Insecuritocracy

Power and servanthood
AND GOD SAW... stories of God seeing and acting in Hebrew Scripture
1 Kings 12:1-17, 25-29; Mark 10:42-45


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I rarely have to think too hard

to find a way to let the scriptures of the week,

speak to the issues of the day.

This Sunday was no exception,

as we come to another story

in our narrative journey through the Hebrew Bible.

Here in 1 Kings 12 we have two rulers vying for power,

seeking to strengthen their influence,

consolidate their power,

and maximize their ability to control outcomes—

for themselves and the people they rule over.

Hmmm. Wonder if there’s anything like that,

going on in the world today?

Anything in our U.S. House of Representatives, for instance?

Or anything in the various divided branches

of our Federal Government?

Or anything in the Middle East?

Or in Eastern Europe?

Or in Asia?

Or . . . in our local communities, our churches,

our families,

our personal relationships?

_____________________

Now, before I go further,

some of you may be skeptical about my one-word sermon title.

I know my spell-checker didn’t like it.

Because I completely made up the word.

Sometimes, when the right word doesn’t exist,

you just have to create one.

You’ve heard of other “ocracies.”

The Latin ending, C-R-A-C-Y, means “rule.”

A democracy is rule by the people.

An aristocracy is rule by the elite.

An autocracy is rule by a self-absorbed dictator.

A plutocracy is rule by those with wealth.

A bureaucracy is rule by a bureau, or office, or agency.

A theocracy is rule by a divine being.

So, naturally, an insecuritocracy

is when someone rules by their own insecurities.

That’s my new word. Start using it.

Spread it around on the internet.

Google will learn it.

The Oxford English Dictionary will pick it up,

and I will be remembered and significant!

I will have left a linguistic legacy.

Now, what I just did, was demonstrate

the anxious mindset of an insecuritocracy,

the fear of being insignificant, or of being forgotten,

or of losing power and influence.

_____________________

At first, after I read through

this story about King Rehoboam,

and his new rival in the north, Jeroboam,

I asked myself,

what in the world is there to say, today,

about this messed up biblical monarchy?

And then I began noticing things that looked all too familiar.

The continual insecurity of people in power.

And I began to think, maybe that’s what God saw,

when God looked on these beloved people,

these people who begged God for a King,

and to whom God finally relented, and gave a king,

despite the dire warnings God gave them.

God looked on God’s people,

and God saw a people who had not yet learned to trust,

and to rest in God’s provisions.

Most of all, God saw kings who did not know how to trust,

how to be humble, how to be open and receptive,

how to believe God would provide all that is needed.

And as I saw what God saw,

I started seeing this same tendency in me,

and in just about every human being I know.

And I saw it in just about every politician,

and head of state,

in our world today.

No matter what the form of government,

insecuritocracy finds a foothold,

and begins to take over the decision-making process.

Instead of leading as servants of the people,

as servants of the health and well-being of all people,

they lead as protectors of their power and influence,

they lead out of fear of losing their next election,

or losing whatever gave them power to begin with.

_____________________

So before we look at this story of Rehoboam and Jeroboam,

Let’s look at the back-story just a bit.

Who were Rehoboam and Jeroboam?

Rehoboam was the son of King Solomon.

Solomon was the son of King David,

the Giving and Grasping King,

that we heard about last Sunday from Lynn Jost.

Solomon turned out to also be a grasping King—

even more so than his father David.

Now, Jeroboam was a servant of Solomon,

not a son or heir to the throne.

But late in Solomon’s reign, things went off the rails.

Solomon was worshiping foreign gods,

he was cruel to his subjects,

and Yahweh was not pleased.

So a prophet met the servant Jeroboam on the road,

claiming to be a prophet of Yahweh,

told Jeroboam he would be given

10 of tribes of Israel to rule over as king.

While Rehoboam, would get only one—Judah,

the region of Jerusalem,

and that was only so God could keep a promise

to the descendants of David.

Word got back to Solomon about this,

so he tried to kill Jeroboam, and squash this rebellion.

So Jeroboam fled to Egypt for safety.

So, Solomon dies. And then today’s story.

