Twenty second Sunday after Pentecost, Narrative Lectionary, October 25, 2015
2 Samuel 6:1-15, Mark 11:8-10
Reformation Day
1st Anniversary Worship at Hope International Mission
By Young Kim
Grace and peace to you from Jesus Christ who is with us always. Amen.
We are gathered here today to worship God and to celebrate our 1st Anniversary and also the Reformation day. I was thinking very hard for the sermon title, and finally, I ended up choosing “Back to the Basics” as the title. I kinda borrowed the idea from the movie “Back to the Future” since last Thursday was “Back to the Future” day!
I thought this title will be appropriate as we look back to the day when we had the first worship at our basement and going further, for some of us, when we first landed on this land with different hopes and dreams, and keep going back to when we met Jesus Christ personally or heard about who Jesus Christ is for the first time and the day when we attended a worship at a church for the first time. We can go even further and imagine the time when Martin Luther nailed 95 Thesis on the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg and started the Reformation movement, and even further to when Jesus Christ was nailed on the rugged cross for our sins and our salvation. And finally, imagine the day when King David tried to bring the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of God to Jerusalem as we read just now for today’s lesson.
2 Samuel chapter 5 tells us that David became the King over a united Israel at the age of 30. After becoming the king of the entire Israel, David considered that bringing the ark into Jerusalem, the City of David would be one of the highest priorities, because the ark of God represented the presence and glory of God in Israel. David might have wanted Israel to be alive within the sense of the near presence and glory of God. Also, David tried to bond the whole nation under God’s presence and provide a central place to worship for all of Israel.
To fully understand today’s lesson, we need to look back into the place and time where the ark was before David brought it from Abinadab’s house. The ark was in Abinadab’s house for almost 70 years. It was not in the tent sanctuary in Shiloh as it used to be. 1 Samuel 5 gives us a clue that the Israelites misused the ark and brought it into the battle to win the war over Philistine. They didn’t respect God nor asked if God wanted them to go to the battle. When they saw that they were losing the battle, they brought the ark and used it as a symbol like an idol that God is with them. But most of the Israelites were killed including the high priest, Eli’s two sons’ at the battle. And the ark was taken by the Philistines. Do you know what happened after that? God brought plague in the region and soon the Philistines realized that the Israelites’ God became angry with them and brought disaster to destroy them. They were in fear and said to each other, “Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When Israel’s god dealt harshly with them, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?” Isn’t it amazing that, although they didn’t know about our God, they recognized that it was the same God who dealt harshly with the Egyptians back in Moses’ time? They feared God and decided to send it back to its place. They summoned their priests to inquire about the method to send the ark back. According to their advice, they made a new cart and placed the ark of God on it with gifts as guilt offering and sent it back to Israel. The Israelites saw that the ark was coming back to Israel and they rejoiced and offered the burnt offering. But soon they were curious what was in there, so they opened the ark and God struck down the people in the region. Ironically, the descendants of the Israelites who knew about the Lord did not fear God nor had respect for God. Then the people were so afraid of God, and they sent the ark to Abinadab’s house and left it there for almost 70 years.
Now, let’s come back to today’s text. Within this context, David tried to bring the ark into Jerusalem. He chose 50,000 soldiers and went to Abinadab’s house with all of his men and the people who played all kinds of musical instruments. They prepared a huge and fancy cart, placed the ark on it and were on their way to Jerusalem with loud and joyful singing. It seemed perfectly prepared. But suddenly, the oxen stumbled and the ark was about to fall down to the ground. Instantly, Abinadab’s son, Uzzah reached out his hand and took hold of the ark. It was then that the Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act and struck him to death. Why? Why did all these happen? What was wrong? What made God angry? Probably, David wondered and thought about these questions like us. It seems to us that it was very appropriate and that they had put much effort on it to bring the ark. They might have thought, “Look – we have a brand new cart for the ark of God. God will be very pleased at our fancy looking new cart!” But in God’s eyes, what they did was against God’s commandments and the new technology or luxury couldn’t cover their ignorant disobedience toward God.
