Sermon: Psalm 55

 Psalm 55

 

A teacher of the law once asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbour?" Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan, one of his most famous parables. Today, I want to look at Psalm 55 and ask a similar question: who is my enemy? Who does Psalm 55 actually apply to?

 

You might think it's easy to identify our enemies. They're the people with whom we're at war. Those who are out to get us. Those on the other side, whether that be in politics or religion or some other contest.

 

But then I think the teacher of the law who asked the question "who is my neighbour" also thought the answer was pretty straightforward. Jesus showed it wasn't so simple: in his story, someone who was considered an enemy to the Jews was the neighbour.

 

I don't think many of us would consider that we have enemies. Australia is not currently at war. We are not keenly threatened in our country. Many of us may look around and find it difficult to identify someone who actually holds a strong grudge against us or would actively work to do us harm.

 

You may even think the question "who is my enemy" is an odd question when in the sermon on the Mount Jesus said "You have heard that it was said love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." And so you might think why do I need to know who my enemies are? Don't we just treat everyone with love?

 

Now that is a really good question. And of course Jesus is always right! But this doesn't delete Psalm 55 from the Bible, and so we need to grapple with it, and with the many cursing Psalms. I think it's an easy thing for us to say "love your enemies" when many of us feel we have no real enemies.  

 

In book 2 of the Psalms alone - from Psalm 42 to 72 - over half of the Psalms mention enemies. Today it’s rare to have songs in church like this that we sing. But they remain part of scripture that we read in our personal quiet times, and that we should hear together in community, which is why I’m happy to have the opportunity to preach on Psalm 55 today.

 

I'd like to suggest four ways understanding these psalms help us, and makes them a blessing to us in the way many other Psalms already are.

 

 First, these Psalms capture the real feelings of hurt that are felt by many, showing that God understands our hurts.

 

Second, they give us, both individually and in community, godly words to express our grief and sorrow when we are hurt by others. Many of these Psalms are like prayers of healing for the hurts suffered at the hands or mouths of others.

 

Third, these Psalms lead us to put our pain at God’s feet, asking him to address the solutions to the hurt and injustice we feel.

 

And finally, these Psalms help us see who the real enemies are, and how to love them as Jesus commanded.

 

Psalm 55 is called a psalm of David, meaning either it was written by David or is written to evoke David's story. Psalm 55 is about David being betrayed. There are other Psalms like this: Psalm 52 is about David being betrayed by Doeg the Edomite, a wicked man who at King Saul's command kills a family of priests who gave David shelter; Psalm 54 is about the Ziphites, who contact Saul and tell him "David is hiding here in our land".

 

Psalm 55 doesn't say what part of David's story it’s about. Scholars disagree about it because there are actually so many stories about David being betrayed by a friend. It stands as a psalm reflecting a reality of life: we all know the sting of betrayal by someone we thought was a friend.

 

And the sad truth is that some of us do have enemies right now. Some people hearing this psalm will resonate deeply with its imagery.

 

Imagine someone who has received death threats over the Internet because of their identity hearing these words: "My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught because of what my enemy is saying, because of the threats of the wicked; for they bring down suffering on me and assail me in their anger."

 

Imagine someone who has had to flee their home because of violence hearing these words: "My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen on me. Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me. I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.”

 

Imagine a Ukrainian whose city has been overcome by Russian separatists hearing these words: "I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night they prowl about on its walls; malice and abuse are within it. Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave its streets."

 

Imagine a victim of domestic violence, betrayed by their spouse, hearing these words: "If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God".

 

Some people don't have to imagine. I have friends from Ukraine; there are Ukrainian refugees at Waitara Anglican. I have friends who have had death threats made against them on the Internet. I used to work for Barnabas Aid, who provides help to Christians suffering persecution. I now work with victims of domestic violence at Horizons.

 

Violence is a reality in our world, in our society, even in our churches. How powerful then, as a victim of violence, to hear your reality echoed in the words of God! To know that in your grief, your fear, your pain, even in betrayal, God has written you songs!

 

For those of us who are not victims of violence, these words are still a comfort and an empowerment. These Psalms teach us that the world can be a hard and painful place; they show us our faith isn't built on an idea that God instantly makes everything okay or that Christians have no troubles. Our faith isn't a blindfold we wear to cover our eyes from the pain of the world. We are not called to be delusional.

 

This Psalm tells us that God listens to the cries of the victim and has compassion, which means we should too. It tells us God stands up against oppressors and violence, and so we should too. It tells us God cares about the hurt that even words can cause, and so we should too.

 

Knowing someone is out there wanting to hurt us can make us hyper vigilant and dominate our thinking. Sharing songs about this reality together can give us an outlet for what is weighing so heavily upon us. It promotes unity, boosts our courage, gives us a common language, and makes us feel like we have friends, not just enemies. Addressing these issues publicly as a church provides healing for victims, and makes God’s position clear about this evil behaviour, calling it out and making plain that it is unacceptable before God.

 

Ancient people knew well the power of words. Today we say things like "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me". But words do hurt. In some cultures, like the ancient near eastern cultures much of the Bible was written in, and even in some tribal cultures of Africa such as Namibia where Penny and I worked, words are seen as weapons. Curses spoken against someone are considered powerful, able to cause sickness and physical harm. James calls the tongue in James 3:8 "a restless evil, full of deadly poison." Here in this psalm from verse 20, "My companion attacks his friends; he violates his covenant. His talk is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords."

 

Think back to the last time someone yelled at you or said something truly hurtful to you. You feel it in your body: you shake, or feel sick like you might vomit, your legs feel weak. Many perpetrators of family violence say things like, "I never touched her", "I never laid a finger on him" and yet their victims still suffer physically, they still get sick. Some people are in situations where they live feeling like that for weeks, months, years.

 

And so it makes sense to pray about this, to bring this sickness to God, to ask for healing. And when we look at some of these cursing Psalms in that framework - as a prayer for the healing of the one who is hurt - I think it helps us unlock a better understanding of these Psalms in a way we find easier to make sense of.

