Home By Now (II Corinthians 5:1-10,16-21)

Home By Now from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Base!

It’s the safe place, those playing the game have set it aside as a state that is outside the rules of the game, where the person who is “it” can’t get to you. A place where the slower ones among us can stop to catch our breath, and those who are more daring can venture farther and farther away, tempting the “it” person after them, only to dash back to whatever tree or post has been designated as the inviolable safe zone.

In baseball, the rules about bases are more prescribed, only one person on a base at a time, you have to go through them in a specific order, and you can’t pass someone on your team.

But the concept is the same, as long as you’re touching this bag, you’re safe. Everything else is just an incentive to get off of the base so the defense has a chance to get you.

Like so much of what happens in our schoolyard days, we never really grow out of these bases. They just get more complex. Rather than just picking whatever landmark catches our attention, we build houses, offices, buy fancy cars, or just lay claim to a particular booth at our favorite restaurant. Because, Hey, if we lived here, we’d be home by now.

Paul, though, puts us into a tent. And like our schoolyard bases, the only thing that keeps us safe in this tent is that we’ve all agreed to pretend that there is more between us and the chaotic world from which we’re retreating than such a thin piece of fabric. If you tag me when I’m already on base, you don’t understand the game. If you come into my tent, then you’re not playing right. But the reality is that our tents can collapse in on us with no warning, because they are held up only by what we have said at recess.

But as Christians, we don’t have to be afraid of that. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Now that sounds like some sort of divine homeless shelter that we can tap into when our camping trip goes horribly awry. Many Americans see God in exactly that light too, as an emergency shelter when we can’t handle things on our own. I see the situation differently, largely because of the next verse. “In this tent we groan, longing to be clothed in our heavenly dwelling.”

That groan makes all the difference. It’s a groan of anticipation, of longing for something that is already here, but is not yet apparent. It’s the same groaning in which the whole of creation joins as we suffer together in the birth pangs of the age of the Spirit, the new creation that Christ has ushered in for us. We’re waiting for that birth to be completed, and Paul, in a mixed metaphor that makes this English Major cringe, gives voice to our desire to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness so that we do not have to stand on our own, because all we have is our own naked limited selves and this crude tent we have fashioned out of our own abilities. We groan because even though we live here, we thought we’d be home by now.

So we continue to live here, in this earthly tent, because it’s what we’ve got. It’s a temporary dwelling, and our mistake is only when we put our trust in it and ignore its expiration date. But that which is mortal will be swallowed up by life, and the one who has prepared us for this very thing is God, and God’s continuing presence through the power of the Holy Spirit is our guarantee, or as one translation put it, our “down payment” on this new home that God has built for us.

All of our earthy efforts to build up some fantastic building for ourselves are just making a fancier tent. It’s a place where we can yell “base,” but its comfort is fading, because this is not our true home, we don’t fit here, but we know where we belong. “So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.”

That verse is troublesome. We want to be able to do both, to somehow be able to experience God in a real way, but that very desire also captures the heart of being created in the image of God and walking on this earth as a human being. Walking, Paul says, by faith, not by sight. We can walk with our God, and be assured of her nurturing love, and feel his protecting presence around us. But there is a degree of separation while we are at home in the body. We feel the presence, we know God is intimately and continually involved in creation, but it’s not the same as being able to know God the same way God knows us. A divide exists because we are human, and limited by nature. So we long for unity with God, even while we are at home in the body.

This body, which is not just our flesh, but all that we are, is our home because we remain a people who are redeemed and claimed by God, but who have not seen the whole of the kingdom of God. We can see the kingdom, and the face of God, but in a mirror, dimly, and we move in faith because we are confident that one day we will see face to face. Yes, we have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord, where we can know the fullness of God’s love and be truly whole, as has always been intended for us. We do not belong to this world, we belong to Christ.

