Singer/Soldier

Today in church, the worship leader led some new anthem. It was beautiful, declaring our newness in Christ, our deaths to our old lives. The rest of the worship team followed the leader like a well-trained platoon. That's what our worship team often reminds me of: an army. 

Perhaps it's strange to think of singers as being equal to trained soldiers. Soldiers are so tough and so cool. Singers so often earn their keep by ingratiating and entertaining. But sometimes we sing to God; sometimes we sing declarations to our circumstances. In my church here, the singers lead us into battle, reminding me of Jehoshaphat's army the time it was led by musicians and singers. *

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A gigantic army is facing Jehoshaphat and the Israelites. He calls all of Judah together to fast and pray and call on God. "God, you gave us this land because you wanted to. We've built you a temple where we can assemble when we're in dire need; we'll wait on you here, asking for help, and you can save us.

"Oh, great God! You told us to spare these enemies long ago, but here they are, massed against us, and there's no way we can defeat them. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you."

All the frightened families of Judah were there, waiting. 

It's Jahaziel, distant grandson of the famed poet Asaph who speaks up, prophesying, "Listen up, everyone! The Lord says that we will not have to fight this enemy. We must go down to meet them tomorrow and take up our positions, but God will deliver us himself. Do not be afraid! Do not be discouraged! Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you."

The other singers in the Tribe of Levi start to praise God. It gets loud with the many voices, every other child has found a percussive instrument. Jehoshaphat falls down on his face, praising and worshiping the God of his deliverance. I bet they're up all night, praising God, believing and trying to believe in the words of Jahaziel; that is their one and only hope of surviving this encounter.

The next morning, instead of appointing snipers or scouts to surveil the area ahead of their army, Jehoshaphat puts the worship team at the front. The people of Judah sing and drum their way to the site of their enemies, thanking God, lifting up his name with great sound. While they do this, God is ambushing their enemies. God HIMSELF is AMBUSHING their enemies. How? Like, how? With great balls of fire? With fear so that they turn on themselves? How? I don't know. But GOD AMBUSHES all these other armies so that when Jehoshaphat and the worshipers of God crest the hill on the path that leads down into the desert gorge, there's nothing left to do but pick up the plunder of their enemies.

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*paraphrase of 2 Chronicles 20

Song 43

v1
God, would you clear my name?
These people! What the HELL?!
They weigh me down with their tricks and their cruelty.

v2
You are God, and I count on you to be there for me.
It feels like you've abandoned me.
It feels like you've consigned me to walk around with
my heart on my sleeve, despite the danger around me.

v3
Send out a guide to find me here in this mess.
Bring me close to you.

v4
I want to come to your very feet.
I will praise you there, in the only ways I know:
with dancing and singing, O God!
I will write you a song.

v5
Why am I freaking out?
Why am I so sad?
Oh, Soul, trust in God.
Look forward to the time when you will praise him!
Oh, you will!

His Last Supper

The room is low near the entrance, and the enclosed space makes me dizzy, so I move to the furthest corner of the room, near a window with no light. Darkness fell hours ago as we made our cut-rate preparations, and all that was left was to endure the meal, our last. That is, our last if I go through with it.

I have had enough of this charade, and I feel eager to do something. He's powerful, but he's not the Messiah. I haven't seen one prisoner set free. Not one. God isn't a pansy-ass, hymn-singing, destitute weirdo. He's strong. He's going to set us free from the Romans so we can be His People again. Fa! I'm actually sick of this.

He overturned those tables today like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. His contempt for businessmen shames me: they have families, you know. They find a way to get ahead, and he comes by, forcing them out. What are they going to do now?

In a few days, this nonsense will be over, and I'll at least be rich. Okay, I'll be set up to get rich. I'll buy the land near my father's field. With his oxen I'll start to cut out a corner of the farmland and build houses to rent. Then, with skilled increases, the land nearby will eventually benefit from the renters' work, and I'll take my cut.

It's not hard to become rich and have a place to stay and food to eat that you aren't handed like beggars. Thirteen able-bodied men living on handouts. It's embarrassing. It's not responsible, and I won't keep it up.

No. We have to pay for what we get, and nothing comes cheap. Except this bread. It was pretty cheap. The leftover money I took, my fee for finding a bargain.

...

We all eat the bargain bread, and I notice that I am finished first. What else is there to do here? I want to find an inn, wash up, and sleep past dawn. In the morning, maybe I will send the guards.

The Rabbi is the oddest man I have ever known. That much I might miss... He never ceases embarrassing himself, and it shames us, to have our rabbi doing strange and unclean things. The others usually just watch, hiding their shame, but I can't get over it: like he was raised in a cave with animals.

Now is no exception: he has taken off his robe, and begun to wash our feet like a slave. I watch him do it—is he shaming us for not having thought to hire another servant for this night? Well, I won't be ashamed: servants are expensive, and we don't need clean feet to eat a meal.