Rehoboam sets up his throne in Judah, to rule all of Israel.

But people friendly to Jeroboam fetch him in Egypt.

Jeroboam and company show up on Rehoboam’s doorstep,

and beg Rehoboam to shift course,

to not rule Israel with the heavy hand of his father Solomon.

They promise, in exchange for his kindness,

that they will serve him loyally.

Rehoboam takes three days to think about it,

consulting with his young advisors,

who told him, don’t lighten the load, make it heavier.

And since Rehoboam was ruling by his own insecurity,

and apparently also had insecure advisors,

he took their advice to clamp down even harder.

Jeroboam’s group returned for their answer, and Rehoboam said,

I’m going to make my father’s yoke heavier than it was.

He disciplined you with whips.

I’ll use scorpions.

So Jeroboam and his followers basically checked out.

They said, we don’t need any part of David and his clan.

So they scattered around the north region,

and lived as an independent nation,

with Jeroboam as king,

ignoring Judah and the house of David.

But as time went on, Jeroboam’s own insecurity got the best of him.

He was afraid that the people of his ten small tribes,

would start drifting down toward the big and powerful Judah,

that Jerusalem and the Temple there would be a magnet,

and they would forsake him and be loyal to Rehoboam.

So, ruling by insecuritocracy,

he set up rival places of worship,

and put up golden calves in Dan and Bethel,

built little temples around them,

established festivals, appointed priests.

Our story ends there, for today.

But follow the stories of both these kingdoms—

North and South—

and you’ll see the same pattern repeat itself.

Worried and anxious about losing their power,

they fail to trust in Yahweh,

and instead put their trust in wealth,

in military strength,

in unholy alliances,

and they continue to live out their destiny

to be insecuritocracies,

continually grasping for control.

_____________________

Today, we may feel quite justified, and actually, we are,

when we point fingers at political dysfunction in our own country,

and at the unnecessary wars all over the world,

between people who should act like kin to each other,

but instead are trying to establish control

by killing their adversaries.

It is senseless. It is tragic.

And we are rightly enraged.

And . . . not BUT . . . AND . . .

we have within us the very same seeds of insecurity,

which cause us, when push comes to shove,

to not trust in God’s love and provision,

and instead try to coerce others to bend to our will and way.

Sure, within us, it seems like small potatoes,

when compared against the likes of Rehoboam and Jeroboam,

and the 200 years of an international family feud they started,

or when compared to the horrific violence perpetrated

by modern nation-states motivated by anxiety and insecurity.

But let’s be honest about ourselves.

We will make better war resisters—

we will make better, and more ethical and more human

advocates for justice and peace,

if we, first of all, steadfastly refuse to dehumanize any

of today’s perpetrators of injustice and violence,

and secondly, recognize and confess the seeds of violence

that lie within us all.

Like us, these kings and princes and presidents and prime ministers

are anxious about losing control.

They are fearful of being insignificant or forgotten.

Let us turn toward God and toward each other,

in a renewal of mutual trust,

in mutual respect,

and in shared risk.

By confessing our inadequacy, our need, our sin,

we may yet make this world a better place,

as we follow the God we have learned to know in Jesus.

Join with me, please, in this prayer of confession

one God of all nations, God of all rulers of nations,

We acknowledge your providence over all people and creation.

all Our lives are in your hands. We are called to rest in you.

one Yet we often find ourselves anxious and insecure.

We use the power we have to shore up our own interests.

We defend ourselves against insignificance, 

against loss of status, wealth, or position.

all And in so doing, 

we betray our mistrust in You, God of Enough,

who loves and provides for all people and creation.

one We see this, 

not only in the manner by which many of our leaders

wield their power in high places. We see this in ourselves.

all Forgive us.

[silence]

one God receives our prayers. Loves us unconditionally. 

Invites us to a new way of being together in mutual love, trust, and freedom.

—Phil Kniss, October 29, 2023

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Between Cloud and Ground

Search for solid ground
AND GOD SAW... stories of God seeing and acting in Hebrew Scripture
Deuteronomy 5:1-21; 6:4-9; Mark 12:28-31


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Reading the book of Deuteronomy

can give you a sense of deja vu.

