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“External…Internal… Eternal” (Fn.:JOEL 2 1-2 12-17.DOC) Scripture: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 William C

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“External…Internal… Eternal” (Fn.:JOEL 2 1-2 12-17.DOC) Scripture: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 William C “External…Internal… Eternal” (fn.:JOEL 2 1-2 12-17.DOC) Scripture: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 William C. Pender FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 3/19/17 One of the merits of the church is that we are “The People of the Book”—the Bible. Often we become the people of a certain part of the Bible, just the New Testament. Certainly, the core of our faith is found in the story of Jesus and the ministry of the first apostles. What can be missing, however, is the long view of God’s purpose. The entire New Testament was written in a span of 30 years…a time less than my total time in ministry. I value my time in ministry and consider that I have learned a great deal, but I must confess to humility about the depth and breadth of only 30 years. The depth and breadth of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, is more than 15 centuries— through what seem to be the best of times and what seem to be the worst of times. This morning, our turning our attention to the tiny book of Joel in the Old Testament is a nod to the “long view” of faith. The “long view” here has a threefold shape: external, internal, and eternal. I will read the Scripture in sections, so we will work through the content in portions. We do not know much about the prophet Joel beyond that his father’s name was Pethuel. We have no other biographical details or stories. We can conclude by the content that his ministry is after the great Exile of the people of Israel—there is no mention of a king (and kings disappeared from the scene from the Exile going forward until many centuries later, to the time of the Maccabees). There is a mention of the temple in Jerusalem, so that places the prophetic message after the return from the Exile and after the Temple had been rebuilt. Beyond these generalities, little else can be said about the context of Joel. As far as the content of this book, there is a striking feature. Joel speaks of the threat to the people of Israel and the need for faithful living—the typical prophetic message. The typical prophetic message connects the threat to misbehavior. In other words, because you have turned to other gods, because you have treated the aliens and immigrants poorly, because you have become apathetic in service, doom and gloom are coming. What is intriguing about Joel is that doom and gloom are present in vivid color…but there is no expressed connection to a failure to live the covenant, a failure to obey the Ten Commandments, or a failure to live faithfully. Our Scripture reading begins with Joel 2:1-2—the call for trumpet sound, the call for alarm. And as we read sections, I am going highlight three features: the external, the internal, and the eternal. 1Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near— 2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come… (Joel 2:1-2) Disaster is coming…but unlike the quick and easy explanation of “You are going to reap what you sow,” the prophet Joel declares: 12 Yet even now, says the LORD , return to me with all your heart, Page 1 of 4 with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 rend your hearts and not your clothing. (Joel 2:12-13) Here is the external and internal: in the midst of disaster coming our way—whether it be a national calamity or our own deaths, there is only one call: “Return to me with all your heart,” says the Lord. Return to the Lord—externally and internally. External: Joel counsels fasting, weeping, and mourning; these are all externals. You can observe that someone is fasting; you know whether they are weeping; and few can hide when they are mourning. Internal: no matter your outward practice, rend you heart and not your clothing, says the prophet. The Jewish external display of mourning was to tear your clothes. The tear illustrates the tear in your heart. But the external expression can be just going through the motions—you can pray; you can say the creed; you can even sing…and not go any deeper. How often have we all repeated the words of the Lord’s Prayer without any sense of what we have said? The external can be empty. Joel gives the typical prophetic word: Return to the Lord. For Joel, it is external—look for that return in your bank account. Is there enough evidence there to convict you as a generous person? Look for that return in how you put up with your cranky neighbor—is there enough evidence there to convict you of being a forgiving person? Look for that return in your engagement with the stranger, the immigrant, and the ethnicities different from your own—is there enough evidence to convict you of being a brother and sister to all humankind? Look for that return in your practice of worship—is there enough evidence in the Friendship Register of your making worship a priority in your life? Our return to the Lord shows up in our lives—it is external. Return to the Lord—that is the typical prophetic word. For Joel, it is internal. It is more than the external. He says: rend your heart, not your clothes. In other words, don’t let the externals define who you are. Look for that return in your heart. The French novelist Francois Mauriac tells a story about someone he had the inspiration to call The Woman of the Pharisees. The woman, the grand dame of the valley, very rich in houses and land, was committed to the poor people in her village, visiting them all regularly, always leaving behind a gift suitable to their needs—as she saw them—along with a suggestion that a little more ambition and little more thrift could improve their situation. She never left a poor family’s house with making them feel worse for her having been there. 1 The woman in Mauriac’s novel has the externals down…but the heart, the internal, was not there. What she did, she did to prove to herself that she was good person…not that she had heart for those she served. Rend your heart, not your clothing—do the inward check, not just outward expressions. All too often heart gets defined as sentimentality. Did you feel “warm-fuzzies?” Did you want to shout and clap your hands? The prophetic heart is different: it is the identification with the hurt and the hampered, the helpless and the hardened. The prophetic heart is with those that you most want to “write off” from your life—to feel—no, to know—that there but for the grace of God, go I. 1 As summarized by Lewis B. Smedes, Days of Grace through the Year (2007), page 62. Page 2 of 4 Recently, our city’s police chief testified before the state legislature committee looking into an epidemic of opioid use in Tennessee—prescription drugs that are handed out too easily and readily. The easy answer to such a problem is “throw the bums in jail.” Chief David Rausch is certainly no softie on enforcing the law, but he went further. He noted that an officer on his force—a person committed to upholding the law—had had been arrested for stealing pills from drug dealers to fuel his own addiction. He further shared that he and his wife are raising the 6-month-old baby of his stepson and girlfriend because both are addicts. Addicts should be saved, Rausch said, because they are someone’s family—including his. That’s real heart—that takes in the hurt and the hampered, the helpless and the hardened. External…internal…eternal. The prophet Joel gives the eternal as the basis for our return: Return to the LORD , your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. (Joel 2:14) Return to the Lord—externally and internally because…because of the eternal. Not because of threat of punishment but because of the eternal. And here is the eternal: “God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” The prophet Joel did not invent this phrase that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He is repeating the faith of Moses, some 1000 years before him. In that defining moment for the people of Israel in the wilderness and the gifting of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, here is the self-revelation of God to Moses (Exodus 34:6-7): 6 “The LORD , the LORD , a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation. Joel connects with one of the Hebrew Bible’s most glorious and memorable descriptions of the LORD, Yahweh or Jehovah—uttered first on the mountain of Sinai and then echoed in places like Nehemiah 9:17, Jonah 4:2, Psalm 86:15 and 145:8.
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