James T. Cleland - "Zechariah 14" (January 9, 1966)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(soft music) | 0:03 | |
- | Let us pray. | 0:29 |
Let the words of my mouth | 0:33 | |
and the meditations of our hearts | 0:36 | |
be acceptable in thy sight. | 0:38 | |
Oh Lord our strength and our redeemer, amen. | 0:42 | |
There are probably some of us in chapel this morning | 0:59 | |
who still read a chapter of the Bible every day. | 1:05 | |
We began to do this as youngsters | 1:11 | |
and the usage has continued. | 1:14 | |
If anyone asked us the reason for this daily Bible reading, | 1:18 | |
we might have to admit that it's merely | 1:23 | |
a matter of continuing custom. | 1:26 | |
We could defend the practice by appealing to the dictum | 1:31 | |
that it's never wise to give up a good habit | 1:35 | |
until we have something better to put in its place. | 1:39 | |
Now, in this chapter of parody routine, | 1:45 | |
we regularly run across verses that baffle | 1:49 | |
or intrigue or tantalize us. | 1:54 | |
I came across two such verses, | 1:58 | |
and I want to share with you my reflections on them. | 2:01 | |
They are in Zechariah, the last chapter, | 2:06 | |
the passage read as our scripture lesson. | 2:12 | |
Now Old Testament scholars have divided | 2:18 | |
the book of Zechariah into two parts. | 2:20 | |
The first part chapters one to eight | 2:25 | |
is a fairly straight forward commentary | 2:28 | |
on the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, | 2:32 | |
after the return from the Babylonian exile around 520 BC. | 2:36 | |
But the second half, chapters nine to 14 | 2:44 | |
is almost a no man's land for the lay reader of holy writ, | 2:50 | |
that is no agreement among the scholars as to its date, | 2:58 | |
its authorship, or the reason for its writing. | 3:04 | |
Therefore there is no unanimity as to its meaning. | 3:10 | |
Its date is placed anywhere from 333 BC | 3:15 | |
time of Alexander the Great to 165 BC, | 3:21 | |
the time of Judas Maccabaeus, | 3:25 | |
or else here and there indiscriminately | 3:28 | |
throughout that span of years. | 3:31 | |
Worse than that, the chapters read in places | 3:34 | |
like a transcript of spiritual delirium treatments. | 3:40 | |
It's not an easy book to understand, | 3:47 | |
even with the help of a good commentary | 3:49 | |
and two verses in the last chapter, | 3:52 | |
chapter 14, verses 20 and 21, | 3:55 | |
the last two verses in the book | 3:59 | |
are the ones which pulled me up with a jerk | 4:01 | |
and led to this sermon. | 4:04 | |
Here they are, "And on that day, | 4:06 | |
there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, | 4:10 | |
HOLY TO THE LORD. | 4:15 | |
And the pots in the house of the Lord | 4:19 | |
shall be as the bowls before the altar | 4:21 | |
and every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred | 4:24 | |
to the Lord of hosts so that all who sacrificed | 4:28 | |
may come and take of them | 4:32 | |
and boil the flesh of the sacrifice in them. | 4:34 | |
And that shall no longer be a trader | 4:38 | |
in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day." | 4:41 | |
Now, what honor are we gonna do with that? | 4:47 | |
Well, let's see. | 4:51 | |
First we better find what Second Zechariah is getting at, | 4:55 | |
unless this is Third Zechariah, | 5:00 | |
as some scholars think. | 5:02 | |
Chapter 14 is an apocalyptic description of the new earth, | 5:05 | |
which will be the outcome | 5:12 | |
of the last days of this present age. | 5:14 | |
It is a pep talk to the faithful, | 5:19 | |
encouraging them in the midst of national disaster | 5:23 | |
with the hope of ultimate victory. | 5:27 | |
When God himself moves in to take over | 5:30 | |
after our last tremendous battle, | 5:35 | |
God with the assistance of the heavenly hosts | 5:39 | |
will set up his kingdom in Jerusalem, | 5:41 | |
which will become the international holy city. | 5:45 | |
Then everything will be done in accordance with his will, | 5:51 | |
no matter what is done, | 5:57 | |
it will be holy because God's okay | 6:00 | |
will be stamped upon it. | 6:05 | |
Not to dramatize that fact the author gives | 6:07 | |
