27 The Lord is my light and my salvation. Should I fear anyone? The Lord is a fortress protecting my life. Should I be frightened of anything? 2 When evildoers come at me trying to eat me up— it’s they, my foes and my enemies, who stumble and fall! 3 If an army camps against me, my heart won’t be afraid. If war comes up against me, I will continue to trust in this: 4 I have asked one thing from the Lord— it’s all I seek: to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, seeing the Lord’s beauty and constantly adoring his temple. 5 Because he will shelter me in his own dwelling during troubling times; he will hide me in a secret place in his own tent; he will set me up high, safe on a rock. 6 Now my head is higher than the enemies surrounding me, and I will offer sacrifices in God’s tent— sacrifices with shouts of joy! I will sing and praise the Lord. 7 Lord, listen to my voice when I cry out— have mercy on me and answer me! 8 Come, my heart says, seek God’s face. Lord, I do seek your face! 9 Please don’t hide it from me! Don’t push your servant aside angrily— you have been my help! God who saves me, don’t neglect me! Don’t leave me all alone! 10 Even if my father and mother left me all alone, the Lord would take me in. 11 Lord, teach me your way; because of my opponents, lead me on a good path. 12 Don’t give me over to the desires of my enemies, because false witnesses and violent accusers have taken their stand against me. 13 But I have sure faith that I will experience the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living! 14 Hope in the Lord! Be strong! Let your heart take courage! Hope in the Lord
Points of Interest
This psalm has a brighter mood than the others this week. I call it a psalm of hope in my notes, in that it expresses one person’s hope and exhorts us all to move toward strength, courage, and hope ourselves. Still, in the middle of the psalm, it’s clear it is written from its own wild place. There is trouble and loneliness. False witnesses and violent accusers are in play. There are people best called enemies. The writer is very much out of control and in trouble.
Before I unpack this psalm’s anatomy of hope, a word about God’s power and agency in hard times. Theologians and ordinary believers have been wrestling with the nature of evil, the possibility of God’s power, and the hope in God’s love. There’s tension here. Why would a good and powerful God allow… well, you name it. Believers have usually reduced the torment of evil, arguing that bad things are part of God’s plan, in some way. I can’t stomach that; instead, I’ve been learning different ways to think about God’s power. I’ve come to the conviction that a relational and loving God doesn’t have or express the kind of controlling, micro-managing power many people associate with God. Regardless of how you come to terms with all this, the Bible demonstrates people dealing with these tensions, rather than spelling out a crystal clear answer for us.
While this psalm may not make perfect meaning out of their troubles, it does get to hope. Here’s how, best as I can tell: Freedom from fear – the psalmist is under threat so knows God doesn’t keep troubles away, but there’s an inner fearlessness that the light and presence of God shapes.
A Direction for Prayer
Pray for your city, that residents in trouble would find greater and deeper hope.
Spiritual Exercise of the Week
Words of Doubt or Lament – Too often we don’t express to God our questions, our doubt, and our anger. This week, though, we still remember the wild places of exile – loss, grief, disappointment, out of control seasons, anxiety born of change. Whatever challenges you’re facing, speak out loud to God, or write in your own mini-psalm, your questions, doubt, or anger. When you’ve said or written what you have for today, sit in silence for a moment, and see if you sense or feel anything from God.
77 I cry out loud to God— out loud to God so that he can hear me! 2 During the day when I’m in trouble I look for my Lord. At night my hands are still outstretched and don’t grow numb; my whole being refuses to be comforted. 3 I remember God and I moan. I complain, and my spirit grows tired. Selah 4 You’ve kept my eyelids from closing. I’m so upset I can’t even speak. 5 I think about days long past; I remember years that seem an eternity in the past. 6 I meditate with my heart at night; I complain, and my spirit keeps searching: 7 “Will my Lord reject me forever? Will he never be pleased again? 8 Has his faithful love come to a complete end? Is his promise over for future generations? 9 Has God forgotten how to be gracious? Has he angrily stopped up his compassion?” Selah 10 It’s my misfortune, I thought, that the strong hand of the Most High is different now. 11 But I will remember the Lord’s deeds; yes, I will remember your wondrous acts from times long past. 12 I will meditate on all your works; I will ponder your deeds. 13 God, your way is holiness! Who is as great a god as you, God? 14 You are the God who works wonders; you have demonstrated your strength among all peoples. 15 With your mighty arm you redeemed your people; redeemed the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah 16 The waters saw you, God— the waters saw you and reeled! Even the deep depths shook! 17 The clouds poured water, the skies cracked thunder; your arrows were flying all around! 18 The crash of your thunder was in the swirling storm; lightning lit up the whole world;
the earth shook and quaked. 19 Your way went straight through the sea; your pathways went right through the mighty waters. But your footprints left no trace! 20 You led your people like sheep under the care of Moses and Aaron.
Points of Interest
I write our reflection on this psalm on the day we learned of a murderous, white supremacist attack on Muslims in New Zealand. I think of the white supremacist terror on other people of faith – Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh last year, Christians in South Caroline a couple years before that. When I read this psalmist’s sleepless moaning, inability to access comfort, and deep sense of abandonment, I think of the victims of these public acts of terrorism, and their loved ones, as well as the victims of the domestic terror of sexual and gender based violence.
Our own wild places may or may not involve grief or loss, but this psalm’s expressions of need, doubt, questioning, and loneliness are common in confusing, hard times.
Scholars aren’t 100% sure what the untranslated word “Selah” means, but it may be a pause for meditation or musical interlude. This psalm takes a turn, but I appreciate that twice during its expressions of heartache, there is a pause to just sit with it. I have a few sad songs that have helped me sit with my pain, rather than trying to avoid or deny it. I wonder what your favorite sad songs are.
This psalm takes a turn in remembering and meditating on what’s remembered. The great story of the exodus that the writer remembers would have been many hundreds of years removed from her circumstances. And yet its story of wonder, power, redemption, and possibility brings hope and comfort into the present. What stories can you remember that renew your hope and faith?