 

Because prayers for healing are possibly some of the most common prayers we pray, especially as we get older. We pray against sickness because we know sickness is not part of God's new kingdom. Sickness and death are the enemy of God, and they are an enemy we know has been defeated in his power. So we pray against them - we pray for the cause of the sickness to go away! When one of us has cancer, we don't just pray that their symptoms might get better but that the cancer will otherwise hang around. We pray for the cancer, the source of the sickness, to be taken away!

 

That's how these cursing Psalms mirror a prayer for healing: they ask for the victim to be comforted and saved, and for the source of the pain and trouble to be removed. Unfortunately, in the case of violence and betrayal, the source of the pain is another person.

 

For many of us, praying for God to deal with a person like he might deal with a sickness may seem harsh. And these curses often are harsh! "Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the realm of the dead, for evil finds lodging among them." This is not the strongest language the psalms use either! It's confronting. But I think these words try to capture the feelings of fear and hurt of victims of violence, and their desire for that pain to stop, for freedom from that fear.

 

Looking for a modern example, I googled "song for Ukraine war", and was directed to a song called "Bayraktar". Bayraktar is the name of a Turkish built attack drone, a weapon being used by Ukrainians against the Russian invaders. They sing a song about it destroying Russian convoys and killing enemy soldiers. The music video includes footage of the explosions. It's brutal. But the song itself is folksy and upbeat and really catchy.

 

My first thought watching this music video was, "That's distasteful." But this is the lived reality for Ukrainians! People are dying! Homes are being destroyed! Children are being taken! Ordinary citizens are having to take up arms to defend themselves. And so they sing of the hero that helps them defend against the huge powerful enemy - Bayraktar!

 

Now I'm not saying that the intentions of every Ukrainian citizen taking up arms against Russian invaders is always pure all the time. I'm not saying that every time they sing this song about Russians being killed by a combat drone they are being righteous. I feel like I'm on pretty strong ground when I say that I'm sure not every time this psalm has been sung it was sung with pure motives, fully aligning with God's will. Victims are still people, and people are not perfect. Christian intellectual Miroslav Volf says in his book Exclusion and Embrace "Evil generates new evil as evildoers fashion victims in their own ugly image". Sometimes we see the victims filled with hate and loathing against their perpetrators, lashing out against them in vengeance. It can be tempting at that point to fall into what Volf calls the "twisted arithmetic of sin", where "blame on the one side and blame on the other do not add up but cancel each other out".

 

But that is not God's way. God understands our hurts, he understands the pain that can be inflicted by our enemies, by their words, by their betrayal, and he has given his people songs to sing about that, ways to express their hurt and their desire for the pain to stop. These songs are an outlet for those feeling hurt, betrayal and injustice, who have these things thrust on them, and who know they don't have it in their power to make it go away by themselves.

 

Those harsh words in verse 15, they are also putting the cause of the pain at God's feet, by asking him to take action. The action requested is harsh, but it's also not outside of God's character. This verse about our enemies falling alive into the realm of the dead is recalling the Korah rebellion back in Numbers 16. If like me your memory is struggling to recall that incident, a bunch of Levites and Reubenites rebelled against Moses when Israel were in the wilderness having fled Egypt, and Moses called out to the people of Israel saying in Numbers 16:30 "If the Lord brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the realm of the dead, then you will know that these men have treated the Lord with contempt.”

 

And that's exactly what happens in Numbers 16 - the ground opens up and swallows these people because in betraying Moses they had shown contempt for God. And then everyone freaks out because that is not normal! And if it happened today, we would freak out, because it would not be normal! And that's part of the reality of putting things into God's hands: he can deal with problems in a miraculous, sometimes frightening way. He can do that. He has done that. God definitely is not a fan of contempt. God does get angry about people doing wrong, and he does act.

 

But how many times do you think this song has been sung or prayed by the Lord's people? Probably countless times. This psalm could be 3000 years old. Throughout history when God's people have been faced with enemies, with betrayal, they prayed this prayer, bringing their situation before the Lord.

 

Now, how many times do you think God's answer to this prayer has been to crack the ground open and swallow up his enemies? Given the countless times God's people have prayed this prayer and others like it about their enemies, it is clear that God does not regularly answer this prayer in this way.

 

And we know that, right? We know that when we pray to God to drag our enemies kicking and screaming into hell that's not what's going to happen, not right away. In singing this song to God, in making this request, in putting this issue at his feet, we are accepting that God probably won't do that. We're accepting that God's actions will be sufficient, even if they take a long time, even if they aren’t what we’d like.

 

And why do we accept that? Because God has shown us who the real enemies are, and how he deals with them. To see that, let's go to another psalm - not so far away, still a psalm of David - Psalm 51. You may be more familiar with this psalm:

For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

1 "Have mercy on me, O God,

    according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion

    blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash away all my iniquity

    and cleanse me from my sin.

 

3 For I know my transgressions,

    and my sin is always before me.

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned

    and done what is evil in your sight;

so you are right in your verdict

    and justified when you judge."

 

David was a victim of violence and cruelty. He had enemies who wanted him dead. He had multiple people who betrayed him. And he was a faithful king of Israel, close to God's own heart, keen to bring Israel back on track with God. But he was also an adulterer and a murderer. He was also God's enemy. And when he found himself in that position as God's enemy, did he pray that God would send him still living into the realm of the dead? No. He prayed, "Have mercy on me, O God."

 

And that’s how God treats his enemies. I'm not talking about the Korah rebellion, where the earth opened up and swallowed God's enemies that one time. I'm talking about the way God treats his enemies every single day: according to his unfailing love; according to his great compassion. David accepted that God would be right and justified to judge him and condemn him, but he threw himself on God's love and compassion and begged for mercy. And God relented.

 

And that's why, rather than take revenge on the one who has betrayed us, we sing. Why when they curse us, instead of crafting our own curses, we sing. When our minds are overwhelmed by the pain and trouble our enemies cause us, we sing. We send those things up to God, we put them at his feet, we sing Psalm 55:1, "Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea", and we sing Psalm 55:16, "As for me, I call to God,

    and the Lord saves me.

