Category Archives: Crisis

The Messianic Mission of Jesus (The Kingdom of God, part 5)

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This is the fifth installment of an article on the Kingdom of God.

Part 1 began with Jesus’s proclamation at the start of his ministry about the kingdom of God. Part 2 looked at Jesus’s sermon at Nazareth, in which he explained the nature of the kingdom he was inaugurating.

Part 3 shifted to the biblical backstory of the kingdom, beginning with the royal calling of humanity created to image God, including how we squandered our calling through sin and violence, culminating in the tower of Babel. Part 4 traced the story of Israel from Abraham to the Babylonian exile, with a focus on the theme of “rule” (power and agency).

Against the backdrop of the kingdom of God in the Old Testament, the current installment picks up the story with the ministry and mission of Jesus, leading to his confrontation with the powers in Jerusalem at Passover.

The Rise of Messianic Expectation

Israelite prophets during and after the Babylonian exile began to articulate an expectation of renewal for God’s people, which intensified as the first century approached. God was going to bring about a new age of righteousness and justice for Israel and for the entire world.

As the Isaiah passage Jesus quoted at Nazareth made clear (see part 2 of this multi-part blog post), the prophetic vision of social and personal healing that arose in the exile remained unfulfilled even after Israel was back in the land. Isaiah 58 and 61 both addressed the moral state of the people, which had not changed; they continued to be embroiled in sin and disobedience to God. So beyond the bare fact of return to the land, the rest of the prophets’ vision of restoration had not yet come to pass.

It was this lack of fulfillment that generated messianic hope in the centuries leading up to the New Testament. The term Messiah (lit. anointed one) is derived from the fact that the kings of Israel were anointed for their leadership role (1 Samuel 9:26–10:1; 1 Samuel 16:12–13). The hope for a Messiah (a royal leader, in the lineage of David) arose out of the obvious failure of the Israelite monarchy in combination with God’s promise that the people would once again have righteous leaders.

The dominant messianic expectation was of a new Davidic king who would unify the nation and cast off Roman oppression, yet ideas about the coming Messiah were actually quite varied: would there be one or two leaders (one royal, the other priestly); would the agent of God’s coming rule be human, angelic, or divine?

Despite this variety there was a consistent expectation that one day God would establish his righteous rule both in Israel and throughout the world. The coming of this kingdom would eradicate evil and restore justice for God’s people and among all the nations. Indeed, the entire cosmos would be renewed, such that this coming age could rightly be called “a new heaven and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17–25).

Jesus’s Confrontation with the Powers of Evil

It was this expectation for a radical reorientation of the world that set the stage for the ministry of Jesus, including his proclamation that the kingdom of God was at hand, his teaching about the kingdom (often in parables), and his embodying the kingdom in his healings, his exorcisms, and his forgiving of sins. Jesus both announced and demonstrated that the powers of evil were being overthrown, that God’s rule was coming.

But the powers of evil are never easily overthrown. Jesus encountered opposition throughout his ministry, which led to his crucifixion by a coalition of Roman and Jewish leaders, who considered him a threat to the status quo. Jesus was not, however, a passive victim of his opponents. His entire life and ministry were oriented towards this deathly confrontation.

The Messiah’s Destiny of Suffering

After three years of his public ministry, Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was. When Peter confessed that he was “the Messiah of God” (Luke 9:20), Jesus explained that his destiny (in contrast to most messianic expectation of the time) was not immediate victory over the powers of evil. His destiny was suffering and rejection at the hands of “the elders, chief priests, and scribes,” resulting in his death—followed by resurrection (Luke 9:22; this episode is recounted in Matthew 16:21–23; Mark 8:31–33; Luke 9:21–23).

Jesus understood that the Messiah’s destiny of the ultimate triumph over evil was grounded in his suffering on behalf of his people—a theme found in what are known as the servant songs of Isaiah. These prophetic poems, in that section of the book written during the Babylonian exile (Isaiah 40–55), affirm that Israel is God’s servant (Isaiah 41:8; 49:3), whose mission is to bring light to the nations and to establish justice throughout the earth (Isaiah 42:1, 4, 6). This understanding of Israel as God’s servant draws on God’s promise that through Abraham and his descendants blessing would come to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1–3).

Yet in Isaiah’s servant songs, Israel is said to be a blind and deaf servant who does not understand or obey God’s purposes (Isaiah 42:19–20), This leads to a distinction between the servant and Israel in some texts; there the mission of the servant of YHWH is to bring light not only to the nations, but also to Israel (Isaiah 49:5–6).

