He sat in the shade of vine and pouted when his predicted judgment of imminent destruction failed to occur.  God asked him “Should I not be have compassion on Nineveh?” (Jonah 4: 11)

Compassion for Nineveh?  Nahum – whose name means compassion – certainly had none for that great city.   He seems to celebrate the slaughter of its people.  It was clobberin’ time.  It was comeuppance time.  It was time for the abusers to be abused, for the torturer to be tortured, for the killer to be killed. 

I can understand the appeal of this, though.  We all want justice. Made as we are, in the image of God; we want to see justice and righteousness in this world.  We want to see the righteous rewarded and the wicked punished.  But sometimes that desire for justice gets twisted into a desire for revenge.  Like Nahum, we like it when evil men get what’s coming to them.  Remember the parties and the dancing in the street when it was announced that Osama bin Laden was dead?

But I’m not convinced that this is God’s way.  Despite Nahum, I’m not convinced that God takes pleasure in the pursuit of revenge (or justice).  Another Hebrew prophet, from a slightly later time, recorded these words from God:

“Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?  (Ezekiel 18:23)

From you has emerged someone plotting evil against Yahweh,one who counseled villainy.

From whom?  Nineveh? The NIV insertion would say so.  And I think Nahum would have agreed. But what about Israel?  What aboutJudah?  Certainly evil and villainy came from them as well.  The other prophets had much to say about the sin and wickedness among God’s people even if Nahum didn’t. 

Though I have made you suffer,I shall make you suffer no more, for now I shall break his yoke which presses hard upon youand I will snap your chains.

If it was Yahweh’s will being enacted in history with the Babylonian invasion of Nineveh, could this ambiguously pronounced promise of rescue and release be given to Assyria?

As for you, this is Yahweh’s decree:“You will have no heirs to your name,

The people of Israel captured by the Assyrians and taken away into captivity never came back.  They remain the “lost tribes” of Israel. Though I’m sure Nahum intended this threat for Assyria (and it was true for Assyria as well), I can’t help but wonder if it fits just as well for Israel.

It’s the ambiguity of these verses, I think, that lightens this burden a little bit.  The ambiguity of these verses makes Nahum a little easier to accept.  As he stands, I think that the fire of Nahum’s fury puts off more smoke than light, that he obscures as much (if not more) than he reveals of God. 

But the ambiguity (slight as it is) allows us to challenge the prophet, and to challenge ourselves.  

Otherwise Nahum’s rant is too much of a burden and not enough of an oracle.


Other Nahum posts:
Kill 'em All, Let God Sort 'em Out!
I Don't Like Nahum

Is a Dream a Lie if it Don't Come True?

Nick* is an Airman stationed at in Minot, North Dakota.  He has been in the Air Force for several years now, and has been stationed in Italy and Turkey.  He is trained in “special weapons” and looks forward to attaining E-7 status soon.  He was recently transferred to the Minot base, so he and his wife and their infant son bought a house with a loan from the bank.  For Nick it was all part of that American Dream: a good job, a loving family, and a new house to call their home.

That was in April – two months before the flood that would dash that dream. “I made three payments on the house before the flood, and now…” Nick let the sentence hang in the air without completing it.  “I don’t know what I can do.”

And Nick isn’t alone in this predicament.  “There are four others in my shop going through the same thing,” he said.  He’s applied for various forms of assistance.  FEMA has helped some, but he doesn’t qualify for an SBA loan. “And even if I did qualify, there’s no way I could pay it back.  I’m already overextended.”

He and his co-workers on the airbase have been helping each other to clean out the mess the flood made of their houses – pumping out the water, ripping out the dry wall, throwing out the damaged furniture.  He works nights at the airbase, puts in several hours of work on his house, and then sleeps for a couple of hours before heading back to the base.  His wife and son have moved in with her parents in Nevada.   “I miss them, but they’re better off there.” 

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true

Or is it something worse [1]

The future is uncertain for Nick.  The American Dream has been washed away in the river flood.  “I don’t know what to do.” He put his head down on the table.  “I’ll probably loose the house to the bank, but what can I do?” 

To volunteer in Minot visit http://www.usc.salvationarmy.org/usc/www_usc_minot.nsf, or call
701-838-8925.