It’s a small comment, but I appreciate that God’s holiness isn’t tied here to abstract ethical perfection but to faithful love in action and gentle leadership. For most psalms, this one included, we don’t know when and where they were written, but they give voice to feelings we can have in wild places, in this case feelings of envy and resentment.
A Direction for Prayer
Pray for your friends and family who are lonely, discouraged, or suffer heartache today – that they’ll have the right mix of sad songs and hopeful stories to make it through.
Spiritual Exercise of the Week
Words of Doubt or Lament – Too often we don’t express to God our questions, our doubt, and our anger. This week, though, we still remember the wild places of exile – loss, grief, disappointment, out of control seasons, anxiety born of change. Whatever challenges you’re facing, speak out loud to God, or write in your own mini-psalm, your questions, doubt, or anger. When you’ve said or written what you have for today, sit in silence for a moment, and see if you sense or feel anything from God.
73 Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are have a pure heart. 2 But me? My feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped 3 because I envied the arrogant; I observed how the wicked are well off: 4 They suffer no pain; their bodies are fit and strong. 5 They are never in trouble; they aren’t weighed down like other people. 6 That’s why they wear arrogance like a necklace, why violence covers them like clothes. 7 Their eyes bulge out from eating so well; their hearts overflow with delusions. 8 They scoff and talk so cruel; from their privileged positions they plan oppression. 9 Their mouths dare to speak against heaven! Their tongues roam the earth! 10 That’s why people keep going back to them, keep approving what they say. 11 And what they say is this: “How could God possibly know! Does the Most High know anything at all!” 12 Look at these wicked ones, always relaxed, piling up the wealth! 13 Meanwhile, I’ve kept my heart pure for no good reason; I’ve washed my hands to stay innocent for nothing. 14 I’m weighed down all day long. I’m punished every morning. 15 If I said, “I will talk about all this,” I would have been unfaithful to your children. 16 But when I tried to understand these things, it just seemed like hard work 17 until I entered God’s sanctuary and understood what would happen to the wicked. 18 You will definitely put them on a slippery path; you will make them fall into ruin! 19 How quickly they are devastated, utterly destroyed by terrors! 20 As quickly as a dream departs from someone waking up, my Lord, when you are stirred up, you make them disappear. 21 When my heart was bitter, when I was all cut up inside, 22 I was stupid and ignorant. I acted like nothing but an animal toward you. 23 But I was still always with you! You held my strong hand! 24 You have guided me with your advice; later you will receive me with glory. 25 Do I have anyone else in heaven? There’s nothing on earth I desire except you. 26 My body and my heart fail, but God is my heart’s rock and my share forever. 27 Look! Those far from you die; you annihilate all those who are unfaithful to you. 28 But me? It’s good for me to be near God. I have taken my refuge in you, my Lord God, so I can talk all about your works!
Points of Interest
For most psalms, this one included, we don’t know when and where they were written, but they give voice to feelings we can have in wild places, in this case feelings of envy and resentment. After opening with the religious cliché that God is good to good people, the writer considers all the ways that seems not to be true. Good people suffer problems big and small, and sometimes really bad people appear to prosper. It’s not clear which is more frustrating – the ease with which the wicked accumulate wealth and triumphs or the seeming futility of virtue and humility.
Trying to make sense of this injustice doesn’t help. Knowing that envy and resentment are wrong (“unfaithful” is the poet’s word) doesn’t change anything either. What brings a shift in the poet’s experience is a thought that appears during worship. Sticking with the practice of worship even when life and God don’t make sense ends up helping.
The first turn point away from resentment is remembering that bad people will suffer. Maybe this has to do with God’s judgment in the afterlife, maybe with some kind of karma, or maybe just that the principle of reaping what we sew catching up with people eventually. Here’s one thing I have observed, though. Think of a prominent person who seems to get away with misdeed after misdeed. I have someone in mind. I know many people who resent this person and want to see him suffer. But I have never heard anyone wish they could be this person. I certainly wouldn’t.
There’s maybe a second, more important turning point in the psalm. More than just a shift in perspective about bad people, there’s a shift in perspective about where God is in our lives. Long-term resentment and bitterness has a connection to stupidity and ignorance – it emphasizes the animal in us. A hope that God is with us is connected to different conditions – satisfaction, whole-heartedness, and inner peace.
At the end of the poem, the psalmist returns to the same simple, binary faith that life messed with earlier. (God is good to me, but “you annihilate all those who are unfaithful.” Ouch.) For this particular person, that conviction seems comforting and kind of hard to shake, I guess. More interesting to me is that satisfaction and freedom that have replaced resentment without any change in circumstances. I’m attracted to whole-hearted gratitude that stands up in the face of my own wild places, and others’ successes, even the ones they may not deserve. The psalm takes us from the burning ashes of Jerusalem to captivity in Babylon. We’re invited to picture the branches on which the stringed instruments hang, un-played, while the exiles weep by the riverside.
A Direction for Prayer
Pray for your church, that it will cultivate a community of gratitude and inner peace, freeing people (yourself included) from comparison and resentment.
Spiritual Exercise of the Week
Words of Doubt or Lament – Too often we don’t express to God our questions, our doubt, and our anger. This week, though, we still remember the wild places of exile – loss, grief, disappointment, out of control seasons, anxiety born of change. Whatever challenges you’re facing, speak out loud to God, or write in your own mini-psalm, your questions, doubt, or anger. When you’ve said or written what you have for today, sit in silence for a moment, and see if you sense or feel anything from God.
137 Alongside Babylon’s streams, there we sat down, crying because we remembered Zion. 2 We hung our lyres up in the trees there 3 because that’s where our captors asked us to sing; our tormentors requested songs of joy: “Sing us a song about Zion!” they said. 4 But how could we possibly sing the Lord’s song on foreign soil?
