"Houses Are for Occupancy"

From: The Unhappy Hipster

At First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Minnesota, I've been preaching through the gospel of Matthew. The sermon text this week is Matthew 12:38-50. Here are verses 43:45 (Jesus is speaking):

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

About these verses, scholar and commentator Dale Bruner writes:

Empty, neutral, externally Christianized people sooner or later find their little passions - from civic clubs to sports, from politics to parlor games - insufficiently fulfilling. For our own good, therefore, Jesus summons us to 'Fill the house!' to join the church and to take her worship services seriously, to appropriate our filling by the Holy Spirit given to us in Christian baptism, and to become Jesus' disciples in the world of our work. For our empty, swept, tidy houses will be filled sooner or later by something, because houses are for occupancy.*

Emphasis added.

The question for the week: With what will you be fulfilled?

[Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary. Volume 1: The Christbook, 579.]

Jesus in the Infrequented Text

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. - Luke 24:25-27 ESV

The church I serve has a Sunday morning class called "Bible 101." I launched the class soon after my arrival with the initial objective of reading through and discussing the first five books of the bible, called the Pentateuch. So far, this intrepid group has studied the entirety of Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus. Three years into the class, we have now made it almost all the way through Numbers.

One of the things I try to do in the class is to demonstrate how these texts fit into the overall flow of salvation history. A paraphrased St. Augustine put it this way, "The New Testament is in the Old Testament contained, while the Old Testament is in the New Testament explained." I've taken this approach because of Jesus' critical teaching in Luke 24, where he explains to his disciples how the entire Old Testament is about him.

Every now and then, however, I need to be reminded of this truth, especially when examining infrequently studied texts.

Last Sunday was a case in point. The group studied Numbers 30, a chapter containing the law regarding oaths made to God. Remember the last time you heard a sermon on Numbers 30? Me neither.

Basically, the structure of the chapter is like this: Men are prohibited from making vows and then backing out of them when the underlying circumstances behind the vow change. The rules for women differ because they are understood to be under the authority of a head-of-household. For example, in the case of a never-married woman, her father has the right to cancel her vow if he so chooses. If a woman marries, this ability to cancel her vow becomes her husband's responsibility. Numbers 30 also gives instructions about vows to folks in other situations. An example would be cases where a woman is divorced or widowed and no longer attached to a head-of-household.

I walked the class through the text, and the biblical structure of the household. One of the things I pointed out is that women get the better deal in this chapter because, unlike the men, it is possible for them to get out of unwise, rash oaths made to God.  Having made this observation, which I thought was very astute, I asked if there were any questions. One of the participants then raised her hand and asked, "So what does this text tell us about Jesus?"

My immediate response was two-fold. First, I was thrilled that she asked the question, because it showed me that she had thoroughly learned that Jesus was serious in Luke 24 about everything in the OT pointing to him. My second response was one of dismay. How come I hadn't asked myself that question before showing up to teach that morning?

After giving it some thought I gave what I hope is an answer faithful to the story of salvation.  I remembered that the church is the bride of Christ and Jesus has the authority to loose and bind all things related to His Bride. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus not only fulfilled all of God's vows to His people, but also that he bore the full iniquity of every rash vow we have made with God and have broken due to our sinful forgetfulness and neglect. Jesus perfectly fulfilled Numbers 30 on Calvary.

Remember that Jesus is in every text. In some cases, we may not see Him, especially in those infrequently considered texts that we gloss over because we erroneously believe them to be superfluous or unimportant. But He's in those texts, too. We should not be fooled into thinking otherwise because of our inability to see properly.

Matthew 01: Sin, Scandal, and Salvation

Scripture Text: Matthew 1:1-17

Introductory Comments

This week we begin preaching on all 28 chapters in the gospel of Matthew. I want to start with a few word of introduction to the book, and then we’ll peer into what we can learn from the rather lengthy list of names that opens the book.

