Sermon on Psalm 79; Luke 16:1–13 St John's 10am 30 September 2007
By Paul Stone
From Ruin To Restoration
Psalm 79
1 A Psalm of Asaph. O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. 2 They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the air for food, the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth. 3 They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. 4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us. 5 How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire? 6 Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name. 7 For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation. 8 Do not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors; let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. 9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name's sake. 10 Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes. 11 Let the groans of the prisoners come before you; according to your great power preserve those doomed to die. 12 Return sevenfold into the bosom of our neighbors the taunts with which they taunted you, O Lord! 13 Then we your people, the flock of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise. [NRSV]
1 A Psalm of Asaph. O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. 2 They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the air for food, the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth. 3 They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. 4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us. 5 How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire? 6 Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name. 7 For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation. 8 Do not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors; let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. 9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name's sake. 10 Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes. 11 Let the groans of the prisoners come before you; according to your great power preserve those doomed to die. 12 Return sevenfold into the bosom of our neighbors the taunts with which they taunted you, O Lord! 13 Then we your people, the flock of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise. [NRSV]
Luke 16:1–13
1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' 3 Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' 5 So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' 7 Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. 10 "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." [NRSV]
1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' 3 Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' 5 So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' 7 Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. 10 "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." [NRSV]
INTRODUCTION
We are continuing in our sermon series “In the Father’s hands” as we look at various psalms. I remember Jonathan saying at the start of this series that some of the passages we look at could be difficult and Alan saying that he had drawn the short straw with psalm 14. Well I think I’ve drawn an even shorter straw with Psalm 79 and not only that, the accompanying gospel passage from Luke 16, Jesus’ parable of the “dishonest steward” is not easy either. Anyway, let’s turn to Psalm 79 v 1 – 9 on page 597 and try and see what God has to say to us from it.
WHAT IT MEANT THEN – UNDERSTANDING THE PASSAGE
In its Old Testament context, the psalm is about the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 587 BC by the Babylonian army of King Nebuchadnezzar.
The psalmist, a descendant of Asaph, one of the Temple musicians, may well have been there and been caught up in the carnage and destruction and is now an exile in Babylon where he pours out his horror and outrage to God. “O God look what the nations have done to Your city, Your Temple, Your people. Jerusalem is in ruins, the Temple is defiled and those of us who are left are in exile, derided, mocked and taunted by those around us."
As a member of the Levitical priesthood this descendant of Asaph would be well versed in the Old Testament scriptures. He would remember the various warnings God gave through Moses and the prophets that the Israelites, God’s chosen people, had a choice. If they inclined their hearts to follow God and walk in His ways and follow His laws they would live and experience God’s blessing, but if their hearts turned away to worship other gods then they would perish. The psalmist would remember Israel’s history. That time and time again they turned away from God’s ways and worshipped other gods. Yet time and time again God in His love, sought to bring them back to Himself, warning them through the prophets what would happen. For a while, after such a warning, the people would return, but sooner or later they rebelled and turned away again. Has God had enough this time? What is to become of us? Is God so angry with us that this is the end? Has he cancelled His covenant with us? Are we no longer God’s chosen people? No longer under God’s protection? No longer in the Father’s hands? And yet, even in his despair the psalmist has not lost all hope for he still believes that God is righteous and will turn His anger on the nations for wreaking such destruction on His people and treating them without mercy. As he puts it in verse 7“…For devouring Jacob and laying waste his habitation…”.
For the psalmist would also believe and know from Israel’s history that God was a God of mercy and compassion. So he appeals to God to forgive both their sin and the sins of their ancestors and that God would save them. Why – because they deserved it? No rather that God name and character should not be mocked. That the surrounding nations should know that there is a God in heaven and that He is holy and righteous and has power over the affairs of men. For again even in his gloom and despondency, the psalmist has hope that God will avenge what has happened to His people.
Perhaps also at this time the psalmist was still in chains, a prisoner of the Babylonians, uncertain of his future and just like at the time of Moses he pleads with God to hear his and his fellow Jews’ cries and preserve them so that in the future there will be a people to give thanks to Him and praise Him.
WHAT IT MEANS NOW – APPLYING THE PASSAGE
So that was then. What about now. As I’ve said on previous occasions when we’ve looked at the Old Testament, it is not written about us, but it is written for us. So what principles can we learn from such a psalm that are applicable today? Can our New Testament passage help us understand it in the light of Jesus, God’s living word?
