The Park Forum - Cultivating sustainable faith through Bible reading, reflection, and prayer. -

June 7, 2022June 5, 2022

The Mountain of the Lord

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 2.1-2
1 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
2 In the last days
the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.
3 Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Matthew 17.1-2
1 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

Music: “Mountains” — Interstellar, by Hans Zimmer
Reflection: The Mountain of the Lord
By John Tillman

Mountains were believed to be places where heaven and earth overlapped or touched. Every religion in the ancient near east put temples on hills. Even if the “temple” was just a hasty shrine under a spreading tree. (2 Kings 17.10; Deuteronomy 12.2) Peter wanted to set one up for Jesus after the Transfiguration.

If there weren’t grand enough mountains, people built them. Towers, pyramids, and ziggurats reached toward not just the stars but the heavens.

Today, we don’t believe mountains touch heaven. Not exactly. But we do call our towers “skyscrapers” and we come close to worshiping those who dwell or work there. We are not so different from the ancients as we think.

Isaiah foresaw the mountain of God’s temple exalted and “established as the highest of the mountains.”

Jerusalem is already situated on a high point. Mount Zion’s elevation is 2500 feet. Geographically, however, it is not the highest mountain in the region. It’s neighbor, The Mount of Olives, from which Jesus wept over the city, tops it by 200 feet.

Is Isaiah speaking of a cataclysmic geological event, raising Zion higher than Everest?

Isaiah is speaking theologically, not geologically, but that does not mean there has not been a cataclysmic event. The cataclysm that overthrew the powers of this world was the cross. (Colossians 2.15) On the cross, Jesus descended to the lowest place and was raised to the highest. Jesus is the mountain, the Temple, that is exalted over all other gods, rulers, and authorities. (Ephesians 1.20–22)

We have only a foretaste of Isaiah’s promises. Jesus is exalted, yet we still languish. Humans glorify and enrich themselves through oppression. Powers rule over us. However, Isaiah’s promises will come to fullness. Every human leader holding themselves up for worship will have their legs cut from beneath them. Every oppressor will be thrown down. Every spiritual power will be crushed by the heel of our God.

In many images of the City of God, a river is depicted flowing from the city. In Isaiah we see a stream flowing uphill instead of down. It is a stream of people, from all nations, who are being drawn, against the gravity of this world, to Jesus.

Let our gravity be changed. Let every other “mountain” in our lives, by faith, be cast into the sea as we are drawn up.

“Come. Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.”
Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Sing praise to the Lord who dwells in Zion; proclaim to the peoples the things he has done. — Psalm 9.11

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 2 (Listen – 3:00)
Matthew 17 (Listen – 3 :46)

Read more about The Sin Which Fells Nations
From Isaiah we can learn that what looks like a great and powerful nation may actually be a spiritual wasteland of pride and greed.

The Sin Which Fells Nations

Read more about Way of the Cross
How uncomfortable does the suffering servant make you?
Everyone rejected the suffering Christ—even the closest of his disciples.

Way of the Cross — A Guided Prayer

June 6, 2022June 5, 2022

Wearisome Worship

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 1.12-15
12 When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
14 Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.

Luke 18.14
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Reflection: Wearisome Worship
By John Tillman

Many people struggle to feel welcomed by God. It is a frightening thing to think that we might trample God’s courts with worship that is annoying to him rather than pleasing.

Jesus went to great lengths to make it obvious that God would welcome sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, foreigners—those who made religious people uncomfortable. Yet, here in Isaiah and in the ministry of Jesus, we find that some of the nation’s most righteous-seeming people, the ones who should be comfortable, are rejected. (Luke 18.9-14) The most observant of rule-followers find God averting his eyes from their worship and stopping his ears to their prayers. Why?

Listening to Isaiah, it’s easy to forget that most of the kings he served under were good kings who, on the whole, were faithful to God. External indicators looked good. The spiritual reality was quite different. People attended worship in trampling mobs but few attended to the justice and righteousness God desired.

