Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] For the last three months now, the majority of our worship services. For those services, we've been honing in on the Book of Ezra. It's been a timely book for it focuses on a period of return and rebuilding in the life of the ancient Hebrew people. And we are in such a period of return and rebuilding.
[00:00:24] Many of us have lost homes or were displaced from our homes, or we have friends, loved ones or neighbors who were impacted. And so we are in a time where we are engaged in that. Just as I was driving down my street on Mar Vista today, saw some building projects on the other side of the street. And not only houses are getting rebuilt, but a number of spaces of worship. More than 10 places of worship were destroyed in Altadena alone. We have a broad task that we're engaged in as a community in LA county of rebuilding. And I don't know about you, but one of the things that has helped me through perhaps the most difficult year of my life has been relationships with others going through this rebuild period as well. I find with them I can be reminded and remind others of God's presence, that we're not alone in it, that we are a community with God and one another.
[00:01:33] And that is a rich blessing. And I experience that not only with all of you and in places like this, but I also experience it when I read Scripture and I look to the community, that particular community we read about in Ezra. And as I see God at work in that time and place, hear what God would say to that people, it speaks to me, reminds me I'm not alone in this journey and God has something to say to me and to us at this time, just as God did back then. Well, we're now in the final third of the Book of Ezra. And in that part of the book, the whole focus shifts. Up till this point, up through chapter six, the emphasis has been on rebuilding primarily the Jewish temple. But there's also references to rebuilding the city walls as well. Now, from chapter seven on, the focus shifts to, well, Ezra himself and the rebuilding of a people.
[00:02:34] The spotlight is on that rebuilding. This is a model of the ancient Jewish temple based on scriptural specifications.
[00:02:43] But I would argue this model doesn't do the temple justice. And one of the reasons it doesn't is because there are no people there. And a temple without people. Is that a temple?
[00:02:58] When this physical structure, this sanctuary, was built back in 1960 and 61, was it a church?
[00:03:05] When it simply existed as a building, when this construction was completed, I would argue it wasn't.
[00:03:13] It became A church on this day, December 24th, Christmas Eve, 1961. For that's when people first crossed that threshold, entered this space and sang, oh, Come All Ye Faithful, Buildings are great. And reading Ezra, we're reminded buildings can be a powerful symbol for God's presence with the people. They can be a vital gathering space for God's people, even in the rain. Last night, a number of us gathered over in the atrium to celebrate Amani School, which has been a longtime mission partner of this church, to eat together, to hear about God's wonderful work in Kenya, in and through the staff and leadership and students at the Amani School in Kenya. It's great to have a place where you can gather to do that. But the place alone is. Doesn't make it the church, the people do, right?
[00:04:10] For those of us who've lost homes and are choosing to rebuild, the day that whatever new structure either we move into or we've rebuilt, the day, it will be a home for me at least, will be that day. We can cross the threshold as a family and hear oh, Come All Ye Faithful playing on our stereo. We're playing it out on the piano. Seeing a.
[00:04:35] Seeing it's interesting when it hits.
[00:04:42] Seeing a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments. That's when it will be home.
[00:04:46] A temple, like a church, needs people living in it, practicing it, going through rituals, doing what you do. That's what makes it home or church or a temple.
[00:04:58] So after the temple is rebuilt, how do you rebuild the people who gather in that temple? How do you rebuild their practices? How do you ensure that their rhythm of life is what it was meant to be? We recall from back in Genesis 12 that the people of God, the people that trace their heritage back to Abraham and Sarah, were a people blessed by God and called to be a blessing to all nations and peoples of the earth.
[00:05:25] We read in Scripture how this people were called to receive God's law and follow it, to live as a light under the light of God. But then they were to be a light to all nations and peoples. How might you ensure that they are actually being that blessing and light that they are following Torah? Because you certainly want to do that in a rebuilding period.
[00:05:51] For some 50 years, these former residents of Jerusalem, Judah, had been living in Babylon, far from their temple. They didn't have a temple. And for some 50 years during that time, they had to work out how to practice life together in a foreign land and without that central symbol of their worship, life together of God's presence in and among them. Now they finally have Gotten to return and the temple is rebuilt. It's really important that the Torah, God's law, God's call and claim, their distinction is articulated, lived out, practiced.
