Religious Convictions and Peace

I think this'll be my last blog entry—my readership is waning. I’ll probably go back to devotional guides.

But write this blog I must because last Sunday’s sermon was a bit controversial and needs some clarification.

For starters, I don’t really believe in the simplistic statement that religion causes violence. Violent people will use religion and often religious imagery to further inflame misplaced passion. Nonetheless, religion is still implicated; there are religious leaders who misuse religious language to justify and further inflame the violence they desire. Last Sunday, I forgot to change the disagree/agree statement. I used that statement to get you to think and to help us understand that religion, at times, has not been a force for peace and well-being in our world. In fact “being right” is often used to justify the use of might, unfortunately.

Isaiah has a different vision. He believes that when the knowledge of God is at work in our world there will be peace. Whereas many people are inspired by their religious conviction to commit acts of atrocity, Isaiah believes that knowledge—true knowledge of the creator God—is transforming: instruments of war are changed into farming implements.

And I believe we are called to witness to this vision. Remember, its upon us, the church, that “the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10.11). We can’t bring this vision to its completion, that’s God’s job. But we do serve the Prince of Peace who said, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be children of God” (Matthew 5.9, NRSV). Our savior did not come into Jerusalem on a painted war horse but on a donkey. He embraced the way of suffering love and calls his disciples to do the same. Let me put it like this: There’s something more important than being right—being reconciled! Oh, if only the church would embrace that statement. I’m not saying we throw truth out the window. Far from it. But in the midst of searching for the truth, we must be reconciling agents in our church and in our world.

Now, one more point of clarification. At this point in my life, I’m not against the use force, period. We might have to conclude that the use of force in a given situation is necessary, perhaps a necessary evil in this broken world. That aside, I want every Christian to embrace the way of peace. Then, when a path of force is being considered, I want all Christians to argue from the stance of peace, i.e., illustrate why love of enemy must be not be followed in this situation. That’s a tall order, but one we must obey. For we were enemies of God, but he made peace with us through the shed blood of his Son. “All of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5.18, NRSV)

One more thought: we can always disagree and still be brothers and sisters in Christ. Peace!

Contagious Holiness

Holiness is contagious, and grace transforms. I believe that sentence encapsulates well the theme I was trying to explore last Sunday.

We looked at the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19). I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, Zacchaeus encountered the goodness of God. Jesus extends his intimacy and acceptance to Zacchaeus by inviting himself over.

Zacchaeus responds appropriately to this holy grace. He becomes a “good news” person. No more business as usual for Zacchaeus, metaphorically and literally. Zacchaeus promises to give half his income to the poor. And he promises to make restitution, paying back anyone he’s cheated fourfold. The announcement of Jesus is even more startling: “Today, salvation has come to your house.” I believe Jesus is saying in essence, Zacchaeus gets it. He has responded appropriately. He’s repented and embraced God’s call upon his life. One could argue that Zacchaeus changed his loyalties: whereas once he was dedicated to the Roman government, now he’s dedicated to God’s kingdom. He’s also changed the direction of his love: whereas once he loved money, now he loves God and God’s ways. It’s no more business as usual for Zacchaeus.

I believe we need to take note here. Holiness is contagious, and grace transforms. We know that we’ve met Christ when it’s no more business as usual. And we know that we’re growing in grace when we are leaving behind the stuff that keeps us from living in and out of God’s love. It’s true, Jesus reaches out to us and takes us in as we are. But if we say yes to him, we can’t remain the same. Perhaps, at the end of the day, there are only two ways to respond to God’s grace. We can say yes and walk in the light or we can say no and cling to our darkness. I doubt there’s any middle ground. God’s grace—when appropriated!—can only transform. Peace.

Connecting the Right Dots

What do you see when you look around? It’s a great question, a very revealing question. It can tell us an awful lot about ourselves.

When you look at a forest of trees, what do you see? A business opportunity? Sacred ground?

When you look at others, what do you see? Sex objects? Children of God?

Maybe we see nothing at all. Our senses have been dulled, and we take everything for granted.

In our text (Luke 17.11-19) there are nine lepers who don’t see anything all. They don’t connect the right dots. They’re healed of this dreaded disease, and they did not see what needed to be seen. For notice, they’re criticized by Jesus. I’m sure they were grateful. You have to be a complete dunce not to be grateful. But there’s still something lacking. They took it for granted perhaps; they did not see God’s glory or his goodness or the in-breaking Kingdom of God. Maybe they did not see anything at all other than a healing—a powerful reminder to us that healings don’t necessarily change hearts.

But there’s one who did make the right connections. One leper sees that he’s been healed, and he returns to Jesus, praising God with a loud voice. I believe what’s happening here is very profound. This man gets it. His faith has made him whole. His faith in God has enabled him to see what needs to be seen--the goodness of God, the in-breaking of God’s kingdom through Jesus. I get the sense that this one leper is ready and willing to live his entire life in gratitude for what God has done.

The same might be said of us. Faith in response to what God has done gives us the right vision of the world. Faith teaches us that life is a gift not a right. (The doctrine of the Trinity reminds that God doesn’t need anyone for he is a communion of love, but he creates out of the abundance of his love.) Faith also teaches us that without God’s mercy, we could not know the source of love from which we came. Faith gives us the right vision so that we can live rightly. And the only way to live rightly is to live with gratitude and reverence toward God and his creation. What other response can there be to a God who gives us life out of love and redeems that life in love so that we might live in and out of his love? I can’t think of any other response but to live for the glory of God. Our faith—if it’s an active faith!—should enable us to see rightly so that we can live righteously. It will make us whole. Peace.

A Heart for the Missing

How easy it is to get stuck in the maintenance mode. We start to believe that everything is about me. Church—it’s about me. Jesus—he’ll make it all better for me. Children—they give meaning to my life.

I stated last Sunday that Jesus’ hometown crowd slipped into that maintenance mode very quickly (Luke 4). After hearing Jesus’ inaugural vision, they were thrilled—our hometown boy has returned to take care of us. I know the text doesn’t say that explicitly, but it’s implied in the conversation. Notice how Jesus confronts them. He anticipates their line of reasoning, saying, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor cure yourself!’” This proverb was used in antiquity to suggest that one ought to care for his own first. The hometown crowd was thinking, in essence, Jesus has returned for us, to make it all better for us. The maintenance mode.

Jesus doesn’t stay there however. He reminds the crowd with two offensive stories that he will be on the move. He’s going to keep moving, reaching out, blessing people the powers-that-be don’t really like. He will heal the sick, embrace the outcast, and call the sinner to repentance.