First clue of disobedience was clearly proved in Moses’ Law. God commanded clearly that the Levites should carry the ark of God on their shoulders. And transporting the ark on a cart was Philistine’s way of carrying their gods. They already had enough knowledge and instructions in written laws for hundreds of years passing down to generations and generations. But they didn’t look carefully into what God wanted them to do. They just wanted to bring the ark quickly and easily, using the tool they made. When I searched the map on the internet, it was almost 9 – 10 miles from the house to Jerusalem, so we can assume that it might have taken more than 5 – 6 hours to get to Jerusalem. Also, it was not a flat level walk, since the house was located in the mountain and Jerusalem was also located in the mountain. So it would have been like a rollercoaster road with the ground obviously not covered by asphalt like today. It was certainly never easy to carry the ark with human power.
Secondly, God also commanded that you should not go in to look at the holy things nor touch it or else you will die. But the Israelites looked into the ark out of curiosity and Uzzah took a hold of the ark out of unconsciousness to avoid the ark falling down to the ground.
So the first attempt of King David has failed.
After three months, David gave it another try. This time, they carried the ark on their shoulders according to the Law. David offered sacrifice to God and all the people including David was dancing before the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. David set aside royal clothing and was dressed in an ordinary linen ephod just like everyone else in the procession with a humble heart. We can guess David’s attitude toward God from his clothing. Surely, David did not want to make another mistake before God. He searched carefully into the Word of God and found what was wrong. He ordered the priests to consecrate themselves and followed everything to bring the ark in accordance with God’s commandments.
David realized that when God’s Word was obeyed and respected, blessings followed. God wanted the ark to be a blessing for Israel, not a curse. David was able to rejoice and dance since he trusted in God who brings joy and blessing for those who observe the word of the Lord.
Now I want us to think of the things that we can learn from David’s story. We are living in a convenient life today. The high technology makes us relax and enjoy our life. We don’t have to go to the church on Sundays physically. We can visit church’s website and watch the worship, listen to the preaching while we are doing so many other things at home and we can even give our offering online. We can access online Bible apps so we don’t have to carry the heavy Bible with us anymore. We can make friends freely through online and we don’t have to see each other and talk but we can share our life through the news feed on facebook and press the ‘like’ button and maintain the relationship.
I am not saying that having these high technologies are bad. They are very helpful and I, too, use it a lot. But what I want to say here is that we shouldn’t let this convenient life spoil our faith. Our faith and salvation through Jesus was never easy if we look back into the history of our ancestors of faith. I am from South Korea. You might know that South Korea is one of the top in the world to send out missionaries. South Korea also has the largest church in the world which has 800,000 members. And you will probably know that this did not happen without a cost. I was overwhelmed when I hear that the early Christians in Korea walked almost 1000 miles to Beijing just to get baptized since they didn’t have ministers to preside the sacraments in Korea back then. So they had to take a very long trip for the baptism; it didn’t matter whether it was very cold or very hot. It was kind of a ritual passage to be a part of the assembly of the church. They boldly took the risk to the trip. The records told that so many Christians died on the way to Beijing and couldn’t get baptized or some of them died on the way home after the baptism with hunger and thirst or the bad weather. But they honored it and were proud to become a member of God’s family. The legacy came down to us and God blessed the country as you see now.
Also, our ancestor of faith, Martin Luther boldly stood against the Roman Catholic Church and nailed 95 thesis attacking the Catholic Church’s corrupted practice of selling indulgencies to absolve sin. He was threatened by the authorities, but he didn’t back up but bravely spoke in front of them by saying, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise… may the Lord help me.” Martin Luther taught three important factors in our Christian life. What was it? “Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide.” These are Latin words that can be translated as, “Scripture alone, grace alone and faith alone.” As we celebrate this Reformation day, we need to come back to these basic teaching of Luther. First is Scripture alone. Just like David’s first attempt bringing the ark failed since they didn’t read carefully the instruction of the Law, we need to look back into our lives and ask ourselves, “do we read the Bible daily and strive to know more about God?” Are we fully aware of the knowledge of God in the Scripture and are able to apply it to live a faithful life? Or are we keeping it in our bookshelves and never touch it saying that it is too holy for me? I am so thankful being a preacher, because otherwise, I might be the person who never opens up the Bible. God gave us this Bible to study and have knowledge about how to worship God and how to live a life that pleases God and be a blessing to people around us. God gave us full instruction just like God gave specific method to carry the ark of God to the Israelites. So it is our turn to read it carefully and to follow God’s instructions with honor.
