“So the Lord answered his supplication for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.”
– II Samuel 24:25b These words go back to somewhere around 980 B.C., toward the end of David’s reign. It’s interesting that all these years later, we’re yearning for a similar outcome here in America. 70,000 people had died in Israel from their plague (24:15). In our case, we have now passed the 500,000 mark in early 2021 and the numbers are still climbing. It’s a great tragedy; every single loss is significant. There are people I’ve known who’ve been very dear to me who have been taken by the COVID virus, and I know it’s a similar thing for others in our congregation and community. The Bible doesn’t give a step-by-step blueprint for ending a pandemic, but we do see a historical pattern that’s worthy of emulation as we face similar times. I see several things at the very end of II Samuel that make for good application today…
I’m hopeful that, likewise, we’ll come to the point where we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve certainly been through some tough times. But either way, we can thank God that He was not content to leave us in our brokenness. He sent His son, Jesus, to live among us – back in a time when the world was as bad as it’s ever been. Jesus came amidst hunger, and He found a way to feed the masses. He came amidst sickness, and He found ways to bring healing. And He came amidst violence, and He experienced the worst of it for the sake of our sins when He was killed on the cross. But then, of course, He rose up from the grave. And that, my friends, is a sign for all of us in our ultimate victory over death. With God’s help, we will find a way to make it through these tough times. God bless you, Pastor Andrew McHenry – First Congregational Church
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I found myself meditating on some different scriptures right after the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th (which was Epiphany Day on the church calendar). We also had just finished our online Bible study that morning. We had been looking at portions of Acts 22 and 23 – covering topics like defensive anger, religiously-motivated violence, organized death threats, riots, respect for authority, conspiracies against innocent people, inept leadership responses, etc. Right after it was over was when I got the call telling me about the riots in Washington, D.C. The timing of it all seemed providential.
And then I found myself looking at this line: “…you delivered me from the violent” (II Samuel 22:49b). It was part of a selection in II Samuel 22:47-49 that I had planned ahead of time to preach on for the next Sunday. And that made me think of the line from the Lord’s Prayer, which we pray each week: “…deliver us from evil.” There are two variations of the Lord’s Prayer in the New Testament. The most popular one is in Matthew 6:9-13. The one in Luke 11:2-4 is more abbreviated and lesser-known. Matthew’s version is longer because it records Jesus praying more explanatively, fleshing out what each line of the prayer means. The Lukan version actually ends with the petition that says “Lead us not into temptation” (or better “Lead us not into the time of trial”). But what does that mean? It means that we’re praying for God to deliver us from evil (or better, to “deliver us from the evil one”). To understand how this works each of us needs to be cognizant of the potential for evil within ourselves. Around Epiphany it’s common to study the narrative of the evil king Herod (in Matthew 2:1-23), who went to great lengths in trying to kill Jesus – seeing Jesus as a threat instead of a savior. The violence was a bit like the Sandy Hook shootings in 2012. It was cruel, murderous, and directed at small children. Douglas R.A. Hare, onetime Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, addressed it in this way: “Scoff not at Herod until you have acknowledged the Herod in yourself.” The rage that I’m so quick to judge in other people, I need to be careful of in myself. I’m susceptible to that rage too. And it’s stuff like that which leads to the violence that happened at the Capitol. I find this interesting as I turn back to the above portion of David’s psalm in II Samuel 22 (which, by the way, is nearly identical to Psalm 18). It’s a full-throated cry of praise: “The Lord lives! Blessed be my rock, and exalted be my God, the rock of my salvation.” I learned this line by singing it in a praise song at Christian youth camps years ago. But the praise is couched in a larger experience. Think of all the dangers and hostility David experienced in the preceding chapters of I and II Samuel. He reflected on his enemies: “…[you] brought me out from my enemies; you exalted me above my adversaries…” What’s interesting is that he doesn’t lament that he had enemies. He doesn’t try to wish them away. Instead, he sees them as part of God’s larger working plan. This is true in life. In order to get to where you can praise God enthusiastically, you have to go through some dangers and tough times. You may have to face some enemies. But it’s part of forming who you are; and it certainly was that way for Jesus. His enemies persecuted Him almost from the time He came out of the womb. And they eventually did put Him to a violent death – but then, of course, He rose up from the dead. And that gives us hope for pressing on in ages of violence and rage. God can protect us from outside threats. But He also seeks to protect us by cleansing our hearts of what is evil. And in either case we’re assured that His grace has the final word. God bless you. Andrew McHenry – Pastor First Congregational Church The approach of a new year is always an occasion to think about time. The calendar year comes to a close – and what a year it’s been. We never could’ve imagined things being the way they are.