Why? Because God is like that—God has a heart for the missing. It’s this thought that comes to expression in the parable of the lost lamb (Luke 15). Jesus asks the question, “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” The answer to that question is not many—not many would leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness. In a sheep-pen? Yes. With another shepherd? Yes. But not in the wilderness. Which is the point of the parable: when it comes to the father’s love, we’re not talking about playing it safe but about extravagant love. Love beyond reason. God has a heart for the missing, so Jesus won’t get sucked into the maintenance mode vortex.

All of this poses a great challenge for the church. Do we have a heart for the missing? Does our heart beat with a love for our neighbor? If we have faith—an active faith, the faith of mustard seed—then surely our church should have a heart that beats for those who do not yet know that they belong to the Father. Peace.

Living for Others

“Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we win our brother, we win God. If we cause our brother to stumble, we have sinned against Christ.”--St. Anthony

This quote might be difficult to embrace. We’ve been taught otherwise. In our individualistic culture, we’ve been trained to believe that I’m free to do whatever I want, whenever I want--I’m not answerable to anyone but myself.

The church believes (should believe) in an alternative way of life. In scripture we discover that we are to live with other people in mind. Our attitudes and actions should be shaped by the impact they might make on the community, on our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Isn’t that what Jesus proclaimed last Sunday? He warned against causing another to stumble: “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come.” Paul writes a similar message in Romans 14.15: “If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love . . .” Did you hear that? Maybe we should substitute the word “do” for the word “eat”--if someone is injured by what we do, we are no longer walking in love.

So the call is simple enough to understand: as disciples we are bound to one another, and we are called to live responsibly for one another. It’s not just Jesus and me but Jesus and we. Our life and our death is truly with our neighbor. Let’s live in such a way that we win our neighbor for God. Peace!

Getting It Wrong--Luke 16.14-31

I don’t know if anyone is reading this, but I’ll continue to write. It’s cathartic for me. Sometimes I don’t feel good about what I said or how it might have been received; writing helps.

Last Sunday, from Luke 16.14-31, I asked the question where do we go wrong. As individuals and as communities, we can easily travel down roads that are detrimental to ourselves and others. The Christian church doesn’t have a spotless record, to say the least. Why and how do we get it wrong as Christians?

First, we go wrong in our thinking whenever we assume too quickly that God is on our side. That’s what the Pharisees were doing. They believed that wealth is next to godliness. Such a view stifles compassion. To challenge their perspective, Jesus tells a story about a divine reversal: the rich man goes to Hades; the poor man, to heaven. Jesus is not describing hell or what it might take to end up there. Instead, Jesus is drawing a large startling picture because the Pharisees are nearly blind. Jesus is saying, your thinking is skewed, your values are inverted, don’t assume God is on your side.

As I suggested last Sunday, this happens all of the time. Our own values get twisted. It’s like what Augustine said as he was trying to describe the moral decay of the Roman Empire, “People care more about having a bad house than about having a bad life.” What would he say about us today? People care more about having the wrong clothes than about living the wrong way? People care more about having a bad image than about having a bad character? I believe he might say those things. And too often, we put some sort of spiritual or godly spin on this type of thinking: “God wants me to be happy; God wants to me to be blessed.”

But Jesus challenges this view: “what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16.15). Ouch! What do we value? Glitz and glamour? Wealth? The bottomline? Million dollar contracts? All of that might be an abomination. What does God value? We don’t like the answer to that question. But answer it we must. He values justice, righteousness, the poor, equity, love, humility, to name a few.

So we go wrong whenever we assume too quickly that God is on our side. We must acknowledge that he is addressing us, and we must respond to his calling, to his challenge, to be a new type of people.

Secondly, we go wrong because we do not listen very well. We stifle God’s truth. Back to the text: The rich man wants Lazarus to go back to earth to warn his brothers. Evidently, he has five other brothers who are living just like he was—without compassion, without righteousness. Abraham refuses. Not because Abraham is uncaring, but because Abraham knows that if his brothers don’t listen to Moses and the Prophets, they won’t listen to Lazarus. Did you hear that? If these brothers aren’t the type of people who are listening to Moses and the Prophets, then a miracle won’t do an ounce of good.

Again, this is what frequently happens. We hear only what we want to hear; we see only what we want to see. We listen selectively, cafeteria style—I’ll take some of that, some of that, but none of that; dessert, carbs, but no vegetables. That’s what the Pharisees did. They read scripture, took some of the verses out of context, and concluded that God blesses the righteous—wealth is next to godliness. It worked well for them, since they were, for the most part, middle-class men. But they neglected the call to justice. We can fall prey to the same temptation. We can stifle God’s truth. We can create truth and God in our own image and end up missing the mark.

God have mercy on us. We need to be the type of people who listen with every fiber of our being. It always amazes me how people can sit in church, nod their heads, and yet still live in sin. I can preach on being reconciled to others and people will leave church still remaining stuck in their stubborn ways of life. Or I can preach on following Christ, and people will refuse or do so half-heartedly and wonder why they're so unhappy. They don't listen. They have hears but do not hear. I must stop now . . . Let me know if I’m way off base. Peace!

God's Grace

What an amazing story in Luke 15.11-31. To defend his ministry practices—eating with those who are despised by the religious leaders (15.1-2)—Jesus tells a story of a father with two sons.

The first son requests his inheritance early, then he squanders it in loose living and then returns home because his stomach is empty. What should a father do with a son like that?

Restitution? You need to pay back the money you’ve wasted! Interrogation? You have a lot of explaining to do! Probation? I’ll give you two or three years and then we’ll see! The father doesn’t employ any of those reasonable options.

When he sees his youngest son traveling toward the house, he runs out to meet him. That’s significant. Elderly men did not run in that culture—it’s undignified. But this father throws all social conventions out the window. He runs and hugs his son with a passionate embrace (literally in the original language: he falls onto his neck) and then he proceeds to completely restore the son to his original standing. Robes and rings were symbols of authority. Sandals were worn only by masters in the house not slaves. No probation. No restitution. No interrogation. Just full restoration!

This story is telling us something about God. His desire for a relationship with us is greater than our sin. It’s greater than an imperfect repentance, greater than any impure motives we might have for returning to him. God delights in us. He desires us. Therefore he takes us in as we are.

But we’re not done yet. This story is about a father who has two sons. The older son is not very pleased with this entire scene. He’s mad. It’s unfair. I’ve been faithful, he says in so many words. He has a good point. He’s worked hard, he’s never left, and he’s never even received a goat to celebrate with his friends.

Notice the father’s response. The father is pleading with his oldest son to come in and join the party. You see, God’s desire for a relationship with us is greater than anything, except one thing: a willingness to consent. His love respects our freedom. The story ends with us wondering, will the older son go in and join the party? Will he participate in what God is doing? Will you? Will I? All it takes is a yes, a consecration with of our entire selves to God’s love. Peace.