5 Jerusalem! If I forget you, let my strong hand wither! 6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don’t remember you, if I don’t make Jerusalem my greatest joy.
7 Lord, remember what the Edomites did on Jerusalem’s dark day: “Rip it down, rip it down! All the way to its foundations!” they yelled. 8 Daughter Babylon, you destroyer, a blessing on the one who pays you back the very deed you did to us! 9 A blessing on the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock!
Points of Interest
The psalm takes us from the burning ashes of Jerusalem to captivity in Babylon. We’re invited to picture the branches on which the stringed instruments hang, un-played, while the exiles weep by the riverside.
The captors’ request for Zion-songs reminds me of the USA’s complicated, ugly history with minstrel shows and blackface, and white appropriation of African and Black-created music. Violence and oppression is bad enough; to pile exploitation and mockery atop it is utterly enraging.
But the psalmist finds strength, even if it is strength that in its lust for vengeance makes us uncomfortable. I’m reminded of two different things, one about the Bible and the other about human nature. Bible scholar Pete Enns reminds us that God lets God’s children tell the story. The Bible can reveal God to us, but it also serves to reveal ourselves to us. The psalms are a model of whole-hearted, gut-engaged prayer more than they are a series of moral lessons or teachings about the nature of God. There’s no prayer they censor – even prayers of rage and vengeance.
Secondly, as a therapist once told me, angry is often better than sad. Anger isn’t the greatest landing place, but as a stage of reaction to wild places, it keeps our dignity and our agency intact, and leaves us with options of what to do with our anger – act or wait, engage or walk away, reconcile or cut ties. The point is that we still have choices. Watch out for adults who are upset when they don’t precisely get their way. There’s always emotional unhealth or abuse of power or both behind that.
A Direction for Prayer
Pray for any friends and family who have suffered harm, that they would have the freedom to feel and express their anger, knowing God sees and hears.
Spiritual Exercise of the Week
Words of Doubt or Lament – Too often we don’t express to God our questions, our doubt, and our anger. This week, though, we still remember the wild places of exile – loss, grief, disappointment, out of control seasons, anxiety born of change. Whatever challenges you’re facing, speak out loud to God, or write in your own mini-psalm, your questions, doubt, or anger. When you’ve said or written what you have for today, sit in silence for a moment, and see if you sense or feel anything from God.
Monday, April 1 Last week, we read some of ancient Israel’s stories of exile – one of the great wild places of their collective historical and spiritual consciousness. This week we’ll read some of the poetry of exile – the expressions of sadness, anger, doubt, and faith hard and chaotic times can provoke. We’ll look to this poetry as a model for our own range of reactions to life, and our own possibility of faith while in wild places.
Lamentations 1:1-11, 20-22 (CEB)
1 Oh, no! She sits alone, the city that was once full of people. Once great among nations, she has become like a widow. Once a queen over provinces, she has become a slave.
2 She weeps bitterly in the night, her tears on her cheek. None of her lovers comfort her. All her friends lied to her; they have become her enemies.
3 Judah was exiled after suffering and hard service. She lives among the nations; she finds no rest. All who were chasing her caught her—right in the middle of her distress.
4 Zion’s roads are in mourning; no one comes to the festivals. All her gates are deserted. Her priests are groaning, her young women grieving. She is bitter.
5 Her adversaries have become rulers; her enemies relax. Certainly the Lord caused her grief because of her many wrong acts. Her children have gone away, captive before the enemy.
6 Daughter Zion lost all her glory. Her officials are like deer that can’t find pasture. They have gone away, frail, before the hunter.
7 While suffering and homeless, Jerusalem remembers all her treasures from days long past. When her people fell by the enemy’s hand, there was no one to help her. Enemies saw her, laughed at her defeat.
8 Jerusalem has sinned greatly; therefore, she’s become a joke. All who honored her now detest her, for they’ve seen her naked. Even she groans and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness shows on her clothing; she didn’t consider what would happen to her. She’s gone down shockingly; she has no comforter. “Lord, look at my suffering—the enemy has definitely triumphed!”
10 The enemy grabbed all her treasures. She watched nations enter her sanctuary— nations that you, God, commanded: They must not enter your assembly.
11 All her people are groaning, seeking bread. They give up their most precious things for food to survive. “Lord, look and take notice: I am most certainly despised.”
20 Pay attention, Lord, for I am in trouble. My stomach is churning; my heart is pounding inside me because I am so bitter. In the streets the sword kills; in the house it is like death.
21 People heard that I was groaning, that I had no comforter. All my enemies heard about my distress; they were thrilled that you had done this. Bring the day you have announced so they become like me!
22 Let all their evil come before you. Then injure them like you’ve injured me because of all my wrong acts; my groans are many, my heart is sick
Points of Interest
This is the first chapter of the short book of Lamentations, with a few verses cut for brevity. Tradition has it that the prophet Jeremiah wrote this poetry after the destruction of Jerusalem by the conquering armies of Babylon in the sixth century B.C. Many Jews still commemorate this historical destruction and other calamities Jews have faced, right through the Holocaust, on the annual fast day of Tisah B’Av.
Scholars note that this chapter’s poetry reads like an ancient funeral dirge. Not one but many people have died. Collective suffering and chaos is personified through the death of the city’s husband. Once great Jerusalem is now empty, her people enslaved. She weeps, experiencing both suffering and shame, at the reversal of her fortunes.
Lament is the expression of grief, sorrow, and anger. Bitter weeping and lost glory shape the tune here. Lament is an alternative to the cheer that can be out of reach in wild places. It is also an alternative to the denial of our suffering and shame, denial that can easily fuel inclinations toward despair, addiction, or domination of others. To lament is to be curious about our suffering or that of others.
