Sermon Cloud

This month we're entering the world of the minor prophets, the 12 Old Testament prophets with the shortest books. The message isn't minor at all, they are some of the most powerful statements in the Bible, because they reveal God's purpose and plan for the movement of entire nations. They're not primarily about your inner spiritual life, instead they give us a window on what God thinks about the rise and fall of world powers, what he feels about global problems, how he acts sovereignly among people groups, how he accomplishes his purposes through political regimes and social movements.

The Minor prophets are a great place to start in an election year, and a great place to turn in a recessed economy.
Open your books to Zechariah:

Rebuilding after a separation
As you've heard the last couple weeks, in the prophets the relationship of God to his people is compared to a marriage. The prophets talk about God not as if he's a school principal, football coach, your boss or manager, or even your father: He's a husband. He's not trying to make a sale, get your money, clean up your act, he just wants you. He wants to sweep you off your feet and build a life with you. In Zechariah we actually find out that God said "I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her." Zion was Jerusalem, the place where God was most intimate with his people, it was also the name God used for his people to speak about them as his own, like you might say, "my dear" to the woman sitting next to you.

But in the time of the prophets, we find that God's marriage to his people is on the rocks. This is not a honeymoon, they're beyond pet-peeves, beyond counseling, God's people are dabbling in other relationships. Their affection is cold, they've been unfaithful. By 586 B.C., God has had enough, He's been betrayed one too many times, and God kicks them out of the house, his people are sent into captivity in Babylon for 70 years.

As 70 years go by, God doesn't forget, he reaches out to his people again and again. By the time Zechariah comes on the scene, God has actually taken his people home, back to Jerusalem, and they're rebuilding. They're giving it another go, they are back under the same roof, they're actually rebuilding the temple, the bedroom of their life together.

But the tension is thick. This pair can't look each other in the eye, let alone speak openly. You can imagine it can't you, if you've experienced a divorce or a bad breakup or a falling out with a friend. There is this tension that you could cut with a knife.

Zechariah begins, chapter one, "In the eighth month...the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, The Lord was very angry with your ancestors. Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return to me, and I will return to you.'"

You can almost hear the orchestra fading in, and see the camera close in on God's people.

"Return to me..
Return to me, and I will return to you.

God's people sulk, they look up to answer, but there are no words that will fit. How do we even begin? The betrayal runs deep, you can't just kiss and make up.

ILLUS: my wife and I have had a fights, some really bad ones, in fact when we were dating people wondered if we should even get married, they said we fought like old married people, which didn't really excite me about getting old or married, but now I'm both. We don't fight as much as we used to, but we still have those terrible tense moments.

Last fall I was working too much, I wasn't managing my time well, and it started to really wear on her. Alone with our two babies all day, and then every night, and then on the weekends, it was just ripe for a showdown. And so one Sunday she came home from church and started making lunch for me. I told her that morning I'd be home by 1:45. Good times. But just before I grab my keys to leave I get a phone call reminder about a meeting that starts at 2:00 pm. I forgot to write it down! You know the feeling? Agh! So, I do what any knucklehead man would do and call off lunch, do the meeting, and cover my head as I walk in the door. Well, nothing comes flying at my head, but its worse, she's sitting on the couch all alone, silently. I figure maybe I can distract her with some small talk. She finally glares at me and says, "Are you married to you job?" Now, how do you even begin to answer that question? How do you even begin?

Well I do what any reasonable man would do, I try to fix it. Yeah, the next day, after work I pick up some flowers. Because to guys, flowers are like white-out, right? And when she throws them back in my face I feign confusion, "are they the wrong color?" What?! She says, you didn't get these flowers for me, you got them to ease your conscience. And before I can even explain to her how unfair that is, I blurt out the most ridiculous seven words any man ever speaks: "Then, what do you want me to do?"
You all understand this don't you: It was never about the flowers. It never is.

Turn over to chapter 7 and watch how this plays out for the people of God. "In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord comes back to Zechariah", because this time, the people of God get a great idea, they send a couple of simpletons out to find out what kind of mood God is in. Maybe he's cooled down a bit. They send these two blokes named Sharezer and Regem-Melek, and you kind of feel bad for them right from the get go, because even their names sound a bit slow, Sharezer and Regem-Melek. And they ask the priests, "Should I [still] mourn and fast in the fifth months, as I have done for so many years?" Its one of those great questions that's more like a statement. "Surely you noticed that I've mourned and fasted for all these long, painful, arduous years (70 to be exact), are you happy now or should we keep fasting? (You want to know the crazy thing, the religious fasting tradition wasn't even God's idea!)