Monetary donations can be made in the following ways:
-Donate $10 by texting “MINOT” to 80888 and replying “yes” to the confirmation text. A one-time donation of $10 will be added to your cell phone bill. For terms, see www.igfn.org/t.
-Or by calling 800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769)
-Or by mailing a check to The Salvation Army, 315 Western Ave., Minot, ND 58701. Be sure to designate your donation “Minot Flood.”
-Or donate online at https://secure20.salvationarmy.org/donation.jsp

---

* Not his real name.

[1] “The River” Bruce Springsteen, 1981

Doing the Most Good

Disaster - Forces Beyond Our Control

I saw this house in Minot, North Dakota the other day.  I stopped, hoping to speak with the owner, but no one was around.  I wanted to ask him (I assume, “him”. I could be wrong) why he believes that the flooding of the Souris River in Minot represents the “worst manmade disaster.”  Even with the catastrophic flooding and the destruction of thousands of homes, there were no deaths and only a few injuries. 

The word “Disaster” comes from two Greek words δυσ-, (dus-) "bad” and στήρ (aster), "star". It reflects a belief in astrological forces that influence one’s life, forces beyond human control.

And certainly disasters are beyond human control (natural disasters, anyway…). When floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and hurricanes occur there is little that we can do to stop them.  We can prepare, we can mitigate, we can respond, but we cannot control.

And we want, above all, to be able to control our lives.   

7,500 Tons of Rubbish

After the flood waters receded thousands of homes in Minot, North Dakota and surrounding towns were left uninhabitable.  Before people can live in them again they will have to be completely gutted - furniture and appliances hauled away, carpet and drywall torn out and disposed.  Along every street are piles of debris, sorted into various piles – appliances with toxic chemicals, asbestos, lumber – to be hauled away.

As of few days ago the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers had hauled away over 7,500 tons of flood debris. 

Tons. 

And there is still much, much more.

At the curbside these sad piles of mud and rust encrusted rubbish smell of mold and rot and decay. They are visible reminders of the ephemeral nature of things.  That couch, that flat-screened television, they’re all just so much rubbish after the flood.  What was once dad’s favorite armchair is now a moldy heap of fabric and wood.  Annie’s waterlogged dolls are thrown carelessly atop the heap along with clothes that will never be worn again and books that have been turned to mush

But these are just things –precious thing, maybe, but still just things – and things come and things go. It’s the memories we make with each other, with our families and friends and neighbors that won’t be washed away by rising flood waters.  The relationships we forge with each other will survive even in disaster and destruction.  These are not ephemeral physical objects.  They are forever.

To volunteer in Minot visit http://www.usc.salvationarmy.org/usc/www_usc_minot.nsf, or call
701-838-8925.

Monetary donations can be made in the following ways:
-Donate $10 by texting “MINOT” to 80888 and replying “yes” to the confirmation text. A one-time donation of $10 will be added to your cell phone bill. For terms, see www.igfn.org/t.
-Or by calling 800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769)
-Or by mailing a check to The Salvation Army, 315 Western Ave., Minot, ND 58701. Be sure to designate your donation “Minot Flood.”
-Or donate online at https://secure20.salvationarmy.org/donation.jsp

I Met Faith Yesterday

I met Faith yesterday.  Her husband had gone inside the church to meet with one of The Salvation Army’s caseworkers in order to receive some financial assistance.  Their home had been destroyed in the flooding of the Souris River in Minot, North Dakota.  Faith sat in their car and waited for him.  But while the morning was cool and breezy, the afternoon heat began to warm the car and Faith needed to get out.

She waved to me and asked if she could sit in the shade of the building, so I found a chair for her and helped her from the warm car to the cool of the shade.  I found a bottle of water for her to drink.

Faith and her husband lost their home in the flooding of the Souris River in Minot, North Dakota.  They are currently staying with one of their cousins in the area, but so are several other members of the family.  There are sixteen of them squeezed into that little home until they can get one of the promised FEMA trailers.

But even with all their loss, and the difficulties they’ve endured, and in spite of the uncertainty of the future, Faith and her husband were cheerful and dignified.  They welcomed the help that we could give them – though it barely began to meet their needs.  I helped Faith to stand from her chair in the shade and to their car and said, “May the Lord be with you.”  From her seat in the car Faith reached up through the open window and took my hand and said, “And also with you.”  Faith squeezed my hand and smiled.  “All will be well,” she said and smiled again.

To volunteer in Minot visit http://www.usc.salvationarmy.org/usc/www_usc_minot.nsf, or call
701-838-8925.

