Eat, Drink, Rejoice & Be Glad



Joel 2:23-32

O children of Zion, be glad
and rejoice in the Lord your God;
for he has given the early rain for your vindication,
he has poured down for you abundant rain, 
the early and the later rain, as before.
The threshing floors shall be full of grain,
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

I will repay you for the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent against you.
You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
and praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you.

And my people shall never again be put to shame.

You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.

Then afterward
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams, 
and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female slaves,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. The Word of the Lord!

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O children of Zion, 
be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God;
for he has given the early rain for your vindication,
he has poured down for you abundant rain, 
the early and the later rain, as before.

Early, abundant, and later rain, today’s reading from Joel - - whose Hebrew name Yoh-El, for “Yahweh Elohim”, means the Lord is God - - today’s reading is vivid in Hurricane Michael month, and would have been so last weekend as anxiously we watched and waited for Tropical Storm Nestor to choose a course, make landfall, pass through, and make its way north. 

Like getting back on a horse after being thrown, or driving again after a car crash, for years after Hurricane Michael we will be gun shy of every storm in the Gulf, but TS Nestor was mild, even deflected to Apalachicola, east of us. 

We might say “thank God” if we believe God blows violent storms ashore capriciously or if we believe that, in answer to our prayers, God waves them away from us and onto someone else? 

What, because we prayed first, or prayed harder, or the people of Apalachicola were ὀλιγόπιστοι (oligopistoi “little faiths”) and our faith was stronger, so they got Tropical Storm Nestor instead of us? A selfish and wicked theology to contemplate.

A category 5 hurricane in our time would be a locust plague in the time of Joel, whose doomsday prophecy opens with an overwhelming swarm of locusts:

"Hear this, ye old men,
and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land.
Hath this been in your days,
or even in the days of your fathers?

"Tell your children of it,
and your children tell their children,
and their children tell another generation.

"That which the locust swarm hath left 
hath the great locust eaten;
and that which the great locust hath left
hath the cankerworm locust eaten;
and that which the cankerworm locust hath left
hath the caterpillar locust eaten."

Locusts are edible insects. Some cultures eat insects, and locusts are considered a delicacy in many African, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries. They have been used as food throughout history. John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey.* 


But a swarm can turn the sky black with billions of locusts spread out over an area of thousands of square miles, in a population of 200 million flying locusts per square mile.* As in a rolling infestation they consume all vegetation in their path.

Scholars have pondered Joel ever since its beginning. Nobody knows WHO Joel was, יוֹאֵל בֶּן-פְּתוּאֵל (YOH-EL ben-Petyoo-EL), nor his father PethuEl, whose name means “mouth of God” but who is an anonymous non-person of non-history.

Joel’s TIME is unknown — whether before or after the Babylonian Exile is debated. Or indeed whether related to the Exile at all.

Or WHETHER the locusts were real, or metaphorical for a punishing army that God brings down from up north. Or a real locust swarm of memory, adapted metaphorically to the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem or the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. 

But as neither Babylon nor Assyria is mentioned, the siege and exile chapter of Jewish history could have been long before Joel, or yet to come in Joel's future.

Joel’s prophecy is damning and harsh, with horrific doomsday allusions to the great and terrible Day of the Lord. But the promise of redemption and salvation is brilliant: Sunday will come, and with it full restoration of God’s people to God’s favor. And as Joel says, in that dry land, plenty of rain, a blessing. I strongly recommend you read the OT book of Joel as your spiritual exercise this week.

So this is what to see in response to today's Joel reading: the Lord God longing and promising to reconcile with us for the crises and tragedies and ravages and storms and swarms that devastate human life in God's creation in our Time (as they devastated Job); and conversely, forgiveness for our sins that separate us from the Kingdom of God.

But this morning's gospel reading: for decades, once every three years on the lectionary cycle, I preached Jesus' parable of “The Pharisee and The Publican” (maybe a dozen times or more), where the revered Pharisee, who is trying hard to love and please God and thinks he is doing well, seems only to lack the humility and compassion that are the essence of loving God at all. And the publican, a despised, traitorous tax collector in the pay of the hated Roman occupation, is not one to emulate even if, like a mafia hit man, he comes to temple every week for confession and absolution. But again and always reversing things on us, Jesus turns our personal garbage cans upside down and dumps them out for us and all the world to see what rubbish human values are; and how opposite to the values of God.

So I’ll preach that parable no more, which is okay, because the Old Testament is a favorite, including Yoh-El’s menacing apocalyptic prophecy, where today’s chapter opens ominously with sho-FArrrr, the ram’s horn sounding in Zion - -

terror!! doom!! But after the punishment a promise: salvation, God's loving reconciliation with you who return to the Lord with all your heart, who rend your heart and not your garments, and return to the Lord in love.

And who, as Joel says “leave behind a blessing - - grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God”.

Which brings us not only to Stewardship Season, that Father Steve preached last Sunday, but to the Altar rail: Holy Eucharist, our Bread and Wine offering of praise and thanksgiving, which, as His Body and Blood, Jesus lovingly turns back on us in invitation, welcome, forgiveness of sins, renewal and reconciliation with God His Father, who, knowing we will fail and fall again this very week, accepts us just as we are, the way we are, again and again and again:

The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was broken for you; preserve your body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful.

The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for you. Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for you, and be thankful.

Our theology is that simple, an invitation to salvation, where all you need do is stop in your tracks, turn around, and come home. Your return to God's favor is that free and easy; and it comes upon you this day, in this church, at this Altar, this very hour. 

This IS the Day of the Lord, eat, drink, rejoice and be glad.

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Sermon or homily preached in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida by the Rev Tom Weller on Sunday, October 27, 2019. Proper 25C. Gospel: Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. Preaching text: the prophet Joel.

Pics pinched online with apologies. Top, Israel man blowing a shofar. Middle, ancient locust art. Bottom, at a buffet, roasted locusts (grasshoppers) on a stick, bon appetit.