An awkward aspect of Lamentations is how the author sees God’s agency in Jerusalem’s suffering. The opening narrator says, “The Lord caused her grief because of her many wrong acts.” When Jerusalem speaks in the second half of the chapter, she says similar things. Lamentations finds this helpful. To see Jerusalem’s destruction as the consequence of its injustice and unfaithfulness is more comforting to the author than to imagine it as the result of chaos, or the death or failure of God. But for most of us, I expect this merely raises more questions. Somewhere between a Calvinist, micromanaging God and a deist, absentee landlord god, is the God the Bible speaks of that is good and just and honors our freedom while also active in history. Lamentations tries to grapple with God’s possible role in their suffering, even if the results aren’t satisfying to you and me.
Beyond looking for explanations, the lament ends with a cry for help and a cry for vengeance. We want to make meaning out of the story of our wild places; even more, we want to know we’re seen and known in it all. This week, we’ll invite you to speak with God in the hope that God sees and knows all that troubles you, and sees and knows with compassion. Watch out for adults who are upset when they don’t precisely get their way. There’s always emotional unhealth or abuse of power or both behind that.
A Direction for Prayer
Pray for your city, your region, or your country. Tell God what grieves or angers you. Ask God that those who suffer shame will have the power to cry out and rage, rather than bury their shame, and ask God to hear and respond to their cries.
Spiritual Exercise of the Week
Words of Doubt or Lament – Too often we don’t express to God our questions, our doubt, and our anger. This week, though, we still remember the wild places of exile – loss, grief, disappointment, out of control seasons, anxiety born of change. Whatever challenges you’re facing, speak out loud to God, or write in your own mini-psalm, your questions, doubt, or anger. When you’ve said or written what you have for today, sit in silence for a moment, and see if you sense or feel anything from God.
19 Nebuchadnezzar was filled with rage, and his face twisted beyond recognition because of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. In response he commanded that the furnace be heated to seven times its normal heat. 20 He told some of the strongest men in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and throw them into the furnace of flaming fire.21 So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were bound, still dressed in all their clothes, and thrown into the furnace of flaming fire. (22 Now the king’s command had been rash, and the furnace was heated to such an extreme that the fire’s flame killed the very men who carried Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to it.) 23 So these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell, bound, into the furnace of flaming fire.
24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in shock and said to his associates, “Didn’t we throw three men, bound, into the fire?”
They answered the king, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”
25 He replied, “Look! I see four men, unbound, walking around inside the fire, and they aren’t hurt! And the fourth one looks like one of the gods.”26 Nebuchadnezzar went near the opening of the furnace of flaming fire and said, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire. 27 The chief administrators, ministers, governors, and the king’s associates crowded around to look at them. The fire hadn’t done anything to them: their hair wasn’t singed; their garments looked the same as before; they didn’t even smell like fire!
28 Nebuchadnezzar declared: “May the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be praised! He sent his messenger to rescue his servants who trusted him. They ignored the king’s order, sacrificing their bodies, because they wouldn’t serve or worship any god but their God. 29 I now issue a decree to every people, nation, and language: whoever speaks disrespectfully about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s God will be torn limb from limb and their house made a trash heap, because there is no other god who can rescue like this.”
30 Then the king made Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego prosperous in the province of Babylon.
Points of Interest
Watch out for adults who are upset when they don’t precisely get their way. There’s always emotional unhealth or abuse of power or both behind that.
Nebuchadnezzar’s display of force is tragicomically rash. The strongest men in the army, the seven-times-more-potent capital punishment, the guards’ suffering all highlight that wounded pride and vengeance are at play, not justice. It’s like the villain’s threat to kill one hundred of the enemy for every one of his lost, or like the modern superpower’s unleashing of tons and tons of bombs to prevent or retaliate for its smaller experience of violence.
When the execution doesn’t go as planned, things get really strange. First, there are four men, not three. Then the impotency of the flames – no harm to hair or clothing or skin at all. Scholars and mystics and poets have marveled over this scene, speculating on the presence of an angel or even a pre-incarnate Christ (a fancy phase for God showing up in the flesh, long before the birth of Jesus).
Nebuchadnezzar hasn’t matured or grown through this experience – he’s as rash and emotionally immature as ever. But the power of God to protect the people he tried to scapegoat and eliminate has given him respect for their god and restored them to protection and favor.
Many Christians read this passage through the experiences of explicit persecution members of their own faith have experienced – usually small and sometimes invented ones in this time and place, deadly and brutal ones in other times and places. I think that’s fair (not the invented persecutions, but the rest), but my imagination takes this application further. When any minority group is persecuted, I like to think that the God of justice is empathetic to their cause, suffering with them, and rallying forces to work for their favor. In my country and my lifetime, the scapegoated victim has usually been of non-Christian religious faith, as well as people of color, immigrants, or sexual minorities. May the God of mercy walk with and protect all who are scapegoated and done harm because of power people’s fears. We’ll take our final story of exile in two parts.
A Direction for Prayer
Pray for any of your family and friends who are either unjustly victimized, for them to know God with them, and for God’s protection. Pray that God turns around any family or friends who out of their own fears, willingly participate in or stand silent in the face of the scapegoating of others.
Spiritual Exercise of the Week
Growing Hope – This week, the exercise will vary slightly from day to day. Each day, though, you’ll be invited to grow hope in your own wild place of exile – a loss that you or your culture has suffered, a dream that has died, some way that you don’t belong, don’t fit, or aren’t understood in your current context.
The temptation in exile is to a death of faith or a loss of hope. Today, follow the lead of this passage, asking God if there is any way you can stand in solidarity with people in your region who unjustly suffer. Perhaps your solidarity and hope can be expressed through your prayers or advocacy or service or civil disobedience.