Evening, morning and noon

    I cry out in distress,

    and he hears my voice.

He rescues me unharmed

    from the battle waged against me,

    even though many oppose me."

 

I asked at the beginning of this talk, "Who is my enemy?" When we pray a psalm like this, we are reminded that we would all be God's enemies if it weren't for God's amazing love, mercy and compassion; if it weren't for Jesus taking away our sin and making us no longer enemies of God but drawing us into his family.

 

When we pray a psalm like this, we're connecting ourselves with God's ultimate plan for the world. We are connected with God's plan to do away with evil. In the new heaven and the new earth, there is no place for violence, or lies, or betrayal. Sin is the real enemy, and God has dealt with it in Jesus. If we choose to accept that from him and turn away from violence, our sin is dealt with, even if we are a perpetrator or a betrayer.

 

When we pray "As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me" we are connecting with God's plan to rescue people from that evil, both victims and perpetrators.

 

But we need to recognise that, for some victims, church does not always feel like a safe place for them. It feels too safe for their enemies. There is a support group in Sydney for victims of domestic violence perpetrated by their church leader spouses. Recently our old mission agency, with whom Penny and I went to Africa, made an apology to all the children who have been abused while on the mission field in their mission stations by missionaries. 

 

Stories like this keep coming out. Perpetrators getting away with violence in the church in the name of loving your enemies; while victims are pushed out of church for not being loving and forgiving. These behaviours are not in God's will! We need to call them out, and that's what these songs do! Using violence against your spouse is not okay! Using harsh words to belittle, dominate and control anyone is not okay! We need to mourn the realities of these things happening, and call on perpetrators to repent of them! But without threatening to withhold God’s love and grace, which he offers freely to all sinners. That’s a tightrope we walk at Horizons when we are working with perpetrators of domestic violence as our clients. I won’t pretend it’s easy for us, and it’s no easier for a church.

 

And we need to be mature in how we help those seeking to escape family violence. The scourge of violence, even of poisonous words, sometimes needs drastic action. At Horizons we help people get divorces; we help people leave marriages; when it's dangerous for kids to see their abusive parent we help to restrict the child's time with that parent to protect the child.  But we don't go along with those who would take the shield of the law's protection and turn it into a sword to strike at their ex-partners for vengeance.

 

This is the impossible job God gives all of us, and so praise God he gives us words to use. When we pray Psalms like this as a community, we are sharing God's message; a comfort to victims: "Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken”; it’s a warning to the violent: “But you, God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of decay; the bloodthirsty and deceitful will not live out half their days”; and we make our position on God’s message clear and hold out the opportunity to others: “But as for me, I trust in you.” I trust in God. So should you.

 

Sermon: Jeremiah 10:11 - Where are we in the Gospel

 Where are we in the gospel? Jeremiah 10:1-17 but really mainly 11.

 

When I did my teaching degree, I went to different schools to do my practical teaching requirement. I was studying to be a studies of religion teacher. But even the Christian schools that I went to didn't have huge religious studies curricula, so I would end up being told to teach other subjects.

 

Sometimes that was okay: I did a bit of history, English and geography - all things I'd done okay in when I was a student at high school. But other times I was less well equipped. I had to teach two weeks of business studies: I've never come close to business studies in my life!  I had to teach a class of Latin. I've never studied Latin!

 

So what did I do? I read the textbooks ahead of time, did my best to understand what I needed to teach, and taught it. But if students had any questions, my inexperience was obvious. And their desire to listen to me dried up - why listen to some blow-in who doesn't know what he's talking about? In the case of my Latin class: I bribed them with Mars bars.

 

Was the information I was teaching them wrong? I don't think so. I mean, it was straight from books. But I actually had no idea. I had no personal learning or experience to draw from, and little personal investment in those subjects.

 

Sometimes that's how we feel as Christians trying to share good news about Jesus with other people. We can feel like we're not a good example, or we don't know enough about it, or there's nothing anyone could learn from us.

 

Or sometimes we feel like we do have something important, valuable, incredible to share, but we feel like no-one listens, they don't understand or accept what we say, there's just too big a gap between my life and their life; it just doesn't seem to translate. Sometimes it feels like the world outside these church walls is so different, it believes and values such different things, that God and Jesus just aren't welcome anymore.

 

These worries can become obstacles that actually stop us from talking to people about Jesus. And that's a sad thing for us, because it means we're not getting to share the most important thing in our lives with others around us. And it's also a sad thing for them, because it might mean there's a gap in someone’s journey with Jesus where no-one has ever explained the gospel the way you would.

 

This isn't a new problem. I don't have some miracle cure to these obstacles. I just want to share a little bit of the story of God's people that we all share, and a little bit of my own story, to help us take a step or two in the right direction on this path. I'm happy to leave the miracles up to God.

 

My big question today is, "Where are we in the gospel we'd like to share with people?" By that I mean how much of ourselves is in the gospel we share with others.

 

To help make the question more specific, there are 3 questions that I would like to ask today.  

1. Are we coming from somewhere others can hear us?
2. Are we speaking the right language for others to understand us?
3. Are we sharing something we both find valuable?

 

These questions all come from what is possibly the world's first gospel tract, found in the book of Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 11. We've heard this read in its passage so we have some context, but let me bring us up to speed here historically. Jeremiah is a prophet of God in the last days of the southern kingdom. He speaks God's word to God's people both before and after they are exiled to Babylon because they were worshipping idols instead of the true God. And here in Jeremiah 10, in the middle of a warning to God's people about the idol worship they're being punished for, there is this fascinatingly outward pointing verse talking about what God's people are going to say to the people they meet in Babylon: “Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’ ”

 

Here is God telling his people, "Now when you arrive in exile as my punishment for worshipping foreign gods and their idols, don't forget to tell the people you're living beside - your neighbours, your enemies, the people who have taken you captive - don't forget to tell them that their gods are worthless."