“Ah . . . we’ve been here before!”

Stories get retold in this book,

stories we heard in the four books before this one—

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

Repetition is even embedded in the name.

Deuteronomy means “second law,” or “copy of the law.”

But it’s not repetition for its own sake.

Stories are retold with a purpose.

The content has different origins and authors,

but this book is intentionally framed a certain way.

It’s framed as a series of sermons by Moses—

the one who led them out of slavery in Egypt,

and who then helped them endure

40 years of wandering in the wilderness.

These sermons come near the end of the 40 years.

Soon they will be crossing over into the promised land.

These long speeches retell the stories of the Exodus,

in order to reinforce the people’s identity—

an identity that’s still in its infancy.

They barely know who they are, and who their God is.

Therefore, they need to hear it again. And again and again.

Moses retells the first leg of their journey,

when they followed a pillar of cloud during the day,

and a pillar of fire at night,

as God, Yahweh, moved on ahead, showing the way.

He reminds them of their episodes of rebellion,

and God’s forgiveness and restoration.

Most importantly, he reminds them of their time at Mt. Sinai,

where Yahweh graciously gave them

what they needed most for life—the Law. The Torah.

And this brings me to the title of my sermon—

“Between cloud and ground.”

A full and meaningful life of faith,

needs both cloud and ground.

Especially when wandering in a wilderness,

we need cloud and ground.

And here’s what I mean.

Ground is mostly solid and predictable and, well, grounding.

Cloud is kind of the opposite of ground.

A cloud, by nature, is temporal.

It is shape-shifting.

It is always on the move.

It is impossible to capture and control.

While the people were wandering in the wilderness,

God came to them in a cloud, by day.

And by night, a cloud of fire, you might say.

Or a “pillar” of cloud and fire.

What was most needed at that point in time,

in the life of the people of Israel,

was to keep them on the move, and in the right direction.

See, there was this strong magnetic force,

trying to pull them back to Egypt.

Yes, there was oppression and slavery there.

But there was also a reliable source

of food and water and shelter.

And if you’re hungry and thirsty and exposed to the elements,

that kind of predictability can pull pretty hard.

So God saw . . . and gave them what they most needed.

God came as a cloud, and led them forward, instead of backward.

But after a long while of wandering, of pulling up stakes,

and moving on to the next place, time after time after time,

they were in need of some solid ground.

So God saw . . . and gave them what they needed then,

the Law, to ground them.

We misread the NT words of Jesus, and the words of Paul—

as being entirely negative toward the law.

As if the law is bad, but grace is good.

But neither Jesus nor Paul threw out the Law.

They only put it in perspective.

For Jesus and Paul then,

and for Jews everywhere, to this day,

the Law has always been a gift, a gracious provision of God.

It’s a reminder of who we are.

It helps us never lose sight of home.

It keeps our feet from slipping out from under us,

whenever the earth is shaking.

We live in the space between cloud and ground.

We need God coming to us as cloud,

whenever we are tempted to go back to a life

that is less than what God made us for.

And we need God coming to us as ground,

in gracious words that ground us, center us, locate us,

whenever we find ourselves unmoored, adrift,

wondering if the future holds anything life-giving.

_____________________

The “10 Commandments” is just another example

of why we need to read our Bible in its context.

It’s just way too easy to pull something out of scripture,

and make it a plaque on the wall.

A motto.

A saying.

Something to argue about and take people to court over.

The way some have taken the Ten Commandments to court,

and sued over whether they belong on government property

or not.

I really don’t care much where they get publicly displayed.

I care more about whether the people whose scripture this is,

take to heart the whole story,

and promote the kind of relationship with God,

and with other people,

that the commandments speak of.

I suppose you know, that the Hebrew Bible—

scripture for Jews and for Christians—

includes, twice, what we call the Ten Commandments.

Earlier, in Exodus 20, and again here, in Deuteronomy 5.

And there’s another list in Exodus 34,

also called Ten Commandments,

but that list has more to do with ritual law and worship.