Here are a few heart checks for our worship from Isaiah’s warnings. (Isaiah 1.15-17)

Are you “clean?”
“Your hands are full of blood!”
This blood represents suffering for which these worshipers were responsible. What suffering have you caused or could have eased? Are you deaf to suffering? Are you hard-hearted? Are you closed-handed?

Will you repent?
“…stop doing wrong. Learn to do right…”
To stop doing wrong you must learn to do what is right. You cannot repent of what you claim is not sin.

Will you seek righteousness?
“…seek justice.”
Righteousness is not forcing others to live in obedience. Righteousness means surrendering your own sinful nature to be killed and replaced with Christ’s righteousness.

Who will you defend?
“Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.”
Will you take up the cause of the oppressed, the fatherless, the widow? Not only the oppressed people you are comfortable with but the ones who make you uncomfortable?

Who will you correct?
“Defend the oppressed.”
“Defend the oppressed” can also be translated as “correct the oppressor.” Will you confront the powerful? And not just your enemies? Will you confront friends, as Nathan confronted David?

When we misrepresent God outside his house, our worship within his house is wearisome rather than welcomed. Let us represent God well, including welcoming all those whom he calls to himself. Those who humble themselves will be exalted. Let us be among this group.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved. — Psalm 80.3

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 1 (Listen – 4:36)
Matthew 16 (Listen – 3 :43)

Read more about A Worn Out Welcome
When we go into the house of the Lord, is God glad we have come?

A Worn Out Welcome

Read more about Prayers God Hates
What makes our prayers detestable is our actions outside of worship.

Prayers God Hates

June 3, 2022June 2, 2022

Offal Leaders

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
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 Greeting
I am bound by the vow I made to you, O God; I will present to you thank-offerings;
For you have rescued my soul from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living. — Psalm 56.11-12

Today’s Readings
Malachi 2 (Listen – 3:12)
Matthew 13 (Listen – 7 :23)

This Weekend’s Readings
Malachi 3 (Listen – 3:13), Matthew 14 (Listen – 4 :14)
Malachi 4 (Listen – 1:06), Matthew 15 (Listen – 4 :23)

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

Read more about The Branch and the Branches
There are multiple reboots of the priesthood. Joshua is just one of them. Zechariah has a vision of Joshua… as a “burning stick snatched from the fire.”

The Branch and the Branches

June 2, 2022May 31, 2022

From Esau To Jacob

Scripture Focus: Malachi 1.2-3
2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord.
“But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’
“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, 3 but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

Matthew 12.48-50
48 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Romans 5.8
…God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Reflection: From Esau To Jacob
By John Tillman

“Esau I have hated.”

We may wonder: Does God randomly hate people? Am I one of those arbitrarily hated by God?

It is normal to struggle with difficult passages, especially those that have been misused. For example, some passages in Malachi 1, including this one, have been twisted to support slavery. Those who did this surrendered to culture and profit and selfishness, all the while proclaiming themselves wise, biblical, and superior. May we not make similar mistakes.

It’s impossible in a 400-word devotional to unpack a difficult passage like this. I won’t attempt it. Let us simply meditate on a few details from scripture.

“Esau” doesn’t mean the individual. God is using these names as collective nouns to speak to the descendants of these brothers, not the brothers themselves. We don’t do this much in our culture. The closest thing we might understand is using the name of a country’s leader to refer to actions of that nation. For example, “Volodymyr Zelensky” meaning Ukraine, or “Xi Jinping” meaning China.
God’s “hatred” isn’t arbitrary. It refers to justice for Edom’s actions—what they collectively did and continued to do. Esau, the individual, while reconciled to his brother, enjoyed God’s blessing. His descendants continually opposed Israel throughout their history and came to represent, poetically, all people opposed to God and God’s people.
God’s “hatred” is not absolute. Edomites are not arbitrarily cursed or hated throughout history or in totality. In many places, God implies hope for Edom. He shows he cares for them, gives them their own land, and commands that no Israelite should despise an Edomite. (Deuteronomy 2.1-8, 12; 23.7)
This statement’s purpose is to show love, not hatred. God speaks poetically to reassure his people. He points to justice done on their behalf, which proves his love. To Micah’s readers, this justice was the downfall of “The Wicked Land” (Malachi 1.4) that harmed them.

