Harvest Songs a Little Off-Key

 

Thursday, April 29, 2021

Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision.  In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit.  “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.  I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.”  Then the Lord said, “Like this fruit, Israel is ripe for punishment!  I will not delay their punishment again.  In that day the singing in the temple will turn to wailing.  Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere.  They will be carried out of the city in silence.  I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”  Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample down the needy!  You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivals to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless.  You measure out grain with dishonest measures and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.  And you mix the grain you sell with chaff swept from the floor.  Then you enslave poor people for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.  Now the Lord has sworn this oath by his own name, the Pride of Israel:  “I will never forget the wicked things you have done!  Amos 8:1-7

There is enough about judgment in Scripture to have a true echo to this picture Amos has seen of harvest songs (usually a very happy time) turning into wailing in Jerusalem’s temple.  Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels is enough to make one sit-up and shudder over the Great Judgment Day coming.  The list is too long and discomforting for bedtime reading:

·       The Barren Fig Tree (burying your talents Luke 13)
·       The Good Samaritan (religious elitism Luke 10)
·       The Pharisee and the Publican (judging others Luke 18)
·       The Rich Fool (greed and selfishness Luke 12)
·       The Rich Man and Lazarus (ignoring the destitute Luke 16)
·       The Sheep and Goats (pretend Christianity Matthew 25)
·       The House Built on Rock (trusting in other than Christ Matthew 13)

Now that’s just an uncomfortable list of parables, little stories with multi-level lessons.  Greater stories of judgment that cut right to the chase have mountains crashing down on heads, stars falling, war with rivers of blood flowing deep enough to drown a horse.  Then, there are the results of judgment, everlasting torment, weeping, gnashing of teeth (as an ongoing expression of torment), irrevocable banishment into the darkness, never to experience God’s love, being cut in two, and on, and on.

The natural objection to all of this is to point to the fact that it has been two-thousand years since Jesus died, and the earth rocks-on.  So, where is the judgment?  And the traditional response to that is, so-what…justice delayed is a sign of God’s mercy, giving those who reject him time to repent and be saved. 

The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.  2 Peter 3:9

But whether people want to forcefully object to Scripture’s warnings, or simply ignore them and hope they’re not true, there is an undeniable discomfort level with the whole subject.  This, in itself, is a measure of proof that there is, placed deep within each of us mortals, an understanding of our accountability to God, and the culpability of our sins.  For those poor souls who want to object to God’s judging the world and everything/person in it is like a flea having an argument with an elephant.  It just will not change the outcome.

For You Today

There is a harvest song that will never be sung off-key – that of the singer who recognizes what Jesus called the fields white unto harvest.  It is God calling the lost who need to hear the Good News that Christ will save all who come to Him in repentance.  When you work in that field, your song is echoed in Heaven, and you will return to Him someday, rejoicing and carrying with you sheaves of joy.  That is another of God’s promises:

They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.  Psalm 126:6

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

Everything that Breathes

 

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Praise the Lord!  Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heaven!  Praise him for his mighty works; praise his unequaled greatness!  Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn; praise him with the lyre and harp!  Praise him with the tambourine and dancing; praise him with strings and flutes!  Praise him with a clash of cymbals; praise him with loud clanging cymbals.  Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Psalm 150:1-6

The picture of a three-ton elephant next to a two-pound egret is a perfect symbol for this last chapter of the Psalms.  Juxtaposition, seeing the contrasting difference between two or more of anything placed together, is today’s word for praise.  To paraphrase the Psalmist’s encouragement, let’s just say let everything that breathes praise the Lord, however that creature can offer praise, no matter how much they differ from one another.

The juxtaposition of different kinds of praises are represented in the Psalm-writer’s musical instruments.  Ram’s horns blasting and cymbals clanging are what they do…loud, bombastic, and overpowering to declare God’s majesty.  The contrast of strings, flutes, and harps, so gentle and lilting, are just as authentic paintings of God’s beauty and kindness.  And then, there is dancing to the beat of drums and tambourines, a frenzied release of the heart’s joy to celebrate the goodness of God’s mercy towards His created universe, and all its inhabitants.

Praise to God comes in so many differently-wrapped packages it is difficult to even have a category list, let alone a comprehensive dictionary of the ways creation offers praise.  But, maybe the juxtaposition of church and cicadas come close.  Church services lift praise in song, and many other ways.  

The lowly 17-year cicada locust eats everything in sight and blasts a chorus of night songs that could keep Rip van Winkle awake.

Our first introduction to these little beasts came many years ago when our children were preschoolers.  Our two-year-old son, Jason, was lying prostrate on the back patio, chin on the ground, facing one of the little buggers.  He had his tongue extended for the ugly little beast to crawl up.  I’ve tried, but cannot imagine what was going on in that little mind.

The eggs from which cicadas hatch were buried 17 years prior in the ground.  Somehow God awakens them all at the same time in 204 months, and they come out of the earth like…well….locusts.  They do the locust thing, eating like they’ve been stuck on a diet for decades.  The sound of their wings and hind legs rubbing together is an opus dei similar to a thousand lions roaring for dinner.  The sound is the male mating call, which is followed by more millions of cicada eggs buried in the ground. 

And in just a few short weeks they’re gone, leaving empty shells of bodies strewn all over, stuck to tree trunks, on patio floors, gutters, and every other nook or cranny you can imagine.  Their song of praise is always short, loud, unstoppable, and no mistake.  In this dance of praise to their Creator’s design they serve a purpose, pruning mature trees, aerating the soil, and, when they die, returning vital nitrogen to the soil from whence they came. 

Now, stand that image of annoying cicada bugs in your mind against a four-year-old child singing “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”.  And there it is, juxtaposition!  They’re so different…and so alike…offering to God the praise He placed within them. 

The next time you see a hurricane building in the tropics, or watch on tv as a volcano erupts, or the 17-year-locusts return, try to remember God’s creation doing what the Almighty hand has given them to do…praise His holy name.  And while you’re at it think of your neighbor, or that person on the other side of town, or the other side of the world, and how differently he may offer praise than you do.  And then offer the praise he put inside of you, in just the way He designed it.

For You Today

Whether you’re an elephant, an egret, or a cicada, or just somebody who happened to wake up today in God’s universe, there’s a song inside you.  Sing it loudly or softly, on-key or off, but don’t keep it to yourself.  Offer it to Him!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title Image: Wikimedia Commons  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©