Humbling Nebuchadnezzar

  • October 19, 2020
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Daniel 4.28-32
28 All this happened to King Nebuchadnezzar. 29 Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, 30 he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” 

31 Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven, “This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. 32 You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.”

Reflection: Humbling Nebuchadnezzar
By John Tillman

Babylon is more than a historical empire. Babylon is the proto-typical symbol for all empires in rebellion against God. 

At the tower of Babel we first see the idea of Babylon. It is like the rebellion of the Garden of Eden written on a nationwide scale. “We will raise ourselves up to Heaven. We will not be scattered or conquered.” (Genesis 11.4) “We will be like God.” (Genesis 3.4-7) 

Throughout the cannon, writers reference Babel and Babylon when discussing spiritual or political forces that oppose God. For example, John refers to Rome as Babylon quite clearly, but John is not only writing about Rome in his own time. He uses Babylon as a stand-in so that we will recognize that he is writing about Rome and all future incarnations of power that will take up the mantle of Babylon in opposition to God.

In this same way, Nebuchadnezzar is more than a historical emperor. He is the proto-typical emperor of all kingdoms aligned against the people of God. This is part of the meaning of the dream of the statue which brings Daniel to great prominence. Daniel calls Nebuchadnezzar the “king of kings.” (Daniel 2.37)

When Nebuchadnezzar is humbled it is not just a warning for one king, but a warning to all future kings, emperors, and heads of nations. Humility will save you and your nation. Pride will destroy you and your nation. If only kings had ears to hear.

Despite surrounding themselves with the best and brightest, leaders often have a hard time learning. Nebuchadnezzar has multiple opportunities but the lessons don’t stick. Many leaders, like Nebuchadnezzar, will say the right things, but can’t bring themselves to do the right things.

Nebuchadnezzar commands that all people worship the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the God of Daniel, but he consistently returns to his prideful, arrogant way of life. This is why he is ultimately humbled.

Scripture and history are unclear on whether or not Nebuchadnezzar truly repented or just gave lip service to God’s greatness until he got the reins of government back in his hands. It is also unclear in our own day if our leaders’ words of faith or repentance can be trusted. 

Daniel prayed Nebuchadnezzar would humble himself and avoid humiliating tragedy, yet suffering and humiliation did come to the unrepentant emperor.
We pray unrepentant emperors of our day would avoid the humbling discipline of God by humbling themselves before him.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Let my mouth be full of your praise and your glory all the day long.
Do not cast me off in my old age, forsake me not when my strength fails. — Psalm 71.8-9

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Daniel 4  (Listen – 7:27)
Psalm 108-109 (Listen – 4:28)

Read more about Stories of Faith :: A Guided Prayer
Nebuchadnezzar’s response is that of an ego-driven, violent, positional leader projecting his own needs onto God. When we place our hope in human government, this is what we can expect.

Stories of Faith :: A Guided Prayer

Read more about The Thriving Tree
Jesus, the king planted by God upon Zion, is the tree that will thrive, bringing all the birds to his shade.

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An Undefiled Heart

  • October 16, 2020
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Daniel 1.8
…he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.

Reflection: An Undefiled Heart
By John Tillman

Pastors and teachers regularly turn to Daniel as an example of how to live undefiled in a culture that is radically opposed to faith.

Defilement, however, was a way of life for exiles. It was defiling to be a slave as every exile was. It was defiling to live among foreigners as every exile was forced to do. It was defiling to eat with foreigners as Daniel and his friends did. It was defiling to sleep with or marry foreigners as Esther did.

Consider that the story in today’s reading, about Daniel’s struggle to eat a diet of vegetables and water instead of the “rich food” from the king’s table, happens in the same country where Ezekiel begs God not to force him to defile himself by eating food cooked over human feces.

For Daniel and his friends, God gifts them with strength, health, and intelligence far beyond the other candidates, and this event is the beginning of their rise to prominence and power. For Ezekiel, God relents and allows him to cook his food over animal feces instead. It’s no wonder we teach about Daniel’s story more often.

I’ve never heard of a church doing an “Ezekiel fast” but “Daniel fasts” have enjoyed massive popularity. Some even suggest that this is how Christians should eat year round. It is clear that we’d all prefer Daniel’s kind of struggle to Ezekiel’s.

In a way, being personally defiled through their experience was a part of the exiles’ punishment from God and a path to their repentance and healing.

Our outer circumstances may not be in our control as exiles. We may be forced to serve evil governments as Daniel and his friends were. We may be sexually exploited as Esther was. We may be forced to swallow unclean things as Ezekiel was.