 

Now that's not a message you would see in many gospel presentations today. Why am I preaching about the gospel from Jeremiah? This is 500 years before Jesus!

 

Well, for starters, it is valuable to us, because as Christians we do value the whole of the Bible as God's message to us. This whole book is the gospel. Often when we talk about the gospel, we're focused on the New Testament. Often we're focused just on Jesus. And often we're really just focused on Jesus's death and resurrection. We might even drill right down to a single verse like John 3:16, "For God so loved the world he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him will never die but have eternal life." And there's a reason we do that - because the New Testament, the Gospels, the passion, John 3:16, they encapsulate the most valuable part of the gospel message! ...to us.

 

But sometimes it's important to remember there was a point in the history of God's people where the most important gospel message for them to share was Jeremiah 10:11. This passage does have something to tell us about who God is and how he relates to his people, and how he calls us to relate to others. That's important for us to hear when it comes to sharing the gospel, because when we learn a little more about the context of this passage, it makes it clear how valuable different parts of the gospel message can be depending on who's around to listen, how it's spoken, and who shares it.

 

So let's ask our questions in the context that Jeremiah was when he wrote this passage about 2500 years ago. First question: were God's people somewhere the receivers of this message could hear it? Well, by the end of the book of Jeremiah, God had stayed true to his word, and the Babylonian army came down from the north, laid siege to Jerusalem, tore down their walls, and took the people of Judah captive, into exile to Babylon! So God's people found themselves very close to the people this message was aimed at. Now they were living with the Babylonians as their neighbours, their coworkers, in many cases their masters. Geographically, they were in a much better position to share their message.

 

But when the Jewish exiles eventually arrived in Babylon, how likely was it that the Babylonians were going to be able to hear a message from them calling their idols useless? At first, it was perhaps unlikely. The people who got taken were primarily priests, tradesmen, nobility, artisans - the educated, the skilled, those with something useful to share. They weren't useless. But the Jews were enslaved. They were foreigners. They were the lowest class.

 

However, there is something special about being a foreigner, especially a brand new one. You struggle with language, you don't know how things work. Even simple things like going shopping or eating - things you take for granted in your homeland - become strange and difficult! You need help! And that vulnerability, that helplessness, that need to ask others to help you, it makes you way more humble, and I think that in turn makes people take an interest in you; it helps build relationships. Many missionaries will say that the best relationships, the most open conversations, the time people are most open to hear what you have to say, is in the first few years of your arrival when you need lots of help. The more comfortable you get, the more self-reliant, the more at home, the less you need others, the less interested they are in you, the harder the conversations can become.

 

You might have found this even when joining a new community like a hobby group or a cycling group or a book club. There's a way of talking, things have specific names, you don't know people, and often someone will come alongside a new person and help them navigate these things. And friendships get built in those early times when we're humbled by inexperience. Once you've settled in, you've made your friends and you stick to them.

 

And the Jews had good reason to be humble: they were captives! They lost the war! But not only were the Jews in exile humbled and in a low position; they were tasked by God to work for the prosperity of their captors. In Jeremiah 29 they were told they were to show God's love and kindness even to the people who had defeated them. They were to work for everyone's mutual benefit, and to pray for everyone's mutual benefit. It was Jesus who said "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you", but centuries before God was already calling his people to do exactly that.

 

Could the Jews in exile share this message of Jeremiah 10:11 with their Babylonian neighbours and have them hear it? I think they could, once they were close enough to them, both geographically and relationally. And we can do the same thing. A humble posture of loving kindness towards people in our orbit lets them know that you actually care about them, and that helps them hear the message you're sharing, because you're sharing it out of love.

 

At Horizons Family Law Centre, my clients were asking themselves three questions when they saw me for advice about their family situation: "Do you understand? Do you care? Can you help?" It's easy for them to trust I know what I'm talking about regarding family law - I'm a family lawyer. But if I couldn't show them I cared about their family, that I listened to them about their family, it didn't matter how good my legal advice was. They just couldn't hear the advice, if they didn't think I cared, especially if it was hard to hear.

 

When you think about it, the more difficult we think a gospel message is to swallow, the more humble and gentle and caring we should be in sharing it. Are we prepared to be humble enough and caring enough for people to hear our gospel?

 

Let’s move to Question 2: were the Jews speaking the language of Babylon? Could they be understood? The answer is absolutely yes! It's not often I refer to a Bible footnote in a sermon, but I'm going to this morning. If you've got your Bible, look at the footnote for Jeremiah 10:11. In my Bible it says "The text of this verse is in Aramaic". Aramaic is the language of Babylon!

 

By providing this gospel message in Aramaic, God is giving the Jews a message that is obviously for the Babylonians – an ancient gospel tract. But will they understand the concepts in this message?

 

The Babylonians had heaps of gods. Their city would have been full of shrines dedicated to various idols. Some of their kings even demanded to be worshipped as gods. The idea that foreigners have different gods was common; and the idea that some gods are more powerful than others was well accepted: usually you could tell how powerful a god is by how many wars its followers win. Babylonians were probably thinking their gods were pretty hot stuff, because they were a huge Empire. The idea that these people who lost the war might say their God is still stronger would be a challenge to accept! But they could at least understand.

 

When we were in Namibia, one of my jobs was teaching advanced theological English to the new theology students at the Bible college. Most people in Namibia speak English, and most of their schooling is done in English, but none speak it as their heart language. Which means they can struggle to grasp big theological words that they will come across in their studies, like eschatology - theology about end times. Their languages do not have these words.

 

But what I discovered teaching that course was that not only did the students not understand the big words, they struggled to understand the concepts behind them. When I talked about cause and effect, this concept was really hard for them to grasp. One paper I read on this topic described African culture as seeing things as so interconnected, especially between the natural and the supernatural, that Africans can struggle to recognize or pick out the most important, specific or proximate causes of an effect – while we in the West do it naturally. This difference was quite subtle in regular conversation, but in academic or spiritual discussions it became really clear. And it took some work to be able to bridge that understanding gap, to make sure that we understood each other, because my culture stopped me from understanding the interconnectedness that they could easily identify.