Quite often when we get frustrated it has to do with time. The loved one died too soon. People didn’t meet the deadline. The bills came due and the money wasn’t there on the due date. Then an eviction date came. There are also the times when we expect changes to come but time moves on and they don’t happen. So we get frustrated. The Bible encourages us to rethink our frustrations with time. There’s a part of the New Testament looks at failed expectations and hones in on a thought derived from Psalm 90:4. It’s interesting to read that whole psalm to get a broader understanding. It draws from the experience of ongoing national frustration. Why has God allowed this to go on for so long? The writer responds by thinking of God’s sense of time. The days, weeks, months, and years of conquest, famine, pandemic, and poverty can seem like a lifetime. But it’s hardly a blip on the radar screen when you think about it in the larger span of things. So Psalm 90:1-6 gives these words… 1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 3 You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.” 4 For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. 5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; 6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. II Peter 3:8 paraphrases verse 4 of this psalm when he addresses the question of why Judgement Day hadn’t arrived yet. He says, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” In other words, God stands over the expanse of time. For Him January 10th of 2021 or 2022 is no more mysterious than it was in 2019 or 1919 or even 1019. God is not trapped in time; He is beyond time. Furthermore, God has his reasons for doing things when He does them that we don’t always know about. We don’t always understand why things happen when they do – but we can understand the truth of God’s character. His apparent absence isn’t a sign of indifference or carelessness. Rather, He is patient; not wanting anyone to perish, but wanting all of us to come to repentance (3:9). What seems like a delay is actually God working on our behalf. Thus we can count His patience for our salvation (3:15). This is important for Christians in our outlook on life. You can have two people who are going through the exact same things, but one person will get impatient, while the other person will trust God and be at peace (3:14). It might also help to explore this question: “Maybe this is happening for my own good?” We can do this when the situation is frustrating for us. It doesn’t apply to every circumstance but it does apply to quite a few of them – including those where we’re impatient and things aren’t coming together as quickly as we’d hoped. God always knows what He’s doing, and either way we know – through Jesus Christ – that He has the last word in the end. God bless you. Andrew McHenry, Pastor First Congregational Church November, being an election month, has brought a big focus on the U.S. Presidency. One question often comes up: Who was the greatest President? Washington and Lincoln are almost always the first answers, and after that it depends on personal preference. Conservatives will name Reagan and sometimes Calvin Coolidge. Liberals will point to JFK, FDR, LBJ, and sometimes Woodrow Wilson. And both sides will selectively pick what they liked about Theodore Roosevelt.
All of this makes me want to read the history books alongside the Bible, to see how God addressed the concept of national/political leadership. One of many places to explore is the 132nd Psalm, which focuses heavily on David – Israel’s popular king from 1010 to 970 B.C. He is often heralded with the same intensity and reverence that any four or five of our favorite Presidents would receive combined. People remembered David fondly because his reign was in the glory days of Israel; it was a strong, united monarchy at that stage of history. This nostalgia plays a part in Psalm 132, which is one of the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134). It reflects on the discovery of the ark of the covenant (not to be confused with Noah’s ark). It was an old worship artifact that had been long-neglected (132:6-7). We don’t worship with an ark today, and I doubt that any of us will ever be national leaders. But I see several significant teachings that can apply right now…
Yet ultimately we know that the covenant of David was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus had to go through some awful things as well – leading up to His violent crucifixion. But that was all answered by the resurrection, and today He’s our savior and Lord. He lives forevermore. In Him we have all our hope. Politics may be important, but they’re not as important as Jesus. Governing leaders will always come and go. But Jesus Christ is the Lord of all time. God bless you, Andrew McHenry, Pastor First Congregational Church of Oroville Every generation identifies with some tragic event. For my generation it was the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986. For my parents’ generation it was the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. And for the younger generation it was the September 11th attacks in 2001.
