A sermon preached at Kowloon Union
Church on Sunday 21 June 2020, World Refugee Sunday, by
Tony Read. The scripture readings that day
were
Psalm 86:1-10.
A prayer of David.
1 Hear me, Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
2 Guard my life, for I am faithful to you;
save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God; 3 have mercy on me,
Lord, for I call to you all day long.
4 Bring joy to your servant, Lord,
for I put my trust in you.
5 You, Lord,
are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all
who call to you.
6 Hear my prayer, Lord;
listen to my cry for mercy.
7 When
I am in distress, I call to you, because you answer me.
8 Among the
gods there is none like you, Lord; no deeds
can compare with yours.
9 All the nations you have made
will come and worship before you, Lord;
they will bring glory to your name. 10 For
you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God.
The God who answers
This
Psalm is described as a prayer of David. At one time in his life there was a
period when he was hunted down by King Saul and hiding out in the wilderness
and forests of Israel. King Saul had become paranoid and insecure about his
position as King and believed that David was plotting against him. Knowing that
Saul was also a homicidal maniac David was advised to flee for his life. So
there he was David, an innocent man, accused of political subversion and
treason, trying to keep one step ahead of the kings posse, and fearing for his
safety. David was political refugee and
at one stage even had to seek refuge even amongst the Philistines who were the
enemies of Israel.
We
are not sure if this Psalm was written around this incident but we can be sure
that this would have been the sort of prayer he would have prayed. You see
David knew what it was like to be poor and needy – perhaps not in financial
terms - but definitely poor in terms of his life expectancy at that moment, and
in desperate need of some help. He was just like many asylum seekers and refugees
today, fleeing persecution, trying to stay alive, feeling insecure, and with no
real expectation for the future.
Despite
all this, as he prays, one thing becomes clear in this psalm. He is confident
of one thing – that God will hear him. Notice what he says: v1
1 Hear me, Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
And
again in v7
7 When I am in distress, I call to you,
because you answer me.
The
important thing to note here is his boldness and confidence. You see David knew
something about God that gave him confidence. That despite his problems,
despite the injustice of his situation, despite the danger to his life, he knew
that when he cried out to God, he was not just shouting into a big black void.
It was not a just a vain expression of helplessness and desperation without any
real expectation of help. It was as if he were calling on someone that he knew
was just standing there waiting for the call, someone who had all the resources
there ready to take action. David knew this from his experience confronting the
bear and lion that were trying to take his sheep. He knew from his experience
with Goliath who threatened the whole of the Israeli army like some Godzilla
from hell. Actually God knew not just one thing about God but two things.
He
knew that God HEARD him when he called out to him and he knew that God would
ANSWER him. Lets think about that a bit more and see how they were are
connected.
He called because he knew God would
answer him
and
he knew God would hear him because he
was poor and needy.
You
see God has a heart condition – its called compassion - compassion for the poor
and needy. They are of special concern to Him. His ear is attuned to their
call. His heart is full of compassion for them. His eyes are searching for
them. Notice this. It was not because David was some special person, not
because he was anointed to be King, not because he was full of faith, not
because he was a man after God’s own heart
…… it was because of God’s heart not his heart.
God’s
heart is for the poor and needy and He hates injustice.
If
you know an asylum seeker who is in desperate need and doesn't know where to
turn for help, then tell them to cry out to God, cry out to God for them, cry
out to God with them because God is a god who hears and answers
David
also knew that God heard the cry of the oppressed because he had heard the
amazing story of Israel’s release from slavery in Egypt. It became the
foundational narrative of how God deals with injustice in order to redeem his
people. It all came about because God heard the cry of his people who were in
slavery. It is the story that will resonate with many, many, asylum seekers
perhaps not in direct circumstances but certainly in the emotions and feelings
that they have experienced.
Exodus 1:11-14
11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced
labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for
Pharaoh.12 But the more they were oppressed, the more
they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and
worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives
bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of
work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them
ruthlessly.
This
is story of injustice – but it was also a story of God’s redemption. Listen to
what God was up to
Exodus 3:7-10
7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my
people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers,
and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians
and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a
land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites,
Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the
way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the
Israelites out of Egypt.”