Monetary donations can be made in the following ways:
-Donate $10 by texting “MINOT” to 80888 and replying “yes” to the confirmation text. A one-time donation of $10 will be added to your cell phone bill. For terms, see www.igfn.org/t.
-Or by calling 800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769)
-Or by mailing a check to The Salvation Army, 315 Western Ave., Minot, ND 58701. Be sure to designate your donation “Minot Flood.”
-Or donate online at https://secure20.salvationarmy.org/donation.jsp

The prophet Joel says "Jubilate"

The prophet Joel remains a strange enigma to us. We know very little about him. The only concrete thing we know about him is that his father was named Pethuel – and that’s it. That is all that we know for certain about Joel.

We don’t know where he was born, where he lived, or even when he lived. We don’t know if he was married or if he had children. We don’t know what he did for a living. Was he farmer, a merchant, or a rabbi? We don’t know. We don’t even know specifically when he composed the lines that have come down to us as the book of Joel. As I said, we know very little about Joel.

Yet his writings have survived.

Working from certain clues within the book of Joel, it seems likely to Biblical scholars that he wrote sometime during the fourth century B.C. during the time when Persian Empire ruled the world (though some have argued for an earlier date, pushing Joel as far back as the ninth century B.C.). During this period of time the nation of Israel was only an insignificant province within the expansive Persian Empire.

But even still, his writings have survived; we can read them in our bibles today these 2,400 some odd years later. And, what is more, they have survived in such a way that even though we know next to nothing about the prophet Joel as an historical figure, we can still understand the message of his book.

One thing is immediately apparent as we read through the book of Joel: he (whoever he was) wrote to an agrarian society. And this is something we can understand in our present community. Even though not all of us gathered here tonight are farmers, we certainly understand the urgent necessity of our agriculturalists. We understand that the strength and security of our country rises and falls with the farmers. When farmers do well, everyone does well. When the farmers suffer, everyone suffers.

This is something we understand. And Joel’s original audience understood this as well.

He wrote his message to them during a period of urgent distress and national crisis. Vast swarms of locusts had overwhelmed the country side and billions of these malevolent insects had devoured the crops. They ate the leaves, stalks, bark, flower, fruits, seeds, and stems of every green and growing thing. Joel compared them to an invading army of horses and chariots destroying everything in their path.

As the swarm moved on to devastate other regions, the people of Judah began to relax, but not for long. While the locust swarms filled the sky, and destroyed the fields the male and female locusts were also busy mating. The pregnant females then deposited clumps of 50 – 80 eggs in the uncultivated ground.

And after about a month (30 – 40 days) these young locusts began to hatch and grow. Their appetites increased proportionally as they increased in size. Every day they grew a little larger and everyday they ate a little more than the day before. From birth to death, the locust is an eating machine that leaves only destruction in its wake. A full grown locust can eat more than its own weight each day. That might not be much for one locust, but when you have to remember that it’s a swarm of millions of these ravenous insects devouring everything in sight. This was round two of the locust plague. (Eyewitness description of a locust swarm that descended on Palestine in the spring of 1915 – Anchor Bible Dictionary vol. 6 pg. 1150)

What the chewer left the swarming locusts consumed;
and what the swarming locusts left the jumpers ate;
what the jumpers left the finisher devoured. - Joel 1: 4

And then to compound their already desperate misery – the devastation of the locust swarm was immediately followed by a severe and lingering drought. The sky withheld rain for month after month and slowly the watercourses all dried up. The once flowing streams and brooks of clear cold water became trickles of goopy mud, and then hard packed clay.

Their cattle wandered the barren fields lowing in distress and hunger. Sheep stood perplexed.

Seeds have shriveled under their shovels;
storage bins are desolate,
granaries ruined;
for the grain has dried out.
How the beasts moan,
the herds weep,
for lack of fodder;
even the flocks of sheep are hurting. – 1: 17-18

As the drought held week after week and month after month, the land dried out, and the countryside became a dangerous tinderbox waiting for a spark – then – Conflagration! Fires blazed across the dry fields, burning and blazing and leaving ashy destruction across the land. The sky was filled with acrid smoke and the burnt out landscapes were devoid of life. There had been nothing like this in their collected memories– even the elders had never witnessed anything comparable in their time.

To you, YHWH, I cry out;
for fire has consumed the pasture land,
a flame has licked all the trees in the field.
Even the beasts in the field
complain to you;
for the waters sources have all dried up,
and fire has devoured the pasture land. – 1: 19 - 20

And here, I think, we can understand their predicament. Our culture is distinctly different from Joel’s in nearly every respect, but we can still relate to their plight. We don’t speak the same language but we can certainly understand their complaints.

