Rivals in Exile

[00:00:01] Speaker A: As we begin to listen to God's Word and Scripture, let us pray. Loving Lord, we do thank you and praise you that you are the Word and flesh, and that you give us the Word written. We ask that by your spirit you would enliven us. Give us ears to hear, hearts and wills to act in accordance, and that you will anoint John as he preaches. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Listen for God's Word to us. In Ezra 4 and Hebrews 11, when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of families and said to them, let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do. And we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of King Esar Haddon of Assyria who brought us here. But Zerubbabel, Jeshua and the rest of the heads of families in Israel said to them, you shall have no part with us in building the house to our God, but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus of Persia has commanded us. Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build. And they bribed officials to frustrate their plan throughout the reign of King Cyrus of Persia, Persia and until the reign of King Darius of Persia. And now from Hebrews 11, the author of Hebrews 11 has written the whole role of heroes and heroines of the faithful, after which he or she writes, all of these died in faith, without having received the promises. But from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth. For people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, and that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. Indeed, he has prepared a city for them. Friends, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. [00:03:15] Speaker B: Well, good morning. Our sermon series this fall has been considering the Book of Ezra. Taken together with the book of Nehemiah, its next door neighbor in the Old Testament, it tells the story of how God's people were brought back to Jerusalem and the land of Israel. As I'm sure you'll recall back in 605 BC I think some of us are old enough to remember that they were taken into captivity by the Babylonians. But the Babylonians were conquered in turn six decades later by the somewhat more tolerant Persian Empire, which had also taken control of Assyrian lands to the north. Ezra is a complicated book. I had forgotten that last summer when Pastor Matt invited me to tackle Ezra 4. Oh, and by the way, I recall he said, could you also tie it to Reformation Sunday? I almost expected him to say, and then finish up with a juggling act. Well, Ezra is complicated. Honestly, it looks like Ezra the scribe dropped his note cards for chapter four and picked them up in the wrong order. You see, verses 1 through 5 deal with rebuilding the temple, but then verses 6 to 23 tell of a conflict over rebuilding the walls of the city. Those are two different undertakings. Then verse 24 jumps back in time with a summary statement about the Temple. Once again, each part of every Ezra 4 has a cast of characters, and it's a difficult list of names. There are two Assyrian Kings, three Persian Kings, five named local opponents of the Jews in Jerusalem. And there are collective references to three government officials and at least four national or ethnic groups that also oppose the plot of the Jews. And there's an enigmatic reference to the people of the land. Tap, tap, nudge, nudge. We know who they are. No, we really don't. In fact, next to nothing is known about most of the named individuals, though the kings do leave some historical traces. But naming the kings doesn't make it any easier because some of these kings had the same name as their fathers or their sons. Even Ancestry.com didn't help. Fortunately, I have found a way to deal with this confusion. We're not going to worry about it. Seriously. The chronology is a fascinating puzzle, but some other time, okay? Instead, we're going to ask a different kind of question. Namely why the returning Jews met with so much opposition. What's really striking to me is that if you read verses 6 to 24, the longer section that we didn't read, you'll quickly see a plot there that looks surprisingly like what we just heard. In verses 1 through 5, the Jews were given permission to return and rebuild, but they were blocked by rivals who were already living in the land. Well, let me start with a few observations. At first glance, it looks like Zerubbabel and the other leaders who returned from exile responded rather rudely when the local inhabitants offered to help rebuild the temple. These locals insisted that they too worshiped the same God. So, eh, what's not to like? I mean, they say they've been worshipping and sacrificing ever since they were settled there by the Assyrian King. Well, there are actually some clues in the text that ought to raise our suspicion. It's not just that they're introduced as the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin. No. The text also tells us that the moment their offer of help was declined, they actively stalled the rebuilding project. In fact, they blocked the project for decades. So if these people of the land really cared about the temple, why would they turn against its builders? If they really worshiped the same God, why are they so hostile to these returning peoples? And then there's the curious matter of their sacrifices. Where did they offer them? You can't offer a proper sacrifice if you haven't got a temple. And rebuilding the temple is what this brouhaha is all about. All this shows up in verses one through five. But the rest of the chapter echoes the narrative. A letter is sent from the adversaries of the Israelites to the king of Persia, accusing them of rebellion and sedition. And the