3 King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold statue. It was ninety feet high and nine feet wide. He set it up in the Dura Valley in the province of Babylon.2 King Nebuchadnezzar then ordered the chief administrators, ministers, governors, counselors, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the provincial officials to assemble and come for the dedication of the statue that he had set up. 3 So the chief administrators, ministers, governors, counselors, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the provincial officials assembled for the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. They stood in front of the statue the king had set up. 4 The herald proclaimed loudly: “Peoples, nations, and languages! This is what you must do: 5 When you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, zither, lyre, harp, flute, and every kind of instrument, you must bow down and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. 6 Anyone who will not bow down and worship will be immediately thrown into a furnace of flaming fire.” 7 So because of this order as soon as they heard the sound of the horn, pipe, zither, lyre, harp, flute, and every kind of instrument, all the peoples, nations, and languages bowed down and worshipped the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.
8 At that moment some Chaldeans came forward, seizing a chance to attack the Jews. 9 They said to King Nebuchadnezzar:
“Long live the king! 10 Your Majesty, you gave a command that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, zither, lyre, harp, flute, and every kind of instrument should bow down and worship the gold statue.11 Anyone who wouldn’t bow and worship would be thrown into a furnace of flaming fire. 12 Now there are some Jews, ones you appointed to administer the province of Babylon—specifically, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—who have ignored your command. They don’t serve your gods, and they don’t worship the gold statue you’ve set up.”
13 In a violent rage Nebuchadnezzar ordered them to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were brought before the king.
14 Nebuchadnezzar said to them: “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: Is it true that you don’t serve my gods or worship the gold statue I’ve set up? 15 If you are now ready to do so, bow down and worship the gold statue I’ve made when you hear the sound of horn, pipe, zither, lyre, harp, flute, and every kind of instrument. But if you won’t worship it, you will be thrown straight into the furnace of flaming fire. Then what god will rescue you from my power?”
16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar: “We don’t need to answer your question. 17 If our God—the one we serve—is able to rescue us from the furnace of flaming fire and from your power, Your Majesty, then let him rescue us. 18 But if he doesn’t, know this for certain, Your Majesty: we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you’ve set up.”
Points of Interest
We’ll take our final story of exile in two parts. King Nebuchadnezzar is doing what all empires do – asserting their power through overt and covert control. The overt control is the statue and the call to worship, the covert is the behind the scenes machinations of the bureaucratic machine. The author teases it a bit with the repetition of the list of officials throughout the chapter. This kind of state control is more ridiculous and dangerous when a narcissistic leader is in power, but it operates at some level in most power structures.
Some Chaldeans (for our purposes, roughly synonymous with Babylonians) seize the regulations as an excuse to target and scapegoat a minority group they resent. Anyone who claims order or legal compliance or other pragmatic reasons to do harm to a minority group is reliving this passage’s tyrannical, scapegoating violence. Examples abound through all of human civilization, our own times included.
Unhealthy power hates nothing more than challenge, thus the king’s emotional outburst.
The lists of the instruments, like the list of bureaucrats, is a kind of poetic satire, highlighting the craziness of the story – God give us all grace to step back and notice all that is crazy and unhealthy about our politics, our economy, our culture.
Civil disobedience doesn’t count on victory, but on conscience and hope. Daniel’s friends have lost their homeland, likely lost their families, and since chapter one, have lost their names. But they will not lose their faith – they won’t sell out their minds, hearts, and souls, regardless of outcome. Out of the war, and into the exile we go. The young, talented men who Ashpenaz enrolls in Babylon University remind me of many international graduate students and young professionals I meet in my own large international college town. None of the men and women I meet were forcibly brought to this country, but they often represent the “best and the brightest” of their home cities. Sometimes they have left conditions of poverty and chaos. Often they are treated as outsiders in this land, but their experience here make them cultural and economic outsiders in their homelands as well.
The new names that Daniel and his friends are given are part of Babylon’s assimilation project. Get rid of people’s culture and language and faith, and you eliminate the possibility of resistance. Empire is always giving us new names – trying to define us by the gods of our age: what we earn and buy and consume, the status markers of our education or zip codes or careers, and so much more. Daniel and the boys, from the author’s perspective, resist. They are still known to us and one another as their true selves, children of God.
For whatever reason, the young exile Daniel finds eating the Babylonian diet one step too far in participating in the destruction of his culture and his faith. The rabbi Jonathan Sachs and the theologian Miroslav Volf have been helpful in identifying various postures people of faith can take in environments where their faith makes them unusual. There’s total assimilation, total withdrawal, and total attempt to have one’s own faith dominate – these three postures are the most common for faith exiles, but they all end badly. The best posture is to be a creative minority – to do what Daniel and friends do: engage creatively and deeply in culture, while still pursuing a distinct life one’s faith creates. Daniel 1 is a kind of case study of this.
Daniel’s plan works, confirmed by two signs. One, he stays true to himself and true to his faith. Two, he flourished as a student and young professional, achieving all that he’s expected and more. Healthy faith seems to lead toward radical withdrawal from cultural norms in some areas, and radical and favorable engagement in some others. All people of faith get to discern this balance in their own lives and times. The two part book of Chronicles retells the story of Samuel and Kings from a different vantage point. Samuel and Kings were written earlier, during exile, trying to make sense of the end of the nation.
Chronicles is written after Israel is reengaged in developing a collective civic and religious life, in a rebuilt temple. In Kings, the temple is Solomon’s, in Chronicles it is God’s. The Bible doesn’t have a single angle on many things. Authors, though inspired by God, are influenced by their times, their culture, and their perspective. God lets God’s children tell the story.
One thing that can be helpful or challenging for readers of Chronicles is the author’s insistence that a just God is orchestrating all events. King Zedekiah was godless and didn’t listen to the prophet or keep his promise to his international colleague. The leaders and the priests assimilated to the faith of surrounding cultures, messed up Jerusalem’s religious practice, and wouldn’t listen to God’s warnings. Therefore God gets angry and uses a bigger country to wipe them out. The black and white clarity and a certain kind of justice proposed are encouraging from one angle – the world is not chaotic or nihilistic; there is order and justice. Everything happens for a reason. On the other hand, the idea that an angry God set in motion mass killing, raping, destruction, and exile is difficult for most of us to swallow. Is this consistent with a faithful God of love? Was this really necessary?