But we still live in this world, a world that so badly needs the savior that God has already lovingly given to us, a world that stubbornly refuses to admit that need. For the time being, we reside in this world, living in tents while we await the transition to our home in the Kingdom of Heaven. So whether we are at home or away, we must make it our aim to please God. Because we are the body of Christ, all of us and each of us. We are representatives of Christ to this world, sent to faithfully embody the gospel in a world that thinks it’s already living the good life, even if it doesn’t look too well.

We see our home here, and we know that all too often it doesn’t feel like the place of comfort, love, good feelings, and acceptance that we want it to be. It’s a world where we are separated from our Lord, and like so many families that have gone through a separation, a divorce, or a death, we have to learn how to be a family when we cannot be with those whom we love, and those who love us. We once knew Christ from a human point of view, but we know him no longer in that way. We cannot go back to the way things were, but we can move forward in faith knowing that something new and beautiful is already being created for us. So we look forward to the day when our home can be made whole again, even though we do not know what that will look like.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view. Our world has changed, and we also are different, because of God’s action in Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We know that this world does not have the final hold on us, and that the limits of our abilities do not limit what God is already doing in the new creation.

It’s in accordance with the prophecy we read in Isaiah that God’s new creation is coming to fruition. While this world where we are encamped is full of brokenness, God is creating a new heaven and new earth. Anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new! The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. As people who belong to Christ, we are a part of that new heaven and new earth. We are no longer held back by any of the things that we used to oppress ourselves and one another. All of this freedom, all of this new creation, all of the joy and delight of which Isaiah speaks, all of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

We know that in spite of all of the running around, all the stuff we create for ourselves is just a game of tag. It matters to those who are playing, but when the game ends, both the “it” and the rest are welcome in each other’s homes. God has set aside a home for us, a place from which we can explore new things, new possibilities, freed from the fear of having to earn our place in the world. The Lord is our home, and that same Christ that we claim as the center of our lives answers us before we can call out, and while we are yet speaking, God hears.

They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

That’s the image of a world that is redeemed. We no longer need to set aside a “base” for ourselves, because all of creation will be brought together in peace. We’ll be at home with our Lord once again. We know that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, going down to a world that was fallen so that it could be lifted up again, elevated to be with God because God has declared it so, not counting their trespasses against them. We know that we are not our own, and we do not belong to this world, but rather we belong to God, and are fellow heirs of the kingdom with Christ Jesus our Lord.

And this message of reconciliation is entrusted to us. Not just Paul and his followers in Corinth, us. Not just those of us who are called to sit in the front and lead worship, all of us. Not just those of us who serve on committees, or who volunteer, not just this particular congregation, but the whole of the Body of Christ. We groan in our tents because we know that we do not belong there, we have been reconciled to Christ and we cannot go back to the way things used to be. Isaiah message of a new creation, Paul’s message of a reconciling Christ, that message is entrusted to us.

So we are ambassadors for Christ. We don’t have a higher rank in heaven, we don’t get any special treatment on earth, the opposite is often true. We are ambassadors in a foreign land, and we are easy to ignore, because the world does not even know that they need to hear us.

But as Christ’s ambassadors, we don’t need to be effective, because we know that God will effect any and all change. We just need to tell our story. That for our sake God caused the one who didn’t know sin to be sin for our sake so that through him we could become the righteousness of God. The story is that we do not need to be righteous, we belong to Christ, and God will stop at nothing to be reconciled to us, to be with us in the heights of our joys and the depths of our sorrows. Home is not where we are insulated from our suffering, home is where we can engage with everything that is going on in our lives and know that we are still loved, and that we don’t have to be afraid.

We don’t have to be afraid because God is our home, God who is the giver and renewer of life. All we do we do out of gratitude for what God has done for us, in simply making a space for us to be at home with one another and with God. Those of us who are slower can catch our breath, those of us who are more daring can venture farther out and explore all of creation, and we are all secure in the knowledge that our heavenly father is waiting for us, with a loving smile, when we turn back toward home again.