While Isaiah 50 mentions briefly that the servant will suffer before his vindication by God (Isa 50:5–8), this theme is explored in depth in Isaiah 52:13–53:12, the so-called Suffering Servant song. The New Testament understands this vivid portrayal of the servant’s suffering to be fulfilled in Jesus, understood as the representative of Israel (Matthew 8:14-17; Luke 22:35–38; John 12:37–41; Acts 8:26–35; Romans 10:11–21; 1 Peter 2:19–25).

Jesus Sets Out for Jerusalem

Soon after Jesus predicted his suffering and death, he set out to meet his destiny. Perhaps alluding to Isaiah’s servant who “set [his] face like flint” to endure opposition (Isa 50:7), Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).

As he journeyed toward Jerusalem, stopping in other places on the way, he twice more reminded his disciples of his coming death (first in Matt 17:22–23; Mark 9:30–32; Luke 9:43–45; then in Matthew 20:17–19; Mark 10:32–34; Luke 18:31–34); this was clearly on his mind.

In each case, his disciples found this difficult to comprehend; wouldn’t this mean the defeat of the Messiah? Even after Jesus reached Jerusalem, he again reminded them of his destiny (Matthew 26:1–2).

Jesus and the New Exodus

Not only did Jesus intentionally embrace his destiny, he chose the timing of it to coincide with the festival of Passover, when pilgrims were flocking to Jerusalem to celebrate the exodus from Egyptian bondage. But no-one in Jerusalem would have focused simply on that event in the past. Isaiah 40–55 had already viewed Babylon as a new Egypt and the return from Babylonian exile as a new exodus. The city would have been rife with expectation: would God act again to free his people from the latest incarnation of Egypt and Babylon?

Some centuries before Jesus, the Persians had conquered the Babylon empire and allowed exiled Jews (inhabitants of Judah) to return to their homeland; so technically the exile was over. But after Babylon’s defeat, Judah (now known as Yehud) became a province of Persia, After that came the Greek empire, and finally the Romans—all of whom continued to subject the land and people of Israel to imperial domination. It would have been impossible for Jews in Jesus’s day to separate the message of the exodus of old from the need to be liberated from Roman oppression. A new exodus was called for.

Continuing Bondage and Exile

The idea that Israel was still in bondage—even after return to the land—is expressed in the anguished prayer of Ezra, the Jewish scribe and priest, during the early postexilic period:

“Here we are, slaves to this day, slaves in the land that you gave to our ancestors to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts. Its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins; they have power also over our bodies and over our livestock at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.” (Nehemiah 9:36–37; see also Ezra 9:8–9)

The Babylonian exile was over, but the bondage to foreign empires continued unabated.

The problem, however, was not simply the external oppression of empires. The internal problem of sin had to be dealt with. The prophets had declared that the Babylonian conquest and the ensuing exile was a consequence of Israel’s disobedience to God (Jeremiah 32:28–35; Isaiah 42:24–25; 43:27–28). This was a fundamental difference between Egyptian bondage (which was not attributed to Israel’s sin) and the Babylonian exile (which was).

Ezra himself combined recognition of continuing national bondage with the people’s ongoing sinfulness. “From the days of our ancestors to this day we have been deep in guilt, and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been handed over to the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as is now the case” (Ezra 9:7).

Now, even back in the land, the moral state of the people remained unchanged; their sin still had to be dealt with.

As we shall see in the next installment, the problem of Israel’s bondage was greater than either the external oppression by empires or the internal sinfulness of the people.

Our Postmodern Moment: “Truth Is Stranger than It Used to Be” 28 Years Later

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Over the past decade, a number of people have commented that the book Brian Walsh and I wrote addressing the postmodern situation, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (IVP, 1995), seemed to be written for our twenty-first century context since it spoke directly to issues current in Western (and especially, North American) culture. (As a person from the Majority World, I would say that these issues are actually global.)

One of the comments about the book’s relevance came from Chris Stratton, the editor of an online journal for United Methodist pastors and theological students called Catalyst. Chris had recently reread the book and wondered if I would write an online article reflecting on the analysis from nearly thirty years ago, exploring its significance for our contemporary situation of tribalism and toxic polarization. He suggested the title “Our Postmodern Moment.”

Chris originally asked me in 2021, but I was too busy with other writing projects and deferred the article until Spring 2023. I say “article,” but it turned out that I needed to write three articles! Or, more accurately, a three-part article.

