On Sunday, we heard the parable of the two sons invited to work for their father in the vineyard (Matt. 21:28-32). As Justin explained, Jesus was pursuing the priests and elders and urging them to repent. His parable was pointed directly at them. They were the son who had said “yes” to the father, yet not followed through on their commitment. The tax collectors and prostitutes, though, were the son who had initially said “no” to the father, yet repented later. These sinners would thus enter the Kingdom of God before the priests and elders, simply because they had repented, while the priests and elders had not.
Each group needed to repent of different sins. The sins of the tax collectors and prostitutes was obvious to everyone, but the priests and elders could not see their own sin, even though Jesus challenged them with it through his question (21:24-27). Before the parable, he asked them where John received his baptism and preaching. Was it from men, or from God? Their sin was effectively the sin of rejecting God’s authority, God’s message, and God’s messenger, specifically in the person of John the Baptist. They viewed themselves as the authority, and could not receive those that God sent into their life, including the Son of God himself. This was the sin they needed to repent of in order to enter the Kingdom of God.
It is easy for us to talk about the failures of the priests and elders, yet we rarely turn the questions of this passage on ourselves. In other words, we understand the historical situation, but we miss the voice of God. But if we read to hear the voice of God, these questions begin to rise to the surface, pushing hard against our pride and complacency. Do we receive the authority of God over our lives? Do we receive his message, as it is directed personally to us? Do we receive the messengers he sends into our lives?
As we examine ourselves, most of us will find some resistance to God’s corrective voice, his authority, and his messengers. It takes humility to let God examine us and correct us. And what is more, when he uses others to communicate this message, as he used John the Baptist with the priests and elders, we oftentimes bristle, wondering why we should listen to this other person, who is no better than us. Yet God oftentimes sends people to speak the truth to us. He is faithful, and uses his children to guide, correct, and refine each other. He longs to heal us, and is willing to do surgery on our hearts through his word to accomplish this. He sends messengers to convict, to instruct, and to encourage. In other words, his word doesn’t come in a vacuum; it comes from the lips of ordinary people.
As we grow in the faith, one of our prayers should be, “Father, do not let me miss the word you speak to me through your people. May my heart be humble enough to hear it, no matter who is delivering it!”
Steven+
Psalm 67
1 May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us,
2 that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.
3 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth.
5 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
6 The earth has yielded its increase;
God, our God, shall bless us.
7 God shall bless us;
let all the ends of the earth fear him!
This short psalm grabbed my attention this morning. The opening cry uses God’s own words, boldly requesting the blessing that God told the priests to pronounce over the people (Num. 6:24-26). By using the actual words that God gave the priests, it is almost as if the psalmist is saying, “I know you can’t refuse this request, because I am quoting you!” The assurance that God will actually bless his people shows up emphatically in verses 6 and 7. Twice we hear, “God shall bless us.”
We tend to think of blessing abstractly. Happiness, peace, fulfillment—it is hard to nail down exactly what we mean by bless. But it wasn’t abstract for the Jews. God’s blessing meant food, safety from enemies, freedom from sickness, a garden behind the house, and children around the dinner table. We see this concreteness in verse 6. It is because the “earth has yielded its increase” that the psalmist can say so confidently, “God shall bless us.” He might has well have said, “God is good, and will keep being good, because I had enough to eat today and my pantry is full!” Blessing may be abstract to us because we have more than we need of the things for which the Jews prayed. We have safety from enemies, good doctors and medicine, plenty to eat, nice homes, education for our children. We take these things for granted, and forget that they are God’s blessing to us, his face shining upon us.
But the psalmist isn’t asking for God’s blessing just so that his own life will be pleasant! This is what grabbed my attention as I prayed this psalm today. He wants the blessing of God so that God would be worshiped by every person on earth. If God blesses his people, somehow this communicates God’s “way” and “saving power” to other nations and peoples (v. 2). The result of this blessing is the cry that the psalmist repeats four times, “Let the peoples praise you!”
At the very center of the psalm is the reason for this desire. God is the judge and ruler of the earth. It is therefore right that the whole world would praise him. This is supposed to be the very core of creation’s response to the Creator. If we fail to worship God, if the nations fail to praise God, we have lost everything. This is why the first commandment is to worship God above all else. Worship is the beginning and end of a right response to God.
The first challenge of this psalm springs from this relationship between blessing and worship. Very simply, do I worship God because of the blessing of God in my life? Am I “glad” and do I “sing for joy” to him because of the food in my pantry, the plants in my yard, the children around my table, my physical health, and my freedom from enemies? Or do I just take these things for granted as normal life? But there is a second challenge that arises from the psalm—do I enjoy God’s concrete blessings in a manner that communicates God’s “way” to the people around me? Does my own use and enjoyment of food, safety, creation, and my family show my neighbors God’s salvation and goodness? Or do I enjoy these things merely for myself, with no regard for my neighbor?
As I meditated on this psalm this morning, the prayer that came to me was, “Father, thank you for the good things in my life. Let me enjoy them in a way that shows my neighbors that you are God! Let me share my blessings with them, and tell them that they came from you, so that they are more likely to worship you!”
-Steven
Song Spotlight
I love simple, sparse songs like this! We say and hear a lot of things in our liturgy, largely because we need God to transform our minds by his word. Still, our hearts need the chance to reflect and meditate on all that we experience in the liturgy. Songs like this offer us space to slow down and set our hearts to seek God’s face.
This song is simple, but it is not empty. It plants us in one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible (Ezek. 37:1-14). Ezekiel has a vision of a valley full of dry bones. God tells him to prophesy, and the bones will receive new life. Ezekiel does, and the bones shake and rattle, but nothing else happens. God speaks to him again: “prophesy to the breath.” Ezekiel does, and the bones rise together filled with new life. Ezekiel’s vision holds a promise for Israel. They had repeatedly forsaken God, and the result was exile and destruction. Israel is dead, but God will reach into their grave and raise them to new life. He will fill them with his own breath.
The Hebrew word for “breath” here is the same word for “Spirit.” When we sing “it’s your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise,” we aren’t just saying we’re glad to be alive. We pour out our praise because God has poured out his Spirit on us (Joel 2:28-29). We can sing because he has given us new life in Christ. Our sin, sickness, fear, and shame don’t get the last word. Even in darkness God’s Spirit cries out in us. Even when we are “bones” we can sing because God has given us His Spirit. We are not alone!
-Justin