Great Expectations (2)

Today’s verses are from 1 Samuel 6:1-7:2 and 2 Samuel 6:1-11. I’m going to do the unusual step this morning of not actually reading the passages for today. Just reading them out loud I timed to over nine minutes, and I don’t think any of us are quite prepared for that. I will attempt to summarize them, knowing that I’ll be skipping over a lot, so bear with me.

Before 1 Samuel 6:1-7:2, we are told of what happened after the Israelites had used the Ark of the Covenant as a war good luck charm, which failed. It was captured by the Philistines, the primary adversary for all of the book of Judges. They took it to their pagan temple of the god Dagon as a war trophy. Their statue of Dagon fell face down before the Ark of the Covenant. They lifted the statue back to its place. The next day it was face down again with its head and arms separated.

Then the males of that town developed tumors. So, they moved it to another town, which where the tumors also developed. Then they moved it to a third town, and the same thing happened.

This is where 1 Samuel 6:1-7:2 begins.

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Then it seems they left it in a field for seven months. No one is sure when, but it seems mice became an additional plague, and I find it reasonable that they became an issue when the Ark was abandoned in a field, where mice feed and gather.

As you can imagine, the Philistines wanted to know what to do. So, their priests and diviners came up with a test. They made 5 gold mice and 5 gold tumors, and put them with the Ark in a new cart. Then there were two cows that had just calved and had never been yoked harnessed to the cart. Then they were let go on a road which had multiple options, and only one of them was toward Israel.

Which is exactly where they went. When the ensemble arrived in Israelite land, the Philistines went away. The cows stopped at a big stone, where the cart was broken down turned into a fire, and the cows became a burnt offering to God.

However, not every Israelite in the area was so thrilled. One family decided that they were going to open the Ark of the Covenant…and they died.

With that the people who had just celebrated sent messengers to another town and demanded that they take the Ark away.

The people from that town did, and consecrated someone to be in charge of the Ark. It sat there for 20 years.

It’s pretty easy to look at the Philistines and say something to the effect of, “couldn’t you figure that out?”

We are all blind to many things. It is best to be humble.

Humility is not a highly-rated character trait. We currently like brash, confident, arrogant, condescending, belligerent people. Politicians, media personalities, even many famous pastors, and others don’t get attention by being humble. They will speak the words of humility, but it is not their character.

Humility, especially in regard to the matters of God is essential. We have a lot of answers. I think my theology is correct. That being said, I hold on firmly, but not a death grip, because I just might be wrong. Like you, I still believe that Jesus is the way the truth and the life. I understand that there are Christians who believe the same, and would even affirm the 16 Articles of Faith, the Agreed Statement of Belief, and Covenant of Christian Character, and yet we would disagree on many issues and much theology.

If we Christians, who believe the Holy Spirit enlightens believers to the Truth disagree, often severely, then we ought to be generous to those outside of our faith.

Unbelievers can hear from and obey God.

This might seem wrong to you, but priests and diviners of the Philistines and their god, Dagon, had both a clue on how to atone for their collective sin of coveting the Ark of the Covenant, and a test to make sure all was of God.

Humans hold onto the memory of their deceased children for years even decades. Animals are different. There is a switch, it seems, that the loss of their offspring leads into searching, questing, even aching for their lost or dead offspring. However, after a certain amount of time, the offspring is forgotten, for the continue search for of mourning of the offspring is detrimental to survival. That all being said, the cows that hauled the Ark of the Covenant were very much aware of their offspring, and made noise the entire journey. Were the lowing for their offspring? Were they lowing for God? I’ve seen arguments for both.

Some commentators speculate that the unbelieving priests and diviners were only following cultural norms, rather than hearing from God. Perhaps, though I’m sure each of us have witnessed at some point in our lives where an unbeliever acted in a way that seems to have only come from God. I am not so sure that God did not move through a pagan culture to reveal God’s self

Romans 1:19–20 “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God himself has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse.”

This passage exemplifies what we call general revelation.

Unbelievers see and can understand God through General Revelation.

General Revelation is available to all people by the very fact that they live within Creation as created by God, and that God is revealed in and through Creation.

It also would seem to presuppose Prevenient Grace, the grace of God that goes before us.

Unbelievers experience God through Prevenient Grace.

