November 23, 2008

Scripture:         Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Sermon:           “Blessed to Bless”

            It’s always incredible to me when everything seems to have hit the absolute rock bottom and somebody will stand up and say, “Hey!  God’s in control.  Relax.  Everything’s going to be okay.”  There are times when that strikes me as naïve, you know?  But, usually I’m confronted with the fact that I’ve lost faith because things sure don’t look like they’re going to work out.

            For over 400 years the people of Israel had been ruled by kings.  Starting with Saul and then David and ending with Zedekiah.  And for most of those 400 years, the reviews were less than flattering.  Read through 1 and 2 Kings sometime and take note of how many times a king is said to have done what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

            The prophets were a little more specific in the ways that these men abused their powers as kings.  They’d chase after other gods, erecting altars and idols throughout the land.  And that wasn’t just a matter of religion.  You see, to worship idols and such opened folks up to thinking that they could disregard the covenant with Israel’s God that clearly sought to establish a just society among the people.  What Israel’s God had in mind was a people who took care of one another.  The poor should have been lifted up.  The orphaned should have been provided for.  The widowed should have received compassion.  Instead, starting with the ruling kings, folks tended to trample under foot those who were disadvantaged.  Idolatry led to grave injustices.

            From the viewpoint of the faithful, then, it was no wonder that the neighboring peoples eventually decimated the people of God through war and exile.  The covenant had been abandoned by the kings and folks with power.  And God’s judgment was to inflict harm upon a people that had inflicted so much harm on themselves.

            First the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel.  135 years later the Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom of Judah and its beloved city of Jerusalem.  And folks were hauled off in captivity to live away from their homeland.  Some fled in the other direction to Egypt.

            And that’s just about where we begin to hear words like we have this morning.  From the prophet Ezekiel, in the 34^th chapter, verses 11 through 16 and then 20 through 24.  Turn with me to that on page 935 of the Old Testament in the Hebrew Bible.  The Word of the Lord…

            For thus says the Lord God:  I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.  As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep.  I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.  I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land.  I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.  I myself will make them lie down, says the Lord God.  I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy.  I will feed them with justice.

            Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them:  I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.  Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.

            I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them:  he shall feed them and be their shepherd.  And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken.

            Not all families have a habit of blessing a meal with prayer when they gather around a table.  I mean even among church folk, not all families do it on a regular basis.  And you can tell that’s the case when the day of Thanksgiving rolls around.  Everybody’s there, you know.  Maybe even some religious relatives have shown up.  But, the fact is that it’s Thanksgiving and deep down you know you ought to be giving thanks.  So, the family bows heads around the table and the chosen prayer giver launches into an awkward and lengthy and somewhat sincere lecture to God on all of the things that he or she is thankful for.

            You can also tell that a family isn’t the praying type in the moment before the meal is to begin because there’s a whole lot of finger pointing and avoiding eye contact as the family attempts to designate its spokesperson to the Lord.  Nobody wants to say the prayer.  So, they’re all looking at the floor, saying quiet prayers that they won’t have to do it.

            I happen to know a thing or two about Thanksgiving in a family that doesn’t have a habit of giving thanks before a meal.  I grew up in one.  What I really remember is that whoever gave the actual prayer of thanksgiving on that day would do so in something that sounded like the King’s English.  There were “Thee’s” and “Thou’s” and “Shalt not’s” and blessings that had been bestowedsth.

            And the day that I enrolled in seminary you can bet that the role of saying the blessing for the meal has gone in one direction and one direction only.

            So, a couple of years ago, I decided to try to change this new trend that had developed.  I mean we’re supposed to be about equipping the saints for ministry as Paul once wrote so eloquently.  Ministers aren’t supposed to just do everything.  They’re supposed to equip others.

            When the time came to bless the meal, boy, I just started to thank God for anything and everything that you could imagine.  I had the garden variety thanksgivings of family, friends, nation, freedom, and whatnot.  But, then I really got on a roll of extraneous things.  Utensils, you know.  Stop and think about it.  You’re thankful for not eating with your fingers or chopsticks.  The mail doesn’t run on holidays and it makes you thankful for the days that it does run.  Computers, medical technologies, I had a stream of consciousness going and felt like I might be entering into Zen meditation.  It was pure and holy and approaching 2 or 3 minutes long when my wife elbowed me in the ribs.

