Offal Leaders—Readers’ Choice

  • September 28, 2022
  • /
  • John Tillman

Readers’ Choice Month:
This September, The Park Forum is looking back on readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, on June 3, 2022, based on Malachi 2.3-4, 9
It was selected by reader, Brian Bakke, Washington DC: 
“This reflection reminded me of growing up in and living in the city of Chicago where I was surrounded by corruption. I am a regular reader of The Park Forum so that I might gain wisdom.”

Scripture Focus: Malachi 2.3-4, 9
3 “Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. 4 And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord Almighty.

9 “So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.” 

Reflection: Offal Leaders—Readers’ Choice
By John Tillman

In their commissioning, priests had the blood of the sacrifices daubed on their ears, hands, and feet to represent their holiness. This marking of symbolic purity qualified them to speak for God, work for God, and lead the people.

Malachi describes a de-commissioning of unfaithful priests. Instead of blood that represented purity and life, the unclean feces from the animal would be smeared on their faces, representing impurity and death.

Normally this fecal matter, along with the skin and any other part of the animal not eaten or offered as a sacrifice would be carried to a location outside the community to be burned. In Malachi’s vision, the priests who dishonor God will be carried off with this offal.

God instituted the priesthood as a way of blessing the people. It was part of God’s fulfillment of his promise to bless the entire world through Abraham. For these priests, however, their part in that blessing was over. God even promised to reverse the priests’ blessings to curses.

However, there is still hope in Malachi’s vision. The disgusting image of the feces-smeared priests does not mean God is canceling the priesthood or the Temple or his mission to bless the nations. He’s just removing the sinful, the prideful, the corrupt, and the abusers of his people. God removes these priests so “that my covenant with Levi may continue.” 

In every age, not just the time of Malachi, God is displeased with spiritual leaders who misrepresent him. God promises to bring dishonor on leaders who bring dishonor on his name. However, God’s plan to bless the nations won’t be derailed by spiritual leaders who fail. 

We can make two mistakes when we are confronted with revelations of sin and corruption in spiritual leaders. One is to continue following/supporting these leaders. God smeared their faces with offal, but some keep trying to wipe it off and pretend nothing is wrong. Anyone can be forgiven. Not everyone can be reinstated. (Luke 12.48; James 3.1)

A second is to abandon faith in God because we lose faith in humans. God’s holiness is the reason these leaders are disgraced. We do not have to allow these “offal-smeared” leaders to cause us to stumble and abandon faith.

Rather than destroying everything, God’s purpose is to restore everything. Despite our shock at the removal of leaders, God’s covenant of life and peace through our high priest, Jesus, can continue.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
But I will call upon God, and the Lord will deliver me.
In the evening, in the morning, and at noonday, I will complain and lament,
He will bring me safely back… God, who is enthroned of old, will hear me… — Psalm 55.17

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Lamentations 3(Listen 5:10)
Romans 1(Listen 5:02)

Readers’ Choice is Here!
We loved hearing your recommended posts from the last 12 months. Which one helped you heal?

Readers’ Choice 2022

Read more about Priests of Life and Peace
God’s purpose is not to end the priesthood. Instead, through Christ’s sacrifice, he instituted a new priesthood for all who follow Jesus.

Priests of Life and Peace

Prayer for Outcasts—Readers’ Choice

  • September 27, 2022
  • /
  • John Tillman

Readers’ Choice Month:
This September, The Park Forum is looking back on readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, on March 8, 2022, based on Proverbs 27.8 and Leviticus 19.34.
It was selected by reader, David: 
“Amen, Thank you for this reminder of what our call is.  We can all pray.”

Scripture Focus: Proverbs 27.8
8 Like a bird that flees its nest
is anyone who flees from home.

Leviticus 19.34
34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Image: Today’s image comes from the painting, War Refugees in the Snow by Alfred Ost, painted in 1914.

Reflection: Prayer for Outcasts—Readers’ Choice
By John Tillman

There have been many crises in history that have caused waves of migrants, refugees, and immigrants to flee their homes.