Then Zechariah proclaimeth the word of the Lord (and it ain't good): "When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past ‘seventy years', was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? And are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when [we still lived together] in Jerusalem? (and you can see that God's pretty mad when he refers to himself in the third person).
And just there you get the impression that maybe, it was never about the fasting. It never is.

Just like every lover, we find out that God's love can't be bought at a price. He won't settle for a roommate, for cordial commitment. It was never about the flowers. It was never about the fasting. You can't buy him off.

And even Sharezer and Regem-Melek are bright enough to know that you don't ask the man question to God: "Then what do you want me to do?!"

Because God has already made it perfectly clear what he wants. He's not into flowers, he's not into songs and prayer and pleas and all manner of religious circus-ry. Its all very simple, "return to me."

I. God's simple invitation is "return to me."
You see, for all the history of God and Israel, he's been trying to make them his people. He has been using every means possible to join their lives to his. To share his life with them. To give them a place of privilege and purpose at his right hand, to make them full partners in his life's mission.

And that is still the invitation of God, to join your life to his. He's not into religion, he's into formation. He uses religion to form us into people that are ready to meet with him, people that are eager to join with him in his work.

Are you here today because you'd like to connect with God? Because you'd like to give your heart to something bigger than your own life?

God really doesn't need you to come to church, but he doesn't want you to leave without returning with your whole heart.

God's deep desire was never that we serve him, appease him, or sing about him.

God's deep desire is that our two hearts beat as one
Just what is on God's heart? Let's read, "And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah: "This is what the LORD Almighty said: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.'

And why is that better than fasting or flowers? Because its what God loves. God doesn't love fasting, he loves justice and mercy. He's not into religion, he's into his children treating each other right.

If you're a new dad you can probably relate: I was at the mall this time last year, my son Jack was learning to walk. He was just getting started, he was still a little nervous, kept making all these mistakes, tripping. We brought him to the mall children's area. This other kid pushed him out out of the boat. I could've nailed that little bald smug face to the wall.

This theme is strewn throughout the Old Testament:
The book of worship Psalms records: The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. (Ps 33)
When Jesus came he fulfilled the story of the prophets:
"I will put my Spirit on him,
      and he will proclaim justice to the nations." (repeated in Matthew 12 from Isaiah)

Justice and injustice happens in the courtroom, in the voting booth, in the chambers of Congress, in your personal bank account, in your investment portfolio - that's where justice, or injustice happens. Injustice also happens in everyday life when the playing field isn't level, when there isn't equal opportunity, equal treatment, or equal advantage. When the system is tilted so that benefit trickles up and stays up. We explored that last week.

Today we're considering mercy and compassion. Because mercy is the personal, private side of justice. A couple week's ago we heard that God actually wants us to "love mercy".

Mercy is more personal than justice, mercy actually requires that you look someone in the eye, mercy requires that when you see a panhandler you stop long enough to consider their predicament, that when you see the single parent or the older adult working a minimum wage job you treat them as your mom, dad, brother or sister. Mercy is giving someone a break who hasn't earned it. Mercy is reducing the sentence of a criminal, its reducing the burden of a someone that is struggling.

Justice is administered with the head, mercy requires a compassion that starts in your heart.

Zechariah says there is one group of people that God especially cares about: "the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner and the poor." How do they relate? These: the widow, fatherless, foreigner, poor are the vulnerable, the weakest, most vulnerable people in every society. 2500 years later we still have these vulnerable people in our society, and we have others as well. We have refugees, we have victims of divorce and abuse, we have the entire developing world, we have suspected enemy combatants, we have single moms, we have single dads who can barely make their child support payments, we have 37 million people living below the poverty line in the US and twice that many living dangerously close to it. God's heart beats for the vulnerable and the weak.

You might begin to feel compassion by watching a TV special on poverty, or hearing a great sermon, but you can't actually begin to show mercy and compassion until you look someone in the eye. You couldn't really begin to "love mercy" unless you roll up your sleeves and give it a go.

If there is anything that is really clear from the prophets, its that...
III. The surest path to God's heart is to embrace the vulnerable

You heard this last week from the biggest rock star in the world Bono, we hope God is with us in our mansions on the hill, but we can be sure that God is with us when we are with and for the poor. But this message is as old as the minor prophets. III. The surest...

