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Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
Romans [Season 2]- Ian Graham- Romans 9vv18-33: The Potter and the Clay
Pastor Ian Graham leads us into the thorny question of predestination.
We're going to jump right into it. We've been in a series on the book of Romans, which is a famously easy book to read if you have been a Christian for a while. Biologist Robert Sapolsky argues that human beings are deterministic animals not exercising any volition, but simply responding to external factors and causes at the neurobiological level, to external factors and causes at the neurobiological level. Sapolsky argues, in the case of more ambiguous choices where it seems like you're thinking about what you're going to do next and making some sort of deliberative decision that even those complicated choices are the expressions of values that are predetermined by factors such as genetic and environmental factors. Sapolsky says this by factors such as genetic and environmental factors. Sapolsky says this we are nothing more or less than the cumulative biological and environmental luck over which we had no control. That has brought us to any moment. So I don't know why you're here today, but something in your past has preceded you being here right now. It's interesting if you read a lot of high-level neurobiology. A lot of the scientific research, especially biological accounts, are sympathetic to the idea that humans don't actually exercise much in the way of volition and agency. Many scientists are materialists and assume that everything in the universe has an imminent cause and effect. And if you're curious about some of the intersections between faith and science, our very own Dr Chris Galea where is he? No, chris is teaching a class next week. He's a rocket scientist, like think Tony Stark, that kind of situation Teaching a class next week before our 1030 gathering at 930, so you can see him after and see how that class is going to go. But a little plug for that. I don't know about you, but for some of you you've never read the Bible and we're so honored that you're here. For others of us, we have tried to read these words and live by them, and I don't know if it was necessarily the first time I ever read Romans 9, but I do remember reading it the summer before my freshman year in college, and I read this section which comprises much of our teaching text. For today I'm going to read it for you.
Speaker 1:Romans 9, beginning in verse 18, says this so then, he, being God, has mercy on whomever he chooses and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses. You will say to me then, why then does he still find fault For who can resist his will? Why then does he still find fault For who can resist his will? But who indeed? Are you a human, to argue with God? Well, what does molded say to the one who molds it? Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction? And what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory? And I gotta say I don't know how you read that, but the first time I really read that and really paid attention to what it seemed like was being said, it made me really uneasy. Really, god is just arbitrarily choosing who receives mercy and whose heart gets actively hardened by God. It's not just that they don't receive mercy, it's that God by God. It's not just that they don't receive mercy, it's that God is an active agent in removing them from the fountain of that mercy.
Speaker 1:And then Paul seems to suggest in verse 20 that to even raise objections is somehow out of bounds At this point in my life, I'd committed to trusting God. I'd been a Christian for a little over a year and I had committed to abide by these words. But I gotta be honest, reading this and reading what I thought it was saying, made this very, very difficult. So today, what I want to do is draw out some of the implications of this passage. I will say that I don't think this passage is saying what it seems to be saying at first glance. Now, there's a long, pronounced history of people reading the Bible and making it say whatever they want it to say. So I have to be honest as well that my reading may not stand up to historical scrutiny or scholarship. So I'm trying my best to deal with the text as it is. But also, you have a responsibility in the midst of all this to say is that what Paul seems to be saying? And I commend that to you Again. There's no dictatorship here, and so you are welcome to think and to disagree.
Speaker 1:I think this passage is actually saying something much better and more beautiful than it may first appear. The traditional options for interpreting this passage are classically labeled Calvinist and is actually saying something much better and more beautiful than it may first appear. The traditional options for interpreting this passage are classically labeled Calvinist and Arminian. I find it quite ironic that the options available are labeled for 16th century Dutchmen, when the church had been reading and living these words in Romans 9, some 1500 years before John Calvin and Jacob Arminius showed up. I am going to lean, as you will see, in a much more Arminian direction, but I want to honor a few things that are pronounced in the Calvinist approach.