king, Artaxerxes calls a halt to all rebuilding across the board. Now, the later verses also tell us a little more about these adversaries. The adversaries of the returning Israelites probably weren't the Canaanites that they'd faced after the exodus from Egypt when they were attempting to enter the Promised Land. Some of these adversaries, at least, were also foreigners, imprecise as that term is. Some were originally from Babylon. Some were from Erech in the valley of the Euphrates that's now in Iraq. Others were from east of the Persian Gulf, from the fabled city of Susa that was sacked in 647 BC. Ironically, all these people groups were exiled not from Israel, but to Israel. They were forcibly settled there by earlier Assyrian kings. So virtually nobody can say that they're originally from here one way or another. Just like the Jews who have returned with Zerubbabel. They are all exiles. And Ezra makes it clear that as exiles, they are also rivals. So why couldn't they all get along? It's a tough question. The earlier books of the Old Testament are peppered with exhortations to care for the stranger and sojourner in your midst. But after a generation in exile or more returning, having been refugees for some 70 years, who's the sojourner now? Who's become the stranger now? Actually, some of these people of the land may have been Jews who were not taken into exile by the Babylonians. But it's likely that the Jews who were left behind had probably made some compromises in their traditional practices, like offering those improper sacrifices it's also likely that the other groups who were forcibly settled with them may have contributed to what looks like kind of a mashup of religion. Some writers think the people of the land in Ezra 4 are actually the ancestors of the Samaritans. And you will know at least a little bit about them from the New Testament for being deeply resented by traditional Jews, because once again, they seem to practice an impure form of Judaism. In any case, the Jew's aloofness and defensiveness continues throughout the end of the book. Ezra clearly thinks there were good reasons to be on guard against these rivals. And later on, Ezra will even tell all the Israelites who had married foreign wives to send them away along with their children. And that's disturbing. Now, it's a bit of a stretch, I think, to see this as a defense of racial purity, though it might seem like that to us. More plausibly, it's a matter of religious purity, or maybe better, religious survival. Other stories in the Old Testament recall how intermarriage with Canaanites or Moabites all too often brought idolatry into Israel, including temple prostitution, superstitions about sacred places, and the worship of false gods that even demanded child sacrifice. So hospitality is one thing. Apostasy, abomination, well, that would be something else, wouldn't it? Keep these issues in mind as we begin to skip forward in time by, oh, let's say 2,000 years to the 16th century. If we read between the lines of Ezra 4, you can glimpse a brutal during the centuries of upheaval that marked the exile and return of the people of Israel, the broader Middle east was simply awash with exiles and refugees. But for that matter, from the 15th century on, so was Europe before, during and after the Reformation. How many of us remember this problematic grade school rhyme in 1492? You all pass. Most grade schoolers, though, are probably less aware that 1492 was also the year that Ferdinand and Isabella gave 80,000 Jews in Spain three weeks to either be baptized or leave. Ten years later, 200,000 Spanish Muslims got the same ultimatum. Of course, in Eastern Europe, Muslim expansion provoked many non Muslims to flee those lands. Later on, Catholic and Protestant conflicts added to these waves of exiles and refugees. Borders shifted, the allegiances of princes shifted, then the borders and princes shifted back again. The lists go on and on for another two centuries, and everything flares up even worse worldwide in the 20th century until today, when the UN High Commission on Refugees estimates the worldwide total of displaced peoples as inaccessible excess of 100 million. So conflicts over refugees and exiles like we see in Ezra 4, are still with us today. Neither were these issues remote from the Protestant reformers, whom we remember every year around this time. The better sort of Protestant churches, churches, that's us will mark a Sunday near October 31, the day in 1517 when Martin Luther posted 95 theses to protest how the Catholic Church had strayed from its message and mission in its own day. I don't know if you've checked, but it's pretty much impossible to find a good Hallmark card for Reformation Sunday. It's also hard to find a Hallmark shop that could be part of the problem. Well, as Presbyterians, we certainly do honor Martin Luther's courage and leadership, but we also mark our distinctively Presbyterian legacy. That's why, with Ezra4 still very much in mind, I'm going to recount some aspects of the life, the work, and the teachings of John Calvin, to whom we trace much of our legacy. It may surprise you, but Calvin has something important to say about refugees and exiles in the Bible, in the Reformation, and in our own day. Now, if you've glanced at the bulletin, you'll find a thumbnail sketch of Calvin's life there, his early life. Let me simply add that Calvin was born in France and he was headed for the priesthood until his father had a change of mind and told him to study law instead. Either way, Calvin was always interested in reading the original sources, whether law or theology. He always sought a faithful understanding of what he read, and he was impressed by the