Spiritual Practices: “Celebration”

03/11/18

Spiritual Practices: “Celebration”

II Samuel 6: 1-5, 17-19; Luke 4: 14-21

Pearl: Celebrate the Lord and his reign of justice and love

Function: To give an overlaying reason for God’s people to regularly celebrate God’s goodness, all the while striving in his just and loving purpose for all things.

 

Worship is the most common aspect of our corporate practice of “celebration.” So “celebration” as an aspect of our faith practice should not be strange or unfamiliar.

1. Easter is not far away. It is our “high holy day” of celebration. This coming Easter will be on the first Sunday of the month. We will celebrate communion on that day. We will observe it more as a celebration than usual. We speak of “celebrating” communion. This coming Easter we will make it a musically uplifting incidence of communion celebration!
2. Since worship is our most common aspect of group celebration it is true that we celebrate a lot! Do you think of worship as celebration?
   1. While every element of worship may not feel like celebration, the overlaying tenor of worship is about glorifying and thanking God, and that is celebration…weekly!
3. Maybe we have leaned too much on the idea of worship as being a “service.” We call it a worship “service” because we are trying to all actively engage in worship as a service to God.
   1. Some churches and traditions are calling worship a “celebration” instead of a “service.” That makes sense! Worship is fundamentally and purely celebration of God; we celebrate God’s being and we celebrate God’s purposes.
4. The heritage of celebration is solidly within the wheelhouse of Judeo-Christian DNA. It goes back to the feasts of God’s people.

You might know something about fasting as a spiritual practice but how about “feasting” as a spiritual practice? Why do we know more about “fasting” than we do about “feasting?”

1. The Old Testament has a fairly elaborate schedule of feasts that were observed by the people of God through the year and there was even a very special festal observation to be held every 50 years—the Year of Jubilee, where all debts were forgiven, slaves were released, the land lay fallow, and property was returned to its original owner.
2. There were pilgrimage feasts called “booths.”
   1. Listen to this description of the festival of booths from Deuteronomy:
      1. “You shall keep the festival of booths for seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your wine press. Rejoice during your festival, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, as well as the Levites, the strangers, the orphans, and the widows resident in your towns. Seven days you shall keep the festival for the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose; for the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all your undertakings, and you shall surely celebrate” (Deuteronomy 16: 13-15).
      2. “…and you shall surely celebrate.” For harvest blessings and for God’s provision the people gave thanks through celebration.
   2. There was the feast of Unleavened Bread in which the people continually gave thanks and praise to God for their deliverance from Egyptian slavery in the Great Exodus.
   3. Festal observances included the Sabbath, the New Moon, the seventh New Moon, the seventh year, and the Pentecostal year.
      1. It was almost as if they were always looking for reasons to celebrate and give thanks to God and to party! Does that sound familiar?
   4. When King David made a great procession of bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem he made a huge celebration of it.
      1. He led a procession of dancing and frolicking in ecstatic praise to God which some thought of as shameful in his loss of control. His wife Michal, former King Saul’s daughter, shamed David for his ecstatic dancing.
         1. Likely this had to do with her reluctance to embrace the transition in monarchy away from her father to David and his new day.
         2. It was a political move of David to include the Ark as a national symbol in this transition as he tried to establish a new day for Israel. He included this ancient symbol from old times to help to give credence to his new administration.

There was always reason for celebration for God’s people, even while there was much work to do to establish God’s reign for all to see.

God’s people always have reason to celebrate even while the work of God continues!

What are some reasons that we celebrate today?

1. The Philadelphia Eagles’ big Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots about a month ago! (Miguel Andriolo wanted me to include this somehow in worship ever since they won).
   1. Many people praised God for this win!
2. The church exists in practically every locality and every country around this great earth. The church universal in all of its wonderful diversity is something to celebrate.
   1. Praise the Lord!
3. We celebrate many breakthroughs in the church over the last half century?
   1. How many can remember when women were not allowed to serve as Elders, let alone as Pastors, in the church? In many expressions of the church women are now welcomed into leadership! Many of you can recall when that moment occurred. Were any of you here today among the first women to serve as elders in this church?
      1. Praise the Lord!
   2. A greater ecumenism exists in the world today than ever before. Even between catholic and protestant it is a wonderful new day!
      1. Praise the Lord!
   3. There is more welcome of children and youth in the church—seeing them as part of the church today and not just of the future.
      1. Praise the Lord!
   4. David brought the ark into Jerusalem in order to show that the old needed to make way for the new. A new day was upon them. The ark was kept on hand as a symbol from the past but a new day was dawning. With God David was bringing in that new day.
      1. The Presbyterian Church is slowly becoming more colorful as people of color are feeling more and more comfortable in Presbyterian churches.
         1. Praise the Lord!
      2. LGBTQ brothers and sisters are now being included in leadership as their gifts for ministry are being affirmed and their relationships are being blessed…finally!
         1. Praise the Lord!
      3. And fundamentally there is always reason for celebration among God’s people because of the One God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! God alone gives us constant reason to celebrate, to feast, to worship!

While the church always has reason to celebrate, and while “every morning is Easter morning,” there is also a whole lot more work to do because the church and society are not as far along as they should be! Not by a long shot!

1. This world is nowhere near where it needs to be.
   1. There is constant reason to celebrate but no reason to sit back.
   2. We have a long way to go. We see glimmers of hope and we see breakthroughs here and there but at the same time we see gross injustice. We see lack of tolerance. We see hate. We see unwillingness to address wrongs when they are staring us in the face. We see old problems rearing their heads again.
      1. In terms of racial equality this is a difficult year at North Harford Middle School. Incidents of racial prejudice are occurring at the Middle School level.
      2. So while we can celebrate many things we have far to go in seeing God’s reign fully embraced and winning the day even in our own localities.
   3. Jesus revealed what you might call his “moral framework” when he entered the synagogue one day like he always did, and was handed the scroll of Isaiah.
      1. He took that scroll and found the place that he wanted to read:
         1. “’The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’” (Luke 4: 18-21).
      2. There was much to celebrate in what Jesus was saying that day. Hardly anyone really even grasped what he was saying. There were echoes of the year of Jubilee in that passage.
   4. In using that text Jesus was saying that God’s reign is about release, freedom, inclusion, acceptance, peace, liberation, redemption, reconciliation, and on and on.
   5. Jesus was giving reason for celebration that day! He was sharing really good news! But if you look a few verses later. Their good opinions of him quickly changed.
      1. He offended some of their deeply held prejudices in further remarks.
         1. Jesus pointed out some troubling prophetic actions from their spiritual history:
            1. He heard their kind words toward him and then said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown” (Luke 4:24).
            2. He reminded them that with all of the widows among the nation of Israel during Elijah’s career he was sent by God to the widow of Zarephath in Sidon.
            3. Then he recalled that with all of the lepers among the nation of Israel during Elisha’s career he was sent by God to cleanse the leper Naaman, the Syrian.
         2. Next thing you know, after saying these things, they drove him out of town to throw him off of the first cliff they could find.

There is always much reason to celebrate. It is a spiritual practice that can win many to our Lord Jesus Christ. But celebration must always be accompanied by continued work and continued striving for God’s reign of justice and joy!

Our celebrations cannot go on if all are not invited.

Our celebrations cannot go on without constant work for the reform of broken systems.

Yet by all means God’s people celebrate what God has done while at the same time the work of God continues on and on until that Great Day of the Lord when the risen, reigning Christ returns!

On that Day, celebration will take on an altogether formerly unknown tone!