Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Jesus of Nazareth
Adam and Eve lost the rest they were created to enjoy when they were banished from the Garden of Eden. Later, God offered to restore this rest to the Israelites when they possessed the Promised Land. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. They so angered God by their repeated unbelief and mistrust that God withdrew the offer: Psalm 95 quotes God: ‘As I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest”.’
It seems to me that what Psalm 95 records is not quite how it seems in the account in Exodus and Numbers. The Psalm refers to what happened at Rephidim, when the Israelites were thirsty and God ordered Moses to strike a rock that then gushed enough water to satisfy all 600,000 of the men and the women and children with them. The story is told in Exodus 17.
Rephidim wasn’t the first place that the Israelites had complained to God, refusing to believe that he could deliver them in spite of what they had seen him do already, and it wasn't to be the last, but the name for the place became Massah and Meribah, which mean 'tempted' and 'contention' respectively. According to what King David implied in Psalm 95, this is where God decreed that the Israelites would not enter their rest.
After this, the Israelites went to Mount Sinai where they received the Ten Commandments and the rest of the ‘Law’, including the instructions for the tabernacle. But in spite of their apparent devotion, and all the work they put into building the tabernacle, both at Sinai and subsequently they repeated complained about God and what he was doing. They even built a golden calf to worship!
Finally, they arrived at the border of the Promised Land: the story is told in Numbers 13-14. Twelve spies were sent to reconnoitre but ten of them returned too afraid to try to conquer it and the people sided with them. Moses pleaded with God to forgive the people’s unbelief: God replied, 'I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers…’ The only exceptions were Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who believed God's promises.
To what extent are we like that? Committed enough to be outwardly obedient but in our hearts lingering on the edge of dissatisfaction, distrust and rebellion?
The next generation of Israelites did enter the Promised Land under Joshua’s leadership but they didn’t enter into God’s rest. As Hebrews explains, ‘If Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on’. (That time ‘later on’ is another reference to Psalm 95.) Why did those Israelites stop short of God's rest? They didn’t persist in driving out all the people who occupied the land before them or inhabit the entire territory promised to Abraham but stopped when they felt they had had enough. Leaving themselves vulnerable, they began to tolerate false religions, often intermarrying and adopting pagan customs and frequently slipping into blatant idolatry. Psalm 106:34-40 graphically describes the tragedy.
During the ‘golden age’ of King David’s rule, the promise of entering God’s rest was renewed when the Ark of the Covenant was taken to Jerusalem. Psalm 95 is the invitation but nothing in the history books suggests that the people did what was necessary. In fact, throughout Israel's history, the people never displayed more than superficial devotion to God. Not even in times of 'revival'! When Kings Hezekiah and Josiah later repaired the Temple, restored true worship and led the people in rededicating themselves to God’s ways, the nation reverted to idolatry as soon as they died.
When still later the exiled Jews in Babylonia were allowed to return to Israel, they did not follow God’s ways, even with godly men like Ezra and Nehemiah leading them. They intermarried, tolerated and adopted foreign gods, traded on the Sabbath, loaned money at interest and even took fellow Jews into slavery. Happy to be back in the Promised Land, they wanted to live as much as they could like they had lived in Babylon.
Jesus renewed the invitation and the author of Hebrews assures his readers, including us, that it's still available. ‘Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it’. We should therefore ask, What is it to enter into God’s Sabbath rest? I think it can be summarised as contented persistence.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had everything they needed, and more, but they wanted the one thing that God did not permit and did not believe that He had forbidden it for good reason. When the Israelites first tried to enter the Promised Land, they could not bring themselves to believe that God would be with them to defeat the people already there. The next generation did not persist in inhabiting all that God had promised them as Abraham’s descendants. Most Israelites did not participate in the worship King David organised around the Ark of the Covenant or take to heart the examples of leaders like Hezekiah, Josiah, Ezra or Nehemiah. Having left Babylon, the few Jews who did return to Israel did not leave Babylon's ways behind them.
Most of the people who witnessed Jesus’ works and words failed to grasp the significance. Ever since, few Christians have trusted God so completely to reject the norms and expectations of the societies in which they lived in order to respond to Jesus' invitation to, 'Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me'. There’s a lot to learn from this metaphor. Two animals yoked together to pull a cart or plough need to be compatible and the less experienced one must be teachable; for us, it means joining with Jesus in doing his work, relying exclusively on his resources and going his way. This requires adopting the sort of lifestyle that Jesus described in his Sermon on the Mount, in his parables and all his other teaching preserved for us in the Bible, particularly what he taught about money. Among other things, we’re
to serve God, not money, and not even try to serve both, because the love of
money is not just sin but the root of all evil; we’re to beware covetousness in
all its pleasant guises, and in spite of the ways we find to justify it, because
covetousness is idolatry; we're to love our neighbours as ourselves, whatever
the cost, even when people we don’t like and those who persecute us seek our
help.
During this series, we've reflected on the need to be shrewd in the ways of the Kingdom of God, not shrewd in the ways of society like the dishonest manager in Jesus' parable. The weekend before last, we reflected on how difficult it is to leave Babylon but the greater challenge is to get 'Babylon' out from inside us if we are to transcend the influence of money in our lives. Thankful for redemption and salvation, we must not rest content with the promise of future heaven but persist, pursue and seek to enter God's rest now. This is ultimate shrew!
During this series, we've reflected on the need to be shrewd in the ways of the Kingdom of God, not shrewd in the ways of society like the dishonest manager in Jesus' parable. The weekend before last, we reflected on how difficult it is to leave Babylon but the greater challenge is to get 'Babylon' out from inside us if we are to transcend the influence of money in our lives. Thankful for redemption and salvation, we must not rest content with the promise of future heaven but persist, pursue and seek to enter God's rest now. This is ultimate shrew!
This is the final Reflection in this series on 'JESUS and MONEY' .
© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.
Please feel free to copy, print and share these Reflections on a non-profit basis.