We can be assured of God’s love and justice. We are not innocent. Yet, we are not hated. We are loved. This is demonstrated in Christ as God turns “Esaus” into “Jacobs.”

God loved us when we were like Esau—sinners, rebels, and persecutors. (Romans 5.8) All of us have been children of Esau, but by God’s grace, we can become children of Jacob and brothers and sisters of Christ (Matthew 12.50). Through Jesus, we cry “Abba, father,” (Romans 8.15; Galatians 4.6; Mark 14.36) for “Jacob, have I loved.” (Malachi 1.2)

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living. — Psalm 116.8

Today’s Readings
Malachi 1 (Listen – 2:47)
Matthew 12 (Listen – 6 :41)

Read more about Identity Lost, Identity Gained
God, our father, longs to bless us…No one who comes to him will need cry, “Do you have only one blessing, my father?”

Identity Lost, Identity Gained

Read more about Running to Forgive
In this moment, in a limited way, Esau demonstrates the welcome of the gospel. The wronged party shows undeserved mercy.

Running to Forgive

June 1, 2022May 31, 2022

The End of Evil

Scripture Focus: Zechariah 14.6-9
6 On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 7 It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light.
8 On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it east to the Dead Sea and half of it west to the Mediterranean Sea, in summer and in winter.
9 The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.

Reflection: The End of Evil
By Erin Newton

In times of great tragedy, the weight of evil is unbearable. Hope can be elusive. Each new day feels darker. Sometimes, evil is inflicted upon us and other times it comes from our corrupted hearts.

Israel lost her way and became a community that abused power over foreigners and the poor. They indulged in sexual immorality and killed their children. They only cared about satiating their greed, lust, or power. This degradation of morality and breach of the covenant led them into exile.

Zechariah recalled how the people had sinned and God’s judgment as the consequence. They had already started rebuilding the city, the temple, and reinstating proper justice. Yet, it was still met with struggles from outside (Nehemiah 4) and from within the community (Ezra 9). In the depths of their grief, we can imagine their desire for a glimmer of hope. God tells them of the future restoration.

The final prophetic vision is a land of never-fading light that never grows cold. The preceding verses are harsh and jarring—possessions are stolen, women are violated. The message of this future hope feels out of place, maybe a little impossible.

Recurring tragedies can leave us with an endless sense of dread. We ask ourselves, Will this evil ever stop? Can we learn to love one another? Ourselves? Pain has a way of stealing hope. The weight of grief can drown out any optimistic thought of better days.

The last few weeks have been incredibly painful. Adults and children have been murdered at the hand of evil. Clergy sexual abuse had been covered up and victims shamed. Countless other tragedies in local communities and personal lives never reach the headlines. It is an act of faith that makes a sense of hope possible. We need to know things will be made right.

God gave us these glimpses into a brighter future because he knew our souls would grow weary. Like the Israelites, we are called to repent and return to the Lord. We can begin to reform our community, to enact justice, to seek peace, to create environments that cherish the lives of every human being. But in the end, it’ll never fix every wrong.

As we read through the prophets, let us remember that while it feels like our world is “always winter and never spring” God is coming to make an end of evil.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth tremble before him. — Psalm 96.9

Today’s Readings
Zechariah 14 (Listen – 3:52)
Matthew 11 (Listen – 4 :06)

Read more about Revelation of Love
Ultimately, fear is not what Revelation is about. It is about love.

Revelation of Love :: Love of Advent

Read more about The Urban Sprawl of the City of God
As we anticipate the ultimate fulfillment of this promise, may we participate in work God calls us to which fulfills it in part.

The Urban Sprawl of the City of God