The Exiled Church
The Old Testament story is dominated by two national events. The Exodus was the salvation of God's people from slavery in Egypt, bringing Israel into the promised land and making them distinct from all the other nations to be God's holy people. The second national event is far less positive.
The Exile dominates much of the Old Testament literature, explicitly in many of the Prophets and in the Psalms as well as the historical accounts of the tragic fall of God's people. The Exile forms the backdrop to the New Covenant inaugurated through Christ, a renewed relationship between God and his chosen people as stated by Jeremiah (31:31-34).
Now, the Exile occurred after generations of neglecting the law of God. After Solomon, many of the kings of both Israel and Judah are described as doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Usually the idol worship is chronicled, but this signifies the wider problem of disobedience. It must be remembered that for God's people, their religion and their social lives were indistinguishable.
So as God's people ceased to worship him, they lost their distintive character as a nation. They ceased to be the people God made them to be.
And so, after generations of unrepentant sin, God acts. Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon marches on Zion, the city of God, Jerusalem, and takes it. 'He carried away all Jerusalem and all the officials and all the mighty men of valor, 10,000 captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained, except the poorest people of the land' (2 Kings 24:14).
God was no longer there to shower favour and blessing upon his people, for they had turned from him! He was no longer their greatest treasure, so he was going to take away everything he had blessed them with, until they turned back to him, and knew he was their greatest gift of all.
I write this very brief history in order to introduce a concept in contemporary Theology. I study theology at a Bible College in the heart of England and so get the opportunity to hear the views of some of the top thinkers in the Christian church today. One popular notion is that the church today is in 'Exile'. In order to explain the dwindling presence of Christianity in the public conscience and marginalisation of the Church, people smarter than me look in the Bible and borrow this language of Exile to describe the current experience of God's people in the west.
The Church in Exile is the big idea.
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- Ode to Christchurch or my first sermon online
- The bible ’4 men’
- He who has ears
His Ways are Higher
2000 years ago there lived a man by the name of Saul. Saul came from Tarsus, a town in Turkey. He was a smart man, well educated. He knew the philosophy of the Greeks, politics of the Romans but most of all he knew the law of God.
He knew that there was only one God, who he worshipped with his native people, the Jews. He knew that true worshippers of God did not worship created things. They didnʼt bow down to statues and animals like the Greeks and they didnʼt bow down and worship the emperor like the Romans.
So when his Jewish brothers and sisters start to worship a man, a carpenter from Galilee, he is rightly offended, because God is not a man. Right? God isnʼt created. Saul was a zealous young man. Zealous for his people, zealous for his faith. He begins to stamp out this new cult. He stamps out Stephen, a public stoning, and arrests many of these new followers of Jesus.
Itʼs as heʼs going on another crusade, Damascus this time, when he sees it. Lights, burning bright, and a frightful voice. ʻSaul, why do you persecute meʼ. Saul is blinded. He had been blind all this time, yet with the loss of his sight he finally sees. Jesus, the man crucified and buried has risen and is the Lord of all creation.
“Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
Isaiah 55:6-9
In the 17th century the UK was in the midst of a massive rise in itʼs power and influence. International trade and the conquest of America, cheaply growing crops which could be sold for a high profit. This trade survived because of the cheap, expendable labour harvested from Africa. Slavery was the fuel of the British Empire.
Now, imagine this scene. Dead and dying men, women and children loaded like sacks of grain onto a ship bound for America. Stench of faeces and blood mixed with rotting bodies and disease. Only the strong survived the journey. This was the progress of the British Empire. Abuse and inhumanity. It was disgraceful.
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- God doesn’t do ‘ordinary’
- Ode to Christchurch or my first sermon online
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What if Starbucks was like your average Church?
I came across this blog, which has an entertaining skit which raises the issue of how we 'do church' and what church looks like to those who aren't really churchgoers. What do you think?
'Coffee is good all the time/all the time Coffee is good'
Thoughts?
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If I shall not be one with a woman, who shall I be one with?
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Gen 2:24)
I was created with the desire to be with a woman.
Adam, in the garden of Eden - even before sin seperated him from God - desired the company of another person. God heard this desire, and made for man a companion, like him yet different. Equally in God's image, yet not in the image of the man. She was woman. Different. Unique. The only one right for the man.