The book of Matthew is a gospel. What is a gospel? The word gospel comes from a Greek word that means “good news.” What is the good news? The good news is that the long-anticipated Messiah has come, Jesus Christ, who brings salvation to both Jew and Gentile alike. We have four gospels in the bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each of them presents to us a portrait of Jesus. I think it is wonderful that we have a multifaceted view of Jesus in the bible. If you were to pick, at random, four of your closest companions and have them write some things about you, you would not get the exact same things from each of the four people. All of the accounts would contain truth, but different things would be included. Friend A would have been with you at one event, while Friend B was elsewhere and didn’t include an account of the same event. Friend C would note a particular behavior of yours that makes you distinct, while Friend D would focus on a different aspect of your personality. Each of the four gospels presents the truth about Jesus, but just as painters have their distinct styles and emphases, our gospel writers, present to us nuanced views of Jesus through their respective inspired paintings.

Matthew’s gospel is one of these portraits, and the act of working through a gospel can be thought of as watching a painter at work. What he places on the canvas and the way he places it there is important to see. So I invite you to join with me as we admire the beauty and glory of the subject of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus Christ.

Here is what Matthew writes to open the gospel:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Matthew begins with a declaration about Jesus. First, he is the Christ. He is the anointed one, the Messiah, the promised deliver. The word translated in the ESV and NRSV “genealogy” is literally “genesis.” So what we are getting here is a creation account, a new creation “of Jesus Christ.” This Jesus, Matthew states, is the “Son of David.” He is the fulfillment of the promise God made to David that one of David’s progeny would sit forever on the throne of his kingdom. Jesus is also called “the son of Abraham” which is a clear allusion to the promise God made to Abraham, that he would have a seed who would be a blessing for all the nations of the world be blessed.

This first verse serves, in a way, as the title of the painting that Matthew is inspired to place on the canvas. The title forms the overarching framework of what is to follow. Jesus is the Christ, the great hope of the Jewish people. He is the son of David, the one who will be king forever. And he is the son of Abraham, the fulfillment of the longing of all people for salvation. I like the way commentator Dale Bruner puts it: “’Son of David’ says, ‘Israel, here is your Messiah!’; ‘Son of Abraham’ says, ‘Nations, here is your hope!’”

Up, Down, and Up Again

Matthew then does what a good Jewish person would do, he goes over the genealogical records to begin showing why everything verse one says is true. The way Matthew does this through the genealogy is very interesting, far more than you might imagine at first reading. The reason it’s interesting is that the genealogy follows a deliberate up/down/up pattern. The “up” is Israel’s ascendancy from the nomadic life Abraham to triumphant kingdom of David.

Then there is the “down” phase, beginning with Solomon (delicately described as having been fathered “by the wife of Uriah”), and continuing down, down, down, through rebellion and sin and national idolatry to the rock bottom place of the “deportation to Babylon” in verse 11. The trajectory then goes back up, culminating in the fulfillment of all of God’s promises in Jesus Christ. Each of these “lines” says something essential about the God we worship.¹

First Line of Names – God Shows Divine Mercy

Four of the names in this list are very unusual. First, they are women, and the inclusion of women in a genealogy like this is very unusual. Second, each of the four women have, to put it mildly, awkward backgrounds. Tamar’s story is told in Genesis 28, where she acts like a harlot in order to get her father-in-law, Judah, to fulfill his obligations. Tamar became pregnant as a result, producing one of Jesus’ great-grandfathers. Hmm. Rabah was the prostitute of Jericho who aided the spies sent by Joshua to that city. She becomes a great-grandmother of our Lord. Ruth is notable because she was a Moabite. Moabites are those who descended from Lot, who committed incest with his daughters (are we adequately scandalized yet?). The fourth woman in the list is the source of such awkwardness that Matthew doesn’t mention her directly, but instead as (the wife of Uriah). That would be the wife of Uriah the Hittite, named Bathsheba. She is known as the one who became the object of David’s lust. She is also a great-grandmother to our Lord.

All four women, then, are at the heart of some scandal or embarrassment, which accompanies the scandal and sin and unkept promises of the men they are associated with. All four women are non-Jews, which is another very astonishing surprise. Why are they there, while notable Jewish matriarchs are absent? How can gentiles be in the mix with the one who would be called “King of the Jews?”