 

If we have the humble and loving posture that shows we care, then that should lead us to being prepared to put in as much work as it takes to make sure we understand those we're speaking with, so they can understand us.

 

Our last question now: were God's people sharing something that both they and the Babylonians found valuable?

 

The truth is that we never have any control over how people think or what they value anyway. What we can change is what message we bring, focusing on the part of the gospel is really going to land with the people we’re talking to. And this has to include how authentic this message is to me - does my life and experience reflect what I'm saying? We can shape our gospel to fit these things, and they all add value to what we're saying, and they all link to our relationship with a person or people.

 

Have you noticed that Jeremiah 10:11, this gospel message, doesn't mention God at all? The Babylonians probably couldn't care less about the Jewish God. What does it talk about? The Babylonian gods! That's what they care about!

 

When people call Horizons looking for help, they don't care about Jesus. Will Jesus bring their kids back? Will Jesus stop the violence?

 

Their concern is so immediate that it's all they see. If we told them that putting their children's best interests first, sacrificing their own desires, acting with grace and mercy towards the other parent, is what Jesus wants, they would be sceptical of that message and of us. But if we explain that not only are these things in line with family law legislation, but they show the court that they're a good parent, and they work well in helping reach agreements, they will be far more likely to listen. They might not like it, but they will listen, because you're addressing a problem that is valuable to them. All these things are all part of the gospel message! Love the vulnerable, love others as yourself, love your enemy. But they are also parts of the gospel immediately relevant to them, and so immediately valuable.

 

Then as we help clients with their immediate problem, even if it doesn't disappear, it gets just a little further away, and now they can see a bit more outside of their immediate problem. Then eventually they get to a stage, usually well before their problem is solved, where they suddenly ask, "Why do you do this? How do you afford to give this help for free?" And so we get to explain about how there's a whole bunch of Christians out their paying for this person to get this help, because those Christians love them and care about their family, because that's what Jesus wants for them.

 

Don’t get me wrong: salvation is obviously relevant to everyone. That’s a message people need to hear. But is it a message that the people you’re talking to can hear? Is it something they even understand? What even is sin that we’re being saved from today? Does our society have any concept of that at all? They can, but there’s a lot of scaffolding that needs to happen for lots of people to get there. And if we share it too early or too brashly, it can sound a lot like how this Jeremiah passage sounds to our ears – preachy, self-important, judgmental. Sharing the gospel takes time investment – investment in relationships, investment in the big story of God and the small stories of each person we speak with.

 

The Jews were tasked by God with making a home for themselves in exile, planting gardens, putting down roots. This included making friends, and praying for the prosperity of their non-Jewish neighbours. Time investment.

 

As we build up relationships, as we grow closer, we become more valuable to the other person, and so does what we think, our opinions, our beliefs. You're far more likely to take a recommendation from a close friend than a random stranger. I've read whole books without knowing anything more than a close friend recommended it. And even if I didn't particularly like the book, if I like the friend enough I'll keep reading just to be able to talk about it with them, because I value them that much.

 

When the Jews in exile in Babylon shared this message with their captors, they weren’t sharing a message from on high, a pompous and self-important message about how their God is so great and the Babylonian gods were false gods, mere idols that do no harm but also do no good, trying to outclass the Babylonians.  They came as losers, as captives, and they came that way because they stopped worshipping their great God and started worshipping the worthless idols! God wants them to share this message with Babylon because the Jews can attest to the mistake they themselves made – they turned their back on God, they trusted in idols, and those idols failed them. And now they are losers. And they are sharing this with their Babylonian captors as a warning – don’t be like us! Learn from our mistake! We can attest to how valuable this message is, because we’ve learned its lesson the hard way!

 

What if you were to talk about the things in your life that have been really hard, the questions that you don’t always have answers for, the problems that show you’re not a perfect little Christian but a real person who struggles and falls and fails.

 

I’ve had a pretty difficult relationship with my father. He left when I was 5, and gradually was less and less involved in my life, till at about 12 I just stopped seeing or hearing from him till I was about 20. I’ve seen him a handful of times since then. We’re not that close. I’ve shared that with a number of my clients, when telling them that while your kids won’t always be young, they will always be your children, and even if you’re struggling to see them or keep contact with them now, it’s far more likely your relationship with them as adults will be better if you keep trying.

 

I don’t like sharing that story. I find it a bit shameful. Christians should honour their father and mother. But it’s the truth. And it has really helped some clients. What I shared is actually practical and real good news, something valuable to both of us.

 

The big core question is: Where are you in the gospel that you share with others? Is there a gap in the life of someone near you who has never heard the gospel explained quite the way you could explain it? Because sometimes, even if your gospel message doesn’t directly mention Jesus it can still be heard; your gospel message in the right words and context can be understood; and your gospel that is valuable to you can be valuable to somebody who values you.

 

Find those people who can hear you, and who value your story, speak their language, and share it with them.

Prayer: Hospitality (Luke 10:25-37)

 Heavenly Father,

We sit in awe of you: God in three persons - Father, Son, Spirit - a being of relationship with yourself, and yet you open up your arms to welcome us into that eternal relationship. You have invited humans into relationship since the very beginning, you have continued extending invitations to us through promises, covenants, prophecies, through the incarnation of your Son Jesus as one of us, and through the indwelling of your Spirit within us every single day. What an amazing truth that is!

And because of your great love for this world and all the people in it, you've called us to offer that same invitation, to welcome people into our homes, our church, our communities, and our lives on your behalf. We haven't always been great at that, and we're sorry. We admit that we've turned our nose up at people sometimes - because of how they look, or how they sound, or even how they smell or how they make us feel. Sometimes we feel scared, sometimes we feel ashamed, sometimes we just don't feel like it because it's hard. And so we're so thankful to you that you give us the strength to be more like you, to be welcoming and inviting to anyone, and we're thankful to you for all the opportunities you give us to make new friendships, to build up existing ones, to be more loving to our family and friends and strangers alike.