And so the Biblical theology of marriage is that it is a union that existed first in the perfect presence of God.
Marriage, the union of man and woman for life, was the climax of the creation. You can see this, because it was the last act before sin entered the Garden. Humans most fully reflect the nature of God in this union.
So then it is natural for man to desire woman.
He comes pre-loaded with all these desires and feelings he wants to share with a woman.
He comes with a space ready in his spirit that the woman can fill.
I was created with the desire to be with a woman.
I have this space in my spirit for a woman to fill.
I am pre-loaded with desires and feelings I want to share with a woman.
Yet as it is, and as it may be for many years, I am single.
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Kings, Pagans and the God-baby. Part 3
13Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." 14And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son."
16Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
18 "A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted, because they are no more."
So this psycho king decides to kill children. This is a little bit hard to believe, I know, but bare in mind He killed several of his own children and wives because he was afraid of losing his throne to them!
This is nothing new. The Romans knew all about killing each other to protect their power. The legendary murder of Julius Caesar, wars and sieges were how you ‘made yourself’ in Rome.
Instead of worship, as Herod promised, there is death. Herod will not bow the knee, he will bring the sword. A politician in the Roman empire. He’s nothing new. Herod, the king of the Jews, doesn’t look any different to the roman oppressors.
And this whole drama explodes because of the birth of one baby boy.
All this violence, betrayal, blood and weeping.
But that doesn’t matter to Joseph, asleep.
Peaceful
Normal.
But here, two worlds will collide.
The world of politics and power meets the ordinary lives of an ordinary family.
‘Run, Run to Egypt, run for your life!’
Because the Empire is not how God works. God is not a politician, nor an economist, nor a billionaire, nor a general. The powers and rulers of this world don’t ‘get it’. They don’t get who this Jesus is. Is he a Conservative or a Liberal? Is he for us or for them?
No, he’s a baby boy. A special baby boy, who is the hope of the world.
The Roman Empire knows only violence. The only way it can succeed and maintain peace is with it’s swords, guns, bombs, money and threats.
But the Saviour of the World is a baby who hides in Egypt.
Whilst Herod slaughters the children. The Empire murders the innocent. To protect itself, to maintain peace!
Where were you, God? Where were you when they took my son! Where were you when they killed my family, when I lost everything?!
God was in Egypt. And he is about to make his debut in the world. What’s it gonna look like?
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Kings, Pagans and the God-baby. Part 1
1Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." 3When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:
6 "'And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.'"7Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him." (Matthew 2:1-8)
The king has come! Finally, it’s been 400 years since God last spoke to his people through the prophet Malachi. 400 years of silence. The Assyrians, Greeks, Romans have all conquered the land. God’s people are forgotten, they have been ruled over by foreign powers for centuries.
The king has come! And these strange characters from the east show up in town, stir up trouble. They want to come worship this child. But who worships kings? These men don’t quite get it, do they? Kings don’t get worshipped… God does. Good religious people certainly do not worship other people! The Romans worship their emperor, but the Jews refuse to. No wonder the city has been stirred up!
The king has come! It’s been a long time, but oh how we have longed for it. Longed to be free, longed for God to come near to us, longed for God to listen to us again. The promises of Malachi, that the ‘sun of righteousness would rise with healing in his wings’ are empty words. Bitter to taste.
But there is already a king of the Jews. The Romans ruled by setting up local rulers. Herod was a king, given his power by the Roman Empire. The Empire ruled everything-it went on forever! So what is there to do, obey the empire? Surrender to the king? Hope in your heart that God will save the day.
Another world away, in Bethlehem a young family have just started out. A newly wedded couple and their first son. What could be better? Imagine the busyness, Joseph working, Mary nursing this child. Suddenly this boy has become this new couple’s entire world! You know how it is, ever seen it? When new birth happens, it changes everything.
But not Jerusalem. Not the Empire.
Trouble is being stirred, the rulers and powers of this world are afraid. Because if news of this king, born of the line of David gets out it could be enough for the Jews to rise up against their roman oppressors. Herod would lose his throne, his world would come crashing down around him in a rush of nationalistic pride.
Because of these strange foreigners.
Herod’s self-ambition, the misguided religion of these mystics and a small baby boy. Did they know they were part of a story which was to change the world?
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- Ode to Christchurch or my first sermon online
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