The answer can be summarized this way: In this first genealogical line, Matthew is showing us the gospel already. The great God of history uses repentant sinners, Jews, and Gentiles, women, and men, to work his great purposes of salvation in history. As Bruner puts it, “The genealogy’s first line, then, teaches divine mercy, a mercy extending to both racial and moral ‘outsider.’”

Jesus’ family history, then, is much like the ones many of us have. We each have in our history our share of unmentionable embarrassments, family secrets, outrageous scandal and gross immorality. But in Christ none of those things have the last word. Jesus’ family history is not unlike our own, which his good news because he will be the to redeem us from our past.

Second Series – Divine Judgment

The next series of names begins with Solomon, the king known for his wisdom and whose reign ends in apostasy, and ends with the deportation to Babylon.

This section shows Israel’s descent from the heights of prominence in the Middle East to a byword among the nations, being crushed militarily by Babylon, the kingdom that forced the people into exile, what the ESV translation refers to as “the deportation.”

This second “line” or series of names points to God’s just judgment for sin. Sin and idolatry and apostasy are abominations in God’s kingdom, and to persist in these things brings judgment upon the people. Sin carries with it judgments that are experienced over time in history and even right now. While on vacation, I was reminded of the judgment we experience now while listening to an excellent sermon by a preacher in Baxter, Minnesota. One way we know we live under judgment now is that we all die. With sin, death entered this world.

Matthew was inspired to highlight this fact, that sin brings God’s judgment. How? By deliberately changing a few of the names in this second line of the genealogy. King Asa should appear in verse seven, but his name is changed to the name of the Psalmist Asaph. And where we expect to read King Amon in verse 10, we instead see King Amos, the name of the Old Testament prophet.

When I first saw this, I wondered why Matthew would do this. These lists of Kings were certainly well known, and would have been well-known to the Jewish readers of the gospel. It is impossible to believe that this was simple error. If it was, Matthew would have been called out on it. But this genealogy is not simply about the names, it’s about what God does in and through his chosen people. These names were changed to make a theological point. Together, the psalmist Asaph and the prophet Amos signify something – they signify “all seers and prophets” sent by God to snatch God’s people from either too much or too little engagement with the world.

The other thing to note briefly in this second line is that Matthew skips ahead in a couple of places. This isn’t an unusual facet of many genealogies of this kind. Three kings, Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah are omitted after Joram; and Jehoiakim is omitted before Jehoiachin. Lots of reasons have been postulated for why these four were omitted, but it seems that the most likely explanation is simply to get a list of 14 names, making the genealogy easy to remember.

Third Line – God’s Faithfulness

The last phase in the genealogy is an “up” phase. The deportation comes to and end and the people are restored to the land, with the names leading up to show us Jesus, who is in fact both the son of David and the son of Abraham. What this third “line” shows us is that God’s judgment is not the last work (thank God!). The third line culminates in the arrival of our Lord and Savior, thus showing that the people faithlessness, our faithlessness, can never outlast God’s faithfulness toward his children. Abraham was promised that from him would come forth a seed for everyone (for all the nations). God promised David a king forever on the throne. God’s faithfulness to his promises, and his fulfillment of them, are all found in Jesus. I like the way Bruner puts it: Jesus Christ shows “God’s good faith in conceiving the seed of Abraham and the Son of David in the womb of Mary.”² Loved ones, Jesus is the fulfillment of everything promised by God.

In summary, then, the first “line” of the genealogy shows us that God is merciful. He chooses those who are sinners to be His appointed children. The second “line” of the genealogy shows us that sin brings a just judgment, because sin is contrary to God’s will for his people. The third line shines forth with the good news of God’s faithfulness, despite our faithlessness.

Applications

What does this mean for us today? First, the genealogy shows that Jesus is the savor of every kind of person – men, women, adulterers, prostitutes, heroes, and gentile foreigners.

That includes those of us in this room whose own family histories and personal histories are filled to the brim with examples of our sinful depravity: Divorce, lust, abuse, criminal pasts, addictions, promiscuity, abortion, etc. The list of sins is huge, but none of them have the last word of the word of the Almighty God. Just look at one of the names on the list as an example. Rahab was a gentile prostitute who for her faith is ultimately incorporated into the people of God.