the two simple surprising examples, | 6:10 | |
on the bells of the horses there will be inscribed | 6:15 | |
Holy to the Lord. | 6:20 | |
Now, these are the words Holy to the Lord, | 6:25 | |
which the Lord decreed should be inscribed | 6:30 | |
on the breastplate of the high priest. | 6:35 | |
Now that's quite a jump | 6:40 | |
from the sacrificial vestments of the high priest | 6:43 | |
to a horse's bridle. | 6:47 | |
And to drive home this point of universal holiness | 6:50 | |
in the redeemed Jerusalem, | 6:55 | |
the prophet offers another illustration. | 6:57 | |
Jerusalem will be so free from anything unclean | 7:01 | |
that any pot may be taken at random | 7:06 | |
and used for cooking the sacrificial flesh. | 7:11 | |
There will be no need for merchants, traders | 7:16 | |
to sit in the temple, to sell the pilgrims special vessels, | 7:20 | |
exclusively consecrated to the service of God. | 7:25 | |
Any old pot or pan will do, | 7:30 | |
because everything in the kingdom of God | 7:34 | |
has his imprimatur upon him. | 7:37 | |
Now, what is the universal truth | 7:45 | |
behind these horses bells and those cooking utensils? | 7:48 | |
Isn't it something like this? | 7:54 | |
In the kingdom of God, the common everyday life | 7:57 | |
will be so completely under his eye, | 8:03 | |
that that will be a thorough smashing | 8:08 | |
of the barrier between the sacred and the secular. | 8:12 | |
This piece of equipment will not be stamped sacred. | 8:19 | |
And that piece of paraphernalia will not be labeled secular. | 8:23 | |
This mode of action will not be designated holy | 8:29 | |
and that form of behavior will not be termed profane, | 8:33 | |
but such an interpretation is a way bit too much | 8:40 | |
for most religious folk to swallow. | 8:43 | |
They don't deny that, all will be holy in the new Jerusalem, | 8:47 | |
but they do deny that it has anything to do with horses | 8:52 | |
and kitchen utensils. | 8:56 | |
Only what is sacred on earth | 8:59 | |
will continue to be sacred in heaven. | 9:01 | |
Now that's a disturbing thought. | 9:06 | |
It means, for example, in my own religious tradition, | 9:09 | |
that every day will be a Scottish Sabbath | 9:14 | |
with sermons and psalm singing and Sunday clothes. | 9:19 | |
With no interesting reading, no games, | 9:27 | |
no whistling, no laughter. | 9:32 | |
It will be worse than solemn, it'll be sanctimonious. | 9:37 | |
For others, life in the kingdom | 9:45 | |
will be a little transcription | 9:47 | |
of the revelation of Saint John the Divine. | 9:49 | |
We shall spend our time casting down our golden crowns | 9:53 | |
around the throne on the edge of the glassy sea. | 9:58 | |
A useless occupation, devoid of both dignity and humor. | 10:04 | |
"And a plague on both your houses | 10:13 | |
on Scott's Presbyterianism and on literalism," | 10:16 | |
says the unknown author of Second Zechariah. | 10:19 | |
You misunderstand God and religion and life. | 10:23 | |
All that we normally do on earth eating, sleeping, | 10:29 | |
working, playing will be continued as the kind of living | 10:33 | |
which God believes to be natural. | 10:38 | |
That is in accordance with his good pleasure. | 10:42 | |
Driving a horse will be a religious action | 10:47 | |
as religious as formal worship. | 10:52 | |
"As the breakdown of any barrier | 10:55 | |
between the sacred and the secular, | 10:57 | |
holiness is a universal," that's how Henry Jones puts it. | 11:00 | |
Religious life is nothing but the secular life | 11:07 | |
devoted to the best we know. | 11:13 | |
Professor Waldo Beach explicated this idea | 11:19 | |
a few months ago in a sermon from this pulpit, | 11:22 | |
he was defining in conjunction and in contrast three words, | 11:27 | |
secular, sacred, profane. | 11:32 | |
Now, if I interpret him correctly, | 11:38 | |
the secular is the raw material | 11:42 | |
of both the sacred and the profane. | 11:48 | |
The secular is a religious, non religious | 11:54 | |
in that it is the day in, day out stuff | 12:00 | |
of all existence in the world. | 12:04 | |
The sacred is religious in that | 12:09 | |
it is the secular devoted to God. | 12:12 | |