And so we ask you tonight, Father, for the power of you in us to take away our fear and replace it with openness; to take away our shame and replace it with welcoming; to take away our tiredness and replace it with warmth. We pray that each step we take in the lives of the people around us might be a step alongside them and a step closer to you. We pray especially for those families that we have sent out into the world with that mission: to everyone on staff here, to everyone we support across Australia and across the world. Take away their fear and their shame and their tiredness too, and give them the openness and welcoming and warmth that we all need from you to hold out your invitation to all those around us.

And finally we pray for every single person who gets that invitation, that you will soften their hearts and help them to receive it. For blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb! These are the true words of God. And in your name we pray, Amen

Sermon: Seeing People Differently (Philemon)

(Preached at Waitara Gospel Chapel on 6/11/2022) 

When I was asked to preach here on Philemon today, I was excited to say yes. Partly that's because I haven't been to Waitara Gospel Chapel for a while, and it's lovely to catch up with you all. I can sincerely echo Paul's sentiments to Philemon as a supporter of his ministry and say, "Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brothers and sisters, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people."

 

And just as Paul did in his letter to Philemon, I also pray "that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ." As I tell stories about my ministry with SIM in Namibia, and my ministry here in Australia with Horizons Family Law Centre, I hope that the partnership you as a church have with me and Horizons deepens your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ.

 

I'm also excited to preach because in the little letter of Philemon, Paul writes to a fellow Christian about one of his slaves. And I am very passionate on the topic of slavery.  At the end of 2019 I accepted a position with For Freedom - SIM's ministry division focused on combatting human trafficking, the trade in modern day slaves. The idea was for me to serve in SIM's anti-human trafficking work in Namibia and southern Africa.

 

Human trafficking is a big problem in Namibia. Let me try and give an example of how bad. Between 2011 and 2017 Australia had 31 prosecutions for human trafficking. Namibia also had 31 prosecutions for human trafficking during that same period. But Australia's population is 10 times bigger than Namibia. Why is it ten times worse in Namibia? Well, Namibia has higher levels of poverty and desperation. Australia has a highly functioning law enforcement system! Namibia didn't even have proper anti-human trafficking legislation until 2018.  

 

But another problem Namibia has is a culture that is more accepting of some forms of trafficking. Let me give you an example. I worked with a lady, Sarah, who started a church based anti-trafficking ministry in Namibia. Sarah was visiting a Herero village to teach the people there about human trafficking. There's no word for "human trafficking" in Otjiherero, so Sarah had to explain that we're talking about using fraud, force, coercion or abuse of power to to exploit a vulnerable person.

 

Now a woman in that village had a boy looking after her livestock. He was scruffy, thin, poorly clothed, didn't go to school. She said that this boy's parents had died, and he had no other family. She fed him. But she didn't send him to school or look after him like one of her own children. This boy was not adopted. Instead, she sent him off after her livestock to shepherd them, take them water, find them grazing land. But she didn't pay him like a hired farm worker. 

 

This boy was a slave. He wasn't chained up. He was "free" to leave anytime he wanted. But he had nowhere to go. He was vulnerable, and she was exploiting his vunerability through coercion and abuse of power. And that's human trafficking. It's not the kind of sophisticated modern slavery undertaken by organised crime syndicates across the world, but it's still slavery.  

 

The woman was not happy to be told this. She said, "If I didn't do this, the boy would starve and die." This argument made what she was doing acceptable to everyone in her village, and would have been agreed to in many villages. This scenario plays out again and again across Namibia. 20 years ago 1 in 3 Namibian adults had HIV - today that number is about 1 in 10; so there are lots of orphaned kids. Looking after orphans is great. But exploiting their vulnerability for your personal gain is not okay. Her response to this was, "Well, if you think what I am doing is wrong, you adopt him. You feed him, you send him to school." If she couldn't exploit this boy, she didn't want anything to do with him.

 

How would you get this woman to treat her boy slave differently? Maybe you'd call the police. But the police might not do anything - even in Australia, many identified cases of human trafficking aren't dealt with by police. Plus calling the cops pretty much ruins your relationship with the whole village - you'll never do ministry there again.  This wasn't Sarah's home village, but it was part of her clan group, so burning her relationship with them was not ideal.

 

Would you talk to the woman's church pastor or her tribal chief and get them to force her to look after the boy? That might work, but do you think the woman's relationship with the boy would really improve if she was feeling resentment about being forced to care for him?

 

Would you adopt the boy? Sarah was a single woman living very simply in the settlements in Windhoek. It would have been hard, but she probably could have sought another care arrangement for the boy. But does that really solve the problem for the woman who enslaved him, or the village who condoned it?

 

Maybe you're simply thankful you don't have to deal with this problem. We don't have this kind of problem here in Australia. So this just isn't relevant - and neither, you may think,  is Paul's letter to Philemon. Not because we don't have slaves in Australia - last year it was estimated there are around 15,000 modern day slaves in Australia. But we don't have the kind of culture Namibia has where even one kind of slavery is acceptable. You'd never have to try to convince someone to free a slave in Australia. So why bother thinking about it?

 

But we know that God speaks to us through the scriptures, so we can trust that there is something true and something valuable for us in this letter. And in my reflections on Philemon, I've certainly seen truth and value relating to my own life and our work at Horizons Family Law Centre. 

 

So let's take a look at what was happening when Paul wrote this letter. Paul is in prison. He's writing to Philemon and his family, a wealthy family who seem to be important members of the church in Collosae. We know they're wealthy because Paul is writing to them about Onesimus. Onesimus is Philemon's slave. That much is obvious, because he's got what at the time was a slave name. Onesimus literally means "useful". 

 

Onesimus has run away. Philemon may have mistreated him; Onesimus may have stolen from his master. Certainly Paul is concerned, because the punishment for a slave fleeing their master can be anything up to and including death, and Paul doesn't want Philemon to exact such a harsh punishment. 