            I’m happy to report that I’ve been equipping others for the ministry of prayer at Thanksgiving ever since.

            I hope that you and yours, in whatever place you gather and however you choose to define your family that day, have a most blessed Thanksgiving, full of God’s grace and wonderful food to share and enjoy.

            The truth is that we have so much to lift up in thanksgiving to God.  Don’t we?  I mean even amidst troubling economic times, you and I have so much.

            Now, when Ezekiel was God’s prophet to the people of Israel, they really didn’t have much to lift up in thanksgiving.  Many of them were scattered to the four winds, living under oppression of foreign rulers.  They’d lost their homes and their neighborhoods and all that was central to their lives.  Many of them had not been scattered abroad, but they were living in the desolation of what remained of their land.  Jerusalem had been sacked, the Temple burned and destroyed.  How do you give thanks in a time like that?

            And the prophet speaks into this despair, doesn’t he?  He begins to paint a picture of what the future will hold according to God’s purposes.  I’ll bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel.

            In a nutshell he proclaims to these shattered people salvation.  At God’s hands, there will be salvation.

            And it begins to sound a great deal like the message we hear in the gospels.  God going out and searching for the lost sheep.  God moving in the life of Jesus Christ to seek out those who have been abandoned and creating something new where all life is cherished and upheld.  The truth is that this refrain can be heard throughout all of scripture.

            Ezekiel proclaims that God is going to bless the people once again.  And he names specifically the folks on the margins that are going to receive the greatest blessings—much like we find in the life of Jesus.  The lost.  The strayed.  The injured.  The weak.  There will be justice.

            Now, I want you to notice something here.  These blessings of God, the ones that Ezekiel proclaims in advance, they sound much like the litanies of thanksgiving that we offer up every year at this time.  Land with plentiful resources.  Justice.  Protection.  Family.  Nation.  Sound familiar?

            But, there is a purpose much greater than the people as individuals.  God’s not interested so much in simply giving things to folks that are beloved.  There’s a bigger picture involved.  And it has to do with blessing others—folks who really need to be blessed and included.

            You’ll also hear that throughout all of scripture.  Blessings are not private matters.  They are public witnesses.  Blessings are intended to serve as further blessings.  You are blessed in order to bless.

            Why is it that God created this nation of people and gave to them a Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey?  Why was any of them empowered to rule?  Simply put, these chosen people were to serve the entire world as God’s dwelling place—to be a light unto the nations.  The blessing was not private.  It was intended to reach out and bless creation.

            The life of Jesus Christ, you know.  What is it that he says to his disciples at the very end?  “Go and make some more disciples.”  Your blessing, even of life eternal, is a gift to share with all you encounter.

            Or the Apostle Paul talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  He warns folks about them.  Says they are not private things.  No, the blessings of gifts are intended to build up the entire body of believers.

            What God gives to us, God gives with the hope and expectation for us to use for God’s purposes.  We are blessed in order to bless.

            You ever see those license plates on the front of cars that proclaim blessing?  You know, on the front of a car sits a plate that reads one word—“Blessed”.  Now, I saw one of these things on an old Pinto.  I’m not kidding.  And I figured the guy knew he was blessed simply because the old jalopy started up every day.

            But, most likely you see them on fancier rides.

            I saw this Mercedes Benz a few years ago.  Sitting on the front bumper, there it was.  In shiny silver letters against a dark background…”Blessed”.  I couldn’t help but remember that old song.  “O Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.”  And maybe that’s what happened.  But, the cynical side of me didn’t believe that.

            You know God was just standing there next to me laughing.  God was laughing.  Probably dismayed at my disbelief.  But, I heard laughing.  This well-dressed woman came out to her blessed Mercedes Benz, popped open the trunk, and started pulling boxes out of the back.  Boxes full of new clothes.  Boxes full of canned foods.  Boxes full of hope for a family being served by one of those holiday programs to help folks out along the way.

            I heard laughing.

            And I heard a sigh.

            My car had a spare tire, some dirty laundry, and a stack of newspapers for recycling.

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)