Sermon Notes, October 16, 2016
Rev.
Garry McGlinchy
Pastor
Garry continued the sermon series based on the book Kings and Presidents:
Politics and the Kingdom of God by Timothy R. Gaines and Shawna Songer
Gaines. This week’s sermon is titled
“Faith in the Valley,” and is based on the story in 2 Kings 4:38-41 of “Death
in the Pot.”
The Valley--If you think about it, 2
Kings Chapter 4 is much like a valley story: the stories here are set between
two mountain stories. On one mountain we
read the story of three kings waging war against another king over some sheep,
and on the other mountain we read a story about the commander of the army of
the king of Aram, Naaman, and his healing from leprosy. Here in chapter 4 are some incredible stories
about people who have very little. They
are a good representation of Israel’s weakest.
In other words, they had very few resources, and their hope wasn’t much
better. In 2 Kings 4 we see how a
faithful God interacts with those in need.
It’s
not hard to see that chapter 4 is vastly different than chapter 3 and chapter
5. Where chapter 4 is focused on the
meek living in the valley, chapters 3 and 5 focus on political rulers. Looking deeper, we see that chapter 4 is
about living in God’s territory. In a
way verses 1 and 44 are “bookend” verses that signal the reader to understand
that these stories from the valley all take place within God’s territory. When you are living within God’s territory
things are vastly different than life outside of His borders. In God’s territory we see that history is not
written by the powerful on the mountains, but by the faithful in the
valley. We see that the poor find that
their needs are provided for. We see
that God uses the vulnerable to bring blessings to those around them.
Elisha Has a Decision to Make—Here in
these few verses we read a crazy little story where Elisha is exploring his
culinary skills. Remember that Israel is
living in exile. They have suffered a
devastating blow that has left them homeless and hopeless. Their sons have been taken from them, and as
a nation, they are on the verge of losing their identity. On top of it all, there is famine in the
land.
So
Elisha sends some people out to gather what they can find and bring it to him. They did what they were told to do, and
Elisha began to work on his latest culinary creation “mystery stew.” Or maybe “suicide stew” would be a better
name, as we learn in this story.
“There’s
death in the pot!” We need to understand
that scholars are unclear exactly what that phrase was saying. Was the food actually poisoned, or did it
taste so bad that it tasted like death?
And here Elisha is faced with a couple of decisions. He could simply throw the food out. He could try and strain out the stew and
remove the poison or whatever it was that made it taste so bad. Or he could work with it, using what he had.
Death in the Pot—When we are speaking
of politics and the state of our union, I think it would be safe to say that
there is most definitely death in the pot!
With that said, we have some decisions to make. We could throw our hands up in the air, give
up and wait for Christ to return. We
could do all that we can to strain out the evil that fills the airways,
grasping for straws looking for the right person or formula to solve all our
problems, but we know how effective that would be. Or we can allow God to work through whatever
is available to get rid of the poison in the pot
Elisha’s
decision gives us and incredible insight into how we should “respond
politically as God’s people.” (Gaines)
Elisha could throw everything out because it is too contaminated, and
this is a temptation for us when we are looking at the political poison that
surrounds us.
Elisha
could have decided to try and strain out “everything that is harmful in the
pot.” Being as how everything was already cooked together, it would have been
nearly impossible to separate the hazardous ingredients from the good
ingredients. The same is true with the
political corruption that surrounds us today.
We all know that even a little corruption works its way through large
sectors of a society fairly quickly, and it already has in a lot of ways. It is tempting to politically strain out
harmful ingredients, but much like straining foul ingredients from a
well-cooked stew is nearly impossible, so is the likelihood of removing corrupt
leaders in hopes of renewing our political system.
Work With What You Have—“Get some
flour.” is Elisha’s choice. He chose to
work with what he had. More directly, he
chose to allow God to work with what he had.
He chose to engage.
As
followers of the one true King, we are called to engage the world around us as
people of the valley! If you recall,
Jesus told the disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and
teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very
end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19 & 20)
We
are not called to give up. Rather we are
called to “engage as people of HOPE, precisely because we know what kind of
future God is bringing, and we seek to live as people of that future even
before it’s made fully present.” (Gaines)
So,
as people of the valley, we are called to “vote as people of the valley, rather
than as people attempting to climb to a particular mountaintop.” We need to engage, to vote, to campaign, to
invest, and to sacrifice, but always and only for the sake of being a people
attempting to live life in the valley as we wait for Christ’s return! As
Timothy Gaines writes, “When people of the valley engage in the political life
of their society, it is never to empower a king on a mountaintop, but to say to
the world, ‘Our God is faithful, and this is what it looks like when we live
out that faithfulness.’”
We
are surrounded by hazardous material that steals away life instead of bringing
life. We need to add life! We need to be the flour of this lost
world! This is why we need to engage,
even as we wait for Jesus to return. We
need to engage in the systems and cultures of our time because we need to add
more good!
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