I retained Chris’s suggestion of “Our Postmodern Moment” as the overall title and gave the three parts descriptive subtitles. PDFs of each part may be downloaded below (the original links to Catalyst are no longer active).

1. Our Postmodern Moment, Part 1: Diagnosing the Problem

Part 1 revisits the analysis of the postmodern condition that Brian Walsh and I proposed, while fleshing it out in line with how I have been teaching these matters over the years (as part of graduate and undergraduate courses on a Christian worldview).

2. Our Postmodern Moment, Part 2: The Biblical Metanarrative

Part 2 explores some of the resources of Scripture for our current context in terms of how God relates to human subjectivity, agency, and disorientation (drawing on cues I have noticed in the biblical narrative through from my research and teaching over the years).

3. Our Postmodern Moment, Part 3: Christian Discipleship in a Polarized World

Part 3 was the most difficult to write, since I wanted to give practical guidance on how to live out the Christian faith in a toxic culture, which has often infiltrated the church. It is especially addressed to pastors and other church leaders.

Three Umpires

In Part 1 of the article I retell the story (quoted in Truth Is Stranger than It Used to Be) about three umpires explaining how they judge baseball games.

Three umpires were having a beer after a baseball game. One said: “There’s balls and there’s strikes and I call ’em the way they are.” The next umpire replied: “There’s balls and there’s strikes and I call ’em the way I see ’em.” The third umpire said: “There’s balls and there’s strikes and they ain’t nothin’ until I call ’em.”

This story, originally meant to be a joke, quite seriously illustrates different approaches to “truth” in our world today; it is particularly relevant to our so-called “post-truth” culture.

Parts 2 and 3 of the article return to this story to clarify the paradox of how Christians can legitimately claim a normative position (the truth is out there), while recognizing our ineradicably subjectivity (we only approach the truth through our perspectives). This paradox has implications both for how we read the Bible and for we relate to our neighbors with whom we may disagree radically.

I would be very interested in hearing responses from readers.

Sane Action in a Crazy World—A Meditation on Jeremiah 32

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Seven weeks ago, while I was in Australia as part of my sabbatical, I preached a sermon on Jeremiah 32 at St. Peter’s Cathedral, Adelaide. Of the four lectionary texts that week, I chose to focus on the prophet Jeremiah during the Babylonian siege, while touching on the other three texts (portions of Psalm 91 on God’s protection, a passage from 1 Timothy 6 on the dangers of wealth, and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16).

The actual lectionary readings were Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15; Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31. These four texts can be accessed here.

It has struck me that my reflections might be helpful to those struggling to come to terms with the current political situation in the US, even though it wasn’t written with this situation in mind.

Although parts of my sermon were specifically contextual, directed to Christians living in Australian society, most of the sermon is broadly relevant to what our response should be in a time of crisis. At one point I noted: “We feel under siege. Life has begun to get constricted; the walls are closing in. We need breathing room.”

I have reproduced the entire sermon below in this blog. Or you can download it as a PDF file.

  • Sane Action in a Crazy World
  • J. Richard Middleton
  • Sermon for St. Peter’s Cathedral, Adelaide
  • Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 25 September 2016
  • Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15; Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31

* * * * * *

The year is 597 B.C.

The prophet Jeremiah had been proclaiming the word of God to the people of Jerusalem and Judah for close to forty years; he’s an old man now.

But his words have fallen mostly on deaf ears.

Repent, he had exhorted them; change your ways; seek to fulfill God’s purposes in the way you treat your neighbour, and do not pursue your own selfish desires. Don’t just claim to trust in God, but bring your life into conformity with the claim.

Otherwise, you presume on God’s grace, and make a sham of true religion.

But Jeremiah wasn’t just a moralist, telling people to “act nicely.” He was calling them to covenant fidelity to God. He was calling them back to their fundamental identity as God’s people—a people with a vocation, a calling of exhibiting God’s rule to all the nations of the world—by how they lived.

And he warned of coming disaster. Initially, he spoke of an enemy coming from the north. Then later he put the name Babylon on this threat—Babylon, the great superpower of the sixth century B.C.

But the people ignored his message. The priests didn’t listen; the other prophets disdained him. His own family shunned him; various kings had him put into stocks or thrown into a pit, and the latest king (Zedekiah) put him in prison.

So here is Jeremiah, confined to the court of the guard in Jerusalem. Trapped; bound; constrained.

And wouldn’t you know it—his prophetic warnings have come true. Indeed, Zedekiah was only appointed king, ten years earlier, when the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem and the previous king surrendered as a way to save the city.