witness of Lutheran other early Protestants. His conversion to Protestantism in the 1530s, though, was a quiet affair. We don't know much about it, but his open support for a Protestant friend in Paris forced him to flee Catholic France as a marked man, and Calvin would never again openly return. Some of his works were published under a pseudonymous to evade French censors. So Calvin lived out his days in exile in Basel and Strasbourg for a while, but mostly in Geneva. And while he had once fantasized about a quiet scholarly life in an ivory tower, oh, John, you're channeling me right now. That dream went up in smoke when the head pastor in Geneva challenged him to serve its own floundering Protestant church. Well, Calvin was a polarizing figure during his lifetime as well as ever after. And that's a juicy topic again, for some other time. He's abundantly misrepresented all over the Internet, but that doesn't really make him special anymore, does it? You're less likely, however, to find this remarkable fact. Calvin led Geneva to become one of Europe's most welcoming speakers cities for refugees in the 16th century. Dig around a bit more. You'll also see how his compassion for refugees stemmed. First of all from this. He was himself a refugee, and his adult life was deeply marked by experiences with persecution and exile. Now, Calvin's work as a minister in Geneva also sheds light on how we should think and act with respect to exiles and refugees. His ministry in Geneva began in 1536, but his pastoral leadership faced immense opposition from day one, including from the city fathers who had hired him in the first place. And there were two causes of opposition. First was Calvin's idealism. He labored long and hard to draw every citizen of Geneva into serious Christian discipleship. So in Geneva, church attendance was expected, as was learning the catechism. Vices were discouraged, including, see if any of yours show up here. Gambling, dancing, prostitution, unjust weights, singing lewd songs. Perhaps more controversial to us, however, if you were fighting with your spouse or with your neighbor, whether with cruel words or physical abuse, you could be called before a church council and urged to seek reconciliation with your spouse or neighbor. In fact, we know because we've got lots and lots of records from Geneva. These interventions often worked. Neighbors and spouses did indeed sometimes apologize and promised to do better. But there were many in Geneva who wanted their private behavior kept private, even when it was harmful. Now, a second cause of opposition to Calvin was the fact that Calvin was French. Indeed, most of the early pastors in Geneva came from France, but the city fathers and the leading merchants were all native born Genevans. So even though the city leaders had voted to leave the Catholic church, even though they had voted to invite Calvin to lead their church, there was still a lot of resentment. The lines of resistance were pretty much drawn as a rivalry between those born in Geneva and the immigrants from France and elsewhere, many of whom arrived as penniless refugees. The rivalry between native Genevans and these newcomers plagued Calvin for 15 years or more. But he remained true to his ideals even when the city fathers resisted them. One of his most notable commitments was his defense of the poor, which often meant immigrants and refugees. So, for instance, while there was indeed a general hospital when Calvin arrived, he fostered separate funding for a second hospital, looking especially to care for refugees. This so called French fund furnished refugees with food and clothing and bedding and even temporary lodging. Other funds similarly supported Italian refugees and English exiles. Calvin's advocacy for the poor and refugees led him in 1544 to lobby for jail reform so that poor. The. The poor would not have to pay to cover the cost of their own imprisonment. He expanded the role of deacons in his day, emphasizing the need to distribute alms and give aid to the needy. And he even lobbied the city fathers to appoint women as deaconesses. This is a huge innovation in his day that many objected to. He also sought to regulate what Genevans could wear. Now that's another rule that I'm sure we instinctively want to find intrusive. But many cities in Europe at this time had what are called sumptuary laws, laws that restricted wealthy citizens from exorbitant banqueting and excessive luxury in clothing. And I wish I had some slides to show you some of the excessive banqueting and amazingly luxurious clothing. So anyway, these laws really were not at all uncommon. But what makes Calvin's advocacy of special interest in these laws is his rationale. He called out the way well to do Genevans wasted money on ostentatious clothing. And he argued for at least some restrictions for this amazing reason, so that the poor would not be shamed for the humble clothing that they wore. Well, as you can probably guess, a large part of Calvin's work was his preaching and writing. That's another place we can see his concern for the poor and for refugees pretty much from the start to the finish. His best known work was called the Institutes of the Christian Religion. It was a small book in its first edition, but a very big book by the last edition in 1559. All the editions begin with an open letter to Francis I, the King of France, wherein Calvin declared his solidarity with all those who were suffering for the cause of the Gospel. And Calvin begged the good Christian king to come to their defense. But much as we saw In Ezra Chapter 4, Calvin also had to devote some words refuting local opponents in the person of French Catholics who were already