Danny pointed me toward Karen Sudduth’s wonderful site today. If you subscribe to our church’s daily devotional, you’re familiar with some of Karen’s writing. When I read the devotional that our church emailed us today, I knew who the author was within the first few sentences. There’s not many people that I can recognize through their writing that quickly – but she’s that good (and her artwork is too).  I could share more with you about Karen’s journey, but I’ll let others who know her comment here.  Better yet, take a trip to her site and learn for yourself.

Anyway, thanks to Danny for pointing us to Karen’s site.  It is a blessing.

Moses didn’t bother with the “why” – he simply stated that God had chosen Israel and then answered the question, “What does being chosen require of you?”  The answer, echoed by Micah some centuries later, is simple. 

10 I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. And once again the Lord listened to me. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you.
11 The Lord said to me, “Get up, go on your journey at the head of the people, that they may go in and occupy the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.”

12 So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
13 and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being.
14 Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it,
15 yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today.  Deut 10:10-15 (NRSV)

God doesn’t choose us for what we’ve done – he chooses us out of love and we can repay that love by what we do.

1 The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. In the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, while I was in Susa the capital,
2 one of my brothers, Hanani, came with certain men from Judah; and I asked them about the Jews that survived, those who had escaped the captivity, and about Jerusalem.
3 They replied, “The survivors there in the province who escaped captivity are in great trouble and shame; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been destroyed by fire.”
4 When I heard these words I sat down and wept, and mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.  Neh 1:1-4 (NRSV)

We complain today about how churches are losing membership, or how we are no longer connected to our roots (or, conversely, that we are irrelevant to the times).  And what do we do about these worries?  Most of us try to reinforce or protect our turf – that with which we are familiar.  This includes both those who revere tradition and those who long for more contemporary connections.

Nehemiah, on the other hand, was a true risk taker.  He was willing to abandon a life of comfort and privilege in Persia to venture back to a broken city.  It was his faith in God that allowed him to see Jerusalem as the pivot point of the world – indeed of the Universe.  Can we see the potential – or even envision the ultimate reality – of visions other than our own?

1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.
2 The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.
3 You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.
5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
6 Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have posted sentinels; all day and all night they shall never be silent. You who remind the Lord, take no rest,
7 and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it renowned throughout the earth.  Isaiah 62:1-7 (NRSV)

The new names referred to in verse four are literal translations of the Hebrew words: “My Delight Is in Her” is from the Hebrew Hephzibah, and “Married” is from the Hebrew Beulah.  Puts me in mind of the old gospel hymn written by Edgar Page Stites -

1 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
2 Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
3 While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah Psalms 32:1-5 (NRSV)

Adam Clarke comments on “four evils” mentioned in the first two verses of the psalm – transgression, sin, iniquity and deceit:

The first signifies the passing over a boundary, doing what is prohibited. The second signifies the missing of a mark, not doing what was commanded; but is often taken to express sinfulness, or sin in the future, producing transgression in the life. The third signifies what is turned out of its proper course or situation; any thing morally distorted or perverted. Iniquity, what is contrary to equity or justice. The fourth signifies fraud, deceit, guile . . .

He then discusses three actions that take place in removing these evils: forgiving, covering and not imputing.  Forgiving is to take away our transgression through sacrifice – the sacrifice of priests in the Old Testament, with the ultimate and perfect sacrifice coming through Christ on the cross.  Covering is to place or sin out of sight – to allow us to see God, our vision no longer obscured by our sin.  Not imputing is to remove our iniquity from God’s books of account.

Who would not long for the happiness in verses one and two?  The next three verses tell us what comes before forgiveness.  We must communicate with God, we must acknowledge our sin.  Forgiveness cannot happen without confession.  It just can’t.  This is something that may be hard to do, which is strange when you consider that God already knows our sin, our transgressions and our iniquity.   Deceit – we think we’re hiding our sin from God, but we’re really only deceiving ourselves.  It requires faith in God – that God perceives all – to be able to acknowledge the weight of our sin and then free ourselves of it.  It requires faith in God – that God can forgive us what we’re too often unwilling to forgive ourselves – to be able to cast away the burden of our transgressions.  It requires faith in God – that he will aid us in repenting – to be able to truly change our direction and travel with God instead of away from him.

When we do this, we are happy.  When we do this, we join with Adam Clarke who said, “This is all true; I know it; I felt it; I feel it.” — Selah

14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.”
15 He responded, “But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
16 The Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.”
17 Then he said to him, “If now I have found favor with you, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me.
18 Do not depart from here until I come to you, and bring out my present, and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay until you return.”
19 So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them.
20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so.
21 Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.
22 Then Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, “Help me, Lord God! For I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.”
23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die.”
24 Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it, The Lord is peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.  Judges 6:14-24 (NRSV)

When Gideon actually had his proof, however, he found it even more frightening.  I wonder if that’s not how we would react as well.  I mean, if we actually knew that “still, small voice” urging us to do what is right and avoid what is wrong was really and truly the eternal Creator of the universe . . . doubt would be erased, but fear would follow but for his words, “Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die.”