In all circumstances, we must seek God’s guidance as we attempt to live in way that is pleasing to him. And at times, like Daniel, we must beg for permission from governments and employers to follow our consciences. That the government may not relent, and we may be forced to eat what is given is a part of being an exile.

As we live as exiles we must seek God to determine, as Daniel did, where the lines may be drawn for us and how we can best adapt to keep our hearts pure, even when everything we touch or interact with in our culture is defiled.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
O Lord, I cry to you for help; in the morning my prayer comes before you. — Psalm 88.14

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Daniel 1  (Listen – 3:22)
Psalm 105 (Listen – 4:02)

This Weekend’s Readings
Daniel 2  (Listen – 8:45), Psalm 106 (Listen – 4:52)
Daniel 3  (Listen – 5:56), Psalm 107 (Listen – 4:12)

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We still don’t fully admit or understand the destructive nature of the sins of greed and power.

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Paul reveals to us that what is truly at the root of sexual immorality, is exactly the same thing that is at the root of greed—selfishness.

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Christ our Temple, River, and City

  • October 15, 2020
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Ezekiel 48.35
“And the name of the city from that time on will be: the Lord is there.”

Reflection: Christ our Temple, River, and City
By John Tillman

Ezekiel spends a huge amount of his text describing the terrors, the corruption, and injustice of the city of Jerusalem and its Temple. Then, in his final chapters, he gives us a vision of a new temple, a river, and a city to come.

This temple and city Ezekiel describes bear little resemblance to the temple he knew or the temples to come in the future. In just one example, in chapter 47, Ezekiel describes a river that flows from the restored Temple. The river grows deeper and wider, until it can no longer be crossed. When this river meets the Salt Sea, the Dead Sea, it makes it alive again, bringing back to life not only the aquatic life, but the entire ecological system.

If Ezekiel’s visions sound familiar, it may be because, in Revelation, John’s visions of God’s city and the river flowing from it are remarkably similar.

Just because God’s city and temple have only been seen by visionaries and prophets, doesn’t mean they aren’t real or accessible to us today. John and Ezekiel may not intend to show us a physical temple or city that we will ever see on earth, but rather something else entirely.

Perhaps the temple of Ezekiel has never been seen on Earth because it is not a temple built by human hands. Perhaps the temple Ezekiel sees is the same one Christ told the Pharisees could be destroyed and rebuilt in three days.

Christ himself is our temple. He is the gate, the doorway, through which we enter to worship. He is our priest, he is the offerer of the only sacrifice capable of covering our sin and our only mediator before God.

Christ is our river, flowing as the Holy Spirit into our lives, into our cities, into our dead, dry, and poisoned environments. His river-like spirit brings life to what is dead and healing to what is sickened by the waste products of our sins’ industrious and destructive revolution.

Christ is our city. He is our refuge and rest—our strong tower and protected place—our park of peace in the midst of a frantic and fracturing world.

We say, “amen” to these visions.

May we regularly enter the peace of this city, be nourished by this river, and be made righteous in this temple.
May the temple, the city, and the river of these visions come.
May we dwell in the city called, “The Lord is there.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. — Psalm 86.4

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 48  (Listen – 6:15)
Psalm 104 (Listen – 3:37)

Read More about Last Priest Standing
We can rest in the security of knowing that our eternal priest, Jesus the Christ, is forever working for the salvation of those who seek him and he is alive to intercede before God on our behalf.

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Read More about Hope Among the Traumatized
This river of living water from the Temple changes the entire environment, bringing life even to the Dead Sea.

https://theparkforum.org/843-acres/hope-among-the-traumatized/

Hope Among the Traumatized

  • October 14, 2020
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Ezekiel 47.8-9
8 He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. 9 Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live.

Reflection: Hope Among the Traumatized
By John Tillman

Ezekiel is unique as an exiled, suffering prophet without power or political influence. When Ezekiel speaks of his home it is with longing and sadness, as a place that he knows he will never see again except in his visions.

Ezekiel is processing his own trauma and ministering to the traumatized. Many prophets bore warnings of future catastrophe. Ezekiel ministered to those for whom, catastrophe was past and present. He often spoke of the future but much of his ministry was making sense of the past. 

Ezekiel’s audience was traumatized by the consequences of their own actions. He spoke to people suffering under judgment, those who had been unfaithful. He lived among and served rebels who lost a war and oppressors who became oppressed. 

With all of Ezekiel’s baggage, (traumatized, suffering, living among the corrupt, dominated by an evil empire) we might expect to find him embittered, angry, and insufferably judgmental. Wouldn’t we be? Yet, Ezekiel is, more often than not, a prophet of hope. 

