Becoming a Vision of God’s Heavenly Grace and Splendor
Do you ever struggle with how you might be like Jesus? How could the church be something special for the world around us? We already heard about how we are supposed to be a special place and community where people can be welcomed into the family of God. Did you know that as the image of God, we are meant to have almost unfathomable potential in how we represent Him? We can and should be a vision of God’s grace and grandeur.
We might think making any real or lasting difference is left to those with influence and power and so our first story of King Solomon would fit that mold. It feels like any TV show where we get an inside look at the most beautiful houses of the richest families, but something is different.
Somehow Solomon's leadership is so mind-blowing that the Queen can barely believe it. It starts with Solomon’s fame, but Solomon’s fame was due to the Lord. This might feel like a small point, but it is important. Solomon was famous, but in some very important and distinct ways, he owed that fame and shared it with the Lord. Imagine how such a simple change would have affected his leadership and recognition. Imagine how that shared fame with God could change our culture, if every actor, athlete, boss, and success story made it not about themselves first, but about God. How could it change your work, your successes, and your relationships? I think this goes way further than just thanking God at awards speeches because it does for Solomon.
Look at what the Queen experiences. First, she experienced great wisdom and Solomon was open to sharing it with her, even though she was a foreign queen (again it wasn’t about him). Then she experiences his abundance, which includes much of what we would expect, but it also included how Solomon set up his government and how he sacrificed to God. An essential part of Solomon’s bounty and glory is how he lifts up other people to leadership for the right running of the country and how he honors God with his life and that bounty.
The Queen had seen grandeur and riches before. We hear that she traveled with more spices than had ever been seen. Yet it was how Solomon used what he had for the glory of God and Israel that overwhelmed her. That’s what she says too, “Blessed be the Lord, who has done all of this, who has loved Israel enough to make Solomon the worker of Justice and Righteousness”. Something about how Solomon lived in and shared the glory of God spoke wonders to this Queen. She says, “All the reports I heard about you are true, but I couldn’t believe them until I saw them with my own eyes, yet someone I wasn’t even told half of how great and wonderful it all is as it far surpasses any report. Blessed are even your servants for being in the midst of this”.
Now think about what this means. Solomon did have riches and authority, but so did the Queen of Sheba. It was not what Solomon had, it was how he used it, that shows the Queen an unbelievable vision of God’s splendor. We might not have the riches or authority of Solomon, but we do have a lot. We do have a great capacity to share the glory of God. We too can lift up leaders, we too can depend on the Wisdom of God through his Holy Spirit, we too can give back to God with all that we are and have, we too can bless those who serve us, we too can invite others in to see and experience all that God has done in and around us. So each of you, where ever you are, whatever you have can be a vision of God’s otherworldly splendor that transforms the people and world around you.
It does take faith though and a willingness to trust God through the ups and downs. Solomon as he became king was asked by God what he wanted. Solomon responded with faith by asking for wisdom to lead the people. He didn’t ask for power, a great army to defeat any enemy. He didn’t ask for money, great riches that could buy him whatever he wanted. He asked for God’s guidance and that was ultimately what lead him to everything else. We too need that to see how to live rightly in a way that shares God’s abundance. Solomon would get it wrong later though. He would put his wives before God’s guidance, setting up idols that would divide the kingdom in his lifetime and create turmoil and conflict for generations to come.
Solomon was king of all of Israel though, so we might lose our own purpose and potential in his grand position. So we are also looking at these otherworldly laws that were meant for everyone: the gleaning, the Sabbath year, and the Jubilee.
The first commandment we look at is that farmers and landowners were told not to harvest the edge of their crops and not to harvest their plants a second time. Why? So that there would be some left over for those in need. So that travelers walking past wouldn’t faint from hunger. So that the poor and landless could find sustenance and a way of making enough to live. So that the foreigners and refugees would have something when otherwise they could be destitute. In the story of the Canaanite women Ruth, it is only thanks to this that Ruth can live and she eventually becomes King David’s great-grandmother and so an ancestor of Jesus. Jesus’ disciples also pick grains and eat them on their way. So, it empowered Jesus’ life and ministry twice.
