Risk -Ps. 80, is a perfect prayer for the rust belt, as industrial might crumbles into disuse. Is. 5The owner of the vineyard made every possible preparation for a fruitful harvest -- picking a good site, preparing the land, choosing the best plants, arranging for protection and for processing the grapes. But what he got was "wild grapes," or more literally, "stinking things" (verses 2, 4). what God "expected" or "hoped for" does not happen; God does not guarantee the results.it is precisely the people's freedom that means things can go wrong, and they do. , judgment is not to be understood as God's need to punish or to get even with the sinful people. Rather, judgment is the set of destructive consequences that result from the people's own choices.Instead of the "justice" (mishpat) that God "expected," God sees "bloodshed" (mispach). And instead of "righteousness" (tsedaqah), God hears "a cry" (tse'aqah). Instead of the goodness that God expects the people to enact and embody, there is violence that leads the victims to cry out for help.
The Hebrew word translated "cry" is particularly important and revealing. When God's people were being victimized by Pharaoh in Egypt, their response was to cry to God for help (see Exodus 3:7-Pat Miller).In short, the warning is that the monarchy itself will re-create the oppressive conditions of Pharaoh's Egypt. At its root prayer can be a cry for help, when it seems all of our resources are exhausted.
,I watch the Olympics and find myself caring about sports I never watch for four years. I so admire the skill and dedication that allows athletes for all nations to compete, to do their very best: , faster, higher, stronger. Heb. 11:29-12:2hat Hebrews invites us to “lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,” so that we might “run with perseverance the race that is set before us” (12:1).The writer of Hebrews has one final word of advice. "Let us run the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith." Pioneer- archegos. The archegos is the author, the beginner, , the impetus, the trailblazer who goes before us.But there is more. In the context of a race, the archegos is the team captain. he is also the perfecter(playing with name of Jesus as leader into Promised Land and as-Joshua, the first high priest after the exile. Priests perfect and complete what we lack, bringing us to our goal so that we may have full access to the presence of God.He takes our incomplete faith and makes it whole.
So when our knees are weak and our hands drooping, when we feel worn out in the journey of faith, wondering whether we can hold on and hold out, we hear again this clarion call from Hebrews. We remember our company. We remember our contest, but above all, we remember our captain who has run this race and who beckons us home.
Restoration-Notice here Scripture does not talk of a divine plan being worked out in every detail. It is the story of a divine plan gone horribly wrong, but god will not give up on the goal, the vision that animates creation and our relationships with God. is the goal of the race.Hebrews does not even imagine that we will win the race, but we will make it across the finish line.We do not give up. We persevere.after all, jesus had but a short time in his life’s work, and then he was crucified. That did not end the story, He was restored, resurrected to new, full life.
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