Trusting the Vehicle?

Isaiah 31:1-3

Alas for those who go down to Egypt for help
and who rely on horses,
who trust in chariots because they are many
and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel
or consult the Lord!

Yet he too is wise and brings disaster;
he does not call back his words,
but will rise against the house of the evildoers,
and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.

The Egyptians are human, and not God;
their horses are flesh, and not spirit.
When the Lord stretches out his hand,
the helper will stumble, and the one helped will fall,
and they will all perish together.

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Well, I'm the friendly stranger in the black sedan
Won't you hop inside my car
I got pictures, candy, I'm a lovable man
And I can take you to the nearest star

I'm your vehicle, baby
I'll take you anywhere you wanna go
I'm your vehicle, woman
But now I'm sure you know

That I love ya
(Love ya)
I need ya
(Need ya)
I want ya
I got to have ya
Great God in Heaven you know I love you

"Vehicle" written by Jim Peterik and recorded by the Ides of March from their self-titled album.

Who do you trust? Often people tend to pick the flashiest, most powerful looking people or thing to trust. Back in the day of the prophet Isaiah when the terror from Assyria wasn't far off, the people could have come to the temple and prayed for salvation from the Lord God. But as history shows, the people don't always look to the Lord first.

A quick scanning of the historical books of the Bible show us that people usually did what they thought was wise before calling upon the Lord. This is one of the overriding themes of Judges! And Kings! And Chronicles!

This reading from Isaiah shows us is that when the Assyrians were threatening God's chosen they did not seek first the counsel of God. Some of them went to Egypt and sought defense in the form of horses, chariots, and charioteers. You could just see the Egyptians making promises too, pictures, candy, they would even take them to the nearest star. "Great God in Heaven you know I love you!"

There's the creepy promise, but it's not so creepy if you think you're the one taking advantage of the one driving the chariot. But the Lord promises one thing, in the end God is God and people are people. If you place your faith in horses and Egyptians and vehicles you will surely all perish together.

This is tough to hear in our day too. We all want the latest security system. Nations work out treaties with nations. As the old saying goes, "Politics makes strange bedfellows," and when we try too hard to use our wits and wiles to create our security we make some very strange bedfellows.

In times like this it is actually difficult to place faith in God because we don't now how or (worse) when God will act. But this is our issue, it's the nature of sin that has us trusting more in the vehicle to bring peace than in the one who created peace in the first place.

More's the shame, because the only place to look for peace is to the one who first created peace, shalom. We have to look only to the Holy one of Israel. Faith in vehicles, whether they are bombers or chariots, may bring "victory," but they can never bring peace.

Sandbar Theology

Thanks to the smartest man I know,Michael Jinkins, for inspiring this one.
)

Matthew 7:24-27

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell--and great was its fall!”

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I enjoy this life as a jester
Seems to keep me movin' around
Like the wind that blows
Tide that flows
Have my ups and downs

All a part of some strange plan I'm sure
Start a new chapter each day
Honey, love gets lost, time gets tossed
'Cause we've both got our own different ways

I feel like I'm stranded on a sandbar
Stuck in my tracks like a street car
Playin' it for all that it's worth
I'm just payin' for my sins on earth

"Stranded on a Sandbar" by Jimmy Buffett from the album "Volcano"

As Michael Jinkins writes, "The gospels don’t have much nice to say about sand." This is the most particular reference, when the storms come there is little sand does that supports a structure. When the tide flows and the wind blows Jimmy Buffett sings of personal ups and downs. As for the walls of your house, well, there are just downs.

I went to Miami Beach for a conference about 20 years ago. As you can well imagine from the name of the town, everything was on the beach, and I mean everything. There were fences on the beach. There were swimming pools on the beach. There were restaurants on the beach. There were 30 story hotels and apartments on the beach. That's when Matthew's warning crossed my mind. How do huge hotels survive in a foundation of sand. So I asked a cabby.

He told me that before the hotels were built, tremendous concrete piers were poured as a foundation. I don't know how many cubic yards of concrete has to be poured to turn a "beach" into a "rock covered with beach," but I'm sure it is both many and as of today enough.

But that's enough about engineering.

The second stanza of the first verse of Stranded on a Sandbar is the lament of a man whose life not really in a good place. His relationship is failing because they both have their own different ways. Evidently she's moving on, but he isn't because he's stranded on the sandbar. He's stuck in his tracks and unable to move. But for some reason, he believes that standing still is a form of atonement and he's playin' it for all it's worth.

Being in a place where being swept away with the rush of life is no form of atonement. It's really not much of a way of life either. Being swept in the tide is little more than a good way to be cast out to sea without the benefit of Jonah's great fish.