Disposable Packaging (parts II, III, and IV)

You say "Glorious," I say "Sparkly"

I wish you could have been there for Sunday's service two weeks ago, because it was all about disposable packaging.* Pastor titled the sermon, "Don't Save the Veils."** Moses was in God's presence for a while, and his face was radiant. But after a few days, that radiance began to fade, and he felt (perhaps) shame as the glory left him. So he covered his face with a veil.

Moses himself was not glorious, that stuttering, murdering, shepherd. The radiance was the glory of being in the presence of God. God chooses to use inglorious people, disposable packaging, to contain and reflect his presence, because in our weakness, he is stronger. The less impressive our clay pot is, the more beautiful is the glory that radiates from the contents inside.

This week three people asked me how I was, and waited for an answer, to which I confessed an embarrassing truth: "I just... I don't feel... sparkly this week. You know? Like my sparkle is... just... blah."

One friend considered this, and somberly answered, "No. I can't say I've ever felt 'sparkly'."

Another more inquisitive soul asked, "What is your sparkle, exactly?" Of course I don't know the answer to that one. It just is sparkly. It's how I feel about myself.

And another said, "You're just tired. It'll come back," to which my inner self responded, "A-HA! So you agree that I'm not sparkly! Jerk."

But there's hope for my sparkle to return, because it's not me. "[W]henever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces, reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

And until my sparkle returns, I'll take comfort here, in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, where Paul boasts in his weakness, because,"when I am weak, then I am strong." In this passage, Paul [is crazy and] rejoices in his sufferings and deprivations, because God gets to show Himself to the world in those situations. Paul is glad that he's shown up to be the mere human (read, gifted animal) that he is, and that God gets to be God in those unbalanced situations.

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Hannah and Mary: Clay Pots Filled with Glory

Hannah and Mary were humble clay pots, entrusted to carry children who were blessed and purposed by God. They sing similar songs # about God filling the empty with good things. Mary says, "He has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed, because the Mighty One has done great things for me-- holy is his name."

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A Prayer

Your glory will shine in the humblest, ugliest faces, and make them beautiful.
Your glory will cover the least melodic, grating voices, and make their song rise to the heavens.
Your glory will fill the barren woman, and give her many children.
Your glory will bring down the proud, and lift up the humble.
Your glory will fill the whole earth, of this we can be sure.

You have chosen the weak of this world to confound the strong. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the mourners, the lost, desperate, and hopeless, the insulted and grieved, because your ear is attentive to their cries, and great is their reward in heaven.

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Notes

* You can listen online  (maybe start around 55 minutes), but know that it was better in person. There is so much more happening than just what is spoken, especially the moments after everyone is dismissed. People start to mill around, a few people may leave right away (they probably have friends coming over for lunch, and need to make sure their house hasn't burned down because their electric is a little finicky and the crock pot may have caused a power surge (okay, I don't even know if that's possible)).

** (but he is German, and "veils" sounds like "whales" and it's a whole German/English pun that people groaned at mostly, but that was actually the funniest thing to happen in my life all week). 

# Here's one such song, "Holy is Your Name (Magnificat)," one of the most beautiful renderings of the Magnificat I've heard, written by David Haas, performed here by Mark Haas.

Providing in Real Time

God provides in real time. Recently, I've struggled with uncertainty about where I'll live and work for the next... ever. I am puzzled and sometimes whiny, but God keeps knowledge about the future on a strictly need-to-know basis with me. So, I trust God sometimes, when I'm not freaking out and crying to all my friends about how unfair it is that I don't know everything and have it all figured out, and that my life isn't just already lived-out and decided for me.

A second problem that I've been facing is how to teach this crazy Bible class. I have trouble feeling prepared for it. I can't see very far past the day's lesson, because it's all I can do to keep up with the Bible-reading and study it takes to teach the Bible. I have confessed here before about how I have no degree that is related to God/Jesus/Bible-anything. I find myself burdened with my own questions, let alone those of the students, which overlap often.

Tonight, in the grocery store, God showed up. Actually, it was my friend, K.

I went to the grocery store to pick up essentials (you know, vegetables and chocolate), and I turned and saw K there, saying hey! "Hi, K! What a neat place to meet, so weird, right? I almost never buy groceries..." No. Really.

As we chatted, I realized I had a beautiful opportunity before me; K is trained in theology, and was a professor at M College for a while. So I asked her the burning question inside me this week: how do I make First Samuel interactive for the students... or whatever?

She asked what resources I'd come across so far (nice, K), and I mentioned this book I've been using, and she was all like, "yeah, that was the book I used. The editor is in our theology department." Seriously, K?! Without the exclamation point!?!! This was a big deal for me, because I'm still easily starstruck, perhaps, by people who have written books. But, STILL. I left the grocery store with excitement, feeling affirmed in every which way.

THANKS, K: I hope you still had time tonight to bake for the thingy tomorrow morning.

And NICE one, God!