Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Let's pray.
Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your spirit that as the scripture is read and your word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today. Amen.
Today's scripture is two kings. 816 24.
In the fifth year of King Joram, son of Ahab of Israel, Jehoram, son of king Jehoshaphat of Judah began to reign.
He was 32 years old when he became king and he reigned for eight years in Jerusalem.
He walked in the way of the kings of Israel as the house of Ahab had done. For the daughter of Ahab was his wife.
He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
Yet the lord would not destroy Judah for the sake of his servant David since he had promised to give a lamb to him and to his descendants forever.
In his days, Edom revolted against the rule of Judah and said of a king of their own. Then Joram crossed over Zai with all his chariots.
He set out by night and attacked the edomite and their chariot commanders who had surrounded him. But his army fled home.
So Edom has been in revolt against the rule of Judah to this day.
Lebanon also revolted at the same time.
Now the rest of the acts of Joram and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Annals of the kings of Judah?
So Joram slept with his ancestors and was buried with them in the city of David.
His son Ahaziah succeeded him. This is the word of the Lord.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: What a great discipline it is as a church and as individually believers daily to do what we just did. To listen to scripture as it's read. To hear what God might have been saying to a people so long ago and through those same words to consider what God might be saying to us today.
What a great discipline that is. The passage that Paul just read is originally written to a group, we think, or speaking of a time in history some 3000 years ago. It's a time back when the hot new technology, or at least the dominant technology was iron. It takes place right in the middle of the Iron Age. It's right at that time where greek city states were starting to form, city states that would eventually be cities like Athens and Sparta. God's word spoke to events way back then, a day roughly 850 years before the birth of Christ. And yet that passage proclaims a God at work, fulfilling promises, overseeing history, not just then but today. And not just in a part of the world we might call the Middle east or ancient Palestine or the ancient fertile crescent. But all over the world.
Well, as many of you know, just a few weeks ago, Jill and I were reminded of just how big history is and how vast this earth truly is. We got to visit Greece for the first time in our lives. And we got to visit a few different spots. We were only there for about six days, but we did get to visit this area down. Down here called Monum Basia. Monum bassia. You know, it's wild being in Greece, as you recall, that the history is so extensive and expansive. It's so many times the history of this country. The United States. Take one town we visited right here in Montembasia or Montumbasia. It's located on an island. This is when we were approaching it on.
You can see that huge rock jutting out. This is another shot as we got closer. This is the island of Monumbasia. Now, technically, it's what you'd call a tide island because it's connected to the mainland by this narrow bridge and originally by a little beachhead. I did not take this picture, by the way, because we didn't get to take a helicopter ride. But it's a lovely overhead shot. That is monumbasia, and we got to see both levels of it. This is the lower level of monumbasia. And that is where there's been a continuing city town for 1400 years. This lower section has a great wall around it to offer protection. But as that was deemed not quite enough protection, there's also this upper level that's surrounded by, as you can see, this wall. And that you have. You can only get up by going up a narrow staircase of stone. This is my family as we were walking up that staircase.
And then once you finally make it to the top, you get these gorgeous views of the Mediterranean Sea. And you can see the ruins of what was once a full sea up there. You can even see churches like this one, where people still will gather on special occasions now and then, in addition to the expansive views, you can actually look down on that lower settlement of monumbasia. And it was great to occupy this space up here because if invaders came in from the ocean, you could drop things on them or you could at least discourage them from coming up. So often when people wanted to capture this upper area, they had to do it by siege, because otherwise there was really no way to get up there. So this is considered one of the oldest fortified towns in the world and certainly in Europe. It has been in operation since the 6th century of the common era. And there are still people living in that town. We learned. Any guesses as to how many?
1111 people. So it's mostly a tourist place, mostly a place people come in to visit. But there are still some residents who live there. And it's wild thinking of that kind of history. I mean, that encompasses. You could multiply the united. The history of the United States as a nation five times and you wouldn't quite reach the history of just this settlement on.
And so seeing this, even from up here and visiting places like this, it made me feel, well, small, really small. You see, sometimes I imagine myself like this. This is my brother Chris, up on that low, up on that upper level at the highest point in monumbasia. I don't know about you, but I sometimes think of myself that way. A lone individual having conquered a steep climb. I often think of myself as the one who ascended peaks. The protestant protagonist, the vital protagonist in the story of my world, which is, of course, the world, right?