 

Onesimus somehow found his way to Paul. He heard the gospel, became a Christian, and served Paul's needs so well that Paul describes Onesimus as a son; just like he says about Timothy. And now, despite how useful Onesimus has become to Paul and to the gospel, Paul wants to send him back to his master, Philemon. Because Paul sees that there's a relationship here that's in trouble, and he wants to help both of these Christian brothers reconcile. And he thinks the best way to resolve this tension is for Onesimus to return to Philemon, for Philemon to free Onesimus from slavery and accept him as a brother in Christ, and then to send Onesimus back to Paul to serve him and the gospel once again. 

 

Now Paul could have solved this very directly. He says in verse 8  "in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do".  This is Paul the apostle to the gentiles we're talking about here. He could just throw his weight around and order Philemon to free his slave.

 

And imagine if he had done that. Imagine if the letter to Philemon we had in scripture had a spirited, powerful rebuke of Christians who owned slaves, banning Christians from participating in slavery and clearly stating how sinful it is. Imagine how different the world might look! 

 

The latest global estimates say that in today's world there are over 50 million people living in modern day slavery. 50 million men, women and children, found in every single country of the world, being trafficked as though they were just another commodity - cheap labour, sex objects, mail-order brides, even a source of organs for transplant. In the world's history, there has never been more humans living in slavery than there are today.

 

And yet although there are more people in slavery today than ever before, they represent the smallest percentage of the world's population that has been in slavery than ever before in recorded history. Today it's thought about one in every 200 people are modern slaves. Back in Jesus' time, it's estimated that up to 25 percent of the population of the Roman empire were slaves. One in four! The impact of slavery in the ancient world was huge. 

 

But if Paul had simply penned the words "I do not permit a Christian to own a slave", centuries of misery may have been avoided. The ascension of the church into Europe's dominant religion could have been followed by a downturn in slavery.  Black slavery in America may never have arisen. Apartheid in southern Africa may never have happened. Or even if those things still happened - the evil of the human heart is deep - I think it's reasonable to say that a clear statement against slavery as sinful by Paul in the New Testament could have reduced a lot of suffering for a lot of people. 

 

Did Paul know that he held that power in his pen? Did he know he was writing scripture that would last thousands of years? I don't know. But I do that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul's words. God could have worked in Paul's heart to be more forthright to Philemon in his letter. But that's not the message we read here. Instead, it seems that even though God leads Paul to care about Onesimus's welfare, he also leads Paul to care about Philemon's heart attitude, and about the ongoing relationship between a slave and his master.

 

God is not in the business of blind enforced obedience. So Paul doesn't order Philemon to free his slave Onesimus, even though he could. Instead, he appeals to Philemon on the basis of love. God cares about people's hearts, not just their actions. God wants us to have a relationship with him, to do the right thing because we love him. He wants us to act because we love one another, because we love our neighbour, because we love the weak, because we love our enemies.

 

As I've said, we don't live in a country where there is a cultural acceptance of slavery. But there are many other actions and attitudes that are culturally acceptable in Australia but are not in line with loving God and loving our neighbour. In our work with families in crisis at Horizons, we see an understandable but unfortunate attitude between many parents who are in conflict. In our most recent newsletter you can read about one of our clients, who we'll call Alan. He and his ex-partner had a messy break-up, and because she felt hurt, she stopped their children from seeing their dad for months. When he first came to us, Alan wanted to take his ex-partner to court, to force her to let the kids spend time with him again. Court is a slow, expensive and painful process for everyone, but Alan didn't care. He was already feeling hurt.

 

Alan could have gone to court and got the court to force their mum to let the kids spend time with him. His kids should grow up knowing their dad. But there's an old saying: "Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still." Even if Alan went to court and even if he convinced the court to make orders forcing the other parent to let the kids see him, she would still be of the same opinion about him. She would resent him. She might resent having to do something she didn't want to do. Even if she never said it, her kids might grow up knowing that their mum hated their dad, and that can sour a child's relationship with their parent forever.

 

Thankfully, our lawyer, Jono, encouraged Alan to give mediation a real crack. Mediation is a compulsory step before court, but so many people just see it as a speed bump, an obstacle to overcome before getting to court and forcing the other parent to do what they want. But the truth is for parents who are able to put their conflict aside and seek to come to an agreement about what's best for their kids, the results are faster, cheaper, less painful, and most importantly more likely to succeed. 

 

Mediation works because when two people come to an agreement about the way to move forward, it's not just their actions that change, but their heart attitude changes too. Why break the terms of a plan that you helped make, that you agreed to? Alan's kids are still young, and these two will continue to be their parents their whole lives. Because Alan was able to show how he had changed for the better, and convince his ex-partner that he really did love their kids and want what was best for them, because he was prepared to make concessions, she was also able to make an agreement, and their agreement is very likely to work.

 

Now it's true that such agreements are not always capable of being reached. It's true that sometimes people feel pressured into making agreements they don't really agree with. It's true that sometimes people must be forced to do what is in the best interests of a child's welfare or safety, or more broadly force needs to be used to protect people or society from harm. That's why we have police. But the message we're seeing here in Philemon is that God doesn't want us to escalate straight to force if we can avoid it. We should avoid going straight to the logical conclusion of, "Well, I'm in the right and I've got the power here, so why bother talking about it when I can just force them in the end anyway?"

 

There are a lot of things in Australian culture that we in the church might not agree with, and yet that we might see seeping into the lives of those around us. How should we deal with one another in such situations? I would hope we could find the grace and love that Paul finds in his letter to Philemon. We need to remember that God wants us to focus not just on doing what's right, but wanting to do what's right out of love. 

 

How might we help someone to not just change their actions, but their heart attitude? Here's a few things I think we see in Paul's approach to Philemon, which guide us in our interactions with our clients at Horizons.

 

First of all, Paul's approach is made in the context of relationship. Paul starts the letter acknowledging Philemon's love and faith, and the partnership they have in the work of the gospel. And even though Paul doesn't leverage his authority as an apostle against Philemon, he still mentions it in terms of reminding Philemon of how close they are: in verse 19 he says that Philemon owes him his very self, which I think is a reference to Paul being the one who led Philemon to faith. Paul is able to have this conversation with Philemon because they share a close relationship of faith.