[00:06:32] You want to make sure you are rebuilding the people and not just the building. Or as with a building, you get something wrong, disaster can ensue.
[00:06:45] When you're rebuilding a bridge, for example, you want to avoid a situation like this that's bad.
[00:06:52] You've already gotten these two sides of the bridge built, and they don't quite line up. Yikes.
[00:06:58] Little late to make changes.
[00:07:02] You don't want this to happen, you know, to have a brick building and a porch and thinking, oh, it would be great to step outside and on that second floor and look out that, oh, shoot, forgot to build that door.
[00:07:17] And if you're going to put an enormous hot tub on your balcony, you probably want to ensure that balcony was built to withstand the weight.
[00:07:27] And if you were talking about a physical structure, you can get inspectors, right, to come and check that out. And they would. I think they would have never said, that's okay.
[00:07:37] I think they would have said, either that structure isn't up to code or it certainly can't bear the weight. You do that with a building. Well, faith communities, too, we can benefit from inspectors, from people coming in with fresh eyes and saying, hey, I see how you're doing. These things here, these are great.
[00:07:56] But these practices you are or aren't doing, that's a problem.
[00:08:02] And that could lead to disaster later on. This church has had folks come in and play that role. You might remember those of you on session deacons or staff, when Todd Bolsinger spent a weekend and then spent some time with us afterwards as a leadership team, not only rewriting our mission statements, but then looking at our practices as a church. What practices are faithful to our mission in Christ's call, and what practices might we need to let go of, and what new ones might we want to pick up?
[00:08:37] Todd, as you know, is the author of Canoeing the Mountains, Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory. And I was so grateful for his eyes and heart coming in to help our leadership in that process.
[00:08:51] Well, that's the kind of role that Ezra plays in the book that bears his name. Here's how an artist back in the early 8th century portrayed the priest and scribe Ezra at work. Ezra had been living in Babylon, but the Persian emperor over that region at the time sent him to Jerusalem to inspect this time, not the Jerusalem Temple that was completed. He was sent to inspect the worship life, the practices of this people and make sure they aligned with Torah. The Persian emperor wanted the God of the Hebrews people's blessing, not God's curse. So he sends an expert in the Torah, a scribe knowing the Torah really well, and a priest has authority in the life of the ancient Jewish people and also is familiar with ritual practices. He sends Ezra to check things out, correct any things that are wrong, celebrate things that are good, like a building inspector. So Ezra arrives and we read that after some months there are things to celebrate. To be sure, they're celebrating Passover.
[00:10:04] There are sacrifices being made, offerings being made, worship is being conducted, there is much to celebrate.
[00:10:14] But he also notes that there is a big problem. It's like they have built a balcony that just can't bear the weight of a hot tub, or they've built a bridge where the two pieces just won't line up. Ezra is told that the former exiles who had returned to Jerusalem and Judah were practicing intermarriage with other people groups. People like the Egyptians, the Moabites and the Canaanites. Now, I don't know about you, but I want to ask Ezra, what's the big deal?
[00:10:49] In the Book of Genesis, Joseph married an Egyptian. In the Book of Numbers, Moses married a cushite woman. In the Book of Ruth, Mahlon and Chilion took Moabite wives. And these marriages with foreigners were not frowned upon.
[00:11:05] In Leviticus 19, we read God's commandment that God's people were told to treat the foreigner living with you like a citizen, for it said you were foreigners or immigrants in the land of Egypt.
[00:11:22] So from that space of empathy, you should treat the foreigner like a citizen.
[00:11:28] Now, sure, there are sections of God's law that prohibit intermarriage. And of course there are risks that when you marry a person of another people, group and religion, you might adopt their religious practices and lose your own. But why make such a big deal of intermarriage at this point in time? Well, Ezra as scribe and priest could cite these reasons to be at very least concerned. He could point to times in Exodus, Deuteronomy and Joshua when alliances between the ancient Jewish people and the Canaanites led to worshiping the gods of the Canaanites. Don't take that risk, he might be saying. He could point to Solomon's example in First Kings of taking wives from other people groups and then worshiping their gods.
[00:12:17] He could point out, as social historians do, that at least in this time and place we read about in Ezra, religion, ethnicity and homeland were often seen as a kind of threefold interwoven identity cord. And pulling out just the religious strand was hard to do, even if there are examples of doing just that, like Ruth, from a people foreign to the ancient Hebrew people, a Moabite choosing the God of Israel to be her God.