But did you know that the Koran also refers

to Moses and the Ten Commandments in a positive light?

and restates most of these commandments

in various places throughout the Koran?

In other words, there is some consistency here,

across religious traditions,

that value these words as grounding words.

These words deserve our respectful engagement, and obedience.

But let’s not forget—they are not just a cold list of rules to follow.

They came from a God who saw . . .

who saw a people who were in danger of becoming

untethered, unmoored, adrift in a wilderness.

So God came to them and gave them what they needed.

This law is grace.

Instead of reading them as rules,

let’s read them as the gracious gift they are,

given by a God who sees our need, and who responds in love.

“You shall have no other gods before me . . . ” and

“You shall not make for yourself an idol,”

means that God frees us from a life

of being pulled in opposite directions.

“You shall not make wrongful use

of the name of the Lord your God”

means we need not be bogged down by the trivial and profane,

but get to bask in the beauty of the sacred.

“Observe the Sabbath day, and keep it holy,”

means we don’t have to be bound by compulsive busyness

and constant work, and anxious accumulation, thank God!

“Honor your father and your mother,”

means we get to stay connected to our roots,

and draw deep nourishment from them.

“You shall not murder,”

means—thank God—we don’t have to be caught

in the death-trap of escalating violence,

that’s getting played out all over the world.

“You shall not commit adultery,”

means we can have security and commitment

in our most intimate human relationships.

“You shall not steal,

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,

You shall not covet your neighbor’s property,”

all mean that God liberates us from a lonely and bankrupt life,

where feeding our personal desires takes precedence over

having a rich relational life of mutuality in community.

These Ten Words, or Ten Commandments,

came from a God who saw a people

that needed the kind of grounding these words provide—

words that help us live well

in this space between cloud and ground.

Yes, we are a people open to change, to new direction,

to the wind of the Spirit,

to the next place God wishes to take us.

And we are people who nevertheless have our feet on the ground,

who know who we are,

who we belong to,

and where, ultimately, we are headed.

Join me in these words of confession . . .

one From all our fears that burden and paralyze us,

  all God of cloud and fire, free us and nudge us forward.

one From all that keeps us from moving forward with you,

  all God of cloud and fire, liberate us, and lead us.

one But when we find ourselves unmoored and adrift,

  all God of the Covenant, ground us by your grace.

one When we have lost sight of home,

  all God of the Covenant, remind us of who we are.

[silence]

one The God of cloud and fire, of grace and grounding,

Loves us unconditionally, and promises to be with us 

always, to the end of the age.

—Phil Kniss, October 15, 2023

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Do you see what I see? ---God

Compassion for the captives
AND GOD SAW... stories of God seeing and acting in Hebrew Scripture
Exodus 1:8–2:10; 3:1-15; Mark 12:26-27a


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There are at least a dozen different sermons

in the Exodus passage we read this morning.

Or more.

One is,

the question of what makes us fear people who are the “other”?

Why were the Egyptians afraid of the Hebrews?

They had no collective memory of Joseph.

They only saw people who were “other,”

and who were growing in number.

Doesn’t say Hebrews acted in bad faith,

or sowed seeds of rebellion.

Only, that they were numerous,

outnumbering the Egyptians.

So the Egyptian leaders dehumanized them,

oppressed them,

forced them into slavery.

Any parallels in our society?

Any comparison with the backlash we now see,

especially in some areas,

where White people of European descent feel threatened,

because they are already outnumbered

by people who aren’t White?

And there’s another whole sermon on active, non-violent resistance,

and the morality of deceit,

if it reduces human suffering and saves human lives.

The midwives, Shiphrah and Puah.

They were brilliant.

Had they obeyed Pharaoh, hundreds of babies would have died.

Had they openly resisted Pharaoh’s injustice,

they would have been killed, replaced by loyal midwives,

and hundreds of babies would have died.

But by using trickery, and outright deceit,

they diverted Pharaoh off his murderous trail,

and they saved countless lives,

and kept countless mothers from suffering a lifetime of grief.

When are we called to use whatever power we have

to bend the systems of injustice, toward justice?

And there are more sermons.