Some of the largest refugee movements in history happened during World War II when from 1939 to 1959 approximately 20 million people fled Europe. Our current decade, however, has nearly matched that 20-year stretch. Approximately 17.8 million refugees have fled Ukraine, Myanmar, Venezuela, Syria, South Sudan, and Libya, since 2011.

Refugee crises will continue to grow as nations and prideful leaders continue to choose violence.

Welcoming the stranger is a consistent command throughout the Bible. One must work hard not to pick up on it, but some do go out of their way to avoid it. It may be normative in the world of politics to stigmatize, persecute, and ghettoize foreigners, but it is antithetical to biblical living.

Welcoming the stranger is counter-cultural, not only today but in its original context. The evil treatment Israel received in Egypt is the experience God holds up as the source of his commands to welcome and treat well strangers and foreigners. “As Egypt was, you must not be. As you were treated, you must never allow others to be treated. Do unto others as you would wish they had done to your ancestors.” (Exodus 22.21; Leviticus 19.33-34; Deuteronomy 10.18-19)

In reflection on the continuation of the Ukrainian war, the widening flow of refugees, and a sobering awareness that this conflict has the potential to encompass other countries, we pause today to pray for migrants, immigrants, and refugees.

Prayer for Outcasts
Lord, we pray, today, for those who flee. Aid their flight.
May they avoid danger, escaping the fowler’s snare.
May they find fair winds, lifting their wings and spirits.
May they settle among the branches of the righteous who are like trees, providing healing for the nations.

We pray for those who are called by God to welcome them.
May our hearts overflow with the love of God for his children
May our eyes see the image of God in each face
May rivers of living water flow from our hearts that will satisfy, not just their physical needs, but their needs for emotional shelter, food, and healing.

When they flee violence, let us show gentleness.
When they flee hatred, let us show love.
When they flee scarcity, let us sate them.
When they flee abuse, let us console them.
When they flee oppression, let us free them.

Music: “God Help the Outcasts” — Hunchback of Notre Dame

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of the ram’s horn.
Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises.
For God is King of all the earth; sing praises with all your skill.
God reigns over the nations; God sits upon his holy throne. — Psalm 47.5-8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Lamentations 2 (Listen 4:55) 
2 Corinthians 13 (Listen 2:19)

Readers’ Choice is Here!
Your recommended posts from the last 12 months have blessed us! Which one helped you overcome fear?

Readers’ Choice 2022

Read more about Abandon Human Vengeance
The tactics of human vengeance are escalatory. We always hit back harder than we were struck.

Abandon Human Vengeance

The Sins Behind Sexual Sins—Readers’ Choice

  • September 26, 2022
  • /
  • John Tillman

Readers’ Choice Month:
This September, The Park Forum is looking back on readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, on October 30, 2020, based on Hosea 4.1-3
It was selected by reader, Casey.

Scripture Focus: Hosea 4.1-3
1 Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites,
because the Lord has a charge to bring
against you who live in the land:
“There is no faithfulness, no love,
no acknowledgment of God in the land.
2 There is only cursing, lying and murder,
stealing and adultery;
they break all bounds,
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
3 Because of this the land dries up,
and all who live in it waste away;
the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the fish in the sea are swept away.

Reflection: The Sins Behind Sexual Sins—Readers’ Choice
By John Tillman

Gomer’s sexual sins of prostitution and adultery were not just an analogy for idolatry. The people of God were metaphorically and literally committing adultery and participating in prostitution as part of worshiping Ba’al. However, idolatry doesn’t have to involve sexual sin to cause similar damage.

When we read about sexual sins in the Bible, we need to take care not to automatically think of sexual sin as the only sin involved. Sometimes sexual sin is also a symptom or a tool of other sins.

The entire point of worshiping a fertility god or goddess in an agrarian economy is financial blessing. The sin behind the sexual sin was a desire to manipulate the economy. The blessing to be expected from Ba’al was a higher ROI.

Sex to gain power is a sin of lust, but it is a lust for power not for flesh. Sex in exchange for money or influence, likewise, is a sinful means to a sinful end. Sex to display power, such as rape or sexual harassment and abuse, is a sin of domination and control.

