Mighty Works Displayed

Mighty Works Displayed from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.


1 Kings 22:15-23
15When he had come to the king, the king said to him, “Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we refrain?” He answered him, “Go up and triumph; the LORD will give it into the hand of the king.” 16But the king said to him, “How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?” 17then Micaiah said, “I saw all Israel scattered on the Mountain, like sheep that have no shepherd; and the LORD said, ‘These have no master; let each one go home in peace.’” 18The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy anything favorable about me, but only disaster?”

19Then Michaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, with all the host of heaven standing beside him to the right and to the left of him. 20And the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, so that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ Then one said one thing, and another said another, 21until a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ 22’How?’ the LORD asked him. He replied, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’  Then the LORD said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do it.’ 23So you see, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the LORD has decreed disaster for you.”

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

John 9:1-7
1As Jesus walked along, he saw a man who was blind from birth. 2Jesus’ disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned so that he was born blind, this man or his parents?”

3Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents. this happened so that God’s mighty works might be displayed in him. 4While it’s daytime, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. 5While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6After he said this, he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and smeared the mud on the man’s eyes. 7Jesus said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (this word means sent). So the man went away and washed. When he returned, he could see.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God.

King Ahab of Israel has worked hard to come to this point. He's trying to entice the King of Judah, Jehoshaphat, to go to battle alongside him against some foe. The King of Judah insists on knowing that the LORD is with them as they go into battle. So Ahab gathers his court prophets, four hundred of them on the king’s salary, and each of them gives the same advice: “Go up and triumph; the LORD will give it into the hand of the king.” Jehoshaphat is unsatisfied. Are there any others? Other prophets in the land of Israel who speak the Word of the LORD?

Then Micaiah, the obnoxious prophet who never has anything good to say about Ahab, is summoned. To Ahab's surprise, Micaiah gives the same answer as the others! “Go up and triumph; the LORD will give it into the hand of the king.”

Now it is Ahab who is unsatisfied. This affirmation doesn't sound like the obnoxious prophet. So he presses him, invoking the name of the LORD to compel Micaiah to tell the truth. Micaiah reveals a vision of doom for Ahab, and a scattered Israelite army. Micaiah gives him the truth that God has decreed disaster for Ahab, but rather than letting the truth set him free from his idolatrous ambition, Ahab imprisons the only prophet who brought him the truth, and remains bound to the lies he wanted to hear. “Ahab’s victory in prying the truth our of Micaiah simply confirms his hate for the prophet, and this prejudice leads to his doom.” “The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy anything favorable about me, but only disaster?’”

Our Old Testament passage today is disquieting. It puts a grumbling murmur in my soul.. Our Old Testament passage shows God tearing down a nation, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, by leading their ruler to his doom with bad advice. Out Old Testament passage bothers me because God sends a lying spirit to speak through the prophets, to entice Ahab to his doom. Our Old Testament passage is disquieting, and does not bring me the heart-warmed peace where I can be still and know that the LORD is God.

And yet, it’s in the book, so I can’t pretend it doesn’t matter.

I want a God on whom I can rely. That’s part of why Presbyterian theology, with its emphasis of God’s sovereignty, is so appealing to me. Micaiah’s vision of the Divine Council puts God in the place of the trickster, or at least in the place or ordering and equipping a trickster, who entices rulers and empires to their doom. “Then the LORD said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do it.’” When God makes use of a lying spirit, when God uses cunning and trickery to entice humans into his will, that leaves me in a uncomfortable place.

Scripture has a lot of places that leave us uncomfortable, that don't fit our preferred view of God. It's much easier to ignore them than to admit that perhaps we have tried to make God in our own image, rather than let God shape our lives with the truth. Beware the voice that tells you exactly what you want to hear. The truth of the LORD challenges us, breaks down our expectations.

Though I’d be more comfortable with confirmation of what I want to hear, God’s Word gives us what we need to hear so that God’s mighty works may be displayed through us.