Share and Share Alike

Last Sunday was a children’s sermon. After I preached it, I went home and wondered if the adults understood the radical implications of the story. In 1 Samuel 30 David and his men are on a mission to recover their families and their possessions taken by the Amalekites. Along the way about two hundred men couldn’t make it any further; they stayed by the Besor ravine guarding excess baggage. Four hundred men continued and risked limb and life to defeat the Amalekites. After their victory there is a dilemma in the text: Should the ones who fought in the battle share with those who didn’t? The victors acquired more than just their own possessions. Should they share? There were some men who said, No! Their argument flawless: These men who did not fight can have what they lost but nothing more, no profit, no booty; they did not do anything; we deserve more. It makes perfectly good sense. Those who guarded the baggage did not pay the price. Those who risked their life should receive more. That’s how the world works. But text gives us an alternative to the world. The text refers to these men as “corrupt and worthless” (30.22, NRSV). And then David demanded that everyone share in the victory: “You shall not do so, my brothers, with what the Lord has given us . . . For the share of the one who goes down into the battle shall be the same as the share of the one who stays by the baggage; they shall share alike” (30.23-24).

I believe this has huge implications for us. We often possess an attitude that says, this is mine, I’ve earned it, I’ve worked hard for it. We often argue that everyone could be where we are today, if only they had applied themselves like we have. Is that attitude Godly, I wonder. In the story, David acknowledges that God gave the victory. Such an acknowledgement changes everything. If God is truly the source of all that is, then who am I to claim ownership of anything? The story seems to suggest that since everything comes from God, we must honor God with it. I wonder what this means for us. Any thoughts?

Hard but Liberating News

Yet another difficult passage of scripture—Luke 14.25-33. I don’t know about you, but I’m growing a little weary of Luke’s gospel by now. With the last several Sundays, we have faced some difficult words in our commitment to follow the Lectionary. To make matters worse, many of the themes are repeated frequently. Before we talk about last Sunday’s text, let me comment on what all of this might mean for our community. Last year I made a commitment to follow the lectionary. Why? First, I felt led to this. Second, I don’t always trust myself to create good sermon series (though I will that again next year). So the lectionary forces me (and us) to commit to something larger than our own personal preferences. Left to ourselves, we become less than ourselves. After all it’s easy to pick the stuff we want to hear. Secondly, and related to the repetition we’ve been faced with, is another spiritual lesson—we learn through repetition. The truth of the gospel has to penetrate our hearts that are more like stone than flesh at times. We always need to be reminded that the point is not to know some information but to allow the truth to enter deep within where it can change us. So for example, if Luke keeps highlighting Jesus’ teaching on possessions (which he does), we have to assume that money and possessions are some of the things in life that can make following Christ with a purity of heart difficult if not impossible. Thus we need to lean in and listen again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and again, even if it gets a little annoying. In short, though it might be difficult, everything we’re doing right now is probably what the Good Doctor orders—we’re committing ourselves to something bigger than ourselves and we’re opening up our hearts to the difficult but liberating truths of the Gospel.

Now to last week’s sermon. After preaching it, I told my wife, I think Jesus is just fleshing out the first commandment--“You shall have no other Gods before me”—in this text. Think about it: Jesus challenges some of our most cherished ideals in Luke 14.25-33—family, self, and possessions. Let’s look at each of those in turn. First, the core identity of a disciple is not shaped by family (14.26). Jesus uses the word hate here (perhaps communicating by hyperbole). The word hate is a way to speak of commitment; it is not a psychological or emotional hatred; it can mean “to turn away from” or “detach oneself from.” With that in mind, we learn that faith and family don’t always go together. Disciples are called to be committed to Christ and his cause first, even before family. But here’s the catch: in doing so, disciples obtain the distance necessary that makes love possible. If Christ and his cause is first, a disciple then has a foundation that makes love—a true love—possible. 1 John 5.2 speaks powerfully to this issue. John states that we love the children of God by loving God and keeping his commands. Love of God and obedience is the road we must travel in order to love. The point is obvious: we have to have a core from which to give true love; we have to live in love, and then we can live out love. Christ and his cause must be first, not family.

Second, a disciple’s core identity is not to be shaped by a commitment to self (14.26). Jesus says we must hate our life; again it means to detach ourselves from, not emotionally hate. This is somewhat revolutionary. Self worship is big business in America. We’ve been advertised to for so long that we're tempted to believe everything is about us, about being happy and having our needs met. The problem is love of self and love of God don’t mix. We’re not fully human if we’re not living in response to all that God has done for us. It is in losing ourselves that we find ourselves—our true selves.

Third, a disciple’s core identity is not shaped by possessions (vs. 33). The Greek verb is in the present tense. Many take that to mean that Jesus is talking about an on-going willingness to surrender. Bottom line: disciples can’t be shaped by what they have or what they don’t have. Disciples can't be possessed with their possessions, either their lack or their abundance. Hopefully, we’re so busy learning to enjoy God and love our neighbor that we’re no longer worried about stuff.

So how can we summarize all of this? I stated yesterday that the disciple is someone who is living out the good news that Jesus is Lord. God raised this rejected one from the dead as a powerful announcement that He is King and that one day everything will be recapitulated in Him. Disciples have turned (repented) from sin and are embracing the great news that Jesus is Lord. Which means, of course, that family, money and self should not be . . . should not be Lord. I don’t know about you, but I find this to be great news, because now we are called to participate in something that’s worth living for, something bigger than ourselves, something that gives us a foundation that makes love possible—God’s kingdom, here and now as well as there and then. Peace!

Humble Before God

I entitled yesterday’s sermon “Stop Trying to Be so Humble.” (I hope that title made sense at the end of the day.) The text was Luke 14.1, 7-14. We talked a little about a form of competitiveness that makes community life difficult. This competitiveness rears its ugly head in countless ways. Bottom line: we often have a desire to be honored, noticed, and respected at the expense of others. Jesus challenges this approach to life and instead calls us to assume a posture of humility. All of that is important to grasp, but it’s not very easy to implement.

The question I posed yesterday is critical--how do we get there? How do we actually become humble without feeling proud over what we’ve accomplished? Some might take the words of Jesus and actually strive to be humble to prove to others the greatness of their spirituality. Our egos are very creative. Humility can easily become another way to set ourselves apart. How do we avoid that?

The answer I gave is that humility is not a virtue (I'm indebted to John Wesley for this thought). Humility is not something we can own, possess, or achieve. Instead humility is an awareness of our need. Humility is a form of emptiness before God and his greatness. I believe it’s important that we grasp that truth.

