See Something, Say Something (New)
Sermon by Rev. Douglas Olds
Point Reyes (CA) Community Presbyterian Church
January 26, 2025
Scripture Readings (NRSV):
Judges 9:1-23
Psalm 19Now Abimelech son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem to his mother’s kinsfolk and said to them and to the whole clan of his mother’s family, 2 “Say in the hearing of all the lords of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you, that all seventy of the sons of Jerubbaal rule over you, or that one rule over you?’ Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.” 3 So his mother’s kinsfolk spoke all these words on his behalf in the hearing of all the lords of Shechem; and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, “He is our brother.” 4 They gave him seventy pieces of silver out of the temple of Baal-berith with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless fellows, who followed him. 5 He went to his father’s house at Ophrah, and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, seventy men, on one stone; but Jotham, the youngest son of Jerubbaal, survived, for he hid himself. 6 Then all the lords of Shechem and all Beth-millo came together, and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar at Shechem.
7 When it was told to Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and cried aloud and said to them, “Listen to me, you lords of Shechem, so that God may listen to you.
8The trees once went out
to anoint a king over themselves.
So they said to the olive tree,
‘Reign over us.’
9The olive tree answered them,
‘Shall I stop producing my rich oil
by which gods and mortals are honored,
and go to sway over the trees?’
10Then the trees said to the fig tree,
‘You come and reign over us.’
11But the fig tree answered them,
‘Shall I stop producing my sweetness
and my delicious fruit,
and go to sway over the trees?’
12Then the trees said to the vine,
‘You come and reign over us.’
13But the vine said to them,
‘Shall I stop producing my wine
that cheers gods and mortals,
and go to sway over the trees?’
14So all the trees said to the bramble,
‘You come and reign over us.’
15And the bramble said to the trees,
‘If in good faith you are anointing me king over you,
then come and take refuge in my shade;
but if not, let fire come out of the bramble
and devour the cedars of Lebanon.’
16 “Now therefore, if you acted in good faith and honor when you made Abimelech king, and if you have dealt well with Jerubbaal and his house, and have done to him as his actions deserved— 17 for my father fought for you, and risked his life, and rescued you from the hand of Midian; 18 but you have risen up against my father’s house this day, and have killed his sons, seventy men on one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his slave woman, king over the lords of Shechem, because he is your kinsman— 19 if, I say, you have acted in good faith and honor with Jerubbaal and with his house this day, then rejoice in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you; 20 but if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the lords of Shechem, and Beth-millo; and let fire come out from the lords of Shechem, and from Beth-millo, and devour Abimelech.” 21 Then Jotham ran away and fled, going to Beer, where he remained for fear of his brother Abimelech.
22 Abimelech ruled over Israel three years. 23 But God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the lords of Shechem; and the lords of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
2Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
3There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
4yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
5which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
6Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them;
and nothing is hid from its heat.
7The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the decrees of the LORD are sure,
making wise the simple;
8the precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is clear,
enlightening the eyes;
9the fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the LORD are true
and righteous altogether.
10More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey,
and drippings of the honeycomb.
11Moreover by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
12But who can detect their errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.
13Keep back your servant also from the insolent;
do not let them have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.
14Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Matthew 16:13-21
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
See Something, Say Something (New)
[Opening Prayer:] Living God, like the Holy Spirit afloat on
the waters of creation, as the Risen Christ came into the locked room of the
first disciples, may your word enter into us by the power of your ever
dispensing, ever processing grace so that we who have not seen may yet believe.
AMEN.
So much happened this
past week. We’re still in the season of epiphany, and there are still all kinds
of symbolic actions of kings and would-be kings, Bramble kings, and arguments
about the true king.
We heard that it was reported that the new administration
came into the National Cathedral in D.C. and the Episcopal priest there, a
Bishop Budde, lifted up some people she felt were scared, and she also made the
call for mercy being the foundation of empathy. And we saw all kinds of pushback,
that empathy is a sin[1]
That that what this woman said-- this Bishop said-- about
dispensing mercy was a counterfeit gospel.