No one in the room is qualified to be here except that they have been granted a place in the kingdom by the grace of God shown in the cross of Christ. What gratitude we should have for that grace. And that grace is a call to action.

Martin Luther spoke this way about the questionable sinners who appear in Jesus’ family tree. He said, “Oh, Christ is the kind of person who is not ashamed by sinners – in fact, He even put them in His family tree.”

Notice that? God is sovereign. These sinners are in Jesus’ family tree by design, to show us how God redeems and saves his people.

But Luther didn’t stop there, and neither should we. There are radical implications for us because of the way God saves the unworthy sinner. Luther continued this line of thought: “Now if the Lord does that here, so ought we to despise no one … but put ourselves right in the middle of the fight for sinners and help them."³

Are you putting yourself right in the middle of the fight for sinners and helping them? Am I? Or do we want nothing to do with sinners at all? What many churches seemingly desire today is to have lots and lots of sinners come to church, but to do this by declaring that their sin really isn’t sin. So please join our nice club were sin is an unmentionable and will never be the cause of awkwardness or “exclusion.” Beloved, this text should show us that this kind of thing actually brings into the church a culture of death. It is the height of lovelessness to pretend that sin isn’t what it is, to avoid making mention of it, either from the pulpit or in our daily lives, for fear that someone might take offense. It is loving beyond measure to proclaim to everyone we come in contact with that sin has been defeated forever by a Jesus who himself had sinners in his own family tree. He accomplished the destruction of sin by paying the cost of sin and taking the full measure of God’s wrath upon himself, the wrath that we deserved. Jesus is king, Matthew says, and is worthy of all honor and glory and praise and love and joy. He is the fulfillment of everything God promised in the Old Testament, for Jew and Gentile alike, and also people such as ourselves. How about you? What’s your family tree like? Is it anything like Jesus’? Can you see how God used Jesus’ family history to show us that Jesus is our savior from even the most heinous sin? Come to Him now, if you haven’t already, repent, and believe. Amen.

¹ I'm deeply indebted to Dale Bruner for this and other insights in this amazing gospel. He will be my scholarly, theological partner for this series.
²Bruner, Frederick Dale. Matthew: A Commentary. Vol 1. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2007. 14.
³Bruner, quoting Luther’s “Sermon on the Day of Mary’s Birth” 8 September 1522, W², 11:2371.

Given at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Minnesota
July 24, 2011
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Copyright © 2011 by Christopher Donald Drew

The Ease of Sinning in Collusion with Others

This passage from Jeremiah 5:30-31 is haunting my thoughts:

An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?"

The "easy" way to defy God while pretending to have a clear conscience is to collude with others doing the same thing. Such a collusion survives and thrives by turning truth into falsehood and vice versa. This text makes it clear the people love to have it that way ("my people love to have it so"). These sin-conspiracies spread virulently through cultures, denominations, and nations. When God's righteous judgment comes, there there will be nowhere to turn. Only God can provide a rescue from our pathetic, adulterous, idolatrous rebellion. There can be no other way.

Fortunately, God has provided such a rescue. His name is Jesus. Do you know Him yet?

Bono on the Implications of Colossians 2:9

Colossians 2:9 reads, "For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily."

Bono is the lead singer of U2.  Here he is in an interview with Michka Assayas:

Assayas: Christ has his rank among the world's great thinkers. But Son of God, isn't that far-fetched?

Bono: No, it's not far fetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucious. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says, No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me a teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: "I'm the Messiah." I'm saying: "I am God incarnate." And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet we can take. You're a bit eccentric. We've had John that Baptist eating locusts and honey, we can handle that. But don't mention the "M" word! Because, you know, we're gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no, I know you're expecting me to come back with an army and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he's gonna keep saying this. So what you're left with is either Christ was who He said He was--the Messiah--or a complete nutcase. I mean, we're talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson...I'm not joking here.  The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that's far-fetched.

Posted via email from The Central Point