And then I look out on a town like monumbasia that's been around for more than 25 of my lifetimes, and suddenly I don't feel like I'm on top of the world any longer. And I start to think back on the 5000 years just of written human history, or the history of homo sapiens going back some 200,000 years, or the history of the earth going back, as scientists tell us, some five and a half billion years. And I feel smaller still. And then I look up at the night sky. Maybe you've done this before too. You've looked out on the stars and you've contemplated your significance in the wake of this enormous expanse of stars. You might have thought, wow, I'm less than 1,000,000,000th of the human population. And I'm standing on one planet in just one of 400 billion solar systems, each located in one of more than 100 different galaxies. Each of those just one among millions of superclusters that make up the universe.
My little life, my ascents, my descents, they seem like one drop of water in that vast mediterranean sea.
I don't know about you, but reading passages like today's text from two kings can do that to me too. It can remind me how little one human being's success or failures truly represent in the broad span of time and space. Back in the time of two kings, the highest position a human could hope to occupy was that of kingdom king. It defined the individual ascendant where they had truly reached the position of power and authority. Kings, you know, they made things happen. They were the bill Gates or the Elon musks or the Steve Jobs or the Joe Bidens or the Vladimir putins of our time. Whether they did good or evil, they mattered. They made history, right?
Wrong. At least according to scripture. We read in today's passage from two kings. In a biblical perspective, they kings were so small.
Take King Jehoram of Judah that we read about today. Right at the moment he ascends to the throne. His life is portrayed not as history shaping. It's a mere sentence and an addendum and a footnote. That's it.
Johoram was known by both the longer name Johoram and by the shorter name Joram. It's like me I suppose. I'm known by Matthew and also by that shorter name Matt or Pastor Matt. This going by two names is just a little confusing in today's passage however, because we read that there was another King Joram at the same time as King Johoram. There was King Joram of the northern kingdom of Israel, who was the son of Ahab. And then there was King Johoram, aka Joram for short, who was the king of the southern kingdom of Judah, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah in the south.
Jehoram or Joram of Judah is the center of today's passage. And he's the kind of person you might expect to be the central protagonist of this story, right as we read about him ascending to David's throne in Jerusalem. But then you'll note, this is what we read about him. He was 32 when he took the throne. He reigned for eight years. And then like so many kings of the north, he did evil in the sight of the lord.
That's it. And oh yes, there's this brief addendum that during his reign, the people of Edom revolted against the rule of Judah and that King Jehoram tried to squelch this rebellion and he failed. As for more on King Jehoram, two kings tells us, just see this footnote. Look up the annals of the kings of Judah if you care.
Johoram or Joram, king of Judah, is portrayed as one drop in an ocean in that story of royal infidelity.
How relentless the Bible can be in bringing down the would be lofty egos. In today's passage, even the legendary king David is brought down to size. He's not even referred to as king. Did you notice that? No. King David. Instead, all we read is servant David. Servant David. None of his accomplishments are listed. Instead, we simply read about God's promises to David. David is almost not portrayed as a protagonist at all. Scripture is relentless in giving as a grand historical perspective, this peace that brings us, kings, CEO's, queens, whoever, down to size, reminding us we are but specks of dust or drops in the ocean.
And yet.
And yet there's also a profound way that passages like today's text and so many others elevate us. They lift us up, but in a way that's far richer, deeper and broader than we could possibly know as an individual self, or even as one possessing the loftiest of human titles. The scriptures proclaim our significance. Our meaning lies in our connection with the very power behind and above and at work in the universe. Our significance is the one who makes history and makes you and me in our individuality, in our distinctiveness, a part of that history, God's history, God's story, with all its grand, global, and even cosmic significance.
If history were made by kings, here's what would have happened in today's text. We would have read of the sin of King Johoram or Joram, and that would have been the end of the story, the destruction of Judah, pure and simple, end of story. Or it might have ended back in the story of David. For we read in David's time of his multiple breaches of the commandments, in his treatment of Bathsheba and her husband. Or it could have ended in the hebrew people's misdeeds as they wandered through Sinai. But instead, instead of a story ending with those royal deeds, we read in today's passage right in the center, this remarkable statement, the Lord did not, did not destroy Judah following King Joram's sin. Instead, God had promised to give a lamp to David and to his descendants forever.
History unfolds, we read in scripture according to God's promises, not human accomplishments or misdeeds.
The bad news and the good news is that we are not, finally, the makers of history, even the queens and kings or high and mighty among us. God is the maker of history. And that unfolding history, we read is full of God's blessing, a people and through them, a world. Even in the midst of sin and violence and suffering, God intervenes. We read time and again, showing us a future where justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. God's way, breaking in through history is one of love triumphing over greed and selfishness, not immediately triumphing over it, but eventually triumphing over it. And we, small and insignificant as we are, are nevertheless given cosmic significance as we are ushered into those promises and purposes of God.