And that these Christian Nationalists said,
we in the church
need to learn to hate.
these are inverted
messages that are popping up all around us. the inverted messages of the Bible.
The inversion,
not just a misreading,
not just a confusion, not just a clash over interpretive methods.
These are inverted.
The epiphany season was announced—Jesus’ epiphany—was announced
in Luke 4, where he goes in and reads the scrolls of Isaiah and he says:
18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release[--which is mercy--] to
the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19to proclaim the
year of the Lord’s favor.”[2]
They all looked at him, and he said {v. 21] “Today this
scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
So how can what this bishop said be counterfeit? How can
empathy, release, and mercy be a sin--that statement? And he goes on and on and
on. And the inverted messages are popping up all around because the people have
been emboldened.
One of the Representatives, a man named Mike Collins, said, “The
person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”[3]
Again, an inversion of the Gospel that does not shut out.
But instead sees all these invaders all around us, they are
all waiting for the forces of Hades to come in that door. If you look at the
churches--I’ve been to some of those churches—they have security people
scanning the crowd, they have preachers talking about the fact that “I’m wearing
a gun under my robe.”[4]
They are waiting for Hell to assault us!
But our reading this morning is quite clear: the gates are Hades’.
And the keys we’ve been given in our faith, the gates of Hades can’t withstand us.
We’re the offensive force, peace is the offensive force, Christ is the offensive
force, it’s not Hades. They’re cowering behind guns and walls and gates,
defining others as invaders.
These inverted words are NOT acceptable meditations of the
heart. Instead they are strategic designs to knit together a brambleworks,
forces of thorns and sin to go out and combat other forces.
These are not acceptable meditations of the heart./
Matthew 15 says it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles
a person, but what comes out of the mouth that defiles. Because it is routed
through the heart. Either the heart is dark or the heart is alive. We pay attention
to words./
As I mentioned about the Bramble kings, contemporary
political relations to me are quite in a state of emergency. We have no fear as
long as we stay in Christ. We have no fear at all.
If we decide to join
in with the bramble works that are out there in the world and are coming home
in this country, we have every reason to fear.
It’s interesting to me that these bramble works--these
international relations—the Apostle Paul talks about this in Romans 1 [28-32]: he
says, not only these people-- these kings-- know that God's decrees of peacemaking
and loving enemies, but those that practice these things of building hate and
inverting the messages, they know they're wrong and yet they applaud each
other as they leave.
They are giving support to the darkening of each other’s
heart until they start [or] stop losing their access to the heart.
God, Jesus died FOR your sins. What the heck does that mean?
You got to read the Greek to get a sense of that. But we need to learn to start
saying things in a way that doesn’t stifle
thought. So whatever the Deep State is, I think of the cloaked Bramble
Forces seeking to unchain from accountability to God. That’s the deep state.
I think we're seeing
probably the 3rd wave of the Bramble king. They talk about 3rd Rome,
in Russia they talk about Fourth Rome. I think we are on the last wave. And it's
going to be pretty ugly, it’s going to be intense, but it’s going to be short.
What happened in Ukraine that we pray about every week took
it a next step. What’s going on in Gaza and Israel, the idea that we can recover
some sort of ancestral land by coming home, addressing the invading forces and enemies
at home, killing them, or neutralizing them, and then we can get one last attempt
to go out into the world and take over.
Think of the metaphysics of this: we’re going to come home,
we’re going to destroy the geniuses at home who know how to make peace, and then from
that pride repel the invaders whoever they are, and name the enemies—we all
know the names, right?: Jews, liberals, globalizers, Bill Gates, whatever name you
want to name the demon.
Somehow or other you’re going to come home, you're going get rid of all of that, you’re going to build
walls--
and then from that
we're going to forge a past warrior spirit that is tied to the ground
and some sort of genetics and then we’re going to go forth and take over and
grab new land? The metaphysics makes NO sense.
Not only does it violate what we mean by naming Christ our
Lord, but it is just pure-- a pure stupidity of a clouded heart./
Now, domestically, we saw all the pardons of the January 6 (2021) insurrectionists,
which emboldens them. One of the Proud Boy leaders said he wants to go out and
take revenge, same with the Oath Keepers, they also want revenge, some of them
have talked about running for office.
