Defilement, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction

  • May 23, 2022
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Zechariah 5.3-4
3 And he said to me, “This is the curse that is going out over the whole land; for according to what it says on one side, every thief will be banished, and according to what it says on the other, everyone who swears falsely will be banished. 4 The Lord Almighty declares, ‘I will send it out, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of anyone who swears falsely by my name. It will remain in that house and destroy it completely, both its timbers and its stones.’” 

Reflection: Defilement, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction
By John Tillman

Many of Zechariah’s visions are about cleansing and rebuilding afresh. Those returning from exile face a destroyed and defiled landscape.

It isn’t so hard for us to imagine something similar today. Millions of people have fled the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the cities and towns left behind have been bombed to rubble in ways not seen since World War II. Not only bombed buildings but mass graves await those who hope to one day return. Destruction and defilement.

Like post-war Europe, much of Jerusalem in Zechariah’s day would have to be reconstructed from the ground up. However, God isn’t only concerned with physical reconstruction. He wants to reconstruct the people’s faith, starting with their hearts.

God is and always has sought to deal with the corruption and defilement of human hearts. The mental, social, and physical damage we cause one another flows from inner corruption. When our cities are wicked, our hearts are the source. When our countryside is corrupt, our hearts are the cause. When Jerusalem and its walls and Temple were destroyed and burned with fire, it was because of their hearts.

As the new community of Jerusalem rebuilt the Temple, their homes, and eventually the wall, God was concerned that no spiritual defilement would be present. Zechariah sees a vision of a flying scroll that represents a curse. This curse will target those whose hearts seek wicked ways of prospering and will destroy their homes.

Zechariah’s “timbers and stones” language echoes some passages about physical molds in Leviticus. (Leviticus 14.35-45) Priests inspected homes with mold. If the mold spread, the first step was to remove only the affected stones. But if the mold returned, the entire house had to be deconstructed, “stones, timbers, and all the plaster,” and removed from the community. 

May we never allow ourselves to think we, or our culture, are immune to the rot of sin. In our individual lives, our churches, and the structures of our denominations and nations, we all face defiling influences from our cultures.

Defiling influences have to be fully removed to save existing structures. If small steps do not stop the seeping spread of defilement, more extreme measures are required. Defiled structures must be completely deconstructed and rebuilt.

Cutting out corruption is salvific. Destruction is not God’s goal. Reconstruction is. Take care to deconstruct and destroy only when corruption persists.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; early in the morning I make my appeal and watch for you. — Psalm 5.3

Today’s Readings
Zechariah 5 (Listen – 1:35)
Matthew 2 (Listen – 3:18)

Read more about Treasuring Our Temples
Through the Babylonian destruction, God did not allow the Temple to be defiled. He took the first step to cleanse it.

Treasuring Our Temples

Read more about What Time is It?
Our time is not so different…We see around us the elements of the song. Love and hate, war and peace, deconstruction and reconstruction…

What Time is It?

The Urban Sprawl of the City of God

  • May 20, 2022
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Zechariah 2.3-11
3 While the angel who was speaking to me was leaving, another angel came to meet him 4 and said to him: “Run, tell that young man, ‘Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of people and animals in it. 5 And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will be its glory within.’ 
6 “Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north,” declares the Lord, “for I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven,” declares the Lord. 
7 “Come, Zion! Escape, you who live in Daughter Babylon!” 8 For this is what the Lord Almighty says: “After the Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye—9 I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them. g Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me. 
10 “Shout and be glad, Daughter Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,” declares the Lord. 11 “Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. 12 

Reflection: The Urban Sprawl of the City of God
By John Tillman

The angel who has been talking to Zechariah leaves him. However, at some distance away, a second angel intercepts the first with an urgent message, sending him back. “Run, tell that young man…” the second angel says.

Zechariah is told that the new Jerusalem will have no walls. This may not seem unusual to us. Most of today’s cities have no walls. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, where I live, covers an area larger than the combined areas of Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island. It is over 9,000 square miles of cities grown right into each other…and sprawling more every month out into the surrounding countryside.

In Zechariah’s day, however, cities without walls were defenseless. However, the angel of the Lord says that he, himself, will be a wall of fire around the city and its glory within. This image links to at least two things. 

On Mount Sinai, God appeared in a fiery cloud of glory. The people were too afraid to go near the mountain, but Moses entered this fire and experienced the glory of God.

In John’s Revelation, the City of God, the New Jerusalem, comes down from Heaven and has no need of sun or lamps because the Lord himself will be its light. His glory will fill the city. (Revelation 22.5; Zechariah 14.7; Isaiah 60.19)

The angel tells Zechariah that God will send him to us in this fire-walled, glorious city. He will come and live among us and many nations will become God’s people.

God has sent Jesus to us in this manner and for this purpose. Jesus is the entrance into all that God has for us. He is the gate and the wall and when we enter, he shows us God’s glory closer than Moses ever got to see. This is an “already and not yet” promise. We can experience it now in part, as through a veil like Moses wore, but then we will experience it more fully.