At its heart this is a psalm about God’s people in ruin and despair. They have been crushed by the world around them. They have been shamed in the eyes of the world.
Can that not seem like our experience today both from an individual and also from a Church community perspective.
Frequently the Church is under attack. In preparation for this sermon I did a search of the BBC news website and it didn’t take long to find many number of news items where the church and Christians are under attack from the advance of secularism and prevalence of other beliefs within our society. Not only is the Church under attack from without but it is also shamed by the behaviour of some in what the world sees as the Church. Sexual sins, fraud, even murder such that today, just as like in the psalmist’s time, God and his people are variously seen as divisive, derisive, hypocritical or irrelevant to today’s society and its need.
Not only can the Church appear in ruins, but so too can the lives of individual Christians. We can find ourselves under attack from colleagues at work, classmates at school or college. We can find that actually our lives are lives of shame, that don’t live up to even our standards, let alone God’s with persistent sins, broken relationships, regrets and failed dreams. Although God calls us to be His temple, His dwelling place, we can feel that, like the temple in Jerusalem our spiritual heart can feel destroyed. God seems distant, non-existent or hidden. Perhaps we feel that God is angry with us for our failure. Perhaps that has always been our perception. Someone you try to please but somehow you just can’t and is it worth trying any more?
Perhaps our situation mirrors that of the dishonest steward in our gospel reading from Luke 16 on page 81. God like the rich man has given us as individuals and as a Church community, life, ability and talents to use for His purposes and just like the steward squandered his masters property we have squandered and wasted the life and opportunities that God has given us and now we are about to be dismissed from this life and we’ve got to give account.
So what do we do?
First let’s, like the psalmist, be real and honest with God and tell Him how we feel about the situation we find ourselves in. He knows what the situation is whether it concerns the Church corporately or our individual Christian lives. As we were thinking a couple of weeks back in psalm 139, God knows everything about us. There is no point pretending nothing is wrong when it is. God knows the truth, but He wants us to realise the truth about the situation as well, of the predicament we are in.
Secondly we need to come before Him in repentance, acknowledging not only our own sin, but as God’s family we have to identify with the failings of God’s people. This was something both Daniel and Nehemiah did perhaps remembering what God had said to King Solomon in 2 Chronicle Ch 7 v 14 “ …if my people who are called by my name, humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land”. I believe that God says the same to us today. I was particularly struck by one of the evening addresses at this year’s New Wine conference where the speaker reminded us that Jesus called the Church to be salt and light in our nation and that by and large we had not been salt and light. He then went on to say that we are at a time in Church history, certainly in the West, where the second part of Jesus saying is coming true “but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot”. I think that is true, for we are seeing this today, certainly within the established Church, that it is effectively being thrown out of our society and trampled underfoot as being of no value. Even here at St John’s do we have much impact, influence and involvement in our local community. Do we, in today’s language “Add value” or are we of “No Value”? So even if we consider from an individual perspective we believe we have addressed the issue of personal sin, we still need to identify with the failings of God’s people and if nothing else repent that as a Church we have lost our saltiness.
And how can that saltiness be restored? Can it? Is all hope lost? Have we blown it? Will God’s anger burn against us for ever? I don’t believe so. Because although God is angry with our sin, yet He loves the sinner. Not because we are sinners, but because He loves His creation and of who He is. As Kenny Borthwick, a minister said at New Wine a couple of years back “God loves you, because God loves you”. Isn’t that good to know, that God loves us whatever we’re like, whatever we’ve done. Not only that, but our New Testament scriptures tells us that God is in the restoration business. Jesus restored Peter to Church leadership after Peter’s life was in ruins having denied knowing Jesus three times. Jesus restored the lives of many whose lives had been in ruins for many years. The cripple at the pool – 38 years, the woman with the issue of blood – 12 years, the crippled woman with the bent back – 18 years. For just as Jerusalem was rebuilt and restored so God will rebuild and restore both His Church and our ruined lives. For in Jesus death on the cross, which we remember in the bread and the wine, God Himself identified, not only with the ruin of Jerusalem and shame of the Jewish nation, but He identified with the ruin and shame of our lives. As Isaiah wrote in Chapter 53 “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our disease; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all”.