Second and third are grace alone and faith alone. When Martin Luther proclaimed grace alone, he realized that our salvation is only by grace not by works of men. When he was a monk, he kept strictly to himself the order of monastic rules. He said, “I could say that if the monastic life could get a man to heaven, I should have entered.” He often fasted and oppressed himself to get away from sin. But the more harshly he did such things, the more he realized that he couldn’t be a saint. He only found out the angry and righteous God who gives punishment to the unrighteous sinners. Luther truly wrestled with God with this issue. One day, he finally realized that the righteousness of God is a gift of God, namely by faith… not a punishment. God’s righteousness makes sinner righteous by faith. He felt liberated and felt like he was born again. The word, righteousness of God, which he hated before, now became the sweetest word.
His realization came from his effort to wrestle with God and to become righteous before God. He tried very hard to understand the Bible. He tried his best to be found in favor in God’s eyes. He struggled to figure out about God, Jesus Christ, his unbreakable sin, and faith than anyone else. So his enlightenment gave him freedom. How about us? Are we wrestling with God to realize who God is, what Jesus Christ means to us? Are we struggling enough to understand the Bible and what faith is and how to apply it in our life?
Just like David and the Israelites made a fancy cart and played all kinds of musical instruments to make a big production but couldn’t please God, we need to think seriously whether our worship is pleasing the people or God. We try our best to make our building look good, and to be equipped with expensive sound system and to develop fun activities to draw people’s interest and make them to come. These are great strategies and they are necessary, but we need to consider first that whether or not these efforts are pleasing God. Is our worship acceptable in God’s eyes? Is our heart of worship acceptable in God’s eyes? Or is this just human activity? We are often tempted to judge a worship experience by how it makes us feel. But in our worship, the center should be God and it should be all about what pleases God, not about what pleases us.
As I wrote this sermon, I looked back carefully to our worship at Hope International. I questioned myself if we were fully prepared with prayer before we worship God. Was the sermon God’s Word or human word? Was our worship human oriented event or a sincere sacrifice of repentance and thanksgiving? Did we gather every Sunday for our joy and gladness toward God or for the feeling of obligation?
We are celebrating our 1st anniversary and this might sound very harsh and skeptical but I am asking us to go back to the basics. Let’s go back to the first day of our worship how thankful we were to God even though we didn’t have a place to worship nor a well-structured order of worship, nor any money to afford various events. I believe that God was pleased with our humble heart, our thankful mind and our genuine love toward God. So now, let’s come back to the basic to the place where it is all about God.
2 Samuel 6:1-15, Mark 11:8-10
Reformation Day
1st Anniversary Worship at Hope International Mission
By Young Kim
Grace and peace to you from Jesus Christ who is with us always. Amen.
We are gathered here today to worship God and to celebrate our 1st Anniversary and also the Reformation day. I was thinking very hard for the sermon title, and finally, I ended up choosing “Back to the Basics” as the title. I kinda borrowed the idea from the movie “Back to the Future” since last Thursday was “Back to the Future” day!
I thought this title will be appropriate as we look back to the day when we had the first worship at our basement and going further, for some of us, when we first landed on this land with different hopes and dreams, and keep going back to when we met Jesus Christ personally or heard about who Jesus Christ is for the first time and the day when we attended a worship at a church for the first time. We can go even further and imagine the time when Martin Luther nailed 95 Thesis on the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg and started the Reformation movement, and even further to when Jesus Christ was nailed on the rugged cross for our sins and our salvation. And finally, imagine the day when King David tried to bring the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of God to Jerusalem as we read just now for today’s lesson.
2 Samuel chapter 5 tells us that David became the King over a united Israel at the age of 30. After becoming the king of the entire Israel, David considered that bringing the ark into Jerusalem, the City of David would be one of the highest priorities, because the ark of God represented the presence and glory of God in Israel. David might have wanted Israel to be alive within the sense of the near presence and glory of God. Also, David tried to bond the whole nation under God’s presence and provide a central place to worship for all of Israel.