God is writing an Exodus narrative for us today. Jesus calls to us to escape the cities, systems, and empires we now serve. “Escape!”, he cries. “Escape from Babylon!” Jesus calls us to live within the borderless, wall-less, ever sprawling city of New Jerusalem. As we anticipate the ultimate fulfillment of this promise, may we participate in work God calls us to which fulfills it in part.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading
Jesus taught us, saying: “The lamp of the body is the eye. It follows that if your eye is clear, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be darkness. If then, the light inside you is darkened, what darkness that will be! — Matthew 6.22-23

Today’s Readings
Zechariah 2 (Listen – 1:41)
Mark 15 (Listen – 5:16)

This Weekend’s Readings
Zechariah 3 (Listen – 1:48), Mark 16 (Listen – 2:34)
Zechariah 4 (Listen – 1:53), Matthew 1 (Listen – 3:29)

Read more about Christ our Temple, River, and City
Christ is our city. He is our refuge and rest—our strong tower and protected place…

Christ our Temple, River, and City

Read more about Hope Among the Traumatized
From our lives may there flow trickles of hope, which combine into a river that brings to life…

Hope Among the Traumatized

Who Stands Among Us?

  • May 19, 2022
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Zechariah 1.12-16
12 Then the angel of the Lord said, “Lord Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years?” 13 So the Lord spoke kind and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. 

14 Then the angel who was speaking to me said, “Proclaim this word: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion, 15 and I am very angry with the nations that feel secure. I was only a little angry, but they went too far with the punishment.’ 

16 “Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,’ declares the Lord Almighty.

Reflection: Who Stands Among Us?
By John Tillman

Zechariah records a strange nighttime vision. A man on a red horse waits among a stand of myrtle trees.

The mysterious figure of the man among the myrtles is also called “the angel of the Lord.” The angel of the Lord is a hard character to pin down in scripture.

Sometimes, as with the man among the myrtles, the angel of the Lord speaks for God, in the third person: “This is what the Lord says…” Is he just one of many angels who speak for God, like Gabriel or others? 

At other times, the angel of the Lord speaks as God, in the first person: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob…” (Exodus 3.6) Is he a Theophany, an embodied presence of God or a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ?

One of the unique characteristics of this particular appearance of the angel of the Lord is that he speaks to God on behalf of humans. “Lord Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem…?” (Zechariah 1.12) This rarely happens with other angels and is the strongest indicator in the text that the mysterious figure might be Jesus, our mediator, the third person of the Trinity. But it is still inconclusive.

We needn’t be too concerned that we can’t quite identify this Jesus-like figure in the myrtle trees when the disciples couldn’t identify Jesus on the Emmaus road. Just keep walking and listen…

Jesus is the perfect representation of God and the Holy Spirit is among us to show him to us. We have a more complete picture of what God is like than even prophets, like Zechariah, who saw dreams and visions of him.

To Zechariah, the man in the myrtles was a powerful and mysterious presence who announced a time of mercy and rebuilding. We too are connected to a powerful and mysterious presence. Today, mercy and rebuilding are announced not by a mysterious horseman but by the Holy Spirit who stands not among myrtles but among us. The Holy Spirit speaks as God, for God, and to God on our behalf.

Let us proclaim the message the Spirit will pass on through us. When we are in step with the Spirit, we too will announce mercy to those who seek God and rebuilding of all that sin has broken.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Small Verse
My soul thirsts for the strong, living God and all that is within me cries out to him. — Traditional (based partly on Psalm 42.2 and 103.1)

Today’s Readings
Zechariah 1 (Listen – 3:37)
Mark 14 (Listen – 8:37)

Read more about This Present Age
Teach us, Holy Spirit, that in this age and in this space, you have placed us and called us.

This Present Age—Guided Prayer

Read more about Resurrecting Goodness
We transition from Christ who walked around in a body like ours…to Christ whose Spirit walks around in our bodies prompting us to do good in our world right now.

Resurrecting Goodness

Give Careful Thought

  • May 18, 2022
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  • Erin Newton

Haggai 2.11-14
11 “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: 12 If someone carries consecrated meat in the fold of their garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, olive oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’”
The priests answered, “No.”
13 Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?”
“Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”
14 Then Haggai said, “‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the Lord. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.

Reflection: Give Careful Thought
By Erin Newton

Purity laws in the Old Testament are usually the part of the Bible we skip over quickly. The laws can seem arbitrary or absurd to our modern mindset. It can be a confusing mess as you start to sort out the defiling offenses and cleansing rituals.

The Lord asks Haggai to remind the priests of these laws. There are two parts to the question. First, can you take something holy and transmit the consecration to something else? Answer: No. Second, can you touch something unclean and transmit the defiled status to something else? Answer: Yes.

