Sermon - 2013-06-16- The Fallen Kingdom

2 Kings 24: 1-14

In his days King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up; Jehoiakim became his servant for three years; then he turned and rebelled against him. 2The Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, bands of the Arameans, bands of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites; he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by his servants the prophets. 3Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the Lord, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, for all that he had committed, 4and also for the innocent blood that he had shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to pardon. 5Now the rest of the deeds of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? 6So Jehoiakim slept with his ancestors; then his son Jehoiachin succeeded him. 7The king of Egypt did not come again out of his land, for the king of Babylon had taken over all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the Wadi of Egypt to the River Euphrates. 8Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign; he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. 9He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his father had done. 10At that time the servants of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. 11King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to the city, while his servants were besieging it; 12King Jehoiachin of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself, his mother, his servants, his officers, and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign. 13He carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house; he cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the Lord, which King Solomon of Israel had made, all this as the Lord had foretold. 14He carried away all Jerusalem, all the officials, all the warriors, ten thousand captives, all the artisans and the smiths; no one remained, except the poorest people of the land.

Psalm 57

1Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by.

2I cry to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.

3He will send from heaven and save me, he will put to shame those who trample on me. God will send forth his steadfast love and his faithfulness.

4I lie down among lions that greedily devour human prey; their teeth are spears and arrows, their tongues sharp swords.

5Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth.

6They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my path, but they have fallen into it themselves.

7My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing and make melody.

8Awake, my soul! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn.

9I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations.

10For your steadfast love is as high as the heavens; your faithfulness extends to the clouds.

11Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth.

Today’s reading is so much like the nightly news.  There is no good news.  The people still do not learn or understand that it is not God who needs to change but in fact they are the ones who need to change. Even Judah, who were left after Israel was taken away, thought that they were good enough and God loves them because they are doing good enough that they would be safe.  However, Judah, the ones who thought that they were saved, still had to face God’s wrath and punishment.  Yes, we are reminded today that though we strive to do our best, our best does not work when God is not with us.  As much as we want it to, God is the one who makes things happen within the world.  

The Assyrian army is seen as a punishment from God to destroy the people and their worship of these false gods.  The Assyrians are God’s instrument in the world.  They come and make the people realize what they had done wrong and God would not help them because of what they have done within their lives. However, the Assyrians are soon overtaken by the Babylonians.  The Babylonians were far more ruthless.  Now God did not have the Hebrew people killed off but as the Babylonians conquered a nation, they would physically remove the people from the land and send them into various parts within the empire that they controlled. They would remove and destroy the people by destroying their spirit, their culture, and everything that was truly familiar to them and give them their identity as a Babylonian. The Babylonians conquer all of what Assyrian owned and so much more.  They conquered Israel and even marched and conquered Judah as well.  The Babylonians marched the king and his family, the wealthy, those who knew how to do things like stone cutting, writing, teaching, musicians, and everyone with a job and took them out of Judah and put them to work in Babylon.  Judah is left to the poor.  Within the conquest, they completely destroyed the Temple of God within Jerusalem in 587 BC.  All the wealth, all the beautiful items, and love that was poured into this building of the Holy Temple was destroyed.  

The Temple was the place in which God lived within the world, a place where people could go and know that God was with them.  Without it the people felt lost, they no longer feel like God’s people.  Have you ever felt like that? So lost, so abandoned that God does not even seem to be with you?  You long for hope, for peace, for comfort, but you do not know where to turn. You long for life, but all you see is a growing obituary page instead.  

When I grew up, the church I belonged to had a great youth program.  We were able to do so much with our friends it was amazing.  I can still remember going down to Kansas City, Mo.  We were going down to help a church, to see how they worshipped and what their life was like.  We drove down on our church bus.  The week before, the adults warned us not to bring our expensive CD players, cell phones, or other expensive items.  You won’t want them or need them.  In fact, it would be better if you did not have them.  As we drove down, we did what we normally did, played cards.  After that long drive, we began to see where we would be spending the weekend.  It was not the nice part of Kansas City, but the abandoned cars with broken out windows, the houses that were boarded up, and the grass that was waist high indicated to us, “we weren’t at home anymore”.  

Our leader pulled up to a house that needed a lot of care on the outside and said, this is where we were staying.  We got off the bus, grabbed our stuff and was welcomed by a middle age white man who was the pastor there.  He opened the front door of the church, a thick bullet proof door with three locks.  We could then proceed into the church.  When you got inside, it was a home that was changed into a church.  The kitchen was still in place, the living room was now the sanctuary, and well anything else they needed it to be.  The Pastor informed us that we shall be staying here, but that we were perfectly safe.  The door was new after the last break in three months ago and the security system would notify the police if someone did try to break in.  As such, we would not be outside in the dark because it was not safe.  

After that, we got to go on a tour of the neighborhood.  The Pastor took us and showed us around.  The church had been reclaiming the neighborhood from the local gangs.  As we walked down he would point out how many people would live in each home, often it was several families.  When we came to the boarded up homes, he would inform us that this use to be where drugs were sold. Here they had a meth lab explode.  We would be working on some of the lawns and painting some of the buildings that had been cleaned up and were going to be reclaimed for families.  The first thing I helped out with was mowing the lawn.  It soon became apparent that it was not simply going to be using a lawn mower to trim.  First we would kind of thrash it down and then mow it.  That took a few hours and then we had only one mower that worked.  So we took turns, and while those of us who didn’t mow, started painting.  I got to paint with the Pastor and I remember painting a hole.  I stopped after my brush went over it and I could put my finger into it.  He informed me that it was a bullet hole.  

The church was working at bringing new life into the neighborhood, to bring hope, comfort and a sense of community here.  It was a slow process.  You see, destruction is easy but to create something that takes some time, that takes a community.  Yet what I was reminded of more than anything is that even when things are terrible and even God seems against you, God still loves you.  God’s love for you overcomes that anger and that work that you are doing against God so that God can bless you.  For no matter how much you may run away from God, no matter where you go or what you do, God will find you and care for you.  Here even in the punishment of the people of Judah, God still unites them, God still promises to love them, protect them and care for them.

Just like the people of Judah, for Christ has claimed you that if you live, you live for the Lord and when you die, you die for the Lord.  So whether you are living or you are dying, you are the Lord’s.  It is in this great plan of God that we take delight.  There are many times that we have stories within the Bible that seem to not relate to our life but we are still able to share in those stories because their story becomes your story through Jesus Christ.  We become connected, we become one so that we can help one another out but also be united through Christ.  Thanks and praise to God. Amen.