People commit today the exact same kind of sins as the Israelites who worshiped Ba’al in pursuit of better crops. When we are willing to kiss any ring, shake any hand, or endorse any person in order to gain power, get elected, make a deal, cut out a competitor, or monopolize an earning opportunity we are prostituting ourselves in lust whether or not there is sex involved. The Israelites attributed their profits and success to their efforts in worshiping Ba’al. We attribute our success to our “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.” It is the same sin of idolatry with a different object. 

Many times sexual sins are a symptom of other sins such as greed, selfishness, inequality, and oppression. Prostitution, adultery, and other sexual sins rise with poverty rates because the sins of greed and oppression create the circumstances under which women resort to prostitution and men seek dominance and control.

May we confess and weep over all our lusts, not just lusts of the flesh.
May we weep for our greed.
May we cry to be delivered from selfishness.
May we ache for healing for our addiction to power.
May we humble ourselves in repentance from our pride.
And, yes, may we turn in faithfulness toward a biblical sexual ethic that divorces sex from the abuses of sin.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Bless the Lord, you angels of his, you mighty ones who do his bidding, and hearken to the voice of his word.
Bless the Lord, all you his hosts, you ministers of his who do his will.
Bless the Lord, all you works of his, in all places of his dominion… — Psalm 103.20-22

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Lamentations 1 (Listen 4:44) 
2 Corinthians 12 (Listen 3:54)

Readers’ Choice is Here!
Thanks for sharing with us your recommended posts from the last 12 months. We always enjoy hearing from you!

Readers’ Choice 2022

Read more about Prayers God Hates
The sin at the top of God’s list isn’t adultery or any sexual sin…it is systemic oppression of the most vulnerable members of society.

Prayers God Hates

Clear the Old Growth—Readers’ Choice

  • September 23, 2022
  • /
  • John Tillman

Readers’ Choice Month:
This September, The Park Forum is looking back on readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, on June 14, 2022, based on Isaiah 10.33-34 and Matthew 3.10b
It was selected by reader, Brad, from Texas: 
“I found this devotional poetically crafted and incredibly dense with meaning: turning our impossibly sized enemies over to God, trusting Him to deal with them as we remain steadfast in our trust and devotion to the many dimensions of God-honoring character.”

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 10.33-34
33 See, the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
will lop off the boughs with great power.
The lofty trees will be felled,
the tall ones will be brought low.
34 He will cut down the forest thickets with an ax;
Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.

Matthew 3.10b
10b Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Reflection: Clear the Old Growth—Readers’ Choice
By John Tillman

I worked, for a few weeks, as a lumber surveyor’s assistant in the piney woods of East Texas.

I would drive a stake in the ground and then plow as straight a path as possible along a compass heading, dragging a long, smooth strip of hard plastic, called a “chain.” I wasn’t to turn to the left or the right. Unless it was impossible, I had to push straight through brush, bushes, or thorns.

The surveyor would step on the chain to stop me when the tape reached the stake. Then, I would drive another stake and wait. By tugging on the chain, he would signal me to continue straight or turn 90 degrees left or right. In this way, we marked off squares of wooded land, and calculated the value of its trees based on the ratio of “quality” trees to trees that were not useful or valuable.

In Macbeth, the wicked-hearted king is given a prophecy that he cannot be defeated until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane. Macbeth assumes he is invincible. For when does a wood travel?

Similarly, Assyria grew overconfident. Sennacherib knew God’s word well enough to twist its meaning in his threats to Jerusalem, yet he had no respect for God. He thought he was a god and all other gods were idols. He expected to overwhelm Jerusalem as easily as Samaria. Sennacherib’s army was an impossible, forest-like foe, covering the ground and overwhelming the land.

The foes we face don’t determine our fate. Like Hezekiah, we can turn them over to God. Isaiah promised that the Assyrian army would be cut down in a day. The “lofty” and “tall” trees would fall before God’s ax. 