Crowd-Sourced Exegesis: II Corinthians 5

II Corinthians 5 from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

II Corinthians 5

1For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling - 3if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. 4For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

6So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are it home in the body we are away from the Lord - 7for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10For all of us must appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.

11Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences. 12We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. 13For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

16From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view, even though we once know Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

What do you see? Acts 1:1-11

Acts 1:1-11
Theophilus, the first scroll I wrote concerned everything Jesus did and taught from the beginning, right up to the day when he was taken up into heaven. Before he was taken up, working in the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus instructed the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed them that he was alive with many convincing proofs. He appeared to them over a period of forty days, speaking to them about God’s kingdom. While they were eating together, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised. He said, “This is what you have heard from me: John baptized you with water, but in only a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

As a result, those who had gathered together asked Jesus, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?”

Jesus replied, “It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. Rather, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going away and as they were staring toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them. They said, “Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven.”

This is the Word of the Lord,
Thanks be to God

Why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? What do you see, Galileans? Are you staring into heaven with the hopes that you’ll be the first to see the future when it arrives? What do you see when you stare into heaven as your Lord is lifted up? What do you see?

Perhaps you see the story of what Jesus did and taught from the beginning. The story of a birth heralded first by the armies of heaven and then by the poor shepherds tending their flocks by night. The story of the boy who sat in the temple amazing his elders with wisdom beyond his years, while his mother worried about him a day’s journey away. What do you see?

Perhaps you see parables, sermons, and wisdom. Perhaps you see deeds of power, the lame leap, the blind see, the deaf hear, and the unclean made whole.

Perhaps you see a journey to Jerusalem, where if the disciples were silent, the stones would shout. Perhaps you see the people around you are proclaiming all the wonders you have seen, and that truly God is here in this place.
Perhaps you see your Master being taken away from you once again, just as he was by the crowds in Jerusalem. True, this time he is not being taken away from you to be killed, this time he is being raised up, as we say in our creed, to sit at the right hand of God, the father almighty, but that doesn’t make him any less gone when you’re used to being able to see him and touch him. Feeling a spiritual presence is very different than having a physical one with which you can interact. He’s been taken up, and it’s not the same anymore.

This Galilean sees the past three years of his life when he travelled throughout the country with Jesus, watching him preach and teach and heal people. Three years, and each of them as transformative as the last! At the end of it, they took him away and executed him. By then, though, he was no longer just a teacher, he was also a dear friend, and they took him away and killed him and this Galilean could not bear to watch, and now he is being lifted up again, and in a new way. So he stands there, staring into heaven, because he has to watch.

What do you see?

Another Galilean sees that after they executed this innocent man, who they knew, they knew had done nothing wrong, they buried him in a tomb, and rolled a stone in front of it to seal it. She sees that when she came to the tomb, it was empty, and two men stood in front of it telling here that her Lord was not among the dead, but was among the living! She sees that he is risen, and that for the past forty days he has been with them again. She sees that he has not survived the cross, but vanquished and reclaimed it, taking the symbol of governmental retribution and transforming it into divine hope. She sees that he has returned from the grave, and now he is being taken away again. We are lost without you, Jesus, why are you going away again? So she stands there staring into heaven, wondering what she will do now that he is gone again.

What do you see?

A third Galilean sees the imminent return of our Lord.

One can almost hear it, it’s as though the great stage has been reset, waiting for another showing of the grand play of our redemption. “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven.”

We’re about to see the kingdom be ushered in, right? Isn’t that what these two white-robed men are saying? He went up in a cloud, we just watched it happen, so we’re going to see him come back down in a cloud too. We can plan on that, it’s going to happen. The kingdom of God is at hand! We’re supposed to wait in Jerusalem for this Holy Spirit thing to come to us and then we’ll be able to tell Jerusalem, all of Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth that Jesus is the Lord, and he’s coming back to restore the kingdom!