These three chapters of Exodus are rich in narratives

that speak to us today.

Read them sometime,

explore the questions that come to you.

But now, let’s jump ahead to chapter 3, to the adult Moses,

tending the flocks of his father-in-law,

in the foreign land of Midian.

I say foreign, because it was, for both of Moses’ families of origin.

Midian was neither Hebrew nor Egyptian.

Yes, Midianites were also descended from Abraham,

but they were outside the covenant,

often portrayed as enemies of the Hebrews.

But here, Moses took a Midianite wife,

and attempted to start a whole new life and identity,

having run from his Hebrew people,

and from Pharaoh and his adopted Egyptian mother.

The only future he could imagine at this point,

was as a Midianite shepherd.

Think about it!

Moses had zero acquaintance with, or formation in,

the faith of his ancestors.

No knowledge of the God who journeyed with Sarah and Abraham,

Isaac and Rebecca,

and with the clan of Jacob.

God’s earlier plan to bless all the nations of the world

through the descendants of Abraham and Sarah,

had, by this time, gone completely off the rails.

The Hebrew people were not, strictly speaking, even a people.

No cohesive social identity,

no common history being preserved,

no religious or cultural institutions.

What did God even have to work with here?

They were a race of enslaved and traumatized people.

They lived in Egypt, but were not at home there.

They had no shared sense of worth or purpose in the world.

And as for the God who wanted to use them to bless all nations?

They didn’t even know that God existed.

Hundreds of years had passed since Yahweh’s first promise.

And God was no closer to fulfilling that promise,

than when God told Abraham and Sarah

they would bear a son in their old age.

These Hebrew descendants had forgotten about their God.

But . . . God had not forgotten about them.

And God was determined to rebuild a relationship . . . from scratch.

So God saw . . .

the suffering of the people.

And God saw what they could not see.

A future where the oppressors lost their power,

and the oppressed found their freedom.

A future where the life-giving covenant with God

would find a new life, a new beginning.

But here’s the thing . . .

God seeing something, and being moved to act,

is just the first,

in a sequence of things that need to happen,

in order for God to take action in our time and space.

God is all about forming communion with God’s people,

and together—God and God’s people—building shalom.

God didn’t set up the world for God to be a solo actor.

I’m not suggesting God doesn’t have the power to act alone.

But in the biblical record, God doesn’t seem to do that. Ever.

At least I can’t think of an example.

Feel free to prove me wrong.

But it seems to me, every act of God portrayed in scripture,

is relational.

It is either done in active collaboration with human partners,

or it is done by God in order to establish

collaboration with human partners.

God’s design is to work in partnership with us,

for the shalom of all creation.

So, God sees. That’s step one.

God is moved. God’s compassionate heart is activated.

Step two.

But nothing more will happen until God finds human partners—

collaborators who will work in concert with God

to bring about what God desires.

An attentive and compassion God,

needs attentive and compassionate partners to work with.

God asks us, “Do you see what I see?”

So where might God likely turn, to find a leader

for the oppressed and traumatized Hebrew people,

a people without an identity and purpose,

a people with no knowledge of, or relationship with, Yahweh?

Moses is the both the perfect and most unlikely choice.

He also bears the mark of oppression and trauma—

forcibly given up by his Hebrew birth mother,

raised in social isolation,

in the house of a tyrant who was

committing genocide against Moses’ people.

Now Moses is exiled in Midian because his own trauma

boiled over and resulted in murder.

Moses is half-Hebrew half-Egyptian,

and shunned by both Hebrews and Egyptians.

And he wants nothing more than to leave all that behind,

and start fresh with a new identity and new people.

Moses is God’s perfect and unlikely choice

of someone to stand up to Pharaoh,

and lead his people into freedom.

If God is starting from scratch, in terms of rebuilding a people

to be in relationship with,

God could do no better than to start the rebuilding process

with someone like Moses.

If someone as wounded and cut-off and disinterested as Moses

had the capacity to see and notice God’s presence,

hear God’s voice,

perceive God’s purpose,

and grasp what was at stake,

then there was at least a chance God could rebuild

a genuine relationship with

a wounded and cut-off and disinterested people.