Ezekiel did teach hard truths and deliver sharp and biting critiques. He pulled no prophetic punches, yet he still, with kid-gloves, delivers God’s messages of hope, love, and restoration.

Ezekiel has unique prophetic experiences. Ezekiel is often transported physically across distances to witness events that happen in Jerusalem and in the transcendent future. Ezekiel, in his visions, sees both the surface reality and the deeper spiritual activity. Rather than a separate spiritual plane, Ezekiel experienced an integrated physical and spiritual world.

Ezekiel gives us one of the strangest, most otherworldly images of God. Ezekiel describes a God so other, holy, powerful, and perfect that we can hardly imagine that he should care for us or that we are somehow expected to be images of him.

In one of Ezekiel’s final visions, water trickles from the Temple into the land, becoming a river. This river of living water from the Temple changes the entire environment, bringing life even to the Dead Sea. Jesus identified himself as this spring, this source, of living water. (John 7.37-39) 

We are, each of us, a temple of the Holy Spirit and the living water Jesus and Ezekiel described should flow from us. Traumatized rebels live all around us in a Dead Sea of failures and sins. From our lives may there flow trickles of hope, which combine into a river that brings to life the Dead Sea and brings healing to the nations.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Be still, then, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth. — Psalm 46.11

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 47  (Listen – 4:08)
Psalm 103 (Listen – 2:07)

Read more about A Temple for Exiles
God is measuring out a temple of living stones which rest upon the chief cornerstone of Christ.

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Ezekiel didn’t preach attempting to prevent the judgment of God—he already lived under it. Ezekiel is an exile. We have this in common with him.

Model of an Exile

The Gospel and the Year of Freedom

  • October 13, 2020
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  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Ezekiel 46.18
18 The prince must not take any of the inheritance of the people, driving them off their property. He is to give his sons their inheritance out of his own property, so that not one of my people will be separated from their property.’ ” 

Leviticus 25.13-17
13 “ ‘In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property. 
14 “ ‘If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other. 15 You are to buy from your own people on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. 16 When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what is really being sold to you is the number of crops. 17 Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the LORD your God. 

Reflection: The Gospel and the Year of Freedom
By John Tillman

The “year of freedom” refers to the system of Jubilee described first to those entering the promised land. It first divided the land equitably, and then ensured that ownership would reset after a period of years, each family receiving back property lost or sold, being released from indentured servanthood, and being forgiven debts.

For former slaves, this would prevent the foolish or unfortunate from becoming enslaved and prevent the greedy or fortunate from becoming oppressors. There is little evidence, however, that Israel ever faithfully followed the system of Jubilee despite agreeing to it multiple times. 

The brown-skinned authors of scripture did not write under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in order to endorse or condemn economic theories that would be created by white men centuries later. As much as partisans might like it to be, the system of Jubilee is not an endorsement or condemnation of collectivism or individualism. Many current economic and political practices have points of friction with scripture. 

Scripture challenges and convicts all man-made systems, governments, and economic practices of their errors and hubris. Approaching scripture with an eye toward self-correction rather than self-justification should be our default setting. 

The theological basis for the concept of Jubilee was that the land belonged to the Lord, not the people. (Leviticus 25.23) Therefore, since they were “aliens and strangers.” The people could “possess” the land with the Lord but could not claim to own the land and neither could their leaders.

May we pray over and reflect upon a few things described or implied by Jubilee and Ezekiel’s new city of God: 
We don’t own anything even if we possess it.
Equity is the default setting of God’s spiritual economy.
Leaders (princes) must set an example, creating fairness and justice.

Our prince, Jesus, sets our example. He owned everything but lived as though he owned nothing. He laid down his rights as king, taking up the cross. 
He had sympathy for the unsympathetic. (That’s us.) 
He canceled the debts of those who deserved no mercy. (Also us.) 
He restored those whose lives had been wasted by their own choices. (Us, again.)

The gospel challenges us to make every year, a year of freedom, granting forgiveness and freedom to others.

May we seek out unsympathetic failures and undeserving debtors and may we show them the same mercy given to us. (Matthew 18.21-35) In this way, we can make every year (even 2020) a “year of freedom.”

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Yours are the heavens; the earth also is yours, you laid the foundations of the world and all that is in it. — Psalm 89.11

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 46  (Listen – 4:49)
Psalm 102 (Listen – 2:45)

Read more about Unsurprising Oppression
“Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.”

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You spoke to the children of Israel saying there should not be poor among them. You instituted the Years of Jubilee and Sabbath.

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