The Last Enemy

Psalm 48

 

“Surely, this God is our God forever and ever. He will guide us through death” (Psalm 48:14).

 

Psalm 48 is a national anthem praising Jerusalem, the capitol city. It represent the congregation of God’s people wherever they may be. 

Jerusalem was a safe place, isolated on a mountain plateau, protected on three sides by steep ravines, enclosed and guarded by massive towers and ramparts.

 

But the strength of the city and it's surest defense was God. He was was “in the city” (48:1). 

 

San Francisco is known for her Bay and bridges; Seattle for her Sound. Jerusalem was known for the fact that God was there. When Israel’s enemies saw him in residence they were shattered! (Psalm 48:4-7).

 

But the psalm ends on an unexpected note. The poet invites us to tour the city and take note of her strength and to “tell the next generation the story of God” (48:12,13).

 

And what is "the story of God"? "Surely, this God is our God forever and ever. He will lead us through death and beyond” (48:14).

 

What a strange conclusion to an otherwise straightforward poem about Jerusalem. But not when we understand the poet's train of thought: God dwells within the city to destroy all her enemies: “The  last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1Corinthians 15:26). When death comes for us God himself will be at our side to meet it, crush it and bring us safely through.  

 

“Poor death,” John Donne mused. “Thou shalt die!”

 

The Business of Love

“You yourselves know how I was with you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia" (Acts 20:18),

Off and on through the years I've dipped into George Herbert’s book on ministry, The Country Parson. It’s a wonderful work, full of practical wisdom, part of the Classics of Western Spirituality Library by Paulist Press.

I read this morning, “The Country Parson is a lover of old customs, if they be good, and harmless; and the rather, because Country people are much addicted to them, so that to favor them therein is to win their hearts, and to oppose them therein is to deject them. If there be any ill in the custom, that may be severed from the good, he pares the apple, and gives them the clean to feed on."

Then Herbert comments, by way of example, on an old custom among country people, namely walking in procession around their fields invoking God’s blessing on their crops. (Apparently some parish priests were disdainful of the practice.) Herbert cites four ”manifest advantages,“ to going along with the custom, chief among them is the love shown in ”walking and accompanying one another.“ 

Herbert continues: ”The country parson, far from condemning such assemblies procures (brings about or effects) them often, knowing that absence breeds strangeness, but presence love. Now Love is his business and aim.”

I think of Dick Langford—the Young Life leader that won my heart when I was in high school—showing up day after day on the school grounds and practice fields, attending our games, present in places we gathered. I marveled that Dick would hang with a bunch of high school kids. 

Now I know that his business and aim was love. 

David Roper

Unfinished

Psalm 57

I cry out to God Most High,

to God who will complete me.

He will send from heaven and save me…

God will send out his loyal love (Psalm 57:2,3).

David was hiding in a cave near the village of Adullam. Having played the fool in the Philistine camp he crept into a cold, dark hole in the ground to lament his shame (1 Samuel 22:1,2). 

We all make fools of ourselves now and then, each humiliation a reminder that vast parts of us are still unfinished. We are failed and flawed human beings and will be until God “completes us” (57:2, see also Philippians 1:6). 

But even as we decry our shame, as pleas for mercy tumble out of our mouths, God "sends out” a reminder of his loyal love (57:3). Though we are incomplete, all is well.  

Somewhere I read that Puritan women wore aprons that had two pockets: one contained a slip of paper inscribed with Luther's confession: “I am dust and ashes and full of sin”; the other with this assurance: “I am the apple of God’s eye” (Psalm 17:8).

Such is the paradox of grace.

David Roper

1.20.20 

The Band of Brothers

Psalm 54

“God is my helper; the Lord is among those who are with me" (Psalm 54:4).

According to the superscription, this poem was written "when the Ziphites  told Saul, 'Is not David hiding among us?'"

David and his mighty men heard that the Philistines were pillaging the farms and fields of Keilah. (Keilah was a small village in Judah, David's tribe. Ziph was the geographical region in which the city of Keilah was located.) 

So, "David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines...and struck them with a great blow. In this way, David saved the inhabitants of Keilah" (1 Samuel 23:1ff.)

The story continues: "Saul was told that David had come to Keilah," whereupon Saul mustered his army and marched to the city, thinking that he would trap David within it's walls.

Who informed on David? Well...the Ziphites, the inhabitants of Keilah, his friends and neighbors, the folks he delivered from the Philistines, proving once again the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished.

However, God warned David of Saul's advance and David and his men were able to slip away into the Wilderness of Ziph, where, though Saul sought him every day, “God did not give him into his hand" (1Samuel 23:14)—a happy ending that takes us back to the theme of the psalm: God was one among David's band of brothers, the hard men that kept him safe at night. 

And so, though ersatz friends will betray me, I have loyal friends at my side, and God is one of them—my help in time of need. 