To be clear, I am over simplifying both General Revelation and Prevenient Grace, but I felt not touching on them here would do a disservice, because what we see from the Israelites in this story can be seen today among Jews and Christians. We have the Word of God at hand, whether by print or electronically, but do we have it in our hearts?

In our story, there are some troubling elements. The first we often miss because we don’t understand the cultural implications.

1 Samuel 6:14 “The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh, and stopped there. In that place there was a large stone. They broke up the wood from the cart, and offered up the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.”

There is a plurality of commentators who recognize the cultural and religious significance of a large stone. Such a stone was often the place of pagan worship. Despite this being in the era of the prophet Samuel, we read

1 Samuel 7:3 “Then Samuel told the whole house of Israel, “If you’re returning to the Lord with all your heart, then remove the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, direct your hearts back to the Lord, and serve him only. Then he will deliver you from the control of the Philistines.””

With that we can infer that the Israelites, including the ones that sacrificed the cows when the Ark of the Covenant showed up, were not worshiping God per the Mosaic outline.

Judges 21:25 “Back in those days, Israel didn’t yet have a king, so each person did whatever seemed right in his own opinion.”

Setting aside the king part, which is another issue, you can see the state of worship and the following of God, “…each person did whatever seemed right in his own opinion.”

While we can and should appreciate the hearts of these particular Israelites as they sought to worship God, we also have to understand that they were not following the entirety of the conveyed ways. While we Christians will often quote a verse similar to this

1 Samuel 15:22 “Does the Lord delight as much in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the Lord? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams.”

We Christians have argued about worship, sacrifice and obedience since the beginning of “The Way”. Congregations and denominations have divided regarding these. They are important issues, thus when we read about worship, sacrifices, and obedience in the Old Testament, they should prompt us to reflect on our own worship, sacrifices, and obedience.

If our worship, sacrifices, and obedience look like unbelievers’, is God delighted?

This isn’t about denominations, such as Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists, or Nazarenes, for example. It isn’t about worship styles. It is all about followers of Jesus. Was God delighted about the sacrifice and worship of the Israelites? Insofar as they opened the spiritual door of a right relationship with God, yes. The Israelites were still not fully where God wanted them to be, as the earlier quote from Samuel showed. Are we truly any different? Is there no way for our worship, sacrifice, and obedience to delight God more?

And, just because someone might misconstrue what I’m saying, this is not about earning salvation, God’s love, or God’s grace. It is about living rightly and progressively more rightly insofar as our relationship with God.

To put an added emphasis on worship, sacrifice , and obedience we can look at the descendants of Jeconiah. Depending on the translation, the gentle translation says that they did not rejoice along with everyone else. What can be perceived as the more literal translation is that they popped the top of the Ark of the Covenant and peeked inside. I tend toward the more literal translation, but the first translation isn’t particularly comforting either. The descendants of Jeconiah as a consequence of either not worshiping with everyone or opening the Ark of the Covenant, died.

Worship, sacrifice, and obedience are serious issues.

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After the deaths of descendants of Jeconiah, the people were not so eager and willing to have the Ark of the Covenant remain, so they sent messengers to another city to come get the Ark of the Covenant. That echoes the Philistines. It also echoes the church today. In the wider American church, there continues to be a leaning away from the mighty and true power of God, and what sacrifices and obedience is required.

The people from Kiriath-jearim came, and brought it to the house of Abinadab on the hill. Abinadab’s son, Eleazar was consecrated to be in charge of the Ark of the Covenant. Due to the phrasing, there is a strong implication that Abinadab’s house was also a place of worship, as it was quite the cultural thing to worship on high places, which puts us back to worship…again.

You’d be surprised, too, where hilltop worship and similar situations come into play. This church building is one of them. You are facing, mostly, East. The sun rises in the East. It is a longstanding church tradition, and it is also a cross-cultural and often cross-religion practice, too. Life or the sun, rises from the East, thus in life we face the East.

This is not to deny human tendencies toward worship, on high places or facing East, or saying that they are inherently anti-God. It is about being conscious to the decisions and what those decisions may convey to others.

So the Ark stayed in Kiriath-jearim for 20 years. It stayed through the reign of King Saul. And we have to remember that the concept of kings other than God are another indicator of worship, sacrifice, and obedience that does not delight God.