These pardons are normalizing violent insurrectionaries who
know that what they do in Trump’s name will be pardoned.
So we're aware of this, we all know this. So the point is if we see this we need to say something,
but we need to say something that is sensitive and new. We may not be able to turn
these people back by what we say, but we can certainly influence the people who
are watching, our children, the people who are watching the Church to see if we
can take a stand.
Now what do we say? There is no recipe. There is no recipe.
Every moment requires us to read the room and read our hearts.
There is no recipe, there’s no meme, there’s no statement that
goes over and over and over again that has lost all meaning:
“I’m justified by faith!”
You know, okay, then what do you mean
by that, sir? What do you mean when you walk down the street with a gun on your
hip and you say, “I’m justified by faith.” How is that?
As I said the Bramble kings emerged to knit thorns into a hedge—into
a defensive posture and hopefully, then, an aggressive posture. They’re never
going to get to an aggressive posture they think they’re going to get. That’s
the point of Jotham’s parable [Judge 9.7-15] this morning./
Here’s my illustration: the sea is rough.
We go out into the sea, but also there are times for us to
come back in and repair our nets. Which to me is a parable. It’s time to repair
our speech, repair our politics, repair our theology.
We’re coming up on Lent, 5 Sundays of Lent.
My first book has talked how theology can be repaired. And I
have 5 themes for Lent. Now I’m not your pastor so I won’t be able to do this,
but if I were a church pastor, I have 5 themes:
First: Inerrancy. Let’s move on from it. The idea
that the Bible is inerrant usually means that my interpretation of the Bible is
inerrant. No.
Second: The
institutionalization of doctrine. Doctrine means teaching. We’re teaching
the youth to be able to think through themselves and to go and enter into the Bible
and come out with new creative, peaceful energies. You can’t come back and hammer
an adult by calling them to an institutionalized and frozen doctrine, a form.
It’s an energy.
Third theme: Old Guy in the Sky. Which is, we got to
get rid of Platonism. The idea is that there is an eternal form, or an eternal
order, or an eternal chain of authority that is somehow tied to race or ethnos,
ethnic…? No. Get rid of Plato. Study him, but don’t bring him into our Church.
Fourth: Substitutionary Atonement: “Jesus died by taking on all of our sins and therefore my sin debt is paid. And I’m released to go forth pointing to my justification by faith.” Without worrying about ethics, without worrying about ethical extension, without moving from form constantly reforming, tying into the eternal energy.
You don’t even have to believe the
Bible at this point, right? Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. You
can either take the form of light [both wave and particle] or you can close off
into systems and behind gates and closed systems that do not allow the light
in. Entropy, the 2nd law of Thermodynamics. It’s doomed.
That’s what Jesus knows when he points to the Temple and says
that’s going to fall [Luke 21; Mark 13:1-2]. You can see it, you can see all
these institutions are going to fall if they close off./
I had on the bulletin a few months ago a quote by Jules
Barbey d'Aurevilly, “Night falls first on the churches.”
Now you may have heard this parable, not a parable, an
illustration where Jesus calls a Syro-Phoenician woman who comes up to him and
says, “Sir can you heal me?” And he says “it’s not good to give food for the
children and give to the dogs.” [Mark 7: 24-29].
And that can shock, I heard one preacher say “That’s not my
Jesus. Jesus would never engage in an ethnic slur!”
It’s not an ethnic slur. The dogs are Plato’s guardians who
are out there put in the service of their
master the Philosopher king, the strong man. And so when he calls the
Syro-Phoenician woman a “dog,” he’s saying “you’re part of a culture”-- Phoenicia
moving to Syria, starting on the west of Palestine and moving to the east and temporally
progressing.[5] Those
are dog cultures. Dogs are what determine friend and enemy. The friend of the
master or the enemy of the master. That’s what the dog is. The dogs are barking.
Thomas Hobbes, the conservative/liberal whatever you want to
call him, political philosopher says, “Yes, in the daytime the dogs bark at enemies,
at night dogs bark everywhere.”