Speaker 1:First, if you've ever met a Calvinist, they have a high regard for the glory of God and the sovereignty of God. Second, a trust in God that is often admirable and beautiful. Second, a trust in God that is often admirable and beautiful In the sense that if God is ordering everything that happens, then a lot of people have submitted themselves to this trust and saying God, thank you Whatever comes my way. Third, a holistic dedication to the truth that it is God alone who saves through grace, by faith, completely independent of us. These are beautiful commitments, and I want to acknowledge that any sort of speculation about our degree of relative freedom is, at some level, quite pointless. Whatever measure of freedom humans have, we obviously can't resolve it beyond any shadow of a doubt because these disagreements still exist. So, at one level, whether you believe God controls the movement of every molecule of the universe or you believe in a completely open theism, it's kind of immaterial, isn't it? But on another level, romans 9 is a text that has been used to prove something that I don't think it proves, to say something about God that I don't think it says, and thus something about God that I don't think it says, and thus the message of Romans 9 often goes unheard.
Speaker 1:Now, we, as Ecclesia, are not an Arminian church. We are a church of Jesus Christ, and there is a beautiful diversity of theological streams here. We have Calvinists in our midst thanks be to God and Arminians in our midst, thanks be to God. We stand, as we are worshiping right now, some 500 yards from the gravesite of Jonathan Edwards, and so to say that Princeton has a pronounced history with Calvinism would be an understatement. This is a place deeply formed by this line of thinking.
Speaker 1:I want to put up a few charts that I think help illustrate the sort of the bounds that we're playing with today. First of all, if we just again, these, these xy axes are always oversimplifications, and thus I'm hesitant sometimes to use them because I want to caveat them to death, but avoiding that for a moment, if we just put it on its face divine freedom, human freedom we have these things going in divergent directions. So first, if there's no divine freedom, no human freedom, then there's atheism and we are animals. You are simply responding to the chemistry in your brain and, yes, you have no choice and there's no purpose to life. So that sounds like terrible news. If you go up the quadrant here, top left, arbitrary this.
Speaker 1:Again, if you read Romans 9, this would seem to be what is suggested here Potter clay, all that kind of metaphorical implication that God has simply chosen before the history of the world who will receive his goodness and who will not, and thus his life. Again, there is a sense in which a lot of Calvinists honor the choice that humans have and still somehow tap into the mystery of that. But at base, I still find that if you trace it to its philosophical assumptions, to their conclusions, you find that if you trace it to its philosophical assumptions, to their conclusions, you find that truly, god has ordered everything. Okay, if we go down to the bottom, right here, this often is the story we tell ourselves. In our world there may be a God, he's fine. He's sort of an add-on to my life, my consumerist life, my political life, and so, really, human beings are at the center. It is about our freedom, and God's freedom is relative at best. The last quadrant, the one we're going to try to see if we're glimpsing in Romans 9 today, is that God, in fact, is so sovereign that he can respect our freedom, that he can work with the material of it, that he can work with the material of it.
Speaker 1:I want to start with a premise, because I think this is helpful. You can put up that next slide there, craig. All right, so the Calvinist premise. And again, this is very oversimplified, very oversimplified. If you're a Calvinist in the room, both forgive me and bear with me. If there's divine sovereignty and God is omniscient and omnipotent, then it would follow that he must be able to influence human choice, he must know what humans will choose and his plans will not be frustrated. Again, this all tracks the equation balances right, and what I want to do is just simply start from a different place, a different question. You can put up that next slide, craig. My question is if human beings have true agency, then what shape of divine sovereignty is revealed in scriptures like Romans 9? So when reading this passage I want to kind of operate with this question. All right, let's hear the first part again. Let's go back to Romans 9, verse 18. So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses.
Speaker 1:This concluding sentence from the previous paragraph evokes one of the most poignant and formative scenes in the Old Testament, exodus 33. And if you want to just kind of major in the Old Testament and just really kind of survey some of the different high points of the book Exodus 32 through 34, definitely pay close attention to those. Those are formative chapters that set the direction for so much of what happens after. But Exodus 33, there Moses asks God to see his glory. Moses said God, I want to see your glory, hello. And God says no one can see my glory and live. But God decides he'll tuck Moses in the cleft of the rock and cause all of his goodness to pass by him. Exodus 33, verse 19, says this I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you the name the Lord and I will be gracious. To whom I will be gracious and will show mercy? On whom I will show mercy.