David Roper 

1.20.20

Voices Low and Gentle

 

"The silver-haired head is a crown of glory, if it is found in the way of righteousness." — Proverbs 16:31:

 

I read Old John Keble's meditation for the "25th Sunday after Trinity" this morning and thought of you folks out there that shepherd God's flock. Here are Keble's thoughts and my glosses: 

 

Pride of the dewy morning! 

The swain's experienced eye 

From thee takes timely warning, 

Nor trusts the gorgeous sky. 

 

For well he knows, such dawnings gay 

Bring noons of storm and shower, 

And travelers linger on the way 

Beside the sheltering bower. 

 

Country folk know that bright, beautiful mornings can deteriorate and become clouded with "storm and shower." They don't presume that a day that begins well, will end well. 

 

E'en so, in hope and trembling 

Should watchful shepherd view 

His little lambs assembling, 

With glance both kind and true; 

 

'Tis not the eye of keenest blaze, 

Nor the quick-swelling breast, 

That soonest thrills at touch of praise-

These do not please him best. 

 

Good Shepherds are delighted when God's "little lambs" make a good beginning, but must wait and watch over them as they mature and never presume that they will grow beyond the point where they no longer need pastoral care.

 

But voices low and gentle, 

And timid glances shy, 

That seem for aid parental  

To sue all wistfully, 

 

Still pressing, longing to be right, 

Yet fearing to be wrong, 

In these the Pastor dares delight, 

A lamb-like, Christ-like throng. 

 

These in Life's distant even 

Shall shine serenely bright, 

As in th' autumnal heaven 

Mild rainbow tints at night,

 

Sheep, as they grow older, still long ("sue") for parental, pastoral care. Good shepherds will take delight in aging sheep that are pressing, longing for righteousness at "life's distant even." 

 

We take delight in young folks and their spiritual pilgrimage. In our enthusiasm for these lambs, however, we may think that older, more mature sheep, having made a good beginning, can make it on their own. 

 

But the hardest tests lie in the "even" of our lives. Older believers, though well established in their faith, remain "a lamb-like throng." They will always need a loving pastor to help them finish strong.

 

David Roper

Rain

Psalm 65

You visit the earth and water it;

you greatly enrich it;

the river of God is full of water....

—Psalm 65:9

Rain. We take it for granted. Or we consider it a nuisance, if we have a picnic planned. ("Who'll stop the rain?")

But David saw rain as a sign and a sacrament, pointing us to God's eternal love for growing things. Rain is God "visiting the earth" to water it and enrich it (65:9).

Showers sweep across the plowed ground, "watering it's furrows, settling it's ridges, softening the dirt clods, blessing it with growth" (65:10). Rain is God, walking through the earth like Johnny Appleseed, leaving behind His bounty: "The paths on which He walks overflow with goodness" (65:11).

Here's a dimension of truth that most folks have lost. It’s a vision, a perspective, a way of “seeing.” Put simply, it is the capacity to see "through" rather than "at" creation.

Nature is a signpost pointing to God, but tragically, most people only look at the sign. C.S. Lewis described our foolishness as a "dog-like" way of seeing. (If you point at your dog's food dish and say "Eat," he will stare at your finger, confusing the sign with the thing signified.) 

A little thing like rain reveals the face of God if we have eyes to see it. The little hills, the pastures, the valleys take in God's love. They shout and sing together for joy!" (65:13).

So should I!

Sweet the rain’s new fall

Sunlit from heaven,

Like the first dew fall

On the first grass.

Praise for the sweetness

Of the wet garden,

Sprung in completeness

Where His feet pass. —Eleanor Farjeon

David Roper

[Yes, I know, rain also brings floods, raging streams, stagnant ponds and anopheles mosquitoes. We don’t rhapsodize over the beauty of these aspects of nature. It’s because of the existence of such things, however, that we realize that something has gone wrong.]

The Pillars of the Earth

Psalm 75

When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants,

it is I who keep steady its pillars. Selah —Psalm 75:3

There is a panic-stricken reaction to crumbling moral foundations in Psalm 11 and the answering reminder of God’s guiding hand. Here, in this psalm, the poet supplies another aspect of God’s control of all things: He is a stabilizing influence within society. 

Theologians spell out this influence in terms of “common grace,” his gift of wholesome ideas and institutions that shore up society; and the influence of godly men and women. Ten godly citizens would have saved even Sodom (Genesis 18:32). 

We vote for the game-changers, the movers and shakers, those that can get things done. It is God, however, who establishes the human framework of a nation: "I myself keep steady her pillars" (75:3). He raises up rulers—good leaders, fools and naves—to get His work done. 

Here's Paul's take: "For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth" (Romans 9:17). Pharaoh? An uncouth, duplicitous, bigoted, unbalanced, narcissistic fool? I wouldn't vote for him if he was the last man standing! Yet God in His wisdom exalted this man to bring salvation to His people.

Thus the poet can say with reference to those who govern us, “Don’t  toss your horns at Heaven for exaltation does not from the east or from the west or from the south, but it is God who executes justice, putting down one and raising up another” (75:4 ,5). 

We vote, but God determines the outcome. That’s mystery and a comfort as I watch the evening news. 

David Roper