God’s Word for us.

The context of today’s scripture is the national confession of the nation of Israel upon the return from exile after 539 B.C. during the reconstruction of Jerusalem and its walls.  After recounting all the great and wonderful things that God had done for the people – beginning with freeing them from bondage in Egypt – a recitation of what went wrong was given:

16 ”But they and our ancestors acted presumptuously and stiffened their necks and did not obey your commandments;
17 they refused to obey, and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them; but they stiffened their necks and determined to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and you did not forsake them.
18 Even when they had cast an image of a calf for themselves and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies,
19 you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of cloud that led them in the way did not leave them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night that gave them light on the way by which they should go.
20 You gave your good spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and gave them water for their thirst.  Neh 9:16-20 (NRSV)

Once again we come across the term “steadfast love” – a translation of the Hebrew chesed.  Can you recount a time in your life when it first dawned upon you that this was fundamental to our understanding of the nature of God?  I remember sitting in the bleachers in the gym at Tupelo High during a meeting of Campus Crusade in the early ’70’s and it hit me with considerable force that: (a) I wasn’t ever going to merit salvation on my own; and (b) God was going to accept me anyway.  It was both a quieting and stunning realization.

How will we ever come to where we “turn in dread” to God?

14 Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock that belongs to you, which lives alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land; let them feed in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old.
15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, show us marvelous things.
16 The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf;
17 they shall lick dust like a snake, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their fortresses; they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God, and they shall stand in fear of you.

18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency.
19 He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob and unswerving loyalty to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old.  Micah 7:14-20 (NRSV)

This isn’t a difficult question.  Well, it is difficult, but only because of our human nature.  First, we have to repent – we have to change course.  Change course from what?  From placing ourselves in the center of the universe, from thinking that we can discern all the answers of the cosmos, from believing that we “are like God” in the sense of being all-knowing and all-powerful and . . . even all-capable.

Second, we have to have faith that – understanding that we are not God – that . . . that there is God . . .

Who       Is           God.

There have been those who, despite their knowledge, their understanding of the world, their sophistication – came to the point where they have seen God.

Finally, we have to understand God’s capacity for mercy and forgiveness.  It is this capacity, perhaps more than any other quality, that so often separates us from God.  And yet, we can fulfill God’s law: to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as our self.

Christ makes this possible for all . . . even those with college degrees . . .

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”
27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.
31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.
34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’
36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”  Luke 10:25-37 (NRSV)

This man knew the answer  (vv. 27-28), but he wanted to have Jesus confirm him in his understanding that this answer was for Israel alone:  “Who is my neighbor”.  Jesus took him up on the challenge with his parable of the Good Samaritan.  So, the first thing we take away from today’s lesson is this: that everyone is my neighbor.

In our Wesleyan tradition, this is important from the standpoint of engaging in “Works of Mercy.”  In his sermon on “Means of Grace“, Wesley addressed the other question raised in today’s lesson scripture – raised in the very question posed at the outset: “What must I do . . .”

The short answer is that we can “do” nothing to merit or earn salvation.  The long answer is that Christ left us a road map that – having faith in salvation through his grace alone – we should surely follow.

Compassion and Mercy: “Go and do likewise”

All the souls that are were forfeit once,

And he who might the ‘vantage best have took,

Found out the remedy. How would you be,

If HE, who is the top of judgment, should

But judge you as you are? O! think on that,

And mercy then will breathe within your lips

Like man new made

Clarke doesn’t source the lines – he wrote at a time when literate people would know where they came from.  The point being made is the same that is made in today’s lesson scripture: if we who would pray for mercy from a gracious and forgiving God are unwilling to show mercy ourselves, then what should we expect from God as our judgment?  Here’s today’s lesson scripture:

21 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”
22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.
24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him;
25 and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made.
26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.
28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’
29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’
30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt.
31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place.
32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’
34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.
35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”  Matt 18:21-35 (NRSV)

 In his commentary on verse 30, Clarke says, “Reader, if thou art of this unmerciful, unforgiving cast, read out the chapter.”  He then quotes the lines above as well as the following lines:

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of Mercy.—

So, God’s justice would deny mercy to those of us who deny mercy – and haven’t we all at one time or another done so, even if in some small respect?  Fortunately, God provided a way to bail us out – even more reason to forgive our brothers and sisters from our hearts.

Oh . . . the source of the quotes?  Up to you to discover.  If you want the answers without searching then click here and then here.