Too often, we’re stunted spiritually because we’re full—full of our dreams, desires, and plans. In short, we’re full of ourselves. There’s no room for anything, especially not God. Though we might pay lip service to God or to some form of obedience, it’s still all about us and what we’re accomplishing. In fact we might end up being more narcissistic than when we started our journey. Remember C.S. Lewis’ thoughts on this topic. He argues that the humble person is not thinking about pride or humility. The humble person is thinking about God and the person that happens to be in front of her. That type of humility is nothing more than emptiness.

How do we get there? We grow in our understanding of God through worship, prayer, frequent communion, and study. And as we grow in our understanding of God through these means of grace, we will see our own poverty. When we experience his love, we recognize how incapable we are of love; his light will reveal our darkness; his holiness, our impurity; his humility, our pride. When that happens, we probably end up praying, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This is central. We need to remember that the holy men and women of God who have preceded us never believed they were holy. Why? Because the more they encountered God, the more they were reminded of their own need. Humility then is a response to God. It’s an awareness, a poverty before the Almighty. And that’s a great place to be because then and only then can we be filled with his goodness. Peace!

Jesus Divides

I’m sitting here trying to remember what I said last Sunday . . . It’s coming to me . . . Oh yes, there it is. (I’m getting old.)

We talked about the divisive nature of Jesus’ ministry. In Luke 12.49-53, Jesus announces that he has not come to maintain the status quo. His ministry is not all fun and games. There is judgment, and there will be division.

I tried to reveal how this text works itself out in Jesus’ ministry by highlighting two words that characterize his life—grace and truth. Both of those words help us understand Jesus, and they also reveal how divisive his ministry is.

Think about it: His grace is so amazing that it can be annoying; his love so divine that it can be divisive. In the New Testament, for example, the religious leaders do not like the company Jesus keeps. Nor do they like some of his compassionate acts—healing on the Sabbath, forgiving people, etc. His love is offensive. It can be for us as well. Our culture—and sometimes our religious traditions--tell us who’s worthy of love. But if we let Christ lead us, we might find ourselves loving the very people we’ve been trained to look down upon. When we do that, it will be divisive—our nation might persecute us; some in the church might resent us.

The same can be said of Jesus’ truth. Jesus is the truth, and so he spoke truthfully to others. Like any good doctor who knows that causing pain is sometimes necessary for a proper healing, Jesus, in love, heals by liberating us with the truth. Though it hurts, it’s what we need. Time and time again, Jesus gets himself into trouble simply because he reveals the truth. It still happens today. A pastor in the Midwest recently preached a series about the American church, stating that the church should be shaped by the cross, not the sword. Twenty percent (1,000 people) of his congregation left. The truth divides; it separates.

You see, Jesus isn’t looking for trouble. He’s not looking to judge. Rather his coming—his very being (grace and truth)—constitutes a judgment in a broken world.

Our response is important therefore. We need to remain open to God’s movement of grace and truth in our community, recognizing that he will lead us where we might not want to go; and of course, along the way, some will refuse to journey with us. There will be division in a dark world. Peace!

Getting Ready--Together!

Here we go again. Yesterday I preached from Luke 12.35-38. In this section of scripture Jesus implies the journey will be long. Notice in verse 38 a blessing is pronounced upon those who wait until midnight, or even until dawn, for the master to return. Implied in that verse is the notion that the Christian journey can be long and difficult. I know, many of you have been told being a Christian is exciting. It can be; but frequently it isn’t. Most of the time, it’s hard, and rather undramatic. Just think about community life. Learning to live together as God’s new people isn’t easy. It can be very burdensome. It’s easy to see why many stop striving and others quit altogether. The journey we’re on—a journey shaped by the cross—is not easy. It can be very long.

But the good news is that God has not forgotten us. Creation is not in an endless cycle of sorrow and defeat; it has an end. That means we can participate in a great drama of redemptive history. Our effort is not in vain. We can embrace the future that is coming now. The master will return.

So the call of the text is, be ready, be about the master’s business.

But what does that mean? What does that look like? A few years ago, I used to try to think about it in terms of my own personal purity. Not anymore. For when holiness is reduced to my own personal purity, I become more narcissistic than most of my non-believing friends, constantly worried about whether or not I’m doing the right thing and therefore unable to really be present to those around me. So how can we be ready? The answer to that question is found in the “we.” I don’t know what it means to be ready on my own anymore. In fact, I’m coming to believe that there can be no holiness without the community. According to one writer, Augustine believed one can’t be a saint without others, because the quintessential virtue is charity. I agree, and I believe Paul pushes us in that direction. When he prays for his churches, he prays that they might be pure and blameless together, as a community: “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” (Philippians 1.9-10, see also 1 Thessalonians 3.11-13; 1 Corinthians 1.8) In case you missed that, Paul is speaking to a church, not an individual. Paul prays that the church will be blameless on the day of Christ. In fact, Paul seems to imply in 2 Corinthians that we’ll stand together: “As you have already understood us in part—that on the day of the Lord Jesus we are your boast even as you are our boast” (2 Corinthians 1.14). Therefore, the question is not really how can I be ready, but is the community of which I’m part ready? Is it holy and blameless? And to what extent am I hindering or helping that endeavor? Now we have a concrete way to respond: build up the church! Together we live and perhaps together we’ll be judged. Peace.

Spending or Being Spent

Luke 12.13-21 is a very convicting passage of scripture. Jesus, to warn us against greed, tells us a little story about a fortunate man who just happens to make a fortune. Notice this man is blessed (vs. 16). He earned his fortune by sun, soil, and luck. He then does what is quite natural—he saves and retires early (vs. 17-18). Not bad.

To our listening ears his actions sound innocent enough. In fact, we idolize a man like this . . . Ever watch “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"? And I’m afraid we think like him . . . We’re all tempted to spend our money in this fashion—selfishly, accumulating more and more luxuries (buying things we don’t need to impress people we don’t even like), saving more and more money, without giving any consideration to God or to others.

But there’s a problem. Though we idolize a man like this and though we think like him, the man is called a fool. Yes, God calls him a fool. Why? Because he squanders his fortune on himself. He did everything his way, and at the end of his life, he has nothing to show for it.

Where did this man go wrong? Did he fail because he just happened to be rich and because he just happened to own a fertile piece of property? Did he fail because he built bigger barns? Did he fail because he retired early? To all of those questions, most of us would say, no. So where did he fail? Where did he go terribly wrong? The answer is found in the story itself. Pay careful attention to the number of times he uses the personal pronoun. He makes his own decisions; he talks to himself, he reasons with himself, and he blesses himself—all this to justify his own actions. This proclivity toward soliloquy reveals the true nature of a person whose god is self (not a bad definition of greed). He is his own moral agent.