 

In our work at Horizons, we accomplish this by listening to our clients, understanding how hard and painful their situation is, and showing them not only that we can help, but that we actually care. 

 

And it's not always easy to find that level of understanding. I don't have kids that I haven't seen for months. I don't have a marriage marked by conflict and hurt. I don't have a substance abuse problem, or a string of run-ins with the police. But that's not really what understanding is about.  The understanding Paul shows us here is being able to see people differently.

 

Paul doesn't see Philemon just as a slave master who has treated a slave so harshly they have risked death to flee. He sees a Christian church leader who he led to faith and who wants to serve God more. And so as Paul talks with Philemon, he seeks to help Philemon see his slave as something more as well: as a fellow man in verse 16, as a brother in Christ (vs 15 you might have him back forever— no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother), as a beloved son of Paul (vs 10 Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains), even as an apostle himself (vs 17 welcome him as you would welcome me.). 

 

At Horizons, we seek to help clients like Alan see themselves not as an aggrieved husband, but rather as a loving father; to see their ex-partner not as an enemy, but rather a co-worker; and to see their children not as pawns in a battle of passions, or symbols of injustice, or reminders of past pain, but as kids in need of love and care. 

 

This is the gospel: that God transforms people into who they are meant to be, into their best selves. The closer we get to Jesus, the more he changes us to be like him. 

 

Look at Paul in this letter: he denies himself the title of apostle in dealing with Philemon, eschews giving orders, and instead takes the name "a prisoner of Christ Jesus", to help a slave by seeking to free him, but also to help this slave master by encouraging his escaped slave to return to him, and encouraging the master to show him mercy by not punishing him and by actually freeing him out of love for Christ. 

 

Paul is holding out change to Philemon as an offer, as a different way, a better way, a Christ-like way. He is offering Philemon the chance to transform from being Onesimus's master to becoming his brother in Christ. 

 

We held out to Alan the chance to be more like Jesus by offering him the chance to transform from being a sometimes difficult, sometimes despondent man seeking conflict in a courtroom, into the loving father who recognises his ex partner as a loving mother and who works for what's best for his kids. 

 

Sometimes it looks different. My client, we can call her Amanda, had separated from her partner, and now her ex partner wants to see their kids. The problem is he has a chronic addiction to hard drugs. I was able to come alongside Amanda and encourage her - literally help her find the courage - to say no to her ex-partner until he's been able to transform his life into one that is safe and beneficial for his kids to be with him. We offered Amanda the chance to transform into someone who is courageous enough to stand up for her kids' safety, and in doing so even offer her ex-partner the chance to transform into a better father and a healthier person free from drugs.  Will he take up that chance? I don't know. But in helping Amanda see that she has a choice, and that her ex has a choice, an opportunity to change, we hold out a message of hope.

 

Truth is we can't change the world. We can't even change people. But thankfully, we don't have to. Thanks to Jesus making the path to God clear for us, and thanks to the Holy Spirit working in each of us, the message of hope that we can be transformed is available to anyone. That's our focus at Horizons: to help families in crisis remake themselves. We hold out the offer of hope that people can change. You don't need to be a solicitor to do that. You don't need to be an apostle.  You can be a struggling single mum  holding out that hope to your drug addicted ex-partner.   

 

But there is a cost.  This hope, this change, requires sacrifice. That cost was borne first and foremost by Jesus on the cross. But following this path of hope, seeing ourselves and others differently, seeking to reconcile relationships, offering people the chance to be closer to the loving person Jesus wants them to be rather than simply forcing them to do what's right, that bears its own cost. Philemon is being asked to bear a big cost - to free a slave who wronged him, to give up not just the financial investment of a slave, but the right he has to punish that slave for wrongdoing. And that's a big ask.

 

If he decides not to change, not to pay that cost,  then it costs Onesimus - he gets sent back to his master with no guarantee that Philemon will release him, no guarantee that his master won't have him killed! And that's why Paul actually holds himself out to pay the cost on Onesimus’s behalf, saying in verse 18 "If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me." In the same way Christ intercedes for us, so Paul intercedes between the slave and his master. 

 

We need to recognise that cost when we are holding out this offer of transformation to others. When clients come to us, it's because they are wanting there to be change for their families, but they can't afford to pay the cost: they can't afford a family lawyer to help them navigate the system. But if their family situation doesn't change, someone else pays the price. Quite often it's their kids. So like Paul, we seek to stand between them, offering our services for free or at low cost, so that these families in crisis have the opportunity to remake themselves.

 

Did Philemon end up freeing Onesimus? The letter doesn't tell us, but church tradition says that he did; that Onesimus did return to serve Paul in prison, and he actually ended up becoming the bishop of the church of Ephesus after Timothy, before being martyred by the emperor.

 

And did Paul's letter have a bigger impact on slavery? Yes! Today, we'd consider slavery a serious sin. The reason slavery isn't a way of life now for one quarter of the population is in no small part because of a short letter Paul wrote to one of his converts about a slave, and then the ongoing sacrifice of people to change their own ways, and then seek to help others change. Did it happen as quickly as we'd like? No. But is it clear evidence of God transforming people to loving one another enough not to countenance enslaving each other? You bet. 

 

Does our work at Horizons change the world? No. But through it God changes people to make good decisions for their families, rather than simply being forced to do something they don't value or understand. Many of our clients make real sacrifices to follow God's call to love our enemies and love our neighbours.

 

Like Paul, at Horizons we're called to make a sacrifice, to stand in the gap and hold out hope to families who really need it. No doubt you can imagine that a bunch of Christian lawyers like us could go into the marketplace and earn substantially more instead of living by faith. I recently took on another day a week at Horizons, and that has a real cost. And just like Paul, we are only able to stand in that gap with the support of churches and Christians like you. Christians like Philemon who were not forced to help but who heard the request to look at others differently and responded generously. So let me thank you for your refreshing of us in this ministry, and invite you to share with us in holding out the hope of transformation to others.