There are also regional tragedies that draw a collective resonance. Certainly the Camp Fire of 2018 will always be that way for Hillary and me. And back where I came from, the Topeka tornado of 1966 was an especially formative event. (It was before my time, but people sure talked about it.) And personally, I can remember the 1981 Hyatt Regency disaster in Kansas City. Two walkways collapsed over a crowded hotel lobby, killing 114 people and injuring over 200. I was 11 at the time when it broke on the news. With all of these, there’s both the tragedy itself, and then there’s the collective memory that develops. There are at least two spiritual dangers that come with this:
1) Pilate’s temple massacre was something like the violent crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Pontius Pilate lashed out violently against a group of Galilean protesters in the Jerusalem temple. It was an act of premeditated violence. And 2) The collapse of the Siloam tower, which killed 18 people randomly when it fell, may have been a bit like the hotel walkway collapse in Kansas City. It was a completely random accident. So one of these tragedies was man-made and the other was an unplanned tragedy. But Jesus’ response was the same for both of them… First, He refuted the people’s judgmentalism when He told them that the people who died weren’t any worse than they were. It’s not good to make theological assumptions about other people’s suffering. When it happens it usually reflects the prejudices of the accusers more than any real truth about God or the situation. God is not honored when people make such statements about Him (cf. Job 42:7-9). Second, Jesus twice redirected His hearers to think about themselves: “Unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:3,5). It sounds harsh and polemical, but it’s easy to lose sight of the opportunity that grace provides. For one, there’s opportunity in repentance. Repentance literally means a 180-degree turn. You’re turning from sin and turning to God. It means you’re going in a new direction. And the message of the gospel is that it’s never too late. Christ died on the cross for our sins. We put them behind us as we look ahead. And there’s also opportunity in not perishing. A few years a back I heard a woman share her testimony about being raised in a Hindu culture in India. She appreciated that religion, but she converted to Christianity after someone gave her a little Bible that highlighted John 3:16. She saw the words “should not perish” and that got her excited. That was what made her decide to become a Christian. She thought to herself, “I don’t have to perish!” It’s always exciting when that happens. God bless you, Pastor Andrew McHenry First Congregational Church of Oroville Back in the mid-1970s the Beach Boys were getting ready to release a new volume of their greatest hits. Their popularity had peaked back in the 1960s, but then their career had slipped into a lull. Mike Love, one of their lead men, came up with a great idea to rejuvenate things: Instead of calling it “Beach Boys Greatest Hits, Volume Three”, they could call it “Endless Summer”. It was a great album title. Love said this title probably made the album sell thousands of more copies.
It’s easy to see why it was a winner. Summertime is a really pleasant time of year. The schools are out. The brutally cold weather is months away. The phrase “Endless Summer” loaded with positive associations of beautiful beaches, California sunshine, surf boards, swim wear, hot rods, cool drinks, tropical places, etc. Back then the idea of an endless summer as a negative thing was far from anyone’s mind. These days we are enduring brutal heat, the worst wildfire season ever, smoke and danger – all that in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic with its social distancing and the absence of gathered worship. Many of the restaurants are closed or having reduced service. The news carries reports of death and dying. People are wearing facemasks and covers. And tempers are flaring. It was similar for the Israelites in the wake of the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. It all seemed endless: traumatic experiences of seeing the hometown destroyed by fire, of being forcibly evacuating into slavery in Babylon (now Iraq) – with all its accompanying displacement and losses of freedom. It seemed like a never-ending time of trials, burdens, and hardships. Part of the way God encourages people in these stages of history is to inspire a proper conception of time: “For a brief moment I abandoned you… In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you…” (in Isaiah 54:7-8). Yes, an awful experience can seem to go on for an eternity – but that’s different from God’s perspective. God always sees things in the big picture. So the accompanying words say this: “...but with great compassion I will gather you…. But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.” Regardless of their nature, life’s bad experiences can lead to troubling thoughts: “God’s abandoned me,” or “God’s mad at me.” Of course we can ask wonder if this is true. Just because things feel that way doesn’t mean it’s so. But even if we take it as true, Isaiah’s prophecy is telling us that it’s only a small slice of a much larger, positive experience of the character of God (in 54:7-10)…
To illustrate, Isaiah points to the experience of Noah in Isaiah 54:9. It looks back to the covenant God gave in Genesis 8:20-22 and 9:8-17. The most popular image that comes from this is the rainbow. God says it serves as a reminder: The mass destruction of life that happened before isn’t the big picture. There’s also a lesser-known image in the change of seasons, temperatures, a night/day cycles: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” These changes happen all the time; and they serve as a sign of God’s covenant of peace. So yes, the present reality is frustrating as it endures, with all the smoke, viruses, anger, death, and the toxic content in the air and on the internet. All these things will come and go. What’s true in the bigger picture is God’s steadfast love. How do we know this? We place our faith in the truth of Jesus: His resurrection followed the enduring violence of His death. And we observe the cycles of what’s always more enduring: Summer turns to fall, plants are harvested, autumn turns to winter, cold replaces heat, and a new year comes and the cycle resumes. God bless you – Andrew McHenry, Pastor First Congregational Church We’re living in a time of great tension. There are tensions in politics, tensions between different racial/ethnic groups, and tensions in other cohorts. Some draw attention to class divisions (wealthy versus poor), or demographic differences (e.g. rural versus urban, small-town versus big-city). Others focus on issues of nationality – like one’s country-of-origin, or citizenship. Still others focus on the so-called “red-state” and “blue-state” locations.