To avoid this same trap, we must learn to ask, always, “God what do you want me to do with the time and money you have placed into my care?” Or perhaps a better way to say it, we need to own up to our baptism. In our baptism, we have been saved by God’s favor into a new relationship with God through Christ. This means we have transferred our allegiance to Christ and his cause. No longer are we to be governed by our selfish desires or by our former (hopefully former) service to money. Instead, we are to live our lives in worship to the one who gave us the breath of life in love, and in love redeemed us so that we might serve Him and neighbor. In short, we are to be rich toward God.

What does this look like? For starters, we need to recognize that everything we have has merely been entrusted to our care (cf. Matthew 25.14). It’s not really ours in the first place. God has called us to be trustees; one day he will demand an account (Matthew 25.14-30). This concept implies that we need to use all we have for his glory. But what does that look like? I don’t know for sure. It will vary from person to person. But we need to keep talking about it. Right now, I’m inspired by Christians who work hard to live off less, so they can give more away. I admire the pastor who tithes 30% of his income—10% to the church, 20% to the poor. I’m challenged by those who match whatever they put into their pension account, setting it aside to help those can't even dream about retirement. I’m not suggesting that’s what you should do. It’s just worth noting that many in our family are working hard to make sure they are rich toward God. They should inspire us.

I’m challenged. I need help. I’ve wasted my fair share of God’s resources. I want to do better. What about you? Peace.

Prayer for God's Glory

When Jesus taught the disciples to pray he gave them a simple outline to follow. In Luke’s version, the prayer consists of only five petitions. What strikes me as extremely powerful is the gist of the first two petitions.

First, we are to pray for God’s name to be sanctified. In the Old Testament, the sanctification of God’s name is connected to the holiness of the community of Israel. By being a contrast-society, Israel would sanctify—make holy (hallow)—the name of God (Leviticus 22.32-33; Ezekiel 36.23). Jesus invites us to pray in the same vein. We are to pray that God’s name would be sanctified through us. Next, we are to pray that God’s kingdom would come. When Jesus walked on this earth he announced the coming kingdom. He was saying, in essence, that God has not forgotten his dream of reclaiming this entire creation with and for his glory. With that big picture in mind, he teaches us to pray for the kingdom of God to come. He wants us to pray that God’s dream would come true through us.

These two petitions teach us something—it’s not about us; it’s about God: His-story. Together, we are being enlisted, by God, to live and witness in such a way that God’s name would be sanctified, and that through us, the world will receive a glimpse of God’s coming kingdom.

I recognize this prayer offers a challenge. Many of you might not be interested. You might be thinking, this is not what I signed up for--I want a little pick-me-up message; I want to serve Jesus alone; I prefer my own kingdom; I don’t want to take holiness, community, or the Kingdom of God too seriously. Your sentiment is probably shared by many. Personally, I can relate. My desires are not always godly. That’s why we need to pray this prayer with persistence. Notice after Jesus teaches us to pray this prayer, he give us two lessons on praying with persistence. And then notice what happens--we receive the Spirit of God who will transform our desires and empower to accomplish what he wants to accomplish in our lives.

I challenge you to keep praying this prayer, regularly, with persistence and let’s see what God will do in our midst as he continues to form us into a community that is relevant to what he wants to accomplish. Peace!

Urgent or Important: You Choose

Last Sunday we compared Martha and Mary (Luke 10.38-42). Martha is frustrated and anxious, trying to fix a meal; while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus, listening.

I argued that Martha mistakes the urgent for the important. It’s something that can easily happen to us. After all, we live in a very noisy world which clamors for our attention, telling us what to believe, buy, and eat. And of course, the demands are always urgent, but very rarely important—for we are not to live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Deut. 8.3). To me, Martha represents the temptation to believe the urgent is also the important.

But Mary gets it. Though we should not set up false dichotomy between Martha and Mary, separating the spiritual from the practical, assuming (wrongly) that prayer is all that matters and has little to do with this life, we have to acknowledge what’s really important: God’s call to know and serve him. It would do us well to follow in the footsteps of Mary, who takes time for soul therapy. In the text, she assumes the role of a student and listens to Jesus. Though Martha's activity would be praised in another context, Mary, at this moment, makes the right choice and is praised for it (I assume because Jesus is on the way to the cross). The point is still the same: Her action calls us to a life of listening prayer. She creates space in her life for the Other.

To do this, we need to learn to embrace solitude. We need to create space in our life—a space that enables us to be attentive to God. Listen to Henri Nouwen: “Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self” (The Way of the Heart, 13). What he says is true. The world with its urgent demands continually creates illusions that keep us in bondage. But in prayer, we can let the light drive out the darkness and gain a renewed clarity to live our life with a godly focus. I invite all of you to consider weaving into the fabric of your life a time to be attentive to the God who is calling you and who wants to transform you into the likeness of Christ. Peace!

Christ and His Cause: Our First Commitment

I’m writing this before a little time off. I’ll try to be brief.

It seems that the greatest challenge we face from yesterday’s text (Luke 9.51-62) is Christ’s demand to put him even above our family. Many might think Jesus is a little rude here. He should have been more understanding. Isn’t a commitment to family a noble one? Two would-be disciples in this text are committed to their family. But Jesus calls them to his cause first and foremost.

Not that I have to explain Jesus’ action, but it does seem to make some sense to me. Permit me to give a less obvious and psychological explanation for Jesus’ words. I believe we need a center, a foundation, from which to live. No doubt Christ gives us that foundation. We are called to be a part of this great adventure of glorifying God as we pursue his kingdom. That commitment comes before family. And in making that commitment we receive the necessary distance that makes true love a possibility. Think about it: so often our love is tainted with a need to be needed; we end up loving ourselves but using other people. But if we love God first, love of neighbor becomes a possibility. Another way to say this is to say that you need to have a self before you can give yourself away. Christ can give us a self worth giving, as we follow the call to participate in his kingdom.

Outside of that psychological explanation, which still doesn’t explain everything and probably takes us away from the intention of the text, is Jesus who asks for an amazing commitment. It’s simple: our first commitment is always to Christ and his cause. Most of the time, our family will go with us; sometimes they won’t. It’s the latter that makes following Christ so hard at times. Peace.