This is tough in today’s world. We might not all be farmers, but it is telling us, we shouldn’t use everything, and we shouldn’t go as far as we can to make a profit or even to provide for our household. In a world where we are told more is always better, we are told by God to leave it for those in need and to share what we have. How this plays out in each of our work lives is a difficult question, but I know seeking profit has led to us hurting the planet and others rather than helping them. How could we partner in what we produce so that others are cared for too?
That brings us to the Sabbath year and the Jubilee. You probably have heard about the Sabbath day rest, that God made Holy the seventh day and so he wants each of us to rest one day a week in a way that dedicates that rest to him. On that one day off we are also supposed to let our workers and animals rest. It is a rest meant for all. And it wasn’t a day meant for chores or errands or a day to catch up, it was a day for rest, community, and God.
The Sabbath year was the same thing only now it happened for a whole year and included the land. Imagine if we as individuals took every 7th year off, but also imagine if every organization and business took every 7th year off too. Obviously, this would take a whole lot of planning and creating infrastructure for it, but is it that unimaginable? Yet, what could that mean for us, for our work and rest, for our relationships, and for our trust in God? I couldn’t stop imagining how it would change our perspective on both work and retirement.
This practice would take a great deal of trust and faith. As much as you may prepare, to take a whole year off and if others are doing it too, you have to trust that there will be enough and that God will provide. In an agricultural society without freezers, this trust would have been even harder. It was their very lives they would be putting on the line every seventh year.
Someone looking in on this practice would have been astounded. Here is a nation that so trusts their God that they can prioritize both God and rest for a whole year. What’s more this God so loves the earth and those outside of the nation that they let their servants, the foreigners, the animals, and even the land rest during this time. How can we live out this trust through our work and rest in a way that we prioritize God and invite others into his rest?
The last example is the Jubilee. Every seventh sabbath year, on the 50th year, Israel was commanded to take an extra year of rest. This was to be a great celebration, but it was more than that this year was a year of restoration. No matter how much you owed, or if you had sold your land, or if you had sold yourself to slavery, all debts were to be forgiven. Your freedom would be given to you, your land would be given back to you and there would be no more debt. This also meant that all those that had bought the land and people had to give them back. The Jubilee year was when equity was meant to be restored.
In a world, today where generational wealth and position so define someone’s potential and aspirations, imagine a community where that couldn’t last for more than one or two generations and the next generation would have equal opportunity and potential. Sure someone could choose wrong again, but God does not define their potential by what their parents did or what was done to their parents. Obviously, this becomes a little harder to live into for most of us, but the idea presented can still transform our relationships.
Today, I have given you four images of how Israel and Christians were meant to create and become an otherworldly vision of God’s grandeur, abundance, and splendor. Even in the much different culture that surrounds us, we can still live in these realities. Whether we have a lot of authority and money or very little, we can still seek God’s wisdom to guide us with these things, so we might bless him and those around us. We all have the potential to be thoughtful about our work and how it might make room to welcome in and care for the poor and needy. In the midst of our work and rest, we can be thoughtful about how we use both to show our trust and honour to God. Finally, even though most of us don’t have debtors, we still have opportunities to lead people to freedom and something of their own. In this world, by the Grace of God and by the working of His Spirit in us, we can become visions for others for the Kingdom He longs to build.
As Jesus came on the scene, he said the Kingdom of God is close at hand as if we just needed to reach out and grab it. How can people know God’s Kingdom in us?
I KINGS 10:1-10
What caused Solomon’s fame? What does this tell us?
What astounded the Queen of Sheeba? Remember she was a queen with riches and authority too.
What does this tell us about how we should use what we have?
A READING FROM LEVITICUS 23:22, 25:1-12
I don’t think anyone here is farmers, so we could ignore much of this, but the truth is that God’s commandments weren’t meant to be a catch all, they were rather meant to shape our hearts and minds to think and live differently.
What can we glean from the idea of no-gleaning? Trust, sharing, welcome, overuse,
What can we learn from God’s purpose and Kingdom through the idea of the Sabbath Year or the Jubilee?