The profane is anti religious | 12:18 | |
in that it is the secular twisted and warped away | 12:22 | |
from any divine perspective. | 12:28 | |
And the closing verses of Zechariah, | 12:31 | |
"Look forward to a day when there would be nothing profane | 12:35 | |
and nothing secular for all life, all normal life, | 12:40 | |
all everyday life would be willingly, | 12:47 | |
unconsciously live to the glory of God | 12:50 | |
and the wellbeing of the beloved community." | 12:54 | |
"Now all this is quite interesting," you charitably remark, | 13:03 | |
but what has it to do with us? | 13:08 | |
Certainly what on earth has it to do with us? | 13:11 | |
The end of the world has not come, | 13:16 | |
God has not set up the new Jerusalem. | 13:19 | |
Even if this apocalyptic prophet | 13:23 | |
has predicted with accuracy the life of the kingdom, | 13:26 | |
it isn't here yet. | 13:29 | |
So what's the point of all this for us? | 13:32 | |
What is the point? | 13:34 | |
Well, hold your horses a minute. | 13:37 | |
According to the Christian faith, | 13:41 | |
with the life and preaching of Jesus Christ | 13:44 | |
and with the establishment of the church | 13:49 | |
under the guidance and control of the holy spirit, | 13:52 | |
the kingdom has been inaugurated. | 13:56 | |
We who claim the name of Christian | 14:02 | |
are already members of the kingdom | 14:05 | |
and the church is a colony of the kingdom on earth, | 14:10 | |
according to Saint Paul. | 14:16 | |
And we are supposed to behave so far as in as lies | 14:19 | |
as if we belonged to the kingdom. | 14:24 | |
The final advent of the new Jerusalem is not yet, | 14:27 | |
but that is where our citizenship lies. | 14:32 | |
And even here and now we must conduct ourselves | 14:37 | |
to the best of God's ability in us as his folk. | 14:42 | |
One way we can do this is to make sure | 14:49 | |
that our daily work and conversation | 14:51 | |
are ordinary going out and coming in | 14:55 | |
are worthy of God's seal of approval, | 15:00 | |
of the descriptive adjective holy, acceptable to him. | 15:04 | |
You know what this means in our rising | 15:12 | |
and eating and sleeping. | 15:14 | |
We transform the secular into the sacred | 15:18 | |
when God is recognized as the center of all life, | 15:22 | |
we awake with God. | 15:28 | |
We may say to him, "Lord, as we go to our work this day, | 15:33 | |
help us to take pleasure there in." | 15:40 | |
Or in the rush of our hectic academic routine we may pray, | 15:45 | |
"Lord thou knowest, how busy we must be this day. | 15:51 | |
If we forget thee, do not thou forget us." | 15:58 | |
That was first said before a battle in 1642, | 16:06 | |
and then it meals we realize that food is not something | 16:13 | |
to be considered either as fuel or as the be all | 16:16 | |
and end all of existence. | 16:20 | |
It is a sustaining provision | 16:23 | |
for which grace is gladly spoken. | 16:27 | |
Here is a chuckling grace for breakfast, | 16:33 | |
unless you're on a low fat diet. | 16:37 | |
One that is both unusual and completely Orthodox | 16:40 | |
"Our thanks for eggs and buttered toast. | 16:46 | |
Father, son, and holy ghost." | 16:49 | |
(audience chuckling softly) | 16:52 | |
Cooking may be a holy act | 16:57 | |
and the cleaning up a prayer of thanksgiving. | 17:00 | |
And when we lie down we may go to sleep | 17:04 | |
under the eye of God, into thy hands oh Lord | 17:09 | |
we commend ourselves this night and all who are dear to us. | 17:14 | |
Or watch with those who wait or watch or weep tonight | 17:19 | |
and give a dine angels charge over those who sleep. | 17:29 | |
And that's our home and our college | 17:34 | |
become more than a dormitory and a cafeteria | 17:38 | |
with a garage or a parking lot attached. | 17:42 | |
The secular stuff of life becomes holy. | 17:47 | |
And think of this transformation of the secular | 17:56 | |
into the sacred in the church. | 17:59 | |
Church is not merely the place of the great Sunday service | 18:04 | |
and then occasional celebration of the Lord's supper. | 18:09 | |
It is the location where something of the quince in life | 18:13 | |