So this is what’s going on.
I was just downtown
parking, I asked Dian about this earlier. The old Tubal Hotel has “No Barking”
stenciled in. You can see, originally, it was “No Parking.” Somebody came in
and put in a little “b” on it, “No Barking,” and now it’s No Barking all over
the place.
Sherlock Holmes, I don’t know which one it was, it was the
dog that DIDN’T bark that was the clue that solved the case:
When we hear the silent night of no dogs barking, we have a
clue. When we hear a silent night that is not inverting Christ’s message to
call us into the Bramble kingdom, we’ll have reached the silent night./
Now, I’ve brought this out in two sermons, I’m going to bring
it out for a third time, and this is going to be the last time I bring
it out:
Those flags are THORNS. Those flags are thorns.
And there is no doubt now that the American flag is involved
in that. And whatever the heck that Protestant Christian flag is, it astounds
me.
The Church is advanced by the Cross not a flag. And for those
flags to be thorned into this sanctuary is an offense to me. I’m not going to
say it again.
If I’m walking in that door and I see those thorns, I’m going
to hear barking./
Now, contrary to Joan Didion, it is far easier to see the
end of things for closed off systems than the beginning of things for the
repair. We are the beginning of things for the repair. It is hard to see that.
We can see the end. The end is very clear, it’s all out there. Joan Didion got
it exactly opposite.
We need to listen for the silence. We need to listen for the
words that bring peace./
And then the story of Peter being given the keys of the
Kingdom: It’s not creating a priesthood, it’s not creating St. Peter’s, it’s
not creating a walled church.
Peter means Rock in Greek. David in Psalm 19 [14]–“may the words of my mouth…O
God my rock and redeemer,”
David is calling on God as a Rock. Jesus giving Simon for
his faith-- naming him as the messiah-- is naming him Rock in Greek (Peter petros)
where he was Simon before. It means that Peter is now the active agent of God.
He is carrying—we are all carrying—the keys, we are made agents, we are enabled
to be God here, we’re the rock. We are being and what we are creating on heaven
is what peace we bring and what we’re creating that disturbs the peace that
becomes part of their afterlife.
That’s what the keys of heaven is, you name Jesus your Lord,
you’ve now been given keys to your destiny, to your future.
Let’s get away from "Peter is the Rock and therefore the progenitor of the pope" or whatever. It’s not that. We are Peter. We have the keys. We are accountable
and mature agents of the Living God./
Our rock is our faith, but it is also a responsibility. It
is not a fleeing from accountability. That I’m somehow justified by my faith
and therefore whatever is going on, God will take of it because I am part of his
Church.
Grace, we are agents of grace. We enable the repair of our
theology and our communities as our agencies of grace. We are in a sense our
own rock and our own redeemer, though we are connected to the wisdom and the
knowledge and merits of Jesus Christ’s sacrificial love that opened up this message.
Let us move from looking for wolves to come in the door. The "wolf" saying, “Empathy is great.”
“Oh I’m going to call
her a wolf.”
No.
Let’s move away from fearing who’s going to walk in that
door, who is going to cross our border.
Let us go out into the world fully confident that with our wisdom,
with our grace, with our connection to the Holy Spirit we can enter into any
stronghold. Because the gates of hell, the gates of Hades, cannot withstand the
energy of Christ.
The First Law of Thermodynamics cleanses the Second Law of
Thermodynamics. It reforms the 2nd Law. They are on their decline,
these walled institutions are doomed unless we come in. And if they repel us?
Well, you know, that’s not wise.
So: Our Rock and Our Redeemer, may it be so for you and me,
AMEN.
[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Lk 4:18–19).
[4] https://douglasolds.blogspot.com/2013/10/does-your-pastor-carry-concealed-weapon.html
[5] This
is a linguistic foundation for the Levant tied to the alphabet crossing over through
time and space, a rearward sun course, including Hebrew, where the ethnos is
revealed by the archives of language groupings. The ἔθνη of dogs set against
the correcting, redirecting vectors (genius) of ethnos messianically
revealed.
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