[00:12:48] But a second reason for Ezra's concern regarding intermarriage might also have been his particular role as priest. And in the priestly mindset, as we often read of it in the Hebrew Scriptures, there is an emphasis on people and objects being holy, set apart, distinct, marked as specifically for God's purposes and God's purposes alone.
[00:13:13] Now, I would argue there are other mindsets we read about in the Hebrew Scriptures too, one that we might broadly call prophetic.
[00:13:22] We hear, for example, in the 56th chapter of the prophet Isaiah, these words, do not let the foreigner or the eunuch, that is a prominent sexual minority at that time, do not let the foreigner or the eunuch let such a person join to the Lord, say, oh, the Lord will surely separate me from God's people. Don't let him say that, no, the foreigner or the eunuch who holds fast to my covenant, I will give in my temple, within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.
[00:13:59] We read those words in the prophet Isaiah, and these two concerns emerge time and again in Scripture. On the one hand, that the people of God need to be distinct and deeply wary of the influence of other gods, the gods of other peoples, especially in that most intimate relationship of marriage.
[00:14:20] And on the other hand, there is the sense of welcome and invitation into full citizenship as God's people. For those of any people group who choose to embrace God's way, as God had called the ancient people of Israel, to live it out, you might see it as a dynamic of both maintaining a distinct identity and set of practices that mark you as God's people, and being a blessing and light and extension of God's hospitality and love to the world.
[00:14:50] In the time of Ezra, the emphasis is clearly in today's passage on distinction.
[00:14:55] And yet there are plenty of other passages of Scripture where the emphasis is much more on welcome embrace of the foreigner, even of the foreign spouse, and being a light and blessing to all nations.
[00:15:09] Well, for Christians, we believe the God that was so powerfully at work in the ancient people of Israel, the people we read about in Ezra, that this God in the fullness of time offered a new way for all peoples to be marked as God's own children, Israelite and Canaanite and Moabite alike, citizen and foreigner, as the Apostle Paul famously put it in his letter to Christians in Galatia, In Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith.
[00:15:44] As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew nor Greek. There's no longer slave or free. There's no longer male or female. For all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, Paul writes, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
[00:16:11] It is now for us Christ's holiness that makes us holy. Christ's faith and practice that marks our faith and practice, Christ's own body that is now our temple, that body broken and risen for us in Christ. All people can say, I am God's child. Blessed to be a blessing.
[00:16:34] Well, as 21st century readers, aware specifically of how racist ideologies have destroyed and dehumanized people over the centuries, a prohibition of intermarriage, like we read in Ezra 9, should be met with concern, suspicion and care.
[00:16:54] But the notion of following the commandments of God, the idea of encouraging a people to adopt practices in their communal life and personal life to worship the one true God and that God alone, that notion can be celebrated. It can be a call even to people in our time to remember the commandments and have our communal life marked by them.
[00:17:19] Not simply the Ten Commandments, but for Christians, those commandments Jesus summed up as two. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself as we, receiving the love of God in Christ and then showing that love to the world put our faith and practice that is rebuilding not just a structure, but a people.
[00:17:49] So, friends, in this season of rebuilding, as so many of us work to rebuild physical structures, let's be sure to rebuild spiritual practices, too. Practices like prayer, communal practices like hospitality and service.
[00:18:06] Some of us got to spend time recently up at St. Andrew's Abbey in join the Benedictine monks for prayer. Prayer five times a day. We received their gracious hospitality staying with them, we ate meals with them. We could not only worship at noon with them, but have conversations about faith together. And it made me realize this, that in this period of time right now, just as home is not just a physical structure, the home I know with other Christians, it's not just this place, it's. It's what we're living out together.
[00:18:45] It's our practices, it's our prayer, it's our worship life. It's gathering in the atrium to celebrate the Amani School. It's heading down to Tijuana as many of us will do on Saturday to spend time with the staff and the children of Casa Orphanage and savor once again what God is doing there and get an update on our friends down there. Service, welcoming in others. Prayer, worship. These are the things that mark us, the things we want to build.
[00:19:19] So in this time of rebuilding, let's rebuild those together. And may they mark us that people see in us. Put in practice blessing and light and give thanks to the God in heaven who's the gracious giver of all good gifts. Gifts. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.