Grace

God’s grace never ceases to amaze me. Yesterday, in Luke 7.36-50, we witnessed Jesus’ grace being extended to two different people. First, Jesus is extending grace to Simon, the Pharisee, by eating at his house. We need to remember that in first-century Palestine one did not eat with just anyone. Eating was a way of extending friendship and intimacy to another person. Jesus not only ate with sinners but also with Pharisees, as this text indicates. Second, there is the uninvited guest, a woman, a notorious sinner in town. She’s desperate. She breaks down upon seeing Jesus. Not being prepared for this, she dries off his feet with her hair, anoints his feet with perfume, and then proceeds to kiss them. Jesus forgives her and sends her in peace. Simon doesn’t get it. It’s offensive to him. Jesus reminds him that the one who is forgiven little loves little. We should interpret that verse with some irony. Jesus isn’t telling Simon to go out and sin so he can appreciate god’s forgiveness. Rather Jesus is saying that Simon doesn’t really see his need. He’s full of himself. More than likely, he suffers from pride of virtue. He doesn’t see how sinful his condemnation and judgmental spirit is. So in this text there is that typical divine reversal so characteristic of Luke’s gospel: The poor are filled; the rich are sent away empty. Both receive grace. Only one sees the need and therefore appropriates the healing grace of Christ. It might be true of us. Perhaps the only thing we lack is the one thing necessary to freedom, acknowledging that we can’t stand in God’s presence on our own merits; we need a Savior. Peace!

Wallflowers

I’m writing in the midst our VBS, so my thoughts might be scattered and my grammar worse than normal. Your grace will be greatly appreciated.

Yesterday, we looked at Luke 7.31-35. Jesus compares the religious leaders, who “rejected God’s purposes for themselves” (vs. 30), to children who are in the marketplace calling to one another: “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not cry.” More than likely, this expression was used by children to taunt those who refused to participate in the games being played. In other words, Jesus believed these religious leaders were like wallflowers; they refused to dance to the music of God’s kingdom. Like all wallflowers they had their excuses: John the Baptist, he’s too strict; Jesus, he’s too liberal (vs. 33-34). They could not make room in their life for the newness of the Kingdom. The Kingdom embodied in Jesus didn’t (couldn’t fit?) into their understanding of reality.

What does this say to us? Or perhaps a better question is, in what ways might we end up as wallflowers, refusing to join in the movement of God’s grace and truth revealed in Jesus? I see three temptations in our world. First is the I’m-not-going-to-commit-to-anything temptation. Many people in our post-modern world refuse to commit to anything; they don’t want to take anything too seriously. They fail to recognize that not being committed is a commitment, a commitment to the belief that one should not commit to anything. Thus, they don’t want to stand anywhere. They refuse to commit because they don’t want to submit to any one thing, so they stand on the perimeter, refusing to dance. Second is the Christianity-must-be-relevant-to-my-life temptation. Christianity must fit into what I want to accomplish. Many seem to be saying, I have my dreams and goals, now show me what can Christianity do for me. I believe otherwise. I’m not half as concerned with making Christianity relevant to the modern the world as I’m with trying to form a people who will be relevant to God’s kingdom. But many who want Christianity to be relevant to their perceived needs might refuse to dance unless it fits into what they want to accomplish. It’s as if we’re asking God to repent and embrace what we want to do, which is contrary to the message of Jesus—“The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1.15). Third, in a consumeristic world, many believe Christianity needs to meet my needs. Some come to church and Christianity with a list of demands: Make it a good show, give me a thrilling sermon, make me happy. Then if it doesn’t meet their expectations, they check out, they become wallflowers refusing to dance to the music of God’s kingdom. In all of these ways, and in many more, we can end up refusing to let the music of the kingdom transform us. Something to think about. Peace.

The Compassionate Christ

Yesterday we looked at a very brief scene in Luke’s gospel—the raising of the widow’s dead son (Luke 7.11-17). In that story there is a collision of processions. One procession is trying to leave the city of Nain to bury the boy; the other procession, lead by Jesus, is trying to enter the city. In this collision—and perhaps chaos—Jesus sees the widow in all of her need. NIV (New International Version) says, “his heart went out to her.” But in Greek (the original language of the New Testament) it’s one word, splachnizomai. The word depicts a gut-wrenching compassion (cf. Acts 1.18; Matthew 9.36). Jesus hurt for this woman, so he acted. He raised the boy from the dead and gave the boy back to the widow. Her lot in life improved because she encountered Christ in all of his compassion.

Great story! But what does it mean for us today. I did not know for sure what direction to take the text. I wrestled with it for quite some time. On the one hand, I could talk about physical healing, which I believe in. Yet, any talk of physical healing opens up a host of complicated questions. I also believe that there is a more urgent healing—a healing of that which separates us from God and keeps us from living out the dream he dreams for our lives.

This is the direction I took yesterday, in part, because of some of the reading I’m doing right now on Eastern Orthodox Theology, suggesting that the goal in life is union with God and everything that happens to us—good or bad—is to be viewed as something directing us to this goal. I then suggested we need to be healed from any sin that remains in our life. Is there a more urgent healing than that? I can’t think of any. So we need to confess, own up, and let God’s grace begin to transform us. Christ in all of his compassion doesn't condemn us, he convicts us and empowers us to move forward in his strength.

I also suggested that we need to be healed from any emotional baggage that keeps us from loving God and practicing neighborly care—the type of emotional stuff that keeps us in bondage, not the normal everyday anxiety, fear, and sadness that characterizes our life this side of heaven. Sometimes, not always, we experience immobilizing emotional baggage because we are pursuing all the wrong stuff; we’re idolaters, in other words. I don’t mean that to be a blanket statement; it isn’t. It might not fit for you, but it certainly fits for me occasionally. My suggestion if you’re overwhelmed with emotional baggage: get some counseling, and at the time, consider whether or not the emotional baggage is there because your love is disordered (you’re loving all the wrong things). Again, that's not a cure-all, but it's true some of the time. Again, Christ in all of his compassion wants to guide us with his yoke which is easier than any other yoke we might be currently wearing.

Anyway, you get the point. We should submit ourselves to this Jesus in whom there is nothing but love and compassion, knowing that he wants to heal us so that we can love God and love others as we have been called to do. Peace!

The Marriage of Heaven and Earth--John 14.12

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also . . .” proclaims Jesus (John 14.12, NASB). As I said yesterday these words are startling; they should arrest our attention. Why? Because this not the way most people think about faith. Many people talk about faith as if it’s only some sort of private and personal commitment. Many assume faith is relegated exclusively to the soul or spirit but has little to do with our public life. Many of our metaphors we employ in the church suggest that the only way to experience salvation is to be rescued from this world and have our spirits whisked away to some sort of spiritual existence far from anything we currently know. This language unintentionally drives wedges between faith and works, behavior and belief, soul and body, spirit and matter. Naturally, in such a worldview as this, many conclude faith is just a private, spiritual commitment that guarantees some sort of existence for the afterlife.