What do you see while you’re standing there, staring at a cloud that took your Lord, your Teacher, your Friend away from you? Do you see that he is still with you? Do you see that he is absent? What do you see?

Galileans, do you see Jerusalem? How about Judea and Samaria? Do you see the whole of the earth? Because the Holy Spirit is coming, and then we shall be witnesses to God, having been given all that we need. We don’t have to pretend that we understood everything that Jesus said and did, although more understanding may come with time. We don’t have to know how everything worked in this story in which we are living, we just have to witness to Jerusalem, and to Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth, telling all that we have seen our Lord do for us, and for all that exists. So what do you see, Galilean, when you stand there staring up into heaven?

The eyes of the Galileans could only see a cloud that had taken their Lord away, but they didn’t need their eyes to see what they had known. Neither do we need to have seen with our eyes, because there’s just a cloud now Jesus is no longer in sight, but we know that those who have gone before us, and those who are here now, and those who have not yet even begun to look, we know that they too will witness God’s action in the world. What do you see? What is your witness?

When you see it, how will you proclaim it? What manner of witness have you been called to be?

I see a woman who knows a preacher by his voice alone, who lays her hands upon him and blesses him, giving him a moment of clarity of purpose that is not easily equalled. She’s not the kind of witness that is called to be the dramatic prophetic voice, speaking strong words that shift rulers on their thrones. But she has experienced God in a real way, and refuses to let it pass without sharing it.

I see a child playing in a flower bed, getting new Easter clothes covered in dirt, but the call of the world that is created by God and called good is so strong that she has to be in the midst of it, loving the flowers, and the singing birds, and the feel of soil between her fingers. Never mind the stains, God’s creation is beautiful and needs to be enjoyed, even if it means the clothes we have bought for ourselves are no longer pristine, they become holy through playing in the dirt.

There’s an idea about what a witness is, that somehow it’s the powerful preacher who saves souls wherever she goes, or the kind and gentle soul who brings comfort to those around him in times of strife, and these are certainly some of the witnesses to whom Jesus was talking, but they are not the only molds out of which a witness can emerge. Far too often we hear the call to witness, and we try to fit those forms around the voice God has given us, around the unique thing that we see, and the unique way in which see it.

Because we are called to witness not because we have seen it all and can explain it, but because God wants each particular individual disciple to tell the story the way they experienced it. Why are you standing here staring into heaven, Galilean? What do you see?

When I was in high school, my English teacher, Tim Fossett, passed around a poem by Walt Whitman, it read:

O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself, forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest of me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer:

That you are here - that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

What do you see when you look at the fallenness of the world around us? What do you see when the whole of creation groans with the birth pangs of the age of the Spirit? What do you see when you find your self crying out “What good amid these, O me, O life?”

I see that it would have been easier for Jesus to have just restored the kingdom right then and there. I see it would have been easier for the plodding and sordid crowds around me to be lifted up and made whole again, I see eyes that vainly crave the light, I see myself reproaching myself out of my own sinfulness. I cannot help but question this world that is already redeemed, but not yet fully healed.

And though I am not its source, I see an answer:

Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? You are here - because of Jesus’s victory, life exists and identity. This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven. The powerful play goes on, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses, and you may contribute a verse, because you have received power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you to do so. You, not what you imagine you should be, but your honest voice, witnessing to Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, to all Judea and Samaria, and even to the end of the earth.

What do you see when your opportunity to contribute that verse comes to you? What will your verse say? Though we will witness from as many perspectives as there are Christians and more, though our voices will not always sing the same tune, our hands will not always paint the same picture, our bodies do not always dance the same steps, our words will not always weave the same poetry, we all still belong to the same Lord, this Jesus, who was taken up from us into heaven, and we will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, and with it we will be witnesses.

So what do you see?