Our society hasn’t been devastated by a plague of locusts followed by drought and fire, but we certainly have suffered a series of crippling economic disasters. And maybe we’ve started to feel like the people of Joel’s 4th century B.C. audience.

We may not have a plague of locusts, but we have collapsing banks. We may not be suffering through a period of drought, but we do have an increasing number of people who are unemployed. We may not be dealing with catastrophic firestorms, but the general feeling is that our country is in serious trouble.  We haven’t shared the exact same circumstances as Joel’s original audience, but we share their desperation, their confusion, their angst for the future.

Stand dismayed, you farmers,
wail you vinedressers,
for the wheat, the barley!
The harvests of the field have been lost!
The vine is withered,
the fig tree wilts away;
pomegranate, palm tree, apple tree,
every tree in the countryside is dry,
and for human beings
joy has run dry too. (Joel 1:11-12)

That last line catches at me “and for human beings, joy has run dry too.”

How many have said that recently? They’ve been laid off, their car has been repossessed their home has been foreclosed and the joy of life has just run dry.

And what did the prophet have to say to his audience in the forth century B.C and what does he have to say to people suffering today? What does Joel have to say to people who have lost everything, to a nation on the verge of collapse?

Land, do not be afraid;
be glad, rejoice,

This is counterintuitive. In the aftermath of horrific destruction Joel says “Do not be afraid” and “Be glad, rejoice.” In one rabbinic translation of this text the translation reads, “…be glad, jubilate.”

Jubilate.
What a great word.

Jubilate leads me to the Latin phrase “Jubilate Deo” from Psalm 100 “Acclaim (Jubilate) Yahweh all the earth, serve Yahweh with gladness, come into his presence with songs of joy.” And that leads me to the hymn tune Old 100th known simply as The Doxology, written in 1674 by Thomas Ken, a clergyman in the Church of England. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”

Jubilate is the verb that Joel uses. Joel writes to the very soil of the land and he says,

Soil, do not be afraid;
be glad, jubilate,
for Yahweh has done great things.

He writes to the wild animals of the country and he says to them,

…do not be afraid.
the desert pastures are green again,
the trees bear fruit,
vine and fig tree yield their richness.

And after addressing the soil that has been ravaged by locusts and drought and flame, and addressing the wild beasts who have lost their food and their homes because of the locusts and drought and flames, Joel finally turns his attention to the Sons of Zion.

Sons of Zion, be glad,
rejoice in Yahweh your God;
for he has given you
autumn rains as righteousness demands
and he will send the rains down for you,
the autumn and the spring rains as of old.
The threshing-floors will be full of grain,
the vats overflow with wine and oil.

Joel says that the people of Zion should rejoice and give thanks – Jubilate – and he promises that God will restore the regular cycle of rains and that the green growth of the fields will return.

Joel says that the regular rains will be restored because Righteousness demands it.

And I have to ask, whose righteousness? Mine? Ours? The people of Joel’s 4th century B.C? No. We have no righteousness of our own, “there is no one righteous, no not one.”

So whose righteousness demands that the regular cycle of rains should be restored and that the devastated crops re-established? Whose righteousness demands that all that has been destroyed will be returned?

It is Yahweh’s righteousness that demands it.

The restoration of the land is a return to the covenantal blessings that God made with his people – the devastated fire blasted land would once again become the Edenic paradise. When the people of Zion – the people of God – have been restored to relationship with God then the land itself will be blessed. And the people of God would never again be ashamed.

When the people of Zion – the people of God – are in their proper place, in their proper relationship with God, there is rejoicing and jubilation, and there is restoration. And this is cause for our thanksgiving. This is cause for our celebration. This is cause for our Jubilation.

Do not be afraid
be glad,
jubilate.

It's Not the End of the World

I'm preaching from Joel chapters 1 and 2 tomorrow so I've made this short little video for the worship service.



The prophet Joel described of the swarm of locusts that had swept over the land as the coming of the Day of Yahweh (or the Day of the Lord.) It was a terrible thing, described in cosmic, end-of-the-world kind of language - but to read Joel's description of the locusts of his day as a prediction of a still future day of doom and gloom produces the kind of insanity we've recently seen within a small segment of the Christian community (cough, cough, Family Radio, cough, Harold Camping).

Let's try to keep it in perspective.