Jesus thinks differently as this verse suggests. He’s apart of a great tradition, a very worldly religious perspective that reaches back into the Old Testament. Think about it: in the Exodus, God liberates people to be a new nation that embraces the politics of liberation; they are to embrace--as I read it through the life of Jesus--a politics of compassion and justice. In the same vein the prophets teach us that this is the way to interpret the Law. The prophets call the people of God to embrace a compassionate justice and a righteousness defined by neighborly care. Jesus is part of this great tradition. He talks about God’s coming kingdom, a kingdom that is breaking into history. (If you’re struggling with the word Kingdom, think dream. God has a dream to reclaim all of creation with his light and love. The dream starts with Abraham and ends with a new heaven and new earth so beautifully depicted in Revelation). So he calls us to repent, which does not necessarily mean go to an altar, feel real bad, and receive forgiveness so that you can go about your own business. Repent means to turn around; change your mind in light of this new reality—God’s coming kingdom. This is Jesus’ approach to faith. That’s why he can say without apology or without explanation, the one who believes in me will keep doing what I have been doing. He can say that because he doesn’t want to drive wedges between faith and works, between belief and behavior, between heaven and earth. They can’t be separated. To believe is to embrace a new way of living. To have faith is follow the Christ. Salvation is not an escape from this world but a call to participate in the dream that God is dreaming for this world. As N.T. Wright is fond of pointing out, Christianity doesn’t envision a divorce between heaven and earth but a marriage between the two. Christ-followers participate in this marriage now, giving witness to what God wants to accomplish. In other words, we are now a part of the great story of redemption: God has loved the world through Israel’s messiah—Jesus; Jesus has now ascended to the father, where he intercedes for us; the Spirit is now empowering us to live and love like Jesus. Peace!

Pentecost Sunday

Hello everyone. I hope you were inspired and challenged yesterday. I know I was. The thought might have been new for many of you. Nonetheless, it is an important one to grasp. I stated yesterday, to the best of my ability, that Pentecost Sunday is part of a much larger story—the story of a missionary God. He is a fountain of sending love. This belief reveals some of the more fundamental aspects of our faith. Why is there creation? Why Israel? Why Jesus? Why the church? Because God wants to share his light and love. God has a centrifugal force (a movement away from center) as well as a centripetal force (movement toward center). Through his Spirit, God is reaching out and drawing all of creation back into his liberating light and love. God through the ascended Christ sends his Spirit . . . to send (form and empower) the church to witness to God’s grace and truth. I like the way David Bosch states it in his classic book, Transforming Mission: “In the new image mission is not primarily an activity of the church, but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God. ‘It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church’ (Moltmann 1977:64). Mission is thereby seen as a movement from God to the world; the church is viewed as an instrument for that mission. There is church because there is mission, not vice versa. To participate in mission is to participate in the movement of God’s love toward people, since God is a fountain of sending love” (391, emphasis mine). I would encourage you to read that one more time, slowly. You see, the church doesn’t create a mission per se; its reason to be is mission. To be a church is to be sent out into God's creation. Likewise, to be a Spirit-filled disciple is to be sent. We're a part of God's dream to bring healing and restoration to the world.

But what does this mean? Does this mean we’re all called to be evangelists? Does this mean we have fight for our rights or for our country? Does this mean we have to start knocking on doors? Does this mean we need to leave for another country in order to be a missionary? No, it doesn't mean any of those things. It's deeper and more dynamic than anything those questions represent. We are to be witnesses to God’s salvation in Christ (Acts 1.8), not just do some witnessing whenever we feel the desire to prove something. And for Luke, salvation is multifaceted. Quoting Bosch again: “One could say that, for Luke, salvation actually has six dimensions: economic, social, political, physical, psychological, and spiritual” (117). To witness to such a dynamic salvation will require the entire community moving outward toward the world, responding to the Spirit’s direction and empowering presence, loving the world with words and deeds. In other words, we need to be shaped and fashioned by God’s movement of love so that we can actually embody the good news. What a great adventure! No doubt, we’re not up the task on our own. We need the empowering presence of the Christ. And so maybe we need to wait like the early disciples (cf. Luke 24.36-53), seeking God's transforming grace so that our hearts will be stretched and enlarged to make room for the new life in Christ. Peace!

Empowered to Obey

I hope yesterday’s sermon was a challenging one. Speaking from John 14.15-23, I stated that we are called to obey the empowering presence of the resurrected and ascended Christ. The challenge is simple: Jesus speaks as if obedience to his commands is a possibility. John Wesley would agree. He states, in so many words, that we sin not because we have to but because we do not take advantage of the transforming grace of God. This is a revolutionary thought. Many Christians function from the belief that we will always sin, that is, we will always live in disobedience to Christ. But many of us agreed yesterday that sin (disobedience) is forgivable but not excusable, especially in light of what God has done for us in Christ (cf. Romans 6, 7, 8; 1 John 3, 4). In other words, Christ can really transform us so that we actually want to obey him. This does not mean we’ll get it right; our witness to Christ will fall short of his perfect life. We will make mistakes and misjudgments. Our unique personalities and perspectives will get in the way of fully representing Christ’s love. We will always be frail humans, which means we will be tired, gloomy, grumpy, hungry, and sad on occasion (which is not sin per se). Furthermore, our journeys will consist of failures and setbacks, ups and downs. We won’t live flawlessly. We will be tempted, and we might even glance longer than we should at a particular sin. But all of this does not mean that we have to oppose the purposes of God for our lives. Christ can do great things in us and through us. So instead of embracing a gospel of sin-management (Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven), we must assume that God can really transform us (Christians are not only forgiven but empowered to believe and love). What a challenge! What an opportunity: to live and believe that what God commands he also wills to accomplish in our life. Through the empowering presence of Christ—the Holy Spirit, God is working for our transformation. The only question remaining: Will we work with him? Peace.

Question: Is this expecting too much or too little? If the bar is set too high, we will end up being fakes, too low, and we'll set ourselves up for failure. Any thoughts?

