Beginnings
Wilderness Wanderings
Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the Lord, both the morning and evening sacrifices (Ezra 3:3). How do you start a new chapter in life? This is the question occupying the Jews returning from Babylon. They were few; their land was in rubbles, occupied by wild animals, weeds and foreigners. How should they begin the rebuild? They began with the altar, their place and means of prayer. Prayer came first. Even before the temple, they needed the altar. On that altar they offered their sacrifices of...
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Celebrate!
Wilderness Wanderings
Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year…you and your household shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice. And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns…At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites…and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands” (Deuteronomy 14:23ff). We are far removed from the agricultural society...
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Divine Laughter
Wilderness Wanderings
A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is Psalm 2. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it . Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: Dive In! Why do people take selfies? Have you heard the expression, “My truth?” What do you think it means? Why do people use it? Psalm 1 & 2 both use the Hebrew word for meditation. What does meditation mean? What two very different things are being meditated...
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What Defines Your Life?
Wilderness Wanderings
Then [Jesus] said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot” (Luke 12:15). John Calvin wrote, “The human heart is a perpetual idol factory”. Long before that, humans recognized that we have a built in need to worship something or someone. The 10 commandments are arranged around this need. The first three commandments challenge us to worship God well. That is no easy feat, for even our worship of God can become a matter of idolatry. When churches divide over the songs sung in worship, the...
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So Few
Wilderness Wanderings
The whole company numbered 42,360… (Ezra 2:64). Does that pique your curiosity? Do you want more information? This does not seem like much of a text for a devotional, “The whole company numbered 42, 360...” Stay with me for a moment. The book of Ezra is concerned with telling how the people of Israel returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity to rebuild the temple of God. The story recounts the challenges this community faced in the return and the rebuilding project. One of the first challenges was to ensure that those returning were descendants of Abraham and Sarah....
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Prayers that Shape Us
Wilderness Wanderings
“The Lord brought us out of Egypt…He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, Lord, have given me” (Deuteronomy 26:8-9). Our text is part of the worship that God’s people began to practice once they were settled in the promised land. Take some time to read the whole chapter. There are lessons of faith to be learned from these ancient worship practices. These rituals reminded God’s people of their spiritual past but also of their economic past. Standing before the Lord, they recite a...
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Respectable Evil
Wilderness Wanderings
“Among my people are the wicked who lie in wait like men who snare birds and like those who set traps to catch people. Like cages full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; they have become rich and powerful and have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not seek justice. They do not promote the case of the fatherless; they do not defend the just cause of the poor (Jeremiah 5:26-28). What Jeremiah reveals is unsettling. The wicked are not merely stumbling in the dark. They are hunters. Patient. Calculating. They “set traps”, catching people, not animals....
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Who would have thought?
Wilderness Wanderings
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing: “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: “‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them...
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The Peace of the Pierced!
Wilderness Wanderings
A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is John 20:11-23. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it . Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: 1. What do you do when you are afraid? What frightens you about living as a Christian? 2. How did Jesus respond to the disciples’ fear on the first Easter? Does that encourage you? 3. What mission does the...
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Memorize It!
Wilderness Wanderings
I lift you high in praise, my God, O my King! and I’ll bless your name into eternity. I’ll bless you every day and keep it up from now to eternity (Psalm 145:1,2). Many of us think that repetition and memorization are for the birds. We don’t want to put the work into memorization and we get bored easily. Yet, God’s people have long observed that developing our spiritual selves is significantly aided by both repetition and memorization. Consider Psalm 145, an acrostic. In its original language, the poem had twenty-two lines; each line beginning with a successive letter of the...
info_outlineWhen will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”—skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat (Amos 8:5-6).
Amos’ oracles regarding Israel are eerily descriptive of our own economy. He describes those who are numbed by their obsession with making money. They have such tunnel focus that they do not notice that their extravagant lifestyle is based on cheap labour. The economy operates to trample, ruin the poor and needy (4). He warns that sooner or later this will evoke social crisis. A society that refuses Sabbath restfulness for everyone is bound to fail (8-12). Earlier he charged Israel with this offense, “You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph” (6:6).
There is at least one major difference between then and now. At least I hope there is. The exploiters did not notice—they were at worship, keeping Sabbath! But they want it done with so they can rush back to resume commerce. While keeping Sabbath, their imaginations were scheming how to get richer.
Amos accuses Israel of multitasking. They are fulfilling Sabbath laws while at the same time plotting to make a bundle. It makes one wonder if Jesus had this sermon in mind when he said, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life…” (Matthew 6:24-25).
The appearance is one of rest, but the reality is profound social restlessness. Its not just trade, but distorted, dishonest trade that they are longing for. The poor are made into a tradable commodity. They are reduced to an equivalency for a pair of shoes or a silver coin. Everything has become a commodity and there are no more neighbours.
What can we do to stand apart from the tide of our own economy? Let me suggest two things. First, that we make good use of Sabbath time, taking Jesus words to heart, “We cannot serve God and money”. We need to ask ourselves how important money has become for us. Money is not evil, but the love of money is the root of many evils. Has our love for God softened? Is greed creeping up the ladder to bump God off the throne? Sabbath keeping is meant to dispel worry as we learn again to trust in God.
A second suggestion is that we consider carefully how we view people. We encounter so many people in the span of week, that we no longer notice them. They become commodities to be used. To love our neighbour, we must notice their humanity. When life is all about hurry, hurry, hurry, people get in the way. We deal with them as interruptions rather than as neighbours God has placed on our path. When God is our first priority, seeing our neighbour becomes natural.
So, as you end this week, plan to take time for Sabbath.
As you journey on, hear Jesus’ invitation:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:28-29).