In times like these it’s important for those of us who are Christians to look at how the Bible addresses tensions. One example is in the book of Ephesians. Paul was writing to Christians in what is now Turkey. The predominate people-tensions back then were between Jews and Gentiles. The earliest Christians were every bit as much Jewish as they were Christian. They read and studied the books of Hebrew Bible (which is our Old Testament); they observed the Jewish dietary regulations, celebrated the Jewish holidays, etc. But as the words and faith-experiences of Christianity spread, the movement extended to non-Jews (i.e. Gentiles). These folks had no upbringing or background in the Jewish holidays and culture. But they believed in the same God. They had renounced their paganism and other sins. They believed that Jesus was the Messiah, fulfilling God’s promises from the Old Testament. Today these ranks would include almost all of us. If you’re not Jewish, then you’re Gentile. These groups came together in a lot of first-century Christian churches, but there were some tensions – and there are lots of signs of it in the New Testament (e.g. the whole book of Galatians, Acts 6:1-6, 10:28, etc.) So Paul addressed it as a part of his wider body of writing to the Ephesians. I took note of several things he said while studying Ephesians 2:1-3:21 over the last couple months. He gives us a good example to follow in several ways…
Andrew McHenry, Pastor First Congregational Church of Oroville In the summer of 2006 I took a sabbatical and traveled the country by train. I spent time with friends and family in Illinois, North Carolina, and Florida. I also visited a different church each week, and then interviewed the pastors – asking a variety of questions about their ministry experiences. I always gave them the chance to end the interview with the last word by asking this question: “Is there anything else you’d like to share?” I recall one answer in particular: Pastor Roosevelt Dunbar of the Amazing Grace Church of God in Christ in Palmetto, Florida said this: “You follow the cloud. If the cloud moves, you move. If it stops, you stop.”
I had trouble understanding what he was saying. It made more sense later when I was studying Exodus 13:21-22, which says, “The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.” God is still in the business of guiding His people. He doesn’t normally provide visible natural phenomena to do it – but that doesn’t mean His guidance isn’t there. The way I see it, there are at least three ways it plays out…
One thing I believe we can always hold on to is this: Christ is present. Jesus said that wherever two or more are gathered together in His name, He’s in our midst. (Matthew 18:20). This is why we don’t have a pope, a bishop, or any singular figure who calls the shots by himself. Christ is present in every baptized believer. His Holy Spirit is upon us. Each of us can discern His will as He guides us. So we’re not alone. Sometimes the Holy Spirit moves in very powerful and spectacular ways (as it was on Pentecost in Acts 2:1-31). Sometimes He moves in smaller ways (as it was with Elijah in I Kings 19:11-13). Sometimes there’s a collective experience for a group of people, and sometimes there are individual experiences – but even there I always hearken back to the expression: “If God can speak to one, He can just as easily speak to two.” So it’s not about any single one of us making the decisions or driving the church forward. Rather, it’s about all of us praying and discerning His will together. And He’s promised us that He’s not going to abandon us along the way. I did a Bible study recently on Noah’s ark (in Genesis 5:28-9:17) and was amazed to see how relevant it is for what’s going on today – here in our dual national crises of racial violence and the COVID-19 contagion. Several things stood out for me…
The world’s going through a lot of turmoil right now. But God, in His son Jesus Christ, has bestowed grace upon us (6:8). This means that God has plans for us. It also means that we have a lot to thank God for, and that we have a good future ahead of us after the storms have settled. God bless you, Pastor Andrew McHenry First Congregational Church People suffer, and the question invariably comes: “Why?” And people have different opinions. Personally I don’t think it’s a good idea to make assumptions – and my inspiration for this is the book of Job. No one knew what was going on behind the curtain, but they still talked and discussed as if they did.
The same thing is happening with the coronavirus. I’ve heard people say that God is punishing America for some kind of sin. Which one? That probably depends on which sins are most repulsive for the people making the assumption. It’s dangerous to think this way; assigning something that causes great suffering to God can be taken as indictment on His character. I’m reminded of a quote from Barbara Brown Taylor: “…many of the people in need of saving are in churches, and at least part of what they need saving from is the idea that God sees the world the same way they do.” Job had three friends who were like this. Each one had an opinion…
The theological assumptions that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were making didn’t work in Job’s case. And it’s funny since each of them contain elements of inspiring truth. Eliphaz testified to God’s powers of deliverance (5:19-22). Bildad warned about the dangers of misplaced trust (8:11-15). And Zophar tried to inspire hope for better days ahead (11:15-19). Each of these men had been inspired to say these things for some good reasons, no doubt. But their situation was like someone who’s not a pharmacist trying to make a prescription. The right medicine for one person can be toxic for someone else. That’s why they train people so intensively in pharmacy school. And it’s similar with spiritual things; these three men weren’t qualified to play spiritual doctor with Job in his suffering. Sometimes a person doesn’t need a big philosophy discussion; they just need a friend. So the book of Job teaches us several important things:
God bless you, Andrew McHenry, Pastor First Congregational Church |
Andrew McHenryI am a husband, a Congregational pastor, and a native Kansan currently living in Thermalito, California. In the past I have also been a prison chaplain and a youth pastor. Interests include reading, railroads, prog rock, KU, and the KC Royals. Archives
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