Crowd-Sourced Exegesis: Acts 1:1-11

Theophilus, the first scroll I wrote concerned everything Jesus did and taught from the beginning,  right up to the day when he was taken up into heaven. Before he was taken up, working in the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus instructed the apostles he had chosen.  After his suffering, he showed them that he was alive with many convincing proofs. He appeared to them over a period of forty days, speaking to them about God’s kingdom.  While they were eating together, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised. He said, “ This is what you heard from me:  John baptized with water, but in only a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. ”

 As a result, those who had gathered together asked Jesus, “ Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? ”

Jesus replied, “ It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority.  Rather, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. ”

After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.  While he was going away and as they were staring toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them.  They said, “ Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven. ”

 

Dear North Carolina,

Dear North Carolina,

I expect better of you.

Love,
Joseph

For Christ's Sake

For Christ's Sake from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Ezekiel 36:22-38

22Say to the House of Israel: Thus said the LORD GOD: Not for your sake will I act, O House of Israel, but for My holy name, which you have caused to be profaned among the nations to which you have come. 23I will sanctify My great name which has been profaned among the nations - among whom you have caused it to be profaned. And the nations shall know that I am the LORD - declares the LORD GOD - when I manifest my holiness before their eyes through you. 24I will take you from among the nations and gather you from all the countries, and I will bring you back to your own land. 25I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean: I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your fetishes. 26And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit into you: I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh; 27and I will put My spirit into you. Thus I will cause you to follow My laws and faithfully to observe My rules. 28Then you shall dwell in the land which I have given to your fathers; and you shall be my people and I will be your God.

29And when I have delivered you from all your uncleanness, I will summon the grain and make it abundant, and I will not bring famine upon you. 30I will make the fruit of your trees and the crops of your fields abundant, so that you shall never again be humiliated before the nations because of famine. 31Then you shall recall your evil ways and your base conduct, and you shall loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abhorrent practices. 32Not for your sake will I act - declares the LORD GOD - take good note! Be ashamed and humiliated because of your ways, O House of Israel!

33Thus said the LORD GOD: When I have cleansed you of all your iniquities, I will people your settlements, and the ruined places shall be rebuilt; 34 and the desolate land, after lying waste in the sight of every passerby, shall again be tilled. 35And men shall say, “That land, once desolate, has become like the garden of Eden; and the cities, once ruined, desolate, and ravaged, are now populated and fortified.” 36And the nations that are left around you shall know that I the LORD have rebuilt the ravaged places and replanted the desolate land. I the LORD have spoken and will act.

37Thus said the Lord God: Moreover, in this I will respond to the House of Israel and act for their sake: I will multiply their people like sheep. 38As Jerusalem is filled with sacrificial sheep during her festivals, so shall the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. And they shall know that I am the LORD.

This is the Word of The Lord
Thanks Be to God

This text belongs to a people in exile. It belongs to those who have seen their buildings crumble, the crops burned, their people taken captive. This text belongs to those who are scattered and have no home. This text belongs to Lent’s not yet, and yet it has made its way into the already of Easter.

It’s found its way here because even though the women who went to the tomb have already seen the Lord, and even though the travelers on the Emmaus road have already dined with Christ, we are still living in an exile of our own making, waiting for God to establish the Kingdom here on earth. And Ezekiel’s prophesy concerning the restoration of the kingdom has not yet happened, and so it belongs to us.

Here I am, a young preacher. I read this text, and feel called to preach on it, and I want the sermon to be good. I mean, real good. I want to deliver the kind of sermons I’ve read in my literature courses, beautifully composed works of literature that testify to where God is acting in the world. I want to deliver sermons that stick with you for the long term. I’m sure that whatever it is that is important to us is something we want to be good at. We want to look good for our peers.

For me it’s preaching, but for others it may be playing bridge, or chess, or cooking. Or writing, or music, or any number of the other talents with which God has graced us. We want to be good. My struggle is: do I want to do this because I want to bring glory to the God who gave me these gifts, or do I want it for my own sake.

