Rev. Steven
S. Billings
Pentecost 27
Sermon
11-16-2008
Zephaniah 1:7-16
7 Be silent in the presence of the Lord God; For the day of the Lord is at
hand, For the Lord has prepared a sacrifice; He has invited His guests. 8
"And it shall be, In the day of the Lord's sacrifice, That I will punish the
princes and the king's children, And all such as are clothed with foreign
apparel. 9 In the same day I will punish All those who leap over the
threshold, Who fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit. 10 "And
there shall be on that day," says the Lord, "The sound of a mournful cry
from the Fish Gate, A wailing from the Second Quarter, And a loud crashing
from the hills. 11 Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh! For all the merchant
people are cut down; All those who handle money are cut off. 12 "And it
shall come to pass at that time That I will search Jerusalem with lamps, And
punish the men Who are settled in complacency, Who say in their heart, 'The
Lord will not do good, Nor will He do evil.' 13 Therefore their goods shall
become booty, And their houses a desolation; They shall build houses, but
not inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards, but not drink their wine." 14
The great day of the Lord is near; It is near and hastens quickly. The noise
of the day of the Lord is bitter; There the mighty men shall cry out. 15
That day is a day of wrath, A day of trouble and distress, A day of
devastation and desolation, A day of darkness and gloominess, A day of
clouds and thick darkness, 16 A day of trumpet and alarm Against the
fortified cities And against the high towers.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, how high are our towers?
Roughly 5000 years ago, in the land of Shinar, which lay between the
Euphrates and Tigris rivers about 90 miles south of modern-day Baghdad, the
descendants of Noah decided to make a name for themselves by building a
tower that would reach to the heavens (Gen. 11:4). But God saw through
their arrogance and confused their language so that they would not be able
to complete it. The very thing they had hoped to avoid, namely, being
scattered over the face of the whole earth, was precisely what happened
anyway.
Why did God destroy their tower? The answer lies in why they built
it.
They wanted to make a name for themselves. Isn't that why we
usually build towers? Think of the great towers of our time. To what do
they attest? The Empire State building - a marvel of architectural
engineering for its day - made a statement to the world about the greatness
of the city that erected it. The Chrysler building, the Hancock building,
the Sears tower - these were intended as monuments to the captains of
industry whose names have been attached to them. Building towers is for us
- as it was for those who lived five millennia ago - a way of beating our
chests, of making a name for ourselves, of shaking our clenched fists to the
sky as we cry out: "Look what we did!"
How high are our towers?
One day Jesus was leaving the temple with His disciples, when one of
them turned to gaze upon the amazing structure, and said: "Look, Teacher!
What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!" to which Jesus replied:
"Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on
another; every one will be thrown down" (Mark 13:1b, 2). Why?
The temple had presumably been built to the glory of God, but was it
still being used that way? Oh, I'm sure there must have been some people
worshiping there with a right understanding of their relationship with God,
but look at how Jesus was treated by the ruling authority. The High Priest
and the Council wanted to kill Him - and eventually badgered Pilate into
granting their wish!
Do you remember the day He drove the money-changers out, saying that
they had turned God's house into a marketplace? When they asked Him for a
miraculous sign to prove His authority, He replied: "Destroy this temple,
and I will raise it again in three days" (John 2:19). John points out that
the temple Jesus was referring to was His own body (John 2:21).
You see, Jesus knew that they had come to worship the structure
rather than the God for whose worship it was built. He was telling them
that He was to be their object of worship, not the building.
But they weren't they only ones with misplaced worship.
In Luther's day the Church sent agents all over Europe with the
authority to sell indulgences to raise funds for the building of St. Peter's
Cathedral in Rome. They promised people that these indulgences could do the
most miraculous things. They could release a soul out of purgatory or offer
the bearer forgiveness of any sin for the rest of his natural life. Did it
matter that no such thing as purgatory actually exists? Did they mention
even in passing that Jesus' death on the cross had already paid for the sins
of the whole world once and for all? No! But these snake-oil peddlers
could sell you your own car and make you feel like you got the deal of a
lifetime. And for what? A pile of bricks in Rome.
Oh, my friends, how high are our towers?
I daresay that there are temple worshipers in nearly every
congregation across our synod, people who get too focused on the structure
and forget about why it was built.
And I've known congregations to split over disagreements on how to
use their facility. I even heard the story of a small country church where
nobody could agree about which hymnal to use, but neither side wanted to let
go of the church building, so they literally took a chain saw to it and one
side carried their half to one side of the property and the other side
carried theirs to the other. What I want to know is: How did they come to
agree on which side of the building they got? I mean, what did they do,
flip a coin?
And if it's not the buildings themselves we want to worship, it's
the institutions that we associate with them.
We have a really beautiful temple down in St. Louis called the
International Center. It's our synodical headquarters. And it is
impressive. Some people call it the "purple palace." You'd be surprised, I
think, by how many people we employ down there. There are synodical
bureaucrats - seminary trained and fully ordained pastors - pushing papers
and going to meetings, and taking home six-figure incomes for their trouble!
Meanwhile, we've got churches without pastors and synodical ledgers covered
in red ink. And you know the bureaucratic mentality, right? "We need more
money." Well, join the club, guys! Maybe what we need is fewer
bureaucrats! And maybe we shouldn't be paying our synod officials like
they're corporate CEOs!
But it's a status thing for us - because we love our bureaucracy
just like we love our buildings. The bigger they are, the more we like
them. Why? Well, they make us feel good about ourselves, they make us feel
important to the world around us, and they make us feel safe. When you're
surrounded by mighty walls and strong towers you feel like nothing can get
to you, nothing can hurt you.
But, beloved, towers can fall. When Jesus told His disciples who
were admiring the temple walls that no stone would be left on another, I
guarantee you they could not have imagined that ever taking place. But it
happened! Not 40 years later the Roman army sacked Jerusalem and knocked
the temple to the ground.
Is there anyone here who will ever forget the day the twin towers
came down? Do we need more evidence than that? Oh, believe me; towers can
fall!
And you know what? Sometimes they have to. Because we're not to
trust in the walls; we're not to place our faith in towers.
Zephaniah speaks of a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a
day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day
of clouds and thick darkness. In other words, he's talking about the Day of
Judgment. One day that trumpet will sound and all the dead will be raised
and we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, the great throne
of God, and believe me, there will be no walls to protect you, no towers to
support you, no temple in which to hide. Unless, of course, your trust is
in the Temple of which Jesus spoke - His own body, given for you for the
forgiveness of your sins.
There will only be one covering for you that day, and that is the
robe of Christ's own righteousness which is yours freely and only though
faith in Him.
In the meantime, with His sustaining arms around you, you can
withstand the crumbling of towers and walls and buildings and institutions.
You can watch governments rise and fall; you can watch Wall Street collapse,
rebuild, and collapse again - all in the span of a week it seems! You can
witness good things, trusted things - Godly entities of the past or Godly
hopes for the future - fall to pieces before your very eyes, and you can be
safe, because your faith, your hope, your trust, is not in them. Like the
psalmist you can say:
Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call
to you,
I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.
I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your
wings.
(Psalm 61:1-4)
God grant us such faith and trust now and always. In the name of
the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
---
Rev. Steven S. Billings
Oshkosh, Wisconsin
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
weblog: http://home.earthlink.net/~ssbillings/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/stevensbillings
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