Like the people we read about in scripture. Like the kings Johoram or Joram and David, we too like them, have been given God's word with which to align our lives, with God's purposes for us and for the earth's thriving and fulfillment. And we, by God's work in our lives, you and me, as individuals and as a community, find ourselves children of the living God, servants of God's grand and glorious purposes.
As Christians, we make this bold proclamation as well that the God of all creation sent God's own son, Jesus Christ, to dwell among us as God with us and in Christ, we saw what God's inbreaking world, inbreaking realm was all about. We saw in him how in God's way the sick are healed, the poor and oppressed are lifted up, the high and mighty brought down. Justice is done, the hungry are fed. Those who are sinners know forgiveness, those who are debtors, no forgiveness. A lavish table is set to which all are welcome.
Love prevailed in the kingdom that Jesus showed us. In the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed, the orphan and the immigrant and the widow were called children of the living God and part of God's family. And then we read in colossians this great quote.
Christ is the image of the invisible God. In him all things in heaven and on earth were created things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers. In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross.
Don't you see?
We have cosmic significance as we are connected to God's reconciling work in Christ. We're linked not only through him to a body of believers, but to all things and to God's wondrous work of reconciliation that we know right in our midst and can proclaim to the world this kind of connection that we have in Christ. It doesn't eviscerate or cover over our individual and distinct identity. We have that. But at the same time, we're part of a body. In baptism, we die with Christ to sin and rise with him to new life, eternal life, life as part of a community. You and I, you know, we are so small in and of ourselves as a self alone, but united to Christ.
We're part of a cosmic history in the making and could play our distinct part of that story means even the simplest of decisions we make. Who will be my lord? What will my life be about? What law or framework or teaching will guide my life? These decisions can have cosmic significance, as they did for johoramous or joram, for they reflect the very power of the universe at work right now in you and in me.
Now. During our trip to Montinvasio, I did feel profoundly small, historically small, cosmically small. But that can be a wonderful feeling, you know, haven't you sensed that before getting a glimpse of history or the cosmos and all its expanse? Because you realize somehow you are a part of all that. And I did have some moments on monumbasio of sensing that cosmic significance I have in Christ.
Our family visited a small greek orthodox church that's still operating in Monumbasio. You'll see that the door was open for people on this particular day to come in and to pray. And we went in. There's an entryway where you can light a candle as a form of prayer. And as I stepped into that space and looked around me, I was struck by something, in some ways, how foreign it all seemed. You know, I've been to so many churches in the United States and in various areas of northern Europe. This. This was different. The icons in front, there was a foreignness to it, a profound foreignness.
And it reminded me I was not only in another part of the world, but for this time, I was joining the some 200 million orthodox believers. I don't know about you, but I often think of church history as existing in terms of two primary branches. There's the Catholic Church and then the protestant church that split away in the 16th century, or reformed the church, as we like to say. And then there are those two large branches, Protestant and the Catholic. And sometimes I forget about that whole branch of the church you could call the Eastern Orthodox or simply the Orthodox Church. That's a group that makes up, we think, some 12% of christian believers in the world today. And I felt that profound linkage. Yes, there's worship is different in that setting. And when I saw the icons, there's that Protestant in me that thought, well, you know, these images, I'm a little nervous about those. But still, what a thing to see believers and expressions of christian worship and engagement with Christ in a different part of the world and be ushered into that for a time and sense my connection with them. It was fascinating, too, to learn of the debates in the orthodox church as it relates to icons as well. I'm a part of a world communion, I remember that has its center and its fulcrum in one ruler, one king of kings, one God of all nations that was known to us in Jesus Christ and in him I'm part of not just this body or this body, but a body of believers spread around the world with Christ as its head.
I love this Sunday, World Communion Sunday and the blessed reminder it offers that we are part of a world communion. Here at Knox, we'll often use both Spanish and English as a way to remind ourselves and to live in to that global identity, that multilingual, multicultural identity which is the church today.
I love that among the some 8 billion people stretched across the broad expanse of creation and making up so many areas that each have their own history, there is this profound connection I can know as an individual with them.
In this communion that we call the body of Christ.
Friends, we have meaning, we have significance not as isolated individuals alone, but part as a global body of believers. You and I, we get to be part of a story playing out right now that's so big and that's happening and has its fulcrum in the one we call Lord and savior Jesus Christ. May we live it out in obedience and faith here, right where we are today, in whatever language we speak and wherever we call our home church. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.
I.