is sought in baptism and the quiver of life | 18:19 | |
is sought in the funeral service. | 18:25 | |
It just that segment of space set aside | 18:28 | |
for the sanctification of the whole of life, | 18:32 | |
not a part of life, of the whole of life. | 18:36 | |
And that's why in Glasgow Cathedral, for example, | 18:40 | |
there is an annual service for the churching. | 18:44 | |
That is, the churching of the town council | 18:47 | |
after the elections. | 18:52 | |
I even had a service last year | 18:55 | |
for the Glasgow & District Churches Badminton Association. | 18:57 | |
That's why that has been in years gone by | 19:04 | |
and duke had service in the chapel during Greek week, | 19:07 | |
which may have reduced the number of incidents | 19:12 | |
or dirty rushing, I don't know. | 19:15 | |
And do you know that some years ago at 8:30 | 19:19 | |
on a Saturday morning before the Duke Navy football game, | 19:22 | |
15 Protestant members of the Navy squad | 19:28 | |
received the bread and wine from the Lord's table | 19:32 | |
in the Memorial Chapel? | 19:35 | |
Now that was not for them, a form of big magic. | 19:38 | |
If it had been, they would not have requested | 19:44 | |
the Dean of the Duke Chapel to be the celebrant. | 19:47 | |
These boys we're offering their athletic skills to God | 19:52 | |
they had a precedent in the Juggler of Notre Dame. | 19:56 | |
And I remember one year when a divinity student | 20:00 | |
came to me and asked me to help him prepare | 20:02 | |
an order of worship for the dedication of a furnace. | 20:04 | |
My first was ejaculation was, | 20:10 | |
"Glory be to God, a furnace?" | 20:12 | |
(laughing softly) | 20:15 | |
And he said, "Why not? | 20:18 | |
We dedicate alters and Bibles, pulpits and baptist trees. | 20:20 | |
My congregation has saved up for three years for a furnace. | 20:26 | |
Why can't we dedicate it? | 20:31 | |
It means much to them | 20:33 | |
it therefore probably means much to God." | 20:35 | |
I reminded him there wasn't much in the Bible about furnaces | 20:40 | |
and what was there was not particularly pleasant. | 20:45 | |
(laughing loudly) | 20:48 | |
But he persisted and we wrote it and he used it. | 20:52 | |
And he told me afterwards, | 20:58 | |
"When the prayer of dedication was over, | 21:01 | |
the furnace went off with a glorious bang." | 21:04 | |
(audience laughing loudly) | 21:08 | |
See what it did it turned the prayer into a (indistinct) | 21:10 | |
this is the response. | 21:14 | |
Now that furnace has inscribed upon it, | 21:17 | |
even if invisibly, Holy to the Lord. | 21:21 | |
We lack imagination in our use of the sanctuary, | 21:27 | |
so often, too often, that's because we continue | 21:32 | |
to draw a line between the sacred | 21:37 | |
and the secular to markedly. | 21:39 | |
We try to save holy from infection, | 21:42 | |
it's a laudable motive, | 21:47 | |
but sometimes we are over squeamish | 21:50 | |
in a way that God isn't, thank God. | 21:53 | |
But is our everyday life on earth really holy? | 21:57 | |
Of course it isn't. | 22:02 | |
We're not yet in the kingdom completely. | 22:03 | |
We're still in the world we are of necessity to the world. | 22:07 | |
And it's wise to remember how the world is defined | 22:11 | |
society has organized a part from God. | 22:15 | |
And yet there is a chance for witness, for holy behavior. | 22:20 | |
10 years ago, I worshiped in Glasgow university | 22:26 | |
at a special service in the chapel | 22:29 | |
a service for the commemoration of benefactors. | 22:32 | |
And at one point in the service, | 22:38 | |
the rubric reads the congregation standing, | 22:39 | |
the principal shall read the role of benefactors | 22:43 | |
and the call to commemoration. | 22:46 | |
His first words are, "It is outbound in duty | 22:49 | |
to commemorate thankfully before all mighty God, | 22:53 | |
all those are benefactors by whose liberality | 22:56 | |
this college and university | 22:59 | |
has maintained the studies of godliness and sound learning." | 23:02 | |
And beginning with the Bishop of Glasgow in 1451, | 23:07 | |
he comes right down the centuries. | 23:12 | |
