Stephen
Terry, Director
Receiving
an Unshakable Kingdom
Commentary
for the March 19, 2022, Sabbath School Lesson
"The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run
to it and are safe." Proverbs 18:10, NIV
The idea of a fortified tower as a safe
refuge from an enemy is an appealing one despite the repeated failings of
towers to provide that safety. The Tower of Babel was supposed to provide
safety from future floods. It failed in its purpose on two fronts. First, it
resulted in the dispersal of humanity over the earth when the languages were
confounded, and second, it became Babylon, representative earthly seat of evil
and opposition to God's people.
Towers and high defensive structures were
challenged several times by God and his people, ultimately not providing safe
refuge for their inhabitants. In Judges, chapter 8, Gideon pulls down the Tower
of Peniel for failing to respond to his call to fight against those who were
oppressing the Israelites. In the next chaper, his son, Abimelek, burns alive
in their tower the people of the town of Shechem who holed up in their tower for safety. On a far larger scale,
the citizens of Jericho who trusted in the strength of their walls and towers
found those defenses crumbling and leaving them defenseless before Joshua's conquering
army. Jerusalem found that their trust in their own fortifications became
futile when their leaders treated outsiders and even their own citizens evily
with impunity. And in their turn, Babylon, destroyer of Jerusalem found their
impenetrable defenses useless when they chose to revel in their manmade power
and authority, disrespecting God who
made their creativity and skill possible.
We like the sound of verses like Proverbs
18:10 because they appeal to our infatuation with ourselves and what we are
able to build. But Jesus told us that these structures are built upon sand if
he is not the rock solid foundation. What does that mean? Simply that if the
towers we build mirror the rock hardness of our hearts, they will fail us on
that day when we seek their shelter. But if we mirror the compassion and
empathy that Christ modeled throughout his ministry and allow the Holy Spirit
to soften our heart of stone into one of flesh, we will find his rock solid foundation
will allow us to endure. It is a paradox of the Christian faith that those "soft"
qualities along with others like humility and faith provide stronger structures
than ones built on strength of will and a desire to accumulate enough wealth to
finally feel safe. Like Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, we revel in what our
power, wealth, and will have produced, not recognizing how shaky that is.
Those faced with the evil tides of war see all that they
have built and found security in turned into valueless rubble. Like Lot fleeing
Sodom, they leave with little more than the clothing on their backs and the
memories of what used to be. They trusted in the strength they had to save
themselves just as the Jews did who were carried off to Babylon, their lives and
their city destroyed behind them. Of course, both history and the Bible teach
us that those tyrants who do such things and are hard hearted and without
compassion themselves will eventually see the might in which they trusted
humbled into the dust as well. Genghis Khan died long ago and his empire he
tried to hold together with the strength of his will fell apart. The Byzantine
Empire with the might of their fortifications over the Bosporus Strait saw
those defenses crumble before Ottoman artillery. The Ottomans trusting in their
military might to keep their empire glued together eventually fell apart in their
turn. No one is immune from this process if they forget that all they have and
all they are is nothing in the eyes of God without compassion, empathy, and
love for the rest of humanity.
Unfortunately, we find it hard to turn loose of what we
own whether it is a little or a lot because we feel it, rather than God, is our
deliverance in a time of trouble. Recently on social media, someone advocated
for the plight of the poor and needy and that we should have compassion for
them. A flood of responses attacked the person who pointed out that need, mostly
telling that person that neither they nor the government had any right to tell them
what to do with their money. Obviously, the love of money has not died out in
the hearts of humanity. For millennia, prophets have spoken up demanding
compassion and justice for the poor in the face of their oppressors. Despite
that, they killed the prophets and continued to add to their own wealth and to the
misery of others. From Cain killing his brother and the evil of the
antediluvian world to the murder of Jesus and the destruction of the temple in
Jerusalem, the wealthy have used their power to oppress the poor and hoard all
they can for themselves. It continues to the present day.
Some might say, "But I am not wealthy! I am not in the one
percent!" But who then are the wealthy? They revealed themselves during the
last two years while we had the Coronavirus Pandemic. If I am the person who
buys up all the toilet paper I can because I can afford to do so, while the
person who can only afford to buy a single package at a time finds empty
shelves, I am the wealthy person oppressing the poor. If I buy up carts full of
meat, eggs, and dairy because I can afford to do so, I am again the oppressor
of the person who can only afford a dozen eggs or a single gallon of milk but
finds none in the store because of my greed. If I deny needed medical care to
someone because of the cost barrier I impose for receiving that care, I am the wealthy
oppressor. If I own several vehicles and then grumble about taxes that support
a transit system for the poor, I am the oppressor. If my children can attend
either secular or parochial private schools because I can afford it, but I
refuse to fund public schools for those who cannot afford anything else, I am
the oppressor.
We have a long history of greed-based oppression in the United
States. Native Americans know this all too well. We have already experienced
the near dissolution of our country over the issue of slavery. Nonetheless,
systemic racism persists even when the harbingers of history repeatedly reveal
its devastating consequences. Love of money trumps love of people too often in
the game of life.
From the beginning, it has not had to be that way. As
Jesus pointed out in his Sermon on the Mount, if we are worried about how we
will survive if we don't greedily grab all we can before the next person gets
it all, we should not be. God will care for us. But if we give in to greed at
the expense of others, we will be setting ourselves up for our own demise. It
is often the poor and oppressed who welcome conquerors at the city gates, and
seeing them as liberators, point out their oppressors and cry out for justice.
The wealthy, who vie for power and control accuse one another of being liberal
or conservative, communist or fascist, capitalist or socialist, but the poor
could care less about those labels. They only want the oppression to stop. Like
God, they ask that "...justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a
never-failing stream!" (Amos 5:24, NIV)
Until we can humbly repent and come before the Lord
petitioning him to replace our hard and greedy hearts with compassion, we
cannot find ourselves with an unshakable foundation. Unless we can love others
as Jesus loves us, we cannot claim that rock as our support. After the Babylonian
captivity, the Jews were chided by Nehemiah for enslaving their fellow Jews.
Admitting their guilt, they publicly freed those they had enslaved.[i] Nehemiah knew that a society
where a few preyed on the rest would not be stable. We seem to have forgotten
that. Some states in the United States encourage predatory, usurious lending by
banks that incorporate within their borders to bring money into their states.
At a time when the average person is lucky to get a two percent return on their
savings, those same banking corporations are charging 27-32% to those who
borrow that money from them by using their credit cards. It used to be that
only black-market loan sharks could get away with charging that kind of
interest.
Of course, we can point to the extremely wealthy and
deflect any responsibility to them. After all, the saying is that the fish
stinks from the head. But what that billionaire or millionaire may or may not
do with their wealth will not exonerate us on that day when the accounts are
settled for eternity. We have title to heaven by grace through Jesus Christ,
but we hold that title under the condition that we show grace to others,
including our enemies. That sort of eliminates the argument about not helping
others because they do not deserve it. If through the presence of the Holy
Spirit, we can do that, our foundation will be secure and that security will be
a blessing not only to us, but to all who know us as well.