As
you take in the full horror of what was happening here I want you to notice the
four faces of injustice
1.
Political injustice – the Israelites were an immigrant,
ethnic minority in a large imperial state. They had originally come
as famine refugees and found welcome in Egypt (Deut 23:-8) But
government policy did a U turn in a later generation, and economic asylum
turned into a prison house of political hatred, unfounded fears, exploitation
and discrimination. Exodus 1 echoes through the stories of many such ethnic
minorities in the modern era, suffering the suspicion and systematic oppression
of host states.
When
the Hebrew slaves cried out to God they were crying out for political justice
When
God released them he was making a political statement by condemning and
defeating the forces of political discrimination and racial hatred. Redemption
was strongly political in its nature
2.
Economic injustice - the sharpest pain of the oppression was economic. The
Israelites were being exploited as slave labour, on land not their own,
for the benefit of the host nation, for its agricultural and building projects.
(Ex1:11-14). It was their outcry against this that brought their plight to
God’s attention cry and precipitated the compassionate intervention of
God. God heard their cry for economic justice
When
God released them from this exploitation he was making an economic statement by
condemning slavery in the strongest terms and gave them a new economic system that was intended to outlaw
such oppression within Israel itself. It was particularly in the economic realm
that the Israelites were to live redemptively, in response to what God had done
for them. Redemption was strongly economic in content.
3.
Social Injustice – The horror story of Exodus 1 moved on from economic exploitation
(which failed as tool of population control) to attempted subversion
from within (via the midwives) and finally to state sponsored genocide
(extermination of all male Hebrew babies by orders of the government Ex 1:22).
This lack of freedom and endurance of economic oppression are now compounded by
vicious invasion of family life and
the denial of fundamental human rights. We don't have to look far
to see this repeat itself in our modern world.
Redemption picture - So when God redeemed his people
from the intolerable hell of suffering, it lead to the inauguration of a
society in which limitation of government power, respect or human life
and basic rights and passion for social justice were built into its
founding documents. Redemption was a social transformation.
4.
Spiritual Injustice– In this passage the Hebrew
word for service as a slave is the same Hebrew word for that is used
for worship. So there is a great contrast between their life as slaves
of Pharoah and God’s heart for them. In fact at one point in the story God says
to Pharoah “ Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you ‘Let my son go so he
may worship me’”, implying that
Pharoah was taking from the Israelites what rightly belonged to God.
When God released them from under Pharoah’s
control he was giving them freedom so that they could worship him.
Redemption picture – What was God wanting to achieve here? It wasn't just
freedom for his people that God was after but a whole new relationship, and God
recognized that it would take something pretty disruptive and dramatic to break
them out of the power hold on their lives so that this could happen. Now, today
as Christians we like to spiritualize, personalize and internalize everything
and just see this as a picture of the power of our own sin being broken by
Jesus victory on the cross so that we can receive salvation and live our own
personal, internal, spiritual lives for Jesus.
However,
what I want us to see here is this:
1)
God’s compassion and concern for those suffering injustice. I want us to note his
recognition of the debilitating effect that injustice has on a person’s
opportunity, desire and freedom to be able to worship God; to sense his
concern. “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard
them crying out because of their slave drivers and I am concerned about their
suffering” (Ex 3:7)… “and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing
them” (v9). God is concerned about suffering. He realizes that humanity
needs a redeemer, and he is prepared to do something about it.
2)
The devastating affect of injustice. How it
ties their hands, captures them, blinds their ability to see God, restricts
their choice to worship him and prevents them from receiving God’s blessings.
In fact we could take this further and say that ‘Yes God gives us free will to
receive him and worship him but that for
‘the poor and needy’ that choice is loaded against them.
3)
Release before redemption. God’s purpose in all this drama was to redeem
Israel, to bring them back to him to, to establish them as his people, give
them a new land, develop a new relationship through worship, birth a new
nation, his people. But in order to do that had to first get them out of their
slavery before they could receive his redemption.
4)
Redemption came through human hands. Yes it
was all God’s work. It was all his power. It was all his miracles. But it only
happened when a very scared and poorly equipped man, Moses, reluctantly decided
to put his faith in God and stand up before the mighty power of Pharoah
Prayer
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, June 21, 2020