While God does not delight that the Israelites choose to have kings rather than God, God did often delight in the man who became king after Saul, David. Even so, the Ark of the Covenant remained at Kiriath-jearim. A few years into his Kingship, David finally chose the bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.

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2 Samuel 6:1-12 recounts that David took an entourage to Kiriath-jearim. The Ark of the Covenant was put onto a new cart. One son of Abinadab, Uzzah drove the cart, and another son of Abinadab, Ahio, went before the Ark, probably walking. David and the entourage were dancing, and playing all sorts of instruments. As the cart came to the threshing floor of Nacon, the cart lurched. Uzzah, in response, reached out to the Ark, and God killed him. David become upset, wondering how then the Ark could come into his care. In fear, David handed the care of the Ark to a man named Obed-edom. Where it stayed for 3 months, and God blessed the household of Obed-edom. Upon hearing about the blessings, David again began the task of moving the Ark into Jerusalem.

One of the modern problems with the Old Testament, even Rabbinical traditions have it, is that we don’t really know the bloodlines of Abinadab. The Bible does not say. The general concensus was that he was a Levite, but that may well be the theologians, Jewish and Christian, reading into the Scriptures. However, because it is accepted tradition, that is how we will be approaching it. Even impugning Levitical lineage onto Abinadab and his sons doesn’t remove all of the difficulties of our two passages.

In fact, whether the family was Levite or not, how God treated them was different than how God treated the Philistines, because the Israelites were to have known better.

There are greater expectations in how we treat God, because we’re to know better.

The Philistines certainly didn’t have the Israelite Scriptures, nor should we have any expectation that they did. While the people of today do have access to the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, still it is not significant to them, for it is not their belief system. For us on the other hand

Count Passages for…

Worship 336 (219 Old; 117 New)

Sacrifice 250 ( 173 Old; 77 New)

Obedience 264 (171 Old; 93 New)

If you really want a list of these, let me know. The verse count is more to show that there is a lot in the Scriptures. Meaning we might be able to gather some insight about these 3 topics. I also don’t know if this is an exhaustive list, as there are plenty of Scriptures which provide lenses through which we read the rest of the Scriptures. Many of our excuses, however, come from our minds, and not from the Scriptures.

There is also a deep truth, that we can gather from just comparing the Philistines and the Ark, and the Israelites and the Ark.

We are held to a higher standard.

Often, I as a pastor and teacher am reminded of Paul’s admonition that those who teach are held to a higher standard than those who don’t. What makes anyone think, however, that we are not held to a higher standard than an unbeliever, because we have the Scriptures?

Often our behavior in the world, and even our thought patterns, are the world and Jesus, or the world and the Holy Spirit, or the world and Father. Instead, it should be the Triune God then the world.

A number of years ago, there was a clothing brand called Not of This World. It was an attempt to bring Jesus to the world through identifiable, quality, and stylish clothing. That’s not a bad thing. The founder of the company at one point became a believer in Jesus Christ and then saw a lack of Jesus-centered clothing in the marketplace. He filled that niche. Many followed him. He shut down the business after a time. Now there are plenty of Jesus-branded clothes out there, but are the fulfilling a market, or are they fulfilling the mission. To be clear, Jesus isn’t the only one, being used, and such things cause me to be strongly sympathetic to the Muslim rules against depictions of their prophet, Muhammad.

If our clothing, often another sticking point in churches, even this one, is an issue, then perhaps we might want to rethink, from the very beginning, of what worship, sacrifice, and obedience.

We are called to be uncomfortable.

This includes, perhaps it even needs to start with our worship. Don’t misunderstand. Worship patterns can be good. They can be very good. Worship patterns are, for me, critical in my spiritual life. Yet, I also understand that a pattern can become a habit, and a habit can become empty.

These are questions we need to ask ourselves. Who we are, the stories that have made us, shape our worship, sacrifice, and obedience. What do we tell ourselves, what have we been told, in regard to worship, sacrifice, and obedience.

How do you:

Worship

Sacrifice

Obey

How did you come to choose those? Are they comfortable? Are they comfortably uncomfortable? Before I put the last question up, all of you who are writing, please put it all down. I’ll wait. I think that this question is so important that I want you to think about it before distracting yourself with writing it. Also, many of you who write, once the question is up and you have filled in the blanks, you start to get ready to go, which means you can miss something.

Is your discomfort just the right amount of comfort to think there needs to be no change?