“Tents”
June 10, 2012
Grove Presbyterian Church
Old Testament Lesson
I Samuel 8: : 4-11, 16-20
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Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah,5and
said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us,
then, a king to govern us, like other nations.”6But the thing displeased Samuel when
they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the LORD,7and the LORD
said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they
have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.8Just as
they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day,
forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you.9Now then, listen
to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the
king who shall reign over them.”
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So Samuel reported all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him
for a king.11He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he
will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to
run before his chariots;16He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of
your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work.17He will take one-tenth of your
flocks, and you shall be his slaves.18And in that day you will cry out because of your
king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the LORD will not answer you in
that day.”
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But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! but we are
determined to have a king over us,20so that we also may be like other nations, and
that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
New Testament Lesson and Reflection
II Corinthians 4: 13- 5: 1
Oh, how obvious, how persistent, how pervasive, how human this hunger for kings. Fix
it for us. Make it all better. We mumble we resent being told what to do, but we do like
being kept. At least then we have someone to blame for our problems. Let him fight our
battles…
Well, do you really want the king to own your soul?
Fact is, we look for solutions, for rescue in all the wrong places…
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But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I
believed, and so I spoke” —we also believe, and so we speak,14because we know that
the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us
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with you into his presence.15Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it
extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of
God.16So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our
inner nature is being renewed day by day.17For this slight momentary affliction is
preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure,18because we look
not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is
temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.
5For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building
from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
So we do not lose heart.
Easy to lose heart
Easy to despise this life
It can be a real nuisance
Even if we get our king, guaranteed he’s going to be just another disappointment
Where’s the rescue?
We are finite too, a bag of worms: the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms
play pinochle with my snout….
What’s the use?
Fall into the funk.
Futile
We all are just wasting away
No bloom, only gloom
Humorless as Hip Hop and Gansta-rap
Pack it up, boys…
Poor, poor, pitiful me…
Then Paul pulls out his trump card, speaking as a tent-maker too.
Not so. Not all is as it seems. What is real is unseen.
We do not lose heart.
We are children of the resurrection. We experience resurrection in two ways.
First is later on when we exhale our last exhale. How we are not extinguished, nor
absorbed into the great anonymous spirit in the sky, nor recycled like so many plastic
bottles, but we will be given a new body, with all our personality, all our being-hood
intact yet glorified. Paul here speaks of what is to come: finally a permanent house and
home unlike this temporary tent we inhabit now.
Sounds good; even though I’m not really worried about it, this hereafter, at all. If we
trust, we will trust.
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Though I wonder: are we really saved by right belief or is it because we are saved we do
right action? I know where I stand. If it is right belief, then dollars to donuts there’s
going to be someone out there in vying to be charge of my soul telling me what belief
should be and that I do or don’t qualify. Oh, well, there are always those who love being
arbiters of everybody else. Hello, fence tenders.
So what concerns me far more is far more the resurrection I’m part of now. Living it,
doing it. Raised to new consciousness here and now. A foretaste of glory divine. Raised
to a new way of being, of living, of perceiving. This inner person being renewed day by
day even as this outer nature is wasting away.
Getting a little threadbare, slower for sure. The stitches coming loose.
Sure, the edges are getting a little frayed. Tougher to lose the paunch. Nodding off
asleep before the end of NCIS. And these joints are feeling cranky today. You think it’s
going to rain?
Is it so strange that the less I rely on the flesh, the more I rely on the spirit?
Spoken like a tent-maker. Paul the tent-maker…he sewed these things. That’s how he
made a living. He also was probably in his mid-sixties when he was doing all this daily
labor. His joints hurt too.
~~~
So very refreshing. Sure this fabric skin is temporary. We all are sojourners. Tourists
and travelers. All on loan. All on borrowed time, till we’re freed from time and clutter.
Instead of crushing me, this insight frees me. Like orange daylilies, we appreciate us for
our brevity. A wake up call for us to make a splash instead of letting ourselves ebb away.
Instead of panic attacks, we take deep cleansing breaths.
Refreshing also to be reminded how the sun doesn’t rise and fall on how we feel.
In the last century, a tourist from the States visited a famous Polish rabbi.
The tourist was astonished to see that the rabbi’s home was only a simple room filled
with books. The only furniture was a table and a bench.
“Rabbi, where is your furniture?” asked the tourist.
“Where is yours?” said the Rabbi.
“Mine? But I’m passing through. I’m only a visitor here.”
“So am I.”
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~~~
Tents – tons of fun memories associated with tents.
Do you have any tent memories that bring a smile to your face?
Me and my Roy Rogers tent. Backyard adventure in my worn Keds and broken laces.
The Sound of Summer Running (thank you, Ray Bradbury). Venturing forth from the
invisible shield of home and parents. The independence of an eight year old armed and
outfitted with canteen and candles and an older brother’s Boy Scout flashlight (that kind
you’d hold upright so you could clip it on your official Cub Scout web belt with metal
buckle right next to your Roy Rogers six shooters cap guns -- double holsters):
By the light
Of my Cub Scout flashlight
Wish I could see
What it was that just bit my knee
Braving the backyard wild beasts, scary night, scratchy tree limbs, the shadow sounds,
with sleeping bag and buddy and penknife and snacks in my Roy Rogers lunch box (hot
chocolate in thermos, ham sandwich wrapped in wax paper, plenty of Hydrox cookies).
It’s all tenting tonight.
Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you…
dome tents
bedouin tents
pup tents
‘A’ frame tents
wedge tents
pyramid tents
hoop tents
cabin tents
conical tents
wall tents
I like how in the Civil War each Union soldier would get half of a pup, dog tent.
We're tenting tonight on the old camp ground,
Give us a song to cheer
Our weary hearts, a song of home
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And friends we love so dear.
Chorus:
Many are the hearts that are weary tonight,
Wishing for the war to cease;
Many are the hearts looking for the right
To see the dawn of peace.
Tenting tonight, tenting tonight,
Tenting on the old camp ground.
Each private in the Army would be issued one piece of a canvas rectangle so you had to
buddy up with the other half to button up the edge and make one whole tent.
Kind of reminds me of marriage. Or friendship. Or church. We need to button up with
each other. Yippie Yi Yo Ki Yay pardner….
Tents: collapsible, foldable, portable, temporary – like us.
Well, even the very first Hebrew temple was a tent: the tabernacle. I rather prefer this
notion of God’s presence as portable rather than fixed. Traveled with the people rather
than making the people come to it. When you build temples, that’s when religion loses
its way.
So we do not lose heart. After all, we’re just passing through. So might as well make the
most of the trip. This tent is the only opportunity we have right now.
We're tenting tonight on the old camp ground,
Give us a song to cheer
Our weary hearts, a song of home
And friends we love so dear.
Happy Trails to you.
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