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Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. I’m always conflicted on what to do or say on this day. For starters, it isn’t a Christian holiday. Not that it’s wrong to honor our mothers and our fathers, it’s just that Mother’s Day isn’t something that everyone can celebrate, unlike other Christian holidays (Advent, Christmas, Pentecost, etc.) which speaks to every human and his/her most pressing need. What do you mean? Well, for many, Mother’s Day is a painful day—some don’t have fond memories, others weren’t able to have children for some reason or another, still others might feel guilty for how they actually mothered their children. So yesterday I talked briefly about some of the more motherly aspects of God. In scripture God is described as having maternal instincts, which should not surprise us since both men and women have been created in the image of God (Genesis 1.27). For example, the Hebrew word for compassion/mercy in Isaiah 63.7 is the same word used for womb in Isaiah 46.3 and 49.14. What a remarkable reference: God’s compassion is womb-like; it's safe, warm, and something the mother treasures. Also we are reminded in Isaiah 66.13 that as a mother comforts her child, so God will comfort Israel. Similarly, God’s faithful love is compared to that of a mother’s for her child: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49.15-16). After all, it’s God who has conceived and given birth to Israel in the first place (Numbers 11.12). The point to all of this is simple: God is not only like a father, but he is also like a mother. I’m not suggesting that we call God a mother; scripture never goes that far. Nonetheless, when wrestling with what God is like, motherly images are extremely helpful. So I hope that for all those who are reminded of what they don’t have on Mother’s Day, we (the church) can point them to God and to a community (a new family) that gives them the comfort they need. Peace.

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Living the Abundant Life--John 10.10

Well, here I am again, writing another reflection on yesterday’s message. Remember, I spoke on the counterfeit ways of living that leave us empty (the impostors that climb over the fence). Because we are insecure, perhaps by nature, we’re vulnerable to other storylines that offer some sort of salvation but never really deliver anything of substance. So often, we’re looking for love--validation or security--in all the wrong places. Henri Nouwen articulates it well: “Success, popularity and power can, indeed, present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions” (Life of the Beloved, 27). This is the problem. Out of insecurity, we look for answers--for validation--that ultimately leave us empty. We're tempted to turn to body-image, success, popularity, false forms of intimacy, legalistic forms of religion, desperately searching for love, security and personal well-being. But these things never bring us what we thought they would. They're counterfeits that leave us empty at best, ruin us at worst.

The answer is the security of knowing God’s love. Jesus came to give us life (John 10.10); he came to reconnect us to God, so that we might know God and have eternal life (John 17.3). What is that life? It is God’s life, his love. It is knowing his love—really knowing his love!—that sets us free to live. I’m saying something very radical here, for those who have ears to hear: we’re not fully alive, fully human, until we’re resting secure in the Father’s love, until we’re living in that love, growing in that love, and living out that love. This is what it means to be human. In short, we come home, because from love you came and to love you shall return. Our hearts, indeed our lives, are insecure until they find their rest in God and his faithful love. I pray this truth will sink deep into your heart. Peace!

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The Suffering King

“The message about the cross is foolishness” proclaims Paul (1 Corinthians 1.18, NRSV) . Today, 4-22, we looked at the travelers making their trek away from Jerusalem toward Emmaus (Luke 24.13-35). They’d seen enough. Even though there were reports that Jesus is alive, they’re leaving, not so sure they want a crucified Lord. (Remember, the resurrection doesn’t erase the suffering of Christ; instead it validates it.) One interpretive clue that I failed to mention is the journey motif. Did you notice all the references to a journey—they’re traveling, they’re on the way, as they’re going along (24.13, 15, 17, 32, 35)? This is an important metaphor for Luke. In Luke 9.51, Jesus begins his journey to the cross. Then over the next several chapters, Jesus makes frequent references to where he’s going (10.38, 13.22, 33; 14.25; 17.11; 18.31, 35; 19.11). You get the point: Jesus is taking the disciples to the cross. Now these two disciples are walking away from the cross. They’re not ready to embrace the message of the cross. Why? I offered two guesses. First, the cross tells us we have a need. Make no mistake, the cross speaks grace; it yells grace, announcing that we’re accepted and loved. But it also says, there’s a problem, and the problem is not all the other people in the world, the problem is sin, the sin in my heart. The cross reminds us that we need a savior. You can’t look at the cross and conclude, “I’m okay, you’re okay.” No, look at the great lengths God had to go to deal with sin. We have a need. We can’t find our way to God on our own merits. God had to make a way; and make a way he did, not with reluctance but with great love. Secondly, the cross for Jesus is a symbol for sacrificial love. Jesus’ entire life could be described as one of sacrificial love. And he calls us to embrace the way of the cross. He came to establish a unique kingdom with a very odd king (odd too many, at least). He calls us to love enemies, to forgive, to be quick in reconciling with others. It is a kingdom shaped by the cross. Even Paul calls us to embrace the cross as a way of life (Philippians 2.5-11). We’re called to be agents of God’s sacrificial love. That’s a hard pill to swallow at times. We all resist it, I’m sure. So, like these two travelers, we need to be shaped by the word, and we need to partake of communion to be reminded how beautiful the cross really is (Luke 24.24, 30). Any thoughts? Peace.

P.S. The cross is one of our core values. As a church, we value primarily these three things: community, cross, new-creation (Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament).

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Doubting Thomas

Last Sunday (4-15) I preached on unbelieving Thomas (John 20.24-30). Many preachers (and believers) extol the virtues of Thomas, stating he's a hero, a true pragmatist, a man of our times. I suggested that Thomas' approach to the faith is not praiseworthy but blameworthy. I know, I was out on a limb with that statement. But the way John tells the story seems to suggest that's the point. First, Thomas isn't open to the testimony of his friends. He's very demanding in what he wants. He needs proof and not just any proof, specific proof. Isn't it strange that he doesn't pause and say something like, "I don't know if I can swallow that pill, give me some more time to think about it"? This response is more appropriate, I feel. Instead, Thomas refuses to believe in the testimony of his fellow companions until he sees it for himself. Second, Thomas' statement of "Unless . . . I will never see" is similar to a criticism Jesus makes in John 4:48, "Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe." Last but not least, Jesus gently rebukes Thomas. In Greek, the word play is not between doubt and belief but between belief and unbelief. NASB gets it right: "Don't be unbelieving but believing" (vs. 27). Jesus then looks over Thomas' shoulder and says to the listener who has never seen, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

So what do we do with all this? I suggested that Thomas' approach to faith reveals a stubbornness that can get us into trouble. If we demand a revelation on our own terms, we might miss the life that God has for us. If we don't respond to the faith that God has planted in our hearts, we might harden ourselves against it. Too often we shut the door of our hearts and refuse to respond to the light that is being revealed. We can easily end up like children at a party refusing to play, refusing to believe in the testimony of the laughter, saying it's not that great. It's a prove-it-to-me-attitude. We want proof without commitment. We're on the outside looking in. But like so many things in life, one has to believe, commit, and then see and understand. Refusing to move forward until all the evidence is in might get us into trouble.

The good news, as this text reveals, is that Jesus still works. He doesn't give up on Thomas, but instead he meets Thomas where he is. He comes to him anyway, revealing himself to an unbelieving and demanding man. We can only hope and pray he does the same for us when we close the door of our hearts to his liberating truth. His grace is greater. Thanks be to God.

Peace.