One of the beauties of the Old Testament law was that it kept people in constant consideration of their purity status. The laws, when properly followed and upheld, regulated where a person could go and if they could be socially and religiously active. There were laws to repair damaged relationships or purify oneself from an unclean status. Impurity was often not sinful but refusing to acknowledge that state and living carelessly of the law could lead someone into sin.

After decades in exile under the punishment of God, the tides were turning. The day of blessing was on the horizon. God wanted to ensure that the people took time to consider what led them into exile and guard against going down that path again.

Our tendency is to live in the moment. Careful consideration is not a habit that would describe most people today. We are no longer under the laws of the Old Testament, but we can learn from the warning by Haggai. The Lord intends to bless us and to give us life abundantly (John 10.10). But our lives must still be marked by careful consideration.

The grace of God gives us many freedoms in Christ. However, some “freedoms” can become a blight in our relationships. It is imperative that we consider how different voices, influences, habits, or decisions will affect us. We present our lives as living sacrifices but are we choosing to be in contact with something impure?

The law we still follow is to love God and love our neighbors. Anything that interrupts our love of God or love of neighbors is something that defiles our consecrated lives: envy, hatred, greed, sexual immorality, pride, apathy. Let us take time today to carefully consider if we are allowing impurity to take root in our daily lives.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading
Jesus taught us, saying: “So always treat others as you like them to treat you; that is the Law and the Prophets. — Matthew 7.12

Today’s Readings
Haggai 2 (Listen – 3:49)
Mark 13 (Listen – 4:32)

Read more about Emulating Christ’s Love
Proverbs 5.1-6 tells us about the adulteress. She wanders aimlessly. She “gives no thought to the way of life.

Emulating Christ’s Love

Read more about Separateness Not Superiority
The Spirit of Christ is within us and we are his body. We have Christ’s power to touch the unclean and make them clean.

Separateness Not Superiority

Beyond Second Chances

  • May 17, 2022
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Haggai 1.2-3, 13-14
2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’ ” 
3 Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” 

13 Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people: “I am with you,” declares the Lord. 14 So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God

“There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town. There are always second chances…” — Carolyn Arends, “Love is Always There” 

Reflection: Beyond Second Chances
By John Tillman

Haggai spoke to people returning from exile. They are at home, yet homeless, returning to a flattened, burned, destroyed city.

Haggai made an extreme demand. “We are here to rebuild God’s house, the Temple, not your houses. Stop building your houses. Build the Temple first.”  Unlike many other prophetic books, the people Haggai speaks to no longer despise the correction of the prophets. They no longer rebel against the message or call the messengers unpatriotic. They listen and repent. They put off work on their own dwellings and focus on making a place for God to once again dwell with them.

These men and women are the grandchildren of some of those who went into exile. Zerubbabel, mentioned by Haggai, is the grandson of Jehoiachin, one of the last of Judah’s kings. Jehoiachin was taken into exile because of his sin and Jeremiah prophesied that he would have no surviving offspring to sit on David’s throne. Non-canonical Jewish writings imply that Jehoiachin repented before God in captivity. (Jeremiah 22.24-30) God relented on the curse pronounced by Jeremiah. Not only did Jehoiachin have children, but Jehoiachin’s repentance led to the birth of the ultimate “Son of David,” Jesus. It is through Jehoiachin and Zerubbabel’s line that Jesus is born. (Matthew 1.12-17; Luke 3.27-37)

God goes beyond giving second chances.

Scripture is full of second chances, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh chances, and beyond. When Jesus told the disciples that they should forgive those who sinned against them seven times in a day and repented seven times, he wasn’t just speaking hypothetically. He was speaking historically. (Luke 17.3-4) Jesus may have been thinking about his own family history, but he absolutely was telling his followers to model their own forgiveness after God’s.

Haggai’s listeners had been forgiven so much, yet they were again forgetting to put God first. It’s so relatable. Haven’t we all found ourselves blindly pursuing our purposes rather than God’s? Haven’t we all had moments where we realized we were building selfishly?

God’s forgiveness is offered freely and repetitively, so long as there continues to be repentance. It’s not a once-and-done event, but a way of living. Let us remain responsive to calls for repentance from prophets in our day. Let us both offer and receive God-like forgiveness. Let us live in the land, homeless yet at home, forgiving and forgiven. Let us build unselfishly in ways that demonstrate that God dwells with us.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
You are my God, and I will thank you; you are my God, and I will exalt you. — Psalm 118.28

Today’s Readings
Haggai 1 (Listen – 2:39)
Mark 12 (Listen – 6:10)

Read more about Rumors or Repentance
John called religious people and everyone else to repent, including soldiers, tax collectors, and the poor.

Rumors or Repentance

Read more about Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Wretched
Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched
Weak and wounded, sick and sore
Jesus ready stands to save you
Full of pity joined with power

Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Wretched — Lenten Hymns