How do we begin? Three steps:
Get close enough to let it hurt your heart
That's why as a church we're getting close to single moms and their children, extending a welcome to them with Servefest events and a new event I'll tell you about in a few minutes, the MNO.

Until you've actually listened to someone's problems and understood their struggle, all you'll have is vague ideas. If you've thought that you might understand because you were poor, like when you were a college student, forget it. You won't understand until you've listened and felt for someone else.

Financial Class: mentors needed

Get close enough to let it frustrate your mind

We like accountability. We like to think that life is mostly fair. But what if its mostly unfair? What if the system really is built to trickle up? What if there are a lot of people that are vulnerable because they're at a disadvantage? What if some people didn't have the same opportunity as you?

If you've never been close enough to the problem to let it frustrate you, let me take you there.
Current poverty level for a family of four is $19,350
(now in case you're not sure what the poverty level is, let me tell you, its an archaic system of figuring out what someone could survive on in the 1960's, its hardly relevant anymore, but its how our government counts it, so we'll stick with that for now.)
If one of the adults in that household is a minimum wage earner working full-time, their annual income will be 10,712 (about 50% pl)
If both parents work, there income will be $21,424, however there bill for child care will reduce one of there wages to about half of minimum wage.
About 12.7 percent of this country lives below the poverty line, over 1/3 of them are children, actually 17.8 % of all children live below the poverty line.

Generally estimated that in most areas of the country, an amount double the poverty rate is actually needed to live.

Hypothetical family of four:
Housing 8,100/year (675/month)
Utilities 1,200/year (100/month)
Food 8760/year ($2 /person /meal)
Transportation 2,860/year ($55/week, public or low cost car & insurance
Clothing 1,600/year ($400 /person /year secondhand)
Social Security Taxes 1,480
Total Expenses $24,000 (4000 over budget!)

Walk to work? still need to get your groceries home
What are the chances of finding work close to home?
Cut meal costs to $1/person. If you lived on or a near a farm, possibly. But then you probably couldn't walk to work.

What does this leave out?
No household appliances, no vacations, no toiletries, no birthday or Christmas gifts, no recreation, no visits to the dentist, no health insurance, no tithe to church, no child care, no movies, no travel outside the city, no music lessons, sports equipment for kids.

If you get close to the vulnerable, it will frustrate your mind. When you begin to see that there are no easy answers, simple remedies.

How about the groups that God directly mentions: widows and orphans (in our culture an apt comparison would be single mothers) 35% below poverty line. A large majority of others live close to it.
Immigrants: 30% below poverty line. About 70% of Mexican immigrants live around or below the poverty line. Now These are the people God seems to be most concerned about.

Are you tempted to cover your ears yet? Have you tuned out?
Helping the poor challenges mocks our desires for easy answers/tidy solutions. It will frustrate your mind.

So what do we do? We can't fix it all. And who is asking us to fix it all? God doesn't ask us to wait to start until we've got answers for the world's problems. He just asks us to show mercy and compassion, to love mercy. Could you show mercy to just one person? What if in the span of your life you could lift one other family out of poverty? Just one? Would that be worthwhile enough for you to get started?

3) Get close enough to let it move your feet

There are actually things you can do:
I know of...several people that are affected by subprime mortgages. Could you help? I know of a struggling family that is trying to solve a crisis with a car that needs an engine. I've got a list of 60 single moms from Servefest that need help paying their bills, that couldn't easily buy Christmas presents this season.
Join a home group, every one of our home groups has members that are struggling, vulnerable. WARNING: It will frustrate you!
Volunteer to serve at our Mom's Nite Out, starting Fri., March 14
Single Moms Ministry: service options available (cooks, childcare, auto mechanics, setup/cleanup, homemaking skill, job acquisition skill, affordable living acquisition)
Financial class mentor
5. We get requests regularly for people looking for transitional housing. We have one right now.
I know of a 20-something guy that's trying to get his life together, he's never had anyone give him a good opportunity, he needs a job, and he needs some coaching on how to make it in the workplace.
VBS this summer, talk to Matt

You know people like this as well, don't you? Why not take them out to coffee this week and ask them how it really is? How you could really help?

If you need a kickstart...how about this:
I've placed 20 cards up here this morning, each one of them has a name of someone that's received help from the Vineyard in the last year, if you want to get close enough to feel what God feels, come and grab a card, put a gift of cash or a Meijer gift card, a note and a prayer. Track down the person listed and give it to them face-to-face. Grab a cup of coffee and ask them about their struggles.

You just might find your heart beating with God's.