To fully understand today’s lesson, we need to look back into the place and time where the ark was before David brought it from Abinadab’s house. The ark was in Abinadab’s house for almost 70 years. It was not in the tent sanctuary in Shiloh as it used to be. 1 Samuel 5 gives us a clue that the Israelites misused the ark and brought it into the battle to win the war over Philistine. They didn’t respect God nor asked if God wanted them to go to the battle. When they saw that they were losing the battle, they brought the ark and used it as a symbol like an idol that God is with them. But most of the Israelites were killed including the high priest, Eli’s two sons’ at the battle. And the ark was taken by the Philistines. Do you know what happened after that? God brought plague in the region and soon the Philistines realized that the Israelites’ God became angry with them and brought disaster to destroy them. They were in fear and said to each other, “Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When Israel’s god dealt harshly with them, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?” Isn’t it amazing that, although they didn’t know about our God, they recognized that it was the same God who dealt harshly with the Egyptians back in Moses’ time? They feared God and decided to send it back to its place. They summoned their priests to inquire about the method to send the ark back. According to their advice, they made a new cart and placed the ark of God on it with gifts as guilt offering and sent it back to Israel. The Israelites saw that the ark was coming back to Israel and they rejoiced and offered the burnt offering. But soon they were curious what was in there, so they opened the ark and God struck down the people in the region. Ironically, the descendants of the Israelites who knew about the Lord did not fear God nor had respect for God. Then the people were so afraid of God, and they sent the ark to Abinadab’s house and left it there for almost 70 years.
Now, let’s come back to today’s text. Within this context, David tried to bring the ark into Jerusalem. He chose 50,000 soldiers and went to Abinadab’s house with all of his men and the people who played all kinds of musical instruments. They prepared a huge and fancy cart, placed the ark on it and were on their way to Jerusalem with loud and joyful singing. It seemed perfectly prepared. But suddenly, the oxen stumbled and the ark was about to fall down to the ground. Instantly, Abinadab’s son, Uzzah reached out his hand and took hold of the ark. It was then that the Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act and struck him to death. Why? Why did all these happen? What was wrong? What made God angry? Probably, David wondered and thought about these questions like us. It seems to us that it was very appropriate and that they had put much effort on it to bring the ark. They might have thought, “Look – we have a brand new cart for the ark of God. God will be very pleased at our fancy looking new cart!” But in God’s eyes, what they did was against God’s commandments and the new technology or luxury couldn’t cover their ignorant disobedience toward God.
First clue of disobedience was clearly proved in Moses’ Law. God commanded clearly that the Levites should carry the ark of God on their shoulders. And transporting the ark on a cart was Philistine’s way of carrying their gods. They already had enough knowledge and instructions in written laws for hundreds of years passing down to generations and generations. But they didn’t look carefully into what God wanted them to do. They just wanted to bring the ark quickly and easily, using the tool they made. When I searched the map on the internet, it was almost 9 – 10 miles from the house to Jerusalem, so we can assume that it might have taken more than 5 – 6 hours to get to Jerusalem. Also, it was not a flat level walk, since the house was located in the mountain and Jerusalem was also located in the mountain. So it would have been like a rollercoaster road with the ground obviously not covered by asphalt like today. It was certainly never easy to carry the ark with human power.
Secondly, God also commanded that you should not go in to look at the holy things nor touch it or else you will die. But the Israelites looked into the ark out of curiosity and Uzzah took a hold of the ark out of unconsciousness to avoid the ark falling down to the ground.
So the first attempt of King David has failed.
After three months, David gave it another try. This time, they carried the ark on their shoulders according to the Law. David offered sacrifice to God and all the people including David was dancing before the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. David set aside royal clothing and was dressed in an ordinary linen ephod just like everyone else in the procession with a humble heart. We can guess David’s attitude toward God from his clothing. Surely, David did not want to make another mistake before God. He searched carefully into the Word of God and found what was wrong. He ordered the priests to consecrate themselves and followed everything to bring the ark in accordance with God’s commandments.
David realized that when God’s Word was obeyed and respected, blessings followed. God wanted the ark to be a blessing for Israel, not a curse. David was able to rejoice and dance since he trusted in God who brings joy and blessing for those who observe the word of the Lord.
Now I want us to think of the things that we can learn from David’s story. We are living in a convenient life today. The high technology makes us relax and enjoy our life. We don’t have to go to the church on Sundays physically. We can visit church’s website and watch the worship, listen to the preaching while we are doing so many other things at home and we can even give our offering online. We can access online Bible apps so we don’t have to carry the heavy Bible with us anymore. We can make friends freely through online and we don’t have to see each other and talk but we can share our life through the news feed on facebook and press the ‘like’ button and maintain the relationship.