But now the end has come. Even the puppet king Zedekiah (placed on the throne by Babylon) has rebelled against his overlords, and the Babylonian armies have again marched on Jerusalem.

And there are the armies of Babylon, surrounding the city, settling in for a siege. Many Judeans in the countryside have already been killed. And the people of Jerusalem are panicked.

This is the end; Jeremiah knows it. The city will fall; the temple will be destroyed; many people will die; others will be taken into exile; they will become war refugees fleeing their land, which will be taken over by a foreign empire.

So Jeremiah is trapped, confined not just in the court of the guard; but even if he was let free, the city is surrounded. There is no way out.

* * * * * *

There may well be some of us here this morning who can identify with Jeremiah. Our siege may be different. It may be the breakdown of a marriage (maybe it’s been coming for ten years); or the loss of a job. Possibly it’s a financial crisis we don’t know how we will get through. Or it could be a betrayal by a friend. Maybe it’s a son or daughter who has disappointed us, rejecting all we hold dear. Or perhaps our own faith is fraying.

We feel under siege. Life has begun to get constricted; the walls are closing in. We need breathing room.

* * * * * *

Some of us are like the rich man in our parable (from Luke 16)—though we don’t like to admit it; we typically pay no attention to the suffering of the Lazaruses around us. Truth be told, we’re oblivious to them in the mad rush of our lives. As the reading from 1 Timothy puts it, in our “eagerness to be rich” we have “wandered away from the faith” (from faithfulness to God)—while remaining (respectably) in the church. Yes, that is entirely possible.

We don’t need Jeremiah—or anyone else—to tell us this. We are aware (if we’re honest) that we have (slowly, at first) begun to buy into the shallow values of this world, placing wealth and success above people and above compassion. Until we’ve bought in, whole hog.

And the result, to use language from 1 Timothy, is that we have “pierced [our]selves with many pains,” driving people away from us, leading to a shallowness of life that we are always subliminally aware of, only to push the thought away—until it comes back to haunt us in the dark hours of the night.

And we wonder how we can begin to extricate ourselves from these prisons of our own making. What can lift the siege?

* * * * * *

But there are others here this morning who can’t identify with the besieged prophet. Life seems pretty smooth for us right now. Things are going well. Investments are paying off. We’re successful at work, in relationships.

We could almost recite Psalm 91. It feels like we’re living in the shelter of the Most High, protected by the shadow of the Almighty.

Of course, we might not actually want to recite Psalm 91, not explicitly. Yet there are many in the church—and in society—who assume the posture of this psalm.

If we are good people (and, of course, we are), then God will deliver us from the snare of the fowler; God will cover us with his wings; and we won’t fear the terror by night or the arrow by day—all metaphorical language. But we know what it means. God protects good people (like us) from disaster.

It’s interesting that those putting together the lectionary left out the really extreme verses: “A thousand may fall at your side, / ten thousand at your right hand, / but it will not come near you. / You will only look with your eyes / and see the punishment of the wicked.”

Of course, none of us really believes that—that’s just too self-serving; and too arrogant.

And yet . . . if we are honest (if I am honest) we may admit that we try to sneak in some sort of magical idea of God’s protection of “us good people,” while (maybe subconsciously) looking down our noses at those “wicked” who suffer difficulty and disaster.

It’s interesting that archeologists have turned up a number of amulets, Israelite amulets that Israelites wore to fend off evil, that have verses from Psalm 91 inscribed on them.

It goes pretty deep, this magical idea that we can somehow be protected from trouble, that we are immune to disaster.

* * * * * *

But no-one is immune; not Jeremiah (who was a righteous prophet), not us (with all our moral ambiguity), not even Jesus. You do know about the cross—this Roman instrument of torture that he was executed on?

In fact, two of the verses missing from our Psalm 91 lectionary reading were quoted by the devil to Jesus in the wilderness: God “will command his angels concerning you / to guard you in all your ways. / On their hands they will bear you up, / so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”

And do you remember Jesus’s response? “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Because he knew that the servant of the Lord, the one who wants to be faithful to God, cannot live immune to suffering.

* * * * * *

The question before us this morning is not how to avoid suffering, but what do you do when the walls are closing in? It’s not how to prevent disaster, either personal (our own prison, in the court of the guard) or communal (with the siege ramps going up around our city); the question is whether we give up hope in a time of crisis, when things look bleak, either for us personally or perhaps when our society seems to be crumbling—when priests are complicit in sexual abuse, when terrorists bomb marketplaces, when little girls like Tiahliegh Palmer go missing and then turn up dead, discovered by fishermen.