Speaker 1:Hardening of heart is not mentioned here in Exodus 33, but we have seen earlier in Exodus, and Paul has referenced earlier in Romans 9, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. We talked about this because it precedes our section for today. Last week, if you want to check that out on our podcast, verse 19, paul goes on. You will say to me then why then does he still find fault For who can resist his will? Paul's question here frames this entire section. Why does God still find fault for who can resist his will? I think there's a subtle rhetorical nature to this question that Paul is sort of saying who can resist his will or who has resisted his will? I think Paul is sort of saying we have, but the question has all the markings of some of his earlier rhetorical questions.
Speaker 1:Paul will often employ this as a device in outlaying his argument. Paul is often paying attention to how his argument could be disproved, as he's giving it. So. Romans 3, he says but if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? I speak in a human way? By no means, for then how could God judge the world? But if, through my falsehood, god's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being judged as a sinner? Do you see what Paul is saying here in Romans 3? He's saying, through the injustice and the falsehood of human living, that God revealed the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, the mercy of God. So Paul's kind of saying hey, as humans, god, we kind of helped you out here by our injustice, by our falsehood, we were just moving things along. Why would you find fault with us? And Paul's like easy, that's not quite what happened there. He goes on it's the truth. Through my falsehood, god's truthfulness abounds to his glory. Why am I still being judged as a sinner? And why not say, as some people slander us by saying that let us do evil so that good may come. Their judgment is deserved.
Speaker 1:Similar arguments made in Romans 6. What then? Should we sin? Because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means, paul says. He says if where sin abounds, grace increases all the more, then should we sin more so there's more grace? And Paul says absolutely not. You have completely missed the point of what I was saying to you.
Speaker 1:The summary point that Paul is making here in Romans 9 is essential. He asked the question in Romans 9, verse 6, has God's word failed? Because, from Paul's vantage point, he's looking out at his ethnic brothers and sisters, for whom, if you read the early part of Romans 9, he is willing to be accursed, to be cut off from Christ himself because he's so sad at the state of his nation. But from this vantage point, the whole of Israel, paul's people, have failed to receive the promise of covenant blessings in Jesus the Messiah. But Paul is arguing, through Romans 9, that God has always demonstrated that merely being part of the ethnic people of Israel did not make one a part of the true Israel, and that Israel, part of Israel, have been hardened by their injustice, by their ignorance, by their sin, and that God has actually redeemed Israel and the world through this hardening. And that seems to have been part of the point all along. And so the question then Paul raises is so how can God find fault if that's what he was always doing?
Speaker 1:To my mind, a couple things are important. First of all, this passage has to be read collectively, not about the predestination of individual souls to glory or perdition, but the collective unfolding of the plans of God. We are looking at this at a wide angle, from the angle of Jew and Gentile to broad people groups. Now there are several scholars, beautiful New Testament scholars like Douglas Moo, people like DA Carson, who would completely disagree with what I just said, and so I commend them to you. There are pastors who would disagree with what I just said John Piper, rc Sproul, that would disagree with that conclusion, and so I trust you to go and listen and to do your own investigating.
Speaker 1:Paul goes on in verse 20. He says but who, indeed, are you a human to argue with God? Well, what does molded say to the one who molds it? Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? So if Paul seems to be saying who are you to argue with God? He has consigned some of you to eternal damnation.
Speaker 1:All we have to do is go back to Exodus 32. Again, exodus 32 through 34, very formative in the overall story that the Old Testament is telling and the overall story of grace that unfolds in Jesus of Nazareth Just before Moses sees the glory of God. In Exodus 33,. In Exodus 32, moses' fellow Israelites make a golden calf and worship it, and it's a really funny scene.
Speaker 1:Moses takes a long time coming down from the mountain. They are anxious for something to worship. I don't know why that is Maybe it's perhaps the way we were made but they want to worship something, and so they gather up all the gold in the camp, gold that they had no less plundered from Egypt. They throw it in the fire and look, a golden calf emerges and they bow down and they worship it. When Moses comes down the mountain, he hears the revelry of this golden calf worship and he is indignant. And God tells Moses I'm going to wipe all these people out. And Moses says will not the Lord of all the earth do right? So again Paul's question who are you to argue with God? In that moment? Moses absolutely argues with God. If you read the scriptures, you have complete warrant to argue with God. Everybody, from Abraham to Jacob, to Moses, to Job, to Jonah, to the Psalms, has people living a vibrant relationship with God and saying really God. And it doesn't mean they always get their way, but God is the kind of God that has such a relationship with us that he welcomes our disagreement.