All we can say is that the authors of Chronicles thought so, and this gave them comfort. God lets God’s children tell the story. Part of faithful Bible reading is to question what we read, ask if it is consistent with what we know of God revealed in Jesus Christ, and to draw our own conclusions.
There’s a bit of ecological justice woven into the story. God’s people needed a timeout of sorts, but the land did as well. As crop scientists know, land needs rest, not just people.
The Jewish Bible orders some books differently than do Christians. This is the last chapter in Jewish Bible. There’s a hopeful ending here, a fast-forward to the time when Jews were commissioned to restore their temple and nation, and an invitation to all God’s people to worship and do the work of God in our time.
A Direction for Prayer
Pray for your city and country to practice the genuine free civil society it likely professes, that all people – even misunderstood, mass incarcerated, or scapegoated minorities – would have the freedom to worship and work and pursue the best of their conscience and culture without fear.
Spiritual Exercise of the Week
Growing Hope – This week, the exercise will vary slightly from day to day. Each day, though, you’ll be invited to grow hope in your own wild place of exile – a loss that you or your culture has suffered, a dream that has died, some way that you don’t belong, don’t fit, or aren’t understood in your current context.
The temptation in exile is to a death of faith or a loss of hope. Today, follow the lead of this passage, asking God if there is anything in your faith that compels you to chart a different course than the one you’re on, or to live differently in some regard. Ask God for courage to do so.
1 In the third year of the rule of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and attacked it. 2 The Lord handed Judah’s King Jehoiakim over to Nebuchadnezzar, along with some of the equipment from God’s house. Nebuchadnezzar took these to Shinar, to his own god’s temple, putting them in his god’s treasury.
3 Nebuchadnezzar instructed his highest official Ashpenaz to choose royal descendants and members of the ruling class from the Israelites—4 good-looking young men without defects, skilled in all wisdom, possessing knowledge, conversant with learning, and capable of serving in the king’s palace. Ashpenaz was to teach them the Chaldean language and its literature. 5 The king assigned these young men daily allotments from his own food and from the royal wine. Ashpenaz was to teach them for three years so that at the end of that time they could serve before the king. 6 Among these young men from the Judeans were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. 7 But the chief official gave them new names. He named Daniel “Belteshazzar,” Hananiah “Shadrach,” Mishael “Meshach,” and Azariah “Abednego.”
8 Daniel decided that he wouldn’t pollute himself with the king’s rations or the royal wine, and he appealed to the chief official in hopes that he wouldn’t have to do so. 9 Now God had established faithful loyalty between Daniel and the chief official; 10 but the chief official said to Daniel, “I’m afraid of my master, the king, who has mandated what you are to eat and drink. What will happen if he sees your faces looking thinner than the other young men in your group? The king will have my head because of you!”
11 So Daniel spoke to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: 12 “Why not test your servants for ten days? You could give us a diet of vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then compare our appearance to the appearance of the young men who eat the king’s food. Then deal with your servants according to what you see.”
14 The guard decided to go along with their plan and tested them for ten days. 15 At the end of ten days they looked better and healthier than all the young men who were eating the king’s food. 16 So the guard kept taking away their rations and the wine they were supposed to drink and gave them vegetables instead. 17 And God gave knowledge, mastery of all literature, and wisdom to these four men. Daniel himself gained understanding of every type of vision and dream.
18 When the time came to review the young men as the king had ordered, the chief official brought them before Nebuchadnezzar. 19 When the king spoke with them, he found no one as good as Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they took their place in the king’s service.20 Whenever the king consulted them about any aspect of wisdom and understanding, he found them head and shoulders above all the dream interpreters and enchanters in his entire kingdom. 21 And Daniel stayed in the king’s service until the first year of King Cyrus.
Points of Interest
Out of the war, and into the exile we go. The young, talented men who Ashpenaz enrolls in Babylon University remind me of many international graduate students and young professionals I meet in my own large international college town. None of the men and women I meet were forcibly brought to this country, but they often represent the “best and the brightest” of their home cities. Sometimes they have left conditions of poverty and chaos. Often they are treated as outsiders in this land, but their experience here make them cultural and economic outsiders in their homelands as well.
The new names that Daniel and his friends are given are part of Babylon’s assimilation project. Get rid of people’s culture and language and faith, and you eliminate the possibility of resistance. Empire is always giving us new names – trying to define us by the gods of our age: what we earn and buy and consume, the status markers of our education or zip codes or careers, and so much more. Daniel and the boys, from the author’s perspective, resist. They are still known to us and one another as their true selves, children of God.
For whatever reason, the young exile Daniel finds eating the Babylonian diet one step too far in participating in the destruction of his culture and his faith. The rabbi Jonathan Sachs and the theologian Miroslav Volf have been helpful in identifying various postures people of faith can take in environments where their faith makes them unusual. There’s total assimilation, total withdrawal, and total attempt to have one’s own faith dominate – these three postures are the most common for faith exiles, but they all end badly. The best posture is to be a creative minority – to do what Daniel and friends do: engage creatively and deeply in culture, while still pursuing a distinct life one’s faith creates. Daniel 1 is a kind of case study of this.
Daniel’s plan works, confirmed by two signs. One, he stays true to himself and true to his faith. Two, he flourished as a student and young professional, achieving all that he’s expected and more. Healthy faith seems to lead toward radical withdrawal from cultural norms in some areas, and radical and favorable engagement in some others. All people of faith get to discern this balance in their own lives and times. The two part book of Chronicles retells the story of Samuel and Kings from a different vantage point. Samuel and Kings were written earlier, during exile, trying to make sense of the end of the nation.