I am not saying that having these high technologies are bad. They are very helpful and I, too, use it a lot. But what I want to say here is that we shouldn’t let this convenient life spoil our faith. Our faith and salvation through Jesus was never easy if we look back into the history of our ancestors of faith. I am from South Korea. You might know that South Korea is one of the top in the world to send out missionaries. South Korea also has the largest church in the world which has 800,000 members. And you will probably know that this did not happen without a cost. I was overwhelmed when I hear that the early Christians in Korea walked almost 1000 miles to Beijing just to get baptized since they didn’t have ministers to preside the sacraments in Korea back then. So they had to take a very long trip for the baptism; it didn’t matter whether it was very cold or very hot. It was kind of a ritual passage to be a part of the assembly of the church. They boldly took the risk to the trip. The records told that so many Christians died on the way to Beijing and couldn’t get baptized or some of them died on the way home after the baptism with hunger and thirst or the bad weather. But they honored it and were proud to become a member of God’s family. The legacy came down to us and God blessed the country as you see now.
Also, our ancestor of faith, Martin Luther boldly stood against the Roman Catholic Church and nailed 95 thesis attacking the Catholic Church’s corrupted practice of selling indulgencies to absolve sin. He was threatened by the authorities, but he didn’t back up but bravely spoke in front of them by saying, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise… may the Lord help me.” Martin Luther taught three important factors in our Christian life. What was it? “Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide.” These are Latin words that can be translated as, “Scripture alone, grace alone and faith alone.” As we celebrate this Reformation day, we need to come back to these basic teaching of Luther. First is Scripture alone. Just like David’s first attempt bringing the ark failed since they didn’t read carefully the instruction of the Law, we need to look back into our lives and ask ourselves, “do we read the Bible daily and strive to know more about God?” Are we fully aware of the knowledge of God in the Scripture and are able to apply it to live a faithful life? Or are we keeping it in our bookshelves and never touch it saying that it is too holy for me? I am so thankful being a preacher, because otherwise, I might be the person who never opens up the Bible. God gave us this Bible to study and have knowledge about how to worship God and how to live a life that pleases God and be a blessing to people around us. God gave us full instruction just like God gave specific method to carry the ark of God to the Israelites. So it is our turn to read it carefully and to follow God’s instructions with honor.
Second and third are grace alone and faith alone. When Martin Luther proclaimed grace alone, he realized that our salvation is only by grace not by works of men. When he was a monk, he kept strictly to himself the order of monastic rules. He said, “I could say that if the monastic life could get a man to heaven, I should have entered.” He often fasted and oppressed himself to get away from sin. But the more harshly he did such things, the more he realized that he couldn’t be a saint. He only found out the angry and righteous God who gives punishment to the unrighteous sinners. Luther truly wrestled with God with this issue. One day, he finally realized that the righteousness of God is a gift of God, namely by faith… not a punishment. God’s righteousness makes sinner righteous by faith. He felt liberated and felt like he was born again. The word, righteousness of God, which he hated before, now became the sweetest word.
His realization came from his effort to wrestle with God and to become righteous before God. He tried very hard to understand the Bible. He tried his best to be found in favor in God’s eyes. He struggled to figure out about God, Jesus Christ, his unbreakable sin, and faith than anyone else. So his enlightenment gave him freedom. How about us? Are we wrestling with God to realize who God is, what Jesus Christ means to us? Are we struggling enough to understand the Bible and what faith is and how to apply it in our life?
Just like David and the Israelites made a fancy cart and played all kinds of musical instruments to make a big production but couldn’t please God, we need to think seriously whether our worship is pleasing the people or God. We try our best to make our building look good, and to be equipped with expensive sound system and to develop fun activities to draw people’s interest and make them to come. These are great strategies and they are necessary, but we need to consider first that whether or not these efforts are pleasing God. Is our worship acceptable in God’s eyes? Is our heart of worship acceptable in God’s eyes? Or is this just human activity? We are often tempted to judge a worship experience by how it makes us feel. But in our worship, the center should be God and it should be all about what pleases God, not about what pleases us.
As I wrote this sermon, I looked back carefully to our worship at Hope International. I questioned myself if we were fully prepared with prayer before we worship God. Was the sermon God’s Word or human word? Was our worship human oriented event or a sincere sacrifice of repentance and thanksgiving? Did we gather every Sunday for our joy and gladness toward God or for the feeling of obligation?
We are celebrating our 1st anniversary and this might sound very harsh and skeptical but I am asking us to go back to the basics. Let’s go back to the first day of our worship how thankful we were to God even though we didn’t have a place to worship nor a well-structured order of worship, nor any money to afford various events. I believe that God was pleased with our humble heart, our thankful mind and our genuine love toward God. So now, let’s come back to the basic to the place where it is all about God.