Speaker 1:Then, to underscore his point, paul employs the metaphor of the potter At one level. Again, this would seem to demonstrate that God is the potter who exercises complete control over that which he makes. But this doesn't track from either a biblical angle or a metaphorical angle. First, biblically, the most famous potter passage is found in Jeremiah 18. I'll read that for you. It's an extended section, so prepare thyself.
Speaker 1:Verse 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord Come, go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words. So I went down to the potter's house and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel as seemed good to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me.
Speaker 1:Can I not do with you, o house of Israel? Just as this potter has done, says the Lord, just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, o house of Israel? At one moment I may declare, concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it. But if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring upon it and at another moment, I may declare, concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will build and plant it. But if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, thus says the Lord Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you.
Speaker 1:Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now all of you from your evil way and amend your ways and your doings. Now it's so important to pay attention to what's actually being said here. Right, god is pronouncing judgment. That is clear. I am planning evil against you. I am bringing judgment in the form of the Babylonians and they will lay waste to your nation 587 BC.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, god is saying there is still a possibility that you would turn, that you would change your heart and the direction that you are going, echoing the words of Moses in Deuteronomy, I set before you life and death. By all means, choose life Again. If God has merely chosen, from the beginning of the foundations of the world, who will choose life and who will choose death, then all of these instructions to choose life are completely meaningless. But also, as we see Jeremiah talking about the potter, we see that that which he is working in his hands doesn't quite turn out the way that he wanted it to the first time. And so the image of the potter. We see that that which he is working in his hands doesn't quite turn out the way that he wanted it to the first time. And so the image of the potter is not about God so unfailingly shaping something every time. It's about God patiently working with the material of the clay, responding to it, and this, so often, is the image that is associated with God as a potter.
Speaker 1:There's other places Isaiah 45, isaiah 29, where God is talking about God as a potter, and it usually entails the people are trying to figure out how God could bring about his plans of redemption in such a way. Usually, those plans of redemption are brought about through judgment that is carried out by Gentiles, and it seems to the people that this is not the way. All right. Carl Holliday, a New Testament scholar, says this. He says, though Yahweh, adonai God, is sovereign, the people have a will of their own which they exert against him. Yahweh is capable of both uprooting and demolishing, on the one hand, and of building and planting on the other. He may intend the one, but if the response of the people demands it, he will do the other.
Speaker 1:Jason Staples writes this this is the lesson of the potter. Some pots turn out fine the first time, some do not. So the potter changes his tactics. It is a striking presentation of divine sovereignty and human freedom. All right, how are we doing? Are you with me? You're just going to say yes, I'll just keep going. All right, you're like I want lunch Then? All right. So we got the biblical kind of that sort of metaphorical world.
Speaker 1:Now let's just get into the metaphor of being a potter in general. If you were going to choose a metaphor to demonstrate complete, unchallenged authority over the texture and the material of your artwork, you would not pick a potter and clay. Ceramicist Jeff Zamek says this once you've learned that clay has a mind of its own, the next step is to convince it to behave. Another ceramicist, carter Gillies writes this extended reflection. Having intention, as in having something that you want to make, does not simply mean that we are absolutely in control as people at the potter's wheel. It can also mean that we are in egalitarian association with something outside ourselves. The intention to be in a relationship doesn't mean that we make sure things unfold entirely to a script of our own devising. Rather, we enter into a partnership and learn to accommodate the new circumstances and desires of that other. Making pots with this kind of intention means that we are constantly willing to learn from the clay and respond to it at every turn of the wheel. Sometimes it's entirely appropriate that the clay is allowed to express itself. With the right intentions, we can turn the energy and will of the clay into something harmonious. Okay, so this guy you know very woo-woo with the clay, but he's saying clay does things that you may not account for.
Speaker 1:Plus the image for Paul writing sometime in the 50s AD, of an artisan with limited resources. Most artisans were peasants shaping clay pots, allowing them the time to dry, heating up the oven to blistering hot temperatures, firing the plots in the kiln, letting them cool down and then, once they are able to be handled, flinging them against the wall is both wastefully absurd as it is disturbing. Paul tells us that the potter is exercising macrothumia, which is a Greek word meaning patience, long-suffering. Why would the potter need to exercise patience in order to destroy these things? Couldn't he just crush them on the wheel while it's still wet? Have you ever seen a potter at the wheel?