And the most moving thing to me at the service was | 23:14 | |
he suddenly said, "And do not let us forget | 23:17 | |
these benefactors," and pointed to the War Memorial | 23:21 | |
to world War I on this side to world War II on this side. | 23:26 | |
For arts and science, medicine, engineering, and law, | 23:33 | |
as well as divinity are holy to the Lord. | 23:39 | |
December 11th in this Year of Grace falls on a Sunday | 23:46 | |
and December 11 is Founder's Day. | 23:52 | |
Would it not be appropriate especially | 23:57 | |
in the light of our motto, | 23:59 | |
(speaking in foreign language) | 24:01 | |
to have the university service of worship that morning | 24:04 | |
be one of great and the glad thanksgiving | 24:08 | |
for those dead and alive, | 24:12 | |
who we established our academic heritage. | 24:15 | |
If we believe that, it's time to start planning for it now. | 24:19 | |
Do you know how the midwinter dance | 24:27 | |
at one of the new England prep schools ends? | 24:28 | |
With prayers and anthems in the chapel? | 24:32 | |
How do the students and their dates react? | 24:38 | |
They are embarrassed to mortification, the first time. | 24:41 | |
And then in succeeding years, | 24:47 | |
they actually look forward to it. | 24:49 | |
Why are so many folk married in church | 24:53 | |
and not by a JP or a judge? | 24:57 | |
Custom? | 25:01 | |
Of course. | 25:02 | |
Conviction? | 25:04 | |
Sure. | 25:06 | |
The bride's desire or the bride's mother's desire | 25:08 | |
for a show, bless their hearts. | 25:11 | |
(audience laughing loudly) | 25:15 | |
But not entirely. | 25:17 | |
They want this new joint life to be holy to the Lord | 25:21 | |
and if they remember that it can be, | 25:26 | |
and the secular is given the impromptu of the holy. | 25:30 | |
Think of this yourselves regarding your own life | 25:36 | |
in the university at study, in the dorm, while eating, | 25:38 | |
in the gymnasium, dating. | 25:45 | |
Is Holy to the Lord an impossible inscription? | 25:48 | |
If so, why? | 25:54 | |
How do you think Jesus our Lord would react to this sermon? | 25:57 | |
He was born in a stable, | 26:02 | |
he grew up in an ordinary home, | 26:05 | |
his contemporaries by and large missed his spiritual genius | 26:08 | |
because they insisted on the line | 26:12 | |
between the sacred and the secular | 26:14 | |
and dismissed him with a comment, | 26:17 | |
"He's a carpenter, we know his family." | 26:18 | |
He found God in the commonplace, | 26:23 | |
in the flowers of the field, in the howl of a sparrow, | 26:25 | |
in the change of the year, | 26:30 | |
in a few cents in a collection plate. | 26:32 | |
And before he died he took the ordinary food | 26:36 | |
of a Judean table, bread and wine | 26:39 | |
and made it so holy that 20 centuries later, | 26:44 | |
we keep on repeating his actions. | 26:49 | |
Maybe he had read Second Zachariah | 26:53 | |
and behaved as if the kingdom were here | 26:57 | |
and maybe we are supposed to go and do likewise | 27:02 | |
so far as we can, God helping us. | 27:06 | |
What more shall I say, justice. | 27:12 | |
He had again the last verses | 27:16 | |
over the last chapter of Zechariah. | 27:18 | |
"And on that day there shall be inscribed | 27:21 | |
on the bells of the horses, Holy to the Lord. | 27:24 | |
And every part in Jerusalem and Judah | 27:31 | |
shall be sacred to the Lord of hosts, | 27:33 | |
so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them | 27:36 | |
and boil the flesh of the sacrifice in them." | 27:41 | |
It is a consummation devoutly to be wished. | 27:47 | |
Let us pray. | 27:54 | |
All mighty God who created all things | 27:59 | |
and saw that they were good. | 28:02 | |
Teach us to call nothing which though has made | 28:05 | |
common or unclean, but to use it well | 28:09 | |
as the very tough about existence. | 28:13 | |
So thy glory and our benefit in the spirit of thy son. | 28:16 | |
And may the blessing of God come upon you abundantly, | 28:22 | |
may it keep you strong and tranquil | 28:27 | |
in the truth of his promises through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 28:29 | |
(singing softly) | 28:40 |