claiming that these French Protestants were rebellious, seditious and given to violence, the same charges that we saw in Ezra 4. Clearly, French refugees faced one kind of rivalry in Geneva, but if they returned to France, the rivalry with Roman Catholics could prove lethal. Calvin was not likely to convince Catholic authorities nor the Catholic king that these Protestant dissenters deserved better treatment. But he definitely made it his mission to address the rivalry between native born Genevans and these newcomers from France. To fix this problem, he did what you'd kind of hope a minister of the Gospel would do. He turned to the Bible. And while the theme of exile is too thickly present in Calvin's writings and sermons to do it justice in just a minute or two, the main trajectory is not Hard to summarize. This is why I chose Hebrews 11 for our second reading. All these died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on this earth for Calvin, Every Christian is called to recognize that while our lives are brief, they are blessed with God's grace and God's promise of a richer life to come. In other words, if we understand the Gospel correctly, we are all exiles, we are all refugees awaiting the time when Jesus brings us to our true homeland. So if the native born Genevans would truly give a thought to Hebrews 11, they'd have to recognize that the exiles who've come to their city are not their inferiors, much less really their rivals. The notion that these French refugees were part of a great replacement, as some people might say today, that would have been regarded by Calvin as an obscene distortion of the gospel, because the Gospel places all of us on the same level before God. It's particularly as poor and needy that these French exiles were to be regarded not as rivals to the Genevans, but as equal members of the only family that counts, the family of God. It also needs to be added here. I think that while Calvin could lobby the city fathers of Geneva to support these refugees, as well as to support the team of pastors, he did not seek his own political power. And he by no means placed his unthinking trust in government. His own life as an exile and refugee was itself the product of hostile politicians. As a pastor of refugees, Calvin was a church reformer, yes, but he worked to nourish a refugee church. A church content to live in exile. A church defined not by its buildings, but by a gospel of reconciliation. You could call it a portable church. A church agile enough to flourish in faith and extend hospitality even when the city council balks, or when the king and his armies turn hostile, or when rivals rise up with accusations and slander. I'm pretty sure Calvin would cherish the same ideal for our church today. Now, before I end, let me just add that I am not trying to lionize Calvin. As if Calvin could do no wrong. Oh, no, he could definitely be grumpy. More to the point, despite his advocacy for refugees from all over Europe, I think we'll probably have reservations when we consider that some refugees would have been turned away, particularly those who rejected the reforms that Calvin and his colleagues were busy crafting. Some of those would have been militant Roman Catholics. Others were those whom Calvin saw sowing discord and chaos among the people of Geneva. So Calvin had yet another concern that he shares in common with Ezra. Is it feasible to help someone whose real aim is actually your own destruction? What sort of alliance can you make with those who want your city or your nation overthrown? We face these same hard questions today in our church, in our nation, and in the greater world around us. At the very least, advocacy for refugees also requires sober discernment. So while it's a fair question to ask whether we might do better in our treatment of refugees and exiles than Calvin did in his day, maybe there's a prior question. Not can we do better than Calvin did? But can we start by simply doing as well in our own day? We too are confronted not only with refugees in need, but but also with rivals. Some of these rivals name Jesus as Lord, yet they've forgotten that we are all exiles. Some of these rivals believe that a new Cyrus is at long last delivering from them, delivering them from exile and into possession of the kingdom. They're wrong. The glorious reversal of the gospel is that we are all exiles in this world, and this world is not our final home. And yet, precisely for that reason, we are called to a ministry of hospitality. We are called to recognize God's image in everyone we meet, rich or poor, citizen or refugee, and to offer them welcome in the name of Jesus Christ. I want to end this message with one of the most moving passages in all of Calvin's writings, a place where he addresses what it means to see the image of God in everyone we meet in strangers, as well as in our rivals and our enemies. So I'm going to invite you to stand and read this litany of response with me. I will read the italics. Please respond by reading the bold face. We are not to consider what people deserve on their own merits, but should rather attend in everyone to the image of God, because it is God to whom we owe all honor and love. Say these people are strangers. Say that they're contemptible and of no account. Say that you owe nothing for any service of theirs. Say that they're undeserving, that we should exert ourselves in the least for them. Now, if someone not only deserves nothing good from you, but has even done you injustice and injury, not even this justifies refusing to embrace them in love. You may say they deserve something far different. Yet what has the Lord deserved? Christ commands us to forgive them. Amen.