Speaker 1:In Romans 2, the makrothumia of God is referenced there as well, and it tells us, verse 4, romans 2, do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's makrothumia, his kindness, is meant to lead you to repentance? If God's patience and kindness leads us to repentance, then how could this passage be saying that God has chosen some and not chosen others? It also says in Romans 2, verse 11, that God shows no partiality. 2 Peter 3, verse 9, tells us the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. And again, if this repentance is impossible, these words from the scriptures are absurd.
Speaker 1:But if something quite different is going on here, if you can picture the potter at the wheel, think of how the potter works with the material. It's a very intimate thing that an artist does in this setting Shaping, guiding, responding. This, I would argue, is much more the image that we are getting from Romans 9. And we're getting them both at this macro level between Jew and Gentile, and I think that we can transpose that to our individual lives with God, that he is guiding us, that when we are wayward, when we are unfaithful, when we are idolatrous and untrue, he is trying to form us, to conform us to the image of Christ, to guide us back to flourishing and shalom and fullness in him. This is who our God is and that that is possible because of the pronounced mercy of our God for every single person. Christ died one for all.
Speaker 1:This interpretation is witnessed by the church history that we stand under the tradition of 2 Clement, a 2nd century anonymous sermon, says this For we are clay in the hand of the craftsman, as in the case of a potter. If he makes a vessel that is turned or crushed in his hands, he can reshape it again, but if he's already put it into the kiln, he can no longer rescue it. This is a reference to the hardening of heart, thus also with us as long as we are in this world, we should repent from the evil that we did in the flesh, should repent from the evil that we did in the flesh. At the end of Romans 9, paul will draw all that he has been complex arguing into a summary statement and some texts from the Old Testament. Verse 24 of Romans 9, he's including us, who he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles, and he also says in Hosea those who are not my people, I will call my people, and who is not beloved I will call beloved. Again, if we're at the register of Jew and Gentile, those who were not my people I will call my people. And in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they shall be called children of the living God.
Speaker 1:Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth quickly and decisively. And, as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left descendants to us, we would have fared like Sodom and made like Gomorrah. What then are we to say? And this is Paul's kind of drawing this summary Gentiles who were not looking for the Messiah, who were not trying to live by Torah, who did not strive in Paul's words, in verse 30, for righteousness, have attained it. That is, righteousness through faith. But Israel, again stepping to the other side, paul's people, those ones that he laments that they have not received these promises embodied in Jesus of Nazareth. Israel, who did strive for the law of righteousness, did not attain that law. Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based upon works. They've stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written. See, I'm laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and whoever trusts in him will not be put to shame.
Speaker 1:Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that for the Jewish people, the fact that Jesus was hung on a cross and executed is a scandal. How could this one, who died in such a cursed and wretched way, be the blessed one of God, the fulfillment of the ancient promises? How could this be so? And so Paul is saying how is it that the Gentiles seem to be responding to the good news of Jesus? And it's evident in the Roman church. In the Roman church, you have Gentile believers trying to live life with Jewish believers. How is it that the Gentiles are receiving these promises, and how does it seem that that same response is not being embodied by Paul's fellow countrymen? The Gentiles, who were not seeking the coming of God's kingdom, have received it, but Paul's brothers and sisters by ethnicity, by and large, have not.
Speaker 1:And this is the scandal of Romans 9. That leads Paul to ask the question in Romans 9, verse 6, has God's word failed? Did God just change his mind? This leads Paul to illustrate how even Israel's rejection, even their stumbling over the cornerstone, is part of God's mysterious plan of salvation and that their acceptance of Jesus will far outweigh their rejection. Again, we're not isolated to Romans 9. Romans 9 is a part of a longer argument that spans from 9 through 11.