So in a way, the burning bush in the desert

was God testing Moses.

God, in essence, was saying, “I can see. But, Moses, can you see?”

An attentive God was looking for an attentive partner.

Would Moses notice the fire?

And would Moses be curiously attentive enough

to notice the bush was not being consumed?

And would Moses perceive the divine presence in the flames?

And would Moses move toward it, instead of away from it?

Yes, Moses would do all those things.

Moses passed the test, and engaged God in a conversation,

that went something like this.

“Moses, Moses!”

“Here I am!”

“I am the God of your ancestors. Go to my suffering people.”

“Who am I to go?”

“It’s not who you are. It’s who I am.”

“But they won’t respect me.”

“I am enough. And I will be with you.”

“But they won’t believe me.”

“I’ll demonstrate with a sign. They will see and believe.”

“But I’ll fall flat. I don’t have what it takes.”

“Who gave you what you have?”

“Oh, God! Please! Not me. Send somebody else.”

“Okay, fine! Take your brother. Take this stick. You’ll figure it out.”

That’s a whole chapter and a half, in about a dozen lines.

But it’s even more accessible than that.

We don’t need to think of this burning bush story

as a unique, spectacular encounter between God,

and one of the greatest leaders in our biblical record,

never to be repeated again.

We can also read this conversation there at the bush

as a metaphor for how God and humans usually

have to negotiate a working relationship.

Maybe you and God have already had

exactly that kind of conversation.

But you didn’t identify it as such.

Maybe it will ring a bell, if I reframe the conversation this way.

I’ll put it in the first person.

You can put yourself in the conversation.

I might be out in a favorite spot in nature,

or some other place with enough space and inner quiet,

that I can be attentive.

And I hear God call my name.

No! Not literally. I just have this sense that I’m known

and loved by God, in that moment.

I respond with “Here I am.”

Again, not literally, but I open my mind and heart to the divine.

Then, partly in that moment,

but mostly in the coming days and weeks and months,

a struggle ensues between God and me.

I never hear words or a voice or see anything spectacular.

But God is working on me, I realize in retrospect.

God is bringing to mind a particular place of brokenness,

that God wants to see restored, healed, made right.

It may be in a relationship I have with someone.

It might be in the life of a hurting neighbor

that I’ve been trying to avoid.

It might be systemic oppression happening

in my workplace, or community, or nation, or wider world.

And I have a voice that I have not yet raised against it.

And I have power that I have not yet leveraged

to confront that injustice, together with others.

Or . . . maybe it’s creation itself,

groaning under the weight of human injury,

and I have choices to make, to help heal that wound.

Or maybe it’s brokenness within myself,

that I have not yet mustered the courage to face.

Whatever the issue at stake, in my burning bush,

God seems to be pushing me, now, to Go.

Join God in healing, restoring, redressing a wrong.

“But who am I?”

“It’s not who you are. It’s who I am. And I will go with you.”

“But nobody will notice. I’m an outsider.”

“I am enough. I will be with you. Be patient.”

“But they won’t believe me.”

“I’ll demonstrate. If you can believe, they can believe.”

“But I don’t have what it takes.”

“Who gave you what you have? I trust you. Will you trust me?”

“No, not me. Send anybody else.”

Then I sense God’s disappointment and hurt,

but I am not forced, just allowed to take whatever small step

I’m ready to take, even with a crutch.

I imagine God saying,

“Okay, Phil. I trust you, even more than you trust me.

So take your walking stick with you. You’ll figure it out.”

There is plenty of brokenness to go around.

There’s the global and intractable—war in Ukraine,

the renewed war between Israel and Hamas,

the global refugee crisis.

And there’s the local—poverty, lack of housing,

essential transportation, basic childcare.

And there’s the interpersonal—broken family relationships.

And there’s the internal.

God sees. God’s heart is moved with compassion.

And God is asking, “Do you see what I see?”

God is looking for partners who see what God sees,

to join the work of rebuilding shalom.

And meanwhile, God joins us in our suffering. God weeps with us.

—Phil Kniss, October 8, 2023

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