This is a world in which aboriginal peoples do not receive justice, where race and class and wealth tilt the balance against so many; this is a world where—to put it bluntly—Babylon seems to dominate the landscape, and the city of God is compromised by the power and weapons of this world.

So it’s way too late to ask how we can avoid suffering. The question is: what will we do in the face of a world wracked by suffering, a world out of joint with God’s purposes of shalom and justice for all?

* * * * * *

It was in such a world that Jeremiah received a word from God. Or, at least he thought it was a word from God. Because it was a very strange word.

He thought he heard God telling him that his cousin Hanamel was going to pay him a visit and suggest that he buy a bit of real estate off him, some land he owned in Anathoth, not three miles north of Jerusalem. Since this was land that the Babylonian army was occupying, and Judah was sure to fall to Babylonian control, the land would be useless to Hanamel. So, no wonder he wanted to palm it off on Jeremiah!

But then this very strange word was fulfilled. Hanamel came, just as God said, and offered him the sale. “Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord,” said Jeremiah.

And he goes ahead with the crazy deal. Jeremiah not only buys the land (that is overrun by Babylon), but he goes through the process of having the deed signed (with two copies) and attested by witnesses, with both copies kept safe so that future generations might know what he did.

But why did he do such a crazy thing?

“For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”

In other words, this was a radical act of hope in the midst of what looked like a hopeless situation. It was staking a claim on a future that looked closed off. It was affirming that God was not done with his people or with this world.

* * * * * *

And some of us have heard a word from the Lord; or we think it might be from God (it’s hard to figure out if it’s really God speaking or just our crazy ideas, sometimes).

Maybe we’ve heard a word suggesting some crazy, counter-cultural action—like stepping back from the rat race, putting the brakes on our climbing the ladder of success—to spend time with people.

Maybe with the adult son or daughter who has been pulling away. Could that be the word of God whispering in our ear to book a lunch date with them, to just find out how they’re doing, and show interest in their lives—no strings attached?

Or is that a word from God suggesting that we pay attention to our neighbour who has been going through a difficult time (that neighbour might be right beside us in this church, or down the street, or in our work place)? That neighbour might need financial help; or just a friend to talk to.

Perhaps the word we sense (is it from God?) has been prompting us to get involved in our city, entering the political process, to put into action our passion for justice and transformative change.

Maybe the word in our ear or in our heart has been suggesting that it’s high time we took seriously the racism in Australian culture, especially towards aboriginal peoples, and find concrete ways to made a difference.

Or is the whisper we hear telling us to pay our employees a living wage, to re-think the pay structure of our organization, so that people are treated with dignity and humanity, and not just as “workers.”

And, of course, God could be telling us something that no preacher could guess; but we know what the prompting is.

* * * * * *

What is the plot of land that God is prompting each of us to purchase?

What great or (perhaps) small action is God asking of us, that would be an investment in the future? That would be a signpost of hope in a world of corruption and despair?

Yes, this is a time of great upheaval, with climate change impacting many coastal peoples, including Pacific islanders. This is a world of political corruption and senseless crime; a world in which millions of refugees flee their homes, trying to find a safe place to live.

And we may personally be under siege.

The Babylonian armies may be encamped all around.

But precisely in this time of crisis God gives Jeremiah a word of hope: “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”

For this is the world that God loves, that Jesus died for. And God has never abandoned this world; God has never given up on us

“This is my Father’s world,” wrote a clergyman (in 1901) who lived not a hundred kilometers from my current home in Rochester, NY. “This is my Father’s world.” And he goes on to say: “And let me ne’er forget / that though the wrong seems oft so strong, / God is the ruler yet.”

And those words, like the words of the Lord to Jeremiah, give us hope.

But hope that is not acted on soon fades and dies.

Hope needs to be lived out, in concrete action.

And the claim that “God is the ruler yet” will not be believed—not even by ourselves—if we do not seek to manifest this rule in our lives.

And so the word of God comes to each of us, as it came to Jeremiah, saying: “Buy a plot of land.”

I know it sounds crazy. But if we are open to that voice, maybe some Hanamel will come to us and confirm the whisper we have heard, until—like Jeremiah—we just know that this is the world of the Lord.

And then we act on it.

Indeed, this may be the most sane action we can take in a crazy world.

Amen.

* * * * * *

The entire sermon is downloadable as a PDF file.