Speaker 1:And as we just scroll ahead, we just glimpse where we're going. In Romans 11, paul says this I ask then did God reject his people? By no means Skip ahead again to verse 12. But if their transgression means riches for the world and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, again, pay attention to the language. That gives us insight into the register that we were working at. How much greater riches will their full inclusion bring? For God has bound what's that word? Everyone over to disobedience, so that he may have mercy on who? Them all? Huh, it would seem that Paul is trying to offer an apologetic for why things are the way they are Not saying to us hey, some of you, good news, you're in, others of you, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:A word, then, about God's freedom. It is my estimation that we have an inestimable freedom and thus a profound responsibility. To be made in the image of God is to be endowed with incredible responsibility and the weight of our choices. The early church dignified this freedom Ignatius of Antioch, who was a disciple of John the Apostle, which, incidentally, john's gospel is one of the collection of books that seems to be the most intractable when it comes to our freedom before God. It just seems like God is doing whatever he wants, but John's very own disciple writes this there is set before us life upon our observance of God's precepts, aka the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior, but death as the result of disobedience, and everyone, according to the choice he makes, shall go to his own place. Let us flee from death and make the choice of life. So lest you think this is just a modernist reading, because we are very excited about individuals and our power to choose. Thank you, disney. This is from the very earliest moments of the church.
Speaker 1:So how does human freedom work in the face of a God who knows everything? Well, for many of us, we tend to think in terms of chessboard freedom on God's part, ie that God has set the board, the rules, and that he is actually moving both sides of the board, both the divine side and the human side. Again, there are elements of this that are quite moving and beautiful to me, but there are theological problems as well, as it can tend to make God the author of evil and can make God the one who consigns people to damnation, unless you think I'm being exaggerative. Let's look at John Calvin's writing. He says we ought undoubtedly to hold that whatever changes are discerned in the world are produced from the secret stirring of God's hand. What God has determined must necessarily so take place. Now, again, if God is consigning some people to eternal bliss and others to damnation. Calvin writes this.
Speaker 1:I hope I've showed, at least at some level, that Romans 9 I don't think is addressing this particular problem. It is decidedly about where Israel currently and historically fits into the unfolding plan of salvation. It's decidedly about the Israel currently and historically fits into the unfolding plan of salvation. It's decidedly about the reality in the Roman church where, after Claudius died, a bunch of Jewish believers re-entered the life of the Roman church, as the Gentiles have been living and worshiping their own way for a while and they're trying to figure out how to live together.
Speaker 1:I think that God's freedom is not so much the chessboard where he has to move all the pieces that's a beautiful testament to his truth but I think his freedom is much more like that of a master conductor who just so happens to be the inventor of music and the craftsman of all the instruments and the people to play them. He stands at the center and invites all of the forces of the universe to play their parts Spiritual forces. That, ephesians, bears witness to the created order of the universe, humanity made in God's image, all fitted with their instruments. The conductor is the author of the music and he beckons each section to play along. There is a beauty so stunning in the conductor, especially as he is at his craft with such passion and joy, that the entire orchestra, when fixed upon him and playing in response, cannot help but be caught up in rapture and worship. Even as they play, the conductor not only remains at the center but somehow, mysteriously, paradoxically, trinitarily, can be present in every aisle of the vast, unaccountable orchestra. And the conductor knows that within this vast orchestra there will be instruments that are out of tune. He tunes them. There will be discord notes that are played that are out of harmony with the song that he is leading.
Speaker 1:But in those seemingly infinite number of ways that the orchestra can misplay, can mess up, can even try to sabotage the song by playing in an ugly way, the conductor has infinite more ways of changing the music, to absorb the dissonance or to drown out the ugliness. Theologians have described evil as absurd, which literally means to be without sound, that it is a nothingness, not a something. The conductor knows that there are those who don't respond to the guiding of his hands and the invitation to play, but the invitation remains. But those who don't respond find that they can't overcome the goodness of the music. They can't ugly it up with their own attempts at discord or disharmony. Their sounds, through the goodness of the potter shaping, responding, are whittled down to nothing, a divine diminuendo. The conductor can allow for the ugliness, because he can turn even the worst ugliness into extravagant beauty.