We instead are called to seek the rock of ages, the rock of our faith. That is where we build our great foundation. Without a solid foundation, everything we have and everything we do will be for naught as it blows away in the wind with the sand. As Michael Jinkins writes, in the sand what is here today is gone tomorrow. It's better to place our trust in what is here always. The foundation of the Lord our God.

Are We There Yet?

Deuteronomy 2:7

Surely the LORD your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.

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When you look through the years and see what you could
have been oh, what might have been,
if you'd had more time.

"Long Way Home" by Roger Hodgson originally recorded by Supertramp on "Breakfast in America"

So why did the Israelites travel 40 years in the hinterlands of the Holy Land? It was a matter of trust. In Numbers 13, Moses and Aaron send spies into Canaan because it was to be given by the Lord to the Israelites. Moses told them "Go up there into the Negeb, and go up into the hill country, and see what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the towns that they live in are unwalled or fortified, and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be bold, and bring some of the fruit of the land."

Now the spies discovered two things, first it that Canaan was the land of milk and honey. It was the place the Lord had promised them and it was good. It was good indeed.

The second thing they discovered is that the Canaanites were big and strong. This made them afraid. They were so afraid that when they returned to Moses and Aaron they lied about number one and told the worst version of the truth of number two. Only Caleb told the truth, and the crowd outvoted him.

So the Lord God decided that if Israel was not going to trust God, they would not live in the land the Lord set aside for them. Every Israelite over age 20 would perish in the desert instead of live in the land of milk and honey.

Imagine this conversation in the desert: "Are we there yet?" "No, and we would have been if you had only told the truth."

What could have been...

The one that got away...

When you look through the years and see what you could have been oh, what might have been....

Ah the lament of those who let fear rule their lives instead of trusting in the love of God. Now, God doesn't promise that what comes next will be a cake walk. There will be times of trial. Let's remember what Israel experienced before the Exodus, there was a lot of horrible times for the nation of Israel in captivity in Egypt, but there was the promise of the Lord.

In the lines that precede the quote, Roger Hodgson's lyric goes like this, "Does it feel that you life's become a catastrophe? Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy." There does have to be a time of trial. There will be a time of testing and tempering like steel losing its slag. Like gold being purified. It will be hot and it will probably hurt, and that's a part of being refined.

But in the midst of the refiner's fire, remember this from Deuteronomy, "Surely the LORD your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing."

God is faithful, God is generous, God is gracious, the Lord is God.

Being Satisfied

John 14:9-11

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

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Hey, hey, hey,
That's what I say

I can't get no satisfaction,
I can't get no satisfaction.
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try.
I can't get no, I can't get no.

"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones

We live in a consumer society. If we can't see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, use it, and pass it then we really don't know. If we can't consume it then we really don't believe. There are dozens of reasons why this it true. One of the reasons is that we have seen and heard so many lies that we don't care to trust anymore.

False prophets will do that.

In this passage, Jesus has just told the disciples that their hearts should not be troubled. They don't have to be troubled when they believe in God and believe in Him. Jesus lays out the visual images of the great and wonderful kingdom where all believers will be citizens. Subjects to the King of kings now, we will be subjects in the Kingdom of Glory forever. But then Thomas and Philip get all "Triple A" on Jesus and ask for directions.

Are they not buying into the imagery? Are they looking for the Kingdom to be founded on Earth here and now? Unless they were witty enough to ask for metaphorical directions to the metaphorical dwelling place (which is doubtful) they were asking Jesus to program the GPS and send them to their place in the Son. Give them credit, they tried. Oh they tried and they tried and they tried and they tried. But of course, if they were looking for a room with an ocean view, they were disappointed.

Philip finally gets tired and asks to speak to the Lord's manager, the next guy up the corporate food chain. He want's satisfaction and if he sees the Father he will be satisfied. Jesus answers, "Don't you know me?"

"Don't you know who I am?" is the cry of every "D-List" celebrity who ever got arrested. but this is not what Jesus asks. From friend to friend, Jesus asks Philip if after all this time did he still not understand what was going on. The kingdom was breaking all around them. Signs and wonders surrounded them. The words, the works of Jesus don't come from him, they come from God above! They are the words of the Father. The father is with them.

And even if they don't get that everything they had done had come from the Father, they just needed to remember everything they had done together and that should be enough.

We seek satisfaction, when satisfaction lives all around us. This is the cry to stop and smell the roses, this is the cry to see that even in the quietest moment God reigns and be not just satisfied, but joyful.