Truth is, my answer changes back and forth depending on the day you ask me. My full name is Joseph William Taber IV, and that name comes with a long and rich heritage, but this text tells me that the focus is not about the greatness of my name, or my Dad’s, or Grandaddy’s, or Pappy’s, or any name I pass on to my eventual son, hypothetical being that he is. But while we are busy trying to build ourselves up, God speaks. “Not for your sake will I act, O House of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have caused to be profaned among the nations to which you have come.”

I think the way we profane the name is by assuming that we somehow have a claim on God, and this passage refutes that. Our prayers are not opportunities to grab God like a child who won’t listen and lay down what we think the law should be. The image itself is preposterous, but it’s how many of us approach God. The Lion of Judah is not, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis, a tame lion. So God tells us that we are going to be restored from our exile, brought into Jerusalem from the wilderness, but makes a point that we are not being made holy again out of our own deserving. God is doing this because we’re making God look bad.

So God sends us into an exile of our own making, and we respond by trying to dig ourselves out. We maintain the idolatrous idea that if we got ourselves into this mess, we can get ourselves out. So our response is to do the same thing again. We haven’t learned, we only barely remember that this is what got us unto this mess in the first place. So our continued attempt at self-mastery in exile continues to profane God’s holy name, just as it did in Israel. Something’s got to change, and we have proven ourselves unwilling or unable to do it. So God promises a new beginning to us, for his name’s sake.

The language of this text is full of rich imagery of restoration and rebirth. But it is not for our sake that the restoration and rebirth occurs. It is not for our sake that we are given wealth, and talents, or called to this holy task. God is doing these things so that all the world will know that the LORD is God. Because when we seek to make ourselves look good, we have fooled ourselves into thinking that we are our own masters. But we are not our own, we belong to God.

The desire to be our own master is one of the many things we share with Israel, and both we and Israel go into exile on account of it. Israel’s desire to be its own master led it to abandon the instructions given to them by God to set them apart from the rest of the world. Our desire to be our own masters leads us to try and fill this text with what we want it to say, so that we don’t have to read what it actually says. We look at this strange text and have problems with it. We want God to act because God loves us, because we’re special to God. But this text tells us that “Not for your sake will I act, O house of Israel, but for my Holy name.”

That’s the problem, isn’t it. God acts for Godself, not for our sake. Preacher that I am, I asked myself “How do I take God acting for the sake of God’s holy name and use it to preach the Gospel?” To me, the rest of the passage is specifics on how that will be accomplished, and much of the first draft of my sermon was concerned with justifying this highly contextual language into our own place and time.

But the text doesn’t need to be justified, we already confessed that it was the Word of the Lord, and therefore it matters to us, just as God’s reputation matters to God. But we are compelled by this passage to move a little more slowly past our problems. “Be ashamed and humiliated because of your ways, O House of Israel.” Though this passage immediately promises a restoration, the whole of this text is wrapped up in how we once again become holy.

We’ve got to remember that God has to be the focus. When I did all of my exegetical work, all of my theological thinking, it was because I wanted to write a good sermon. I wanted to impress my colleagues, I wanted to impress my friends, I wanted to impress ya’ll here. And even though I had read the text a dozen times, and worked on it for many hours, I had not internalized it, and I hadn’t let it work on me. I wrote brilliant thoughts and beautiful lines all about why we didn’t want to deal with this text. I tried to force what I was thinking into a form that had worked for me before, and no matter how long I worked and thought and puffed on my theologian’s pipe I could not make my thoughts fit inside this text. Because this text was already full of its own meaning, and I was learning that the hard way.

That restoration doesn’t happen because of us. Our actions haven’t changed the way God looks at us, instead we’ve made God look bad. The peoples of the world look at us, hear what we say, see what we do, and we have represented a church full of hypocrites. Seeing how the world responds to God’s action and God’s people, God chooses to act in a new way.