Speaker 1:If you'll indulge me for just a second, one of my favorite books is a book by a man named David Bentley Hart, and he writes the measure of difference is primordially peace, a music whose periods, intervals, refrains and variants can together, even when incorporating dissonances, hymn God's glory. This peace is indiscoverable even amid discords that fabricate series of their own, intonations of non-being, irredeemable magnitudes of noise, for in the light of Christ following after him, limitless possibilities of peace appear to view. Listen, I know this analogy has profound limits and if you try to stretch it beyond those limits, you would arrive at things we don't intend to say about God. But I hope you can glimpse just for a moment the utter freedom of God and thus the freedom that we are given because we are called to this free, loving, merciful, just and holy God. I'm going to invite the worship team forward If we wanted to stretch our analogy just a bit more.
Speaker 1:The conductor can take all the discord, the disharmony, because he has in some way taken them into his very life. He has endless intervals of peace. Intervals are just the space in between the white and the black keys on a piano. That's what they are, because in some way he has worn them on his very shoulders. Intervals of violence, hatred, idolatry can be made to sound beautiful by him, because his arms were not only outstretched to lead the orchestra in the song, but were outstretched to bring them into his very person, the monstrous, the darkness on his very shoulders. There is nothing in all of creation that he cannot harmonize, to echo Romans 8, because there is nothing in all of creation that he has not overcome. God absolutely gives freedom and invitation to his people and he is absolutely sovereign.
Speaker 1:Guiding the story, matthew 26, verse 30 tells us, when they had sung a hymn, they set out for the Mount of Olives, the place of Gethsemane, the place of Jesus's arrest, which would set in motion the events of the cross For the Jewish people. On that night, of which Jesus is a part of the Jewish people, jesus is a part of the Jewish people. This was a Passover meal and on that night, as Matthew tells us, the last thing they did, before Jesus would go and set off the events that would lead to the cross, was they sung a hymn. Now, incidentally, it was historically true, and it's true to this day, that that hymn was not just any random hymn, but it was an assigned hymn From a group of psalms found in Psalms 113 through 118, called the Hillel Psalms.
Speaker 1:And if you ever just read those psalms, in light of what Jesus was about to do for the world, it's stunning. But the last in that succession of psalms is Psalm 118. And Jesus would have had these words ringing in his ears as he went to the garden to pray not my will, but your will be done. Listen to this. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes. The Lord has done it this very day. Let us rejoice today and be glad. Lord, save us, lord, grant us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, from the house of the Lord. We bless you. The Lord is God and he has made his light shine on us. With bows in hand, joined in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar, you are my God and I will praise you. You are my God and I will exalt you. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His love endures forever. And then they went to the Mount of Olives.
Speaker 1:If you just trace all that is converging in this moment, all the history of the people of God, all the accumulation of story, freedom and darkness gathering into this one time, this one place, in Jerusalem, in 33 AD. There, the Son of God sings an ancient hymn that was written about him, for him, to him, at his exact hour of need, a song that would remind him of his identity, his mission, that the darkness that is converging upon him would not have the last word. God wrote a song beforehand for the darkest hour of God, every bit of it meticulously set into motion by the God who absolutely oversees all the details of our lives and cares for our lives, and has given of himself that we would see. But, yes, he has mercy on all that he chooses. He just happens to choose all of us and you can be a recipient of that mercy, not because of anything you have done, but because he is that good.
Speaker 1:We pray, come Holy Spirit, god. We ask that, in the midst of incredible mystery, god, that we would see the truth that you leave not shrouded in mystery. That you love us, god, that you never stop pursuing us. Jesus, god. Within that truth, lord, there is illumination, god, of the darkness within us a darkness, lord, that we often cling to, a darkness that we often make into our God, lord, and you are drawing us into the light.
Speaker 1:So, god, may we not, in these moments, cling to the darkness, believe the lies of the enemy, lord, the lies of our own small flesh, lord, but hear the words that you have offered to us, that you, by your righteousness, by your covenant loyalty, have forgiven us, and that we can receive that forgiveness and respond to it here today, God, may we see that you are a sovereign, careful God, god that you oversee every detail of our lives. Lord, in the midst of this pronounced freedom that we have, that creation has, lord, you will see that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God, not height, not depth, lord, not life or death, lord, but we are more than conquerors. Through you, in Christ Jesus, god, draw us to yourself. Here, in this place, we ask these things in your name, in the beautiful name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we pray Amen. I'm going to invite you to stand here today and, as we do, to respond to the goodness of this God.