Chronicles is written after Israel is reengaged in developing a collective civic and religious life, in a rebuilt temple. In Kings, the temple is Solomon’s, in Chronicles it is God’s. The Bible doesn’t have a single angle on many things. Authors, though inspired by God, are influenced by their times, their culture, and their perspective. God lets God’s children tell the story.
One thing that can be helpful or challenging for readers of Chronicles is the author’s insistence that a just God is orchestrating all events. King Zedekiah was godless and didn’t listen to the prophet or keep his promise to his international colleague. The leaders and the priests assimilated to the faith of surrounding cultures, messed up Jerusalem’s religious practice, and wouldn’t listen to God’s warnings. Therefore God gets angry and uses a bigger country to wipe them out. The black and white clarity and a certain kind of justice proposed are encouraging from one angle – the world is not chaotic or nihilistic; there is order and justice. Everything happens for a reason. On the other hand, the idea that an angry God set in motion mass killing, raping, destruction, and exile is difficult for most of us to swallow. Is this consistent with a faithful God of love? Was this really necessary?
All we can say is that the authors of Chronicles thought so, and this gave them comfort. God lets God’s children tell the story. Part of faithful Bible reading is to question what we read, ask if it is consistent with what we know of God revealed in Jesus Christ, and to draw our own conclusions.
There’s a bit of ecological justice woven into the story. God’s people needed a timeout of sorts, but the land did as well. As crop scientists know, land needs rest, not just people.
The Jewish Bible orders some books differently than do Christians. This is the last chapter in Jewish Bible. There’s a hopeful ending here, a fast-forward to the time when Jews were commissioned to restore their temple and nation, and an invitation to all God’s people to worship and do the work of God in our time.
A Direction for Prayer
Pray for your friends and family that feel out of place in hostile educational or work environments, that God would give them courage to pursue a life of faith and be their true selves, and the God will give them favor and success in their learning or work as well.
Spiritual Exercise of the Week
Growing Hope – This week, the exercise will vary slightly from day to day. Each day, though, you’ll be invited to grow hope in your own wild place of exile – a loss that you or your culture has suffered, a dream that has died, some way that you don’t belong, don’t fit, or aren’t understood in your current context.
The temptation in exile is to a death of faith or a loss of hope. Today, if you are fasting this lent, ask yourself what the fasting is doing in you. Is it helping you break rhythm and detach from some of your life’s norms? Is it making room more of God and more of hope in you? If you’re not fasting, consider if there is a fast you can engage in today, or for the rest of Lent, that will break your attachment to your culture and make room for radical, counter-cultural hope in God.
11 Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. 12 He did what was evil in the Lord his God’s eyes and didn’t submit before the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke for the Lord. 13 Moreover, he rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, despite the solemn pledge Nebuchadnezzar had forced him to swear in God’s name. He became stubborn and refused to turn back to the Lord, Israel’s God.14 All the leaders of the priests and the people also grew increasingly unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations. They polluted the Lord’s temple that God had dedicated in Jerusalem. 15 Time and time again, the Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers because he had compassion on his people and his dwelling. 16 But they made fun of God’s messengers, treating God’s words with contempt and ridiculing God’s prophets to such an extent that there was no hope of warding off the Lord’s rising anger against his people.
17 So God brought the Babylonian king against them. The king killed their young men with the sword in their temple’s sanctuary, and showed no pity for young men or for virgins, for the old or for the feeble. God handed all of them over to him. 18 Then the king hauled everything off to Babylon, every item from God’s temple, both large and small, including the treasures of the Lord’s temple and those of the king and his officials.19 Next the Babylonians burned God’s temple down, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, and set fire to all its palaces, destroying everything of value. 20 Finally, he exiled to Babylon anyone who survived the killing so that they could be his slaves and the slaves of his children until Persia came to power. 21 This is how the Lord’s word spoken by Jeremiah was carried out. The land finally enjoyed its sabbath rest. For as long as it lay empty, it rested, until seventy years were completed.
22 In the first year of Persia’s King Cyrus, to carry out the Lord’s promise spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord moved Persia’s King Cyrus to issue the following proclamation throughout his kingdom, along with a written decree:
23 This is what Persia’s King Cyrus says: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the earth’s kingdoms and has instructed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Whoever among you belong to God’s people, let them go up, and may the Lord their God be with them!
Points of Interest
The two part book of Chronicles retells the story of Samuel and Kings from a different vantage point. Samuel and Kings were written earlier, during exile, trying to make sense of the end of the nation. Chronicles is written after Israel is reengaged in developing a collective civic and religious life, in a rebuilt temple. In Kings, the temple is Solomon’s, in Chronicles it is God’s. The Bible doesn’t have a single angle on many things. Authors, though inspired by God, are influenced by their times, their culture, and their perspective. God lets God’s children tell the story.
One thing that can be helpful or challenging for readers of Chronicles is the author’s insistence that a just God is orchestrating all events. King Zedekiah was godless and didn’t listen to the prophet or keep his promise to his international colleague. The leaders and the priests assimilated to the faith of surrounding cultures, messed up Jerusalem’s religious practice, and wouldn’t listen to God’s warnings. Therefore God gets angry and uses a bigger country to wipe them out. The black and white clarity and a certain kind of justice proposed are encouraging from one angle – the world is not chaotic or nihilistic; there is order and justice. Everything happens for a reason. On the other hand, the idea that an angry God set in motion mass killing, raping, destruction, and exile is difficult for most of us to swallow. Is this consistent with a faithful God of love? Was this really necessary?
All we can say is that the authors of Chronicles thought so, and this gave them comfort. God lets God’s children tell the story. Part of faithful Bible reading is to question what we read, ask if it is consistent with what we know of God revealed in Jesus Christ, and to draw our own conclusions.
There’s a bit of ecological justice woven into the story. God’s people needed a timeout of sorts, but the land did as well. As crop scientists know, land needs rest, not just people.