The purpose of the parable of the “Dishonest Steward” that Jesus told his disciples is that ultimately they have a choice in life. To serve God or to serve worldly wealth (or Mammon). They would do one or the other but not could not do both. The psalmist wrote psalm 79 because although God had called Israel to serve Him, Israel had in practise chosen to serve worldly wealth and it ended in ruin. In the same way we too have a choice, God has called us to serve Him, to use the talents and gifts and what material wealth He has given us to further His purposes. Will we as individuals and a Church community here in Cove, wholehearted serve Him or will we, as I am all too conscience of in my own life, use what God has given us to serve ourselves so that everything is comfortable and meets our wants and needs rather than the needs of a broken world.
Jesus also makes the point in the parable that if God can’t trust us to be honest and faithful in the use our earthly or material possessions, for His purposes then how can He entrust us with true spiritual riches? I believe that if we want to see the richness of God’s blessing, both in our individual lives and in the life of St John’s, let’s, through the resurrection power of Christ, serve God honestly and faithfully, the one who can restore from ruin. For then we will have the assurance that we are safe in the Father’s hands.
We are continuing in our sermon series “In the Father’s hands” as we look at various psalms. I remember Jonathan saying at the start of this series that some of the passages we look at could be difficult and Alan saying that he had drawn the short straw with psalm 14. Well I think I’ve drawn an even shorter straw with Psalm 79 and not only that, the accompanying gospel passage from Luke 16, Jesus’ parable of the “dishonest steward” is not easy either. Anyway, let’s turn to Psalm 79 v 1 – 9 on page 597 and try and see what God has to say to us from it.
WHAT IT MEANT THEN – UNDERSTANDING THE PASSAGE
In its Old Testament context, the psalm is about the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 587 BC by the Babylonian army of King Nebuchadnezzar.
The psalmist, a descendant of Asaph, one of the Temple musicians, may well have been there and been caught up in the carnage and destruction and is now an exile in Babylon where he pours out his horror and outrage to God. “O God look what the nations have done to Your city, Your Temple, Your people. Jerusalem is in ruins, the Temple is defiled and those of us who are left are in exile, derided, mocked and taunted by those around us."
As a member of the Levitical priesthood this descendant of Asaph would be well versed in the Old Testament scriptures. He would remember the various warnings God gave through Moses and the prophets that the Israelites, God’s chosen people, had a choice. If they inclined their hearts to follow God and walk in His ways and follow His laws they would live and experience God’s blessing, but if their hearts turned away to worship other gods then they would perish. The psalmist would remember Israel’s history. That time and time again they turned away from God’s ways and worshipped other gods. Yet time and time again God in His love, sought to bring them back to Himself, warning them through the prophets what would happen. For a while, after such a warning, the people would return, but sooner or later they rebelled and turned away again. Has God had enough this time? What is to become of us? Is God so angry with us that this is the end? Has he cancelled His covenant with us? Are we no longer God’s chosen people? No longer under God’s protection? No longer in the Father’s hands? And yet, even in his despair the psalmist has not lost all hope for he still believes that God is righteous and will turn His anger on the nations for wreaking such destruction on His people and treating them without mercy. As he puts it in verse 7“…For devouring Jacob and laying waste his habitation…”.
For the psalmist would also believe and know from Israel’s history that God was a God of mercy and compassion. So he appeals to God to forgive both their sin and the sins of their ancestors and that God would save them. Why – because they deserved it? No rather that God name and character should not be mocked. That the surrounding nations should know that there is a God in heaven and that He is holy and righteous and has power over the affairs of men. For again even in his gloom and despondency, the psalmist has hope that God will avenge what has happened to His people.
Perhaps also at this time the psalmist was still in chains, a prisoner of the Babylonians, uncertain of his future and just like at the time of Moses he pleads with God to hear his and his fellow Jews’ cries and preserve them so that in the future there will be a people to give thanks to Him and praise Him.
WHAT IT MEANS NOW – APPLYING THE PASSAGE
So that was then. What about now. As I’ve said on previous occasions when we’ve looked at the Old Testament, it is not written about us, but it is written for us. So what principles can we learn from such a psalm that are applicable today? Can our New Testament passage help us understand it in the light of Jesus, God’s living word?