God certainly doesn’t need our approval, God isn’t feeding some ego trip where the peoples of the world validate God’s existence. God is God, and does not depend on us. But the holiness of God matters because God refuses to disengage from creation. God does not make a habit of ignoring what is going on in our lives, even when it is offensive to God’s nature. Instead, because God insists on being in relationship with what God has created, God gathers us out of our exile and brings us back to where we belong. For us, a shift in our own mindset. For our spiritual ancestors, a shift in the political and physical reality.

There’s a shift at the end of the scripture too. After hearing time and time again that it is not for our sake that God will restore us to the kingdom, God says “In this I will respond to the House of Israel and act for their sake. I will multiply their people like sheep.” That shift is what attracted me to this passage in the first place. We start with God acting because it is God’s nature to be both holy and involved in creation, and now God is once again acting on our behalf, comparing us to sacrificial sheep, an animal that was set aside as holy, belonging to God, not to those of this world. That’s where this text enters the Easter tale.

At the end of this passage, it is not too far a leap to say that the link between acting for the sake of God’s holy name and our sake is acting for Christ’s sake. Through Christ, we are, as Paul’s letter to the Romans tells us, adopted as God’s children, and are fellow heirs with Christ. God and humanity are united again, brought home from exile among the nations where all we could do was to reflect poorly on the God who claims us.

So now all who see how we are changed will know, as the passage states, that the LORD is God. Because the LORD has spoken and acted. It is for Christ’s sake that in baptism we are sprinkled with clean water and our uncleanness is washed away. It is for Christ’s sake that our iniquities are cleansed and we who had not born fruit are made to produce again. It is for Christ’s sake that our homes and our lives are rebuilt, and that our hollowness is replaced with a fullness of life. It is for Christ’s sake that we are made holy again, set apart as a people of God, to fill God’s kingdom for the celebration to come.

That’s what we celebrate at Easter, and though we have to go through Good Friday to get there, at Easter we are brought back to the kingdom of God, and are set apart as belonging to God so that all the world may know that it is Christ who redeems, and that the LORD is God.

Crowd-Sourced Exegesis: Ezekiel 36:22-38

Say to the House of Israel: This said the LORD GOD: Not for your sake will I act, O House of Israel, but for My holy name, which you have caused to be profaned among the nations to which you have come. I will sanctify My great name which has been profaned among the nations - among whom you have caused it to be profaned. And the nations shall know that I am the LORD declares the LORD GOD - when I manifest My holiness before their eyes through you. I will take you from among the nations and gather you from all the countries, and I will bring you back to your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your fetishes. And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit into you: I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh; and I will put My spirit into you. This I will cause you to follow My laws and faithfully to observe My rules. Then you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people and I will be your God.


And when I have delivered you from all your uncleanness, I will summon the grain and make it abundant, and I will not bring famine upon you. I will make the fruit of your trees and the crops of your fields abundant, so that you shall never again be humiliated before the nations because of famine. Then you shall recall your evil ways and your base conduct, and you shall loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abhorrent practices. Not for your sake will I act - declares the LORD GOD - take good note! Be ashamed and humiliated because of your ways, O House of Israel!


Thus said the LORD GOD: When I have cleansed you of all your iniquities, I will people your settlements, and the ruined places shall be rebuilt; and the desolate land, after lying waste in the sight of every passerby, shall again be tilled. And men shall say, "That land, once desolate, has become like the garden of Eden; and the cities, once ruined, desolate, and ravaged, are now populated and fortified." And the nations that are left around you shall know that I the LORD have rebuilt the ravaged places and replanted the desolate land. I the LORD have spoken and will act.


Thus said the LORD GOD: Moreover, in this I will respond to the House of Israel and act for their sake: I will multiply their people like sheep. As Jerusalem is filled with sacrificial sheep during her festivals, so shall the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. And they shall know that I am the LORD.

Wow, that's a long passage. I'd love to hear what y'all think about it! Comment below if you have reactions, they don't have to be profound or theological, they just have to be honest. Thanks so much!