The Jewish Bible orders some books differently than do Christians. This is the last chapter in Jewish Bible. There’s a hopeful ending here, a fast-forward to the time when Jews were commissioned to restore their temple and nation, and an invitation to all God’s people to worship and do the work of God in our time.
A Direction for Prayer
Pray for your church, that each time people gather to worship, they will honor and love God with their whole hearts, and be inspired to hope and to do God’s work in their time.
Spiritual Exercise of the Week
Growing Hope – This week, the exercise will vary slightly from day to day. Each day, though, you’ll be invited to grow hope in your own wild place of exile – a loss that you or your culture has suffered, a dream that has died, some way that you don’t belong, don’t fit, or aren’t understood in your current context.
The temptation in exile is to a death of faith or a loss of hope. Today, follow the lead of this passage, and look for signs of hope in your life or your generation. Make a list of what gives you hope for the future; consider sharing this list with a friend.
Monday, March 25 The great wild place of the Old Testament is ancient Israel’s exile into foreign lands. The two halves of the divided kingdom were defeated by regional superpowers in the 8th and 6th centuries B.C. In exile, people questioned their faith and had to come to grips with failure, loss, powerlessness, pain, and doubt. This week we’ll read some of the narrative texts of exile, and next week some of its poetry.
II Kings 25:1-21, 27-30 (CEB)
1 So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem with his entire army. He camped beside the city and built a siege wall all around it. 2 The city was under attack until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. 3 On the ninth day of the month, the famine in the city got so bad that no food remained for the common people. 4 Then the enemy broke into the city. All the soldiers fled by night using the gate between the two walls near the King’s Garden. The Chaldeans were surrounding the city, so the soldiers ran toward the desert plain. 5 But the Chaldean army chased King Zedekiah and caught up with him in the Jericho plains. His entire army deserted him. 6 So the Chaldeans captured the king and brought him back to the Babylonian king, who was at Riblah. There his punishment was determined. 7 Zedekiah’s sons were slaughtered right before his eyes. Then he was blinded, put in bronze chains, and taken off to Babylon.
8 On the seventh day of the fifth month in the nineteenth year of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan arrived at Jerusalem. He was the commander of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king.9 He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all of Jerusalem’s houses. He burned down every important building. 10 The whole Chaldean army under the commander of the guard tore down the walls surrounding Jerusalem. 11 Then Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard exiled the people who were left in the city, those who had already surrendered to Babylon’s king, and the rest of the population.12 The commander of the guard left some of the land’s poor people behind to work the vineyards and be farmers. 13 The Chaldeans shattered the bronze columns, the stands, and the bronze Sea that were in the Lord’s temple. They carried the bronze off to Babylon. 14 They also took the pots, the shovels, the wick trimmers, the dishes, and all the bronze items that had been used in the temple. 15 The commander of the guard took the fire pans and the sprinkling bowls, which were made of pure gold and pure silver. 16 The bronze in all these objects—the two pillars, the Sea, and the stands that Solomon had made for the Lord’s temple—was too heavy to weigh. 17 Each pillar was twenty-seven feet high. The bronze capital on top of the first pillar was four and a half feet high. Decorative lattices and pomegranates, all made from bronze, were around the capital. And the second pillar was decorated with lattices just like the first.
18 The commander of the guard also took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank, and the three doorkeepers. 19 Of those still left in the city, Nebuzaradan took away an officer who was in charge of the army and five royal advisors who were discovered in the city. He also took away the secretary of the officer responsible for drafting the land’s people to fight, as well as sixty people who were discovered in the city. 20 Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard took all of these people and brought them to the Babylonian king at Riblah.21 The king of Babylon struck them down, killing them in Riblah in the land of Hamath.
Points of Interest
There are too many names and dates to worry about in a day’s reading. Instead, picture the scene: there is a small country whose capital is besieged by the attacking army of a much larger country. Famine strikes so that the royalty is still eating, but everyone else starves. The army breaks through the wall. The defending army flees, abandoning the people, and then when the army is pursued, they abandon the king. Said king is tortured and exiled, his sons killed. How do you feel, left to live in the ruins of this city? Later, the conquering army returns and burns down your city. Many of the people who didn’t die in the famine or the invasion are scattered; those that remain are carted off to become slaves. The few officials who try to hide out are kidnapped; word returns that they’ve been killed in a faraway land. The most beautiful building, your people’s grand temple, is looted and then destroyed. If you are any one of these survivors, how do you feel about your life? How do you feel about the God of your country, the one you used to worship in the temple that is no more? The short paragraph, “Judah was exiled from its land” is the conclusion to this whole tale, the last chapter in this book. The nation is scattered. The dream is over. The books of Samuel and Kings tell a four-part history of the rise and fall of ancient Israel, including its southern kingdom of Judah, the last portion to remain independent. The story begins with an ascendant monarchy that the author thinks is a bad idea. A few kings, despite their significant faults, are given positive reports. Most are disappointments. And then four hundred years later, the last king of all the dynasties lives a life of luxury as a sell-out in the employ of his people’s conqueror. The people’s story ends with a betrayal. The people suffer, while their king eats well in their oppressor’s service. This must have been a maddening story to read – so unjust, so unfair.
A Direction for Prayer
Perhaps some of your friends and family have experienced loss – the loss of homeland, the loss of loved ones, the loss of a dream. If so, pray that they have God’s help to survive and to find a next chapter beyond this loss.
Spiritual Exercise of the Week
Growing Hope – This week, the exercise will vary slightly from day to day. Each day, though, you’ll be invited to grow hope in your own wild place of exile – a loss that you or your culture has suffered, a dream that has died, some way that you don’t belong, don’t fit, or aren’t understood in your current context.
The temptation in exile is to a death of faith or a loss of hope. Today, follow the lead of this passage, and honestly name to God and self the exile that most strikes you. Confess without shame your own temptation to a death of faith or a loss of hope.