At its heart this is a psalm about God’s people in ruin and despair. They have been crushed by the world around them. They have been shamed in the eyes of the world.
Can that not seem like our experience today both from an individual and also from a Church community perspective.
Frequently the Church is under attack. In preparation for this sermon I did a search of the BBC news website and it didn’t take long to find many number of news items where the church and Christians are under attack from the advance of secularism and prevalence of other beliefs within our society. Not only is the Church under attack from without but it is also shamed by the behaviour of some in what the world sees as the Church. Sexual sins, fraud, even murder such that today, just as like in the psalmist’s time, God and his people are variously seen as divisive, derisive, hypocritical or irrelevant to today’s society and its need.
Not only can the Church appear in ruins, but so too can the lives of individual Christians. We can find ourselves under attack from colleagues at work, classmates at school or college. We can find that actually our lives are lives of shame, that don’t live up to even our standards, let alone God’s with persistent sins, broken relationships, regrets and failed dreams. Although God calls us to be His temple, His dwelling place, we can feel that, like the temple in Jerusalem our spiritual heart can feel destroyed. God seems distant, non-
Perhaps our situation mirrors that of the dishonest steward in our gospel reading from Luke 16 on page 81. God like the rich man has given us as individuals and as a Church community, life, ability and talents to use for His purposes and just like the steward squandered his masters property we have squandered and wasted the life and opportunities that God has given us and now we are about to be dismissed from this life and we’ve got to give account.
So what do we do?
First let’s, like the psalmist, be real and honest with God and tell Him how we feel about the situation we find ourselves in. He knows what the situation is whether it concerns the Church corporately or our individual Christian lives. As we were thinking a couple of weeks back in psalm 139, God knows everything about us. There is no point pretending nothing is wrong when it is. God knows the truth, but He wants us to realise the truth about the situation as well, of the predicament we are in.
Secondly we need to come before Him in repentance, acknowledging not only our own sin, but as God’s family we have to identify with the failings of God’s people. This was something both Daniel and Nehemiah did perhaps remembering what God had said to King Solomon in 2 Chronicle Ch 7 v 14 “
And how can that saltiness be restored? Can it? Is all hope lost? Have we blown it? Will God’s anger burn against us for ever? I don’t believe so. Because although God is angry with our sin, yet He loves the sinner. Not because we are sinners, but because He loves His creation and of who He is. As Kenny Borthwick, a minister said at New Wine a couple of years back “God loves you, because God loves you”. Isn’t that good to know, that God loves us whatever we’re like, whatever we’ve done. Not only that, but our New Testament scriptures tells us that God is in the restoration business. Jesus restored Peter to Church leadership after Peter’s life was in ruins having denied knowing Jesus three times. Jesus restored the lives of many whose lives had been in ruins for many years. The cripple at the pool – 38 years, the woman with the issue of blood – 12 years, the crippled woman with the bent back – 18 years. For just as Jerusalem was rebuilt and restored so God will rebuild and restore both His Church and our ruined lives. For in Jesus death on the cross, which we remember in the bread and the wine, God Himself identified, not only with the ruin of Jerusalem and shame of the Jewish nation, but He identified with the ruin and shame of our lives. As Isaiah wrote in Chapter 53 “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our disease; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all”.
The purpose of the parable of the “Dishonest Steward” that Jesus told his disciples is that ultimately they have a choice in life. To serve God or to serve worldly wealth (or Mammon). They would do one or the other but not could not do both. The psalmist wrote psalm 79 because although God had called Israel to serve Him, Israel had in practise chosen to serve worldly wealth and it ended in ruin. In the same way we too have a choice, God has called us to serve Him, to use the talents and gifts and what material wealth He has given us to further His purposes. Will we as individuals and a Church community here in Cove, wholehearted serve Him or will we, as I am all too conscience of in my own life, use what God has given us to serve ourselves so that everything is comfortable and meets our wants and needs rather than the needs of a broken world.
Jesus also makes the point in the parable that if God can’t trust us to be honest and faithful in the use our earthly or material possessions, for His purposes then how can He entrust us with true spiritual riches? I believe that if we want to see the richness of God’s blessing, both in our individual lives and in the life of St John’s, let’s, through the resurrection power of Christ, serve God honestly and faithfully, the one who can restore from ruin. For then we will have the assurance that we are safe in the Father’s hands.
Paul Stone © 2007