Reflexion, A Spiritual Community

In our passage, there will be two parts to Joel’s prophecy

He first delivers a brief message regarding his people – a promise
- but then his word turns to a threat on “all the nations”
• specifically those that have ransacked Judah and Jerusalem
• these two parts of the message are connected:
◦ God, helping his people, entails harming their enemies
- do we need to be upset, that to restore his people and their nation, the Lord attacked their enemies?
◦ if there is another way to break the power of oppressors, to rescue and liberate the oppressed - the world hasn’t found it
◦ the agents causing the trouble must be neutralized
• what is revealed in the following verses is a vision of Israel’s destiny
◦ in part one, God clears the way for it
◦ in part two, the people prepare themselves for God

This is one of the most remarkable passages in all the Bible

For me, it is second only to John’s introduction of Jesus
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:1 and 14)
- what makes this prophecy given to Joel extraordinary,
• is this experience of the Spirit that is promised was definitely exclusive
◦ this is clear from a passage I have frequently quoted
◦ when Moses complained his assignment was too much for him, God told him,
“Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel . . . and bring them into the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there. And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them . . . . ¶ Then the LORD came down in the cloud . . . and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it” (Nu. 11:17 and 25)

Thirty years ago Reba McEntire released a song, “If I Had Only Known”

It is a typically “country” tear jerker
If I had only known
It was the last walk in the rain
I’d keep you out for hours in the storm
I would hold your hand
Like a life line to my heart
Underneath the thunder we’d be warm
If I had only known
It was our last walk in the rain
If I had only known
I’d never hear your voice again
I’d memorize each thing you ever said . . . etcetera
– it hits a nerve, because we’ve all felt the regret it expresses
• things would be different not; would have been avoided; or would have turned out better
◦ if only we had known
– that’s the reason, for the second time, Joel says, “Blast the ram’s horn in Zion”
• the first time, in verse 1, it was to sound the alarm regarding the approaching invasion
◦ this time it is a call to action
• a terrible disaster is approaching Jerusalem,
◦ but something can be done – the city can be saved

Have you ever received an Amber Alert on cell your phone?

It’s so loud and annoying, there’s no way you can ignore it
- this is the sort of attention-getter Joel calls for in verse 1
“Blow the ram’s horn in Zion,
 sound the alarm on my holy mountain”
• sentinels were posted on Jerusalem’s walls,
◦ and Joel tells them to sound the shofar and alert the people
◦ because a massive, hostile army was approaching the holy city
• after what we read last week, the danger Joel announces seems a little strange
◦ we expect him to warn of the “locust plague,” but instead he warns of , “the day of the LORD”
- now because of what we’ve been told in past decades, this needs a bit of explaining

 Friday our nation observed the tragedies of “9/11" and those we lost

Many of us remember the very moment when we first heart of it
- for several hours we could hardly breathe
• we watched endless reruns of two airliners, smashing into the iconic “Twin Towers” in New York City
◦ we didn’t want to see it, but we couldn’t look away
◦ we could not avoid the reality of it
• and each time we looked, we felt helpless, outrage, and extreme sadness
- every disaster of that magnitude, wounds a country’s soul
• we don’t just walk away and return to our usual routine
◦ it creates a fog of confusion that we feel we must sort out
◦ it stirs up insecurities that leave us groping for answers
• for sometime after, we remain alert, sensitive, aware
◦ for awhile, we’re ready to listen; we’re paying attention and eager to learn

This is the right time for us to approach the prophecies of Joel

Israel was experiencing a catastrophic trauma
- it was not localized, but spread across the entire nation
• at times in this first chapter, Joel sounds like a newscaster;
◦ reporting the wide range of destruction
◦ the food source of the entire country was running out
• Joel, however, was not merely delivering a report;
◦ he was delivering “The word of the LORD”

I’m not going to give a Labor Day talk, but that’s where we’ll start

Last year I felt it was important that I read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations
– Smith is sometimes referred to as the Father of Capitalism
• he explored the principles of economics that caused some systems of flourish and others to flounder
– one concern was the ways that governments interfered with industries and commerce
• but something disturbed me as I read through his detailed research and conclusions
◦ Smith took for granted that there would always be a huge mass of poor people
◦ he saw this as the general pattern of civilizations from ancient history
• there were always masters and slaves, emperors and subjects, kings and paupers

Here are a few quotes I pulled from his work:
Smith, “All for ourselves and nothing for others, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. . . . As soon, therefore, as they could find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents for themselves, they had no disposition to share then with any other persons.”
– “For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few [assumes] the indigence of the many.”
– When the economy of a nation is static rather than increasing, wages for the workers are barely enough to raise a family or even continue the “race of laborers.” “. . . there is no order that suffers so cruelly from [a nation’s economic decline as the poor].” However, the voices of the poor were rarely heard, except in when there were public demonstrations.