In the ancient near east, trees were valuable and important—especially the highly valued cedars of Lebanon. Yet no earthly value or importance will stop God’s judgment. God’s ax “is already at the root of the trees.” (Matthew 3.10)

Instead of focusing on outward enemies we have little control over, let us survey our inner forest and the foes we find there. With sober judgment, let us clear the old growth, turning neither to the left nor the right, cutting down pride, selfishness, hatred, fear, greed, and lusts so that better fruits may flourish in the forests of our hearts.

“Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me out of all my terror. — Psalm 34.4

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 50 (Listen 8:42)
2 Corinthians 9 (Listen 2:26)

This Weekend’s Readings
Jeremiah 51 (Listen 10:15) 2 Corinthians 10 (Listen 2:45)
Jeremiah 52 (Listen 5:49) 2 Corinthians 11 (Listen 4:46)

Readers’ Choice is Here!
Thank you for your recommended posts from the last 12 months. Which one helped you understand scripture?

Readers’ Choice 2022

Read more about Uprooting and Replanting
People uproot thornbushes and burn them. Then they plant fruitful vines in their place.

Uprooting and Replanting

Two Roads Diverged in Barren Land—Readers’ Choice

  • September 22, 2022
  • /
  • Erin Newton

Readers’ Choice Month:
This September, The Park Forum is looking back on readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, on July 7, 2022, based on Isaiah 35:8a
It was selected by reader, Jon: 
“As a child, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost was my favorite poem, long before I had any idea of what it really meant. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it was about the poem that drew me to it as a kid, but every time I read those words, I am flooded with a feeling of childlike wonder. I don’t know, maybe it is Narnia-like in its calling to the road not taken…”

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 35:8a
8 And a highway will be there;
    it will be called the Way of Holiness;
    it will be for those who walk on that Way.

Reflection: Two Roads Diverged in Barren Land—Readers’ Choice
By Erin Newton

At the end of Isaiah’s long prophecy of judgment, the message shifts. A vision of the future—a vision of all things made right.

Isaiah describes God’s people like a caravan along a road in the wasteland. Distraught and downtrodden, a new path is cut through the desert.

One path is silent, cold, and stark.
The Way is filled with praise and joy.

One path is a road winding down into a desolate land.
The Way cuts through the wasteland leaving signs of life along the way.

One path is burdensome and hard, a place where strength and hearts fail.
The Way whispers, “Peace, be still. He is coming to save.”

One path is often difficult; strength and ability are stolen away.
            The Way makes one whole; it heals the body and soul.

One path is deadly; there is nothing to sustain life.
            The Way turns death into life; it has everything needed to thrive.

One path is traveled by wicked and dangerous people.
            The Way is filled with redeemed travelers singing songs of praise.

One path is marked by hopeless sorrow and afflicted groans.
            The Way bestows burgeoning gladness and eternal joy.

Like the poem by Robert Frost, two roads diverge. To continue on our usual path would mean continuing in a fruitless journey, exiled from God. But how exactly do we step onto the path that leads to life?

When Jesus warns his disciples that he must leave soon to return to the Father, Thomas asks for a roadmap to heaven (John 14). “How will we know the way?” Jesus simply replied, “I am the Way.” The path to life is through Jesus himself.

Even though Isaiah described a marvelous future promised to God’s people, we struggle to see this kind of utopian future now. The flowers are not bursting forth in song. The blind and lame and deaf are without healing. Ravenous beasts meet us on the road to harm us.

The Way of Holiness is a via dolorosa, a difficult path. Our Lord walked this path to redeem us from death. Let us take up our crosses to follow the Way.  It is not without hope.

We take the first steps of this new road paved by the blood of Jesus. The world around us still shows signs of desolation and despair but the word in the air says, “Peace, he is coming.” The Way is good.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him. — Psalm 62.6

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 49(Listen 7:15)
2 Corinthians 8(Listen 3:25)

Readers’ Choice is Here!
Thank you for your recommended posts from the last 12 months. Which one helped you forgive?

Readers’ Choice 2022

Read more about The Path of the Cross
A Christ who brings earthly victory enjoys near universal welcome…Everyone rejected this suffering Christ. Even the closest of his disciples.

The Path of the Cross :: A Guided Prayer