The Bible is a library full of stories about God's relationship with God's people. It’s essential to confront the disquieting, uncomfortable passages in scripture because they show that God works in ways we do not expect. People sometimes wander away from God and get into pretty deep trouble before God acts in unexpected ways to bring them home again.

But God will stop at nothing to bring them home anyway. In the face of the wickedness of King Ahab, God sends a lying spirit to bring down a dynasty. This lying spirit is akin to the hardening of Pharoah’s heart. This passage is a picture of God toppling empires as a reminder that God rules heaven and earth, even when we’d prefer the comfort of what we’ve come to expect, what we’ve settled for.

Jesus and his disciples are traveling throughout the region, and Jesus has been teaching for most of the previous couple of chapters. When the disciples see a man who was blind from birth, they see an opportunity to clarify some questions about why God creates some people with disadvantages in this world. In their minds disabilities are clearly punishments for some sin. “Jesus’ disciples asked, ‘Rabbi, who sinned so that he was born blind, this man or his parents?’” They’re asking for another lesson from their teaching, to clarify why God acts the way he does.

Jesus is not satisfied with leaving this man to only be an object lesson. Where the disciples see a question, Jesus sees a child of God. So he redirects the question away from human influence and back toward God, where it belongs. “Jesus answered, ‘Neither he nor his parents. This happened so that God’s mighty works might be displayed in him’”

Where the disciples expected a new teaching, Jesus provides a miracle, rubbing spit-mud in the man’s eyes and sending him to bathe. The man who was blind from birth comes back clean, and he can see.

This isn’t just a healing, restoring to a former state of vision. God creates vision where there had only been darkness before. God does something unexpected, just to show once again who’s in charge around here. 

God’s the one who is in charge, and the mighty works of God will be displayed in ways we would never expect. God’s will is even done through false prophets, and through a man who was blind from birth. God is greater than we expect. The walk of Christian discipleship is not a matter of self-congratulation, where we celebrate how we’re always right. The walk of Christian discipleship is a testament to God’s mighty works displayed in us, poor broken sinners though we are. As Christians we celebrate that God chooses to act through us anyway, simply because God loves us, and wants to shine through us in a dark world.

Whether our question “Why did this evil thing happen?” or “Why has this good been delayed for so long?” All of us struggle with the freedom of God, who chooses to act in ways we do not expect. God creates a man who is blind from birth, God sends a lying spirits to the prophets and royal advisors, God goes willingly to die on a cross, none of these make sense.

And yet they happen so that God’s mighty works may be displayed in this world. Sometimes God’s voice is in the rule of the majority, enacting with confidence the will of the LORD as they understand it. Other times, we have Micaiah, “…a man who was willing to stand alone against a multitude of other prophets and against the king, because he stood with God. The majority is not always right.” It is not our expectation, or our deserving that determines God’s action. God’s works are unexpected, and are always a gift, a self-sharing act of love for God’s people.

We will not always be comfortable wight he ways God acts, but the truth we have in Christ Jesus sets us free of our own expectations by wrapping us up in the God who’s mighty works are displayed in obnoxious prophets, in a man who was blind from birth, even, and maybe especially, in sinners like us.

God works in ways we do not expect, but we have hope in a God who is not satisfied with merely meeting out expectations. We are loved by a God who doesn’t want to settle for making us comfortable where we are. God challenges us to move forward into a dark world, to bear Christ’s light to them, even as we ourselves are nourished by Christ’s presence and action within us.

So we respond to the God who uses even unexpected people like obnoxious prophets, lying spirits, men who have been blind from birth, stubborn disciples, and churches full of sinners. We praise God’s name not because of our own righteousness, but because we are constantly surprised by God’s gracious intervention in the world. We celebrate that God is “unresting, unhasting, and silent as light, not wanting nor wasting, God rulest in might; God’s justice like mountains high soaring above God’s clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.

God’s might works are displayed here, through us, in ways we would never expect. And Thanks be to God for that. Amen.